A Terra Tale: A Trip to the Mohrg

Chapter Six: A Giant Problem

"Life is like coffee, the darker it gets, the more it energizes."

―Ankita Singhal

The hobgoblins had indeed had reinforcements, as the haughty elf had predicted. Even he looked impressed when the ground quaked, and the raucous cries of more bloodthirsty hobgoblins wafted along the wind.

Heidigger slashed along the chest of one of the hairy goblinoids, bones snapping beneath the heavy axe. "That don't sound like somethin' we want ta be messin' with!"

"Like we have a choice?" Miro argued, ducking under the swing of the injured troll, the massive creature panicked that its flesh wasn't healing at the normal rate as he braced against another strike from Miro's maul. "We can't just run; they'll case us down!"

Alma released a volley of arrows into the darkened woods, eyes darting back and forth at targets the rest of them couldn't make out. "Something big is back there, bigger than a troll!"

"Please don't be a giant, please don't be a giant, please don't be a giant..." Fen grumbled from the ground, Clicky tossing an empty vial behind him, two others laying near his feet.

Faelyn looked down at Fen, who seemed to struggle to stand. "Is he alright? Beyond the likely poison running through his system, I mean?"

Miro spun around the troll's awkward lunge, spinning the maul in his hands like a long baton before sweeping it back behind the monster's knee, snapping it loudly with an audible hissing crack, followed by a clatter as the now-screaming troll's kneecap bounced off Heidigger's breastplate. "Fen had a bad run-in with a Hill Giant a few months ago, thing nabbed him and kept him as a pet for like a week before we saved him."

Faelyn sneered and looked at Fen with pity. "I... that must have been horrid. The thing must have been ghastly to be held prisoner by!"

"Hold up that pity, elf," Heidigger said, kicking a downed hobgoblin across the temple, knocking it out as he spoke. "Thing jus' treated him like a toy, braided his hair an' bathed him and shit."

Faelyn rolled his eyes. "That's almost worse than the thing using him as a chew toy! The creatures are almost the definition of simpletons. He's lucky it didn't accidentally squash him while giving him a cuddle."

"Clicky... Clicky, call Fizz. Call Fizz now!" Alma muttered, eyes dancing as they spied what rumbled deep within the shadows of the forest. "Please call Fizz!"

Clicky clattered, hands sweeping into a series of esoteric gestures. A visible haze of energy bled off his robes, his skull lighting with fire as the skull leaned back, mandible wide as it screeched a hellish cackle.

Faelyn jumped, alarmed at the sight. "Mostef save... what in the blazes is... is that how he summons the outsider? What in the Hel is wrong with it?"

"We," Miro said, swinging his hammer in a high arc, crashing it into the howling troll's head, finally silencing it, "just try not to think about it, to be honest."

Faelyn spun to glare at Miro as he watched the Musk yank the maul from the massive corpse. "How in the name of anything holy are you a paladin? I thought you were bastions of good and hope, kittens and nonsense..."

Miro rubbed at his face, clearing it of the viscous sludge that served as the troll's blood. "Elf, I swear, if we don't get killed by whatever is making Alma shit herself, gonna smack you. The Sun Lord doesn't demand such restraints on actions based on subjective morals, so long as the Thirty-Three Tenets are kept, all should be allowed."

"You're telling me that," the elf pointed at the now spasming skeleton, the bones alight with blazing red energy, the skull now fully engulfed in hellish fire, "is fucking legal?"