Grinning with Dragons

I flew most of the night, looking for signs of where to go. Nothing. I returned to the others for a couple of hours of sleep and some chest-thumping to Kord.

In the morning, I have to admit, I was head-heavy. I wrestled brutally with Pitter; had to heal him afterwards--oops. He is mighty strong now, though, and gave me a few good thumpings. I just let them be, letting the pain drive me.

Weakling. Did I lead that poor fellow to his death? Maybe the weak should not be so bold, after all. I am losing my way.

I thrust my hand into the morning camp fire, slammed my head against the mountain side, and roared my throat out. That got me going. And so we took off, in all directions, scanning for traces of the giants. They were giants. How hard could it be to find them? Well, apparently pretty hard.

It was again Barrel's keen sight that spotted the beginning of their end. We followed the trail he found in the valley and saw that it led to a mammoth hole in the side of another mountain. This is something we would not have ever found from the skies. As we hid scanning the way, Pitter could see the many stone giants that were lining the ridges above the cave. To go in that way would be a brutal fight.

When I looked at the ridge, I could see no giants. But I felt like I could see stocky, weathered statues.

Well, we started scouting about for another way in. As we circled around the mountain, we ran into a few giants. We started to dispatch them with ease when we were suddenly surrounded by four handfuls of giants. Some pretty nasty ones too.

ThrowDown was letting loose with his fires and acids while Pitter was knocking the giants, club for club. Barrel was shooting and shooting--smoke seemed to come up from his bow. And I was wailing on the giants with my greatsword with which I serve my lord Kord. But the giants were strong, fierce. They pounded us into a small region, Pitter and I trying to protect ThrowDown and Barrel from the giants. We had gotten down to just two handfuls of giants, but my strength was nearly gone and I could see Pitter starting to tip over. ThrowDown had nearly collapsed from the spell slinging. And Barrel, well, he was almost out of arrows.

It looked grim. To die here on the slopes of some mountain at the hand of some castaway giant. No, never, I roared. And with my last bit of energy I hacked furiously. To no avail.

But then, a miracle. A cone of lightning ripped through the giants on one side of us. On another, we heard whack, whump. And we saw two giants flying through the air, their bodies crumpled.

And a shadow above, diving, claws ripping into the giants, a giant flung into the air. And all of a sudden, the tides had turned.

FarCry! AllGrins! They had suddenly appeared and were dispatching the giants quite handily. The rest of us just sort of stood there, jaws open. In a manner of minutes, not a giant stirred. AllGrins mighty hammer had felled half of the giants, FarCry's formidable claws tearing out the other giants.

"Well met, friends", I said reaching out and hugging AllGrins as FarCry changed into his monkish self. They motioned us to follow them and we did. They took us into a cave that we had walked right by and missed entirely even though we had stood right in front of it. The fight had been but a short run from the cave.

"What are you doing here?" AllGrins gruffed out.

"Trying to find Weakling and stop the giant threat," I replied as gruffly as I could. "And you? That's a pretty nice looking hammer, AllGrins." His hammer glistened with silvery symbols. It seemed to pulsate with energy. I almost thought I could hear dwarven singing coming from it.

"This hammer is none other than the legendary Hammer of Moradin. It called to me, the last dwarf of my line. FarCry was helping me as was another. We have come here, the ancient home of the dwarves, to fetch the mighty Tankard of Brotherhood. Apparently, we have a giant infestation to deal with first," AllGrins concluded smiling as he swung his hammer up as if to hit a giant.

I looked at the others. They looked as stunned and confused as I.

"The entrance looked pretty well-guarded to us. How you gonna clear out the in front station?" I asked.

"This the true entrance. What the giants found was the collapsed entrance to the garbage pit beneath the great dwarven halls of this mountain. The third member of our party is scouting how to get there."

And so we waited for this third member. I tended to the wounds of the others and myself. And now I am talking to myself again.

Wait. Is that the third member? Could it be? Core! He is alive. Alive?! Oh my Kord!

Mords of Wisdom: Take giant problems in small pieces.