“You coward, get back here!” Sang shouted. Her health bar was rapidly dwindling downward as the spell continued to crush her bones. Van could hear the sickening sound of the crunching of her body.
“Ahhh, come on, think!” Van muttered to himself. “Of course!” He stooped down and grabbed some mud, and quickly ran up to the door of the hut. He smeared up the shape of a heart with the mud. The fiend immediately stopped attacking and turned to face him. He shivered as he looked at her featureless face.
Sang crashed to the ground and stood up—her health bar was incredibly low, but she was alive. “What happened?” she demanded.
“Be careful! We’re, uh, doing the gift offering thing. These creatures are immensely powerful and aren’t meant to be fought; we have to curry favor by offering them a gift. I remember someone telling me about this a while back... you’ve got to signal good intent because they don’t speak any language. That’s why I put the heart on her door.”
“Okay, so then what?”
“We need to present her, or it, with something. Something valuable. Or else it’ll kill us both horribly. And then we’re even further from our goal due to the loss of experience and items.”
“What does it want?”
“I dunno, something shiny or valuable. Like a locket or an amulet.”
“We don’t have anything like that, do we?”
“Well, go find it!” Van shouted
“Why me?”
“Because if I move, it’ll kill me,” Van replied. “Go find something—quick!”
Sang looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in this swamp.”
“Well, we’ve got two choices; you can either go search for an item or we can both die.”
“Can’t we run?” Sang asked.
“You’re at 20 health, so it’ll kill you instantly,” Van said. “Look, I’ll be fine while you search, unless I try to attack or leave this area; it won’t do anything more until you put something in its hands, okay?”
“Alright, fine, I’ll go looking for something. Just don’t die,” Sang insisted as she hurried off.
“I’ll do my best not to,” Van replied, gritting his teeth. This was a terrible plan, but there wasn’t much else he could do, was there?
Sang scrambled through the waters, rushing on heedlessly. She couldn’t believe that this had been some kind of a trap. And now, she was heavily injured and had no ability to navigate—there was no question that her Map skill just wasn’t nearly high enough for her to be able to navigate through this swamp. The worst part was that, if Van was killed, it would slow her down significantly because he’d need her help to level back up again, bringing the mission to a crawling point. Searching for some solution, she was pissed at him, though she couldn’t have said why. She wanted to blame him for this, really, but he had been the voice of reason.
Having been focused only on trudging through the water, she finally stopped to catch her breath. Her stamina bar was low, and her Health certainly had no chance of increasing without a campsite or a town. She rested against the side of a tree and panted for a few minutes, waiting for her stamina bar to come back up. As she tried to think of where she could go to find a trinket, though, she realized that the tree she was leaning against wasn’t a tree at all... because it had begun to move.
“Ah!” she cried as she leapt back. She glanced upwards to see a massive, green Giant standing in front of her. The words Swamp Giant Level 27 appeared over his head. He had a huge axe at his side and was busy breaking off the branches of another tree to eat them. It took a moment, but as she watched, the Giant slowly glanced down at her... and smiled.
“Well hello, traveler!” the Giant said as he shifted to face her. He was incredibly large, and she could read his stats from where she stood.
Strength: 35
Health: 560
Damage: 300
She gulped as the giant continued, “I am Bramford, a Swamp Giant, and this entire swamp is my home! What is it that you wish?”
A dialogue menu appeared in front of her, meaning she had the option to select anything she wanted to say to him. She wasn’t sure what to pick.
Hello, Giant, I am travelling through this swamp and am lost
Greetings, friend! What are you doing?
Die, Fiend!
Sang shrugged and selected the second option. The giant immediately smiled widely. “Why, I’m looking for delicious cuisine, of course! Trees and stones make for good eating, but you know what I love more than anything?” Another dialogue box appeared.
Human meat?
Animal meat?
Trees?
Sang, still completely unsure of what to do, selected the ‘animal meat.’
“That’s right!” boomed the Giant as it slapped its knee in excitement. “I love to eat animals, but the problem is that they are hard to catch because I’m big and slow, while they’re small and fast! The only thing I can catch are humans, but I don’t like to eat them unless they try to fight me!”
Sang glanced at her inventory. She had plenty of meat from the deer that she was routinely hunting. She glanced at the Giant and caught a glinting from the side of his ear. It was a diamond studded earring… probably very valuable. Maybe she could trade for it?
“Do you want to trade?” she asked, ignoring the dialogue menus. The Giant looked at her blankly. “Trade! Do you want to trade?” she asked as she pulled out a burlap sack of cooked deer meat that she had stored for safekeeping.
Upon seeing the bag, the giant nodded at her. “Oh, I see you have some food! Maybe I could have it? I’ll trade it for ten pieces of gold per pound!”
Yes
No
Sang looked at those dialogue options. It didn’t really help her if she got some gold, because that wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy that raging Fiend she’d left Van with. She needed those earrings, but the Giant was so high in his level that he would smash her to pieces if she tried to kill him. She checked her character sheet quickly to see if there was something that could help her.
She grinned upon seeing the Climb skill. Maybe she didn’t have to kill the Giant—maybe she just needed to trick it somehow.
“Yes!” she said as she lifted the meat up toward the giant. It laughed gratefully and leaned down to grab a hold of the bag. She took the opportunity to scurry up the side of the Giant’s leg, grabbing onto its long, mossy tunic.
“Hey! Get off of me!” the Giant boomed as it swatted at her.
Sang scrambled upwards, trying her best to avoid getting hit. Her Climbing skills were enough to help her move faster, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she was going to get the crap kicked out of her by this thing.
“Rawrrg!” it screamed out as it swiped at her again. She leapt upwards onto its shoulder and grabbed its ear.
“Sorry!” she shouted as she pulled at the earring and tried to yank it out. It didn’t put up too much of a fight, as she had the sufficient strength needed to pry it out from his ear.
The Giant shouted in agony as she tore the earring loose and then leapt off of him just in time to dodge his axe.
She rolled as she hit the ground, splashing in the water. Her Health had dropped down to 2, but she was still alive. She hadn’t known falling would deal that much damage to her.
“Get back here, you thief!” the Giant screamed as it chased after her, the creature’s massive feet causing the swamp water to crash about everywhere as it stomped.
Sang had hurriedly gotten up and scrambled back the way she’d come; she had used her Ranger skill to mark where her ally was waiting. She just had to get the diamond earing to him, and then they’d be able to deal with escaping the Giant later. At least the Giant didn’t have any kind of magical powers. At least, she hoped it didn’t.