To a great many people, trolls were among the kind of creatures that inspired a lot of fear due to their large mass and physical strength, not to mention their almost insatiable hunger and ability to eat just about anything: including people. In terms of intelligence, Griswold had them at roughly the same level as a young child as they had a hard time reasoning properly, which was why they often just fought among themselves in order to settle differences and what could be considered “arguments”. When a troll felt duped, they more or less responded in the same way, which among trolls did not matter a whole lot as they could take quite a few hits before they’d tap out. Your average human being however would not survive getting thrown around by a troll, which was just one of those things most trolls would not understand. Mixed with the fact that trolls consider themselves to be far smarter than humans, things could at times get tricky.

Personally, Griswold had seen this type of thing happen before when a man tried to play a game of chance with a troll and won. Clearly feeling duped, the troll had gotten so mad that he had put the man into a large pot with other types of “meat” and planned to cook him into a stew. Because of their faulty reasoning and childlike mental capabilities, actually getting a troll to rethink their actions after they settled on eating someone was difficult to say the least. That, and they often did a fairly good job at hiding, living far away from modern human society so they could go about their own things in piece. Generally living solitary lives or in a small “tribe” of roughly two to four individuals, there were also your Feral trolls that had contracted a kind of disease similar to rabies that warped their minds even further. At this point, they were no longer to be reasoned with at all, as they murdered and ate anything that got in their way, including their own kind.

So when word reached him about a troll problem in the common region, it felt like the kind of thing he might be able to help with if there would be some coin involved. No longer being a magic knight, Griswold was now just another mercenary that aimed to make some coin while at the same time trying to make the less fortunate locations within the country somewhat more safe. And when he said that he wanted to make things more safe, he meant that in the general sense, and it did not just involve humans. In a majority of situations where humans clashed with nature, the humans were to blame for venturing into places they should not have been in the first place. And truth be told, this felt like it might be one of those times considering trolls rarely came close to human settlements, if at all. Venturing to the location where those interested in taking on this job were to sign in, it turned out whoever wrote the note that was posted on a lot of the notice boards wished to speak to them personally.

This too reeked of a possible scheme, because as he had already mentioned, trolls rarely if ever spent time with or around humans, knowing that they were mischievous and dangerous little scamps that used their wits to get out of a plethora of damning situations. Whatever had happened, he doubted that the man deserved to be captured by trolls, though he did not want to pass blame on anyone just yet. For the time being, it seemed wiser to just check in at the agreed upon destination and go from there. So as he made his way into the place, he noticed that someone had beaten him to the meeting spot and might try to snag his prize. From the looks of it, the girl was a member of the Black Bulls, which was one of the magic squads he respected more than others simply because they were situated in the forsaken realm, protecting those most in need of it. So with that thought in mind, he just sat himself down at one of the tables in the corner of the establishment, putting his great-sword by his side against the wall.

“So, it would seem that you were here before me. The code dictates that that means you have dibs on it, and I’m not one for breaking such traditions. After all, breaking such rules leads to chaos, and chaos is not something someone who is looking to make money needs, at it will most likely end up costing him instead. But where are my manners, the name is Griswold.”

794

“Well you’re in luck, kid. I won’t claim to be an authority on the matter, though i’ve met a few so far, generally nice guys if you know how to approach them, as well as when not to approach them. Awfully strong though, most I’ve met could easily crush a boulder between their toes, which makes it all the more important to know when not to approach them. Bones and organs break a lot easier than boulders after all.”

Finding the idea of getting paid without having to actually do anything rather amusing, he would be more than willing to provide the girl with the information she needed for half her pay. Deals like that were not struck all that often, usually because people either had no idea what they were paying for or because they were too proud. The former of the two could go both ways, because in this particular case, knowing how to approach a troll was well worth the money since it could keep her from getting squeezed out like a pimple. There were also times when the information was simply not worth the amount one paid, which was only the case when all you could really say would be something along the lines of “Don’t get stung by a Wyvern, the nasty buggers are incredibly toxic”, which was just adding information that was pointless as one did not want to get stung by it either way.

This wasn’t so much because of the fact that they were clearly toxic, but because their stinging barb was big enough to punch a hole in your chest that would let the stinger pop out your backside. At that point in time, the poison was just a luxury as you’d likely already be dying from having a massive hole in your body and suffering death due to the majority of your most important organs being lacerated. The things he had to say about trolls were at least worth something, though he did not get to share it just yet as someone barged into the place like they owned it and instantly began mewling about their own issues. So self-absorbed. When the first thing the man ranted about was whether or not they were the people who had come for the job, Griswold just raised a brow. Obviously they were, why else would they have gathered here. But seeing as how the girl went about introducing herself and asking questions, he figured he couldn’t stay behind.

“The name’s Griswold, and I too have some questions regarding your rather lackluster paper. You say your brother was taken by trolls and put into a pot? If so, how old is this paper? Because if it’s been more than twenty four hours, I imagine you’ll be able to collect your brother with a shovel and some buckets.”

Once a troll deemed a human to be worth nothing more than just a juicy morsel, they usually did not take long to start preparing them, stick them into a pot with their other catches and turn them into a stew. So when he said the man might be able to collect the man with a shovel and some buckets by now, he fully implied the fact that the man had most likely already been converted into compost and had some lovely flowers or some grass sticking out of him. Whatever the man had done to deserve such a fate, that still remained to be seen. Maybe if the offense was less dire than he imagined, there was a chance this whole undertaking was still worth their while. Or rather, worth the girls while, seeing as he was only there to provide information, collect his money and be on his way with some more pocket cash for mead and turkey legs. Truth be told, after the couple of weeks he’s had, that combination of mead and turkey sounded great right now, but it had to wait for a bit.

“Yes, that implied that unless you’re going to start spilling the beans on exactly what happened and why your brother got taken by trolls, it means the next time you’ll see him, it’ll be as the fertilizer you put on your crops. If we can determine the level of offense, we might be able to work with that. Hell, if it isn’t as bad as you make it out to be, we might still be able to save him from becoming stew if we leave now.”

With that much on the table, all it would require now was for the raving man to settle down and tell them exactly what he knew, where whatever happened took place and the direction they had taken his brother in. If the guy could do that and the offense was slight enough to allow for the smallest chance at saving the other guy, Griswold imagined he would have to go with the girl and make sure things went the way he hoped they would. Couldn’t just let a newbie take care of a troll problem that had escalated on her own after all.

852 (1646)

“They are somewhat in tune with the earth, though only in the sense that they would prefer to spend their days in caverns rather than on a little house on the prairie. Most trolls don’t use magic, as their entire species is mostly about brawn and not brain. In fact, out of all the ogroids, only Goblins have been known to use magic from time to time, and their magic type is usually earth or rock related… so there’s that I guess.”

Thinking about such interesting subjects was never something Griswold would shy away from, as he had more or less turned himself into somewhat of a walking, talking bestiary. Simply because of the fact that he did not aim to kill just about anything he encountered that posed a threat to humanity and aimed to learn as much about them as he could for future encounters, he was constantly at risk of learning something new that others might miss out on. For instance, if wolves were to suddenly encroach upon farmlands for the first time in years, instead of just murdering all of the wolves, his first thought would be about figuring out what had happened to their territory that made them come here. Wolves were highly territorial animals after all, so they would not just leave their own lands for no reason.

Whether this was because of his elven heritage and the morals that had been imprinted into him ever since he was still a child growing up in the fringe, or simply because he generally valued most lives equally, he disliked it when people just went on the offensive without first delving into the subject and figuring out what exactly was the matter. It was one of those things people did not always see about him, as most saw him as the kind of reckless mage that leaped right into battle without asking questions and putting heads on spikes. But truth be told, Griswold actually had a pretty powerful moral compass that pointed him into the direction of what he considered was right. So as much as the reckless nature of some of his action might have made people want to put him with the black bulls, he himself liked to believe that were thought behind his actions.

“As for them eating the ore, well, I don’t doubt that one of them might have tried it at some point and lost a good amount of teeth in the effort, though they’re much like us in the sense that they’re omnivorous. They eat pretty much all sorts of meats, roots and other stuff they can get their hands on, but they couldn’t possibly stomach rocks and minerals. Chances are that when they made their lair, found the ore and liked the way it looked.”

For as much as he understood the sentiment, people often misunderstood what it meant when a certain kind of beast or creature was in tune with a specific element. Creatures like wyverns and cockatrices were often more attuned to wind as they are capable of flight, while the larger and thick hided trolls and ogres are more attuned to the earth as they were both landlocked and had their lairs as deep in the earth as possible. As much as a wyvern couldn’t live off of just air, so would a troll not be able to stomach rocks and ore as its digestive system wasn’t built for it. Still though, he understood where the girl was coming from, it just wasn’t possible. But the more he thought about the issue and about the general mental state of trolls, he understood very well how they might have seen the ore, figured they looked nice and shiny and wanted to keep them as their own.

And as much as humans liked to believe they owned this whole planet, there were plenty of places where their laws and regulations would not reach, the depths of a troll lair being one of them. So if someone came in there, tried to take their shiny things and make off with it without asking, it was only normal for a troll to get angry. If someone were to walk into someone else’s house in the middle of the night, stuff their pockets full of their valuables and then try to walk out, they too would be punished to the fullest extent of the law and be branded as criminals. This was really no different, except for the fact that it had to do with trolls and people, and not people and people, meaning if someone else were to take on the job, the trolls would likely get killed or driven out of their home so these two idiot brothers could claim the ore and make some money. Despicable.

“While I doubt the trolls would be trying to eat the guy for no reason, I imagine it was the combination of them “trespassing” in their cavern and trying to steal what they consider to be their ore that made them angry. Still, I’m not sure if even a troll would be so angry as to kill and eat someone over it… though eleven hours is still a long time… Best to get directions to the exact location and get moving as soon as possible.”

For the most part, Griswold had just been ignoring the man in the sense that he wasn’t speaking to him at all, given the fact that he considered him to be a huge whiny prick. But with things being what they were, it seemed like the best thing one could do now was to figure out exactly where they needed to go and get going, or the chances of finding the man alive would just keep decreasing further and further.

963 (2609)

From what he could tell, it seemed that the girl learned relatively quickly. Truth be told, he had not exactly expected a whole lot because of the bad reputation the Black Bulls got going for them when compared to squads such as the Golden Dawn and the Crimson Lions, though Griswold was nothing if not open minded and willing to give someone new a chance. Besides, they were a squad located and tasked with protecting the forsaken region, which made them good people in his book. So when she got the man to get his shit together and point them over to where they needed to be, part of him felt like scolding the man over the tone he used by which to speak to a magic knight. However, since he did not want to topple the already fickle man into a state that was far more detrimental to the both of them, he decided to let it slide as he just followed the black bull and the drunkard out of the building.

If there was one thing he had never done before, it was riding on a horse-drawn carriage. That said, he had never actually rode a horse either, but that was entirely beside the point. Listening to the words of the girl as she spoke to the drunk, he felt like he really did not have anything to add to it. Later reflection on that moment would lead him to believe that he should probably have told the man to sit in the cart while he did the driving, given the inebriated state he was currently in. Luckily, it was not something they had to worry about as the man managed to get the two of them to their destination in one piece. Wanting to protect a loved one would do that for you after all. However, as the drunken driver looked around after getting the mercenary and the knight to where they needed to be, this love could not bring him to actually enter the place. But that was entirely acceptable.

“Alright, it seems we’re indeed at the right spot. If you pay close attention to those markings along the rocks, you can tell that this place is considered “owned” by trolls. You could see it as a signature, as each troll marks his territory with his own markings. That, and if you look over there at that pile of bones and sticks by the entrance, that’s a totem, meaning “no trespassers”.”

Knowing these kinds of things due to past experiences with trolls, Griswold frequently wondered whether or not he should bother trying to better educate people on the wildlife and creatures he had encountered so far. So much bloodshed could be avoided if people just bothered to get to know the beings they shared their land with, and it was always sad to him when intelligent creatures had to die because some human believed that what they had belonged to them. In that sense, this whole issue was no different. If the men had bothered to check their surroundings before hobbling blindly into a cave that was clearly owned in order to take the ore that belonged to the trolls inside, neither Griswold nor the girl would have had to even come here in the first place. But there was really nothing they could really do about that right now, as the only way to fix this now was to go where they were not wanted.

“Even though you’ve already offered to pay me for my information and I probably shouldn’t even be here, I’m going to be going with you to make sure all goes well. Whether it can be resolved verbally or has to get done physically, I’d like to be around to assist if need be.”

633 (3242)

For what it was worth, him being a nice or a mean person was never really something that got pulled into question a whole lot. Normally, he would roll into a new town, settlement, village or sometimes even a city, look for the jobs that either paid well or were up his alley, saw them through and collected his payment once all was said and done. Griswold never cared about being nice or mean, he cared about doing the job well and making sure that what he had done was explained to his “employers” in a comprehensible manner. There was nothing worse than doing a job in his own manner, discussing what went down and collecting his pay, only for people to start talking behind his back about how he had not done things according to the parameters set by the one who paid him. But that was how things went down fairly often, as the people who purchased services from people such as him usually had no idea what really went down in the field.

It was why many people preferred to stay within the cities and towns, because it was safe, and they wouldn’t need to wrestle down the monster that had been devouring their food stores or pets with their bare hand. That was what they got someone like him for. And even if they requested the pets to be returned alive, stolen food to be retrieved or the culprit to be returned so they could punish it themselves, such requests could usually not be met. Either the pet had been killed on the spot, the food had already been eaten, or the culprit was so violent it could only be stopped properly if it were to be killed, this breaking the parameters and sparking “outrage”. It was for that reason that Griswold disliked the filthy rich nobles and royals, as they had no idea what really went down most of the time, yet still believed themselves to be fit for writing up the parameters for those such as Griswold that had to actually put in the work.

Because of the crap he had taken from people such as them, he had limited his services primarily to those within the forsaken and common realms, as they were usually just happy to see the job done, and therefore did not care about the manner in which it had been completed as much. As a black bull, Griswold believed that the girl too would eventually meet people such as them, which would likely make her glad that her squad was primarily active within the poorer regions too. Still, from time to time, it was nice to hear that people considered him to be kind, even though it eventually mattered little in the grander scope of things. So once they made their way inside, he kept an eye out for things, just in case the girl was to miss them. But since she seemed sharp enough to notice the things he had brought up to her, such as the totems and the markers, there was no need for intervention, not until they reached the actual trolls.

Had this all been his personal undertaking, Griswold would have gone about the trolls in a different manner, not addressing them as trolls as one would likely not address a person as a human either. But that was beside the point, as he was just around to observe and help out in case things took a turn for the worst and violence were to break out. As the trolls just stared at one another over the idea of people entering their homes in peace and coming to take the man that had wronged them, Griswold waited for the others to leave. Knowing that trolls were not the brightest of creatures in this world, they were far from stupid and understood the human language quite well, given the one speaking could break it down to the point where it was barely literate, but still to the point. That, and they understood strength, power, so those were the things he wished to make clear to them more than anything else.

“If human enter you home, tell them find me, Griswold. Me keep safe you, will bonk them good.”

Holding out his hand in front of him and forming a small sun, he made sure the two trolls would be able to get a good look at it, before he would crush it between his own fingers. Causing one of the trolls to clap excitedly, the other just scratched the back of its neck as it did not really understand what was going on. Hopefully though, if things were to be going bad again, the trolls would not choose violence again, and would either tell the people who entered their homes to go find the black swordsman, or set out to come find him by themselves. Even though it seemed unlikely, the fact that his name had been starting to carry more weight around these parts at the very least meant that people “might” be dissuaded from coming into their homes again. Whether they would or not, Griswold waved at the trolls in a very over the top manner to let them know that he was leaving.

Venturing out of the cave not long after, he met up with the two men, who got onto their carriage and left to head back home, as well as the girl that had already collected her broom. Thanking him for his time and his information, she made her way up and away, leaving Griswold behind at the troll’s lair. Looking around a bit, he wondered when he would be getting the money he had been promised, but decided not to dwell on it for too long. There were still other things he needed to get to today, things that would likely take a lot more effort on his part and pay more too. With that thought in mind, he shrugged as he began his journey back towards some modicum of civilization.




[End of Mission]