Carefully, Jim used his small rune chisel to scratch the Glyph combination that he and Barny had settled on onto his arrows.

"Fire rune," he muttered to himself when he finished before starting on the next one. "Expel rune. And to end off, Force rune."

As the last connection line formed under his chisel, Jim used Examine on the arrow and was pleased with the new description.

Explosive Arrow: This arrow has been carved with a Glyph of Explosion. The Rune Combination which forms the Glyph causes the arrow to violently explode in fire upon impact with a target. Use carefully.

"Nice," Jim grinned to himself before settling more comfortably on the bench outside the Cartographer's Guild building. "Now I just need to do that another fifty-nine times. I'll be done by lunch."

Grabbing another arrow from the full quiver that he'd purchased from Merry and her General Store, Jim carefully began to carve his Glyph combination into another arrow as he tuned out the sounds of the city bustling around him.

"Finally done," he muttered happily to himself as he massaged his cramping hand. "Sixty Explosive Arrows to kill two trolls. This might be overkill."

"I doubt it." a woman's voice answered him from the side. "Trolls are difficult to kill at the best of times and even if you manage to hit one in the head with those arrows, there's no guarantee that it'll stay down."

"That's true, I guess," Jim sighed in agreement at the words of the secretary and Guildmaster of the Cartographer's Guild. "Sucks that I won't be able to snipe the things from the bushes though."

"A bit, though a tree might work out," she said, rocking in the wooden chair on the porch of the building. "I recommend that you bring some lamp oil with you."

"Why?" Jim asked.

"So you can set the bodies on fire and confirm that they're not getting back up," she said matter-of-factly. "Only takes one time seeing a friend killed by a troll that everyone thought dead before you're carrying all the things you need to set fire to the whole forest with you everywhere. Though most just learn a spell or two for that."

"Magic's not really my thing," Jim said with a frown. "From what I've been told the whole thing is a giant pain in the ass."

"And yet you're starting to practice the school of magic that most widely agree has an infinite number of uses and combinations," she pointed out. "Curious."

"Just because I don't want to sling spells, doesn't mean that I'm going to be left in the dust because I'm not using magic," Jim defended himself. "Besides, this rune stuff isn't the sort of magic that I'm leery about using, it takes more study and practice to figure it all out and offers what feels like more constrained freedom."

"'Constrained freedom?'" the Guildmaster muttered to herself. "You mean that you can do whatever you want with it as long as you stay inside the hard rules that govern it? I like that."

"Well Guildmaster," Jim stood before he strapped his second quiver to his waist, "it was nice to talk with you, but I've got to get going."

"Good luck, Jim," she said with a wave of her hand. "And no one calls me 'Guildmaster.' They use my name, Janet Alcott."

"I'll keep that in mind, Janet," he said with a grin before stepping off the building's porch and moving to the market for some flasks of oil.

Stepping carefully, Jim retraced his steps through the trees as he moved toward where the trolls that had killed him were making their new home. The forest was still silent around him, but he thought that there might have been an air of expectation, as though the land were holding its breath while he went about his business.

Stopping at a tree that offered him an excellent view of the rock pile the trolls were living under, Jim looked carefully around the clearing to make sure that no trolls were waiting for him and to see if there were any smaller trolls running around the area.

"If they're getting ready to mate, then I'm still in time to take care of this without having to deal with that," Jim muttered to himself. His initial scouting done, he scaled a large tree and, after settling himself, pulled out the toy he'd bought in the market.

Carefully, he twisted the key until it clicked and then he tossed it into the area outside the rocks as the small carving of an Orc in armor began to bang the two metal plates in its hands together. The racket filled the air quickly and the sounds of the two trolls roaring filled the air.

"Note to self," Jim muttered as he nocked an Explosive Arrow, "Find out how to make Noise Arrows or whatever they're called."

Drawing the arrow's fletching to his cheek, Jim waited as the first troll pushed its way out of the opening in the rocks and fired on the second one as it was halfway out of the opening. Silently, the arrow flew across the distance before impacting the troll in the neck and a bloody explosion ripped through its neck, decapitating the creature and charring the side of its neck and face.

Roaring, the first troll grabbed the nearest rock and hurled the large, door-sized thing in the vague direction it thought the arrow came from. By luck, it managed to impact the tree next to the one Jim was in and the small boulder exploded in a shower of gravel while the tree let out a frightening creak before crashing to the ground.

Shaking from the impact on the ground, Jim nocked a second arrow and took aim at the first troll's arm, hoping to take it in the shoulder. Hearing the slight snap of his bow as he released the arrow, Jim pulled another out and quickly let it fly after the first, aiming for the second troll's still moving body as it pulled itself, headlessly, to its feet. Both arrows impact the trolls and both arrows exploded themselves to devastating effect as the first troll lost its arm, causing the rock in its hands to fall on it head, and the second troll had its leg blown away at the knee.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Seeing his opponents crippled, Jim thought about climbing down the tree and finishing the fight on the ground but quickly nixxed that idea when the headless troll grabbed the closest thing to it, its head, and threw it wildly toward him. Watching the head fly toward him, Jim was amazed to see the thing gnashing its teeth at him and roaring silently as it flew through the air before it passed him by.

"I'm going to have to find that later," he muttered to himself as he nocked another arrow and fired it at the trolls, aiming for the second one's chest. With a shower of gore, the arrow exploded the meat on the creature's chest and exposed its ribs to the air. Without mercy, Jim sent another four arrows flying toward the creature's chest and watched them pulp and destroy the inner organs. As he watched the headless creature stop moving, Jim turned his attention to the first troll and nearly gulped when he noticed that the missing arm was larger than when he'd last looked.

"Shit, I was hoping that excessive damage from an explosion would slow it down," he swore as he quickly fired several more arrows at the troll and watcehd them all impact the creature's body before sending a bloody mist outward as the arrows all detonated upon impact. Seeing the trolls not moving, Jim hurried down the tree and pulled out his flasks of oil.

Dumping all of the four flasks he'd pulled from his bag on the trolls, Jim also took the chance to grab the four thumbs from the creatures and put them in a jar that he tightly sealed before pulling out his tinderbox and striking sparks on the oil soaked bodies that even now had wiggling flesh slowly growing on them.

With a whoosh, the oil ignited and the smell of cooking meat filled the air before the troll that still had its head began screaming from the heat of the flames. Trying to ignore the screaming creature, Jim turned toward the direction the second troll had thrown its head and set off to find it. He didn't see Theobald Ripspell appear behind him and wave his hand, snuffing the flames that were attempting to burn through the dead leaves and sticks littering the ground.

Moving quickly, Jim followed the direction that the head had flown, searching carefully for the thrown "item."

"How did it get lodged up there?" he asked himself as he looked up from the pool of blood and saw the head impaled on a broken branch half-way up the tree he stood beneath. Sighing, he nocked an arrow and aimed it carefully at the trunk of the tree where the branch grew from. With a much louder explosion, the arrow detonated and sent wood splinters scattering through the area and dropping the head, impaled through one of the eyes, to the ground.

Gingerly, Jim picked up the head and carried the still snapping mouth at arms-length from him as he returned to his impromptu bonfire. He was relieved to see that the fire hadn't spread from the oil that he'd lit and carefully tossed the head in the fire. The first troll had gone silent.

"I guess that's done," Jim muttered to himself before turning to the cave. "Mostly."

Avoiding the buring bodies that were charring nicely, Jim moved to the rock pile that the trolls had been nesting under and slid down the earthen ramp at the entrance into the "cave" the trolls had obviously been digging out.

"Oh, God!" Jim gagged at the smell of rotting meat, body odor, and fecal matter that hit him mercilessly upon entering the hole. "They should have stayed in here, they'd be able to use the smell as a weapon! Urgh!"

Gagging and nearly vomiting, Jim moved through the small area and tried not to touch anything as he confirmed that there were no little trolls inside the nest. He also noticed that the goods the farmer had bought were all ruined and destroyed since the trolls had scattered them around the nest and torn the burlap bags to pieces.

Climbing out of the nest as fast as he could, Jim greedily breathed the fresher air of the forest as he left the crime against nature behind him in the nest.

"I'm taking all the baths when I get back to the city," he swore. "I hope that smell isn't stuck in my clothes, I'd have to burn them to get rid of it!"

Settling down, Jim watched the troll corpses burn themselves out before he left. Poking them with an unenchanted arrow, Jim watched the part he'd poked crumble to ash and sighed in relief.

"Trolls that survived burning," he muttered, "now there's a horror story."

Grabbing the still intact toy he'd used to distract the trolls, Jim set out through the forest and went back to the road, examining it for damage.

"It's kinda cute," he decided as he tucked the Orc soldier into his bag. "I'll see if I can give it to Willow, maybe Grena, she'd definitely get a kick out of it."

"And you're certain that you killed the trolls these fingers came from?" the Halfling secretary asked as he held up the jar of troll thumbs that Jim had brought back.

"Positive," Jim nodded. "Set them on fire and poked them with an arrow after they'd stopped burning. The whole arm collapsed into a pile of ash."

"Excellent," the secretary said happily before stepping away from his desk. "Excuse me."

Jim watched as the Halfling moved forcefully through the crowd of Guild members taking and turning in Jobs to get to the fire that crackled in the far corner of the room. With a pitcher's stance, the Halfling threw the jar forcefully into the fire and shattered the glass on the stones within the fireplace. Ignoring the stares from the people around him, he grabbed a poker from the side and adjusted a few coals before nodding to himself and moving at a more sedate pace back to his desk.

"Now that that's taken care of, we can get on to the most important part of this whole thing," he said with a satisfied smile. "Payment."

"Sweet," Jim grinned.

"The Job you took was to verify the monster attack on the farmer and identify the creatures responsible," the Halfling said as he examined the paper. "The reward for that was two Bronze. Came directly from the farmer. For identifying the monsters responsible, your Bronze."

As the secretary pushed the coins toward Jim, he continued.

"Since they were trolls and you managed to slay them and bring proof back to us, the Guild will be rewarding you with another ten Bronze," he told Jim as he pushed more coins toward him. "Excellent work. The city and the Guild thank you."

"No problem," Jim grinned.

"Last order of business," the Halfling said as he grabbed a paper from beside him and pushed it toward Jim. "Fill this out and you'll advance to Copper rank. Those trolls are something that we typically expect Iron and Bronze ranks to worry about, so the fact that you took care of them at Wood rank is very impressive. The use of rune-enchanted arrows was inspired."

"Thank you," Jim said as he began to fill out the paper. "I had some help with a friend to figure it out."

"Then here," the secretary said with a grin, pushing an Iron coin across the counter. "Buy your friend a drink on me."

"He'll be happy about that," Jim grinned, returning the paper to him.

"Well, let me go grab Janus and have him sign off on this," the Halfling said as he pushed away from his desk and moved toward the Gnome. "Stay right here, I'll be back soon."

Jim watched as the Halfling spoke to the Gnome and passed him the paper. After reading through it all, Inkfingers stamped the paper and handed him a small cube before he waved to Jim with a smile. Returning the smile and wave, Jim watched as the Halfling returned to his desk and passed him the copper cube.

"Just touch that to your Wood token and you'll be done," he told Jim with a smile. Jim pressed the cube to his token and watched as the metal from the cube turned liquid and flowed over the token's surface before hardening.

"That was so cool," he grinned.

"I've seen it a few times and it's still something great to see," the Halfling returned his grin. "That's it then, we're all done here, unless you've got something else you want to do."

"I'm good right now," Jim told him with a smile. "But I do need to see a certain Half-Orc about some arrows."

"Good luck with that," the secretary grinned. "See you around."

"See ya," Jim waved as he set out from the desk and left the Guild building.