Volkanenborg

[Graybeard]

"Who's Sherry?"

Not useful, Grope reflected. Maybe the Small One was this "Sherry" person and was stalling for time while she plotted a magical ambush -- but why would she be carrying a long Thundering Metal Thing? The mages didn't usually use those. Or maybe the question was legitimate? Why would --

The eagle interrupted, having regained consciousness. "SKREEEAHH! When Sherry gets here, she's gonna kill your friend over there and make a rug outta your crap-stained hide! And I'm gonna take a dump on it myself! I'm --" Grope sighed and whacked the bird on the head with a weight again.

So that's not "Sherry." But who is it? I must consult the Robe. "Stay where you are. I will not harm you," Grope called as paused to finger his tunic.

[Sareth]

"I'm supposed to believe that?" I called out in reply. "I find myself doubting it very much! I mean, you are a troll!"

A troll that spoke the language rather well, in fact. This brought me pause. Why would a troll need to speak the language at all, let alone speak it well enough to be understood comfortably, even if it was spoken a bit slowly? It seemed to me that the only phrase a troll would really need to know is "Are you tasty?" But here was a troll that evidently had at some point had cause enough to learn to speak with a fluency that buggered my attempts to learn any language. Including my native one, if my mother's comments were to be believed. Something was funny here...

"Alright!" I yelled. "I'm watching you. Don't try nothing funny!"

[Graybeard]

Grope chuckled mentally. Cheeky, this Small One. If she was unable to use magic, which to all appearances she was (else the tactical situation would have been quite different), the tactical advantage was all on his side. But to bluster like that anyway ...

Suddenly, insight kicked in from the Robe, triggered by a memory it held, and not a distant memory either. The voice, the form, the attitude ... I have seen this Small One before. And the Many Fathers wanted me to be on her side, although I don't know why. Well, it may be time to find out.

"Kiyoka," Grope called. "The docks. You were with Lucas. I threw a corpse at the man who was attacking you. Do you remember? Tell me what you did next."

[Sareth]

"I cut my ropes," with a little bit of help, I didn't add, "grabbed my guns, and hopped a slow boat to..." And then I paused. "Wait a minute... that was you? I thought it was the blue skinned doll girl thingy."

I lowered my rifle, though I still had it at the ready. This was not a situation I would have ever predicted occurring. Getting my bony butt rescued by, of all things, a troll, then running into said troll on a whole nother island a bit later while it argued with a talking eag...

"Was that eagle talking? Man... This day is getting weirder by the second."

[AdamZero]

Jamie! I could feel her, near the troll, but that was it. Sweating, migraining, pain-filled mental strain was the price I was paying to manage that. Anymore and I'd be nose bleeding and that would tell Nevernial I'd been magicking... oh who was I kidding, this guy could probably dictate everything I'd eaten my entire life just from my piss. He was mulling around in my organs every odd hour or so, he'd know I was pushing out with mind magick so what if I made pay dirt.

"JAMIE. CAVE. HELP." Where the words I 'shouted' in my head. To her, a non magick user, she'd maybe hear it as a whisper, but the troll might hear it. they had the knowledge of the dead on them, and speaking through the dead to reach it.... OH SNAP! As I reeled from the 'shout' I reached through the cave's memory of death out to the Troll's Tunic of Knowledge. I was hit with an onslaught of memory and will, it hurt, well, it was a scary, but fear in the mind is like pain.

I thought an image of a peaceful field, and myself sitting in a position that suggested non-hostility. Not a common thing with trolls, most interactions outside packs were aggressive, that's just how they were. If someone wasn't strong enough to put up a good fight, it'd be easier to just pound the snot out of them, conquer them, and help them when they were part of YOUR tribe.

The message I sent to the troll was much crisper and a bit more elaborate.
"Honorable Carrier of the Dead's Memory, I ask for your help. My name is Marcus. I am in a cave nearby. The girl, Jamie, near you is my friend. There is a great evil nearby that brings pain and suffering but no freedom in death pleas-" I passed out before I finished that sentence, a safeguard my master has put into my head kept me from going to far and killing myself.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: The following is definitely NOT part of the actual story line ... Ignore it after tomorrow ...]

Grope reeled under the sensory overload. Male trolls weren't supposed to have to deal with magic at all (other than what was in the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe, which really didn't count), let alone the bombardment coming up from the ridge. Between that and the talking eagle, his head felt ready to explode. Back to something I can actually deal with, he thought.

The noise from overhead seemed to fit. A predator? A Small Ones artifact of some kind? Or worse, something magical after all? The eagle was still unconscious from the last whack on the head, so Grope decided to risk shifting his attention upward.

Trolls' eyes are only about as good as humans', unlike their hearing and sense of smell, so it took a minute for him to find the source of the noise. But there, up far above the ridge, he could see it. Making an effort to concentrate, and squinting his eyes, he brought the strange flying object into focus ...

A miniature sleigh. And eight tiny reindeer.

A distant "Ho, ho, ho" reached his ears as he wondered at this latest invention of the Small Ones.

[OOC: And with that, Merry Christmas to all...]

[Graybeard]

[OOC: OK, so back to business...]

Grope's head was beginning to pound.

Someone, or something, down below was using mind magic, apparently in an attempt to contact him. That was hard enough to deal with, but it was a Small One's mind, and that made its message completely incomprehensible. All that he was able to deduce was that the Small One was in a lot of pain, and a lot of trouble. Of course, it had to be in trouble to be attempting to contact one of Grope's kind; he'd learned from experience that most interactions with Small Ones did not involve friendly, neighborly conversation ...

Of course, there were exceptions, and one of them was tugging at his mind as he attempted to decide what to do about the heavily armed Small One on the ridge. This one is a friend of Lucas ... I think. That changed everything.

"Woman with gun," he called, "you are a friend of Lucas? Tell me where he is. If you know, then I invite you to share my ..." what was the Small Ones' word for it? Ah... "breakfast and gain its Wisdom."

[Sareth]

For the briefest of moments I was distracted from my predicament by my mind insisting on imagining Marcus' voice either pleading for help, offering to help, or trying to figure out what to do with dark holes. My mind took the oddest flights of fancy at the most inconvenient times. I brushed the thought aside and focused on business.

"Lucas? He's in town. That-a-way." I indicated Volcanenborg with a nod of my head. Using my hands or rifle seemed unwise to me, as it meant aiming in a direction other than vaguely towards the troll. "Uh... If I come down there... I won't be on the menu, will I?"

I wasn't sure I had the time, and I was pretty sure I didn't feel safe trusting a troll. But if I had a peaceable way to solve this situation I was going to take it. (I can't believe I just said that.) I had to find the missing duo before anyone else did, and while pausing for a breakfast of eagle (oh god... do trolls COOK their eagle breast meal?) would delay me, being eaten would delay me even further. Trade offs.

[Graybeard]

Ah. So I know where to find him to help with whatever odd thing he's in the middle of. "Very well, then. Come," Grope said as he wrung the bird's neck.

Long before Jamie moved, however, this plan came apart. The bird didn't just twitch and stop moving, the way ten thousand other birds he'd caught had. Instead, it burst into flames! And no small puff of smoke, either; this was a full-fledged, and obviously magical, fireball, forcing him to drop it quickly before a troll's natural nemesis started to do him serious damage. And even worse, a piercing ""EEEEEYYYYEEEEEEHH!" sounded from somewhere down the ridge.

Well, guess that was a bad idea, Grope thought to himself. Whoever or whatever "Sherry" was, she/it didn't sound very happy...

[Sareth]

Things were clearly getting worse. The eagle talking had been a slight problem with my sense of order in the world. But the sudden explosion of a fireball with the bird dead center of it was bad news. The sound of some sort of wailing cry down the slope was an even worse bit of bad news. Things were getting seriously weird.

I dashed out of my cover headed towards the fireball. "What the hell!" I called. "What was that?"