A Monster Life Ch. 103-105

The trolls thought the bloodwolf threw a snigger in his growl, and decided the demon could likely do similar things to them as their chief right now than him later. They'd just have to make sure they were far away before he could show them. 'Fine.' Guras said. 'Our tribe lives at the ruins.' He gestured into the direction with his head. 'Don't bother thinking of going there, you will end up in the stew like they all do.'

Valdys turned her gaze away at the thought of that kind of stew, and it fell on something poking out of the heap of trash close by. She reached out to a pinkish tube of cloth, and pulled out a doll. Its skirt was torn, half of the light coloured strands of hair were torn off, and it was covered in dried blood. She turned to the trolls. 'Children?'

Sitas cackled. Her tendency was to revel in how much disgust she could cause in others. 'The younger they are, the sweeter the taste.' she said and licked her lips. 'Not stringy like their parents. It's only annoying how noisy they can be while we save them for last, but adults bother us less when we kill and eat them first.' She grinned a malicious and broken toothed smile at the humans, thinking she had stunned them in fear of what's to come. 'We might be nice and let you go when you untie us.'

The reply to her offer shocked her when it came as the swift separation of Guras's head from his torso with one hew of Elzbieta's sword. She screamed briefly during the decapitation of Raras, until her own head came off.

Ulric hadn't seen such furious hatred in the elf's eyes before. Sadness took over slowly as she wiped the blood from her sword. 'I was barely old enough to bear arms when I went with a unit to investigate the disappearance of a group of elves. We found the bloody site where they were attacked by trolls, and followed the trail to their hideout. There were only some remains left of the men, women, and children. I'll never forget the expression in the decapitated girl's eyes.'

Ulric stood up, pulled her gently into his embrace, and looked up at the rock where Conchim and Yingshien had stayed out of sight. 'Be very careful you two.'

Conchim gave him a nod. 'We'll quietly find them, my husband.'

***

The ships ceased their wild swinging and only sailed among each other in seemingly chaotic directions. Muni tried to make something of it, but to him it looked like the spirits inhabiting the ships were as confused about the situation as he was, and acted like chickens without theirs heads. If they could actually sail. He caught only glimpses from the others, but no sign of a plan from Tarrence. A flash of bright white to yellow to red in the water caught his attention as the ship turned towards it, and he grabbed hold of the rail and looked over the side to see what caused it. The colours twinkled some more from the bottom of the shallow water, and he leaned farther out when the hull obscured his view. The sudden banking nudged him over the side with a cry.

Tarrence watched closely while Muni clung to the side of the hull with his claws, then noticed the nearest ship turn quickly and speed towards the other. Muni heard creaking becoming louder behind him, saw the ship coming straight at him, and scrambled up towards the deck while cursing under his breath. The attacking ship burst into the side with a loud crash and tearing of old, dry wood. Both ships tore a deep groove into the ground as their bows fell further apart and their sides broke into pieces, and finally came to rest with the front halves broken and their sterns slanted upwards.

Muni crawled to the higher rear of the deck and looked half dazed out over the rail. 'At least no more seasickness for me.'

Tarrence understood the spirits steering the ships had one simple goal, to crush any intruder. They didn't keep any consequences of how in mind. He smiled slightly at knowing how to deal with them now, and checked whether at least one of the other party members saw him. Elyta and Coëllo were in his line of sight aboard their ships, and he snatched a piece of the loose rigging as he jumped over the side. As expected, the nearest ship turned fast and sailed towards him. Just before it reached him, he jumped away from his spot and swung away from the attacker. The ship crashed hard into the side, and both broke into pieces as they gouged another deep groove into the ground.

Elyta understood at once and jumped over the side of her ship, and the one Coëllo was on aimed its bow at her. As they crashed, Tarrence ran off towards another ship to board it, while Muni climbed on top of his wrecks to lure another in.

Baiting and crashing one ship after another, Coëllo and Muni sat down triumphantly on the wreckage of the last one they'd taken down together. She grinned and nudged him. 'That was fun. I hope we can do something like this more often.'

He laughed and leaned back on his hands. 'I don't know if there are other ships involved somewhere, but I do know of a few places where you can enter an arena unarmed and try to dodge the wild monsters inside for as long as possible. Or die in the attempt.'

Coëllo liked the challenge. 'I have to try that.'

Muni looked sideways at her and recognised the excitement in her eyes. 'I'll take you there after this assignment is done then.'

She smiled at him and gave him a big kiss on his cheek. 'That's a promise.'

Muni chuckled and his eye caught the flash of colourful light again. 'There's that something in the water that I saw earlier.' he said, took her hand in his, and nimbly jumped down to the water along the remains of the ships.

They gazed at the sight of precious stones and gold and silver spilled from cracked chests. The tear in the ground made by two of the crashed ships had uncovered several buried chests and damaged a couple, and Coëllo and Muni exchanged a glance. 'Or you could build your own private arena and fill it with monsters of your liking.' he said.

The others arrived and Elyta whistled. 'So, would this be the reason why these spirits haunted these ships?'

Gigacks stabbed the lock of one of the undamaged chests with his staff, and it burst apart with a small explosion. He kicked the lid open, reached into the contents of gold and silver trinkets, and pulled out the artefact. Tarrence waited for the nod of confirmation from him, then stood a little straighter. 'Good. We're done here now.'

Loud creaking of wood sounded again around them, and their sense of dread was confirmed by the ship wrecks twisting and bending and rapidly transforming into large wooden creatures with two or three and even four legs. 'Move.' said Tarrence and bolted towards the nasr in the distance.

The others followed at once but one of the three legged creatures, which had the castle of a ship for an apparent head, blocked their way. Another one with an upturned bow for a head joined it. Tarrence glanced every way while every possessed wreckage came to life and closed in on them. 'Spread out and escape.'

Despite their bulkiness and apparent weak construction, the possessed ship creatures were fast and any attack against them caused little damage. The party feinted their moves and dodged limbs coming down hard towards them, but none succeeded in slipping past their opponents. One by one they were forced towards the treasure while the circle of vengeful wood tightened around them.

Muni growled. 'Gigacks! Do something!'

The lich already pondered the options he had. 'Attacks against them had little effect, or another took over while a damaged one rebuilt itself.'

Elyta gripped her sword. 'Can't we tell them we have no interest in their treasure? Maybe then they'll let us off the hook.'

Tarrence glanced at Gigacks. 'If their existence is only for protecting the treasure.' Gigacks turned around stepped away from the chest while he chanted a spell. 'Step away from the chests.' said Tarrence as he moved away.

The others quickly backed off, and Gigacks fired a burst of black fire at the valuables. A burst of steam exploded with a brief but intense heat, and filled the air with a dense fog and the smell of burned wood and earth.

When the fog cleared in the breeze, water had filled the hole of black glass in the ground again. 'Shit.' said Muni when he realised not a speck of anything with value had been left. 'Such a waste.'

Elyta spun around at the sound of wooden structures collapsing, and was glad it meant something positive this time. Wisps of faint smoke dissolved from the piles of wood. 'Without the treasure, they have no reason to exist any longer.'

Tarrence put his hand for a moment on Gigack's shoulder, and headed towards the nasr again. 'To the next artefact.'

***

'Found it, hubby.' said Conchim as she and Yingshien peeked over the side of a rock column towards the ruins of what was once a building carved out of a large plateau with an open area in the middle. Most of it was intact, but various parts along the edge had collapsed, exposing some of the interior. Where the walls were intact, high and narrow windows stood in them, and the recessed wide entrance featured four pillars in front of it. Short smoke stacks and clumps of grass and weeds littered the plateau roof. The other kind of litter was the troll tribe who had their tents and equipment scattered all over the place, most of them on the larger open area at the entrance.

Yingshien clawed the rock under her hands at the sight of the many trolls and grumbled under her breath. 'Wretched filth is crawling all over the place.'

Leaving the capri hidden at a distance, the other girls and Ulric joined the two on top to observe and plan their next moves. Ulric was impressed by the size of the place, estimating the roughly circular place to be several hundreds of paces in diameter. 'It reminds me of a palace with a large courtyard in the middle. But it also feels like it would have been a public place back in the day.

'I can tell for sure because I find nothing about it in the library.' said Valdys. 'There are some notes about a gateway to a land full of riches, now lost. Maybe this was it if there used to be a lot of wildlife and water around here, and it wasn't a literal gateway at a border or the likes of it.'

Elzbieta examined the area around the building. 'I see no remnants of defensive or any kind of wall that could mark a border, so this doesn't seem to be it.'

Iphigenia tried to estimate the number of trolls, but had some trouble when quite a few went in and out of the building. 'I think there might be just as many trolls inside as there are now outside at their tents, although it's a guess and hopefully no underestimation.'

'I think we should prepare for at least double their numbers as well.' said Elzbieta.

Ulric did a quick count. 'So, we're talking about a hundred and twenty to forty trolls. That might be doable, except the layout of the area isn't helping. I see no place to make a safe stand and keep them from surrounding us, and we all can't fight from above, although it doesn't seem very safe either.'

Conchim looked at Yingshien, who agreed with a nod. 'True. We can't fly fast between these columns, hubby. We could attack from above but it would have less effect because the trolls could defend themselves more easily, or counter attack us.'

They all withdrew from the edge to sit in a circle in the middle of the flat top. 'Any ideas?' asked Ulric as he looked at all of the girls. 'No matter how ridiculous it may appear.'

'If we want to enter the building, we could dig a tunnel.' said Tipper. 'The troubles are needing to begin at a distance far enough for them not to come around, and no idea where we'll end up inside. We might end up in a chamber full of them.'

Ulric imagined the same. 'Agreed. Might work but a lot of risk.'

Caylais tapped her chin. 'If we could flood the area, I could send a strike across the water surface and knock out all those who stood in it.'

Valdys hummed. 'I could conjure up water, but in these drier surroundings it would take longer and alarm them. Even if I use their water supply stored in their large jars. The well they use doesn't seem like it holds much water, otherwise they wouldn't have to store it.'

Rachael had been in thought all this time, and the mention of water reminded her of her thirst. She pulled her flask from her belt and took a drink, then noticed Kaui staring at her. 'Do you want some?'

Kaui shook her head. 'No, I was suddenly thinking if I had all the ingredients to create a sleeping potion in my packs. We could pour it into the well and wait until everyone has drunk from it and passed out.'

Rachael looked at her flask. 'What about a poison then? Wipe them out instead.'

'I can make a poison, but not enough because trolls are resistant to them. A sleeping potion is different. And I think if they see some of them dying among them, they'd quickly find out why. Sleeping is less suspicious.'

Ulric smiled with some pride at her. 'Smart thinking, cutie. I think we have a basic plan with this.'

She blushed and held back a wide grin as she looked down. 'Thank you, Master.'

He looked at the others. 'I think we can pull this one off.' he said, and the other girls agreed.

While Conchim and Yingshien gathered Kaui's packs from the capri and she prepared for her task with help from the girls, Iphigenia, Elzbieta, Valdys, and Ulric went back to the edge to observe the trolls and think of how to reach the well unseen, and plan for what to do after the trolls are indeed all asleep. 'There is quite a lot of activity going on for a regular troll lair.' said Elzbieta. 'There are more of them entering and exiting the building than seems necessary.'

'I can't imagine what they're doing inside.' said Iphigenia.

'Unless it's related to the artefact.' said Valdys. 'If it's really there and they're searching for it on behalf of the demons, that could explain it. Unfortunately there are no spirits here which can help out.'

'Yes, maybe they are mining for it and working non-stop.' said Ulric.

Iphigenia looked around the tents and stores and trash heaps. 'I don't see specific mining tools. Maybe it has something to do with magic, but then we'd see higher trolls than these.' Ulric looked a little puzzled at her and she elaborated. 'Regular trolls have no affinity with magic at all. There are relatively a lot more humans that can use some form of magic than trolls, so those who can are more evolved. Thankfully they are rare, just like the larger and more intelligent ones who usually rule over every large group.'

'Speaking of which.' said Elzbieta. 'we haven't seen the chief yet.'

'No sign of a larger, decorated tent, so he probably took up residence inside.' said Valdys.

'All right.' said Ulric. 'Let's assume they're doing something important inside and magic is involved. We need to be very cautious when entering the place and not think of it as just taking out a large bunch of ugly opponents.'

Elzbieta frowned. 'As terrible as it sounds, I would have preferred to kill all the trolls before we go inside, but we might need what information they can give.'

Ulric chuckled once. 'I admit I'm mostly with you on the killing part and to rid this area of one lethal pest, but you're correct. We might need something of them.'

'I have a few spells that can help control the effect of the sleeping potion.' said Valdys. 'I'll set it up with Kaui now since we can't plan any more when we have no idea what we're dealing with inside.'

'We still have to figure out how to add the potion to the well.' said Iphigenia while Valdys returned to the girls at the middle of the top. 'The well is constantly surrounded by trolls.'

'Best chance is when it's dark.' said Elzbieta, but a person could still be easily spotted. Even Isa and Tip are too large to sneak around.'

Ulric rolled on his side and looked back at the girls preparing the potion. 'So, we don't send a person.'

105 - Break on Through

Handil concentrated on the sense of the summoning and not so much on the spell itself, as she had learned from Valdys. During the time Valdys learned the various kinds of magic, she had discovered that the spell was the technical part, and if she focussed on the sense of evoking it, it became much easier and faster to do it. Handil made the presence of the seniovi a natural feeling for her, as if they've always been around in her life. When two of them appeared out of thin air and landed in front of her, she giggled at the giddy feeling of accomplishment. 'I can summon two now.'

Valdys chuckled with some pride at her pupil. 'Well done. I'm sure you'll summon a small flock in due time when you keep training.'

Ulric looked at Trixy on his shoulder. 'With two of them, you shouldn't have to wait for the potions to arrive at the bottom.' Trixy chittered her agreement, and hopped down onto the ground. Ulric stroked her head. 'Be careful, and good luck.' She hopped to the edge of the column top, and went nimbly down the length.

Kaui lined up a row of paper bags. 'These bags are lighter and easier to handle for Trixy and the seniovi than the usual jars. The potion will seep through it when they're emerged in water.'

'Making a very relaxing well of cold tea for the trolls.' said Ulric and chuckled. 'Only without flavour.'

Handil gave her familiars their instructions, the birds picked up a bag each, and flew down to the foot of the column. They arrived shortly after Trixy did, who took one of them and headed through the sparse vegetation and piles of junk at the edge of the troll camp towards the well.

Only a few trolls were active, but she still had to take extreme care not to be seen. One troll could alert the entire camp and ruin the plan, resulting in a most likely violent confrontation. She didn't slip through shadows because her spirit body would stand out more, but used the reflection of the ring and moons light upon steel swords and shields, cooking gear, and even light coloured cloth as camouflage.

Elzbieta and Ulric followed her movements from above at the edge, and he smiled in amusement. 'She's really good at sneaking around.' he whispered.

Elzbieta kept an eye on any troll heading into Trixy's direction. 'I just hope not more trolls show up and block every escape route without realising it.'

Trixy arrived at the well, made sure no troll was around, climbed the old, low wall, and dropped the lightweight potion bag into its depths. It landed in the water with the softest of splashes. She looked around to see if anyone heard the noise, and returned to the foot of the column for the second bag.

She made the trip a couple of times when Elzbieta grabbed Ulric's arm. 'There are two trolls heading towards the well from both sides.' she urgently whispered.

Trixy noticed it herself after she let go of another potion bag in it, and hid behind a short, broken plank leaning against the wall. She looked nervously around for an escape before both trolls would be in a position to spot her. The ground around her was clear after an earlier troll took away the water jug standing next to the well. The closest of the trolls hummed softly as he approached the well, then stopped when he thought he saw movement next to it. He barely took a step forward when something wet hit his face.

As he cursed and looked up at the sound of flapping wings while wiping his face, Trixy scurried past him and disappeared in a jumbled stack of old crates. Elzbieta and Ulric looked back over their shoulders at Handil. She shrugged. 'It was the only thing I could think of telling the seniovi to do this quickly to help her without rousing suspicion.'

The remaining trips went without a hitch, and everyone praised Trixy and the seniovi for their work. Valdys looked at the camp with Ulric. 'Now we need to wait long enough for everyone to have drunk the water and the delayed effect of the sleeping potion to take effect.'