Chương 104: Chapter 102: Giant problems

I lead the group out of the forest at around midnight, and we see our first monster since the forest wyrm. There are several of them, and we can see them from quite a distance. Much farther than even my Observation ability works. I can generally identify someone within about a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet, depending on how clear the space is between us. But these guys are farther than that. I don't need to identify them to know what they are, though.

Being so far away and still visible makes it all pretty clear. Giants. I don't know what kind of giants, and I don't know how many hit points they have. But I know that they're giants. I don't think I've seen a giant since the tutorial level, but there they are. Seven of them. I don't know if they've spotted us or not, but there really isn't anywhere for us to hide. We're out in the plains, and while they are a bit rolling, there aren't big enough hills for us to really hide behind. We're out in the open.

"What do you think?" I ask them.

"Do we try to cut a wide berth around them, or do we fight them?" I know what El is going to say before she says it. Of course she wants to go fight them. She always wants a fight. I think it has something to do with her blood rager class. But it might just be her personality. She's always been a fan of fighting.

"I say we fight them," Vincent says. That comes as a surprise to me. He always strikes me more as the kind of person who would prefer to avoid the confrontation if at all possible. I mean, they're giants; they aren't likely to have any treasure that would be of interest to him. He'll be all for going into a dungeon or something like that, but I'm a bit surprised he wants to go after the giants themselves.

"Ranged attacks are going to be better for them," Ash says. She hangs her mace on her belt and pulls a bow from her spatial bag, quickly stringing it.

"If we get up too close, we'll be in as much danger from just being stepped on as we are from their weapons."

"Yeah, but we can do more damage up close," El says.

"I can, anyway."

"Let's try ranged attacks first, then charge in when they get too close," I say, trying to mollify El. She's got her javelins. It wouldn't hurt to throw a few of those before charging in and hamstringing giants with her axes.

"Can we get close enough for you to use Mab's Rage?" Gigi asks.

"How close do you have to be for that?"

"About forty yards," I say.

"That's a good range for attacks. Vincent, can you cast spells at that range?"

"It's the edge of my range for most spells," he says.

"But I can still cast a few, yeah."

"Okay." Ash says.

"Let's get within that range and see what we're dealing with." We move towards the giants. The closer we get, the further away they were initially, it seems. These aren't the giants from the tutorial level. Those guys were in the ten to twenty foot range. These ones seem to be at least double that height. They don't start moving towards us just yet, which is good. I get to identify what the seven giants are, and I'm not happy with what I see. Stone giant. Legendary Rare Elite monster, level 50.

HP: 250, 000/250, 000. Seven of them means that we have almost two million hit points worth of damage that we need to deal. That's going to take a really long time. Mab's Rage is good for one hundred and forty thousand, spread out among all seven of them. But I don't see us being able to do that much damage without them hitting us back a whole lot. So it's a question of how much damage they deal. If we can kill these guys, we can probably kill a dragon.

If not, then our trip out of Elmspire will be a waste of time and energy. We haven't completed all that many quests. We've made it to the edge of the forest, which covers one of the scouting quests. We have lots of wyrm parts, which might cover a hunter quest. But we haven't really done much on this trip. Which means we're not going to have all that much experience to help us level back up. So we'll be stuck at lower levels for a while and have to grind our way back up.

That's not a huge deal, but it would be a frustrating setback for this particular mission.

"They're a lot stronger than I expected," I say, telling everyone what we can expect from this fight.

"I'm not sure we can take on seven of them." As I say that, there's a whistle through the air, one that I recognize from movies. It's the whistle of something big flying through the air. Usually, in movies, the whistle ends with an explosion as the missile or whatever hits its target. I look towards the giants, and I see that there are half a dozen rocks flying through the air towards us. We scatter to the sides, and the rocks, more like boulders, land right about where we were when the whistling sound started.

Apparently, we're within range of their attacks. And they've spotted us. The boulders hit the ground with a massive impact, one that I feel in my feet as the whole ground shakes. They send plumes of ground up where they hit, splashing the area and leaving impact craters behind. I don't want to think about how much damage one of those would do if they hit us directly.

"Still want to do this?" I ask everyone, yelling out so that I'm heard. As if in answer, Vincent starts to summon a ball of fire. I remember that spell doing a lot of damage to a large group of people. I expect it's more powerful now than it was when we were clearing that dungeon, so I guess I have his answer. And I have El's; she's running towards the giants already. They have more than ten times her hit points, but I don't think she cares.

If anyone is going to take one of those stone blows and survive it, it's her. We're just about within range of my bow, so I take a Sniper Shot at one of the giants. I follow it up with a Rapid Shot and then a Power Shot. The Sniper Shot does 1, 949 damage, the Rapid Shot does 3, 620, and the Power Shot does 2, 785. That's a total of 8, 354 damage, which comes out to about sixteen thousand once bleed gets factored in.

That's not a bad start, but it still leaves the giant I attacked with more than two hundred thousand hit points, and still leaves the other six giants completely unharmed. In the time it takes me to fire off all three of my high damage dealing shots, Vincent still hasn't released his fireball. He just keeps channeling more and more mana into it. It's now a ball about the size of a basketball, so white hot that I can't even look at it. It's like he's holding a whole ball of burning magnesium.

I can practically see it even when I'm looking in the opposite direction. The area around him is as bright as day, and I worry that he's going to be a target for the next wave of boulders that come our way. Sure enough, I hear the whistle again. I shout Vincent's name to warn him. He doesn't seem to hear me. But he does send his fireball off towards the group of giants and then dart to the side. I watch the fireball's trail as it goes through the air.

It burns itself onto my retinas enough that I wisely look away before the ball explodes. Once the light on my eyelids goes away, I open my eyes and look once again at my target. I can't be exactly sure how much damage that fireball did, but it looks like it was around ten thousand points of damage. How many times can Vincent cast that? The girls are all rubbing their eyes, temporarily blinded by the explosion. Thankfully, the giants are also blinded, staggering around a bit as they try to get their vision back.

I take advantage of the moment and fire another Sniper Shot and then a volley of regular arrows. They only do 557 damage per hit, but that'll double once the girls start to flank the giants and set up the battlefield more to their liking. The problem with that, though, is that we're outnumbered. It's not by a lot, but with only three of us in melee range, it does mean that we're outnumbered more than two to one. I wonder if I should get up close and personal with the giants. This is a good time to use Killing Blow.

It only does 668 damage, but every time I use it there's a chance that it will just kill one of these monstrosities, which will help even out the playing field for us. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. I activate Mab's Rage as I start to close the gap. My Fire Bolt does more damage than my bow right now, so I keep lobbing Fire Bolts at the same target. It's a bit disheartening, though.

After all of these attacks, including Vincent's spell and all my arrow related abilities, the giant I've been targeting still has more than two hundred thousand hit points. I'm averaging about a thousand damage per hit, between the initial strike and the bleed, but I can't afford to spend five minutes on each of the giants. Sooner or later, they're going to start hitting us with either their thrown stones or just the swing of their tree trunk sized clubs.

And I don't think there's much chance that it's going to be only a small amount of damage. Can I do more damage in melee? My melee abilities are not as focused on multiplying damage, so I don't think so. My desire to get up there and fight is more related to giving the giants more targets than it is to slaying them faster. If there are four of us up there, they can't double team all of us. They can't surround us all. But I'll deal less damage. It won't all bleed, and it won't be as much to start with.

My base damage with the bow is 557 at the top end. My base damage for the sword is 484. It's close, but the bow is the clear winner. And it's not like I'm going to run out of arrows. There are at least three hundred arrows in my spatial bag right now. The blindness only lasts for about thirty seconds. During that time, I hit the giant with a bunch more arrows, and even manage another Rapid Shot. But now the real fight is going to begin.

The girls are going to reach the giants, and while they are going to focus their attacks on just one of the giants at a time, that means that the other six are going to be able to rain down hell on the three of them. But I notice that the giants don't all move to attack the girls. Four of them do, but the other three continue throwing rocks at myself and Vincent. I don't know where they're getting the rocks from, but I think it's magic.

Partially this is because the rocks are about the size of a motorcycle, and it seems strange to think that they can pull this many out of the ground so easily. Partially it's because the rocks that they threw earlier have disappeared, just leaving craters behind to mark where they hit. Dodging the rocks is easier than I would expect.

We're close enough now that we don't have that much time to dodge them, but between my natural speed and the speed boost from the wyrm meat we ate a few hours ago, I manage to avoid actually getting hit. It does keep interrupting me, though, so I'm not shooting as often as I'd like. Though it is easier than I would expect, it's not a perfect system. When the three giants aim together, they kind of pin me down so that by dodging away from one I get hit by another.

The rock just clips me, but it does 162 damage with that glancing blow. Then I get hit full on by the third rock, which does 662 damage. I think that means the stones do a thousand damage each when they hit you full on. I start to wonder if I could catch one of the stones that they throw. That sounds outside the realm of possibility, but they're not that big. And I am superhero strong. Maybe I could catch one. Maybe I could throw one back.

Or maybe I'll take another 662 and get knocked back several steps for trying to catch a boulder the size of a motorcyle. It's not that the rock was overly heavy; once it lands on top of me, I'm able to pick it up and push it off me. It's just the awkwardness of the size; it's too big to catch. I fire another round of Rapid Shot and Sniper Shot, taking a bit more time to dodge the rocks as they are thrown at me.

As I shoot, keeping my feet moving to avoid them being able to take aim at me all that well, I watch what the others are doing fighting the giants. Vincent is still casting his spells, back to throwing javelins made of magma at the giants. Ash and Gigi are doing their best to deflect the hits from the giant clubs on their shields.

Ash is doing a better job of it, her strength seeming to be at least equal to the giants and her slamming forward of the shield enough to stop the impact from knocking her back all that far. Gigi keeps getting tossed around by the force of the impacts, but I don't think she's taking much damage. Certainly, no one's health bars are going down yet. Shell is still protecting everyone. El is dancing around the same giant I've been peppering with arrows, cutting at his legs and trying to hamstring him.

Her axes whir in motion, and she basically shrugs if off every time the giant hits her. I don't know how long she'll be able to keep that up, but for now she's done enough damage that the giant is down on his knees, unable to kick at her. That's progress. I aim another Killing Blow at that giant, hoping that the one in fifty chance will be enough to kill it. It would be really helpful if I could just take out one of them with a single blow. That would turn the tide of the battle. Alas, I'm not that lucky.

The Killing Blow does go into the giant's eye, but I don't think it even blinds him. More like when a fly runs into your eye. He blinks and swats at it a bit, giving El and Ash time to hit him a few times, but he doesn't scream out in pain or anything like that. To get that result, I think I need to use Power Shot and aim for the eye. Which I can do. Two minutes pass, and the battle still rages on.

The three giants throwing stones have started trying to cut the distance between themselves and Vincent and I, and Mab's Rage has taken a good chunk of all of their health. The spell is about to end, which will allow them to move at full speed again. That might be problematic.

"Got anything to slow them down?" I ask Vincent. Without answering, he stops throwing the spears of magma and starts hurling spears of ice. Each spear flies through the air and then shatters into dozens of pieces of ice, which then pierce the giant all over. I don't know how much damage those are doing; presumably less than the spears of magma. But they do seem to slow the giants down even more, which should mean that they will still be slowed even after Mab's Rage is over. Thirty nine spells is a lot of variety.

I'm glad he spent so much time filling out his repertoire. I take the time to really aim a Power Shot, and end up triggering both Power Shot and Sniper Shot at the time time. The damage doesn't stack, unfortunately. But the Power Shot flies 5, 570 damage, giving me the damage doubling of a sneak attack, and it does hit the giant right in the eye. The giant screams, dropping its club and putting both hands to its face, trying to get the oversized arrow out of its skull.

The ability ends, and the arrow returns to normal size, but the damage has been done. The giant is now unarmed, screaming in pain, and down about another ten thousand points of damage. Over the course of the two minutes we've been fighting this one giant, he'd lost a little over half his life total. This is not good progress considering that there are seven of them, but it's impressive that we can do six figures of damage in two minutes. That giant is not going to survive much longer.

The amount of damage that we do ramps up, it seems, and the bleed is starting to really come into play. He's also apparently burning from the magma spears that Vincent hit it with before he switched over to the ice shards. Another minute goes by and he drops down into the five figures of health. By the time he goes down, we're five minutes into the battle. Stamina is going to start draining soon. That, as before, is going to be the biggest problem in a protracted fight.

Once stamina starts to really drain, we run the risk of running out. And if someone runs out of stamina, they are going to die. I don't want anyone to die in this fight. I end up putting my bow away, though it does the most damage, and drawing my sword so that I can move up and intercept the giants coming after Vincent. They swing their clubs at me in a sideways motion, clearly trying to just swat me out of the way so they can get to their real target.

I don't know how I'm going to hold three of them back from Vincent, but I have to try. I duck under the swings when I can, deflect them with my shield when possible, and just soak the damage when I have to. Each of their hits does 1, 162 damage to me. I'm going to have to recast Shell in a few seconds if I keep this up. I try using Bleeding Strike, but it just doesn't do that much damage. I have to face facts; I don't think we can win this fight. There are just too many of them.

We've taken out one of them, and the three girls are fighting another one to a standstill without any real trouble, but I'm here trying to fight three of them by myself, and Vincent is casting his spells with an increasing desperation. I can't hold them back forever. If nothing changes, we're eventually going to lose this fight. I use a Killing Blow again, but I'm starting to get to the point where I can't afford to keep using it.

It still doesn't actually kill the giant, and the stamina cost is getting to be prohibitive. With the added cost of draining stamina, I'm not recharging my stamina, and I can't afford to let it get too low. Running out of stamina is a death sentence. What can I do here? The giants are all above two hundred thousand hit points still, and while I am much faster than they are, I'm not faster than three of them.

I can hit them ten times for every time that they hit me, and that means that I deal about five thousand damage in the time it take for me to take eleven hundred, but I can't keep up the exchange. I can't keep them from Vincent, and I can't keep up this pace of fighting. If I don't change something soon, I'm going to die. I recast Shell as I try to think of a solution. In my head, I'm going through every one of my spells, trying to find something that will work.

I can use Dash to keep ahead of them and go back to shooting them with the bow. That would leave Vincent on his own recognizance, but it would stop me from dying. Can Vincent take care of himself against the three giants that are trying to chase him down? Even if I manage to keep one of them distracted, that still leaves two that are trying to get to him. Can he take care of himself long enough for us to whittle down the other giants?

Maybe I can disarm them of their clubs and reduce the amount of damage they deal that way. The clubs are probably the source of most of their damage. Without those, they'd be limited to how much damage they can do with a swing of their giant arms. Arms that are themselves the size of mac trucks. It reduces their range a little bit. Maybe that will help. I use Disarming Strike on one of the giants, ducking under the swing of his club and slicing at the tendons in his wrist so that he has to drop the enormous club.

That means at least one of them won't be able to smash me with its club. That's progress. But it's not enough.