"FOR THE GLORRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYY OF THE REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLMMMMM!!!"
A violent, loud, otherworldy cry cut through the peace and quiet of the troll den, rousing the trollspawn. They sat up, surprised, groggily looking around at each other. The sound had come from the forest glade just outside the den.
The battle cry was answered by Big Trolls unmistakable bellow
GGGGGGGGRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!
Moments later the yelling and bellowing was accompanied by the clanging and ringing of weapons against tough troll hide, the rending screech of troll claws on steel, and the angry thumping and pounding of Big Troll’s hefty feet on the forest floor. Then there was a flash of bright blue light and an electrical
Crackle, Crackle, POP!
Then an
OOF…
Then another
GGGRRROOOAAARRRRRRR!!!
Then an
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH-
cut off abruptly by a bone jarring
CRUNCH!
Then more pounding and thumping, more claws on steel. More cries. More bellows. More pops.
Inside the den, the trollspawn listened to the strange sounds, hardly knowing what to make of them. Not Gob. Gob didn’t know what the noise was but he knew exactly what the noise meant. He curled up tighter inside the breastplate he had slept in.
Hik & Baz climbed to their feet, puffing their chest out.
"letz go see wot hapenin", Hik said.
"yea letz go see wot hapenin wiv dat funny noiz ot der" Baz said, then lumbered forward, disappearing through the den opening.
GGGGGGGGGGROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!
Big Troll again.
GROOOOAR!
GGRROOOOOOOOAARR!
Hik and Baz.
"THERES MORE HERE, WE FOUND 'EM! LET'S GET-"
That strange otherworldy voice again,
CRUNCH!
abruptly cut off.
More yells. More roars. Another pop. An electric crackle. Another bellow.
GROOAeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
GROOOAeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
Hik & Baz's two junior roars suddenly reduced to piglike squeals.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-crash-crash-crash-crash!
Hik & Baz, running away into the forest, charging through the underbrush, running for their lives.
"YOU TWO - CHASE THAT THING!!"
The sound of pursuit.
GGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!
Big Troll again, very much angrier. More scuffling, yelling, clangs of metal armour and swords.
Crackle, Crackle, POP! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-ZAP! BANG! BANG!
A series of extremely strange sounds were being carried into the den, along with a sharp smell that was a bit like a fire, if fire was blue and didn't have any smoke. Gob decided to call the smell electric, though he couldn't have said why.
To the trollspawn the sounds were a point of curiosity. They hadn't heard them before, but they were, probably, thinking that when Big Troll came back in he would explain what they were and then they would know something new and a bit interesting.
To Gob the sounds, and the smells, were of great concern. He hadn't heard, or smelled them before, and if they were something 'new and a bit interesting', Big Troll would have come and woken them up to show them. The fact that he was out there, bellowing, and they were in here, hearing, should have been causing widespread confusion and panic as a minimum.
That Hik&Baz had gone out to investigate and not returned was as much as a confirmation Gob needed to stay right where he was, and use his small size as an advantage, possibly for the first time ever.
To distract himself from the image he was starting to form in his mind of what was actually going on here, Gob covered his ears and curled up in the tightest, tiniest ball he could.
OOF-
GGGGGROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—
The bellow abruptly cut off. A pause. Cheering.
"HA HA! WE GOT 'IM BOYS, HACK HIS HEAD OFF TO BE SURE… THEN LET'S FINISH THE DEN!"
More cheering. Hacking. A vomit. Laughing.
"'Sup Jim, you don't have the HEAD for it?!"
More laughing. Another vomit.
"Come on, leave him be you two - with me now, kill anything that moves!
FOR THE GLORRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!"
Gob peered out from the breastplate just far enough to see three odd creatures charge into the den. The creatures were small compared to Big Troll, skinny, with pale weak looking fleshy faces, the kind of flesh Gob often ate for dinner in fact, but with the rest of their bodies all covered over in powerful metal armor so shiny he could see his own reflection in it. He guessed these to be some of the 'hoomins' Big Troll talked about.
Fiters he thought. wot did big trol cal dem agin? wareeors…
The leader, a strong well built female, long black hair tied back tightly, barreled straight towards Poz who was standing closest to the door, frozen where he was in fear. She cleaved off his head with a clean swipe of a shiny sword blade. The others followed her into the den, and undertook a bloody hacking frenzy that saw off the rest of Gob’s squealing siblings within a few violent seconds. He was too stunned to think or move. He couldn’t believe what just happened.
"Phew, we get 'em all?" one of the warriors looked around, enthusiastically wiping thick black troll blood off his now-less-shiny sword with a cloth he must have been carrying for the purpose. Gob shrank back inside the breastplate.
"The High Council is going to love us for this… That troll was a beast!"
"Ha ha! look at me boys, I'm King of the troll den!" They turned to see the female warrior sitting on Big Trolls throne. She had Poz's severed head on the end of her sword and waved it around as her companions guffawed at her. Poz's eyes were blank, and his tongue lolled out of the side of his now slack jaw. Thick black blood ran down the warrior's sword, and dribbled down her arm.
Gob's eyes went wide and he squeaked involuntarily, then quickly covered his mouth and curled up tightly again inside the breastplate.
Within a heartbeat Gob had three ideas:
*run fo it? (speed(2/10))
i don no bout runnin…
*tork to dem? (literacy(2/12))
i no good torker…
*stay hiddun? (concealment(0/5)) or (luck(1:6))
mibby…
There were no good options. He chose to try his luck and stay hidden.
The warrior had heard him squeak though, and she bounded over with a triumphant laugh. When she saw him, she expertly yanked off her steel gauntlet and plucked him up with a tough bare hand in one smooth movement, holding him up by the nape of his neck in the air at arm's length.
"Well lads, look what I found over here!" she jeered, looking Gob up and down with a smirk.
"What's a goblin doing in a troll den?", one of the other warriors asked.
"Maybe it was a plaything for the widdle baby twolls", she answered in a cutesy voice, pretending to kiss him with pouty lips.
Gob was too stunned to do anything. He just hung there, his mind so full of different thoughts that none of them could get to the front.
stop dis! he scolded himself severely yoo gotta bi cleva or yoo gonna git ded!
A very different looking creature entered the den. He was taller than the others, with the same pale weak skin, but with a long grey beard hanging from his chin almost down to the floor. He didn't wear the same shiny armor as the warriors, instead he had a deep purple cloth robe with ornate shining gold lettering shimmering across it, a similarly coloured pointed hat, and a long staff in one hand. The staff glowed at the tip with a strange crackling blue light, emitting tiny little sparks of energy sporadically as the man moved it around.
"Joss that's vile.” He spoke to the female warrior with a deep calm voice of authority.
“Don't play with it, just kill the thing and let's get on back to announce today's victory to the High Council. And go out and make sure the soldiers you sent after the two headed spawn got it. BOTH heads. It’s the only way to be sure with trolls." he turned to leave.
Gob heard the
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
of her sword being drawn from it’s sheath. She poked him with it playfully, drawing a bead of black blood on his thigh.
“NOOOOOOO!” he tried to bellow at the top of his voice, struggling, kicking but all that came out was a strangled squeak.
The bearded man stopped and turned though, narrowing his eyes as he peered at Gob.
"On second thoughts, wait Joss" he said, raising a hand. The warrior woman was about to carve Gob in half and rolled her eyes and sighed, complaining,
"Aww come on Gervais, why you always spoilin' my games?" But she held Gob out towards the strange man anyway.
"Fascinating…" he trailed off thoughtfully, gazing at Gob for a very long time. His eyes locked on Gob's, and Gob felt a strange sort of connection. Gob didn't like it, didn't want it, but the human's mind bore into his own deeper, deeper, deeper. It started to hurt, it felt like the man was… rummaging through his whole self. Gob badly wanted to look away, to get him out of his head, but it was like every aspect of his being was being inspected, line by line...
DIVERGENT!
TROLL(spawn)
XP 184
SPIRIT 47 will 12 stability>instability 3 connection 2 fear 5 tenacity 9 neuroticism 9 ferocity 7
MIND 44 perception 9 memory 6 awareness 8 intelligence 9 literacy 2 introspection 7 initiative 3
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
BODY 81 heart 3 form 3 gut 5 brain 11 size 3 hunger 6 coordination 5 constitution 3 toughness 4 strength 3 skill:bodifrow 5 trait:trollhide 6 trait:regeneration 11 trait:trollclaws 4
DIVERGENT!
trait:regenerativegrowth>neurogenesis
9
feeling 1 fate 3 purpose 4 luck 4
Gob felt the human pause, and then delve deeper into one specific aspect of his being. The same aspect that Gob had never understood. The aspect that meant he was a runt who could never get bigger...
trait:regenerativegrowth has DIVERGED to trait:neurogenesis. Archetypical SIZE progression has diverged to BRAIN and INTELLIGENCE progression. [+0.33brain per point regenerated. +0.33intelligence per point regenerated.]
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"Umm… hello?" Joss waved Gob back and forth in front of Gervais' face. The mage jerked as if waking up with a start, shaking his head a little to clear it.
"What’s that? Oh yes, yes - it's not a goblin at all. It's just a small trollspawn. Probably the runt of the litter. He's a smart little beastie though. He’s got some odd stats on him. Hmm… fascinating indeed.” The man rubbed his chin, fidgeted with his beard, peered up thoughtfully to the ceiling of the cave. He smiled to himself as though a thought had just taken shape up there.
“I've got a better idea, Joss. Don't chop him up, hold him out at arms length, and don't move." The cloaked old man took a few steps back, and squinting, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth, pointed his glowing blue crackling staff at Gob.
"Don't you zap me old man", said the woman warrior, turning her head away and stretching her arm out as far from herself as possible
In the past few minutes Gob's whole world had been turned upside down.
He had thought Big Troll was indestructible, but Big Troll was gone. He’d heard it happen. He’d thought he was ferocious, but when the time had come to be ferocious he hadn’t even been able to get himself together enough to do anything at all. He had even thought he was clever! But as he felt the probing mind of the clever human rummage through his, he knew he was nothing like it… and now that same human was pointing a blue crackling stick right at him.
But he couldn't accept that this was it, and in that moment there was something like a flash in his mind. A few synapses had just mangled themselves together and out of the carnage some perspective had emerged. It went like this:
*fings iz not wot I fort…
*big trol got iz hed cut off by liddl hoomin…
*if liddl hoomin cut off big trol hed…
*den liddl hoomin iz big strong
*i iz a liddl trol. i iz no gon kil strong hoomin
*but i stil git da last turn!
*AN WEN YOO GIT DA LAST TURN YOO MAK DA MOS A IT!
And for the second time today three options popped into his mind:
*screem agin? (ferocity(7/28))
not dat, dat did nufin las tim
*tork to da wareeor? (literacy(2/12))
nope i iz no good torker
*bite da wareeor? (teef(0/5)) or (fate(1:4))
wel, dat mite werk…
He twisted his head sideways, and bit down hard on the strong woman's wrist. He bit harder than he had ever bitten anything in his life. He bit to make the most of what very well could be his LAST last turn. He just needed a shot, that was all. It was a fateful bite…
He felt a satisfying
Crunch!
as her arm bone gave way and splintered, his jaw coming away with a gory mouthful of it.
The warrior shrieked in unexpected pain and anger, and dropped him reflexively. He skittered across the den floor on all fours, ducking through urgently shuffling armored warrior legs and around piles of discarded bones. He dashed for the door, screams and shouts behind him, and was nearly there when he heard a
Crackle, pop, POP! Whizzzzzzz-thak!
followed by a searing pain in his shoulder blade and a burning, vibrating sparking sensation. He ignored it and kept running. Trolls were good at that sort of thing.
He made it through the cave opening and sprinted across the glade as fast as his short little troll legs would carry him, zig zagging like a bunny rabbit to avoid any more zapping from the glowing stick. As soon as he reached the cover of the undergrowth he glanced over his back to look at his shoulder. A shard of something stuck out of his skin, burning fiercely, glowing blue, and fizzing and spitting with crackling energy. His skin was actually regenerating around the shard. He couldn't stop. He had to keep running. He could hear angry shouts behind him as the warriors chased him, crashing through the woods. The blue shard didn't look like it would cut him in half... the warriors definitely would if they caught him.
He didn't know where he was going, he'd never been this far out of the den on his own before, so he just kept running until he saw a hole between some rocks big enough that he could fit through but small enough that the warriors wouldn't, and threw himself into it. Inside there was a very tight, pitch black tunnel, tight even for him. He forced himself to squeeze through as fast as he could, shimmying along awkwardly, getting in as deep as he could, as far away from human arms as he could.
In an instant the tight confines of tunnel gave way to nothing... literally nothing. Gob fell into void space, falling, falling, falling, falling.
No light, except a dim blue glow from whatever was lodged in his shoulder, until
CRUNCH!
He hit rock bottom.
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“You ‘lost’ it?” Gervais Stormbrow was giving Joss his ‘unimpressed’ face. It was a powerful one.
In reality though, he had planned for her to lose the troll runt. In fact he had triggered the means to do it in the little beasts mind. He hadn't meant for it to destroy her wrist though. He felt a bit bad for that.
“What about the two headed one?”
Joss looked tired, cranky and in pain. She winced, though Gervais couldn't be sure whether in pain or embarrassment, “Yes Mage, the two headed one too.”
“Well I don't much care about that one. Call your unit back. We've done excellent work here today. We'll get you to a healer and then to a tavern."
“The tavern part sounds good.” Cradling her mangled wrist she yelled into the forest,
“ALL RIGHT BOYS, CALL IT OFF. IT'S BACK TO TOWN, ALE'S ON THE MAGE!”
HURRRRAAAAAAAH!
“What do we do with these?” she nudged the bulky troll’s headless corpse with her foot.
“You can loot it if you like!” laughed Gervais as he started back to the trail that lead away from the forest glade.
Looting a fallen foe of the 'noble' kind, that is to say Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Lizărd, involved rummaging through their pockets and inventories. Looting a 'savage-kind' usually meant cutting its belly open to see what kinds of treasures it had eaten.
“Eeew no thanks” she replied, making a face “I'm not that desperate. Why do monsters eat their best loot anyway? It's disgusting. ”
Gervais just shrugged. "You'd be surpised what creatures eat. Some of the most awesome treasures ever found came from monster guts. I found my magic staff in the lower esophagus of a manticore. No wonder he was so skinny, poor thing hadn't eaten in weeks when I finished him off. Also had a treasure chest behind his sternum. I found that a bit literal. "
Joss just stared at him with a pale face and a slightly confused frown. Gervais had long ago learnt that what was normal for one was anything but for the other. Nothing perturbed him anymore. Life was what life was.
“Just leave the corpses here for whatever's left of the forest creatures." he said when she didn't say anything further, "It's about time they got their own back on the brute.”