The "Best" RPG Ever-64

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While everyone was preparing to leave—some of them picking up a quick breakfast they could eat on the way out the door—Katherine directed some mental traffic around. Aria would miss out on important information this way, but she was probably going to just do her own thing regardless. The Captain sent a bunch of information into my head during that last conversation. Here...

Fire giants are a rarer breed of monsters, theorized to be formed when a mage's summoned fire elemental is somehow corrupted by chaos magic. They're not intelligent, merely proceeding instinctively toward the nearest "food" source they can sense, or toward whatever they perceive the biggest nearby threat to be. Attempts to extract the fire magic from them are usually met with failure, it being too closely wound with the uncontrollable chaos magic, meaning that putting out the fire is generally the best option despite the sheer amount of it present in a fire giant making this a time-consuming, difficult process.

Awfully convenient I just got ice powers, Mira thought. But that'll only get us so far...

So it's just a big mass of fire? Zack thought, wondering how a sword and shield were going to be any help in this situation.

Well, it can shoot fire around, the shield should be good for blocking that at least, Lynn replied. I guess you can try swiping your sword at it to get its attention on you if nothing else.

Before too long they were all outside. Captain Ezra was waiting with her arms crossed, but not really any more sour or impatient in expression than usual. Rose, for some reason, looked less scared than she had before. Loren's eyes were closed, but his expression seemed awake and focused. "Are you all prepared?"
Katherine looked around. "Think so."

"Oh—wait! I only have like five arrows," Lynn realized aloud.
"Here." The Captain produced a bundle of arrows in her hand and held them out to her.
"Thanks!" She took them quickly and then, while putting them in her quiver, paused. "Do you just, keep a bunch of arrows with you?"

"Yes." Ezra's tone suggested there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. "Gather in a circle here," she continued, pointing.

Once they were arranged, she turned to Loren. "Go ahead."

"Right." He raised his arms, speaking in an arcane language that Mira swore she half understood and half didn't. The ground under his feet glowed, a small circle that expanded out until it included all of them. Then the glow brightened to a blinding flash for a second, and when it cleared they were in Rose's forest.

"We should move quickly." Ezra looked at the fox-girl. "Which way is east?"

"Uh, that way." Rayna pointed.
The Captain produced a palm-sized, blue cloth bag and handed it to Loren. "You stay here and watch. If the giant approaches the forest and we're not here, go back to town immediately, run to the guardhouse and give this to whoever's at the desk. Then tell them the town needs to be evacuated as quickly as possible and any available and willing water mages should move to the east to stall it."

"Alright." He took it a little hesitantly. "Really hope I don't have to do that." His eyes flickered in Aria's direction for a second before returning to the Captain. "You do have a plan, don't you?"
"Of course. I'll explain on the way." She started off, waving everyone except for him to follow.

"All of you will need to take the front lines. I will be channeling a spell of fire resistance," she said, "and I need to concentrate to keep it effective. Don't think you're immune to its attacks because of it, either. It will just allow you to get close enough to hit it without immediately being burned. Use any ice or water powers you have liberally."

"By my count, exactly three of us have powers like that," said Katherine. "Well, maybe four—I have an elemental dagger that might..."

"Fire giants are not very smart. They interpret someone hitting them with a sword as a sufficient threat to pay attention to, even though it doesn't actually injure them much. Our initial goal isn't to destroy it anyway, just to hurt it some and stall it for long enough." They were walking quickly enough to come to the edge of the forest at this point.

Lynn asked the obvious question: "..Long enough for what?"

The Captain produced a small statue cast in blue crystal, depicting a storm cloud. It was in her hand just long enough to see what it was, and then it was tossed into the air and cut in half with a motion of her sword from the sheath into the air and back that was too swift for any of their eyes to follow. The two pieces of the statue fell to the ground, leaving behind a bit of pale blue light that made its way upward into the sky. "It should begin raining soon. Then we go all out."

"Hmm." Rose looked around. "I uh, there are some special plants I think would be a lot of help with this...Could I, go get a few seeds?"
"Of course. You can fly to meet us quickly enough," the Captain nodded, and the dragon-girl ran back into the forest for the moment. Then she turned to Clera. "Speaking of, find us exactly where it is. 'From the east' isn't really much to go on."

"Right." The winged girl ran and took off into the sky immediately, and after a moment she landed again. "This way!" She led the way toward where she had seen it, the others following quickly behind.

It was visible from a fair distance away: A great, humanoid glow of red and white, surrounded by smaller fires its mere presence had set in the nearby grass. Their approach was hastened by the giant's own progress in the opposite direction, and even from a few minute's walk away the temperature around them palpably rose.

"Stop for a moment." Ezra pulled a necklace out from under her armor, particularly taking a small blue crystal at the end of it into her hands. "I will have to communicate by mind from here on out." She chanted softly, and it gained a faint glow. After a moment, the Captain stopped and took a slow, deep breath and allowed the crystal to drop, bringing her hands down to her sides. The rising temperature could still be felt, but somehow seemed less oppressive and more comfortable now.

Some of her thoughts were broadcasted through Katherine for everyone who could recieve them to hear: Need to hold focus. Will keep as far back as possible but must keep everyone in spell's range. Cannot react swiftly in this state. At all costs keep fire giant away from me.

Lynn summed this up for Aria: "Keep the fire giant away from her so she can keep the spell up." The shifter nodded, although her serious expression was mixed with some of the usual manic glee from anticipation of a new kind of blood to taste. Everyone started moving forward again, Ezra waiting until she was at the back of the group to follow.

Before long, they were in the midst of the heat, having to tread carefully just to stay out of the mundane fires the giant had set. It was clear that some of them would have risked fainting from heat exhaustion or something if not for Ezra's spell. As they came close to their opponent, the Captain issued no more orders mentally, clearly intending for them to handle the specifics of the strategy themselves, so Katherine began:

It'll just barrel past or through us if we don't get its attention. Mira, you should fly around back and hit it before Aria does so it'll hopefully waste time turning around. Clera, I guess fly a little ways away like usual?

I think I need to remain in the spell's range. This was met quickly with a thought broadcasted from Ezra's mind consisting spatial information: the precise hemisphere of space around her that the spell was currently affecting, along with how far in or out the edges could be expected to vary depending on present concentration.

I'll take the left side, Lynn thought. Nora, the right?

Right. Katherine also passed the elf a water-element dagger to use as a source.

You should probably stay in front of the Captain in case that thing does ranged fire or something, to block it, the catgirl suggested to Zack. He grunted, a wordless thought laced with annoyance indicating that much was obvious. The wolf, on a mental suggestion from him, fanned out toward the left to be ready to assist the archer if needed.

I'll hang back here too, Rayna thought, easy enough to project illusions from here.

Katherine made for the right, intending to get between Nora and the witch's planned positions. And Aria, predictably, charged straight ahead, pulling her weapon out into a mid-length pole with a wide, curved section at its end, sort of like a specially-rearranged snow shovel. She used it to vault over bits of fire in her path, smothering them out in the process.

Up close, the giant earned its name—it was a tall as three people stacked on top of each other, with matching proportions aside from its huge, bulging "muscles". It moved forward at a steady pace, not responding to their approach in any way. Mira flew around it to the back and raised her left hand (the right holding on to her broom), growing some long, green spikes of ice from her palm and throwing them at the thing's back. The spots they hit turned black, emitting violent jets of steam that forced her to back away. Then the thing turned half-around with surprising alacrity, raising its hand and swinging it in her general direction like a person swatting a fly away. At this point Aria came in range to throw her weapon in harpoon-form at one of its ankles. The hook found purchase, and she did further damage by yanking it back to herself with the chain. The entire harpoon glowed red and white with absorbed heat, and instead of catching it she swung it up into the air, morphing it to ball-and-chain form instead to cool it off by swinging it around in circles. The giant turned forward again, making a tossing motion with a hand and expelling a massive fireball her way; she jumped out of the way and formed the 'snow shovel' again to block the explosion of flame when it hit the ground.

Nora finally had a fair-sized globe of water formed, and threw it the giant's way. Having seen the result of Mira's attack, she dove out of the way before it hit and safely avoided contact with the resulting plume of steam. While the giant turned her direction, Lynn shot five ice arrows into its back and side, but the monster didn't appear to notice as it drew a foot back to try and kick the elf away.

Not enough!?

Go left, Rayna advised, making Nora invisible and an illusion running the other way. The giant took the bait, and she narrowly avoided the giant foot with a dive and a rough landing, tumbling through the grass a short way.

Since the fire giant stopped paying attention to her, Mira had begun chanting a more complex spell, and went on a winding path, occasionally stopping to sweep her hand in a circle and make a spell circle appear floating in place there. Finally, she flew back a short ways and spread her hands, activating the circles. One by one, in the order she'd placed them, they shot a rapid fire of three to five mid-sized icicles at the giant, quickly drawing its attention and sending its arms flailing at the location of each circle while Mira safely (and invisibly thanks to the fox-girl) flew around to Lynn's side of the monster.

Can you just keep doing that? thought Lynn, getting in a few more of her own arrows since, even if the giant didn't take notice, they did some damage after all.

The witch mentally and physically shook her head. Cooldowns, ironically. Sorry.

The giant turned toward the two of them almost as soon as the last spell circle was gone, raring its head back slightly. Don't like the look of that! Mira flew left and Lynn ran right, just before the thing predictably spat a gigantic plume of fire from its head, big enough to cover the sky and ground there.

Aria finished pulling her weapon apart into numerous kunai all attached by thin chains to a single nunchuck-like stick held in her left hand, and she began throwing them at the giant's feet with her right hand at this point. Some glanced off or missed, but several made their mark. The giant seemed to ignore this, favoring a rapid turn toward the witch to try and swat at her again with the side effect of pulling several of the knives back out. Its movement was fast enough to make maneuvering around it dicey, even with Rayna giving it several illusions to hit instead of the witch.

Nora had a new mass of water ready to go. Wait a sec! Lynn ran up next to her, drawing her bow. Put it there, she requested, the thought including a target location. When the elf complied, Lynn fired an enhanced ice arrow at the water which immediately froze all of it into ice, and its trajectory continued on to the giant's side, producing another massive gout of steam which both of them scattered away from. This got its attention, enough for it to throw fireballs at both of them and compel them to run farther. Katherine finally managed to get a hold of its mind enough to direct its rage at her, and then Rayna quickly showed her running one direction while she went another, so its next fire-breath was wasted, aimed toward no real target.

Aria pulled the last of her weapon free from the giant now, recombining the chains and knives into the end of a long-handled hammer. This time, the heat had travelled halfway or more up the chains, threatening to burn her hands if she'd held on much longer. She spun the hammer around, trying to shake the heat off again.

Rose incoming! Clera reported. The dragon-girl was high in the sky, having instinctively taken the updrafts from the higher temperatures to stay out of them. The winged girl waved at her to dive toward the peak of the fire-resistance spell's dome (directly above the Captain), and after circling briefly in confusion she understood and went as requested, digging ruts into the ground with her feet when she landed.

"Sorry I took so long!"

"You're on time enough," Rayna said. "What've you got?"

Rose didn't seem to register the question, instead looking around at the burning and charred plant life nearby, as if seeing it for the first time. Her expression turned to genuine anger for the first time since any of them had met her. "You'll pay for hurting all these poor plants..." She hopped forward, opened her right hand, and tossed a few seeds into the ruts she'd just dug. Then she deftly kicked dirt on top of them, and raised her hands. Stalks rose up out of the ground, forming impossibly gigantic pitcher plants whose stems twisted and braided around each other as they grew. As soon as they'd reached full size (half the height of the giant), she reached out and picked them up at the bottom where they were thin, and swinging them the fire giant's way. Nectar splashed out of the plants, splattering across the giant's body; what missed the giant fell to the ground, putting out some of the fires around it. The thing turned around and grabbed the plants at the top, pulling at them; Rose held on, pulling back with about equal strength.

They were briefly locked in a tug-of-war as the top of the plants pointedly refused to catch fire, the nectar remaining in the pitchers turning to a jet of steam that, despite obviously being hot, visibly cooled the giant's head some. But when they did catch fire the dragon-girl quickly shoved the plants at it and jumped away before the spreading blaze could reach her. The monster stumbled back from the push and its own backward force, but recovered, raising the long stalks into the air and pulling them into its mouth as they burned, "eating" them (or more accurately, the fire running across them).

The giant pulled its head back when it was done, and breathed fire at Rose—which was unfortunately also the direction Ezra was in. Zack moved in front of both of them, raising his shield; thinking quickly, Nora pulled the fire away to either side, keeping most of the heat off of him. There were still some visible burns and singing when it was over; Zack lowered his shield after the fire-breath ended, panting, and Clera quickly landed next to him to fix the burns. Nora and Lynn threw another big chunk of ice at the giant's back to turn it around and buy time for the healing.

By now Mira's rapid-ice spell was available for use again, and she wasted no time in putting circles all around the giant this time in hopes that it was capable of becoming dizzy.

"Are you okay?" Rose said.
"In a minute. Keep at it," he said through gritted teeth; only some of the pain was being deferred, indicating more serious injuries than he was used to.

"Okay!" She went around toward the left, producing some more seeds. Again using her feet to till and then throw dirt on top of them, this time she made a group of thin-trunked trees with unusually large leaves, all of which were turned toward the giant. With a shoving motion from both of her hands, the leaves swung themselves up and down, fanning a continual wind at the giant that bled its fire away in that direction (which, thankfully, the elf and archer had already moved away from). At this point, the icicles from Mira's spell started flying, and the giant whirled around to try and swat at non-existent targets as they flew. The witch made her way to the ground, now knowing this to be the safest spot during such a tantrum.

It didn't seem particularly dizzy, but the constant turning combined with the wind Rose was maintaining was clearly causing the giant balancing trouble. "Can you shove it over?" Katherine said, coming up next to Aria.

"Can I?! I can do anything!" the shifter grinned maniacally, stretching her weapon out into a long, thin pole and using it to vault herself into the air. Then it was something resembling a wide, thick snowboard with spikes all along the bottom, right between her feet and the thing's back when her momentum carried her to it. She rebounded, a handle attached to some chains keeping her weapon with her, and the giant flailed its arms as it went down, landing on the ground with a crash.

"Ow ow ow hot hot hot!" Aria danced around a bit, her shoes half-melted and the feet within them suffering burns. Clera, just finished healing from Zack's burns, sighed and ran toward her to help. Rose dropped her hands to her sides, taking a deep sigh of breath; the fire on the ground finally succeeded in catching the roots of her latest set of plants, and she took several steps away from them as it rapidly spread upward, turning them to ash. Already the giant was beginning to push itself back upright, and everyone was preparing themselves mentally for the fight to more or less pick right back up again.

The wolf barked, running up next to Zack. Skywater. Nobody had really noticed just how dark the sky had become in the last few minutes. Almost as soon as they did, the stormclouds above began to dump their load, a torrent beginning right away.

The mundane fire around them was put out almost instantly. The giant made a sound like a roaring fire as it stood, steam pouring from nearly every inch of its body. Kill it now, Ezra advised—not that there was a need.

Nora threw water not originally destined for the fire giant at it with wind and water magic. Lynn shot more ice arrows at it, some of them enhanced to collect the rain they passed through on the way into a much bigger chunk. Mira found it far easier to convert "normal" water into demonic ice than it had been to conjure them directly. Aria ran up, her weapon a proper sword again, and took several swings at the monster's ankles, only needing to periodically back up a bit and hold it up to the rain for a moment to vent the heat.

The giant flailed and roared some more, throwing far smaller fireballs than before which occasionally forced its targets to move but never hit their mark. It tried to breathe fire once but managed only a plume of steam—which Mira dodged anyway. Rose went around planting some more seeds that grew into huge plants with leaves sloped to collect even more of the water and pour it in the giant's direction, making Nora's work easier. The giant's glow steadily dimmed under the relentless assault, until with a significantly weaker roar, it seemed to slowly freeze into place, becoming a statue of black, ashy substance before finally crumbling apart.

The ambient heat gone, Ezra ended her spell and looked around. Zack was knelt over the wolf, who was sitting up but visibly uncomfortable with the rain. The others all gathered nearby before long. She crossed her arms, nodding to them. "Good work, everyone. I cannot emphasize enough that you have most likely saved the entire town from disaster today. If that isn't enough for you—"

She paused, her attention caught by the crumbling giant. Or more specifically, something its collapsing form revealed within it which was not black and dull, something resembling a small orb still glowing with the white-red heat that the entire monster had been covered with. While the others turned to look, she observed the rain passing through it with no effect, as if that heat wasn't physically present.

"Hmm. Ordinarly there's nothing left once a fire giant falls. What.." The Captain paused, noting Clera's reaction in particular. She was staring hard at the orb as if she recognized it.

"That's my..." The winged girl reached a hand out toward it, and as if it had been beckoned, it floated down to her, stopping above the palm. "It has to be. But this doesn't make any..how did it get..?" While she dropped her arm, still muttering in confusion, the orb floated into her chest and her body briefly glowed red. Raising the same hand again, fire appeared around it. This flame was real, steam pouring out from the rain that made contact with it, but it did no visible harm to her. "It really is..I cnghkt." Clera's speech cut off abruptly, the fire disappearing from her hand and her head jerking back slightly. She fell straight backward toward the ground like a plank of wood, only Katherine reacting quickly enough to slow the fall psionically.

"Did that kill her?!" Aria demanded, running up.
"It just...looks like she fainted," the catgirl said. "But what just...?"
"I have a hypothesis, but we should get her out of this rain first," Ezra said. "Come on." With no further comment, she turned and began to walk briskly back to Rose's forest. After some mutual shrugs, Zack was successful in convincing the wolf to carry Clera on his back in order to reach shelter faster, and the rest of them followed.

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Phew. This was not supposed to take this long to write! But it did. Oh well.
Pleasant new year to everyone reading this stuff!