Inside morning-star cities adventurer guild.

The building was simple in design, just a rectangular wooden box two stories tall, the front and smallest section was for the their customers and adventurers, the back was for monster dismantling and storage while the upper floor was long term storage, the guild staff living and a reasonably sized room for the guild master.

Everything was made from a dark wood, almost black, that was surprisingly sturdy which most people assumed was somehow enchanted or at least refined by the mages guild.

Currently the entire reception room was full of adventurers, they were throwing questions by the dozen towards the flustered receptionist, but she stayed silent as she waited for the guild-master to arrive.

Earlier inside the dungeon.

A group of adventurers silently got into positions, a mage was hidden under some sort of camoflaged box, an archer sat high in the canopy with his bow at the ready and arrows sticking in the trunk next to him for fast access.

Below a warrior hidden by a brush gave a signal to another man standing in the center of a small clearing. The man carefully stepped towards a pile of wood and threw his torch onto it from what he thought a safe distance.

The torch didn’t even make it to the woodpile before the fumes caught alight and sent a fireball out engulfing the man. Although it didn’t kill him it did remove his eyebrows and most of the hair on top of his head.

The warrior in the bush strained hard to not laugh out loud at the ridiculous appearance of the singed man, but he was forced to let out a chuckle when he heard the archers laughing from here, he always wondered how good the archers eyesight really was, and considering he could clearly see the laughable features of the back-lit singed man they must be quite amazing.

The singed man cursed his leader under his breath, of course it had to be him that tested the new accelerate from that crazy alchemist. Although he was partially to blame because, “light it with a hundred foot pole if you can” wasn’t a good enough warning for him to not almost blow himself up.

Now he waited, and he didn’t have to wait long. A giant of a man clad entirely in black plate came into view. The warriors hands slightly shook around his war-picks handle. This wasn’t as good an idea as he thought now that he saw his target up close.

The giants axe was taller than he was and its head looked like it weighed more than he could ever hope to block. The giant shoved the axe off of his shoulder and held it with both hands then simply said, “no fires”.

The warrior would swear that he could feel the ground tremble with every step the giant took towards him. Then the giant raised his axe and broke into a run, the warrios will to fight instantly broke as he retreated behind a tree.

“NOW!” someone called.

“okay” a deep voice casually replied.

“WHA--” Thump, the warrior heard his leaders words cut short along with a loud noise followed by a small shock-wave through the ground. ‘what happened’ he thought, ‘the mage doesn’t know a spell like that does he?’. Then several things sounded and he guessed that 1. those were arrows uselessly bouncing off the giants armor and he would have to say “I told you so” to the archer. And 2. the giant was still alive after whatever spell the mage used.

He took a breath and focused, the familiar feeling of a life and death battle filled him and he spun around the tree with a growl. What he saw almost took the wind out of him, the still burning woodpile illuminated a bloody bush were his leader was hiding, the giants axe was dripping blood. It was holding up the mage by the throat with one hand, and the only damage he could see was a layer of soot on the already black armor around the helmet and chest area.

The mage desperately tried to chant a spell, but his throat was closed and he was slowly dying, he switched to hand sings instead. It wasn’t as efficient but could still work. However, the giant dropped his axe and grabbed both the mans hands in one of his own then clenched. A muffled scream escaped the mages lips and as if annoyed by the sound the giant squeezed both his hands harder.

The giant wasn’t facing him, this was his only chance, the warrior mustered his courage and as silently as he could he ran at the giant. Although it wasn’t silent enough because the giant was turning towards him, he was wearing leather boots with soft fur strapped to the outside, how could such a monster hear him while moving around in full plate armor.

Everything was in slow motion for the warrior, he put everything into his last leap towards the giant before he could fully turn around, his war-pick went up. His battle-cry sounded out. Then his weapon swung down.

The giant saw the incoming weapon that was obviously designed to pierce armor and just did what came naturally, he reached out with his hand, and grabbed the pickaxes shaft. This time both of them were surprised. The warrior from the giants monstrous strength that easily grabbed his weapon, and the giant from how weak the warrior was.

A crack sounded as both the pickaxes shaft splintered and the mages spine disintegrated. The giant dropped the dead mage and grabbed at the warrior, who quickly abandoned his weapon to avoid the grab. He didn’t want to end up like the mage. Instead he turned around and ran.

Although he didn’t make it three steps before the giant tackled him and crushed the comparatively fragile warrior underneath him. Bones cracked and this time a full scream sounded out, only to be cut short but a crushing punch to the back of the head that rendered the warriors head into meat paste.

The giant stood up turned around to see what the warrior missed, another black clad giant, he was standing underneath a tree looking up, he saw what his companion was looking at with his enhanced sight, an archer cowing in the tree.

He called out, “aren't you going to kill him”

the companion replied, “yes, but how do we get to him because climbing doesn’t go well in this armor”

“I don’t think the armor is the problem” he quipped back, “you have an axe, hes in a tree, make it work”

“oh” the companion realized.

A dozen powerful axe strikes later the tree which you couldn’t get your arms around began to fall, along with a terrified scream, they followed the sound of something dragging and were surpised to find the archer alive, he was limping and dragged a mangled leg.

The archer turned around and saw the two monsters and promptly jumped towards the nearest branch, but his leg was wounded. All he managed to do was further damage his leg and anger the giant with more screaming.

“you like trees” the companion said.

“he does” the giant answered then lifted his axe, “perhaps because you like trees so much you can answer a question for me, if there isn’t a bitch around to hear it and a tree falls, does it make a sound”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA--”

“I guess that means a yes” the companion pondered while looking at the corpse.