Drakon was a Frost Giant Sub Chieftain. Or now a Chieftain, since his boss went with those foolish Gnomes to watch their northern cousins show off their newest inventions.
The Gnomes held the event once every five years, showcasing their ingenuity and advancements, but something had gone horribly wrong this time. Those pompous pests had somehow opened a portal to the fire elemental plane and burned everyone attending the event to death. Even the mighty Frost Giant Chieftains weren't safe from the raging inferno.
Being the second in command for each tribe, who normally took care of the tribe while the leader was away, Drakon was left to clean up the mess and appoint his own successor. He was a strong Giant, over a century old and truly Mythic, both awakening and in the body. His tribe fell in line with minimal smashing once they realized the big boss was really gone and that he wasn't trying to usurp the old Giant's position, so Drakon was free to take revenge that very same day.
He had started with the Gnomes that were left behind in his village, the unwanted ones who couldn't get a ride to the Northern Continent. Their species had betrayed the Giants, and the punishment for betrayal was enslavement. Death was too good for traitors. The giants ordered them to toil in the fields and the mines along with working in the shops for no pay, doing all the things his tribe didn't want to do.
In reality, the only thing that changed was the pay, these Gnomes were already working the crappiest jobs in society, or they would have been invited by their neighbors to accompany them to the technology festival.
For many, it was actually an improvement. Giants didn't really understand Gnomish food portions, so they simply gave them a quarter ration a day, feeling justified, since these were slaves and traitors. Only, a quarter of a giant's ration a day was enough to feed a family of gnomes quite well. The food might not be of the highest quality, but for the abused and mistreated apprentices, sanitation workers, and deep-pit miners, it was better than they were used to.
Drakon had searched an entire quarter of the Western Continent for Gnomes, taking weaker tribes under his banner, now that the strong leaders that had allowed them to remain independent were all dead.
But someone was hiding the little traitors. Where he found Gnomish cities, they were all but empty. Farms were mostly abandoned, leaving only one or two farmhands to mind them.
The slaves he captured insisted that the others had all gone to the Northern Continent and had died in an accident, but Drakon was no fool. How would they allow themselves to be killed while they assassinated all the leaders of the Frost Giants?
Clearly, someone was hiding the traitors, and if he didn't find them on the Northern Continent, he would scour the other continents bare until he found all the traitors and made sure they were properly punished.
His Ice Elemental had detected large amounts of Fire Element on the Central Continent, so Drakon had thought the Gnomes might be hiding there. But when he arrived all he found was an army of demons. It was their hellfire that the Elemental had found, and in their rage, his scouts attacked the insipid creatures, thinking that if they were dead they couldn't mess with the search for the Gnomes anymore.
The Demons had backup though, in the form of an Ancient. How long that evil species had been back for was of no consequence, but if the Ancients were siding with the Demons, Drakon would leave them for last, after he had built his power up as high as it could go.
Drakon was certain that he was the strongest being on the planet at the moment, with the Spirit Quality armor that he got from the Guardian Quest. With that mighty armor on, nothing could hurt him, he was the hero that the Frost Giants and all their underlings could rely on to hold them up if they were attacked.
This wasn't his week though. As soon as they were out of his aura range, the Lesser Giants reverted to pure stupidity, and randomly attacked everything they came across, thinking that it might be hiding Gnomes. Even the Elven ships had been attacked, and Drakon had specifically told them that the Blue Elves on boats didn't get work with the tiny traitors.
The green ones in the trees might though. You never could trust creatures that climbed trees, every Frost Giant knew that.
Drakon was working out a scouting grid when news came in from a scout group that went much further around the coast of the Northern Continent, towards the Central Continent. They had found Gnomes. Three of them were locked inside a warehouse in a port city.
The Ettins on the patrol team wanted to eat them, but they knew that the big boss would smash their heads in if they killed the slaves before they could suffer, so they had them tied up and they were heading back to the Western Continent.
The humans in the city had been very helpful. They had a Mage with them who was extra smart, and he asked the humans where to find Gnomes instead of attacking. The humans just told them, they didn't even have to fight, just walk over and grab them. It was an incredibly bright plan, and the Ettin Mage was certain that big boss Drakon would reward them well when they returned.
Drakon could only sigh at their idiocy. They didn't even check the rest of the city for Gnomes. If there were three, there were bound to be more of them hiding, that's why he sent a raiding party, not to grab the first ones they saw and head home for dinner.
But three was more than zero, and they were the first ones to find the Gnomes' hiding places, so they would get a reward, and then Drakon would send along a proper raiding force to search the area for the rest of the little traitors.
