Dumbdumb

The outcropping around us was cloaked in darkness, save for the faint glow of the magical alarm I had set up earlier. The night had settled in, and I was asleep, vague dreams of a future surrounded by those I care about blurring as they were abruptly shattered when I was awoken, the very ground beneath me seemed to tremble, sending the loose rocks tumbling down the slope.

The alarm spell I had cast earlier rang out in my head, a cacophonous burst of magical chimes insistently warning that something had crossed the boundary of my spell. A cold sweat formed on my brow as my heart raced. Something big was approaching, something that sent tremors through the earth with each heavy step.

Moving quickly, I roused Isabel from her slumber, her wings buzzing in surprise. "Isabel, wake up," I whispered urgently, "We've got company."

The creature's massive form emerged from the shadows, and my eyes widened in disbelief. Towering before me was a monstrous two-headed giant, its filthy, scarred skin illuminated by the pale, unobstructed moonlight.

Standing 14 feet tall, with wide shoulders and long arms that dragged its knuckles on the ground behind it as it walked. The large hands, bulbous and twisted from years of misstreatment, each carrying a crude, oversized club. It had a bulging gut that hung down partially obscuring its almost comically small legs and a loincloth made from raw, untreated animal hide, so badly stained that it was apparent even in the moonlight.

Atop its ugly heads was a hanging, unkempt mess of long, stringy hair, and inside their large, reeking mouths were crooked, yellowing, rotten teeth. Each of its heads swiveled independently, scanning the area with a malevolent glint in its eyes.

Isabel clung tightly to my shoulder, her tiny body trembling as we both watched in silence.  As it drew nearer, I had to decide quickly, should we confront this colossal threat, or attempt to slip away before it noticed us.

While I was formulating a plan, unnoticed by me, Isabel held out her hand that began to swirl with magic as she released a spell. The two-headed giant was struck by the fairy's magic and turned towards us, one of its heads confusedly called out, "tiny friends?"

"Hello, can you please walk that way," Isabel asked with a slight tremble in her voice, pointing down the mountain from the direction we had come from. One leg and arm tried to comply as the other head angrily grunted, "what are you doing? Dumbdumb food there!" harshly gesturing towards the cowering fairy and me.

The other arm tried, and failed, to hit us with the large club it held, sending up a plume of dust and pelting us with broken bits of stone as it slammed down in front of us. Unbothered by the commotion its other half was making, the giant continued to stagger its way down the hill, dragging its other leg behind it. "Who is dumbdumb? Tiny friends not food, we need to go that way," it said in a deep rumbling voice, admonishing the other head.

I exchanged a bewildered glance with Isabel, who was still visibly trembling but had managed to divert the creature's attention away from us. We shared an unspoken agreement to seize this opportunity to escape the colossal creature's path and find safety. I whispered to Isabel, "Come on, we have to go before it figures out what's happening."

With Isabel still clutching to me and needing to make the most of this precious time to put more distance between us and that creature. Hurriedly, I scrambled up the rocky terrain, the loose stones and rough bluffs challenging my every step. The two heads continuing to argue, one confused, the other angry, as its lumbering form grew smaller in the distance.

"What was that?" I thought, trying to call out to the AI that had been suspiciously quiet lately.

{That was an Ettin I believe. Think of them as the much stupider, two-headed cousins of hill giants. They more or less blindly wander around mountains or ranges of grassy knolls looking for things to eat.}

"Where have you been? You have been quiet lately."

{I finished Highschool of the Dead and started making my way through One Piece.} The AI said matter of factly, as if that somehow justified leaving me to suffer that sadistic granny's training alone.

Deciding that I would rather not hash out my grievances with the AI, that seem to become more and more like a NEET, right now, I called out to Isabel as I huffed my way up the steep incline. "Hey, what did you do to that guy," pointing back over my shoulder with my thumb.

"Fairies have a few natural abilities, mostly charming things or creating illusions," Isabel replied without her usual cheeriness, still clearly shaken up by her first taste of combat.

As we ascended the mountain, we dared to glance back, and a chilling sight greeted us. The two heads of the Ettin were no longer in disagreement; they had turned their collective anger toward us. Isabel's charm spell had been dispelled when the two heads started beating each other in frustration, and the monster roared in fury.

The Ettin began pounding its massive clubs against the ground in a display of brute force, reverberating through the rocky terrain like an ominous drumbeat. It unleashed a series of incoherent bellows that sent shivers down our spines. The ground shook with each massive stride as it gave chase, its wrath fueling its pursuit.

We sprinted through the rocky landscape, our footsteps echoing in the cold night air, driven by the desperate need to evade the giant at our heels. Our situation had transformed from one of quiet exploration to a heart-pounding race for survival in this unforgiving, moonlit wilderness.

Isabel's wings buzzed with determination, and my legs ached with each passing step, but the relentless Ettin was close behind. We couldn't afford to look back; we had to focus on outpacing the colossal threat. The darkness of the mountainside stretched before us. Thinking quickly, I started desperately channeling mana, imagining the loose stones and gravel around us shifting slightly.

I continued the spell as I ran, and the entire bluff we were on started shifting, sloughing off the side of the mountain as a large sheet, before impacting the rocks beneath it. Desperately I ran, jumping as the ground beneath me gave out. Panting heavily from the exertion, and with adrenaline still pumping, I turned around in time to see the Ettin's surprised faces as a landslide of gravel and the occasional boulder slammed into it.

We watched as the torrent of stone carried the hulking figure all the way down the mountain, uprooting the trees at the edge of the forest, and ripping its way further into the forest before coming to a rest. After a few moments of us waiting with bated breath as the rumbling and now distant tremors subsided. The quiet night stretched on before there was another, now much more distant, roar coming from the mound of upended trees and loose stones.

Not wanting to press our luck, I scooped up Isabel and placed her back on my shoulder. I continued hiking up the mountain, only stopping after several hours had passed without a sight nor sound of our first challenge since leaving the fairy settlement.