Alphonse attacks a giant.
The last giant stumbles and bellows in agony as the shining reaper plies his holy scythe, mowing away beard and throat, but not quite decapitating the great savage!
Hisao sighs and moves in to finish off the last giant evil thing.
The ennui doesn't serve him well though.
フォーカスを失うことはできません he mutters to himself.
The invisible ninja's blade is turned by the staggering giant's thick hide armor!
fredrick once agains sends a bolt of electricity at the giant
The frost giant screams and topples over with a thunderous crash as it succumbs to Fredrick's magnetized hydrokinetic blast!
The initial wave of defenders is vanquished, and the Lusty Fools can now proceed into the ice caverns....
Either the horn blasts sounded by the now-dead frost giant are still echoing in the depths of the ice caverns, or else other horns are being sounded deeper in to spread the alert....
Hisao volunteers to scout ahead. Going Invisible and ethereal to scout in.
Gliding ethereally like an invisible ghost into the icy blue gloom of the glacial tunnel, Hisao follows the passageway some 70 feet or so, gradually delving at a 20-degree decline deeper into the icy mountainside, before the passage splits in a Y.... One branch runs northwest, the other northeast.... From the northwest can be seen a dim orange glow, as of fire up ahead, at least 60 feet distant.... From the northeast can be heard the echoing horncall, but it is dark and gloomy that way....
Keeping in communication with Paddy who hopefully relays to the rest of the group. Hisao moves to see what the fires is to the NW.
Hisao comes to a large, circular cavern of blue ice, in which a fire pit blazes at center, reflected off the icy walls and ceiling. The heat and smoke seems to drift up to a chimney in the ceiling. Impaled on a great spit over the fire pit are three large oxen, their hides splitting and crackling in the heat and giving off an appetizing aroma. An ugly giantess is slathering butter and herbs on the roasting cattle with a giant brush the size of a sapling, and a strange, horrific, worm-like beast is coiled near her feet like a great dozing pet!
Another tunnel delves deeper into the back wall of the cavern.
Hisao goes back and relays the news to the rest of the group North by West or East? To go West will have to first kill cook. Perhaps I scout dark tunnel at back and report? If go East then cook might ambush.
"Yes, please scout ahead."
Hai Hisao responds and heads back, this time in his ethereal/invisible state he tries to float as far over the giatness and the beast as he can to keep from being scented out. If he can get into the tunnel undetected he flips his goggles of the night on and heads in.
Proceeding deeper into the ice caverns, the tunnel at the back of the cook-fire cavern meanders generally northward some 200 feet before arriving at the top of a great spiral stair of icy steps hewn by giant hands and broad enough to be used by giants and dragons.... An icy fog billows up the stairs, and Hisao can faintly detect the sonorous echoing of some great beast snoring in slumber somewhere down below....
Hisao floats down cautiously. Is it a dragon? If so, what kind? Could it be Confalgratious himself?
Descending the long spiral ice stairs, Hisao dips down into a vast cavern of icicles and ice columns, lit by a faerie glow of bluish aurora that dances languidly around the crystalline surfaces....
At the center of this cavern is a great heap of treasure--gold, silver, platinum, copper, gems, jewels, weapons, armor, potions, wands, scrolls, and art objects, all glittering in the twilight glow of the underground ice cavern....
And upon this great hoard lies what must be Conflagratius' polar counterpart: a great white beast of the Apocalypse, a white wyrm, fast asleep!
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ.....
Hisao floats back as fast as he ethereally can.
There's more than one of the apocalypse beasts! he gasps out to the group This one is of ice!
Hisao is struck by an idea. He thinks about it for a little while. Then things about it a little more. Then he sighs. He has a good idea where the inspiration came from.
He picks up a dagger from one of the giants and smears blood on it from one of the many many corpses that are lying about.
I have had a thought. Say here. When you see me running back out then I suggest you run as well
Saying this he goes invisible and ethereal again and goes back the way he came into the lair of the beast.
Laying the bloody giant dagger carefully down right next to the sleeping head of the dragon the ninja takes a deep breath.
He steadies himself.
He raises his wazikashi, more a holy relic now than a weapon, pauses, mutters a prayer to Sun Wukong, who he fully blames for all this, and then, dropping his ethereal state, plunges it right into the arctic dragon's eyeball.
Then without pausing to look back Hisao does something he's gotten quite good at over the years.
He runs.
The great ice wyrm is awakened by the eminence of his death at the invisible ninja's blade, and it is now a matter of initiative!
Run, Hisao! Run!!!!
Hisao runs away, away, whatever method is fastest!
The Monkey King must be watching over the lucky ninja: the white wyrm, wary that an attempt was nearly made on its life, considers leaving its lair to hunt down the transgressor.... But then the thought crosses its mind that it might be a plot to get the dragon to temporarily abandon its precious hoard, leaving it vulnerable to burglary.... Weighing its desire for vengeance and to eliminate future threats against its great avarice and compulsion to protect its hoard, greed wins over Wrath, and Hisao and the other Lusty Fools are able to flee unpursued....
It almost worked. Hisao says as he goes back to the group. He scratches his head I think this dragon does not care for world domination. Maybe we should go other way and find this giant who is actually bothering people.
So! Those filthy frost giants are tired of sharing their plunder with old Fimbulblizzard, are they? Hired an assassin to snuff me in my sleep, did they? Those miserable, snotty little wretches! I reckon it be that fat, greedy pig of a jarl of theirs.... Selfish, evil, cowardly, sniveling little orc dropping!! I'll fix his chariot, I will....
But what's with the horns? Is he trying to make it look like they were taken by surprise? If he wanted to assassinate me in my sleep, why raise the alarm? Mayhap I ought see what these frost giants are up to....
Finally goaded by curiosity, the great white dragon lifts its massive body off the heap of treasure on tree-trunk-thick, scaly white legs and crawls ponderously up the spiral ice stairs!
The Lusty Fools can feel a shuddering, rhythmic vibration through the glacial ice, as something gargantuan moves in the icy depths....
The huge frost giant jarl grips his mighty greataxe, Avalanche, and strides with thunderous steps from his throne of ice clad with winter wolf pelts to the great arched entrance of his grand hall....
Each thinking the other has finally crossed the line and is attempting a murderous betrayal, Jarl Blodrimblad and Fimbulblizzard meet atop the great ice stair, and clash in titanic mortal combat, axe against tooth and claw!
Sun Wukong shakes his head and laughs long and hard....
HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!! Oh, Mister Hisao! How your antics amuse me! Look what your bungled assassination attempt has become! So splendid! So funny!! HOHOHOHOHOOO!!!
HAHAHAHAHAAA!!!
listens to the epic battle with a smile
Paddy sits back and takes out his flask of whiskey and has a drink watching the festivities.
The goblin minstrels strike up a lively and dissonant battle jig to complement the epic spectacle of titanic combatants, each terrible in their might and wrath!
After half a minute of thunderous struggle, reinforcements arrive in the form of the rest of the frost giant warriors and shield maidens, 16 all told (8 males, 8 females)! But it is too late for the grossly obese frost giant jarl by the time the other giants arrive.... Fimbulblizzard has, by then, already eviscerated the old Karl's steaming guts, opened his bearded throat, and nearly severed his left foot at the ankle.... As his warriors arrive, the jarl collapses with an agonized roar!
With savage ferocity and feline skill, Fimbulblizzard takes down his frost giant prey one by one, but at great cost.... By the time the final giant falls with ragged groan upon the bloody heap of its kinfolk, the old white wyrm is hobbled by major wounds, and panting painfully as it turns to limp back to its lair and lick its wounds....
"I'll understand if the rest of you are loathe to do so after our experience with Conflagratious, but this seems our best chance to rid the world of another of those vile, evil beasts. Will you come with me to finish it off in its lair? We can move swiftly and ambush it when it comes back."
But of course....perhaps me and my other stealthy friend should go first? Maybe finish it off quietly?
Hisao holds up his hands. I think I prefer to go together. Being alone with dragon was not pleasant experience!
The Lusty Fools waver on the brink of a major decision: to dragonslay, or not to dragonslay.... That is the question. Whether it be more noble to rid the world once and for all of a tyrant almost as terrible as the Beast of the Apocalypse, risking life and limb to do so, or to flee from this perilous path to pursue a previous aim....