Day 16 of Midwinter, Sunset

Shadowlands, Tech Duinn

Annwn

Things didn’t look great. Sure, Manny’s Led Zeppelin-esque musical stylings seemed to have successfully lured off the trow, and I could no longer hear the beating of ogre drums, only those of the fachan…which meant the whole party of fachan was still behind me. You might even say, they were fachan following me.

I hadn’t actually ever seen a fachan, but the descriptions I’d heard didn’t fill me with anticipation. The one-eyed giants were described similarly to the cyclops of Greek myth. Before Annwn, I’d marveled at how many “monsters” seemed to be standard from culture to culture and mythos to mythos. I now knew it was because these monsters were real, not the result of collective imaginations thousands of miles apart.

Unfortunately, the only weapon I had with me was the lustrum shillelagh. I was technically a living, breathing offensive threat even without weapons, but my energy boons, while incredible, didn’t always do what I wanted them to do. I suppose that was part of having only been in the world for a few weeks. With time, I hoped my boons would level up, and more importantly, that I’d be able to wield them more reliably. I guessed there was no time like the present!

After a crescendo of Jumanji-themed beats, the first fachan crashed through the trees in front of me. He was followed by two more. I had the sneaking suspicion others were flanking me, given none of the three were carrying drums, meaning either the gigantic drummer boy hung back or was part of a second group circling me.

“Hello gents,” I said in their language. “Don’t suppose you are here to help me traverse the mountain?”

They didn’t respond, seeming momentarily surprised by my cunning linguistics, but that didn’t last long. They charged me, because… of course they did.

I assumed a baseball stance with the shillelagh, ready to swing for the proverbial fences. At the same time, I prepared to cast an energy barrier that would hopefully trip two of the giants. I was jerked out of my baseball stance mid-cast by the shillelagh, which yanked me up and sent me hurtling toward the fachan.

I’m not one to waste the element of surprise when a magic weapon gives me an edge in combat (if I had a nickel for every time I’ve thought that), so I swung hard at the fachan on the left. Thanks, shillelagh!

I was much faster than these creatures, even without the momentum of the flying weapon, and I landed a massive blow on the giant’s knee. An explosion of blood and bone erupted into the air as he went down hard. I skidded past the giant, landing on my feet to see that the other two had also fallen to the ground, likely thanks to my energy barriers. Looking at the three groaning fachan on the battlefield, I felt pretty good about how the fight was going… but you know what they say, “pride goes before the fall.”

A crushing blow from behind sent me crumpling into a pile on the ground. The missing drummer had apparently arrived. Dizzy for a second, I took rapid stock of my injuries. My right shoulder was out of place and several ribs on that side felt broken, but I remained conscious, thanks mostly to my Pain Sponge boon. Groaning, I erupted from the ground and swung the shillelagh directly into the nearby fachan’s eye. He bellowed in pain and rage, swinging his bone sword blindly in my direction before falling to the ground and clutching his bleeding eye. I eyed the sword on the ground. So that’s what had hit me…

Two of the four fachan were badly injured, and two were picking themselves up off the ground, still in the fight. With my right arm hanging painfully at my side, I readied an energy blast, but before I could fire it off, I felt a blinding pain on my other side. I landed painfully further up the mountain, feeling newly broken ribs on my left. I looked down to see my throbbing left thumb bent and broken at a gruesome angle. How many fachan fachan were there, I wondered.

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My shillelagh was gone. I had apparently dropped it somewhere between where the fachan had done his best Arnold Palmer and where I now lay in a bleeding and broken heap. I reassessed my circumstances, realizing there were at least three semi-functioning fachan, one of them completely uninjured against one increasingly injured and definitely unarmed Síorláidir. Looks like I was going to need to magic my way out of this one.

The three mobile fachan began to run to my position, one of them pausing just long enough to pick up my shillelagh. The weapon jerked in the monster’s arm, swung wide, and promptly smashed the neighboring fachan in the gut with the ball end of the stick.

The fachan doubled over for a brief second, then leapt up to pummel the first fachan, who shrieked about not meaning to hit him, his words broken up between punches.

The third fachan continued to charge towards me, holding its massive bone sword in its right fist. I (sort of) had a plan, but one that required a little bit of patience and a whole lot of luck. I mentally prepared to cast my energy barrier on my aching left side…Then I simply had to wait until he swung… finally, as the creature drew back and swung his sword, I cast my spell.

The fachan wailed as his arm impaled itself onto my sharply constructed energy barrier, set just outside of striking range. He tugged at his impaled arm, his hand still gripping his sword, but I had constructed the spike with barbs that would make extricating his arm almost impossible.

I winced as I brought my own arm up as if I were a puppeteer and willed the barrier spike into motion. The fachan began beating himself in the face with his own sword.

The other two giants had finally stopped fighting and were watching in horror as one of their own literally beat himself into unconsciousness. “Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.” I repeated over and over until he finally fell to the ground.

I staggered toward the two standing fachan, feeling the bones in my right side snap into place. Their eyes widened in fear as my shoulder, too, slid upward and in to repair itself before their eyes.

Not breaking eye contact, I reached down and slowly, menacingly picked up the massive bone sword that the unconscious fachan had dropped.

“Let’s do this, big boys,” I said in my manliest growl.

They stood still, clearly considering whether continuing to fight was a good idea. In the end, I suppose they concluded that whatever prompted them to follow me up the mountain was more important than dealing with little old me. They charged.

As I braced myself, I felt a soft bump on my leg. Glancing down, I saw the shillelagh, positioned helpfully upright so that I could grasp it.

That was… weird. During my last power rank notification, the item hadn’t appeared to have any abilities associated with it, but after its antics on the mountain, I was sort of expecting abilities like “Demon Possession” or “Sapient n’ Sassy.”

Grabbing the shillelagh, I grimaced as I felt the bones on my left side knit back together. I seemed to be mostly healed, which gave me a modicum of positivity going into what I was really, really hoping would be the final round of combat against the fachan. But… I also remembered the last time I felt this confident, things had gone awry. Not this time, I vowed.

I jumped, gliding high into the air, feeling the hair on my arms stand on end with static electricity. I brought the shillelagh down on one of the bone swords, surprised to see a yellow charge arc from my weapon to the fachan’s just before the weapons clashed. The bone sword exploded, sending bone fragments into everyone present. The charged attack sent the giant tumbling back down the mountain.

The last fachan paused mid swing, eyeing me. After a tense second, he promptly turned around and ran as fast as he could down the mountain.

“Yeah, you better run!” I yelled. The injured members of the original hunting party did their best to retreat with him.

Something rustled behind me, and I spun around with the shillelagh held aloft. The familiar face of Garbánach stood not very well concealed in the trees. He was bloody from head to toe. And was that…flesh in his teeth? The ogre didn’t say a word, simply standing there with a dazed expression on his face.

“Thank you,” I said. I assumed he was the reason the ogre hunting party had not attacked me along with the fachan. “You had better…” Before I could finish my sentence, the ogre turned away from me, running back into the forest.

I felt a surprising pang of regret knowing that Garbánach was an ogre without a home. He would never fit in past the foothills of Tech Duinn, and he would never be welcomed back home for his past transgressions. What he had just done would likely only make things worse with his clan or tribe or whatever ogres called their family groups.

I sighed, thinking about the quest I was on. I thought about being hunted by giants serving the Bodach and about the dangerous and lonely hike ahead of me. Get full chapters from ⓝovelFire.net

At the shillelagh’s tug, I began to smile, realizing I wasn’t truly alone. Fortunately, I had a demon stick to keep me company on my way up the volcanic entrance to the realm of the dead.