Once there was a mighty warrior.  He lived by the sword, as most warriors do.  This particular warrior had gained fame for never having retreated from a battle.  Indeed, he had never been known to even take a single step backwards during his battles.  A step back was the first step, in his mind, to defeat.  This fearless warrior wandered the lands, defeating all manner of foes, earning a reputation for his prowess.

  One day this warrior came across a town that had been set upon by a minion of chaos.  The townsfolk all fled whenever this monster came lumbering too close.  The warrior liked the sound of this foe; a worthy way to show these townsfolk that retreat leads only to ruin.

  The monster, he was told, made its home, as is oft the case, in the nearby woods.  The warrior tried to obtain more specific detail, but none were brave enough in the town to even show him the woods where the monster dwelt.  Undaunted, the warrior used his tracking skills to determine where it was his prey could be found.

  Following the bits of cloth, heavy footprints, and stench into the woods, it was not long at all before the warrior found his foe - A very massive and particularly foul-smelling Fomorian Horror.  The monster was as wide as it was tall, a truly massive minion of the dark.

  The behemoth was some ways away when it saw the Warrior.  It began to lumber forward, making all sorts of hideous sounds and smells as it approached.  The Warrior smirked, held his breath, and planted his feet firmly on the ground, readying his sword.

  As the Horror lumbered into range, the warrior stabbed a mighty thrust into the Fomorian's belly.  More than enough, he thought, to vanquish such a foe.  The Warrior withdrew his blade and looked up at the Horror to see the mask of death come over its face.

  ...But the Horror continued to lumber forwards, raising its arms.  The warrior was shocked! He swung his sword around to land a blow against the massive limbs as they approached, but his blade became wedged in the bone, and the Horror continued to bear down upon the Warrior.

  Before the Warrior knew what happened, the Horror had fallen on top of him, pinning him to the ground with its massive weight, leaving only his head and one hand free.  The weight of the beast was compressing his armor into his chest, and breathing was becoming increasingly difficult.

  The warrior tried to work his way free, but could not manage to do so.  He heard the pounding of the Horror's heart against his armor and some sort of chuckling noise escaping its body.  The vile fiend, thought the warrior, it uses its disgusting folds of putrid flesh to smother its prey to death!

  The Warrior continued his struggle in vain, trying hard to take breaths.  He tried rapping his one free gauntlet on the ground, to make some noise to attract some aid...  Some time passed before the warrior saw a strange sight...  A two-armed monster was approaching...

  This beast was something the warrior had never seen before in his travels.  Both its arms protruded from the same sleeve, and it walked upon the palms of its misshapen hands, which were clad in massive leather gloves that were twined between its stubby fingers.

  Such a strange sight, thought the warrior.  He tried once again to rap his gauntlet to communicate, for his chest was too compressed for him to speak.  Hearing the sound, the two-armed monster fled.

  The warrior's heart sank, and he continued his attempts to breathe.  Soon thereafter, the two-armed beast returned, with friends.  A whole host of these strange two-armed beasts, some with one sleeve, some with two, all strangely dancing about on thickly gloved elongated hands.

  The two-arms began to fan around the warrior and the Horror, and began to poke him with sticks.  The warrior tried to yell, tried to rap his gauntlet, tried everything to get these.. things.. to stop.  Tears began to flow from his eyes, as this was no way for a mighty warrior to meet his end.

  Suddenly, the Horror rose up off of the Warrior, rolling to one side of his crumpled body.  The Warrior continued to moan and swing his one good arm as the villagers put down their prying sticks and lifted his badly wounded body onto a cart to ferry back to town for treatment.

  Sages of the town studied the corpse of the Horror, concluding that the beast had been killed by the first blow.  They could not fathom what had possessed the warrior to simply stand under it as it fell.

  The Warrior was given the best care the town had to offer, and they tried to impress upon him a valuable lesson:

Retreat does not always lead to defeat.