Chapter Nine of Under the Goblin Trees
Campaign adaptation by Thomas Kelly
“Help me prepare fire,” Myron commanded. Even I know that trolls must be burned in fire or their wounds will heal themselves. Once severed, a troll’s limbs might reattach while the beast fights on. Myron, Cirilli, and I searched the tower chambers for flammables, oil, grease, pitch, wax, and fat while our four warriors descended by a wooden ladder to the ground level of tower and out into the court to smite those lumberjacks.
The Two Trolls
To either side of the Witch Tree stood the trolls, chained there by some heavy enchantment. If you have never seen a troll, count yourself blessed and favored of the gods. These long-limbed gangly horrors stand a man and a half tall and more. They would stand even taller if ever they righted their posture to stand up straight. They prefer to amble along hunchbacked and arched of spine with their long and carrot-shaped noses pointed toward the ground. The flexible nose twitches and bends, this way and that, as the troll sniffs out prey. A troll’s nauseating green and grey mottled flesh is oily, slippery, and reeks like urine. Nevertheless, the skin is tough like hardened leather, like the bark of a tree, and trolls typically need no armor or clothing, or if they do wear anything at all, only skins and rags and ornaments of bone in the most primitive of manner. They are long and sinewy creatures, always appearing emaciated and famished and without any fat on their visible bones, and indeed, their appetites are insatiable. The clawed hands on the ends of their long swinging arms are their most formidable weapon. Although the troll appears spindly of limb as it totters about on long lanky legs, it is strong as a giant. Its raking clawed hands can tear a man asunder as easily as one might open a loaf of bread. Atop the troll’s angular skull grows a mass of dark writhing bristles resembling hair. For a mouth, the troll has a gnashing maw armed with sharp flesh-stripping teeth set just above its jutting chin. Most unnerving of all, black and lifeless eyes set deep in the troll’s skull glare out with a dull animal malice. The blank eyes give the troll a terrifying aspect despite the ridiculous protruding nose. I have heard that a troll might have two, three, or more heads, but I have seen only single-skulled specimens.
Continue reading “The Lumberjacks”
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