The storm giant’s lips curl into a sneer as he watches Thunk back away, the tiny griffon tucked protectively out of sight against the bugbear’s chest. Ten yards distant, Borark rattles the locked door of the truck with growing frustration, his barbarian strength useless against the mechanism without its key.
The giant holds Kiki pinched in one massive hand like a child’s toy, while the keys to the truck dangle from the enormous fingers of his other hand. He jingles them mockingly, a slight smile playing across his weathered features.
Arman steps forward, hands raised in a gesture of diplomacy. “Would you kindly return the keys?” he asks with careful politeness.
“They’re mine,” Kiki adds desperately from her uncomfortable perch. “I designed this vehicle. I built it.”
The giant lifts the mapach to his eye level and squeezes. Kiki gasps as pain lances through her small body.
“My job,” the giant rumbles belligerently, his voice like distant thunder, “is to guard this valuable truck.”
Arman dashes backward, calling up to the towering figure. “The truck has no value to anyone but its owners!”
In answer, the giant pulls his arm back and attempts to fling Kiki down the tunnel toward Arman. At the last moment, Kiki’s desperate fingers find purchase on the giant’s thumb. The giant shakes his hand violently to knock the artificer loose. Kiki loses her grip, sailing through the air to land with surprising lightness on the truck’s roof.
Reklaw doesn’t hesitate. He races up the distracted giant’s body, fingers and feet finding holds in clothing and armor as he snatches for the keys. His hand closes on empty air. The giant rears back in shock, and the tiny keys tumble from his clumsy grip. Reklaw plucks them from their fall and races to the truck’s door.
Through the side window, he glimpses the still forms of Mr. C, the rooster, and Lula. They appear to be breathing but unconscious. As Reklaw opens the door and slips into the cab, the three figures begin to stir. Borark follows.
The giant strides to the vehicle and begins pounding the back with earth-shaking blows. The chain holding the wrecking ball snaps with a metallic shriek, dropping the heavy iron sphere into the truck bed where it rolls toward the cab with a deafening thump. The giant wheels around to seize the boom from which the ball had hung, and with a lurching heave, begins hauling the entire truck backward.
Borark flings himself from the cab as he passes Kiki, who throws herself inside. The barbarian has his morningstar at the ready as he lands at the feet of the incredibly tall giant, and Borark gives a mighty swing, then another. Despite the impossible difference in their sizes, the barbarian’s momentum knocks the giant backward into the hallway. The massive body blocks the passage completely, trapping Vali and Arman on the wrong side.
As the giant struggles to regain his feet, the two friends race past. Vali throws himself onto the truck. Arman veers, to position himself in front of Thunk and the griffon baby. He puts himself between them and danger.
The giant issues a bellowing cry that echoes through the cavern, then sends a Lightning Bolt crackling toward the truck. From outside, Arman and Thunk hear cries of pain from within the cab as the arcane electrical energies find their marks. Without pause, the giant runs to seize one of the port side ion cannons. With a heave, the giant bends the barrel upward to point at the cavern roof.
The gesture gives Reklaw an idea.
Kiki stomps on the accelerator and the truck spins, its rail gun pointed directly at the giant. She ignites it at the same moment the giant releases another Lightning Bolt. Energy tears through the truck and its passengers. Thunk cries out in anguish as the limp body of the dying baby griffon is shaken loose onto the cabin floor.
The giant receives a glancing blow from the rail gun, allowing Borark to approach and swing his morning star yet again. The giant Misty Steps away, near Arman and his charges, who bolt toward the truck. Frantically, they climb in, followed by Borark, and slam the door closed.
“Point us toward the exit,” Reklaw directs, his voice steady despite the chaos. “Wait for my signal. Then punch it.”
Wide-eyed and gravely wounded, Kiki can only nod.
As Kiki maneuvers the truck, Reklaw summons the elemental energy within himself and focuses it upon the cavern roof above the giant’s head. With a surge of Ki, he releases a blast that brings down an enormous section of stone. The giant disappears beneath dust and rubble, his pained cries drowned out by the squealing of tires as Kiki points the truck down a rough flight of stairs to another cavern.
Inside the truck, Thunk works desperately over the little griffon. When the creature draws a sudden, gasping breath, relief washes through the cab. Thunk sets about casting healing magic, restoring several friends to nearly full health as Kiki drives them onward.
This new cavern is dark and icy cold, filled with ancient ruins. The truck’s headlights illuminate fragments of ghostly walls and crumbling masonry as they navigate the frozen wasteland. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, a man-sized figure appears in the beams ahead. He holds its hand out in a gesture of peace.
Vali gets out to see if he can determine the man’s intentions.
“I am Charybdis,” calls the man. His voice is mild, almost welcoming. “Welcome to my corner of Hell.”
As Vali approaches, he notices the irises of the man’s eyes swirling red in the headlights.
“Charybdis,” Reklaw murmurs from the cab, his brow furrowed. “That was a sea monster in myths I read as a child.”
The color drains from Borark’s cheeks. “Charybdis is a devil who disappears people,” he gasps.
“‘Disappears’ as in leaves with them?” Arman questions.
“‘Disappears’ as in they vanish and are never seen again.”
The friends exchange weighted looks as Vali continues his approach to the man calling himself Charybdis, each step taking him closer to the figure waiting patiently in the frozen dark.
