24. TROLLS
Nanoc and his friends kept walking. Dren was muttering to himself, annoyed that a troll would intentionally lie. Rotcel ‘Loc looked around nervously, worried that a troll would jump out and try eating her for dinner. Only Nanoc walked on at peace with himself and the world, humming to cheerfully as he considered all he had achieved.
----------------------------------------
NANOC THE GNOME
Health: 18/18
BARBARIAN| Level 8
Skills: Hand-to-hand combat, drinking, shouting, singing badly, identify enemy, makeshift weaponry, looking great when sweaty, good with knives, taunt
Abilities: Berserk! (2 uses per day), incredible strength (5 uses per day), retribution (2 uses per day), trip hazard (every hour), Final stand (special)
CLERK| Level 9
Skills: Paperwork, filing, taking notes, counting, boring stuff
Abilities: Speed reading (50 per day), finding folders (10 per day), avoiding the blame (1 per day)
----------------------------------------
Nice. He started humming again.
“Stop that!” Rotcel ‘Loc demanded.
“What? The humming?”
“The being happy! Don’t you know how much danger we’re in? Trolls always travel in huge, hungry packs. They could be all around us right now.”
“Oh. Are they?”
“I don’t know! Maybe!”
“Well, tell me if you see any. Until then, I’ll just be happy.”
They kept walking.
“Do you think the king really sacrifices puppies to the demons?” Nanoc asked at last.
“No!” Dren shouted, stamping his foot. “That’s a lie! In any case, demons prefer cats. Everyone knows that. By the seven levels of heaven Above, I hate trolls!”
They walked some more in silence. Rotcel ‘Loc jumped as she heard the crack of a branch breaking nearby. She spun, knife in hand, to see a troll peeking out from behind a tree. It was a wide, dirty beast with long yellow teeth, but despite its physical bulk, its real weapon was its words.
“The world is run by a secret, underground empire of lizardlings!” the troll called out from behind a tree. “They eat people!”
This was so outrageous that Rotcel ‘Loc was more angry than scared.
“What? That’s rubbish,” Rotcel ‘Loc the lizardling shouted back at the troll. “Why would we live underground? We like to bask in the sun, you know.”
The troll was silent for a moment as it considered this undeniable point, then and continued undeterred.
“The king is one of the lizardlings! He rules them—”
“No! All lizardlings are female, you idiot!” Rotcel ‘Loc shouted, louder than before. Dren was nodding in agreement. “The king is a male human, he’s not a lizardling! And we don’t have an underground empire!”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Yeah? Well, what would you know about it, anyway?” the troll demanded.
“Look at me - I am a lizardling!”
“Then how can I be expected to believe anything you say?” the troll said triumphantly. “You lizardlings lie all the time to protect your underground dens full of puppies and—"
Rotcel ‘Loc threw a knife that arced through the air and caught the troll in one of its large ears. The beast screamed and emerged from behind the tree. It was larger than the last one, eight feet tall at least. Nanoc nodded in satisfaction; finally, he was going to fight something.
“The lizardlings control the weather, and they make it rain on your birthday!” the troll continued, raising its claws.
“Do you really?” Nonac asked, turning to Rotcel ‘Loc in intertest.
“No!”
“I was just asking,” Nanoc said defensively. “You never talk about stuff like that.”
“Yes!” the troll shouted. “See how your so-called-friends censor you, gnome! See how they mock your height behind your back! No doubt the lizardling is already planning to eat you in your sleep—"
“Gross,” Rotcel ‘Loc muttered. “Nanoc hasn’t bathed in weeks.”
“And I’m quite tall for a gnome!” Nanoc shouted.
The trolled charged; a ball of light shot from Dren’s hand and hit the beast in the chest. Its muscular form faded with each step, revealing a shorter, plumper version of itself. It rudely gestured at the trio, and Rotcel ‘Loc threw another knife at it. The blade curved around the back of the beast and hit it in the rear. There was a squeal and the sound of scampering feet.
Dren nodded; Rotcel ‘Loc smiled. For the moment, at least, they were happy to be working together.
“Hey! I said I called dibs on the next troll!” Nonac protested. “Dibs!”
The other two ignored him. They walked on, but this time, they had their weapons ready. Trolls were cowardly creatures, but a large group could be dangerous. Dren was slowly turning red with anger. To intentionally make things up and pass them off as truth went against everything Knowledge stood for. The mere existence of trolls made the normally calm god bang his quill on the table in anger. This was no coincidence: the goddess Chaos had created the troll race to torment her little brother, Knowledge. Chaos had immediately regretted it. The trolls were meant to be amusing and provocative, but instead they were just annoying.
“We really don’t have an underground empire,” Rotcel ‘Loc explained. “Moving all that dirt with spades would be… well, it would almost be farming, right?”
“We know that,” Dren said comfortingly. “We know that, friend. Ignore the trolls, they are miserable creatures.”
“Right. I’d never use a spade.”
“Of course not,” Dren said. “And you wouldn’t eat a person, either.”
“Nor would I use a pick,” Rotcel ‘Loc agreed. “Or any kind of digging instrument.”
“And I’m really tall for a gnome. Really.”
“Sure,” Rotcel ‘Loc said.
“Sure,” Dren added.
They walked on in awkward silence. The troll's words had disturbed them all in ways they were unwilling to admit to. They had just begun to relax when a reedy voice called out from a tree branch: “Birds aren’t real!”
“What?” Nanoc said, intrigued despite himself.
“They aren’t! The servants of Artefact replaced them all with clockwork golems to spy on us.”
“Even the chickens?” Nanoc asked. “Because I’ve eaten a lot of chicken but never seen a gear.”
“Well, the thing about that is—”
There was a blast of magic and a troll fell from the tree and hit the ground. It was the largest troll so far. Nanoc raced at it with his pitchfork ready, but it took off before he reached it, running through the trees faster than the gnome could follow.
“Stay and fight me!” Nanoc shouted after it.
“The chicken you eat is actually dead weasel!” the troll shouted. “They’re feeding you weasel, gnome!”
“What? No, that’s really not right, I— Stop lying!” he shouted after it.
“Never!” the troll cried as it disappeared into the forest.
They found a fourth troll haunting the middens behind an abandoned inn and a fifth lurking in a ditch beside the road. There were two trolls outside a village, and two more waiting in the trees. The road was crawling with the beasts. They never attacked, but simply shouted out their lies and ran off.
“Do you know, a great evil has taken over this land,” Dren announced. “I can feel it in my books. I have a new quest for us: we need to rid this nation of its trolls.”
“But not for free, surely?” Rotcel ‘Loc protested on principle. “We barely made any money from the necrodancer thing and we didn’t charge Mary anything to deal with her lamb, either! I’m not doing pro bono work more than once a year. We have to have standards, you know!”
Dren glared at the lizardling. This was more than a simple disagreement; the very principles of their lives and classes were in conflict. The party was about to fall apart.
“The king they keep talking about must hate these trolls,” Nanoc said, interrupting what was about to become a fight. “I’ll bet he’ll at least offer to pay us.”
----------------------------------------
Charisma check… passed!
You have found a way to keep the party united and working towards a common goal!
----------------------------------------
“Good,” Rotcel ‘Loc said, while Dren just shrugged.
It wasn’t long before they came to the king’s castle. It was a squat, unimpressive affair born of grey stone and dull architecture. The castle gates were shut and only a single flag flew from the walls.
“Right,” Nanoc said. “Let’s go and see this king, them. I think we might be just in time for dinner, too.”