Fire giants are the largest of the giants that are generaly found. They are as smart as we are and far stronger physicaly. Most dangerously they love war, and a tribe of these giants can and will try to take small countries for themselves. Like their name implies they are near impossible to burn and have skill in all arts pertaining to fire. - Common Monsters

Adrian

It was midafternoon when I got into the office building made warehouse. I start to store as much as I can with Void Cache but soon find myself out of mana. I would have liked to steal all of the supplies here but not only am I no longer able to. I feel uncomfortable without any mana. A tiredness not unlike after my return from the astral.

I don’t want to go through that again. At least theft was not my only way to cause these item to be unusable. I could decay them with Death, no that would be bad. Someone is sure to not believe it and I’ll get hit with a backlash. A fire maybe?

No, that could postpone the excursion at dawn. I continue to search through the building when I find a room full of cleaning supplies. Maybe I could just ‘poison’ the water with the bleach here. Everyone would have diarrhea until they replaced the water. I spend a moment to memorize the locations of the bottles.

I don’t know where the water storage is though. It isn’t the water tower and I don’t have time to search the whole camp. There is however a sprinkler system in the building. It takes me a short while to find the tank in the basement that stores the water for it.

There is also a generator down here, not much fuel in it but enough to run the pump for the fire system for a bit. I knock on the tank, its empty. Time to cause some trouble, I start pulling the toxic chemicals from the cleaning supplies to fill the tank.

Once full, I supply a spark to get the generator started and run to the front of the building before pulling the fire alarm while warping light once more. The siren of the alarm is echoing around the building, far louder than the other events going on. I can’t stick around even invisible there are plenty of ways to find me.

I hear the splashing of water and smell bleach just before I escape around a corner. I smile, I may not have caused problems to the nobles’ food but I know the soldiers eat from that food. I’ll make sure to tell the others not to eat the food given us in the morning. With this I doubt I can get anything more effective done.

I am unimpeded on my way back to the bank. I smile at the group as I enter, they were helping each other learn languages. Byran is the one who speaks up first.

“Is that fire alarm your fault?”

“Yes, don’t eat the camp’s food from now on.”

“You didn’t.”

“All the food just got soaked in bleach, and other cleaning products.”

“What about all the civilians, what will they eat now?”

I forgot about them, shit. I just doomed a bunch of people to suffer something they don’t deserve.

“You forgot about them didn’t you.”

“Yes. Anyways, I’m guessing Talia has passed around the items I purchased today?”

Surprisingly it was Talia herself that responded, though her accent was poor.

“Yes, did you pick up anything else while you were out?”

“Since when did you start actually speaking English?”

“Kythia has been teaching sister and me ever since you started giving her private lessons.”

I did not know about that, she has done well in our practice conversations. I don’t think I ever finished the written stuff I promised, we are out of paper now though. I’ll just have to find some in the houses outside the camp.

“She has done a good job. I visited the library and picked up most of the books. I also have a large stockpile of food now. I also managed to get a few weapons for myself.”

“Do we have enough once we get out of here” asks Abagail.

“Food yes, weapons and armor no.”

“We’ll have to take some from our escort” says Bryan.

I nod, we will have to, we need more armor and what we do have is damaged.

“We need to be careful of them, I’ve upset a lot of the Althaen.”

We spend some time discussing how to fight the squads and other nobles in the open. I however do not plan on actually fighting them straight up, if I can kill them while they sleep I will. K woke up and joined this conversation. None of us went to help with the watch, after all we leave at dawn.

I open my eyes to the Grey Dream, still smiling from the fun I had with K. Too bad we need to be fit to fight in the morning, and could only go so far.

I do what has to be done for the dream to respond to my speech. I can’t trust this place, but I still need the power it offers.

“Character Sheet”

Gain: Rogue 9 (+15SP, +1 Attribute),

Name: Adrian Ravnos

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Skills

Attributes+

Class

SP: 52

Traits

Magic

Languages

EP: 84

This doesn’t match with what I remember from the last time I was here. Did drunk me come here? I touch Class,

Fighter 15

Rogue 9

Dragon Knight: Void 12

Magus 9

I gained levels not represented in the gain box. I must have already spent some, what did drunk me do?

“What did I do during my last visit.”

[Spend the required attribute points, then leave.]

I touch Attribute,

Attribute Point: 1

STR 22

DEX 25

CON 24

INT 27

WIS 26

CHA 28

APR 24

HP: 651

Mana: 196

Something isn’t right here. I touch traits to see if anything changed there.

Alternate Form

Wyrmling Void Dragon

Free Multiclassing

No penalty for multiple classes.

True Dragon

+8 to all Attributes

Keen Senses

Your senses are more acute and sensitive.

Pack Alpha

+2 CON, CHA

Party Leader

+2 to all Attributes

Perfect Recall

Able to remember anything you paid attention to.

Reality Weaver

???

Void Body

Able to withstand the void of space and the gap between planes.

Void Cache

Maintain a space in the void for storage. Powered by mana.

Void Sustenance

You can supplement yourself with radiation. Drastic reduction in need to sleep, eat, and drink.

Pack Alpha is new, probably from sleeping with K. So, I’m the alpha of her pack now. Then drunk me spent a point on Charisma and Intelligence. I’ll just even out intelligence to a twenty-eight then. At least I still made decent choices.

I’ll check the EP, then I need to buy something with the SP to raise my combat power.

Attribute Increase

Draconic+

Infusion

Senses

Alternate Form

Senses

Void Power

I touch Alternate Form, I wonder what it offers now.

Breath: Gravity 75

Breath: Radiance 75

Breath: Void 100

Chill of the Void 75

Very Young Void Dragon 100

I want a larger form but that is too much. Void Breath is probably the most dangerous of the three, but again not enough EP. I touch Breath: Gravity, I don’t want to take a risk on whatever Chill of the Void is going to be. This should let me at least tie down a battlefield, right?

My EP drops to one and now for the SP. It turns out that the different Energy Spheres are much cheaper than Life was. Costing only twenty to increase Fire to three. I could get another cheap sphere, but I want to store up for raising Arcane Power, Life, Time and these other harder spheres. There isn't a screen for it still, is it due to there being so many options?

I will myself to leave this dream, I do not feel safe here. They want to cheat me.

There are two squads of twenty horsemen and two nobles. One of the nobles has the Sunchaser coat of arms on his tunic, the other shares his with Trían. The soldiers are ignoring our approach, while the two nobles whisper and sneer at me.

Go ahead underestimate me. I not sure if we can take so many horsemen but if you aren’t careful I’ll make sure they are lost. We are not given any horses, but I don’t know how to ride one anyways.

We walk for a few hours, nobody speaks. The horsemen are around us in a circle and the two nobles. I think they are waiting for something. Soon however the soldiers begin to eat while we walk, the nobles also do so. They do not however stop so that we can eat. That is ok, I already passed some dried meats to everyone before we left.

The nobles frown when they see that we have food. And they start to shout commands at the soldiers.

“Circle Formation, . . .”

I draw the pistol and place a bullet in him, it is in his chest. Not an instant kill, he reaches for something in his bag. I put two more in him, he falls to the ground and does not move.

The soldiers are forming a circle around us, everyone is dropping food and pulling out weapons. The other noble is in a panic, he is shouting commands but the movement of the horses blots out whatever he is saying. Abagail moves to the middle of our group, I form a circle with the others. So much for my ideas of murdering them as they sleep.

The horsemen each have a spear, how are we going to kill forty of them? Could I burn them all with Fire? No, my friends would get hurt too. I no longer have a clear shot at the other noble, hopefully he is not a mage.

The horsemen close in and I can hear my friends chanting spells, I should do something too. I focus on the bullet in the chamber fire it at the horsemen in front of me, a torrent of flame erupts from the horse who I hit.

Four of the them are now burning alive, a wave of heat from my right side lets me know K did something similar. I think the horses are very well trained or under a mind control as they do not panic at the explosion.

Some of the horsemen charge me, I shoot one of the horses and those behind it trip on the falling corpse. I now have four spearmen to deal with instead. I see one of the twins, Talia dodge and cut the horse’s leg separating it by the knee.

I sidestep the first spear that was lunged at me, the other three then missed at I was out of range. These soldiers like Soup Fetcher are faster than me. I can see their movements and guess them with some accuracy but they attack and react faster than me.

They can attack and move faster but they cannot dodge a firearm. Though I also can’t shoot all of them before they reach me. I wave my hand blocking their sight with a wave of black fire before shooting one of those that were charging at K.

I hear the scream of someone who got cut behind me, must have been Bryan. I also hear the screams of a spearman who got struck with the black fire. I smile maybe we can win this without any deaths. A stinging sensation comes from my leg, I got hit with an arrow.

I pull it out, and will the wound to close. My dark fire dissipates, I need to learn how to make durations. I see the noble, he is now in the open. He shot me with that bow, I can see a smirk of pride. There is also an itch were the arrow struck, some sort of toxin maybe?

I fire two bullets at the noble, eight bullets left. I seriously regret not finding another magazine before we left the camp. Could I use Translocation Grasp to put one in the chamber? Maybe, I’ll try that when I run out.

The noble falls from his horse, now it’s just the soldiers. None of them should be mages, still there are over thirty still alive. I hear Bryan swear, he must have been hit. My wound is now closed, though the itching continues. I back step from two spears, at least I have an easy shot.

One of the soldiers falls, I love guns so much easier than killing in melee. There are six more of the former horsemen that are engaging me. I dodge another strike, but this allowed another to get his spear into my side. I remember weapons hurting more and going deeper when I got hit.

I am immobile while his spear stays but so is he, an easy kill. He falls to the ground, six bullets left. I feel two spears pass into my legs. So much for trying to move, I wrap myself in fire for a few moments.

More spears enter me, but I can still breathe. I feel the weight behind the spears cease with the sound of breaking wood. Now I am no longer pinned, I let the fire die down. The soldiers seem surprised I’m alive. I hurt and do not like the position I am in, but they are better fighters than me.

I shoot one who takes a bit longer than the others to respond to me being alive. Three left, K has only one left against her, Talia has three. I can’t see Bryan but I hear a scream of pain, feminine. Abagail got hit, not good. Or it could have been Lysan who got injured. Finish these three then turn around.

The three before me draw short swords, they move to divide my attention. I fire three bullets at the one who move leftwards, two hit though he is still moving. He would die of infection later but that will not be good enough.

So, I throw a bolt of fire at the man. He dodged it only to have K finish him off with her sword covered in blood red fire. She turns to me for a second.

“Help the others.”

She nods, the others will need more help than me. I feel a cut against my back, and begin focusing on healing my wounds. They took advantage of me not looking at them.

I put three bullets into the one moving to force me into being flanked again, he falls and the pistol is now empty. I need to keep healing myself, reloading via magic will have to wait for later. I dodge a swing while putting the pistol away.

I draw a knife, this is going to be troublesome. My magic is being spent healing, and my gun is empty. I can’t win like this, so I guess I’ll just not fight like he expects. The man strikes out at me, I dodge and then throw the knife.

He of course knocks it away but that does give me a few seconds. So, I shift; my skin warps and twists as I take on the form of a small dragon. Then I jump and spread my wings, everyone is looking at me now. A mistake K and Talia take advantage of.

The soldier cannot really harm me in the air, at least I don’t see a ranged weapon on him. I feel dragon-me whispering in the back of my mind on how to control this form. While I stay in the air, I am not entirely graceful about it.

I open my mouth and exhale; the soldier seems to be having a harder time holding the blade now. Somehow, I know I cannot breathe like that again until it wears off. There are now only one soldier fighting Talia, three on Bryan, two on Lysan, and two fighting K near Abagail.

I dive and feel the acceleration from falling become faster as I move to the soldier I was fighting. I try to bite and while that missed I did hear something crack when I hit him. I have a headache but I think his ribs broke.

I feel heavy, but can still move with ease. I claw at the soldier’s chest tearing through him before he realized what happened. I jump off him and try to fly, but instead hit the pavement, damn higher localized gravity.

My hopes that no one saw it are dashed as Lysan unlike her sister has been paying more attention to me than her opponents. So I run at them, she does get hit with a spear before I arrive. A glancing blow to the shoulder. Not something that will be lethal in the short term.

I jump up and try to bite one of them, but get batted aside by a spear. It didn’t hurt but getting tossed so easily disappoints me. Can I still use magic in this form?

I draw on fire and release it in a jet from my mouth. They should believe a dragon can breathe fire, right? I manage to engulf one of them but feel a tension in me. Dammit, it must be because I do not look like a red or gold. At least it doesn’t feel like very much.

I jump into the air and this time manage to fly. Talia and Bryan are now each fighting one. There are two near Abagail, one disengaged from K and skewers her on his spear. Shit, I dive to attack that one.

He dodges me, and I strike the pavement. I can taste something metallic in my mouth and hurt. I cracked the asphalt, better to land on people. At least the soldier is looking at me instead of finishing Abagail off.

Then I feel something, I can release a breath of gravity again. I do so and the soldier rolls to dodge, only to be pulled back a little towards where he was before. I see a mist of red blood from the soldier near K, black balls erupt out of it and strike the man slowed within increased gravity.

I move to Abagail, she has a spear in her chest. Collapsed on the ground she is spitting up blood, punctured lung. I don’t have time to shift back, so I lay a claw over the wound and push her body to heal.

I can’t actually heal her completely without first removing the spear but I can hold her alive while the others finish the battle. Can I even pull it out as a dragon? I see Lysan take a few hits before her foe dies, Bryan and Talia are out of my view.