While the horrible yells still reverberated through the hills and the horrible stink grew only worse, the ground began to thud with the fast inhuman shambling of huge creatures. Then, finally, the figures burst over the far treeline and crested the hill to the party's front. Luckily the group had prepared swiftly, for the 2 large trolls raced down the slope of the hill in a frenzied sprint of feet and claw. There was only enough light to see their flesh, bright putrid green and yellow, but something was amiss.

Any adventurer would know the properties of a troll. Regenerative to the extreme, trolls are extremely difficult to kill because of their fast-healing bodies. They have only one true weakness, which is fire. However, the two trolls charging headlong at the party were obviously wounded. Gaping open sores oozed all over their bodies, rotting away as fast as the flesh tried to knit itself back together. Whole charred pieces of skin sloughed off of their forms as they ran, flapping in the breeze. The stink of death and rot grew ever stronger as a pale grey vapor oozed from their wounds. To those learned in the arcane, they reeked of necromantic magic in the extreme.

The two trolls, each standing about 9 feet tall, roared again as they sprinted across the open field. There was only time for an arrow or two, perhaps a single spell, before the disgusting creatures met with the line of warriors. The first troll, a sickly yellow-green, seemed to focus in on Gentle, the biggest target before him. It roared and swiped it's claws at the minotaur man. The second troll was a step behind, with two malformed heads sitting on it's shoulders. Both sets of eyes locked on to Naldir, the Aasimar, and slammed down it's rotting claws from above.

---

Attack, he thought as he watched the trolls charge, Minotaurs are built for attack. Charge and gore, it was why Minoas gave them big bloody horns. But he wasn't Minoas's first son anymore. He hadn't been for a long time. He was as much a follower of Apollokeos as he was a worshiper of the Horned-Father. Base born instinct warred with long hammered-in lessons of piety and pacifism, but in the end they reached a stalemate. Gentle might as well have stood there with his big thumb up his arse.

He stood, racked by indecision, as the two trolls tore across the hills towards them, gory flesh and grey fog sloughing from their bodies like drippings from a roast, though a damn sight less delicious smelling. As they closed and he got a better look at them he realised that they stood even taller than he did. Well that was fucking peachy. One of the monstrosities - two headed, so twice as ugly - made a beeline for the little Aasimir. Shame, Gentle hadn't gotten to know him very well, didn't seem like he'd get the chance now. That problem quickly receded to the back of his mind when he realised the second beast was aiming for him, and suddenly all his indecion melted from him like winter snow.

Nothing like actual bodily peril to put a theological crisis into perspective.

He threw up his staff to block the trolls razor-sharp claws, but hadn't readied himself for the sheer power of the creature and lost his weapon in the process. A lifetime lived in the center of bloody melee flooded back to him in less than a fly's heartbeat, his hands moving without him needing to tell them to. He attempted to clamp both of the trolls wrists to keep it from swinging anymore at him, then readied himself to headbutt it into the dirt. He was willing to bet that as hideous as this thing was, its skull wasn't as thick as a full-grown 'taurs.

---

---

Solveig grinned as Brynan made her comments. As the Trolls began to charge, the Pugilist noticed that these particular Trolls have already taken quite a bit of damage. Had they just came away from another raid and was hoping to get two for one or were they running away from something? In the end it wouldn't matter... The Trolls were barrelling forth towards the party so this would become their fate. Solveig bounced on his knees as he assumed a fighting stance, preparing for the initial crash. "C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!" Solveig murmured as he was pumping himself up.

Fortunately, it seemed the Trolls would pick other targets. Naldir and Gentle were the first to make contact. This clash had forced Solveig to backstep away as to not be caught up in the tussle. It seemed the Minotaur managed to block away his troll. The rush of battle made his mind race, and an idea crossed the Dwarf's brain. It could work! Well Solveig didn't have anything better in his head so why not? The Dwarf ran up behind the Minotaur as he leapt onto the hairy back. "Hold 'im there!" He called out as he stepped up onto Gentle's haunches.

The Minotaur would feel a heavy boot kick off from the top of it's head as Solveig used Gentle as a springboard to latch onto the top of the Troll. The Dwarf spun 180 degrees in the air as he hopped from one beast to the other. As he descended, Solveig wrapped an arm around the thick neck of the putrid troll. The stench was overwhelming but there was no going back now. "Right ya bastard!" Solveig grunted as he tried to hang on for dear life. With his free hand, the fist clenched around the brass knuckleduster before Solveig tried to rain down blows onto the skull of the thrashing troll.

__________

Stur grunted an affirmative in response to the big bull's question. He had had to fight trolls several times before, unfortunately. Wild hill-trolls back in his own lands during his youth, and once, one of Torvelt's own trolls not that far outside of Koprust on one particularly bad job. Aye, it was true that they were big, and ugly, and dumb, but people often underestimated them. They were capable of playing some tricks - fair deadly ones, even. He was about to tell just that to Gentle when a pair of interruptions grabbed at his attention.

"Ahoy! Friend coming in!"

Stur turned briefly to scan the new arrival. Human, like himself, unless he missed his mark, but one of those from the lands far away from his own, to the west or south. She would have stuck out like a sore thumb in this place, slogging her way through the mud like that, only she seemed oddly comfortable doing it. There was no time to question her, though, as in the next moment the trolls broke though the brush, tearing straight towards their little battle line.

The suspicious woman, the bull, the dwarf with his loud challenges all faded into a slight background whisper. Stur could only hear the pounding of the trolls' footfalls against the sodden Earth. From this distance, they sounded a great deal like hooves, galloping at full tilt towards his position. A cold shiver ran down his spine briefly as he remembered.

These were not the regular variety of trolls. In fact, he had never seen abominations against the gods like these before. They almost seemed to be melting before his very eyes, and every step closer the smell of dead things grew stronger. They should not be alive - he knew it in his bones. Something was wrong here, very wrong.

In an instant, the trolls were on them, and the world returned to the mercenary all at once. They split off in front of the battle line, one grappling with Gentle and the other moving to strike out at the shield-bearing Aasimar lad.


"It's poison! Don't let them touch you!" Came the call from behind. Brynan and the dwarf moved into his field of vision, each moving off to attack one of the two trolls in their unprotected flanks. Without hesitating, Stur shifted his focus towards the troll attacking the Aasimar, and its excess of ugly heads. His anticipation and his old fears evaporated into anger, and with a wild war cry he brought the head of his axe down towards one of the bloated, infected necks filling his vision.

---

---

Fingers tight on her bowstring, Imalessa stared out through the rain and the darkness as the trolls ran toward them. The others, those skilled in hand-to-hand and close combat, stepped forward. Imalessa stayed back, unsure how well she would hold up against the trolls without some distance between them. Let them handle the problem. She would do what she could from where she stood near the cart. But the rain was making it difficult to get a clear shot, especially when the trolls had already reached the line, and she didn't want to risk hitting any of her companions.

"It's poison! Don't let them touch you!"

She hadn't seen it before, but she noticed it now. The trolls looked as if they should be lying in the fetid mud rotting. Instead they stood and ran and shouted just as well as any living beast. Necromancy . . . Imalessa had seen a few forest animals infected with it. Those days she had chosen to go hungry, her appetite having died. But these were no sickly deer or whimpering wolves.

She felt useless as she stood there, bow in hand but not loosing an arrow. The others could handle it, surely, but she did not wish to be seen as a coward. Or worse - useless. She focused, steadied her breathing. Gentle seemed capable of handling himself, but Imalessa found herself to have formed a connection with him, however small. She let her arrow fly and hoped it hit its target.

---

The "crack" of a bowstring striking a bracer sounded brutally close to Olas ear and she flinched, sparing a quick glance for the haf-elf as the arrow leapt off her bow. In retrospect, Ola wished she had taken more time to train with something other than a hand-crossbow. It seemed a lot safer.

Despite the size of the trolls, there wasn't much room in the immediate area, what with a Minotaur and a couple of hulking humans in the way. She drew her scimitar and stepped in on the left of the small band. The trolls were disgusting things, monstrous and vile on a level she had rarely seen anywhere in her travels. Necromancy. As if the trolls weren't bad enough on their own, someone had decided they wanted some undead ones roaming around. Torvelt really was the worst.

All these thoughts went through her brain in a matter of seconds. The mud slowed her down enough that she also had time to consider how much she missed the firm warm sands of the desert back home. Having said that, the desert tended to spawn oversize scorpions from out of nowhere, at least you could smell trolls coming.

Taking a swift, albeit sloppy, lunge forward, she drove her scimitar at the left most trolls leg, aiming for a tendon. The creature was reaching in, away from her, making no effort to dodge the axe that was arcing down toward its second head. It was unlikely the creature would feel any pain but the more muscles they severed, the more it would slow the damn things down.

Ola was vaguely aware of the Dwarf pulling an athletic manoeuvre worthy of any elf and she knew, sometime later that day, if they survived, it would be ludicrously funny to recount. She'd only laid eyes on the group for the better part of a minute and already she had a story to tell.

---

---

Zosimos had been trudging along besides the horses pulling the cart, favouring their company to that of her traveling companions. Beneath her thick cloak she was dry and warm, kept safe from the deluge soaking the others. The downpour was nothing she was not already accustomed to from years surviving in Torvelt’s mountains, but she did wonder if perhaps the others were unprepared for it. She had kept an ear on the conversations unfolding around her as the day progressed, only really half listening for most of her attention had remained on subtly keeping a watchful eye on the magic users of the band.

When the agitation of the horses quickly turned to panic, Zosimos reached out to calm the beasts. The rancid odour and the cry of warning from one of the band alerted her to the source of the horses’ fear. She growled loudly as she spotted Nathanial vanish into thin air, cursing both him and the oncoming danger under her breath.

Zosimos caught the bridles of the cart horses and stood in front of them, trying to stop them from rearing up and bolting away with all their supplies or trampling one of her quest companions in their blind fright. She used the connection her arcane magic gave her with the creatures of the natural world to attempt to soothe the pair. She spoke to them in a calm tone, one that contradicted the mounting alarm she was feeling.

The Tiefling’s gaze swept over the line of trees on both sides of the muddy road, watching in trepidation for trolls in come into sight. Zosimos had run into trolls before, mostly during the first few years she had been living in the mountains of Torvelt. Those were the times before she learnt the signs they left and how to avoid them. Only once had she ever gotten close enough to one to be within any mortal danger. She had accidently stumbled across a small troll one day while scaling the crags and heights the peaks while exploring. Before she realised the troll was far too small to be anything other than a juvenile, two more had appeared in quick succession. They had trapped her against a cliff face, their positioning indicating that they had spotted her far before she had been aware of their presence. It had only been Zosimos’ ability to rapidly scale the rockface and frantically squeeze herself through a narrow fissure in it that that had allowed her to escape been torn limb from limb by the trolls that day.

When their enemy finally broke through the tree line, Zosimos’s one good remaining eye widened in shock. The flesh of the trolls was sloughing off as they charged towards them. Great, big open sores festered all over their bodies and the stench as they neared was enough to turn anyone’s stomach.

Zosimos hung back as the battle began. She was no use in combat if she could not use her retractable claws and shark-like teeth – and touching the decaying flesh of the trolls would only poison her. Instead, she steadied the horses as they cried out wildly and tried to break free from the cart in order to flee. Zosimos extended her magic, Onterprinh, again to reach out to the consciousnesses of the beasts of burden and willed it to be enough to quiet the terror she could see in their eyes.

---

---

The minotaur, Gentle, felt the barest whisper in the back of his mind. Even before Brynan's words could dawn on him, some little bit of divinity in his heart cried out to get away, not to touch it. But, instead, his head was already ramming into the face of the troll before him. As soon as contact was made it folded inward sickeningly, like an overripe fruit, as black puss oozed from it's putrid mouth and nose. Yet, the beast seemed hardly perturbed at it's even more deformed head. The puss itself, however, burnt the skin of any living being it touched.

At the same moment, Solvieg the dwarf had saddled himself behind the large head of the troll itself. It was not unlike riding a bag filled with sludge. With a punch, two, of his knuckles the troll's skin was split and more strange bodily fluids began to leak and splatter outward. Simply being in contact with the beast at all hurt, a sick feeling like poison or disease sapping at one's spirit.

An arrow from the ranger Imalessa then soared through the air, and struck straight into the left side of the terrible beast. It's skin feebly attempted to heal over the wound even as it bled black corrupted blood around the shaft, but the impact of it combined with the assaults of the other two companions made the entire troll stumble back a step.

The troll reached out a 3-fingered hand and grasped wildly at the Minotaur, trying to grab it close as it opened it's mouth up for a bite. It's breath was pure death.

---

---

Just as the troll's claws were about to rake down towards Naldir, Brynan's twin swords bit across it's legs and caused it to abandon the attack at the last moment just to steady itself with one hand. Wisely, the half-elf slid clear of the beast, the slick mud of Torvelt covering her front completely now. The Troll let out a grunt as it stopped it's fall, and then turned four bloodshot eyes full of fury onto Brynan.

Then, that number was cut down to two eyes. Stur's axe bit hard into the back of the troll's second head, just missing the neck, and slid into it almost too easily. Whatever life was left in the eyes of that head blinked out. However, the axe caught hard on some fragment of bone as a spray of poisoned blood fanned out from the wound. Stur would find his grip on the axe slick with rot blood, and difficult to pull it free of the ruined head.

It was at that moment that Ola's blade joined the fray. It found truly in the troll's other leg, finishing the work that Brynan's had started. Tendon and muscle was sliced through, and the troll fell down to one knee just as it was attempting to swipe at Brynan. The troll's one living head was blazing fury and agony in equal measure, roaring out in either pain or hate.

Then it pulled it's head back, hocked up the most disgusting loogie any person here had ever heard, and spit it at Brynan. It was a cantelope-sized glob of horror and bile.

Meanwhile, at the wagons, Zosimos could see her effect on the horses immediately. They fell into almost a sleepy haze as they ignored the carnage happening just yards away. On one of the cart's wet posts blazed a hooded torch, giving a little bit of light against the falling dusk.

---

Ola drew the sword fully through the trolls leg, the sharpened steel parting the rotting flesh and bone with barely a tug at her arm. It made her shudder inwardly and her nose wrinkled at the stench of the beast. Severing its tendon had a two fold effect; it slowed the troll down, but also caused it to lurch sideways and slam a hand down to maintain any semblance of balance as it launched the vile, green and black loogie she had ever seen.

She was unable to follow the projectiles flight path, she was top busy dodging the crashing fist. She was close, maybe to close, the only danger of being a melee fighter when you ran into something undead. Mud spattered her face and cloak and she spat to try and clear the taste even as she scrambled back to put a even a few feet of distance between herself and the huge rotting hand.

Only once she had gained a bit of purchase in the mud did she flourish her sword, sending the remnants of her first cut splattering into the mud away from her new allies, and then hack two handed at the arm that was in the mud. If she could sever another limb it might bring the creature down low enough for someone to destroy its other brain. Unless she was mistaken, and had certainly happened from time to time, if they destroyed the brains, the undead would cease to function.

__________

The familiar jolt of the axe burying itself in flesh and bone rattled its way up Stur's arms and across his body, causing his teeth to click sharply together. At the same time, an unusually cold spray of blood spattered his face.

Ordinarily, the mercenary would have welcomed a little blooding in a fight. But the strange wrongness of the stuff caused him to flinch away in disgust, and then a half-second later in pain. The cursed ichor began to burn and almost sap the strength from his body as anger and bewilderment continued to grow inside his heart. Eyes momentarily blinded, Stur instinctively yanked on the haft of the longaxe to free it from its resting place in the ruins of the troll's second head, but instead found himself tripping backwards in the mud as his hands failed to find a grip on the blood-slicked haft. He cursed loudly at the thing, throwing himself into a clumsy backwards roll, coming back to rights with his dirk firmly gripped in one hand and his right side splattered in mud, but now blessedly free of the troll's poisonous blood.

Cautiously opening one eye, he took a moment to survey the situation. The troll was down a leg, scrambling for purchase in the mud with one hand thrust out for balance. His wayward axe was serving as a fair replacement for the abomination's missing head, haft jutting straight out to the side like a sapling grown into the side of a mountain. The new arrival was, to her credit, right in the thick of things, hacking away at limbs seemingly without a fear in the world. Stur felt a brief surge of respect for the woman, though whether she was to be trusted remained to be seen. The troll's ire was focused on Brynan, who was still knelt in the mud after her initial strike.

Deciding that the quickest way to finish this was to get the enemy on its back, the battered warrior took advantage of his being behind the troll and undetected, slipping carefully up to its unprotected flank and plunging with the dirk towards the back of its one intact knee.

---

---

Imalessa's arrow had hit its mark, and yet the troll still had some fight left in it. Cursing under her breath, she marveled with a sick curiosity at how the thing was still kicking. But the arrow had seemed to do something, if not kill it. She nocked another, watching as it reached out and grabbed at Gentle, preparing to bite. There were no gods she believed in, let alone bothered to pray to, but she hoped she could get lucky once more and loosed her arrow.

---

Gentle brayed in pain, skin burning, eyes watering. What kind of diseased sack of poison was this thing? His hands itched, eager, he felt, to grip a sword pommel. Slide back towards being the monster of his youth, that's all that would achieve, he told himself. He had to keep a grip on the person he was now, even if that person was like to end up troll-food in the next few minutes.

He stepped backwards, dodging snapping teeth, not so lucky when it came to sharp claws, feeling them peel through the skin of his chest. Felt the wound burn hot, probably infected, no time to worry about that, his feet were slipping from under him. He put a hand to the ground to steady himself, palm gripping on worn wood. His staff, the one the troll had knocked from his hand. It wasn't a sword, but it would do.

Surging back to his feet he thrusts the staff like a spear, aiming straight for the ugly fucks chest, snarled curses on his lips, heartfelt prayer in his mind. Apollokeos, he intones silently so only she can hear, Goddess of second chances, help me make this one count.

Help me bury this fucker.

---

---

There was an immediate feeling of uncomfortableness as Solveig began to rodeo the beast. However as gross pus began to pour out from the cut that the Dwarf made, he was forced to dismount. "Fuck me... What is wrong with these bastards..." Solveig grumbled to himself as managed to regain his footing for a moment. The sick feeling began to take over for a few moments as he began to retch. With a deep inhale, Solveig tried to recompose himself to shake off this feeling of illness. Solveig's stance changed as the Rot Troll still seemed to be solely focused on Gentle. Beginning to bounce on his toes more, the Pugilist decided to switch to Outfighting. Solveig gripped his knuckle dusters tighter as he began to flick out jabs into the calves and knees of the Troll, trying to keep his distance.

---

---

The troll was surrounded on both sides, the Minotaur to it's front and the dwarf barraging it from behind. It's wounds seeped black coagulated blood that smelled worse than bile, radiating necrotic death energy that sapped the life from any near it. Gentle stood fast before it bravely even after it had left it's mark on his chest. This small victory brought the troll no joy, however. Perhaps nothing ever could again, for there was nothing of a living creature left in it's milky eyes. It's other clawed hand brought around, slowed slightly by it's injuries, and tried to bat the staff away...

But, then an arrow stuck quivering in it's forehead, between both eyes. Imalessa's aim had been true. The troll paused mid-swipe, as though dead, and then seemed to slowly restart once more. It's hovering clawed hand surged back to life, and began moving once more. It simply wouldn't die.

Once more, before it could interrupt Gentle's prayer, it was stopped mid-attack. This time it was the dwarf's blows to the back of it's legs, making it's knee give out as tendons ripped like the roots of a mighty felled tree. It sank and fell forward, directly onto Gentle's staff, it's disgusting gelatinous skin parting around the wooden pole.

Then there was a flash of light, pure bright and white in the night, casting aside all shadow. It pulsed from inside of the creature, causing the troll to briefly bloat, before rupturing along every side, blown apart from within. With a great splash of mud and ichor, it slammed over onto it's side in the mud. The rot troll was defeated.

---

---

Meanwhile, the others continued battle with the remaining troll. Brynan to it's front, coated in sticky and revolting troll spit, and Stur and Ola flanking it from either side. After it's successful Loogie Attack, it seemed to dismiss Brynan, and instead attempt to slowly turn around. It's already damaged leg made this too slow, however.

Ola hit first, her sharp blade easily scoring through the rotting flesh that was barely attached to the creature's body. It got halfway through the thick chunk of arm just above the elbow, before scraping against bone and coming out the other side, but this was enough to stop it. Unable to turn towards it's attackers, instead the monster howled in fury as it's arm buckled completely. It jerked towards Ola, clearly confused and off-balance...

Just in time for Stur to leap into attack, plunging dagger into the knee. It cut right to the hilt as black blood spurted from the wound. Rather than the damage of the cut, however, it was the force of Stur's blow against it that caused the creature to completely lose it's balance and fall forward...

Into Brynan's furious assault. The half-elf launched herself into it's belly just as the creature fell forward into her. This only helped her plan, even as her lungs burned and choked her of breath, as her eyes began to blur and sting even more painfully. Her blades easily ripped into the creature's stomach, slicing straight through, and coming out of the other side. The creature fell straight onto her as Brynan severed spine and exploded out of the Troll's disgusting back. She was painted black from head to toe in the creature's body fluids, which all sapped at her very skin, weakening her by the second. But, the troll laid limp in the mud, eyes rolled back in it's remaining head.

Until it began to stir, weakly, a futile attempt to raise itself from the ground even though it should be dead. It could not even scream, it's undead mouth working open to make gurgling sounds. A line of pure flame then streaked out through the night, exploding the troll's head into sparking charred pieces. Nathaniel stood at the other end of this line of magical flames, suddenly visible once more as rain pattered against some magical barrier around him. The second troll was now completely dead.

The party had survived it's first encounter together, though the troll's aura of death still stuck to them just as badly as the stink.

---

---

Imalessa waited for what felt like an eternity - an entire three seconds - and listened. The trolls seemed to have been defeated, though after the struggle she wasn't entirely sure such a thing was possible. She looked to Nathaniel and scowled. How fortunate that he had arrived after the worst of it was over. Not that she'd been in the thick of it herself, what with her bow giving her the ability to stay much farther away, but at least she hadn't disappeared into thin air. She'd still done something. Her arrow had at least struck true.

Still, she placed the arrow back into the quiver. "Are they dead?" she asked him. Her voice quivered, and she wasn't sure if he could hear her over the rain and other sounds. "Truly, completely dead?" She half expected them to stir again. Even though one had exploded and the other had lost its head. It hadn't been so difficult to kill the animals that had been afflicted. She supposed they were much smaller and far less dangerous.

__________

Stur released a long breath as the headless troll finally moved its last. Immediately he picked up his weapons from their places within the fetid flesh of the creature (heaving tremendously to free the axe from where it had been embedded in the stump of the neck) and wiped them down. Wouldn't do at all to have whatever hellwater they had for blood etching his fighting steel. With a final savage kick to the thing's abdomen to ensure it was really done coming back to life, he turned without a word to any of his companions and made straight for the supply wagon, shooting a venomous look at their cowardly "guide" as he did so. Gods-damned casters and their little tricks. Couldn't even be bothered to let the ones that did the work claim the satisfaction of the kill.

The mercenary opened his travel pack and felt around blindly until his hands closed around the yielding material of his waterskin. In one well-practiced motion he unstoppered the skin, lifted it to his lips and took a long pull. Warm wine flooded into his mouth, immediately calming him down. After the adrenaline of the battle had worn off, he had felt so very tired. That fucking shoulder had gone to aching again where he had thrown himself into the somersault, and he didn't want the others to see how his hands had started shaking so badly as he pulled his axe free. Still breathing, he reminded himself.

Feeling considerably better, he sighed deeply and looked around at the other members of the company. Everyone seemed more or less unharmed, though a few had been splashed by that blood... Stur's eyes fell on the king's guard. Brynan was completely covered with the stuff after that little maneuver she had pulled there at the end. He couldn't help but respect her all the more for it - she'd been fearless, and turned her rage into a potent weapon. The marks of a good fighter, in his book. He wordlessly trudged back over to the corpse of the troll, holding out the wine in her direction.

---

The blast of fire has startled Ola so badly that she dropped her scimitar into the mud. She hadn't seen the magic user vanish and his sudden appearance made her curse as she quickly scooped up her blade, staring in distaste as the collection of dead troll and mud that coated its entire length. She took her water skin and washed what she could off of it before wiping the rest on her cloak. She was going to have to burn the garment.

The woman who had taken the brunt of the attack sat heavily in the mud with an impressive squelch. Ola could smell the wine from where she was standing and wordlessly held out her own waterskin, shaking it slightly to get the womans attention.

"It's water." She said when the other looked at her. "Won't taste as good, but at least you can use it to wash your face. No shortage of a refill around here." She glanced around at the down pour and the mud.

"If you want a shelter, let me know." A smile crossed her dark features and she plunged her hands into her cloak, they were suddenly quite cold.