Chapter 3: Chapter 2.5 – Interlude – Gregoir’s Tale

It was over a meal that Iris finally found words that had been stuck in her throat for days.

"Ser Tallis?"

The old man looked at her with one bushy brow raised. She hadn't gotten a proper look at Ser Tallis the first time they had met, but recently had gotten the chance. He was older- somewhere in his sixties, she reckoned, with thick, leathery skin that was as cracked and craggy as hardpacked desert earth. This world didn't have the same people, or places, as Earth, but she would've placed Ser Tallis as being from somewhere around Turkey. His hair was long and dark, somewhat curly and had gone almost completely grey. His facial hair was immaculate and fancy, and he was constantly fixing it. Even then, he was pinching his mustache between his thumb and forefinger, twirling it thoughtfully. 

"You mentioned a few days ago, when we were training, that you 'used' to be an Adventurer. You...aren't anymore?"

Ser Tallis nodded slowly, lowering his hands. He looked at them, thoughtfully.

"I was, once, for many years. But that changed, during the last Yotun Conclave invasion. I was..."

---

Running.

Gregoir Tallis was running. His plate mail clad feet pounding into the churned, muddy earth. His breathing was labored, his own weight fighting against him. Running in full plate was hard enough on solid ground, the mud made it all the harder. All around him, others were running as well, and like him, they had a purpose.

Hold the line.

The Fortress-City of Rov was at their backs, its massive gates ajar. People of all sorts streamed inside, escorted by armed guards, directed by imposing armored sentinels. Retreating from the countryside, from the encroaching armies of the Yotun Conclave. Armies that had now reached Rov, who sought to tear it to the ground. Gregoir rested his hand on his sword, heaving in deep, greedy breaths. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, and he wiped it away, metal grating against stubble. Not like it helped- it just smeared mud and rainwater over his already itching face. 

"Is it just us?" 

He turned his head to regard the speaker, her voice carrying over the howling wind and the distant roars of their foes. She was an elf, with midnight skin and a shaved head. She wore the white combat robes of the Goddess Grand, her staff and dagger symbols of her office. Her name was Solune- Gregoir knew her well. The two of them, and the four others that they stood shoulder to shoulder with, had been adventuring together for nearly two decades. There was Gregoir himself, their frontliner, and Solune, their healer.

They were joined by a hulking Golemi, whose name was Melqart. When it came to strength and immovability, they were second to none. Their stony skin was the color of sandstone, with a similar texture, their body swallowed up by a massive suit of armor. They needed no weapon. 

Next was another human, like Gregoir. His name was Adil. A Cleric of the God Justice, he was a taciturn man who could always be trusted to consider things fairly- but never be trusted to be any fun at parties. Like most Rovians, he was swarthy skinned with curly hair and grey eyes. Unlike most Rovians, he rarely smiled. His grip around his staff tightened, the balanced scales that topped them clicking as they evened out.

Rounding out their team were Zaya and Dadga.  Zaya was centaur from the Rolling Plains. Her bow always found its mark, and she had never once failed them in landing much-needed precision blows. Dagda was a scrawny, bookish man with startlingly pale skin and a shock of red hair, swaddled in thick robes that seemed to swallow him up. He was their mage, a combat ritualist, and a man mostly devoid of social graces.

The lot of them looked over the central bridge, as did the numerous other teams of Adventurers running alongside them. Across it marched an army that stretched across the horizon. The Yotun Conclave, made up of three dozen Yotun clans, had marched to destroy their puny adversaries once more. And once more they would be driven back. The bridge was a ways away- and they pushed themselves harder. Gregoir's feet met solid stone, and he picked up the pace. 

It wasn't long before the melee began.

The first foe Gregoir met was a Hill Giant. Roughly twice the height of a human, it swung wildly with a massive maul- sending one poor soul sailing over the bridge, his chest smashed in. Gregoir ducked under the first clumsy swing, and battered the second away with his arm. Strength surged into his limbs, and he carried forward- sword slashing upwards. He carved through the Hill Giant with little issue- its defenses, and attributes, far too flimsy to withstand his Emerald Rank strength. Barging past the sundered foe, Gregoir kept cutting his way through lesser Yotun, eyes affixed on what lay ahead- the colossal Frost Giant generals, astride their mastodon mounts. His team was alongside him all the while, and with their combined might, it was not long before they reached their quarry.

The ground shuddered as the Frost Giants slid from their mounts. They were paragons of strength- the mightiest of the Yotun. It was through them that the Conclave commanded the unruly Yotun clans- and it would be through their deaths that their assault would be driven back. Gregoir tightened his grip on his sword.

The wind kicked up fiercely, heat being drawn in towards the ground. Behind Gregoir, Dagda stood amidst a floating series of runic circles. His eyes blazed with power, as he chanted;

"Fire of the Earth! Consume my foe whole!"

A pillar of flame erupted from beneath the first of the Frost Giant. It wailed, flailing about as the flame ate away at it. The spell was true to its nature- eating through the icy body of the Yotun. Its fellows were briefly stricken, jaws slack, as the Frost Giant fell silent- reduced to nothing but ash. Dagda, for his part, only exhaled a long gout of steam, the runes hammered into the flesh of his forearms cooling down as his conjured runic circles dissipated. 

Gregoir and his team did not waste the initiative Dagda's opener had granted them.

Solune conjured a great scythe around her staff, and swept it in an arc- trading blows with one of the Frost Giants. She was joined by Adil, his chants low and sonorous. With each incantation, the Frost Giant was knocked off kilter, its blows glancing away at the last second, its footing made uneven. 

Zaya ran circles around the Frost Giants, her arrows finding gaps in their armor. The back of a knee, the inside of the elbow, needling under the arm. One arrow even slammed into the eye of the giant that Gregoir was engaged with, which howled in agony, clutching one hand over its ruined eye whilst hacking wildly at Gregoir with its free hand- his sword meeting the head of an axe the size of his entire body. He met it blow for blow. Frost Giants were Emerald Rank, much like Gregoir and his team- demigods to any normal person, and evenly matched against one another.

Melqart was facing two of the Frost Giants. Their foes layering blows upon them with their swords- the Golemi was unmoved, standing still, their arms crossed over their chest in obvious contempt. Melqart's defenses were unparalleled- and not a single blow found their mark. When they moved upon their foes, it was like fighting a landslide. A single punch from their stony fist sent one of the giants stumbling back, its jaw broken. A second folded the others knee to the side, only to meet one of Melqart's own right to the face with a savage crack. Given the power behind their blows, none were surprised when it was Melqart who earned their first kill, and a second soon after. 

Things did not go well after that.

The first to die was Dagda. He was in the midst of channeling a second powerful flame spell when, as if conjured from nowhere, a javelin the size of a tree slammed into him with the force of a descending meteor. For all his Emerald rank fortitude, none save for the sturdiest of Sapphire ranked Adventurers could have survived such a blow. Dagda was blown, quite literally, to pieces. Solune howled, watching him die. The distraction did not serve her well, as a fist the size of a bull slammed into her. The priestess was sent careening off, skipping across the earth like a stone over water. When she landed, she did not rise again.

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"Solune! Dagda!"

Gregoir was filled with dread. Their fight had been going so well...what had done this? The Frost Giants...

They were not the strongest.

The being before him...he had never seen anything of its like. It made the Frost Giants look puny, with skin the color of the night sky- and stars twinkling across the canvas of its colossal chest. It looked down at the adventurers who had lain low its generals..

And sneered.

Zaya. Faithful, loyal, friendly Zaya- whose arrows never missed. Zaya, always there with a laugh or a comforting word. She was the next to die, dashed across the rocks. Gregoir, Melqart and Adil backed off, joining together, side to side and back to back. They were battered and bruised, even Melqart- their armor rent and stone skin chipped. They continued to back away, batting away blows from lesser giants as the starry skinned juggernaut advanced. It lashed out with that massive fist, smeared with the blood of Solune. Melqart met it head on, fist to fist. There was a sound like a wall crumbling, as Melqart's arm shattered. They didn't stop, as their arm reformed. Again and again, they met, and again and again Melqart was blown apart, only to reform. 

"Go!"

It was the first time in all the years Gregoir and Adil had known the Golemi that they had spoken. Their voice was beyond deep, tectonic and basal. 

"Go! I will hold it off! Run!"

Gregoir made to refuse, to stand, to fight! But he was arrested by Adil, who pulled him back. Gregoir broke into a run, and he ran. It was only when he was half way across the bridge that he noticed Adil was no longer with him.

He looked over his shoulder, watching Adil chant a spell. Massive scales formed in the air over the cleric's head, and Melqart began to glow. The Golemi had been losing ground, slowly being driven back as they were blown apart more and more. Half of Melqart's body lay scattered in a scree around their feet- but as Adil chanted, they were reformed in whole, and began their defensive onslaught anew. 

"Gregoir!"

He heard Adil roar, voiced amplified by his magic.

"Run! You must hold the gates, warn them all! Run, damn you! RUN!"

So Gregoir ran.

Gregoir Tallis ran. He left his friends to die at the hands of the Star Giant. It would later be recounted that Melqart the Stalwart and Adil Demirgazi held the line for just over five minutes. Five minutes that bought Gregoir time to run to the front lines and warn the Adventurers there. The gathered forces and remaining civilians had been placed safely behind the impregnable walls of Rov by the time that the Star Giant and its remaining forces crossed the bridge.

Of his team, his friends, only Gregoir survived. He carried that guilt with him, and it was on the anniversary of the Battle of Stonebridge that Gregoir Tallis official retired from the Adventurer's Association. The same day he was knighted. 

---

Gregoir let out a long, shaky breath as he finished recounting his tale. His eyes were misty with tears.

"That is why I am no longer an Adventurer, Iris," he said softly. 

Iris had sat in silence, and looked over at the morose Ser Tallis.

"I have served in an administrative capacity for the past thirty years, since then. I patrol the outskirts as well, just in case. The bridge we crossed...it was the very same. Stonebridge, they call it now. Melqart's Bridge, to the Association. Without them..." 

He shook his head. He was about to speak again when Iris walked around the table, and wrapped the old man in a fierce hug. He was shocked into silence- not only by the hug, but by the fact it had been Iris to do so. He had known her only briefly, yet knew she was a very reserved woman. Yet there she now stood, and Gregoir slowly returned the hug.

Ser Tallis had been an excellent teacher for Iris, and had quickly become a friend. He was the first person Iris had met in this world. He had been the one to begin her training, the one to vouchsafe for her membership. She thought of him well- strong, stern, fair. 

She thought all the more of him as he sobbed into her shoulder. 

"They'd be so proud of you, Gregoir," she said softly.

"So, so proud. And I am too."

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