KillPrinsX closed the prompt, trying to find out what had happened, she should have been defaulted…

They all sighed a finally relieved breath and stared quietly at the giant Troll laying facedown in the dirt, until Bruno yelled, “Yaa-yuuhh!!! Take that you Trolls!”

“You couldn’t have come up with a better insult than that?” Tirade said.

“They’re Trolls, what else is worse than being a Troll?” Bruno replied with a sneaky smile.

“I mean give them some respect,” said Tirade. “They almost handed your ass to you on a silver platter.”

“Nahh, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Alright, good job you guys,” Else said, giving everyone a pat on the back, except for Bruno, who insisted on a double high-five, around the back and some wiggly fingers. Else stopped at the first high-five. “Let’s get the blood and we head on off to find the Giant.”

“Already? But there’s all those caves! There has to be some really good loot in there.”

“I doubt it,” Else said. “But if you want to come back some other time, be my guest.”

“Oh come on, it’s just caves, what else is going to be living in there with Trolls?”

Tirade jumped up and down, raising his hand, hoping to be the one to answer his rhetorical question, “Pick me! Pick me!”

“Tell me.”

“Grandma Troll… big and scary, she’ll gnaw your fingers off of your hands, and then cane your bottom senseless.”

Little did he know, Grandma Troll was already dead.

“Right-O! So? What do you say Else? Want to go and find Grandma Troll? Maybe get some special ancient blood? What do you say Amelia?”

Amelia actually answered, “Well, if there’s so many Trolls here, they have to be guarding something. That, or they have some loot that shouldn’t be too bad. Maybe some family heirlooms, ancient relics, some special shit.”

Else finally gave in, giving a great big ridiculous sigh. “Aaaahh… Alright. But we still need to harvest this blood. And we still need to have enough time to kill the Giant before the sun comes up again.”

“How far to the Giant?” Tirade asked.

“Three miles west. That’s a thirty minute walk, and another two hours walk back.”

“That’s great!” Bruno said. “That gives us maybe five hours to loot all the caves.” He was practically jumping up and down with excitement. “How about I go in and get a head start. I’ll split all the loot equally. I promise. I always do. Like a good boy.”

Else just shook her head, fed up with trying to argue with him.

Bruno dashed off while the others came around and started filling up vials of Troll blood.

“Aaaahhhh!!!” Bruno had yelled just as he entered the cave. The echoing effect didn’t help with the sound of terror.

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“What the hell?” Else turned, trying to spot Bruno.

“Don’t worry!” Bruno yelled, waving his hands. “It was only a few bats.”

…They continued laboring their way through the Troll blood. Stabbing a hole in the side and letting the blood ooze out. The normal sized Trolls yielded roughly five vials, the smaller Trolls, three, and the giant Trolls over ten. The count was about sixty vials, which suited Amelia quite fine. “Sixty bottles, we’ll be able to have enough of these for another three battles at least, maybe even ten.”

“What’re they good for?” KillPrinsX asked.

“HP mainly, but if you’re interested in the power ups, it’s +10 Strength, and a lack of focus when around fire.”

Princess laughed a little. “Makes sense.”

“Hold on!” Amelia said, curiously looking at a bottle. This one’s off color.” She picked up another few, holding it up to the moonlight. “This one too. But it’s not all of them…” she took a sip of one and blinked a few times. “Uughh. It’s half poison.” She seemed to be reeling back and forth, but didn’t actually fall.

What was that? Poison? In the Trolls blood… Of course! Half of them were killed by KillPrinsX or Charlotte. Neurotoxin.

KillPrinsX took the vial Amelia was holding and gulped the whole thing. Else jumped to save her from killing herself, but seemed to put two and two together half a second later.

KillPrinsX got the prompt right away.

You have drank the blood of a Troll.

Health restored by: 30 HP

+10 Strength

You will loose focus around fire and have the urge to put it out.

This blood has been poisoned with Neurotoxin.

You have immunity to Neurotoxin.

You crave more.

“Yep, she right. It’s been poisoned. I guess I’ll have to take all of those. The rest should be fine, no?”

Else picked up a good looking one, sipped it, and after seeming to still be standing straight, gulped the whole thing down. She gave a nod and said, “This one’s alright.”

And they proceeded to sort them out. KillPrinsX ultimately came out with over forty vials of Neurotoxic Troll blood …and Amelia looked pissed, finding that all that work had only given her a turn out of less than twenty vials.

The laboring was over, but Else had actually gone to the extreme of looting the Trolls. They had pouches under their flabby skin. KillPrinsX joined and got a whopping 17.5 gold. Don’t ask how she got half a piece of gold in a single unit monetary system… it came from the Trolls.

And now the Troll bodies started to disappear, fading into bones.

But Tirade didn’t stop looting there, he picked up a few bones and held them up like relics, “Ahhhh! These should make a few good swords. Enchantments work great with these kinds of bones.” He vanished them into his inventory and looked around some more. “Giant Troll Femur bones… Bruno will love this. Just wait until we fight with matching bone great-hammers.” Those didn’t fit into his inventory so he lugged them over his shoulder and balanced them precariously on his back’s weapon holder.

Now they were done and the four of them marched up to the caves and yelled for Bruno.

Just in time, he was walking out like he had the biggest balls in the game. “Guess what I just found?”

The rest just stared waiting for his answer, but Tirade rubbed his hands together, looking like he was about to win the lottery. “What did you find in there?…!”

“A locked treasure chest,” he said smugly.

“Oh my god…”

“Seriously.”

KillPrinsX looked at the girls to see if they understood, but they weren’t laughing either. “What’s so good about a locked treasure chest? You can’t even open it.”

“What so good…?!” Tirade said, looking at her like she was from another planet.

“You don’t know what’s…?!” Replied Bruno, with all the same flare and more.

“It’s locked,” said KillPrinsX.

They both sighed, and Tirade cooled off enough to let her in on this secret, whispering closely. “A locked treasure chest doesn’t just mean you can’t get the treasure… immediately. What it means is that you get a quest to find the key. And if you get such a quest, you only know that what’s at the end of it is valuable. Really valuable.”

“The longer the quest,” Bruno continued, “the better the loot.”

“Long is better,” said Tirade, pointing to the bones on his back and trying to catch Bruno’s eye.

Bruno finally looked, “…Whattah dos?”

“Twin giant Troll femurs,” he said, extremely casually. “For making enchanted great-hammers.”

“But nobody could dual wield great-hammers…”

“Not unless you wield great-hammers… dually!”

“…”

And the bromance begun.

“Shall we go in then?” KillPrinsX said, hastily walking over to another cave. The girls quickly followed.