Intimancer

Tyr was the first to hear the roar.

She was jogging down a tunnel, her chest bent down and her nose pointed forward, sniffing the air like a great auburn bloodhound, when her large ears perked up and she froze.  While the others were still catching up to her loping gait, she closed her eyes and began to listen intently.  Eventually, her head snapped towards a side tunnel and she bared her fangs in a snarl.

“What is it?”  Rick asked breathlessly after he finally got close.

“This way.”  She growled in answer.

Rick and Lilie gave each other a shrug then dashed after the wild elf.  Whatever it was, they would soon find out.

They ran for several minutes through the twisting passages before they heard it.  A monstrous bellow of rage followed by the sounds of heavy stomps and the crumbling of stone as something heavy crushed the surrounding rock into gravel.  There was something else too.  Something that sounded almost like…

They turned a corner and skidded to a halt.  In front of them was a deep ravine that Rick could never hope to see the bottom of.  The area on the other side of the gash in the rock was wide and open.  One of the tunnels leading away had a suspiciously bright glow emanating from deep within.

Rick’s heart soared into the stratosphere when he saw Sade and Daniela burst out of the tunnel at a dead sprint.  The two women were whole and healthy, if a bit harried in their haste to get the hell out of the tunnel.  Rick raised his hands to call out to them but was interrupted by a deafening roar that shook the whole cavern.

It was then he saw the giant monster that was chasing them.

…

Sade cursed her rotten luck as she ran.

When the thumping sounds echoed throughout the underground passageways, she and Daniela quickly placed the statue back in front of the hole leading to the temples and dashed in the opposite direction they heard the noise.  While running, Sade prepared her favorite lightning spell and the ever reliable ‘flamethrower’ alongside the earth manipulation spell for utility.

She was confident in her ability to take down any serious threat with those three spells taking up all her attunement slots and a few simple cantrips she could cast at will.  She didn’t have her usual reliable lovers to shore up her weaknesses, but Daniela was exceptionally competent, so Sade was not too worried.  The two of them could handle anything this crazy mountain could throw at them.

It was when they paused to catch their breaths did they finally spy the creature that was following them with such ferocity.

The thing was humanoid in shape, in the fact that it had two arms, two legs, and stood upright.  But those were where the similarities abruptly ended.  Its head was a misshapen lump of pale flesh with a too wide maw filled with jagged yellow teeth.  The three fingers on each hand were little more than joints to hold wicked curved claws.  The thing was lean, almost skeletal if not for the hard cords of muscles that criss-crossed under its warped gray flesh.

The most unsettling feature, aside from the horrifying, dangling proof that the naked monster before them was a male, was the pale blue cluster of crystals poking out of its shoulder.  The shards didn’t look so much like they were growing out of the monster, but burrowing inside instead.  Great rents in the creature's flesh that looked to be where it scratched itself in irritation showed areas wet with dark blood, but other lacerations only further exposed the faint blue glow of something solid instead.

It took another step with its oversized feet, the claws at the end of its toes gouging the stone beneath like a knife through soft cheese.  It bent down low so it could sniff the ground, looking for prey to feast upon.  Even when it was close to being on all fours, the monster was easily as tall as Tyr.  Sade shuddered in thought of what would happen if it got close enough to use those dagger sized claws.

The mage decided she would take no chances in letting it get close.  Electricity writhed around her arms as she formed a magical lightning bolt in her outstretched hands.  The second the spear was formed, she leapt out of the cover they were hiding behind and launched it straight for the things face.

Thunder boomed in the confined space as the lightning ripped through the air like a blinding white tear in reality.  Strangely, the lighting suddenly veered off its deadly course slightly and instead impacted the strange crystal rather than the monster's ugly mug.

The strange blue cluster drank up the deadly lightning greedily until there was nothing left of the spell other than the spots floating in her eyes from the flash.  Sade was stunned.  One of her single strongest attacks was just nullified in the blink of an eye.  She was almost going to try again, when the crystals began to glow and pulse with a baleful light.

Like a twisted heartbeat, the crystals pumped the stolen magic into their host.  Veins of pale blue shone through the creature’s thick skin as more and more energy saturated its being.  Faster and faster the light pulsed until the glow was just a constant stream.

And then the monster began to grow.

The thing bellowed in pain as every muscle in its body swelled with power.  The claws on its hands and feet lengthened until they looked like jagged swords.  The monster’s relatively thin frame broadened and expanded as the stolen magic piled greater strength upon it.  It almost looked like a twisted parody of every time they used a large amount of coital energy all at once.  Sade’s heart sank to her stomach as the glow from the crystals faded and the monster began to rise, its face aimed right towards where she stood.

Daniela was the one who summed up Sade’s feelings perfectly.

“Oh… Fuck me sideways!”

Then they ran.

The two women sprinted down the tunnels and away from the horrifying monstrosity as fast as their legs could carry them, the monster howling and crashing through the rocky obstacles in its way while following close behind.  They burst into a large cavern with a steep drop-off on one side.  Desperate, Sade unleashed a quick burst of flames behind her in hopes that she could at least blind the creature if not hurt it outright.  The small ember of hope died when she saw that even that small burst of magic was absorbed into the cursed crystals jutting out of its skin.

The two women were backed against a wall.  The monster slowed down, small pulses of blue from Sade’s failed attack giving the thing just that much more strength to crush them into paste.  The monster stalked forward, as if savoring the smell of their terror before it could feast on them properly.

There was nothing she could do.  Neither of them could fight the thing with the weapons they had.  They would need actual siege weapons to even have a hope in hurting the thing, not a glorified butter knife or the tiny hunk of metal she called a mace.  They were going to die down here, and there was nothing Sade could do to stop it.

And then out of nowhere, she saw Rick soaring through the air like a bird, straight towards the back of the unaware monstrosity.

…

Rick watched helplessly as the monster came into view.

The thing didn’t so much as step out of the tunnel as it fucking smashed through the rocky wall like a mutant hulk.  The monster was as massive as it was ugly, and Rick noted the odd glowing crystals growing out of its arm like a strange tumor.  The sight set off his gamer senses like nothing else in this strange world.

He watched helplessly as Sade, still taking off at a dead sprint, cocked her hand behind her back and unleashed a torrent of angry red flames towards their pursuer.  He then saw how the strange blue growth sucked up all the magical fire like vacuum into its blue glowing structure.

“The fucker is immune to magic!”  He cried out in realization.  No wonder Sade couldn't handle him on her own.  His beautiful mage was as deadly as she was brilliant,, but the ability to negate magic was easily the greatest advantage something could have when facing his amazing lover.

He wanted to run in there and save her.  But even if he pumped all his saved points from leveling into strength, he still wouldn’t be able to make the leap across the chasm to get to them.  Adding the creature's resistance to all his ranged attacks, and he could only shout and glare from where he stood.  Suddenly, he had an idea.

“Throw me!”

“What?!”  Tyr asked, confused at the sudden demand.

Rick fixed the amazonian warrior with a determined stare.  “Pick me up with those wonderfully strong arms of yours, and chuck me as hard as you can towards that mother fucker who’s trying to kill the woman we love.”

The large woman looked almost stunned at the sheer insanity that came out of his mouth.  But then she gave a wide fanged grin as shock transformed to understanding.  “Aye, I can do that.”

She scooped Rick up like a small child and positioned his body so that she had one hand on his rear and the other stabilizing his chest.  “Get ready!”  She called as she cocked her arm back and began to sprint forward like she was about to perform an olympic javelin toss.  When Tyr hit the edge of the ravine, she yeeted her lover with every ounce of her incredible strength.

Rick wanted to scream in terror as his body flew at incredible speeds over the deadly descent, but his fury at the monster in front of him caused his mouth to let out a bellowing warcry instead.

He slammed, spear first, into the creature’s broad back.  His weapon sunk deep into the rubbery flesh between its shoulder blades.  His elation was short lived, as the cruel bitch known as momentum forced his body to slam into the broad back of the monster after his weapon, causing the breath to explode out of his lungs with violent fury.

I should have thought through the landing…  He groaned inwardly in pain.

He thankfully was able to hold onto his weapon as he started to fall towards the hard and unforgiving ground.  It gave him no small amount of sadistic glee to watch as his body weight caused the sharp metal to carve a bloody line all the way down to the creature’s hip before popping out with a wet squelch and a spray of dark blood.  The monster, unsurprisingly, bellowed in pain as its bulky arms desperately tried to reach behind itself to staunch the gaping wound along its spine.

Rick had to quickly roll out of the way to avoid being flattened by the feet of the thrashing giant.  He ducked a wild swing of its claws before standing back up and facing his foe.  He was no expert on monster’s facial expressions, but it was safe to assume that whatever face it was making meant it was royally pissed off.  He smiled and let out a wheezing chuckle.  “That’s what you get, asshole.”

The thing quickly rose to its feet and roared in a defiant challenge, its arms spread wide to expose its gigantic barrel chest like an enraged gorilla.  The effect would have been absolutely terrifying if one of its elbows didn’t explode in a shower of gore as a wooden spear with feathers on one end suddenly slammed through the joint.

Before the creature could react, another siege arrow ripped a hole in its other arm.  There was the sound of a strange yelp coming from its malformed throat as a third sprouted from its rear end.

“Surprise ya boggin eejit!”  Tyr shouted with a shit-eating grin splitting her face.

Next thing anyone knew, Lilie came up behind the monster’s leg and slashed at the sensitive area behind the knee with her sword.  The giant crashed down to the floor as its leg could no longer support its immense weight and buckled.

“¡Come mierda!”  Came a scream from beside Rick.

Daniela’s tiny body flew forward and buried her sword all the way to the hilt into the monster's chest.  She let fly another string of curses strong enough to make a sailor blush as she twisted the blade savagely.  Rick, not even remotely done venting his fury either, leapt back into the frey.  This thing had the gall to go after one of their own, and it would regret that decision for the rest of its tragically short life.

He ducked and weaved between the massive flailing limbs and he zeroed in on his target.  His free hand reached out and seized the ugly mass of flesh between its legs and yanked with all his might.  The screams of the dying monster rose several satisfying octaves as its whole body curled into itself to escape the intense pain.  Rick merely gripped his spear near the metal head, then began to saw away to remove his prize.

The huge monster’s thrashing grew weaker as all the damage the hunters inflicted finally caught up to its brain.  When Rick was done excising the grisly trophy, the creature seemed to flop lifelessly to the ground, all the fight finally drained out along with its vital fluids.  It was then Rick beheld Sade’s approach.

The magnificent mage stood imperiously above the giant’s skull, like a queen ready to pass judgment upon a convicted criminal.  Her eyes betrayed no emotion, she merely stared down at the monster before raising her mace high above her head.  Like the gavel of a judge, the blunt head of her weapon came crashing down to enact her sentence.

The metal rang with a dull thud, and the deed was done.

Rick rushed forward to grab Sade as her legs gave out from under her.  He hugged the love of his life close as tears began to form in both their eyes.  He had thought her lost forever.  Then when they were close to being reunited against all odds, he nearly had to watch her die in front of his eyes all over again.

“Sade.”  He croaked out, doing his best to speak though the sudden rush of emotions.  “Let’s go home.”