I growl in anger at Boney. “What do you mean they can’t?” He dared to claim that he couldn’t get them to sacrifice themselves for me--literally couldn’t, useless, I keep on speaking.

“You will either get them to point where they would happily throw themselves on the blade for me-- or, I exterminate all of you.” With that, I backhand him and send Boney flying with a spray of blood.

I stalk out of the goblin cave, thinking, this plan was not going the way I wanted it to. The goblins weren’t listening and they sure as hell weren’t building up any particular loyalty to me-- they would probably desert me in seconds if it wasn’t for Eye.

I growl low. I need a break. The goblins put too much strain on me. I breathe in the cool air of the Cell-- the batlings had taken over quite the place here, I notice my eyesight has been getting better, the darkness isn’t as dark anymore, and I can see a lot easier.

I hear growls in the distance--Troll growls. My head snaps up, it’s been a long while since I last saw another one of my kind and I still remember the Troll from when I had first come to this strange place.

A Troll more animal than Troll, I’m glad I snapped its neck. It didn’t deserve life. I shrug thinking through my options, I could help the Trolls and maybe get them on my side or they could already be under the domain of a Warlord.

I shudder--Warlords are hard to deny and even harder run from, they know things, and they always have shamans.

There’s always another scenario though--it could just be a bunch of Trolls getting slaughtered, stupid, smart, those roars sounded like cries of pain. I sit down and sigh, I needed more minions and Trolls would make very good ones. Even the animal Troll would be helpful, he would be a good source of food or a good labour Troll--a base was on the agenda.

I let an out a long breath and finally get up. If its some sort of Warlord controlled group I’m getting out.

Anything else though and I’d probably help--it depends on the odds, after all, I have no idea what their fighting.

I run through the mist and weave between the huge rocks, dodging creatures and making my way toward the noise. I’d have to be o the lookout though, if I’m going it’ll mean that others are going as well--more competition but also more food.

The grunts get louder and images of the first time I saw Trolls here, fighting the weak, piddly, things. Humans, that’s what they’re called. Humans. A word I would remember, they were tasty and gave me some sort of power.

I run faster, trampling some weaker creatures, and outrunning some of the others. I come across the first Trolls body a few hundred Troll-lengths from the main fight. The thing had had its entire head removed. Pretty much the only way to put one of us down for good. Whoever the other Troll are fighting they’re dangerous. Probably more dangerous than the Ogre.

I keep on going, passing more Troll bodies, a couple of Ogre bodies are mixed in as well--the blood mixing. I have a bad feeling about this. Ogres and Trolls don’t mix unless there's a real strong Warlord or one of the other races are making some concentrated attacks. I keep moving slowing my pace down, I get to the battle pretty soon and what I see makes me growl in surprise.

Two humans are holding off a whole horde of Ogres, Trolls, and other creatures somehow. The weak piddly beings were striking down enemies with each hit of their sword. Interesting.

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I look for any leaders among Trolls and Ogres, a sure sign of Warlord intervention--and find none. It was either dead or was never here, both are good for me. I only have one problem. The humans.

They are powerful, that’s obvious, but they are also distracted. Distracted enemies are easy to kill.

Usually. These humans don’t look like they’re going to go down easy, I don’t go down easy either, and they have more than a few other monsters to worry about.

I fade back into the mist a bit more, preparing, I would strike from the rear--I would try to injure, I don’t think that I could kill them but if I wounded them I wouldn’t have too, the horde would do it for me.

I stalk in behind them, making sure to try my best to keep unnoticed. These people were powerful--they were probably strong in senses as well.

The Ogres and Trolls keep on coming and when the Humans are focusing on the threat in front of them, I attack from behind.

I leap forward, rocketing towards the human at the back, just as I’m about to smash into him a hand comes from nowhere and smashes me out of the flight. It doesn’t push me particularly far but it does push me off alignment enough that I go flying into the frontlines of the horde. I knock the frontlines over and pretty much stop the press for a second.

“Alright, let’s move!” the humans start speaking… in dark speech. I freeze in amazement before remembering that I had understood some of the human talk before.

The humans start backing up, but I chase after, the horde starts to follow me before stopping suddenly, all of them at once, none of them hitting the other. They just… stop.

I shake the thoughts off. I can address those at another time. Right now, I have steam to blow off. A lot of it. As soon as I start moving closer I snarl, something about those humans is off, something about them isn't right, I start running faster, chasing after them, I would find out why.

The humans continue running for a little bit before stopping and turning abruptly, I grin and speed up, charging them, head down, arms up, legs tensed and ready to jump.

“Why’s following us?”

“Dunno.”

That’s all they have time to say before I’m in the air preparing to tackle them, the on the left moves fast, faster than they had even when fighting the horde and smash me out of the air once again. I notice that while there is a lot of speed whoever hit me didn’t have a ton strength behind the blow.

I also notice the snarls that are locked on their faces and the involuntary shivers that they both start breaking out in.

I land on all fours and we face off in silence for a little bit, each side staring the other down--I’m once again struck by the sense of wrongness coming off them--they smell like blood, and horror, like the brood mothers and the Warlords.

They split up and start to circle me, each of them using a different weapon. They remind of Elves that way, they always split up, tried to confuse us. It worked--I had seen hundreds of other, stupider, Trolls, get slowly poked to death, a humiliating way to die, a weak way to die.

I growl at them again, and then listen to them start to talk,

“What level?”

“Can’t tell.”

“Can you tell anything?”

“Nawp.”

I snort, course they couldn’t tell anything about me, the system obeys my will and not anyone else's.

I speak as I charge them, using dark-speech, part test, part actual intimidation. Mostly test though, I wanna see if the humans can actually carry on a conversation with me. I go with my favourite words--

“Weaklings! You will die!” The humans look at me, confused for a second, before understanding dawns--even in mid-flight, I can see it. The point where confusion turns into understanding.

Their weapons still come up though and this time I try to bat the weapon away mid-air, its speed is incredible but all it’s a slash--a fast blow, but without a ton of technique, even, I, a Troll, can tell.

I manage to block the blow, but my leap still falters, I still hit the human though, and I’m big, even for a Troll--the piddly humans sure as the Pits can stand up to me. The human and I fall to the ground with a crash, the human grunts and groans and I pin the thing down… how did the other Trolls ever manage to die to these things? It wasn’t all that hard to see what the human would do--I just needed to watch things for a second.

I feel a sword smash onto the back of my neck, slicing through my hide and getting some of the flesh. I ignore it, the sword would get stuck.

It would also give me time to subdue this human, I feel the sense of wrongness again but ignore it. I have better things to focus on, I grab the human under me, exerting all of my strength, its arms snap and I grab it, lifting it, ignoring the other humans' sword strikes.

The human in my arms is making noises and the other human has started babbling nonsense while attacking me.

I snort, my hide was taking a beating and I couldn’t feel one of my feet but I still had the human in hand.

I leap away, giving myself some distance before looking at the other human. I growl and hold a claw up to the thing's neck.

Then I grin and speak--

“Wanna make a deal cause I know I do, human thing.”