Jessamy spits up a mouthful of blood as Siolad's spell seemingly fails, the blow shattering ribs -- perhaps all of them.
"You ... may kill me ... you bastard," she chokes out, "but people are gonna remember I took you with me!"
Seeing Jessamy take a big hit, Ensu begins moving toward her.
Now in his bear form, Siolad roars in response to the giant's blow. He attacks with wild abandon!
Unfortunately, his inexperience in battle shows as he fails to land a single hit on the giant.
Weak with blood loss, Jessamy struggles to mount an offense but she manages to dig one of her blades in the giant’s side again. The wound is a minor one but just enough of a distraction to give the enraged dwarf the opening he needs. With three brutal strikes he cuts the giant down at the knee and then buries his blade in its chest. Teraktinus breathes one more shuddering breath and then grows still.
The mighty ursine Siolad swats at the giant but finds himself awkward in his new powerful body and unable to get past the giant’s defense.
Ventus and Beaks tear into the next giant but with less fervor than the first.
Seeing their leader defeated, the remaining giants falter but with a roar of defiance continue to fight!
With a defiant roar in return, Siolad continues his mad assault, heedless of his bloodied, battered form!
Ensu moves again toward the two who just killed the boss giant.
Ensu yells much louder than you would expect the gnome to yell. "Come here Jess and Pirknok, come to me."
Waiting for them to fly toward him (or by him) he grabs his holy symbol and lifts up a prayer.
Pirknok grunts as the big giant falls, giving Jess a quick nod before turning and flying straight for the giant menacing Siolad and Ensu. "Natok kor vak tok!!" he screams.
Ventus sees the club coming at him in slow motion, the jittering on the edges of his vision highlighting it as Nethys's blessing warn him just it time to avoid another rib shattering blow. It's a near thing as he slips a foot from a stirrup and falls alongside Beaks' flank.
He only has time to lash out with his sword once as he hastily corrects his mount.
Jessamy flies past Ensu as he channels, flashing him a pained smile.
Then she howls at the remaining giant as she prepares to close.
In another fantastic display of aerial teamwork, Ventus and Beaks bring down the wounded giant. It crashes to the ground alongside its pair.
Moving with supernatural haste, Pirknok appears on the flank of the last giant struggling with the massive bear/elf. His dark blade hacks open the creature's stony calf giving Siolad an opening to maul his opponent. Despite his ursine form's mighty strength, his inexperience makes the wounds mostly superficial.
Still, outnumbered, wounded, and shaken by Jess's fearsome howl, the last giant drops his club in surrender.
Jessamy blinks.
"Now what? We can't just kill him..."
"Oooh! We should question him! Maybe he can tell us what the heck is going on here?"
She lands, still wincing from her wounds, and sheathing her blades.
Ensu moves over to the group, eyeing the giant.
"I speak Giant...yeah..don't ask." he says as an answer to Jessamy's question.
Landing, Ventus dismounts from Beaks and walks up to the giant.
"Most respectfully, Sir Giant, what the hell?" He demands gesturing to the damage and the dead broadly.
The giant glares at Ventus for a long time before answering in a booming gravelly voice.
”I will tell you nothing worm. Your victory today is meaningless. Mokmurian will send a legion of my brothers to grind this place to dust.”
"And I'll keep killing them, most like. Probably get pretty good at it. Somehow I doubt there is five thousand of you out there, too. The logistics of feeding that many human soldiers would be a nightmare and I reckon you and your brothers don't eat light. Who's Mokmurian? You can tell me that at least," Ventus said, about as phased as the stones this giant may well have been wrought of.
"Wait, you surrendered to us. Because you didn't want us to kill you. If you don't tell us anything, wouldn't it be silly for us not to kill you?"
Siolad shifts back to his elven form, bloodied, bruised and battered.
"She has a point, you know. We DID just kill both your best champion and the dragon you brought with you..."
"You might as well tell us who this Mokmurian is, so we can properly be introduced when he comes to put this place to dust." Ensu says.
"Tellin' us would be thuh best thing." adds the dwarf with a meaningful glance at his sword.
The giant scoffs but seems swayed by Ensu’s prodding.
”Mokmurian is our leader. He is blessed with foresight and has seen our people’s rise to prominence. This pathetic city will be the first in a legacy of conquest.”
"But why this city, it's not even very big?" Ensu asks, intrigued by the giant's tale.
The giant seems puzzled by the gnome’s question as if he’d never actually stopped to think about it.
”Teraktinus told us of this place’s riches. They were to be ours for the taking. It’s people would be make passable slaves while their bodies lasted. There was something he wanted from these ruins but he didn't explain it to us.”
"Something in the ruins...interesting. Had he got it when we arrived?" Ensu asks.
"And where's this Mokmurian? We might need to go have a chat with him!"
Siolad just listens intently, certain that if he spoke, it'd just make things worse.
The giant shrugs.
"I don't know. He didn't say. I don't think so."
"Mokmurian is inside Jorgenfist, deep within the Iron Peaks. Just the sight of it would make you tremble."
A moment later, the warhorns grow silent and the crash of stones smashing against Sandpoint’s walls stop. Cheers can be heard from the edge of town. The siege has been broken!
Minutes pass and Sheriff Hemlock arrives along with a dozen guards bearing lengths of heavy chains.
”We’ll take it from here”, the lean shoanti say grimly. ”I not sure where but I’ll find a place for the prisoner.”
The guards, no longer intimidated by their attackers, quickly bind the giant’s limbs.
”Thanks again Heroes. I’m not sure how Sandpoint would have endured this if it hadn’t been for your timely arrival.”
"Sheriff, they did all the work." Siolad tiredly waves a hand at the rest of the team.
The dwarf snorts at the elf's comment. "Now how do ya suppose we wudda reached their heads if ya hadint made us fly?" he asks with a sideways grin at the Sheriff.
"Oh, I'm sure you'd have found a way. Likely involving breaking knees." Siolad shrugs.
"There's also the matter of how they got here so quickly" a battered Shalelu says as she joins the gathering.
"Take some credit when it's due little brother", the ranger says with a proud twinkle in her eyes.