We all ignored the alarm telling us it was time to go to school when Monday came. It took us nearly a day of sneaking and fighting just to get close enough to the giants to get a look at them, and there was no way we were logging out now. Since we came back from that week off, we've all learned how to request time off when in MSE. So, I was laying on the ground, hiding from a group of giants walking past me when the icon of being observed popped up in the top left corner of my vision.
Clicking on it, I was surprised to see a miniature transparent version of Alaric appear in front of me. Looking around, it notice the giants and said, "That seems a bit above your current power levels."
I nodded in agreement before filling him in on everything that'd happened.
"Ah, so you need to distract a corrupted giant for at least 24 hours while your friends try to sneak past it to the mothertree?" He asked me.
I nodded, "Yeah, but I have no idea how to go about it. I also have no idea how the rest of the giants will react when I start attacking the corrupted one."
Alaric looked around again, frowning. "It's not an easy thing to corrupt a giant. They have insane resistances to all forms of attacks, including soul attacks. That's probably why it's moving so slowly, it's trying to fight off the corruption even now. Your best bet will be to find the source and try to injure it so the giant can retake control of it's body."
I gulped, remembering that the source of corruption was always nearly impossible to find until you damaged the corrupted being to the point of near destruction. "What if I can't, is there a good way to get it's attention?"
"Sure, giants are all mouth breathers. Throw something disgusting in his mouth. Or you could try to hit it in the eyes with a lightning bolt, but I doubt you'd even manage to make it itch at your current power level." Alaric said as a giant took a step over the river basin I was hiding in, giving me a perfect look up its kilt... Didn't need to see that.
"Alright then." I said, trying to focus on the approaching feeling of corruption. It was weird how despite one of their number having been corrupted, the rest didn't even have a hint of corruption on them. Guess that's because of their resistances.
"Well, good luck. You absence is excused, try not to get stepped on." The miniature version of Alaric the Viking dissipated.
I sighed, alone again in the middle of a stampeding herd of giants. The source of corruption had sped up slightly, as if sensing that something that shouldn't of been here was. I started looking around frantically for something to throw into a giant's mouth that'd disgust him.
"Too bad Rick isn't here, I could just toss him in there. Hell, even that Drake couldn't stomach redneck that smelly." I was talking to myself, listing all the disgusting things and people I could throw into the mouth of the giant as I searched.
Luckily, I managed to find a rotten carcass that stunk so bad I nearly puked. 'Now, to figure out how to get it into the giant's mouth...'
'I got nothing.'
Suddenly, I looked up to see a face nearly 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide staring down at me. To my surprise, the giant opened his mouth and started to slowly speak in a powerful, deep voice. "Hello, little one."
I was doing all I could not to freak the fuck out as it continued to stare at me. I coughed to clear my suddenly solid vocal cords, "Hello."
"You shouldn't be here, the corrupted one is following us." The giant said.
"I'm here to distract the corrupted one, it's going to reach a town in about a day and a half and the town needs at least another day to ready it's defenses."
The giant frowned in thought, obviously having a hard time understanding me. "Town, ahead?"
I nodded vigorously while shouting, "Yes!"
The giant sighed in confusion, trying to think but having used up all it's brain cells.
"Can you help me?" I asked it, and it's attention returned to me. "I'm planning on throwing this." I pointed at the carcass, "In it's mouth so that it gets so disgusted it'll chase after me."
The giant looked down and snorted, before laughing hilariously. It pulled its kilt to the side, bent over and took a massive shit on top of the rotting corpse. It was so huge that if it didn't stink I would've thought it was a boulder.
Clapping his hands, the giant stood and began to walk off while laughing and saying, "That'll definitely distract him. HAHAHAHA"
"Note to self, never ask a giant for help." I mumbled to myself, still trying to figure out what to do.
At that moment, Matt and Gunthar appeared over the horizon with quizzical expressions on their faces. Seeing me, the hurried over while asking, "Why are you standing next to a giant shit?"
Having trouble breathing due to the stench, I waved my hands and continued moving away from the shit before explaining the situation to the two of them.
"So cool!" Matt's eyes were shinning in excitement, "You actually got to talk to a giant!"
"Yeah," I said, "and nearly got shit on by one too."
Gunthar was guffawing, slapping his regrown limb onto my back while unable to say anything he was laughing so hard.
"What are you guys doing here anyway?" I asked as I tried to avoid another slap on the back, they hurt!
"Alexandra stayed behind to begin brewing the potion with Master Hutchins, the gold framed glasses guy." Matt said, "But we had nothing left to do and figured we'd try to help the distraction team out. Where is everyone else?"
"Just me, I sent them on." I said, still frowning down at the giant shit before it clicked.
"Hey, can you do the levitation trick and shove this down the corrupted giant's maw?" I asked Matt.
Gunthar went pale at the thought, the phantom of a leopard appearing behind him, hacking up a hairball in disgust.
"Don't see why not." Matt said, starting to walk around in the massive shit in a circle.
"Hurry up then, it'll be here soon." I said as I walked even further from the shit. I had this vision in my brain of Matt activating the formation and the shit exploding, covering me from head to toe. "How's the arm?" I asked Gunthar.
"Better, somehow the potion even helps it regain muscle mass. Within a week it'll be back to normal."
Gunthar and I started chatting, over the past few weeks we'd struck up a decent friendship. Gunthar only respects people who are strong and work at least as hard as he does, so he doesn't have many friends.
10 minutes later, Matt walked away from the giant shit with a pale face, gasping for breath while muttering to himself. "Never again, never again, never again, never again..."
Gunthar and I shared a look before breaking into hysterical laughter.
"You guys figured out an escape route yet?" I asked them. They looked at me in confusion, so I kept talking. "Say we manage to get the corrupted giant's attention, where do we run? We can't run towards the mothertree because that'll mess up our friends, and we can't run towards the town because it'd be counterproductive."
They both thought for a while before Gunthar said, "We should run towards the mountains." He pointed in a direction to the northwest of us. "It's towards the mothertree, but a large enough angle that it's unlikely to mess up the bark retrieval. Also, if we manage to make it that far there are formations there to keep strong beings from entering the special zone. They should be able to deal with the giant."
Before we could think of anything else, Matt turned and yelled, "Activate." While pointing his staff at the massive pile of shit
The massive shit slowly lifted along with the rotting carcass, gaining altitude before picking up speed. About half a mile away, a giant nearly twice as tall as the others was slowly lumbering it's way towards us with it's mouth hanging open. It's movements where jerky, as if two beings were fighting over control. Every now and then, it'd fall to it's knees as one being tried to move forwards while the other tried to move backwards and it lost balance.
"You should do something to make sure it know's it's us attacking it." Matt yelled at me, and I nodded in agreement.
Sitting down, I invested nearly all of my energy into helping Patrice create the strongest lightning bolt she could. I could feel her irritation at not being able to fight the giant. The longer the two of us where together, the more bloodthirsty she became. I could feel her sending me images of the two of us fighting the giant and beating it to a pulp, but I put them out of my head while thinking, 'Not yet, soon we'll be strong enough.'
The massive shit's aim was perfect, flying into the giant's open mouth before it could realize what was going on. It wasn't until it was halfway down it's throat that the giant grabbed it's throat and started coughing, it's stomach heaving.
Taking careful aim, Patrice unleashed the lightning bolt sending it slamming into the open eyes of the corrupted giant. The giant glared at us, but was too busy falling to it's hands and knees, trying to dislodge the shit from it's mouth and throat.
Matt grinned in triumph as we watched it reaching in trying to pull it out. "It won't be able to swallow or spit it out until the energy on the formation wears out."
Gunthar and I gave Matt a wide berth, both of us instantly deciding not to fuck with Matt anytime soon. Unfortunately, the formation didn't have all that much juice and 45 seconds later, the sound of shit splattering to the ground was accompanied by the giant's roar. The corrupted energy which had previously been busy trying to control the giant now spreading out from it in a massive wave of pure hatred.
"That's our que." I said, turning to run for the mountains as fast as I could.