The first sign was the silence. In the Thundarr Forest, even the stone mountain region breathed with life—wind through needle leaves, insects ticking beneath bark, distant water moving through rock. When Rita stepped onto the narrow forest path that morning, the silence felt wrong, as if the planet itself were holding its breath. She paused, brushing a strand of hair from her face, and told herself it was nothing more than nerves.
She never saw him at first. The Stonemaster did not announce himself with a roar or thunder. He rose slowly from the ground, a seven-foot-tall mass of grey stone and fractured earth, his body shaped like a soilmen male but carved by time and pressure. When his eyes opened, white light seeped from the cracks, and the forest floor hardened beneath his feet. Rita ran.
She fled downhill, boots slipping on gravel and roots, her heart hammering as she glanced back over her shoulder. That was when she saw him fully—arms outstretched, stone fingers flexing, each step cracking the earth. Dust followed him like a living shadow. Her breath caught, not just from fear, but from disbelief. He looked ancient, as though he had always been part of the mountain and had only now decided to move.
She stumbled into a clearing and collapsed onto what she thought was a harmless rock, resting her chin in her hand as she forced herself to calm down. The stone beneath her was warm. Too warm. Below her, unseen, a pair of dim white eyes slowly opened within the cracks. By the time she sensed the danger, it was too late. Stone crept up her legs and arms like a spreading frost, rough and cold, stealing movement, stealing breath, until Rita stood frozen forever in surprise, a perfect stone echo of herself.
Faro arrived moments later, drawn by instinct and the faint hum of the Ring of Falcon. He saw Rita first, standing motionless among the trees, her face locked in a moment of fear. Then the ground shifted. The Stonemaster rose again, whole and towering, turning toward Faro with a grinding sound like boulders scraping together.
Faro did not hesitate. The ring flared, releasing a white beam that slammed into the creature’s chest. Stone shattered outward, fragments flying through the air, but the Stonemaster did not fall. He answered with his curse. Faro felt it immediately—his skin hardening, veins turning to cracks, one side of his body stiffening into stone. Pain burned through him, but he stood his ground, teeth clenched, refusing to stop.
The ring shifted hue, glowing orange, brighter than before. Faro roared and unleashed everything he had. The beam tore through the Stonemaster, splitting him apart from the inside. The giant froze mid-step, fissures racing across his body, and then he shattered completely, collapsing into hundreds of small stones that clattered harmlessly across the forest floor.
The silence returned, but this time it felt peaceful.
Stone flaked from Faro’s arm, then from Rita’s face. Color returned, breath returned, movement returned. Rita staggered forward as the last of the stone fell away, and Faro dropped to one knee, exhausted but alive. For a long moment, they simply looked at each other, surrounded by scattered rubble that had once been a living terror.
The forest exhaled. Leaves stirred. Birds returned.
Somewhere beneath the soil, the smallest fragments of the Stonemaster sank back into the mountain, waiting.