Penny

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta’s curiosity as to what had just happened fizzled momentarily as Beren’s light played across the room. The chamber was oddly curved on both edges, as though the walls themselves were bowed outwards to accommodate what was within. One wall was covered in a lattice of carved wood, each hole in the lattice serving as the repository for a scroll of paper or vellum. The other wall contained a vast mural depicting strange beings in various scenes. Some seemed to be arcane in nature, ritual or dance related, others seemed very mundane, hunting and domestic scenes. All were bizarre. One of the beings in a cooking scene appeared to be slicing up her own hand with a knife made of light. Strange arcane script, obviously a later addition, had been scrawled over everything. Every set of eyes had been carefully gouged out and chips of stone about the right size to be eyes lay on the floor before the mural like gravel. The back wall contained lab equipment and a bench covered in dusty but still visible jewelry, either enchanted or waiting for enchantment. The most salient feature of the room however was in its center. Standing on a small stone pedestal was a huge archway. It seemed to be made of large opals the size of a man’s head, each fused to the next like a tight string of pearls. The stones blazed when Beren’s light hit them, giving Jocasta a queasy, oily feeling, like the whole thing might slide down at any point. It didn’t go anywhere, just an archway standing in the center of the room. Jocasta crossed to the scrolls and opened one up beginning to read. It was an ancient script, a precursor to the one that the sagas and enchantments on the barrows were written in.

“We don’t have time for that,” Beren said urgently, “those dorcha will be after us and I’m sure they won’t take too long to figure out where we are.”



“You’re right,” Jocasta agreed and began shoving scrolls into her bag furiously, crumpling them tightly together to make them fit. Beren let out an exasperated sound.

“I meant, stop looting and lets find a way out of here,” Beren said, sounding tense, no doubt his prior experience with Dark Elves urged him against lingering. There was no obvious way out of the chamber and backtracking did not seem like a good plan. Jocasta ignored him, collecting every scroll till her pack bulged so tightly she struggled to pull the straps to close it.



“Waste not, want not,” she said tartly as she hurried towards the jewelry. Beren intercepted her and redirected her to the archway.

“If we don’t find a way out of here, you and I are going to spend a very long time with some very unpleasant beings,” he told her.

“I’m sure the Dark Elves aren’t nearly as bad as people say,” Jocasta objected.

“They are much worse,” Beren said in a voice that brooked no contradiction. Jocasta made an irritated sound but turned her attention to the archway. It stood to reason that it might be some kind of gateway, though to where she had no idea. As she got closer she saw there was an incantation scribed in the stone.



“Well at least get the jewels while I’m working,” she told Beren tartly, though her heart wasn’t really in it. Her eyes were already working on the incantation. She opened her mouth and began to speak. Her lips working uncertainly around the strange magical tongue. The opals began to shimmer, then blaze. Jocasta’s chant grew smoother and her eyes, at first only reflecting the opalescent glow, began to glow with the same energy. Chill darkness engulfed them, as did a sudden and overpowering sense of evil.

“Jo, I think you should stop,” Beren said, fingering his axe. She continued to chant and the sense of wrongness increased. Darkness gathered across the archway like oil spreading atop a pond, growing deeper and more opaque by the moment.

“Stop!” Beren shouted, grabbing her and shaking her, but she couldn’t. The words continued to pour from her lips in spite of her best efforts. She tried to cover her mouth with her hands, but her lips kept moving, muffled words still emerging. Beren looked around in something like panic, then drew his axe back, as though preparing to knock her senseless. Before he could strike the last strident word of the incantation left her lips. There was a tremendous ripping sound, like the sail of a ship being parted by a falling mast. A charnel stench exploded out of the archway as the darkness parted and something stepped out. It was twenty feet tall and made of plates of blackened chiton. Hulking and massive, its long arms were far out of proportion to its body. They were weirdly jointed and seemed to be all sharp edges and points, giving the impression of a spider that was somehow wearing stilts and walking upright. Its shoulders hulked up around its head, which was skull like but elongated like a horses. Its mouth was filled with foot long fangs, and its three eyes glowed like coals in a dying fire. It had a terrible smell, something between burning hair and cardamom, and arcane energies crackled over its bodies as it stepped free of the arch, three of its hands gripping the stonework as though climbing through a window.



“Uh-oh,” Jocasta gulped, somewhat superfluously.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

The strange metallic beings continued to march on the pyramid firing as they came. The weird green beams slashed up towards the pyramids where the cultists had made their strong point. Their landspeeders were parked in a rough perimiter around the base of the pyramid creating both a barricade and a series of strong points as the vehicle mounted weapons were turned outward. As I watched one of the chaos worshipers in tattered house armor charged down the side of the pyramid and leaped into the approaching metal men. With mechanical precisions their bayonets flashed, impaling him through the heart and amputating both hands within a single heartbeat. The satchel charge he had been carrying went off in a blinding sheet of flame and smoke. The over pressure knocked us all of our feet, all of us except the metal monstrosities. The leading wave were blasted to fragments that sparked off the walls, but the rest of them continued to advance at a measured walk. It was beyond terrifying. It wasn't just their total lack of fear, nor the absolute implacability they displayed. There was a psyhic hatred that hung in the air, cold and metallic. It was the absolute certainty of the eradication of organic life. I could see that our troops were hanging on by the edge, their eyes were wide and staring, and their fire increasingly wild. I reached out with my gifts in an attempt to bouy their morale. I should have known better. I had thrown my power around a couple of times in Hadrian's service, but I was no combat psyker. A dozen men, paniced and jacked with adrenaline, bit down on my mind.

"OUCH!" I shouted, though I doubt anyone heard anything over the raging gun battle. I staggered sideways as their neural pathways fused slightly in my confusion. I heard screams and curses. Men staggered and stumbled. Then they came up together firing with shocking precision. I realised to my shock and horror that their experiences had been combined like pouring two bottles of amasec. Each man suddenly had hundreds of years of marksmenship training. The green PDF had the battle experience of the veterans, and the veterans had the adrenaline and heightened reflexes of the greenhorns. They poured fire into the enemy, hiting one at a time with coordinated fire. I mostly just tried to stop myself from throwing up.

"Stop them!" someone screamed from the pyramid, in a voice laden with pshycic energy. I felt further pshycic phenomen building, an obscene mixture of human and xenos energies.

"They must be trying to use the xenos technology," I shouted, then, feeling stupid, repeated the same thing through the comm bead.

"Can you stop them?" Hadrian responded, the tenseness in his voice making it clear that he wasn't unaware of the growing storm of power.

"I can..."

CRACK!

I opened my eyes and found myself standing in a metal corridor of similar architecture to the vast chamber in which I had just been standing, though it was far tighter. There was another crack behind me and I spun to see one of the metal men appear out of the air. By pure luck it was facing the otherway, but it immediately began to turn. I lifted the force staff by reflex and unleashed a blast of energy. It was paniced and uncontrolled, but the tip was nearly touching the creature. Frost exploded into existance as a ball of mental force ripped from the staff. The metal creature was ripped to pieces, its arms legs and head blasted off in a spray of greenish light. Most disconcertingly, I caught a glimpse of its head as it careened away, green eyes still staring balefully at me.

"He deserved it," a voice said behind me, I spun in panic trying to level the staff. Hadrian caught the weapon halfway along the length and blocked it.

"Easy," he said soothingly. I relaxed and lowered the weapon.

"What happened?" he asked, stripping the magazine from his weapon and replacing it.

"They used some kind of xenos teleportation device, it is built into the structure I think, the psychic force it required must have been tremendous, and they must know an awful lot more about this place than we do."

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta had to admit that it sort of was, but there didn't seem to be a particularly tactful way to say that.

"I't sort of is," she admitted as she followed Beren along the passageway. As they moved along the tunnel, the stone grew drier and began to cant upward at a slight angle. Clumps of unhealthy looking mushrooms grew at irregular intervals. Jocasta bent down to study one such clump but Beren grabbed her by her arm and hauled her back to his feet.

"Oh come on, these are unique specimens! What is the worst thing that could happen?" she reasoned.

"You could brush against it and inhale a mouthful of spores that would grow in your blood and kill you within a day," Beren informed her. She paused.

"Is that like ... theoretical?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look. He shook his head and they continued onwards. They picked their way through the tunnel for what felt like an hour before they reached a section where it opened out into a gravel bottomed seam. Lichen and other mosses grew in profusion among the small rocks. They had an odd redish cast that suggested they were pulling iron or sulpur from the rocks. There must have been some access to water. Perhaps rains or swells in the groundwater infrequently swept the defile.

"Look at that," Beren said, guesturing upwards. Following his sightline Jocasta saw what he was talking about. Thirty feet up was an opening in the seam wall. It was too precisiely rectangualr to be natural. They just needed someway to get up there.

"Give me the rope," Jocasta instructed and picked some of the spider webbing from her clothing. Wordlessly Beren did so and she tied one end around her waist. That accomplished she rolled the webbing between her fingers and murmered a few words under her breath. Reaching up she pressed one hand to the wall and then lifted herself up and placed the other. Her hands stuck fast to the stone as though covered in glue. Slowly, one hand at a time, she climbed the wall like an insect.

"You might have mentioned you could do that back in the chasm," Beren asked.

"Well climbing the wall wouldn't have helped much with a bloody great troll waiting to cave my head in when I got to the top," she called somewhat breathlessly.

"I suppose that is a fair point," Beren admitted. She pulled herself up into the opening, finding it to be a doorway, complete with lintels, carved into the wall. Jocasta untied the rope and then refastened it around a sturdy looking stone pillar.

"Safe to climb," she called, and began looking around. Like the door, the walls of this passage were carved, giving the illusion of layed stone, despite being a single piece.

"That isn't wierd at all," Jocasta said to herself.

See you space samurai... A space opera

Hrmm

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

Among the aristocracy of certain worlds there exists a certain flexible interpretation of the Emperor's prohibitions on contact with Xenos. I had, therefore, had the dubious pleasure of meeting a number of non humans at various clandestine parties and gatherings. Often those Xenos had felt strange at a psykic level, esspecially the Alderi I had met on Quentus, but none of them had the dry dreadful feeling that this place had. The drone continued on its path, apparently not deigning to notice us. One of the guardsmen beside me lifted his rifle to track the thing but I reached out and pushed the barrel of his rifle down. I had a sense that this place hadn't yet paid us much attention, but something in the pulsing green glow told me I didn't want that to change.

The trail of our adversaries was easy to follow, it seemed they had simply blasted straight down the central passageway, the mark of their passage written on the floors in a faint sheen of prometheum by product. We moved fast, almost at a jog and my legs continued to complain. I ground my teeth determined to keep up.

"They might be hundreds of miles ahead of us," I complained.

"Actually, given the topography, it can only be fifty three kilometers to the other side of the range. Assuming this instalation remains flat without decending, and that their goal is in the center, they can be no more than twenty one point two five..." Lazarus droned on.

"Its still going to take us hours to cover that..."

"Will the pair of you be silent," Hadrian broke in on the argument, "we have transport en route."

The trio of chimera troop transports that arrived ten minutes later were not what I had expected, but we piled into the back and took our seats on the cushionless troop benches. Despite the exceedingly flat terrain they somehow conspired to rattle and bounce along till I felt like the pea in a whistle.

"Auspex contact," one of the troopers realyed nervously.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

There was more marching around than I had imagined. By the time we reached the strange passage my feet were throbbing and my calves were aching. It didn't help that the surface of the planet was so friable, as if the rock itself had grown tired of holding itself together and disintigrated into smaller chunks at anything more the the lightest brush of boots or equipment. No one actually fell, but the idea that the whole planet seemed about to crumble set us all on edge. The portal by contrast was almost terrifying in its solidity, its alien metal seemed to plunge into the very core of the planet, like an ancient eldritch skeleton that the flesh of this world was only now begining to flake away from after eons of extreme dessication. Suffice to say, I didn't care for it.

"I feel, like maybe this isn't such a great idea," I opined but that was more nerves than any serious notion that we should stop at this point. Hadrian lifted the key and slid it into some appature I couldn't see from my vantage. For a moment nothing happened, though it seemed that the strange green pulsations grew slightly more intense. Then, like a distant gathering sunrise the runes flashed and blazed, growing so bright I had to shut my eyes and wish I'd worn a throne dammned helmet. There was a sound too, or something like a sound, a kind of weird eerie wail that pushed on the skin like a stormfront or a psywave that was just about to form. There was a sudden and tremendous outrush of air, it blasted out, whipping up grit in an obscuring curtain that stank of something metallic and alien that made me grab for my rebreather. As quickly as it had begun it was over and I could see the outline of a portal wide enough for three groundcars to pass through. The dust filled air sucked in and out around it in a series of unstable currents, settling slowly to the ground.

"I guess we..." One of the Guardsman beside me snapped sideways and collapsed, connected for a moment to the track of burning dust a long las had carved in the floating dust. One of the PDF troops caught me in a tackle from behind as a second bolt ripped through the space I had previously occupied. Everything was chaos. Two guardsman dropped down beside me, I thought they had been hit until one unfolded the bipod on some kind of belt fed weapon. It ripped out a burst of fire at something I couldn't see, vast star shapped muzzle blasts reflecting dizzingly. Hot casing scattered over my arm smouldering against the fabric of my dress. Someone was screaming about auspex contacts and I managed to get to my feet just in time to see a dozen landspeeders, big green and gold house models were screaming towards us in a phalanx, trailing pieces of camo-netting and anti-auspex screen behind them like streamers. Weapons fire flashed from nose cannons and pintle mounts. Bolter rounds exploded all around me and I squirmed behind a boulder. Las fire was cracking all around me as our own troops returned fire, scrambling for what cover they could. I saw one of the guardsman decapitated as he tried to drag a fellow into cover, then the world shook as Lazarus fired his trans-uranic arquebus. The lead vehicle folded up into a fireball that raced along on its own momementum for a few seconds before it hit the ground and went up in a secondary blast that scattered components over half a kilometer of desolation. The blast knocked a second speeder into a third, the second speeder regained control but the third veered right in an increasingly wide circle. I saw the crew try to bail out a second before it slammed into one of the stone spires, the resulting exposlion shattered thousands of pounds of monolith into gravel in an instant.

I lifted up my las pistol with a notion to do something, though what I thought I was going to do against millitary grade armored speeders I dont know. They were coming on at a tremendous rate, lifing vast rooster tails of dust for miles behind. Gunfire roared in both directions and I saw another speeder come appart in a storm of small calibre hits, its frontal armor and engine cowling peeling away like a sandcastle in the rain.

"They aren't going to be able to turn..." I started to say, though no one could hear me over the din, but as soon as I had said it I realized they werent planning on it.

"Down!" I screamed, and it was more than just a word. Every guardsman and pdf trooper involuntarily threw themseleves to the dirt a second before the twelve or so surviving speeders ripped past overhead, the jetwash shoving us hard enough into the dust that my ribs creaked. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Hadrian on his back, somehow having managed to get his pistol free and fire a trio of shots into the underside of one of the vehicles. It pitched up onto its side, clipped the entrance and cartwheeld through the portal after its fellows in a spray of prometheum and debris. I managed to get to my hands and knees and get a good look at the portal for the first time. Beyond the great entryway stretched a collossal corridor a hundred feet tall and nearly as far across. Great pillars covered with glowing green runes stretched off into the distance beyond the limit of my eyes. The landspeeders raced away, seeming to move very slowly for the tremendous turn of speed I knew they had. They had been waiting for us to open the door. And now they were inside and ahead of us.

"Frak," I muttered.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"Well that was..." Jocasta began but before she could finish her eyes tracked towards movement along one of the strands. A giant arachnid the size of a bear was scuttling towards them. The light seemed to increase as the webs vibrated, stimulating phosphorecent spores that burst from unhealthy looking yellowish fungus which clung to the walls in patchy clumps. The creature was a deep gleaming black with an ugly blaze of leperous white on its underbelly. It twisted as it came, seeming to rotate around the web as it skittered along. Its face was a dark gray with eight disturbingly human eyes and a flat swollen nose. Two hooked mandibles the size of daggers dripped with some foul venom.

"Oh shit..." Jocasta gasped and tried to squirm backwards only to find herself stuck fast by the webs. Beren let out a curse and also tried to move with a similar lack of success. The web quivered and flexed as he strained his muscles but it didn't let go.

"Can you use some magic or something?!" he demanded. The spider was only a foot or so away now, it reared back to strike, mandibles flashing. Beren kicked out with his boot, cracking it across the face and sending it skittering back one of its eyes bloodied.

"I left my scroll of spiderbane in my other pants!" Jocasta tried, "I cant just spout arcane syllables and make it explo..." The spiders swollen body exploded as though struck by a cannonball. Yellowish ichor sprayed out in a jet. The spider made a strange hissing sound, staggered, made a grab for its web with a suddenly unresponsive limb and then tumbled into the abyss below.

"I stand corrected?" Jocasta said, her heart thumping in her chest. Above them they heard the arch-troll howling. Jocasta realised that in his frustration the old beast had hurled a handful of rocks after his escaped prey. By sheer good fortune his parting blow had saved them. The light was begining to fade as the spores drifted down on the air but Jocasta thought she saw a jagged opening in the cave wall below them. She began to wriggle, smearing the mineral oil that coated her arms and thighs on the web until it began to let go.

"I think we can get out down there," she told Beren, making a guesture to the hole now that she had freed her hand and nearly tumbling off into the abyss for her troubles. Beren caught her by the shirt and hauled her back into contact with the web.

"How are you planning on..." he began, "Wait dont just..." Jocasta cut the web with the knife she had freed from her belt. They dropped like stones, the web swining them towards the crevase wall and the hole. Jagged stone rushed up to meet them but they cleared the top lip of the cave and began to curl upwards on their momentum. Jocasta cut the web on the other side and they sailed free, falling the five or so feet to the cave floor with a crash. She landed on Beren's lap, driving the wind from him as they rolled to a stop.

"Another happy landing," she observed.

Post a random fact about yourself.

But what if it makes white heteronormative baby Jesus sad ?!!!!!

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta tried not to look at Beren. That wasn't difficult seeing several hundred pounds of angry troll actively blocked her view. The cavern they were in was only an antechamber to the troll's true lair. On one side the floor dropped vertiginously into a chasm that plunged away far below. The distant roar of what might have been water or might have been wind could be hard from that black abyss.

"Tell!" the Qwarath roared, pounding his fist against the ground in frustration and spraying up pieces of crushed bone. Blood began to run from the troll's paw but other than licking at the minor wounds with his improbably long tongue he seemed to pay it no mind.

"Ok, ok, I'll tell," Jocasta said hurriedly, sucking in air through her bruised lungs. She searched her mind for some kind of lie that would prolong her life a few minutes.

"Thurgim Hammerson is dead, but the thing he stole from you was lain in his tomb," she said quickly. The ledgend was a very old one and while she had no idea how long dwarves lived, she supposed it wasn't thousands of years.

"Deeeaadd," Qwarath growled. He hopped around in an agitated circle, fortunately not noticing Beren.

"Where is this tomb she-man!" the troll demanded, then lifted his muzzle to the roof and howeled something that sounded like 'Grup' in a voice so loud it shook dust from the ceiling. It was only then Jocasta realized that the blood and the hopping hadn't simply been animal agitation. A presence took form in the room between Jocasta and Qwarath. It was shadowy and indistinct, but massive and vaguely troll shaped. Jocasta could taste the sent of bison on the air, feel the blood of the great beast in her mouth, hear the soft rustle of grass that camouflaged a troll before it pounced for the kill.

"Grup!" Qwarath roared, and two coals of fire seemed to spring into being in the head of the shadowy thing. It reared into immensity, roaring so loud that the force of it physically knocked Jocasta to the ground. It was Grup, the Troll God of the Hunt. It wasn't really the God, it was a shadow of the real entity, an avatar summoned to answer the priests call. At least Jocasta very much hoped that was the case. Even the shadow was enough to make her skin cold and her guts quiver. Qwarath pounded the floor again, bloodying his other knuckles.

"Grup says you speak the truth, tell me where this tomb cave can be found she-man, and I shall hunt for the Heart of Gnarr!"

"Yeah.... like... in the dwarf stronghold?" Jocasta said, her throat suddenly very dry.

"False scent..... and you are hunted foolis cub!" the god thing beside Qwarath roared in outrage. Jocasta had a moment to wonder how she could hear the Troll God speak in the Common tongue before Qwarath wheeled around to glare back at Beren. At the same time he flicked out one of his enormous arms and backhanded Jocasta. She just had time to begin to lift her hand when the blow landed. One of the charms she wore on a necklace burned hot as a spell designed to protect her from a blunt strike fired. It had originally been designed to prevent any of her creditors from cracking her with a kosh but the troll's open handed fist was orders of magnitudes more powerful. The spell disintegrated and the charm flew apart in chunks of glowing metal. Jocasta was lifted off her feet and flung across the cavern out over the abyss. Her flight turned her a half circle so she was upside down when she hit one of the vast stalactites which hung from the ceiling, an ancient core of metal and mineral salt that had resisted the millennia of erosion. By instinct her arms wrapped the stone as it drove the breath from her lungs.

"Beren!" she bleated in panic, as she began to slip down the rock, its surface coated with mineral oil and moisture. She made a last desperate grab and then plunged into the black abyss below.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

The light was begining to fade when Jocasta admitted the obvious. She had absolutely no idea where she was. She climbed over a low woodfall and half climbed half slid down the embankment on the other side into another of the shallow gullies that seemed to ripple the woodlands. A crust of ice coated the bottom of the shallow depression with a scattering of snow, a few hardy snow berries thrust from between the rocks but Jocasta didn't know if they were edible. With Berry-en confusing any magical attempts the Lion's might use to track him, Beren would be safe but that did mean that she couldn't use her own arts to find him. She had a vauge plan that she should head towards Iskura. That was a laudible goal, but she had no idea where it was other than to the north. Which would have been useful information if she had any idea which direction north might be.

"You have a Campari crystal magicometer but no compass," she rebuked herself bitterly, blowing a leaf out of her hair. Her mind was about to turn itself to the problem of finding some kind of shelter for the night when she heard something crash through the undergrowth ahead of her. She froze in position and watched in horror as something roughly the size of a carriage crashed into the other end of the gully. It was misshapen, like a bear whose front arms were grotesquely long and covered in a long shaggy fur. It's jaw jutted out pugnatiously and its flat hairless face held eyes that glowed an angry green. It moved in an odd three limbed lope, both legs and one long arm, the other arm holding a club that looked to be most of an adolecent oak tree. It snartled something in a beastial language and then smashed its club into the ice, sending dirt and ice spraying in all directions.

Jocasta froze in place, her blood running cold. The thing glanced down the gulch, and for a moment its eyes slid over her. A sense of relief washed over her for about a second before the eyes swiviled back and pinned her in place. They narrowed and burned with brighter intensity. She had no doubt she had just come face to face with the arch-troll Qwarath.

"Shit," Jocasta said. The beast at the end of the gully let out a roar and leaped forward with shocking speed. Jocasta stood frozen in place as death rushed down on her. At the very last minute, as the club raised above her, instinct finally kicked in. She dived between the things three limbs, tumbling awkwardly and coming up on her feet before scrambling up the side of the gully. Qwarath spun and charged after her as Jocasta had hoped, while capable of a prodigious turn of speed, the strange gait did not lend itself to rapid turns. She made it to the treeline before the beast caught up with her, howling and frothing at the mouth. The stink of the thing was incredible, liters of stale sweat and dead animals mixed with sweat and something metallic. Jocasta ducked behind a tree as the troll swung his club. It hammered the trunk with a spray of bark and a delgue of snow from the upper branches. She danced back around another tree as Qwarath tried to grab her, long arm seeming as liquid as a snake. She dodged sideways, wishing she had time to draw her sword but unable to spare that much concentration.

"Diiiiie," the troll howled, spraying spittle in a wide cone. That word reminded her that this wasn't just some mindless beast.

"Wait!" she shouted, skipping back as the club whistled over her head, shattering a sappling into leaves and debris. She tried to duck behind the next tree but the troll was ready for it. He caught her in his free paw and lifted her up off the ground, fingers squeezing tightly.

"Killlll!" Qwarath roared.

"I know where Thurgrim Hamerson is!" she screamed. The troll seemed to freeze and one of its eyes bugged out enermously. It jumped up and down, dumping tons of snow across several acres as it shook the ground before pounding the earth with its clove in good measure.

"You tell Qwarath! You tell!" the beast howled. Jocasta wished she could claim she passed out as part of some clever strategem, but the truth was the troll was just squeezing her so hard she couldn't breathe. In any case, darkness closed in.