The day started normal enough for what they had been doing. Breakfast was pretty tasty for something cooked over an open fire by an Apprentice, Jay was behaving, and Adam had already killed a couple of lost goblins. The confused greenies had walked right in front of him while arguing in their tongue. He hadn’t even needed to slow down, simply walking right up behind them and stabbing them both.
The trouble started with Jay.
With no warning, the boy ran behind some bushes. What followed was some noises no one wanted to hear, and that guaranteed that they were going to be in a situation. The lucky part was that he’d managed to get his pants down before the runs escaped, so he wasn’t painted in poo, but his pants were. Being inflicted with the squirts was bad enough, but having it midway through a trek in the dangerous Blue Sea Forest was a death sentence. Particularly for a young boy with no class, limited protection, and no pants. In normal circumstances they may have had to leave him, or at least let him make a disgusting, foul smelling trip back to the way station.
If the duke had been present, he would have been some mix of pissed and pleased. The situation was foul, and nothing a duke needed to acknowledge, however, it was also exactly the sort of thing he needed to know Adam was capable of dealing with. For the woodland trio it was just another problem to be solved. Adam and Martin were determined that Jay would live, so they never even contemplated leaving him behind.
When Adam made his way back to where his trainer was waiting, he was asked, “So, your fancy class got a solution for this one?”
As disgusting as the combination sounded, Spit On It could handle the pants, along with judicious hand washing and a lot of water.
Spit On It: Got a kid with something on his face? Can’t get it off with just a cloth? Spit On It and your kid will be cleaner than you’ve ever seen him! Now with more applications than ever before! Cleaning your floors? Spit On It! Laundry? Spit On It! Dishes? You got it! Spit On It! There’s nothing your spit can’t clean now!
The sickness was another issue.
Thinking back, Adam thought he might have something after all. About the only things that he had learned for certain about the system so far was that he needed to read the skill description very well, and to keep an open mind. He knew that he hadn’t yet bought a class skill that could do anything about the flux, but that didn’t mean he had nothing. Along with Spit On It, Adam had acquired a second skill that was only available because of a synergy between his class and his trade skills.
Have A Cookie: The epitome of the culinary arts: A Mother’s Cookie. Nothing can stop a kid on a quest for cookies, and the only thing one can’t fix is death.
Healing and cleansing power determined by the number and quality of cookies consumed. Cookies made by a Mother will remain perfectly viable for a week outside of a Mother’s care before the effects fade.
Pulling a cookie from his apron, Adam started to stand to walk it to Jay when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Looking to see the cause, he spied a troll stepping into the area of sparse undergrowth they were in. Although the troll was facing away from them, he knew they only had a moment before the troll became aware of them. Adam reacted desperately, using Shhhhhh on all three of them. It would have a reduced duration spread over three targets, but it was the fastest way to keep the noise down.
Martin had reacted to Adam’s sudden movement, and also spotted the troll. When he turned back to his charge, he found a cookie flying towards his lap. A couple hand motions got the idea of feeding the cookie to Jay across. Knowing it would be necessary, he tossed Adam one of the vials of Trollburn. The boy scowled briefly at the vial before closing his hand around it. There was no time to argue.
With nowhere to hide, it was only a matter of time until the troll noticed them. It couldn’t hear them for the moment, but the stench of Jay’s offering to the forest would be noticed any second, and, failing that, the troll could always just turn around. He had no idea why the monstrosity had stopped in their little clearing, but perhaps the only thing that was keeping them from fighting immediately was the troll’s own stench overwhelming that of Jay’s.
Suddenly, Adam was lamenting the assumptions that Martin had made about how much time they had before he needed to be at his best. They didn’t have a good way to fight the beast, even with Cut to the Heart a kitchen knife was virtually useless against something the size of a troll. If they made it out of this forest reasonably intact, he promised to diligently attempt to use everything he could find that wasn’t specifically a weapon as a weapon. He was actually looking forward to trying to hit Martin with a mop in the hope that it actually worked. Succeeding would be a proper punishment for the man letting them get themselves into this situation.
Cursing silently, but with only enough force to be less than a whisper if the magical silence wore off, Adam tried to stalk towards the troll. He had no real training in stealth other than the natural inclinations of any boy who has ever tried to steal sweets, nor any skills that offered it as of yet. He was expecting the sound of a broken twig to announce his presence at any second, but he was nearly to the still turned away troll. Feeling something under his foot, he looked down to find his worst fears realized.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Without a moment to lose, Adam launched himself at the troll. He’d spent the time of his approach attempting to put together a plan. He’d made one, but had been hoping to avoid using it. Still, it was the only plan he had, and, with no more time to make a reasonable one, he drew his knives from his apron. Bread and bone this time.
Multi Task kicked in as it always did when he was using a tool in each hand, allowing him to dual wield even without the skill for it. The skill also made him aware of a number of oddities during his brief attack launch. The twig hadn’t actually made any noise, he’d just seen the broken twig and assumed the worst. His running leap had also been free of sound, as had his stalking through the underbrush. There might not be much of it, but he knew he wasn’t skilled enough to have avoided it all. Finally, the skill informed him that the troll was severely injured. It was missing one arm, and blood was freely dripping from the front of its body. With its back turned he couldn’t see the full extent of its injuries, but it certainly wasn’t in good shape.
Even with all his skills going at once Adam couldn’t fix the mistake he had just made. If he had made no noise moving through the brush, that meant Shhhhhh would silence any noise that could emanate from the target no matter how that noise was made. He’d attacked a troll when it actually had very low chances of detecting them other than luck or paranoia making it turn around. Furthermore, he’d attacked with the assumption that the troll was already aware of him, instead of sneaking up close and trying to lop off a leg at the start of the fight. Even that would have been alright if he wasn’t airborne and aiming himself for the arm that was still attached.
His original plan had called for him to use the bread knife to aim for the veins in the neck in the hopes of causing a massive bleeding status, while also trying to stab the boning knife through the ear in an attempt to hit the brain. With the assumption that the troll knew he was there, he was prepared to hit it as it turned to face him, something it wouldn’t do now. His blades were mostly out of position for more fatal strikes on an opponent facing away from him, but could still do some damage.
His boning knife glanced off the skull as he flew over the shoulder of the troll, but his bread knife tore into the side of its neck. Neither strike was very dangerous, but they were painful, and bled more than a normal wound. The problem for Adam wasn’t just that he had injured and angered a troll, it was that his airborne blows not only didn’t have as much force behind them as he wanted, they had also adjusted the trajectory of his flight.
Instead of flying past a turning troll to land on his feet and leap back into action, he was instead tumbling down its chest. Roaring in pain and anger the troll tried to bring up its only remaining hand to slap over the cuts on its neck. In doing so, it managed to punch Adam for a short flight back the way he came. He crashed to the ground in front of Martin, broken and bleeding. His apron might have taken the force of the blow, but it did nothing to defend him from the ground.
Martin saw the look in Adam’s eyes. He was in a cart load of pain, but he was determined to kill the troll now. Knowing there weren’t a lot of other options, Martin shoved the cookie he still held in Adam’s mouth, then turned to grab Jay and run.
Knowing he was in a race, Adam started dragging himself towards where Jay had hidden when the squirts got him. He only had one good arm, as the other arm and both legs were unusable. With enough cookies he’d be right as rain, but they weren’t instantaneous. He could also transform into his bearform, but he wasn’t sure if the injuries would carry over.
He heard the troll getting closer, but just kept dragging himself forward. There was a grunt, followed by another roar, so Adam turned over to see the slavering troll looming above him. Blood was flowing down its chest from the wound in its neck still. His passive skill for his knives was keeping the gash from healing completely, although it was slowly making progress.
Seeing the puny thing that had bit it crawling broken along the ground, the troll couldn’t help crouching down to roar one more time. The puny thing wouldn’t be hurting it again. As it opened its maw to suck in a deep breath, its throat was suddenly filled with a blockage. It tried to cough it out, but there wasn’t enough air in its lungs, and the foul flavors of the blockage were making it gag. Pain, nausea and the inability to get air sent it into a panic. The troll thrashed and struggled, trying to grab the thing in its throat, but its hand was too big to fit. Crazed, it fell to the ground, still trying to find a way to get a breath.
Adam barely managed to pull himself out of the way of the flailing monster as it fell. He’d never expected that the best weapon in troll fighting was poo pants, but they were working miracles in keeping the monster down. He still didn’t have a good way to really kill the thing, but it seemed to be slowing down. He knew suffocation wouldn’t kill it. Eventually its saliva would break down anything caught in its throat, and then the regeneration would bring it back.
While he waited for the troll to stop its movements, he ate some more cookies. While it felt a little strange to eat cookies while watching a monster choke to death from close range, he was trying to think of his cookies more like healing potions. They were essentially the same thing after all, they were just cheaper to make.
Four cookies later, the troll had generally stopped moving, and Adam was mostly ambulatory. He certainly couldn’t keep up a good clip, but he had enough movement for the job at hand. Stumbling over to the troll, he picked up his boning knife from where he had dropped it after he hit the ground. Using his full body weight and judicious stabbing, he managed to open a hole into the troll’s spinal cord. Still leaning on its body, he reached into his apron and removed the Trollburn potion. He managed to open it with his teeth and pour it into the hole he had made.
With Jay safe, the troll dying, and his breaks healing, Adam finally allowed himself to pass out.