Mountains of Madness, Part 2

[Graybeard]

"I'd better call it quits here," Chippy said to Grope. "I'm not sure the other trolls would be as willing to consider a chipmunk a friend, rather than dinner, as you are."

Grope considered. "A fair point. For my part, I am not sure that having a familiar would make me welcome among my people. Will you be able to make your way back to your territory safely?"

"Remember that hawk?"

Grope emitted the rumbling sound that passed for troll laughter. "Point."

"It's been nice meeting you," Chippy said, "and I never thought I'd say that to a troll. Next time you find yourself on that ridge south of the park, look me up."

"I will. And I never thought I'd say that to a chipmunk. Safe travels, friend."

The chipmunk scampered back into the gulch, while the troll turned uphill, to hike into the Mountains of Madness.

[Sareth]

At least the weather was nice.

Grope's campsite had been abandoned. We'd retraced our path to it easily enough, but it had been well policed up, and the troll was gone. Now we were having to see if we could catch up to him.

Personally, I had my doubts. Trolls were hardy and fast. We were merely human.

Well, okay, I was merely human. Marcus was dead/alive/dead/alive/dead/let-me-check-my-pulse, Lucas was a walking magicwonker, and Ayiee was... We're still working on Ayiee. I was merely human. So whether or not we could catch Grope up, well... That was anybody's guess.

But it was a warm, pleasant day, the air was sweet, my mother was a day behind us (and thus not close enough to hear her nags about grandkids)... All in all, I'd had worse strolls. I could relax, look at the wildflowers, enjoy the breeze, scope out the wildlife...

"Hey... Is that a chipmunk?"

[Viking-Sensei]

"Didn't one of you say Grope was carrying a talking chipmunk?" Lucas said, reaching into his bag and pulling out a small sack of an odd 'trail mixture' that he'd picked up in town. "Hey, little fellow, want some snacks? And have you seen my giant troll friend about?"

[Graybeard]

"Thanks," Chippy said, accepting a tidbit from Lucas' bag, and not noticing, as Lucas himself had not, that its label read "Mesuinu's All-Natural Bird Seed." A couple of munches later, he answered, "You mean Grope? He's on his way into the mountains to see some other trolls. If you're looking for him, gotta be careful, they're not as friendly as he is -- hey, now!"

Before Lucas' and Jamie's very eyes, the chipmunk was growing a pair of wings.

"Kewl!" he said, taking a brief, tentative foray into the air.

------------

The going was getting easier as Grope slipped through the trees, heading up the ridge. He wasn't up to timberline yet, but the thick deciduous forest had given way to a thinner stand of pines and firs, leaving much more room to maneuver his bulk through the trees. Another thousand feet of elevation or so, and he'd be through to timberline, and he'd really be able to make tracks.

Looking across the gulch he'd just climbed out of, he could see the fence strung along the ridge on its south side. Yes, I did right to come over here, he thought to himself. The Small Ones over there were definitely not friendly. He only hoped that his people had been able to avoid them as they settled into their new lives.

[Sareth]

[OOC]Gonna borrow Lucas for a line, hope you don't mind, Viking Sensei[/OOC]

"Well, that's not something I expected to see today..." I stared at the now flying chipmunk. "A flying, talking chipmunk. What's next? Flying Monkeys?"

Somewhere to the west a green skinned practitioner of hedge magic cackled. "Good idea!" she declared. But that's a tale for another day.

The chipmunk flitted around my head experimentally, then settled back down. He took up more seed, and began munching away.

"So, any chance we can catch up with him?" I asked.

"Not at the speed you folk are going. But maybe once he reaches the other trolls he'll stop and visit for a while. You can catch him then."

"A whole tribe of trolls? That doesn't sound safe."

"No fur off my back."

"But plenty off ours," I replied. "Well, off Lucas and Marcus' backs. I'm decidedly not as fuzzy, and I think Ayiee doesn't even have fuzz some of the places she should."

Ayiee smiled and exposed an armpit to demonstrate a distinct lack of a need of shaving, a fact of which I was quite envious.

"Well, if you really want to, you could cut the corner and cut him off," the chipmunk mentioned helpfully, then began stuffing his cheeks till he was starting to get plump in the face. "Bu ah don weguhmen id."

"What?"

He swallowed and tried again. "I don't recommend it."

I leaned in a little closer. "Why's that?"

"Cause you'd have to cross the territory of some truly crazy people."

Lucas chuckled. "Crazier than the Mesuinu's?"

The chipmunk shook his head. "Not quite that crazy."

We all breathed a sigh of relief.

"But far, far more homicidal."

Wonderful.

[Graybeard]

One in a hundred, Faye thought as she walked back to her house. Wonder how we might take advantage of that. The Gewehr weren't as magic-phobic as many of the Farrelian outfits, but there were still some important people on the Council who didn't go for magical gadgetry. At the same time, they'd recognized that they were losing "market share," to use the euphemism, to the Eisenfaust, who'd obviously embraced magic more enthusiastically that any of the other guilds, and were benefiting from it. There should be some way to parlay Layla's unsuspected gifts into something useful (and, not to be forgotten, beneficial for her), and to discover and cultivate the skill among others in the Gewehr who had it.

First, however, there was a funeral to arrange.

The family wasn't particularly religious, but she thought she could get the local Veracian priest to say something; he'd married Layla and Arty in the small temple in town, and to his (and her) surprise, Layla had insisted that he do some quaint manner of "confirmation" ceremony for Zachary when he was born. He should be able to say a few words. There wasn't much that needed to be done in terms of family; Layla was an only child, and so was Faye, so there wouldn't be a swarm of elderly, lugubrious relatives who'd gush tears over the casket (and Layla and Zachary) and make themselves obnoxious. Arty's parents had died a few years back, his father in a bungled hit and his mother of some unpleasant wasting disease, so he didn't have close family ties either ...

... Except for Ozzie.

How are we going to accommodate that whacko? Faye asked herself, as she entered the house, interrupting Layla and Zachary in one of those mommy moments.

[AdamZero]

"Ah religious nutjobs," I sighed and smiled. "An here I thought I was going to go a day without my life being in danger of being cut short....er." I scratched my chin.

"Anyway... if Lucas is a friend of a troll, and that troll is friends with the trolls he's chatting up, that's a bonus for us, who are.... travel companions with him!" I reasoned. "No reason to go sneaking around religious cult grounds,"

Boris laughed at a phrase he remembered. "If one man has an imaginary friend, he's crazy. If ten men have an imaginary friend, someone's invisible. If a hundred men have an imaginary friend, it's a cult. If a thousand men have an imaginary friend, it's a religion!" He laughed out loud, and my laughter accompanied him. "Ah... good one."

I noticed the squirrel's wings were growing a bit with each seed he ate, it wouldn't be long before he had wings the size of a large raven, the color of a hawks.

"If he starts breeding, well....." I scratched my chin. "No nut will every be safe, no matter how high it lingers. SEEDS SHALL BE HARVESTED IN THE DOZENS!" I tried to find a dramatic voice, but I just started laughing. "Well at least they aren't as crazy as wabbits."

[Graybeard]

"I think the arrangements are all made," Faye told Layla, interrupting a nursing session with Zachary -- Faye wondered if that kid ever did anything but eat and fill diapers. Well, he was a healthy seven-month-old, after all...

"Well, get on with it, then," Layla said with a dismissive gesture. "I honestly think this funeral is more important to you than it is to me."

There's truth to that, Faye conceded to herself. "Well, let's just do it and be done with it. There is only one thing ..."

"Yes?" Layla really didn't want to talk about it.

"Do we try to find and invite Ozzie?"

Now that struck home. Ozzie Samuels was Arty's only surviving brother, in fact the only close family member of any kind that Arty had acknowledged existing -- certainly not "loved" or any other verb implying affection, but he was out there somewhere. And they knew where. Ozzie had abandoned the Gewehr and joined the bizarrely homicidal religious cult up in the mountains. An attempt to forcibly return him to Kugelheim a few years back had ended disastrously, a more recent attempt just to contact him only slightly less so. He'd come back to town on his own once, for Arty's and Layla's wedding, with "friends" -- friends who sparked a near-riot after the newlyweds were safely out of town. Those people were xenophobic, violent, and powerfully magical. There was really only one possible answer, and Layla gave it.

"Hell, no, Mom." Layla got a look of horror on her face. "What if he showed up?"

[OOC, added years later: That last exchange has a pleasing symmetry with something that happened in the real-world preparations for my own wedding, a very long time ago. Very long indeed; we celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary this year ...]

[Sareth]

"Not sure the wabbits are the craziest thing around here," I muttered after Marcus' little mad man moment. Sometimes he almost seemed normal. I turned to face Marcus. "There's just one thing. Grope may vouch for us, or for Lucas, at least. But that assumes that we survive long enough first. What if some of the other trolls spot us before we can get to Grope?"

[Viking-Sensei]

"Well, chances are if they've been living near the park and the bizarre military compound and haven't gone extinct, these are probably on the 'civilized' end of the spectrum of trolls. Most trolls aren't nearly as bad as the Veracians like to paint them - after all, killing hundreds of wild animals and claiming the wild land as your own is called settling... killing hundreds of intelligent beings to take land that's rightfully theirs is called GENOCIDE!. Big difference. Chances are we could probably pass straight through their territory without ever seeing a troll. And if we do, I can speak rudimentary troll, enough to say 'don't eat us' at least, and Marcus can do magic... and Ayiee can punch a troll out cold... so we shoudl be fairly ok."