Act 31.

"Watch it!" cried Margaret and the group dove out of the way as the creature swung a club the size of a tree. It hit the ground where the party had been, leaving a large hole. Dirt rained down on the group.

The Queen scrambled to her feet and grabbed the leader of the mole men and began to heard the others away.

"Champion," she shouted over the cries of the people. "I will take care of these people and get them to safety. See what you can do about this thing."

The creature swung its club and smashed down a wall nearby. Pieces of the wall flew everywhere as well as dust and pebbles. The Queen and the others protected their faces from the flying debris.

"I will, my Queen," Linda answered her. "Keep yourself safe."

"I shall," said the Queen.

She started barking out orders to the people around her and getting them to go where she wanted them to. The people were so frightened that they did not seem to mind being ordered about by a surface dweller.

Linda, Mikako, and Margaret assembled together and moved a little further to get away from the swinging club, choosing to hind behind a broken wall nearby.

"Right," said Linda. "any ideas."

The ground shook with another blow from the club.

"Looks, like the only way we can do any real damage is if we climb him and attack the more venerable parts of him," said Margaret, looking at the creature with the eye of a hunter. "But that is a crazy idea, even for me."

"Not necessarily," said Mikako.

"What do you have in mind?" asked Linda.

"I have a spell that might be useful in this situation," she said. "I can make your grip much like that of the spider. It is not perfect and you could still fall. But your chances of climbing up it will be better."

Margaret and Linda looked at each other.

"What do you think?" asked Margaret.

"It may be worth a try," answered Linda. "I don’t think we can really do any damage to those tree trunks it has for legs. What will you do Mikako?"

"I can keep it distracted enough so that it has a harder time shacking you off," she said.

"Then let’s do it," said Linda.

She and Margaret held out their hands to Mikako. The mage took each of their hands in her’s, one at a time, and mumbled a few words. A small light glowed around their hands and then disappeared.

Linda felt her hands. Nothing felt different.

"You won’t notice a difference until you touch the creature," said Mikako, noticing Linda examining her hands.

"So, how do we get close enough to climb the thing?" asked Margaret.

"Be ready," said Mikako and she left the wall they were hiding behind and stood out in the open. She held her fingers to her lips and whistled. She must have done some small spell, because the whistle could be heard over everything.

The creature turned at the sound and stared straight at Mikako. The creature stood still for a moment, then it raised its club. Just as the creature was about to bring it down on top of her head, Mikako sent a fireball straight at its head.

The flames were brighter and thicker than Linda had ever seen Mikako create. If this was what she was like when she was at full power, then Linda was glad Mikako was on her side.

The Flames engulfed the creatures face and it cried out. It swiped at the flames with its hands, causing it to drop the club.

"Come on," said Linda, and ran for the creature, closely followed by Margaret.

They quickly reached the feet of the creature. Margaret went to the creature’s left side and Linda took its right side. They grabbed hold of the hair that covered the creature.

As soon as she took hold of the hair, Linda felt as if her hands had a coat of glue on them. She began to climb and could see that Margaret had started up as well.

As soon as they started the creature realised what was happening. It turned its head to look at them and then tried to brush them off with its arms and hands.

Linda quickly scampered as fast as she could to the creature’s back to avoid the swipe. She continued climbing its back. Margaret stood her ground and holding on with her hands, she kicked both her legs out and connected with the arm that was coming for her. Her strength must have come as a surprise to the creature as it grunted with the contact and brought the arm up and rubbed the area Margaret had kicked.

The two women scrambled as fast as they could up the creature. It picked up its club and tried to swing at Linda on its back. She flattened herself to the back, and the awkwardness of trying to reach her proved to much for the creature.

The creature cried out and Linda looked up to see that Margaret had taken her sword out and had stabbed the creature in the shoulder. Now it decided that Margaret was the bigger threat and started trying to hit her with its club.

Linda took this opportunity to take out her sword and she stabbed at the creature’s back. she did not have a lot of thrust behind it, seeing as how she was trying to not fall off at the same time, so it did not do a lot of damage, only sunk in a little. She did it a couple of more times and could see that Margaret was also cutting into it. But the creature began to twist its body to try to fling the two off of it.

Linda held on as best she could but realised that if this kept up she would fall off. She was deciding what to do next when she saw Mikako create what looked like a rope made from fire. She shaped it into a lasso and flung it at the creature who was dancing around trying to dislodge the ones attacking it. The rope caught one of the feet around the ankles and Mikako pulled.

The creature lost its balance and started to fall backwards. Linda quickly jump off and rolled away. The creature landed loudly on its back and Linda saw that Margaret had maneuvered herself around so that she fell with the creature in front of her. She landed with her sword point at the creatures neck, and using her strength and the force of the fall, she plunged her sword into the creatures throat. Blood rushed from the wound and Margaret was covered in a sticky black ichor. She quickly removed her sword and got away from the fountain of blood.

The three met and watched as the creature expired. Soon the blood flow stopped and the creature lay still.

Margaret began to wipe the blood from her face and hair as the villagers gathered around to see that their foe had fallen.

The Queen joined the three women, followed closely by the leader.

"You have defeated it," said the leader. "Praise the Mother for having sent you."

The Queen had a sour look on her face.

"What is wrong my queen?" asked Linda.

The Queen turned to the leader and said,

"Tell them how this creature came to be here," she said in her most commanding voice.

"Why, because we summoned it," said the leader.