Gob looked down at himself. He was still the same scrawny troll he’d always been. If there was supposed to be some sort of bodily change it hadn't happened yet.
“nufin.” he said “i iz da sam.”
“Well I did tell you, the mountain archetype didn't come with any-”
HA HA HA! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING YOU LITTLE GIT?!
A booming growl burst out of the darkness. It didn’t come from anywhere, because it seemed to come from… everywhere. Gob and Kylie both jumped in surprise, Kylie spinning around to try and see anything there was to see. Echoes of it reverberated eerily around the bottom of the hole, before fading away completely until it was hard to believe they had really heard anything at all.
Silence.
Then,
NO TROLL EVER PICKS THE MOUNTAIN TROLL - CAN'T YOU SEE IT'S ALL JUST A LOT OF HARD WORK WITH CRAP STATS!?
YOU SURE YOU DIDN’T PRESS THE WRONG BUTTON? FOREST TROLL’S THE LUXURY TICKET! YOU SHOULD HAVE PICKED FOREST TROLL! I'LL GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE TO PICK AGAIN. ONE CHANCE! YOU'D HAVE TO BE STUPID NOT TO PICK FOREST TROLL!
"Gob?!" whispered Kylie "Shouldn't you think about it??"
"NO WAY!" Shouted Gob
HA! WELL, TOO LATE NOW! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T GIVE YOU A CHANCE!
SUCKER!
While Gob had never experienced an obnoxious, disembodied growl before, he was very familiar with being trash talked. He was a runt after all. But no matter who was talking he wasn’t going to be intimidated by a… well whatever this was.
“COM ERE IF YA WANNA FITE! OR IZ YA JUZ A… BIG… VOIS!” Gob yelled back.
There was a long, intimidating pause.
HA! THAT’S THE SPIRIT!
“Ah Gob” said Kylie in a low voice not much more than a whisper, “I don't know how much you know about this kind of thing, but loud disembodied voices aren't very… normal. Especially one that knows who you are. Maybe challenging it to a fight isn't the best way to start a conversation”
OH I DON'T KNOW FAIRY, I THOUGHT HE WAS DOING PRETTY WELL!
ANYWAY I JUST CAME TO SAY SORRY BUT I'M THE MOUNTAIN TROLL SO NOW YOU'RE JUST DOOMED TO A LIFE OF CRAP STATS.
I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO TELL YOU, YOU KNOW, SAVE A FEW YEARS OF HEARTACHE.
Kylie looked stricken. Gob smiled.
He knew this game. It's the sort of trick he used on Poz all the time when he wanted to get him to NOT do something. Gob knew how to play this one.
“YEA, WEL YOO BETTA BE BIG MISTA KRUNCH COS I'M COMIN TA GET YA!”
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! AHA AHA HA HA HA!
HA HA HAAAAA! OK! OK! PHEW! YOU GOT ME THERE! AHA HA! HA HA HA!
OK OK. WOOT! I LIKE YOU! YOU PASSED THE TRASH TALK TEST. WELL DONE, WELL PLAYED. OK, I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU SOMETHING THEN. JUST WAIT A SEC. WAIT, WAIT, WAAAAAAIT… OK, THERE IT GOES.
POP!
THAT'S MY GIFT TO YOU, RUNT. 'COS WHEN YOU ALWAYS GO LAST, YOU GET GOOD AT MAKING THE MOST OF IT. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? SO I KNOW YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THAT.
OH AND ONE MORE THING. LISTEN. MAKE SURE YOU DON’T ALIGN YOUR STATS, OK? IT’S IMPORTANT. FOR THE SUCKER THING TO WORK.
“WOT DAT?”
UUUUUHHH. OK… IT'S… IT'S COMPLICATED. YOU KNOW WHAT? FIND SOMEONE ELSE WHO CAN EXPLAIN IT TO YOU. OR WORK IT OUT YOURSELF. WAIT, ACTUALLY FIND THAT WHITE ORC GUY, HE'S DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE. THERE YOU GO, THERE’S A SIDE-QUEST FOR YOU. 'GO FIND WHITE ORC'. HE'S A GOOD ONE. BUT IN THE MEANTIME DO NOT FORGET THIS:
IF YOU'RE NEVER ALIGNED WITH ANYTHING, THEN YOU CAN ALWAYS BE UNALIGNED WITH EVERYTHING. OK? REMEMBER THAT. IT'S IMPORTANT.
NOW HERE'S THE THING. AHH, THERE'S SOME STUFF GOING ON. IN THE REALM. BIG STUFF. LIKE REALM SCALE IMPORTANCE STUFF, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? BIG. AND YOU'VE JUST GONE AND PUT YOUR FOOT IN IT. WHAT I MEAN IS I DO WANT YOU TO COME AND FIND ME AT CRAGTOP. ASAP. ITS VITAL, OK? THAT'S IT. YOU WANT TO GET BIG? DONE. IT'S A LONG WAY TO CRAGTOP, YOU SURVIVE IT AND GET HERE, YOU'RE IT. THE BIG FELLA. 'COS THERE'S SOME BIG STUFF THAT'S NEEDED AROUND HERE. BIG CHALLENGES, BIG TROLLS. THAT'S WHAT IT'S ABOUT. GOT IT? BUT. THERE'S A BUT. A BIG ONE. YOU GOT TO GET HERE BEFORE GERVAIS STORMBROW. OK? BEFORE HIM, OR BASICALLY DON'T BOTHER.
YOUR CHALLENGE FOR A FITE IS ACCEPTED, YOU GET HERE, I'LL FITE YOU! FOR SURE! I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT BEING BIG'S ALL ABOUT! HA! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE IN FOR. OH, AND LOOK OUT FOR THAT GERVAIS GUY, OK? HE'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK. KEEP AN EYE ON HIM. USE YOUR BRAIN WITH HIM. HA HA! OK, I GOT TO GO. IT'S BEEN A NICE CHAT. I'LL SEE YOU AT CRAGTOP! HA HA HA! Ha ha ha ha! This is going to be great…
The voice faded out and was gone. The silence that followed rushed in loudly to fill the empty space. Gob’s mind was churning.
haz i reely juz talk to KRUNCH? haz i reely juz challeng him to fite??!
And what did he mean by if you're never aligned to anything, then you can always be unaligned with everything? He had no idea what it meant.
Kylie broke the silence, “Gob, I've seen a lot of weird stuff working as a fairy, and I know the difference between ‘weird but: sure’ and ‘weird: just doesn't happen’. I'm going to put it out there that conversations with disembodied ethereal voices claiming to be mythical supertrolls fall into the ‘just doesn't happen’ category. And I know Gervais. I know him really well… he's the Mage who… who… attacked your den.”
Gob wasn't really listening, he was deep in his own thoughts.
“wot he meen: if yoo neva aline to anyfing den yoo can alwas be unaline wiv evyfing?”
“I've never heard anything like it” said Kylie “all warriors, mages and wrights are aligned. I didn't even know you couldn't be.”
“wot iz alined?” he asked.
“Well…” she looked at him skeptically, massaging her chin “it’s complicated. I don't know if you or me are ready to get messy with the details. Do you want me to try? For the long answer or the short one?”
“short wun”
“Good idea. OK, um…. basically, all beings have a SPHERE. It’s like… like a shape, but of… you. All of you. It’s the shape of your MIND, your BODY and your SPIRIT. You with me?”
Gob nodded, even though he wasn’t.
“All the things you can do contribute points to your Sphere. We call the contributions ‘stats’.”
“Ok” he said “i git statz”
“Right. So your Sphere grows as your stats progress… it gets bigger the more you work on different aspects of yourself... from your base stats and personal traits, you get new stats emerging. From emergent stats, new SKILLS emerge, and… I don’t know if I’m really getting this across very well… ummm. So we measure your Sphere to keep track of your stats and skills on what we call a SPHERAXIS.”
“sfeer-axis” Gob repeated.
"Thats it! The Spheraxis is a whole complex network of rules and formulas that control and promote progression… it's an entire Realm-wide SYSTEM."
"sys-tem" Gob repeated.
“but wot iz aline?”
“Right, alignment. When your stats get to a certain point you start to manifest and ascend...”
“iz dis stil da short wun?” asked Gob. He was getting lost.
“I’m so sorry Gob, I’m trying to keep it easy!” she quavered “umm. um. OK what about this. Someone we call a WARRIOR has worked really hard on their BODY and their fighting SPIRIT. MIGHT is at the intersection between BODY and SPIRIT. So with enough hard work they will start to ascend into MIGHTY skills. Depending on who they are and how they have progressed, the type of skills that emerge will fall into one of eight Warrior styles. There is SAVAGE Might, which is most Orcs, Goblins, and Trolls... there's also HEROIC Might, which is most humans and dwarves, TRANSCENDENT Might, most elves… and fairies! and, you know, so on."
She looked at him. He screwed his face up.
“Ok I know it’s a lot. Look ALIGNMENT is basically what type of being you choose to be. It’s like a specialty. The process of alignment is like an adjustment to all your stats that make them work better together. It's a... transformation... a renewal. It even removes stats that aren't relevant to progression… in fact once you are aligned you can really focus and progress far in your specialty area. I've seen multiple alignments in some powerful individuals… that's certainly possible. I've heard of switching alignment, that's difficult, but can be done… Alignment is highly regarded, and very respected… and it’s like.. a goal to work towards attaining… it’s a GOOD thing. To be honest Gob, I’ve never heard of anyone being ‘unaligned’, I didn’t even know it was a thing…”
She trailed off.
if you're never aligned to anything, then you can always be unaligned with everything. He repeated the words to himself. He still didn't understand.
"iz yoo alined kylz?" Gob asked
"Of course!" she replied "us fairies are… I'd say 'born' but fairies aren't actually born… maybe 'summoned' is better… for me at least… anyway however we get here, us fairies are naturally aligned with electrical and air affinities, and Transcendental Magic... Energy is our literal lifeblood… it's why we glow! We're actually multi-aligned and you can always tell a fairy's secondary magical alignment from their colour… we can only be second-aligned with magics that themselves align with electrical and air affinities, which is green for Crude, a rainbow spectrum for elemental, and black for chaotic, those guys are super weird, and like me, blue for Bright Magic."
Gob thought about that. Just as he thought he might be getting the inkling of a handle on it, he realised he was lost.
"You know what, I really am the world's worst explainer. We should find the White Orc."
Kylie switched topics quickly, "The other weird thing the voice said—"
"krunch" corrected Gob absently.
"—right. The other thing Krunch said, was you had to stay unaligned 'so the sucker thing would work'… I didn't get that either… Oh! You know what we haven’t done? We haven’t checked your stats. You got a couple of notifications after the voice said he was giving you a gift!” she swiped around in the air and the magical blue shapes appeared again.
“gift? wot gift?” asked Gob.
“A gift… like a present you give someone. It’s like a nice thing to do. Maybe it’s not a troll thing—”
She stopped. Her face was wide with surprise, staring at the magic shapes.
“wot kylz?” Gob asked.
She just stared.
MUNTIN TROLL, LEVEL 1
QUEST: FIND THE WHITE ORC. GET TO CRAGTOP.
Time remaining: Gervais has not yet arrived at Cragtop.
XP 336
SPIRIT 63 will 14 stability>instability 3 connection 4 fear>courage 12 determination 3 drive 3 tenacity 3 neuroticism 9 humour 1 ferocity>savageferocity 18
MAGIC brightblessing(unaligned):Fairy Familiar etherealblessing(unaligned):TOAST OF KRUNCH!
MIND 56 perception 10 memory 7 awareness 9 intelligence 13 literacy 2 introspection 9 (x5)initiative(3) 15 strategy 3 skill:spelunker 3 skill:loothoarder 3 skill:darksite 3
BODY 129 heart 3 form 4 gut 5 brain 15 size 3 hunger 6 coordination 5 constitution 5 toughness 5 strength 3 dexterity 3 agility 3 endurance 3 skill:bodifrow 6 skill:miteybitey 4 skill:tooclors 3 skill:clorlima 3 trait:trollhide>stonehide 10 trait:regeneration 14 trait:trolclors>pigironclors 8 trait:teef 4 trait:neurogenesis 14
feeling 7 fate 25 purpose 25 luck 25 trait:crapstatz! 3 trait:sucker! 3
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Gob suddenly felt impatient. Kylie was just staring at the magical shapes with her mouth hanging open.
"Kylz!" he said waving "wot yoo look at?"
"Gob!" She finally exclaimed "whoever or whatever that voice was just gave you, somehow, I have no idea how by the way I didn't even know this was a thing, A FIVE HUNDRED PERCENT INITIATIVE STAT MULTIPLIER!!"
"iz dat big?" he asked
"IT'S HUGE. LIKE MASSIVE HUGE!" She was breathing in short gasps, "and I nearly didn't even see it because it's just that little 'x5' sitting there next to your stat all like 'Oh I'm just a little multiplier sitting here minding my own business' BUT THERE’S NOTHING LITTLE ABOUT AN X5 MULTIPLIER…
…AND," she paused and closed her eyes to take a deep calming breath "and, there's something here about using your initiative to drink a Toast to Krunch to get bigger, and—"
"i git BIG!!??" exclaimed Gob, looking at the shapes more closely as if proximity would allow him to understand them.
"I, I, I think so… I don't really know it just says here look:
BLESSING(UNALIGNED):TOAST OF KRUNCH! Before any battle, raise a flask to the biggest troll of all. Everyone will have to wait for you to have your drink. Then they'll see who's not big! [500% (x5)initiative. Use move to Toast to Krunch, +size(swigs booze). Dispel. Temporary.]
So whatever it is its temporary. I don't know if that means the initiative is temporary or if something there to do with size gains are temporary, I don't know. I'm a bit out of my league here sorry…
"wot iz booz?" he asked
"Ha ha ha!" She laughed, "you're going to love it. Booze is alcohol, it's like a special drink that makes you feel happy and dizzy. Or sad and mopey. And sometimes sick. Kind of depends… In your case, it MAY also help you get big!"
"den I drink lots of booz!" he said excitedly "wer yoo git it?"
"Well, just about everywhere really... except down this hole that is. So before you run off to terrorise the taverns of The Realm, we need to get you out of here."
"wot els i git?!"
"Well there's something on that affinities thing again, but it's undocumented, and you've also got a major boost to your luck, fate and purpose stats… basically useless as far as I know, which figures as they've come from your new trait crapstatz! even though its undocumented too. BUT A FIVE TIMES INITIATIVE MULTIPLIER!!?"
"kylz…" Gob crossed his arms
"Sorry." She said again. "It's just a lot"
"a lot of wot?"
"Initiative is like… who goes first. Think back to your rat fight, how did it start?"
"da rat jump on me an bite my nek" he pointed to the spot.
"Right. The rat would have had priority because he beat you in initiative, and probably with a little boost because you were in his cave, but pretty much anyone would get priority on you, because inititive of three is like terrible… But you get the point? He got to go first, and if you hadn't been a tough little git, that would have been the end of it. Going first can make a very big difference to the outcome even against a tougher enemy."
"but no me" he said proudly.
"Right. Important. Priority won't win you the fight so don't get lazy. When you do get to go first, make it count! With five-X multiplier boost, even with your low initiative you're going to be going first a lot."
"wy yoo say luk an fate an purpuz iz uslez?" he asked.
"Oh those? They just don't really do anything. They float around in your sphere, but that's all they seem to do. They're a bit weird because almost everyone starts with two to four points but then they just reduce over time and eventually disappear altogether…
"ummm kylz…."
"…so most people just ignore them…"
"KYLZ!!" he raised his voice to get her attention.
"What?"
"i seez good!" he exclaimed. He could see the details in the stonework of the wall, he could see cave lichen growing in the the cracks, and scuttling bugs on the floor. He looked up, and he could see all the way up it. He could see his claw indentations from where he climbed the wall, the ledge where he fought the rat, and many other ledges like it sporadically up the sides of what he could now see was a shaft, with the remnants of mechanical wheels and a support structure at the top… and he instinctively knew roughly which direction everything was aligned to, including how to get back to his den, if he wanted to… except now, he had no desire to, because he could feel the call of the underground and he wanted to explore it!
"kylz i can see in da dark! i can… sorta… feel da rite way to git ot from heer!"
"What do you mean? That sounds a lot like a subterranean affinity… cave troll thing…"
POP! ##################
"KYLZ!" he exclaimed again "I LOOKZ LIK A ROK!"
He was right. He wiggled his claws that now looked like they were made of a dense dark metal, and tapped them against his hide that had now slowly greyed and took on a speckled, rough, weathered appearance exactly like the cut stone surrounding them. Gob looked ecstatic and flexed the claws, taking a swipe at the air "ratz iz no gon lik dis!"
"Gob that's actually amazing… I've never seen a transformation happen like this before. I just don't understand how you have some of the cave troll traits even though you chose the mountain troll…"
POP!
Some magical shapes materialised. Kylie read them for him:
Affinity sucker! trait active: you have absorbed subterranean affinity from your surroundings. Temporary subterranean traits and skills specific to Cave Troll archetype have emerged.
skill:darksight(3). Your eyes see everything, even when there is no light.
Gob this is incredible! I've never heard of anything like it! A skill that let's you get 'other skills' you need to suit your surroundings from affinities? I've just never heard of it working like that!"
She looked thoughtful.
"Oh wait!" She exclaimed "what about loot… you'd also get access to that loothoarder skill right? Wait!
skill:loothoarder(3). Your ability to detect treasure is increased, and your desire to hoard it is the equal of the dragons themselves. Detect (2x)loot per defeated foe.
Have a look at that rat for me, tell me if it… 'feels' any different than last time you looked!"
Gob turned to look at the still warm giant rat carcass. There was something there, he could feel it.
"sumfin iz in dat rat" he said to Kylie, pointing at the carcass.
"Right!" she laughed "probably loot!"
Gob shrugged, "wot iz loot?"
"Whenever you kill or defeat something or someone, you get all their stuff. In the case of clever creatures like goblins, humans, dwarves, elves, they carry it on them in their pockets, belts, or in pouches, bags or cleverly designed inventories. In the case of monsters, it's… well, they eat everything. So it's pretty much in their stomachs."
Gob frowned. "wot iz loot?" he asked this time.
"Loot is loot! Like their 'stuff'… items, gear, treasure… you know 'stuff'…"
Gob nodded "oh dat loot"
"Uh-huh" said Kylie nodding, "that loot! Well, go on then… get his loot!"
Walking over to the dead rat, Gob drew back his clawed first and plunged it into the creatures guts. Rummaging around, he found what he had sensed and pulled out a large gleaming yellow gold coin and a strange looking pipe.
"Treza!" he said, holding them up triumphantly, admiring them even though blood and gore dribbled down his arm.
POP!
Loot: 1xgold 1xsanctimonious pennywhistle
Kylie heaved, and looked away.
"That was so gross." she said, "Gob put it away, and don't ever do that while I'm watching again."