They found Rakthar first.
Like most of the monsters, he was nocturnal. He did most of his eating at night, during which times he would devour any animal or human that came across his path. But during the daytime, he attempted to hide himself.
Of course, it’s always difficult to hide yourself completely when you’re a six foot monster. He had dug a hole in the ground, and made an attempt to cover it with leaves. (The monsters were, for the most part, very fast diggers, and so could construct shelters for themselves very quickly.) The locator spell allowed Catherine and Vivian to track the monster down to his hole, and they flew through the air directly to his location, at which point they lowered themselves down to the ground.
Flying through the air is of course perfectly possible for those magically gifted, but it does involve a lot of constant chanting to keep themselves levitated, and to direct in which direction they want to go. It requires an effort of concentration which can be difficult to maintain for long periods of time, and so it can be somewhat draining on the mind, not to mention tiring on the voice and mouth to keep up the chant. It’s no wonder that most wizards and sorcerers choose to walk from place to place, even though they could fly if they wanted to.
Once they arrived at the place, they had little trouble locating the hole. The locator spell had given them a good idea of where it would be, and Catherine was able to spot the pile of leaves that did a poor job of concealing the hole. She kicked the leaves aside to reveal the hole going down into the ground.
“Now,” said Catherine, “Rakthar is one of the monsters who is resistant to magic. He doesn’t have the power of casting magical spells himself, but he can’t be harmed by magical spells. So we can’t transform him into a mouse. And we can’t inflict damage on his skin with lacerating spells. But you can still indirectly attack him with magic. For example, you can use magic to make his stupid hole collapse, if you want.”
“Will that hurt him?”
“It will annoy him. And it will probably bring him to the surface to fight, which is what we ultimately want. Now, there are a couple different spells we can use here. There’s a dirt moving spell, which I think you already know, actually, so let’s not do that. I want to focus on learning new things--let’s go with something a little bit more complicated--there actually is a collapsing spell. It’s commonly used if you’re in a castle or a great hall or something and you want to bring the ceiling collapsing down on all the guests. It’s a simple enough spell, but it’s usually directed up at something. In this case, however, we want to collapse the tunnel below us, so it will require a bit of an adjustment. Let’s see how skilled you are at conjugating your spells. I’m going to give you the spell in its basic form, and I want you to work through the adjustment in the grammar that you would have to make in order to direct it to something below instead of something above. Repeat after me, slowly first.”
Catherine gave the spell to Vivian, and Vivian made the necessary adjustments in the spell’s grammar so that it referred to something below. She mouthed it slowly, but did not chant it yet, so that the magic did not take full effect.
“Now,” said Catherine, “I’m going to let you in on the real secret here. The adjustment of the spell’s grammar is really only half of it. But there are any number of things that are below you, and in order to focus the spell exactly, you need to channel the energy with your mind. You can use your arms to help you--point the arms down at the ground, right where you think the tunnel is, and then bring them together to… Yes, that’s it!” Catherine yelled approvingly, once she saw Vivian was making the correct gestures. “Yes, you’re getting it. Okay, now start the chant. Focus your energy. Move your arms. That’s it! Good.”
There was a rumbling of the ground beneath them, and some of the ground actually sank slightly. Catherine and Vivian both had to steady themselves to keep from falling over. “Looks like we’ve got his tunnel,” said Catherine. “Now is he going to stay buried in the dirt, or is he going to come out and fight us?”
“Can he stay buried in the dirt?”
Catherine shrugged. “Some of them can. Some of them don’t need to breathe. Other monsters do. They come in all kinds and types, these monsters. But my guess is that Rakthar will--”
There was a loud rumbling sound, and suddenly dirt blew upwards a few meters from where they were staying. Rakthar had emerged.
“Okay, now remember what I told you,” Catherine said to Vivian. “This should be pretty easy. Keep your protective shield around you, and use the levitation to fly around the monster. But be careful, if you’re doing both of those chants at once, it’s very difficult to integrate a third chant, so if you want to pick something up to attack the monster with, you’d have to drop your shield, and that’s…”
“...that’s what got Talon killed.”
“Exactly. So just use the magic sword instead. You shouldn’t need anything else. The speed you’ve drunk as a potion, so it’s already been absorbed by your body. You don’t need a chant for the super speed. Just use the magic sword and cut him to pieces.”
“What magic sword is this you speak of?” the monster asked in his deep rumbling voice.
“You’ll find out soon enough, Rakthar,” Catherine said. “But first, it’s only fair that we give you a chance to yield first.”
The monster laughed. “Me? Yield to you?”
Catherine looked at Vivian. “It’s hardly fair, is it? He hasn’t yet seen you in action. Of course he doesn’t want to yield.” Catherine turned back to Rakthar. “Rakthar, would you be willing to pause for a demonstration? I promise this is for your benefit, and it will only take a few seconds.”
“A demonstration?” The monster had such a deep and rumbling voice that it was difficult to convey expressive emotions. But it definitely was sounding incredulous now. “You want me to watch a demonstration?”
Catherine rolled her eyes and turned back to Vivian. “It would probably be quicker to just do it than to argue with him about it. Especially with your super speed.” Then Catherine called out to Rakthar. “Rakthar, do you see that large rock over there? Watch closely what Vivian does to it, and watch how fast she does it.” Catherine then nodded to Vivian. “Okay dear, make sure you let him see how fast you can move!”
And with the super fast potion, Vivian sprang into action. Her feet and hands were blurs as she went lightning fast through the air, and with her magic sword, cut the rock into pieces.
“Did you see that, Rakthar?” Catherine asked. “Did you see her speed? And make no mistake, this is a magic sword. It will cut through even you. We call on you again to yield to us. You will find our terms to be--.”
“Enough talking!” the beast said, and it lowered its head and charged.
“Alrigh,t you're on,” Catherine said to Vivian. Catherine was talking quickly because they only had a few seconds left. “Keep your protective shield up, use your super speed. Cut off his horns first as a warning and see if that brings him to his senses.”
The beast charged quickly, but Vivian was quicker. With a swipe of her sword, she had cut its horns completely off, and then stepped out of the way to avoid the charge.
It took the creature a moment to realize what had happened to itt. “My horns! But how did you…”
“I told you,” said Catherine. “It’s a magic sword. Now yield, I beg of you. We take no desire in cutting you to pieces when you are so defenseless against us. There’s no sport in it.”
Catherine knew those last words would just enrage the monster, but at this point she didn’t care. To her mind, she had already given the monster ample opportunity to surrender. It wasn’t in her nature to plead forever.
“I’ll show you who is defenseless!” The monster roared.
“Finish him off!” Catherine said to Vivian.
Before the monster even knew what was happening, Vivian had completed her move (at super speed) and the monster’s head had been cut off from its body. But this didn’t kill the monster. The headless body began searching around the forest floor for its head. While the body was searching around, Catherine addressed the head on the forest floor.
“Rakthar, be reasonable,” she said. “We don’t want to waste all day cutting you up like this. Can’t you see you can’t win against us? Now I’m sure we can come to terms. All we want is some sort of promise not to eat the other creatures in the forest. That’s all!”
“I will kill you all, humans,” said the monster’s head.
“Well, Vivian, there’s no point in prolonging this any further. I’m not sure there’s a way to kill this kind of monster, but you can use your sword and cut him into as many different pieces as you can. Then we’ll scatter those pieces about the forest. It won’t kill him per se… he could always theoretically reform himself if he managed to get all his pieces back together, but I doubt it would be in our lifetime.” Catherine turned back to head on the floor. “Okay, last chance Rakthar. You are aware of what we are capable of, are you not?”
The monster simply growled, showed his teeth, and said, “Humans, you know as well as I do that you cannot kill me. Chop me up, scatter my pieces around the forest, if you will, but I will reform myself. It is only a matter of time. And then, once I do, I will destroy all of you. I will make all your worst nightmares come true. I will grind your bones into dust, and use that dust to bake my bread. I will--.”
While the monster was still talking, Catherine turned impatiently to Vivian. “What are you waiting for? I can’t listen to him talk this nonsense all day!”
Vivian, as it happened, was just as eager to shut the monster up as Catherine was. Although the thought of chopping him into bits sounded disgusting and macabre to her, at the same time the monster’s deep growly voice sent shivers of fear down her spine, and his gruesome threats were causing her to be even more scared. She wanted the monster silenced quickly. She took her sword out of its sheath once more, and charged forward. Her arms were just a blur, as with her super-speed, she cut the monster down into tiny bits.
In a few minutes, the work was done. There was scarcely a piece of the monster left that was larger than an acorn. But the pieces did not seem to be still. They were quivering, and seemed to be slowly moving to reform themselves into one creature.
“Right,” said Catherine. “Let’s bury some of him in the ground here. And let’s scatter the rest of him around the forest. I’ll take half of him and scatter it to the West, you take half of him and scatter it along the forest to the East. Put some in the rivers, some in the ground, some in the trees, and some in the caves. And let’s save some of him to keep in a glass bottle inside of the castle.”
“Do we have to keep some of him inside the castle?” asked Vivian. “He was so horrid, the thought of keeping even a small piece of him in our castle gives me the creeps.”
“I know,” said Catherine. “But it’s the best way to make sure he doesn’t ever reform himself within our lifetime. We’ll hold pieces of himself captured in glass, so they can’t rejoin the rest of him. Just to be extra safe. I don’t like leaving anything to chance. Now come on and help me scatter the pieces.”
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