This would, Darien realized, be much easier if he wasn’t bleeding. As it was, though, the red smear dripping from his smashed shoulder and onto his gauntlets was making his grip on his rapier tenuous at best. At worst, he was going to drop it, and the next time the hulking ogre swung at him, he was most likely going to lose a limb or three. Which, Darien mused as he ducked under the whistling club, would not be terribly conductive to living through this. Not that that was incredibly likely anyway, all considered. This was a very large and very angry ogre. Darien gritted his teeth and thrust the rapier at the ogre’s bulging paunch.

For such an enormous beast, the ogre was surprisingly agile. It lumbered back, dodging Darien’s thrust. Grinning, it hefted its ironshod club. Darien began to panic. This was not what he had had in mind when he had cut the ogre’s purse strings—no, not at all. He’d been after coins, not painful, somewhat fatal bludgeonings. But, this seemed to be just his particular kind of luck; the bad kind. Darien emitted a noise which was either manic laughter or the sound a frog makes when squeezed.

“Little man getting tired, eh?” grunted the ogre. “Good! Thag make little stealing man into little tasty snack!”

“Oh, shut your great stinking maw, you lummox,” Darien said, panting. The ogre, insulted, for he thought he had quite pleasant hygiene (the lady ogres seemed to agree, too), proceeded to charge, snarling. “Hellfire,” Darien managed to squeak out before he rolled to the ground. The club landed inches from his head, leaving a small crater. Scrambling awkwardly to his feet, Darien considered his options. They seemed to consist of two things. The first would be the sort of option which would inspire the most insipid of bardic poetry. It also involved dying. The second option involved running like hell.

Darien ran, justifying his decision by the rationalization that very few bards came anywhere near ogre-infested mountains anyway. The ogre gave chase, naturally, but Darien was pleased to discover that male humans, even with smashed shoulders, ran faster than overweight ogres. Some time later, when the bellows of the ogre had faded away somewhat, Darien slumped down against a convenient tree.

He shifted uncomfortably. There seemed to be something large and pointy between him and the ground. Darien moved a bit to the side, rooting around in the leaf mulch covering the forest floor. Soon enough, he discovered the large pointy thing, and brushed it off.

“Bloody…” he breathed.

He had discovered an emerald as big as his fist. What is more, the emerald was grinning at him. Quite distinctly grinning, actually, complete with a wide pair of lips and many small green teeth. For the second time in as many hours, Darien panicked.

“Don’t worry,” said the emerald. “I don’t bite.”

Darien mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Really now, my dear, relax! We’re going to be such good friends!” The emerald bared its tiny teeth.

Darien fainted.

(Worth continuing, or just fun fluff?)