He grabbed everything useful from inside the shed.   Several lengths of rope, his father’s tools and workbench with clamps, more lengths of chain.  There were boxes of nails and screws, and a hydraulic nail gun, which he left behind.   He grabbed a full-sized axe and a hatchet, as well as a gas-powered chainsaw.  When he lifted that, he had visions of slicing through the titan’s tendons and making the thing fall on its face.

Once he had loaded all those items onto the trailer, he went back to the house.  He found most of the kitchen was smushed flat.  The titan had stepped directly on top of that room.  The doorway to the basement was gone, but after he cleared some debris, he found the stairs still intact.  Moving downward, he sighed in relief.  The basement was nearly untouched.  Still in disarray after the octopoid’s rampage, but undamaged by the weight of the titan.  The only visible damage was a foot of water from leaking pipes above.   He made a mental note to organize a group to turn off all the water valves in town.

Descending into the water, he waded over to his highest priority item.  The gun safe.  His father was a collector of rifles and shotguns.  The safe was three feet wide and seven feet tall.  Inside were two racks, upper and lower, filled with weapons.  A shelf under each held boxes of ammunition.  More ammunition was stacked on top of the safe.

Laying an old blanket out on the even older sofa, he began to stack the weapons.  Then he rolled up the blanket and used some twine to tie it into a bundle.  While he had the twine, he looped some around his spear near both ends, the line between allowing him to sling it over his shoulder, almost like a bow.  The ammo all went into his father’s old footlocker.   Grabbing the footlocker by its end handle with one hand, and with the bundle of weapons under his other arm, he began to ascend the stairs.

Just two steps up, he froze.  A snuffling sound from above came to him.  Followed by the sound of shifting debris in the kitchen.   He stood completely still, holding his breath as he listened.  The snuffling grew closer.  If something had caught his scent, it would appear at the stop of the stairs any second.

He very carefully retreated down the one step he’d already climbed, then quietly set down the chest and bundle.  Unfortunately, the rifles clacked together inside the bundle as he set them down, and a startled growl echoed down from above.  He quickly unslung his spear and held it at the ready.

A canine head with a bloody snout appeared at the top of the steps.  Standing in the sunlight, Allistor doubted it could see him well in the comparative darkness of the basement.  He took a second to Examine it.

Canid

Level 4

Health 650/650