“You made good choice,” Athra said. “Alone, you are weakling. Tiny rock barely out of shell. Together, we can kill many Stone Giants. They are big, true, but they are dumb. We will outsmart them.”

“Do you have a plan?” Tormacc asked. “You’ve obviously seen what I’m capable of, but I don’t know what you can do.”

“You will see,” Athra said. “My people, we are mighty warriors. Just, Stone Giants are annoying. I can’t hide from their senses. It makes for tough battle, much like yours. But together, we don’t need plan. I said before, they are dumb. One person attacks, takes their attention. The other one attacks, takes attention back. No need for complicated plan. When boulders crash, smaller rock is crushed. Together, we are bigger rock. We will crush Stone Giants.”

“You mean one of us draws its aggro initially and then we switch off between drawing its attention while the other one tries to kill it by making use of the period it’s distracted?” Tormacc asked for clarification.

“Yes, is what I said. We will crush Stone Giants to dust.”

The plan seemed a little straightforward to Tormacc, but he would trust his new partner, at least for the moment. And really, how many plans could you come up with to deal with a monster that huge? It wasn’t like you could make a pitfall trap and lure it in. The only way to kill the Stone Giants was with pure destructive force, and hopefully with two people attacking that would be much easier than his previous attempt.

Athra cleaned up the campsite while Tormacc fetched the rope that was still tied to the giant’s corpse. It was showing some small abrasions, but overall seemed safe to reuse, although hopefully he didn’t have to reuse it for the same purpose. But before they set off to fight a Stone Giant Athra had one final step left.

“We are now partners, so we make Party. Partners are not true partners unless we are in Party.”

Tormacc sent her a confused look before he heard a notification.

“Athra has sent you a Party request. Would you like to join her Party?”

“You accept Party invitation,” Athra said, urging him to stop standing there wide eyed. “Just say you want to join.”

“I would like to join Athra’s Party,” Tormacc said hesitantly, and as soon as the words left his mouth he felt a strange energy sweep over him, and then he was in the Party.

“Basic Party functions unlocked. Default loot setting in use.”

Focusing on the strange feeling, Tormacc could sense his new party member. It was similar to how you knew there was a fire behind you, or you could feel which direction the wind was blowing. It was a vague sense, but he knew he would be able to unerringly point Athra out in a pitch-black cave.

“What exactly does this Party do?” Tormacc asked. If it was some amazing thing surely Stella should have mentioned it, right? Maybe it was unique to Athra.

“Party is Party. Is like two rocks that join together to make bigger rock. Without Party, only killer gets Essence. With Party, Essence is split. Now we both get Essence. Loot is default. We alternate getting Loot. If you have spatial storage skill or device set it as loot default.”

The way Athra spoke was a bit hard to understand normally, but this time it sounded like she was speaking an entirely different language. Individually the words made sense, but combining them together the meaning became obscured. Sensing his confusion, she tried to explain further.

“You must be smaller rock than I thought. Still newbie as Humen say. You know Essence, right?”

Tormacc nodded.

“When you kill monsters, you get Essence. But only killer gets Essence. In Party, we split Essence. The same for loot. You know crystals and spheres? We split those with Party. It makes it easy. No arguments.”

The concept was so foreign to him it took him a while to process it. But thinking about it more, he realized it was a necessary arrangement for them to have true cooperation. If they weren’t in a party, they would have to try and split the killing blows when fighting monsters, but against something as dangerous as a Stone Giant that wasn’t always possible. Accurately splitting the crystals and spheres was an even bigger issue, and not only did the Party solve that, it seemed to solve it in the best way possible.

While it was theoretically possible to split the loot by a verbal agreement, it would be easy for arguments to ensue. Say they split the loot 50:50, alternating drops. If a Blue Crystal dropped, then a White Crystal dropped, then a Blue Crystal dropped, then a White Crystal, one person would get both Blue Crystals, their share of the loot substantially more than the person who only received White Crystals. This issue could still pop up with the Party, but if the crystals were automatically moved to a dimensional storage, only the receiver knew what they got, so even if it wasn’t fair there wasn’t a direct comparison and the illusion of fairness was maintained. Even if they tried to accurately divide the loot into two even sections, what was an even split? Unless the two piles had the exact same composition of crystals and spheres there was potential for conflict.

Concentrating on his Spatial Bracelet, Tormacc imagined selecting it as the default location for his share of the loot. It took him a moment to organize his thoughts into the correct order, but finally he managed to figure it out, his thoughts connecting with the Party interface.

“Spatial Bracelet selected as default loot storage option.”

“Good,” Athra said, able to sense the change in his settings. “Now we go kill Stone Giants. Come.”

Because of the massive height of the Stone Giants it was impossible to miss them, their hulking frames sticking out like a lone tree in an open prairie, their large forms easy to spot on the otherwise empty skyline. Also because of that size it took a while to reach them, the Party of two taking almost an hour to arrive near their chosen prey. This particular Stone Giant was walking towards them, and they paused a few hundred meters away, Athra signaling a stop to prepare for the upcoming fight.

“You know plan right? First, I attack. Then, you attack. Then, I attack. We repeat until it dies.”

“Shouldn’t I ambush it first? I don’t have a way of reaching its head from the ground.”

“Why attack there? Feet good enough.” As Athra asked the question her head tilted to the side, the angle reminding him of certain birds that he saw in the rainforest in the starting zone, the angle of her neck reminding him she wasn’t Humen.

“Because it’s their weak point?” He didn’t mean for it to come out like a question, but in front of Athra’s no-nonsense brusque attitude it made him feel like his meager pool of knowledge was smaller than it actually was.

“You are like tiny rock looking up from hole not knowing of mountain,” Athra said, making a tsk tsk noise that sounded like gravel crunching underfoot. “You not understand Great Rock. Stone Giants, they are of rock. That means they are one big rock. Only way to fight big rock is slowly chip away at it. You can only smash until you make it smaller rock. Attacking Stone Giant’s head only makes it mad.”

Tormacc wanted to argue with her, to tell her that he had information saying otherwise, but something told him Athra knew what she was talking about, and he could feel his stomach drop when he thought about how even the limited information he had might not be correct. It made sense, as if what Athra said was right, then the Stone Giants would get angry when their head was attacked, which normally was the sign of a weak spot. And since there was only limited information of this Shard, perhaps the person Curtain got the info from just didn’t know any better.

“Don’t feel bad,” Athra said. “You are still small rock, not know better. You will learn from bigger rock. Knowledge takes time, like how even water can wear away at stone. But now not the time for knowledge. Now is the time for fighting.”

And with that, Athra charged, bounding across the ground at a speed belied by her stone limbs. As she moved, the ground rose up to meet her, smoothing her path forward. Tormacc watched in fascination as she seemed to skim across the numerous craters dotting the way forward, the terrain not slowing her down in the slightest.

Unlike when he attacked it, the Stone Giant didn’t ignore Athra, and as she got closer, the giant froze for half a second before letting out a deep rumble of anger, homing in on the ant that dared challenge its mastery of earth and stone. Tormacc watched in fascination as Athra met the giant’s charge, huge spikes of rock rising up from the ground to impale the giant’s legs. Each spike was smashed to bits by the Stone Giant’s raging charge, sounds of distant thunder echoing out as the rock spikes shattered in deadly storms of shrapnel.

Athra was unconcerned, skating about on the ground, the very rock beneath her aiding her cause and increasing her mobility, pillars of rock shooting out from under her feet and rocketing her away from the punches the Stone Giant was sending her way. Snapping shut his hanging jaw, Tormacc quickly joined in the battle, moving closer to aid his party member. It was a little hard to keep up with the giant, but as long as he kept on his toes he could launch a few good swings each time he caught up with its feet. And it seemed to be working, as after a particularly effective series of attacks that caused whole sheets of stone to fracture off, it turned on him, his attacks sufficient to pull its aggression.

During the previous battle his setup had made him a hard target for the Stone Giant to hit, as it had been unwilling to punch itself and was too dumb to think of any alternative plans to deal with the fly that kept stinging its head. This time though, it had a clear target, and Tormacc had to flee with all his might as earth-shattering punches impacted the ground behind him, the force from the giant’s blows affecting the air pressure as even the wind sought to prevent him from escaping.

The uneven ground actually proved to his advantage, as he was able to make use of skills like Power Jump to push off horizontally instead of vertically, his body flying across the ground as small shards of stone whirled around him. The Stone Giant was slow, that much about his information had been true, and avoiding its blows was rather easy, especially as he had a partner to attack while he held the aggro. The hard part was the flurry of rock shards that accompanied the giant’s punches.

Individually, each shard was weak, the pointed pieces of rock unable to break his skin. But under the constant stream of shards assaulting him even his enhanced defenses started to give out, scratches becoming gashes, and gashes opening holes for slivers of rock to lodge in his flesh.

Were he alone he might have been in trouble, but after a minute or two of running for his life Athra took back the aggro, allowing him time to take a quick breather and remove the slivers of rock from his limbs. Most of the wounds were superficial, and by the time he had drawn the aggro again he was mostly healed back up, his regeneration able to counteract the damage from the shrapnel.

The Stone Giant wasn’t an easy opponent, with multiple points in the battle involving near misses that would have spelled an end for both Tormacc and Athra, but between the two of them they were able to maintain a safe margin of error, juggling the aggro of the giant between them for over an hour until it finally fell, the damage too much for it to endure. It was a far cry from his previous fight and, feeling as nine Essence flowed into his Fate Wheel, Tormacc knew joining the Party was the right decision.