Grope Finds a Mate

[Graybeard]

Foreword

No story in this first entry, but background on what the story will be all about.

In the early days of Errant Road, my main character was a troll. Yes, an Errant Story-type troll, despite the fact that at the time, we had little idea what trolls in the Errant World were like, having seen them only briefly and having a few Poe notes to go on. "Grope," as he was known (his full name is unpronounceable by human-like mouths and hard to code), started out having a few adventures with the initial round of ER characters in Kiyoka, during which he discovered that he'd been horrifically widowed by the same band of thugs the other PCs were fleeing, who were under the employ of another of my PCs, although he never figured that part out. He helped the adventurers wipe out the thugs, then parted ways with them to find a new mate while they went off to their incredibly long-running pursuit of the "Convergence" and what came after that.

Grope would appear occasionally after that parting, re-establishing contacts with the troll tribe/band he'd left with his late mate "Zhbrigeeul" to move to the wilds outside Kiyoka, and interacting occasionally with the main party when they got into troll-sized trouble in Farrel. However, his search for a mate never got finished in the main Errant Road, so I thought I'd finish it here. Again, looking at maybe ten chapters; the first will appear next weekend if all goes well. (I've got some research to do first.)

I hope you read it, and like it.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: FINALLY getting a chance to continue this ... For background on the new character (and hoo boy, is he ever a character), start here and continue for as long as you find it entertaining. I had a lot of fun with "Chippy" back in the game. For a sense of where it's happening, look here and note the small gray spots near the top of the map.]

Chapter One: The Chippy Incident

"It's all my fault," the winged chipmunk sitting on Grope's shoulder lamented. "If I hadn't come looking for you, that wouldn't have happened, and you'd have found your mate and started living happily ever after." His posture was pert and perky -- how could a winged chipmunk be otherwise? -- but the look on his face was one of pure misery.

Grope smiled and extended a mammoth hand to his shoulder to stroke the tiny animal's fur, which action required his little finger and a great deal of delicacy. "No, it wasn't," he said softly, in as comforting a tone as a troll could manage. "A female troll who has problems with a male who associates with magic wouldn't have worked well as my mate in the long run. Besides, she was a little out of line there."

Chippy wasn't convinced. "I dunno. I think maybe I should go back to the park, let you get on with finding your mate and --" He was interrupted first by a shake of Grope's massive head that almost knocked him off the troll's shoulder, and then by more soft, comforting (to the extent that the troll language allowed) words.

"Wouldn't think of it," Grope murmured. "You're my friend. Friendship means a lot to a troll. My mate is going to have to accept that. Unlike..." He paused, remembering what had happened the previous evening.

-*-*-*-

They were hiking across one of the wild, uninhabited islands between the main landmass of Farrel and the great continent bearing the Northern Confederacy and Far North, and the Five Great Mothers alone knew what else. Grope's nephew Scrobian and his sister Harzh'biah had left them back in Farrel proper, looking for other survivors of the eruption of the Dwarven Forge. They'd given Grope a tip that sailboats of the Small Ones would sometimes wash up on the northern shore of the continent, and sure enough, the Five Great Mothers had provided; it only took a day of searching to find a derelict skiff that would bear a troll's weight with a few repairs. These done, he and his munk friend sailed north, their destination the coast of the Northern Confederacy but a few stops on islands being required on the way.

The Five Great Mothers provided again. The second island had a small troll clan living on it. Even better from Grope's point of view, one of the females of the clan had lost her mate recently to a fishing accident. It took a little while for the clan to accept the newcomer who had somehow materialized on the shore, to their astonishment, but Grope was an imposing specimen of a troll, and he knew about as much about troll diplomacy as there was to know. It only took a few days before this odd wayfarer (and, importantly, his skiff) was welcome among his kind ... and before Zhe'hah'na, the recently widowed female, to start taking an interest in him, and vice versa.

Throughout all this, Chippy was keeping a low profile. He'd done some aerial reconnaissance as they were crossing the Farrel Sea, and had spotted this island through the haze. He deduced that the one troll that he saw on the coast was likely not to be as accepting of a magical winged chipmunk as his big friend was. Consequently, when he and Grope made landfall, he spent almost all his time hidden away in the pocket of one of Grope's tunics, emerging for conversation (and food) only when no other troll was around.

So things went for those few days, as Grope and the clan became more comfortable with each other; and, particularly, as Grope and Zhe'hah'na started to see some possibilities. The Chieftess of the clan was quick to notice this attraction, and one night, she made arrangements for the two of them to stand watch on the island shore alone. There was really no need for a watch at all, of course; there were no living threats to the island, and although storms could pose a real threat that required some battening-down, they could be seen coming a long way away. Grope, again, knew something of tact and diplomacy, and he recognized this assignment for what the Chieftess intended it to be: a first, but major, step in courting.

Things were going swimmingly on that count when Grope made a spur of the moment decision. Maybe now is the time for her to get a better idea of what I'm really like. "There's someone I'd like you to meet," he said, and reached into the pocket to extract a sleeping Chippy. "Here," Grope said, lowering his voice to keep from awakening the sleeping munk ... but he'd wake up soon enough.

Zhe'hah'na beamed. "A bat! What a wonderful present! I love bats!" But she did not mean as pets, let alone familiars. With one hand, she scooped the suddenly-awakened Chippy out of Grope's hand and popped him into her mouth.

She hadn't even started to chew yet when the magically altered munk's survival instincts took over. His eyes glowed red, and the magic built into all of the enhanced animals from Mountain of Madness triggered. A small but very hot fireball shot out of his paws, through the troll's fangs, and out into the darkness as if she'd just metamorphosed into a fire-breathing dragon.

The effect on Grope's potential mate was immediate and painful. "OOOOOHGGHHH!" she bellowed in a voice that could probably have been heard in Rinkaiel. (Well, not really, but loud.) Chippy made good his escape through the singed fangs and mouth, settling into a tree until the coast was clear again. That didn't take long; Zhe'hah'na's face went from pain to shock and horror almost in the blink of an eye. Without another word, and ignoring Grope's attempts to calm her down, she turned and fled in the direction of the village.

[Graybeard]

This isn't dead, but I'm writers-blocked at the moment and dealing with some nasty stuff on the home front (seriously ill wife). I do have something entertaining in mind for the next chapter, so Grope will return after the first of the year. Happy Holidays, everybody.

[Graybeard]

[An incomplete account of this little encounter, but at least I've broken the writer's block. More will follow.]

Chapter Two: See Trolls, Sea Trolls (I)

"Well, that was weird," said Chippy from his usual perch atop Grope's shoulder.

"It was that," Grope agreed, not breaking his distance-devouring stride across the hills of the Northern Confederacy. "I would definitely call that place 'weird'."

This, note, was coming from a troll who had never said anything about it being "weird" to have a winged, talking chipmunk as what amounted to a familiar.

=*=*=

The next few islands north of the one where Chippy had almost been eaten were uninhabited, at least by trolls, humans and so on. Only one or two had even a fire ring or other evidence that trolls had ever visited the place to hunt. There were good reasons for that; land animals large enough for a troll to find them worth hunting were lacking, and seabirds, though abundant, just weren't worth the trouble. Grope snagged a few as munchies while Chippy snacked on nut-like seeds borne by the few tall trees on the islands. In the process he learned why one of the more common types of shorebird had been given a name by his people that translated approximately as "foul murre." Grope wasn't entirely sure what a murre was, not being originally from a seafaring tribe, but after his experience with a "foul" one, he had no great desire to eat another, whether fair, foul, de-scented, or whatever.

Things continued in this vein until Grope (and, of course, Chippy) encountered the two largest sharks he'd ever seen in his long life.

Their boat was starting to show signs of becoming un-seaworthy, not too surprisingly since the humans, or elves or half elves, had abandoned it. Grope had never imagined having a conversation about lashing tree trunks together to serve as a raft before this outing; certainly not with a chipmunk. However, one did what had to be done.

The second largest shark emphasized this point, by ramming its hammer-shaped snout into the side of the boat that Grope and Chippy were using, so hard that the troll nearly fell out of the boat (which was the point) and the chipmunk became airborne (which was not). The shark surfaced for a moment to see whether its attack had succeeded in ripping the boat apart and exposing the tasty (to a shark) morsels within. Grope thought he saw a flash of disappointment in the predator's eyes that the boat was still holding together -- barely. It sank back into the water, swam a short distance away, and turned to gather speed for another run as an animated torpedo.

Grope got into that trollish frame of mind that precedes combat, and particularly, death in combat. There was nothing left but to prepare, not even to say a prayer to the Five Great Mothers, just getting a sword ready and planning to die fighting. It was only seconds before the killer fish made its second run ...

... Or more accurately, half of it did.

[Graybeard]

Chapter Three: See Trolls, Sea Trolls (II)

Grope had already started the death howl that was customary for trolls fighting their last, fatal battle, when salvation appeared.

The huge shark was accelerating toward the rickety boat, its weird hammer-shaped head ready to smash the little vessel to splinters. It never got there. An even larger maw appeared behind the predator and snipped it neatly in half just behind its dorsal fin. Both halves disappeared immediately, the rear one into the incredibly large shark with the gaping maw, the front one into the depths. The second shark broke the water as if to celebrate, giving Grope (and Chippy, who of course was airborne by now) an awed look at its body. Grope and Chippy would later agree that the thing had to be at least eighty feet long, maybe even a hundred. Sharks weren't supposed to get that huge. This one had.

"Wow," said a relieved Grope as Chippy settled back onto his shoulder. "The Five Great Mothers were really looking after me today. But what's that noise?"

"I dunno," the flying munk replied. "Let me check ... Oh, Weave," he continued as soon as he was a few feet in the air. With his head clearing after his brush with death, Grope could see it too.

They were approaching another small island, but this one was inhabited by a band of trolls. They were lined up on the bank facing the battered boat and its occupants. And they were cheering. Now that he was calming down, Grope could pick out what they were saying.

"Way to go, Nemo!"

"'Nemo'?" a baffled Grope and a puzzled Chippy said to each other. The munk figured it out first. "Must be what they call that second shark, like it's their pet or something ... Oh, Weave," he repeated. A small boat had launched from the island and was heading their way.

Something about this scene seemed odd to Grope, but he wasn't going to question the rescue by Nemo and the Five Great Mothers. (What a name that would be for a musical group, Grope thought, demonstrating that he'd spent too much time among humans.)

It didn't take long for the lifeboat to reach them and tie a line to their vessel so that it could be towed to shore. As usual, most of the hard physical work was done by the males of the clan, but there was one magic user among them, one who dove off the lifeboat as it was approaching Grope's boat and startled him and Chippy by casting an obvious spell while in the water, to stabilize the front of the craft so the tow rope could be attached. As was almost always the case with trolls (Grope didn't know of any exceptions other than himself), that mage-troll was female. She was also, or so Grope thought, the ugliest female troll he had ever seen in his long life. He wasn't quite sure why; there wasn't enough time for a clear look at her. But there was just something wrong about the way she looked.

The way the males on the boat were kowtowing to their female colleague suggested that, ugly or not, she was important. Grope had to admit, though: they were treating him as important too -- well, at least as someone deserving high respect, as a troll preparing for the fight of his life would merit. When they pulled his craft into near-contact with their own, he hopped across into a near-frenzied spate of back-slapping and hand-shaking. The clansmen, Grope noticed, had a peculiar, almost liquid accent. He could make out their congratulations well enough; the language was still that of trolls. It just sounded ... odd.

There was another oddity. They were pulling into a village right along the island's coast; more accurately, in the coastal waters. The huts and lodges seemed to stand on stilts to put their floors above water level, and at first, he wondered how they and their inhabitants could survive a bad storm. Then he realized that generation after generation of trolls had contributed to the building of a remarkably well engineered breakwater that protected the little cove with the dwellings. This clan had been on this island for a long, long time ...

... Long enough to have developed certain ... peculiarities.

These strange sea trolls, Grope was relieved to observe, still retained the trolls' high regard for a mighty warrior, as both Grope's scars and the tales he'd told on the way to shore confirmed his being. He'd bent the truth only very slightly when he described how he and his mate had saved the life of an adventurous Small One who plied the ocean, and who, in turn, had helped Grope on his quest for a new mate (this is where the mild bending occurred). He had no way to know that "Stag'puhl" had recently met his very strange end while crossing the ocean with his own mate. It wouldn't have changed Grope's tale-telling much if he had known.

He'd never been a big fan of fish for dinner, but when he was invited to a feast in honor partly of him and partly of the way "Nemo" had saved him and Chippy, that was what was on the menu, so he ate it. Something was giving him a queasy feeling, though, and he was pretty sure it wasn't the fish. It came to a head, so to speak, when one of the trolls who'd been on the boat rose to give a short speech about their new friend Grope(click)ior and his deeds of derring-do, relatively few of which Grope recognized in the way they were being described. That was partly because of the sea trolls' dialect, but mainly because of certain liberties taken with what Grope had said on the way to shore. The tale-telling finally ended ... with one last flourish.

The speaker beamed widely and proclaimed, "So, friend Grope is mighty warrior, worth of membership in our clan!" (Enthusiastic assent from all around.) He clapped a mammoth hand on Grope's shoulder ... and Grope noticed that there was webbing between its fingers. He was trying to digest this observation when the speaker turned to him and delivered the finishing touch.

"So, friend Grope, you marry daughter of our chieftess!"

The female who had done the spellcasting now came forward ... and Grope realized why he'd considered her so ugly.

Growing from the sides of her neck were very substantial, and now lavishly bejewelled, gills.