They spent the night underneath a comfortable tree and were on their way as early as the patching of Reysha’s armour allowed. “I still really miss that suit,” she complained all of the sudden, when they had been wandering for half the day already. “It was such a nice and tight fit!”
“I would assume it also offered less protection,” Aclysia retorted. “Especially around the chest area.”
“Dunno, that stretchy material was surprisingly sturdy,” Reysha sighed. “It was PERFECT for me. Didn’t hinder movements, offered a moderate amount of protection and looked sexy as hell.”
“For two of those three, you would surely be optimized fighting naked,” the metal fairy pointed out.
“I’ve considered that.”
“Of course, you did,” Aclysia couldn’t help but let a dry, sarcastic comment escape.
Apexus tilted his head. “Why is fighting naked wrong?” he asked. “I do it. All Reysha needs to really be effective is a knife.”
“You tell her, honey!”
“While it is certainly true that fighting naked can be tactically sound due to the degree of freedom and agility it offers, Reysha does need more than a knife to be truly effective. Her belt contains secondary weaponry that is quite important and stripping before every engagement is largely unfeasible,” the metal fairy responded. “Furthermore, the-“
“Alright, alright, I get it,” Reysha interrupted with a giggle. “Don’t take everything so seriously, Clysia.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t, especially when corresponding with you,” the angel agreed, her soft tone taking the edge out of those words. “Your choice of dress or lack thereof, the suit we found in Clearwater would have likely been discontinued from use already. Even if it was as sturdy as leather, it would still have gotten damaged and I don’t think that peculiar material could be fixed by average leatherworkers.”
“Would still rather have worn it until it broke down than have it confiscated by those fuckwads of the city guard,” Reysha grumbled, her tail curving into an annoyed question mark shape.
Suddenly, Apexus stopped. So did Reysha and Aclysia. “Speaking of nude things,” the slime segued into what he was spying in the distance. “Is that a very large, blue, naked man sitting over there?”
The answer to that, confirmed completely when the trio approached a little bit further, was mostly yes. A male creature of three metres height and a body of raw muscle was sitting next to the base of the massive bridge that spanned over the strait. He wasn’t completely naked though, wearing a loincloth that at least covered his groin.
Aside from his size, a number of other things made him stand out from regular humanoids. His skin was not only a dark shade of blue, but also had a leathery texture, with patches that looked like a mixture between stone and scales. His hands only had three fingers, two thick main ones and a thumb. A grey mane covered part of the shoulders, the complete neck, chin and head of the monster. Only his face was free, a quite ugly, but not initially aggressive looking visage with a giant nose and thick lips that were kept partly open by a pair of tusks extending from the remaining arrangement of sharp teeth. Dull, green eyes looked at the group, when they stopped at a distance, they felt to be safe.
“Is that a troll?” Reysha asked.
“That appears to be a troll,” Aclysia confirmed, making a sour expression.
“A troll?” Apexus asked.
“A very peculiar species in the Omniverse, darling,” the metal fair explained. “We refer to beings such as them as semi-monstrous. While they were created by the gods to be a foil to those of us capable of growing our divine sparks, being born with powers that only expand according to biological function, they were also blessed with sapience.”
“Would that make me semi-monstrous?” Apexus wondered.
“I…” Aclysia hadn’t been finished with her explanation and needed a second to consider the sudden topic change. “…Under the presupposition that you were created by a god, you may fall under that category… but you do not have a spark at all, making this highly unlikely. The only category you can currently fit in is that of an enigma.”
“As always then,” Apexus hummed. He would be interested in where he came from, but at the same time he also wasn’t too bothered by it. An answer would have sated some curiosity, but had no practical application.
“Let the poor encyclopaedia inform us about the rest of a troll’s characteristics,” Reysha chimed in, mimicking the melodic voice of the angel in a mocking fashion.
“Trolls are also so-called dimension hoppers,” Aclysia continued on, now that she had the chance. “They can change between Leaves without navigating the branches. Instead, they migrate from world to world by shifting out of reality on one Leaf and appearing on another, usually around bridges. While there, they gather up the Troll Toll.” She sighed. “It appears we must pay to cross.”
“We could always fly over,” Reysha suggested.
“WILL CHUCK ROCKS AT PEOPLE TRYING TO FLY OVER BRIDGE!” the troll suddenly shouted over. Demonstrating, he stood up and grabbed a nearby rock. It was large enough that a fully grown man could have done nothing but roll it somewhere, but the troll easily picked it up with both hands. Throwing it upwards into the air, he had the trio follow the trajectory.
It was an absolutely absurd display of strength. The rock flew up over a hundred metres, before its arc finally reached the zenith and curved back down to the ground. Slamming into the dirt just a few metres next to the troll, who looked at it with surprise. He had not thought about the possibility that it may come back down so close to him. “AIR OVER BRIDGE PART OF BRIDGE!”
“Never mind then,” Reysha giggled, an instinctual response to the weirdness of the situation. It wasn’t her first encounter with a troll. Ragressia had bridges, so a troll appearing at some point had been inevitable. They were too widespread not too.
Apexus was somewhat certain that they could still avoid paying this ‘Troll Toll’ if they just retreated and started their flight from elsewhere. As impressive as that throw had been, if they just flew a large curve, they could avoid attention and the range of this brute. A direct confrontation, however, was clearly out. His raw strength aside, a big stone club leaning against the bridge’s railing made it doubtlessly clear that they couldn’t win. One swipe of such brutality would send Apexus’ slime flying in all directions.
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Whether or not they retreated to fly was up to Aclysia. It was her plan that suggested they should stay on the ground to avoid risks. She was also the money manager of the group. After considering their options, the metal fairy noticed the awaiting gazes of her party members and then declared, “Let us negotiate with this keen-eared creature,” she finally declared.
The group approached the troll, who sat back down. He neither thought them a potential danger, nor did he care about the insulting descriptions. In part because he didn’t think about either thing being a possibility at all. “You pay Troll Toll to Turl,” he declared, his deep voice rumbling. “Remember name. Pay Troll Toll once to Turl, you won’t have to pay again to Turl in year. Turl will know if you try to cheat. Try to swindle or pass without paying and you get the squash.”
“We will recognize your likeness and remember your name, should we ever cross paths again,” Aclysia answered. “Do you require us to name ourselves?”
Turl looked at Aclysia for several seconds, blinking slowly as the gears inside his head turned even slower. Looking over to Apexus, he stated, “White woman uses too many words. Use fewer, masked man. Make them shorter too.”
Scratching his head, Apexus took the lead in the negotiations. “We’ll remember you. Do you need our names?”
“No, Turl will know you,” the troll decisively stated.
“Can you tell us how much money you want?”
“No, Turl will know the Troll Toll when Turl perceives offering.”
With everyone else, the group would have assumed that they were robbed of as much they could give, but Turl remained friendly. The Troll Toll was based more on the fickleness of the troll taking it and the words of those paying it than any actual value given.
“We have coin,” Apexus reported and had Aclysia hand him a single silver coin. Holding it up for inspection, he waited for Turl to take it. The troll just leaned forwards and looked at the shiny metal.
“Coin good. Have more valuable coin? Have gold?” Turl wanted to know.
Reysha wondered if she should insert herself in the discussion with a lie, but a glance at the club dissuaded her from trying anything she didn’t know would work. Cheating would get them squashed, that much had been established. Aclysia had similar thoughts going through her head, although she stopped herself earlier in the thought process. Lying was a tool to be used only if necessary.
It didn’t even cross Apexus’ mind to swindle. He was catering to a peculiar predator and if he could dissuade it from eating him by offering some money, then that was a perfectly valuable survival strategy. “We have enough silver to equal the worth of a gold coin,” he told Turl, “but no gold.”
“Is stupid. Silver coins worth less than gold coin.”
“One hundred coins of silver are worth as much as one coin of gold,” Apexus said.
“Is nonsense. Silver coins worth less than gold coin,” Turl insisted. “Have something aside from coin?”
“Clothes and equipment, but we can’t give you those,” Apexus told the troll.
“Why not? Are not valuable clothes?” Turl wanted to know.
“We need them. Some of what Aclysia and Reysha own is valuable, but that’s mostly because they wear it,” Apexus gestured at his women and, mostly seriously and only a little bit joking, said, “They are pretty, so normal dresses become very valuable if they own them.”
Aclysia blushed slightly, weak to any level of compliment, while Reysha giggled. A giggle that escalated into full blown, roaring laughter, when Turl himself laughed. His deep voice was transformed into a higher pitched, repeated “O-ho! O-ho! O-ho! O-ho!”. The amused sound was like a mixture between a drunk owl and a particularly arrogant merchant. Coming from that massive, muscular body made it even funnier. That laugh was a lot more entertaining than the joke had been, and soon Reysha was rolling on the floor.
“O-hohohohohoho,” the troll let out a last series of giggles before getting himself back under control. “Your Troll Toll is quarter paid. Am entertained. Good entertained. Dresses best kept on pretty woman, yes! Turl agrees! Small womens, those, and no pretty tusks, but good bodies. Fit and curvy. Good taste, masked man.”
“Thank you?” Apexus responded, unsure how to respond. “You accept payment outside of physical valuables? Like jokes? Would you take a song?”
“If song good, Turl will allow it,” the troll said. Apexus and Reysha both looked over to Aclysia. “Many worded women will sing?”
“Is this required?” Aclysia wanted to know, feeling self-conscious now that she was put on the spot like this.
“We could pay, but you singing costs us nothing,” Reysha pointed out.
“It costs us time,” the metal fairy grasped at the first argument that came to mind.
“Time spent listening to you sing is not time wasted, my melody,” Apexus told her.
Now Aclysia was blushing heavily. The red of her face made the white of her hair and eyebrows stand out heavily. Still embarrassed but willing to oblige what she would much rather have done in the privacy of her close circle of associates, the metal fairy concentrated on her breathing to calm herself down. “As you wish then, darling, Reysha, I will sing.”
Apexus and Reysha sat down next to Turl and waited for the metal fairy to sing for them. The slime loved to listen to her ever since that night on their way to Clearwater and Reysha had found her own enjoyment in sweet tones. Enjoyment and, in some nights in which her trauma had wrecked her mind, a piece of salvation.
Keeping her eyes closed, uncertain if she could perform if she saw the expecting faces, Aclysia inhaled one more time and then started to sing. Sing in the common tongue, rather than angelic, letting the lyrics flow from her heart. Her voice would have moved even the greatest connoisseurs of operas and in the open space of the street, it reverberated with an untainted beauty. Innocent, strong and steady, her voice was carried by the wind.
“Far astray from paths wide open,
Let us find hope between the oceans.
Shadows fall,
Nightmares come,
Leaves sway and Branches shake.
Let us not forget the Tree we share.
Far astray from paths wide open,
We find soothing words between the worlds.
Spaces of spaces,
And time goes to time.
Created are we all,
With some sense to us.
And those that forget.
Suns rise,
Nightmares grow.
A life exists beyond the waking.
Far astray from paths wide open,
We cross the bridges that cross the ocean.
From land to land,
And world to world,
Stems and paths they carry us.
May we find the way to those wide open.”
A pause followed in which not even Aclysia was certain she had any more words to sing. When her instincts created no more lyrics and her active mind could supplement nothing, she opened her eyes and looked at her little crowd. “I hope this pleased you,” she said and bowed her head.
“I loved it,” Apexus responded immediately, feeling an oddly happy pressure on his core. Hearing her sing loudly like this was a rare treat while they were on the road. If there had been anything good about being stationary in that house for a couple of months, it had been listening to her every day.
“Same,” Reysha grinned and stood up. “You and your cheesy happy lyrics!” she declared and suddenly rushed at the metal fairy to cuddle her. Apexus would have joined, had it not been for Turl holding him back with one finger.
“Give silver coin and your Troll Toll to Turl is paid,” the blue giant said.
Gladly, Apexus handed over the tiny bit of money.