Downfall

"I don't know what it is, but it ain't a giant. Giants look a lot more human than that," Rig mused. "Yah! Over here!" His shout drew the thing's attention. The creature took a step toward the mariner and opened its maw, snarling now like a maddened beast. "I'll gut you like a…"

"Wait, Rig!" Fiona cut in. "We're the intruders here. We shouldn't just attack the beast. We don't know what it is. And we don't know if it truly means any harm."

"You're right," Maldred told her. "I revere life and…"

"Oh, it means us harm all right," Rig shot back. "Just look at it."

The creature stood still for several moments, its head moved jerkily, taking in Rig, Fiona, Maldred, Dhamon, and Rikali. A thick, black tongue wagged out to wet its bottom lip, then it snarled again, and with a speed that seemed peculiar for its malshaped body, it rushed toward Maldred.

Dhamon moved in that instant, too. He was quicker than the stony creature, darting in between it and Mal-dred. "I could use the exercise. I'll take him!" he hollered, as he drew a deep breath, pulled back, and swung. He braced himself, expecting to be jarred for striking the creature's stony chest. But the creature's flesh was soft like a man's, yielding when the blade connected, and the bones beneath crunching from the violent impact.

Both it and Dhamon were surprised. The creature glanced down at the line of dark green blood forming across its middle. It rubbed a hand against the wound and brought its claws up to its eyes, as if to study its own blood. It howled then, long and angrily, and it slashed at Dhamon.

Dhamon barely managed to drop beneath the swipe of its needlelike claws. Then he swung again, connecting with the creature's distended abdomen this time. The creature cried in pain, the sound echoing hauntingly off the cavern walls and bringing a squeal from Fetch.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dhamon saw Rig and Mal-dred edge closer. "I said he's mine!" Dhamon called to the mariner. It wasn't that he didn't mind help defeating the creature, he just had no desire to fight side-by-side with Rig again. "Back off!"

"It's your neck," Rig said as he retreated.

Dhamon slid to the side so he would be between the mariner and the creature. It howled once more, remaining fixated on Dhamon, who noticed that the wounds on its chest and stomach had stopped bleeding.

"So you heal quickly," he commented. "I can fix that."

Dhamon feinted to his right, the creature following him with both arms stretching out as far as it could reach. Then he spun to his left, crouched beneath the beast's claws, and drove his blade up, running the creature through. Blood spilled out, releasing with it the overpowering smell of decaying leaves. Dhamon gagged and stepped back, tugging the sword free and expecting to watch the creature fall.

Instead, it screamed maddeningly and clutched at the wound, eyes darting from the blood that flowed over its claws to Dhamon.

"Pigs, lover!" Rikali shouted. "Just kill the beastie and be done with it!"

"Tough to kill," Dhamon grumbled as he made a move to step forward again.

"My turn!" Maldred cut in. The big man darted up, his great two-handed sword held above his shoulder. "Stay low!" he called to Dhamon as he swept the blade in a high, wide arc. The metal shimmered as it connected with the beast's flesh, then it continued on, passing through the neck. The head plopped to the floor, the creature's body falling a heartbeat later.

"Impressive," Dhamon stated.

"Guess the two of you didn't need any help," Fiona said. She brought the torch nearer so she could get a better look at the creature. She glance at Maldred, then at Dhamon. "But I still think you were a bit hasty. It might not have been hostile. Dhamon attacked it first. Provoked it with the arrows. Not everything that looks different from us is an enemy."

The half-elf sheathed her knife. "It was mean, all right. And ugly. What were you gonna do, Fee-oh-na? Talk it to death? Or maybe invite it to join the Solamnic Knights?"

The mariner padded up to Fiona's side, glaive grasped tightly in his hands. He stared at Maldred's sword, the dark green blood on it. He watched the big man pull a cloth from his pocket and wipe the blood off, pausing to sniff the cloth before tucking it into his belt.

"Smells very strongly of copper," he commented to the mariner.

"Blood is blood, doesn't matter what it smells like, or what color it is. At least the thing's dead." After a moment's pause, Rig nodded to the two-handed sword. "Nice blade."

"It was a gift from Donnag. To replace a weapon I lost many days ago."