The Giant's Bane

A FEW MINUTES EARLIER:

The Queen is walking down the hallway with Musha, who has a large, prideful smirk on her face as they stride forward.

They head down a flight of stairs before coming face-to-face with a small horde of giants.

"It seems you are all here. Good. However, the numbers seem a little thin by my count." The Queen notes.

"The quake did a lot of damage, your highness." One of the leaders responds. "Some of our numbers are working to fix the damage, and combine that with those who are injured and those who are healing them."

"Surely our number will be enough to deal with a single mage?" Another leader asks as they chuckle.

The Queen look at the overconfident leader. "But this is not just a measly mage. No, this is Hilfa we're talking about. She is quite possibly the smartest one of us all. If we go in believing that she doesn't have more plans than we have members in our clan, then you are sorely mistaken."

"Combine that with the fact that we know one of you are in league with Hilfa." Musha adds, causing every giant to seemingly freeze in place.

"You think there's a traitor amongst us?!" Another leader asks.

"Of course I do. After all, I wouldn't have survived being Queen this long if I never expected to have some traitors within our midst. This just happens to be the most opportune time for one or more of you to switch sides to try and bolster your station."

The leaders all begin protesting, trying to declare their innocence and loyalty to the Queen. The sea of pleads for belief just becomes white noise for the Queen.

Eventually, the Queen had enough, and so she slams her fist into the wall. "Enough!"

The leaders all immediately clam up, the hallway becoming so quiet that you could hear the squeaking fart of a mouse.

"It's obvious that any traitor to my reign wouldn't come forward right now, and that is what I expected. So, if you wish to prove your loyalty, follow me to the depths and let us uproot this Cult, and show them why our clan is stronger than it has ever been!"

The Queen's speech inspires the leaders and their soldiers as two of them open up the doors and head into the room.

Inside this room is mostly just filled with stuff that they haven't actually moved down to the bottom floor yet, but the Queen and her clan are obviously not there for any of the crates or boxes. The thing that they're all looking for is the elevator that looks like it could hold multiple heavy-duty machines. Aesthetically, it doesn't look much, just simply made out of stone, but the most important part is that they can all fit in.

Fifty giants pile into the massive elevator, amazingly, the Queen towers over them all as she stands at the front with her trusty advisor by her side. The Queen stands firm, her face showing that confidence and bravado that never seems to waver. However, Musha is less confident than her Queen.

"Your highness, are you sure it's a good idea to have your back exposed like this?"

"No one is foolish enough to attempt anything. You may rest easy, Musha." The Queen says in an attempt to comfort her nervous advisor. "Brailson, get us down there!"

"Yes, your majesty!" The giant called Brailson responds as she begins to pull the wheel, beginning their descent into Hilfa's territory.

BACK IN THE CURRENT TIME:

The elevator is making it's way down the floors, passing the halfway mark with another fifteen left to go. The sixteenth floor just passes, and Brailson is working up quite a sweat before the battle even begins. Luckily for her, another giant takes over.

There's a silence amongst the grinding of stone, and it's unnerving. Each giant looks around at the others, wondering if there friend is just that, or if they're one of Hilfa's minions. The fear that a traitor could be amongst them in such a small proximity is unsettling, worrisome, down right terrifying.

However, despite the fears and distrust building within the giants behind her, the Queen isn't even bothered by the prospect of any traitors, in fact, she'd be more bothered if there wasn't any.

"Your majesty, what's the plan for when we reach the bottom?" One of the leaders asks.

Before the Queen can even open her mouth, Musha begins to answer. "Simple. We shall surround Hilfa and give her no quarter. Her magic gives her an advantage, but she is physically weaker than a regular giant, so we must move swiftly and overpower her before she can use any of her spells."

"You're fighting with us, Musha? Never thought I'd see the day." One of the subordinates teases.

"You may wish to mind your words, Helsa. My advisor here is quite the scrappy fighter when it calls for it." The Queen says before chuckling. "You weren't around to see the last time someone attempted to threaten my throne, so you didn't have the chance to see Musha carry the heads of three giants like they were trophies."

Musha feels her cheeks begin to burn red as she looks down, the compliments from the Queen giving her butterflies in her stomach.

Floors twenty through to twenty-six all pass in silence, but things suddenly change as mere seconds after they pass floor twenty-seven, the elevator comes to a sudden halt.

The entire elevator violently shakes upon stopping, causing everyone to quickly steady themselves. The shaking ends almost as quickly as it started, but it's certainly rattled the thirty-five giants inside.

"Brailson, Fierea! What did you two do?!" One of the leaders shouts.

"We did nothing! The damned thing just stopped by itself!" Brailson replies.

"It's Hilfa. She's sabotaged the elevator." The Queen calmly says. "Let's get off and make our way down. We seem to have lost the element of surprise, but she still has no idea of our numbers."

The Queen then steps forward onto the twenty-eighth floor with Musha quickly following behind. The others giants all look at one another, wondering how their Queen is feeling no fear, even after their abrupt stop.

The giants soon follow suit, their worries multiplying as thoughts of potential traitors are now matched with the possibility of Hilfa knowing exactly where they are now, and what she might do to them.

Now, this thirty floor section of the stronghold might be labelled as a multi-story laboratory, but it's definitely nothing like the laboratories of modern times. Glassware sit upon stone shelves, mortar and pestles filled with different coloured powders, and jars of different sizes are sat around, presumably filled with oils or things of that sort.

The giants are careful with their movements, trying their best to not knock anything over, although there has been a few close calls so far.

"My Queen, if Hilfa was the one who stopped the elevator, aren't we currently following the path she wants us to follow?" A giant asks.

"That we are. However, it is better to walk a path towards a trap that we know is ahead than to remain still while the unknown trap walks towards you."

"Personally, I'd prefer to avoid the fucking trap in the first place." Another giant says, earning some laughter amongst her peers.

As the other giants are laughing, those words seem to not have had the same effect on Musha. "To avoid something makes you a coward. You only grow when facing challenge head on."

The Queen laughs. "Wise words from Musha's mother. She was a proud giant, and just as fierce too. I have never seen a woman look so graceful whilst being so perpetually pissed off all the time. She also had the biggest set of breasts I have ever seen."

The giants laugh at that last line, and even Musha wishes to laugh, but she decides to fight back. "Your highness! I humbly ask that you keep my mothers breasts out of your mouth."

Musha's mind quickly catches up to her mouth, and her face immediately turns red as the realization of what she has just blurted out hits her. The giants all begin laughing a little louder than they wished to, but the Queen is fine with letting them enjoy it, especially since they are walking into a trap.

The Queen has also noticed that Musha's face is beet red, and with that, she decides to tease her. "You know, Musha, you keep giving orders like that and I'll begin to think that you wish to be Queen."

Musha's face goes from red to sickly pale in the blink of an eye. "N-n-no, your highness! I-I-I would never dream of taking your place! The best moments of my life have been by your side!"

The Queen chuckles as she puts her hand on Musha's shoulder. "I know you wouldn't, Musha. It is why you are my most trusted friend among this entire world."

Upon hearing those words, Musha's eyes widen, sparkling with delight of not just being an advisor, but being recognised as a friend. Unfortunately for Musha, the word friend is a double-edged sword, scratch that, it's more like a spinning wheel of knives currently lodged in her heart.

As Musha is having her crisis of the heart, the Queen leans in once again. "And don't worry, I'll be sure to keep your mothers breasts out of my mouth from now on. After all, those aren't the pair I wish to put my mouth on."

With those words, the Queen begins walking ahead, leaving a very confused Musha a few steps behind. Her mind has come to a complete standstill. She couldn't believe the Queen would just admit to something like that to her. Musha quickly begins to think about whom the Queen could be referring to whilst simultaneously planning on how to carefully dispose of them.

Musha can imagine it now, the Queen and whoever she was referring to, flirting away without a care in the world. The Queen carefully moves the hair out of the giant's face while looking at her with heart eyes. The thought of that alone makes Musha's stomach twist and ache. That jealously and anger beginning to bubble in her stomach like a torrent of vomit waiting for the call from the body to fire forth.

Just the image of the Queen doing cute couple shit with someone other than her just makes her angrier than she's ever felt before. Unfortunately, Musha's mind continues to torment her as she thinks about the Queen flirting with her supposed interest. It's only after thinking about flirting when Musha is finally brought out of her angry state of mind as she thinks about flirting, or more specifically, what the Queen just said to her.

There was no way that the Queen was just flirting with her... right?

No, nope, no way. Musha immediately pushes that thought out of her head. There's no way in any of the hells that the Queen would be flirting with Musha, especially after just declaring her a friend just moments prior, but then again, the Queen does know how to press buttons in order to get what she wants, so is this another example of that? If that's the case, then what is it that she wants? Did the Queen want to just fluster Musha? Does she want Musha to know that she has a love interest in mind? Or maybe... this potential love interest and Musha are one and the same.

Still walking ahead, the Queen is still smirking because of Musha's reaction, it had been the one she was aiming to get after all. Musha had the habit of speaking before thinking sometimes, and the Queen will never pass up the opportunity to turn her most trusted advisor as red as a tomato. "The blush does really compliment her natural beauty." The Queen thinks to herself as she continues toward the stairwell that is finally mere steps ahead.

Finally, as they begin descending the stairs, the Queen, Musha and the accompanying giants head towards the final floor. The descent itself is unnerving due to the quiet that surrounds them just like the brisk air from the freezing cold stone all around them.

They carefully walk down the stairs, anticipating another trap at any moment. Eyes rapidly dart around, looking for any sort of sign or sigil of a magic trap laying in wait for them, but they haven't spotted anything thus far.

One for the giants continues looking around, her heart close to pounding out of her chest. The quiet isn't doing much to help that either, but she doesn't want to be the one to break it. Unfortunately for the woman, because she's so distracted, she crashes into the wall after forgetting to turn whilst looking at something that looked suspicious. She immediately steps back, holding her forehead as she lets out a groan.

One of her fellow giants just manages to stifle a laugh. "Watch where yer going, ya clumsy fool. You alright?"

The second giant doesn't hear a response back, and is curious about why. She then turns to her friend and places a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

The giant who hit her head looks at the other woman, a little surprised after suddenly a hand on her shoulder. She then looks up at the second giant and sees her mouth moving, but no words are coming out.

"Hey, what's wrong? Ya give yourself brain damage or something?" The second giant asks in jest, but there is concern behind it. That concern quickly grows even more as the first giant begins to speak, but while her mouth moves, not even a whisper leaves her lips.

"Oh shit, I didn't mean that literally! Hey! We've got a problem back here!" The second giant calls out to her friends, but none of them turn around, actually, none of them even register her at all.

The woman quickly looks back to her friend who is obviously just as freaked out as she is. In a **** attempt, she grabs the first giant by both her shoulders and asks, "Hey! Can you hear me?!"

The first giant's eyes move down towards the second's lips, obviously trying to read them. After a few seconds, the giant tries to speak, but still no voice is heard.

Both giants look at each other with panicked expressions as they come to a singular realization. Quickly, they begin to gather the attention of all the giants. It's like a rapid domino effect of hands on shoulders before eventually it's Musha getting the Queen's attention.

The Queen turns around, wondering what's wrong, and that's when she sees all the giants panicking. The Queen looks around, seeing rapid hand signals from one giant to the next, trying to communicate.

The Queen is obviously confused at this, so she decides to gather all of their attention. "What are you all doing?!"

The Queen waits for a moment, but is shocked to see that all the giants, including Musha, have seemingly ignored her. This rattles the Queen a little, growing used to having everyone hang on every syllable that leaves her lips day-in and day-out.

The Queen sees the giants trying to talk to one another, but no voices can be heard. Immediately, she recognizes what is happening to them all.

Hilfa has used a ward of silence on the stairwell.

Admittedly, the Queen is impressed with Hilfa's ingenuity, and she actually has to commend her former head mage. Unfortunately for Hilfa, she's on the wrong side of the Queen's favour, so the only thing she's going to get is a sword slicing her head clean off.

The Queen sees her soldiers all worrying about the lack of noise, and so, the Queen raises her hand, gathering the attention of her horde.

Once all eyes are on the Queen, she quickly thinks of a way to try and communicate with her subjects. Luckily for the Queen, she's currently got a big ass sword, and a wall that's ready to relay her message.

About two minutes later, the Queen removes the tip of her sword from the wall and points towards her work. The message is simple enough for all the giants to understand. On the wall reads one single word,

'WARD.'

The giants all begin to understand their predicament, and begin to calm down, if only a little. Unfortunately, the fear of Hilfa picking them off one-by-one in complete silence, unbeknownst to the others until they're eventually picked off is horrifying, but they can't focus on fear right now.

They begin to follow the Queen again, but they place a hand on the shoulder of the giant in front of them, trying to avoid being silently taken out.

The Queen carefully continues forward, but feels a little bit of comfort upon feeling Musha's hand on her shoulder. There's a part of her that wants to put her hand on top of Musha's, but her hands have to remain on the hilt of her sword, just in case.

They traverse down past the twenty-ninth floor, but they still don't hear any noise. Step by step, they move further and further down, feeling their fear building as they do.

Finally, they come to the last set of stairs, seeing the door to the last floor, but while there's the hope that this eerie silence will be gone once they go through that door, there's also the fear since they know that Hilfa is waiting behind that rectangular steel.