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Chapter 170: They've got a troll
🕑 Added 2024-01-08 15:00:08 +0000 UTCIt took less than a minute to get Streak and the rest of the players up and into the metallic tunnel. But that was plenty of time for the bomb-throwing engineers to make a clean get-away, and Mason didn't bother trying to chase. It didn't bother him much.
"What the hell is there exactly to be smiling about?" Seamus said with a bit of tone, and Mason cleared his throat and reminded himself the man had just lost someone.
"We survived," he said, "that's enough."
But in truth it wasn't the successful climb or Alex's shield saving him from a face full of fire and shrapnel. It was the fact that these goblins had bloody tanks and bombs. They might actually have some damn guns.
"Let's go," he said, a bit more careful with his expression, keeping his bow held firmly in hand and ready.
There was plenty of noise up ahead. The goblins seemed mostly to communicate with high pitched shrieking sounds, or at least that's how it sounded when they yelled. Mason could hear all kinds of clanks and hisses, clicks and thuds. God only knew what the goblins were preparing to loose at them next. But he didn't see much choice except to find out.
The metallic tunnel opened up into larger hall, equally constructed of maybe concrete and something like bronze. How they'd managed to dig all this and get such heavy material up high enough, Mason had no idea, but he supposed they hadn't. Everything was just popped into existence by roboGod.
Anyway, they had bigger concerns.
Several engineers ran frantically around the hall. In the center was what looked like a green giant half covered in metal armor and gadgetry, propped up asleep or dead against a vertical tray. It was maybe a huge goblin, or some other kind of green, fantasy creature Mason was sure there was a word for, and it was surrounded by little piles of multi-colored crystals.
"It's a troll," Seamus said beside him. "A 'Corrupted Troll' to be exact."
Mason glanced at the Irishman and really wished he had an identify power. But he supposed a rose by any other name...
"Let's kill everything and ask questions later," he said, drawing his bow back to take the first shot.
He didn't bother waiting for the others to give their two cents. His first arrow took an engineer in the shoulder, his second the creature's throat. The goblins got a little more animated after that.
Little green bastards in goggles ran in every direction, some poking and prodding the troll with seemingly no affect. Mason avoided the creature as he murdered, hoping maybe it just wouldn't wake up at all. Then a goblin crawling on its shoulder seemed to stick some kind of connector into its ear and leap off with a shriek.
“That looks bad,” he shouted and tried to point. “Kill things. Break things.”
Another goblin behind pulled a crank, and the whole chamber practically hummed with some kind of arcane or maybe electrical surge. Mason ran sideways looking for a shot, trying to put an arrow in the goblin at the back.
"Seamus!" he yelled. "Start melting things!"
"What in particular?" the fire wizard shouted back, eyes lighting with flame.
"The machinery! I don’t know! Just burn it all!"
It seemed to be the kind of task the man preferred, smiling as he started launching projectiles and shouting various curses and promises of death.
Streak and Phuong were already running forward, but Mason ignored them all now as he kept hunting his target. The little bugger was quick and kept dropping behind his metal desk, so Mason just activated Aspect of the Cheetah and ran straight for him.
A few steps from the desk, another surge of energy coursed through the room, centered on the troll and the desk and strong enough it blasted Mason from his feet.
He sat up and shook the blur from his vision before he heard the roar.
The giant, armored troll held up its arms, which were apparently severed and replaced with a buzz saw and possibly something like a tank flamer. It stared at itself in rage, or maybe horror, then pulled and easily ripped the straps that had been holding it in place.
With a few quick motions that splattered the closest goblin engineers, it roared in triumph as it kicked and hacked them with the devices they'd made.
The rest ran towards more tunnels leading out of the cavern, and the troll eventually turned and looked straight at Mason. It roared again with equal, and certainly misplaced, outrage, and lifted its arms.
* * *
"Why do things always have to be difficult," Mason said as he outran the first spray of orange flame. "Seamus, you're pretty much immune to fire, right?” he shouted. “Can you make yourself obvious?"
The wizard just walked out into the open in answer, holding out his arms until the troll turned its weapon on him and kept on roasting.
It gave Mason a second to breathe, at least. He activated Ranger's Mark and gave a quick inspection.
The power didn't seem to have anything to say about the 'modifications' the goblin made. However the various metallic parts worked it had no idea. But at least it showed the basic anatomy and gave an idea of the troll's weaknesses.
Which was to say...there weren't really any. Apparently it regenerated like Mason did, had about as much bone around its organs as an orc, and could…survive without its brain…for a few minutes?
“I hate this place,” Mason muttered. “I really hate it.”
Apparently a troll was like a giant, green, angry chicken. With a flamethrower.
He gestured at Phuong to go in and do...something, and for the moment just tried redecorating the thing with arrows. His first, somewhat lucky shot actually hit the thing right in the eye, and he stopped for a second just to watch the result.
The troll blinked in confusion, the shaft bouncing up and down in its blood-oozing eye. Then it shook its head and just kept shooting flame with a growl, apparently not needing to see, or not really caring what it shot.
Mason tried a Power Shot and at least sunk the shaft into the creature's side, followed by a Crippling Strike which for once didn't come back with an error.
Phuong was at the thing's...well, upper thigh, and started slicing away flesh with his glowing blue sword. The troll finally seemed to notice its targets hadn't actually burned, and literally shook its flamethrower like it might be broken.
With something like a annoyed roar it spun and swiped at Phuong with the gun, its eye opening and spitting out the arrow, apparently already healed.
Mason dropped his bow and accepted reality.
He was going to have to hack this thing down to size, hard and fast and enough to get it on the ground so they could all chop it to pieces.
As Phuong danced and dodged away from the creature's swinging gun and buzzsaw, Mason whistled for Streak and circled to its back. He summoned his Claws and watched the creature move, looking for weak spots on its legs.
The knees, he decided, were about as good as anything.
[We need it on the ground] he said to Streak with Speak with Nature, then charged at the giant left tree-trunk of a leg and led with a Predator's Strike, followed by a series of cuts at the only partly exposed flesh.
Again the troll seemed largely oblivious to its own damage. It just kept on chasing Phuong as Mason sloughed off meat and blood as he worked his way to bone. Seamus launched a few projectiles at the thing's face, searing off one of its cheeks to reveal an almost skeletal jaw of fangs.
Streak made his move, chomping onto the troll's other leg between metal plates, growling and pulling away from Mason's other wounded leg. The creature wobbled and finally looked at its legs, briefly trying to jab its saw at Mason before seeming to realize its own body was in the way.
It turned, stumbled, and fell to the floor with a huge crash.
Mason wasted no time. He ran to the thing's head and started slicing for the neck, but soon found the damn thing had a metal gorget. He worked at the edges, blades bouncing off metal and bone as he sought for the soft fleshy connecting tissues.
The troll wasn't quite sure what to do, apparently. It tried rolling over. When that didn't work it started spraying more fire and waving its blade around, which Mason and Phuong had to dodge but didn't stop them from attacking.
It was still regenerating, but not fast enough, and Mason had a very strange, probably paranoid thought that this was entirely too easy.
He forced himself to glance around to make sure there wasn't any more coming, or some giant army of goblins building in the tunnel beside. But he didn't see anything. In fact all he saw was a single goblin still hiding in the corner, with what looked like a metal wire running all the way to his desk...
Mason met the creature's goggled eyes. There was sweat leaking from the edges, a kind of resolved madness on the thing's lips. Mason followed its eyes to the pile of crystals sitting all around the troll, mere feet from all the players.
"Run!" he shouted to the others. "Get back! Get to the caver..."
An arcane hum grew so loud and so fast it drowned out Mason's words. Everything went blue, then white, as the crystals became too blinding to look at. Mason closed his eyes and leapt for the metal support beam at the edge of the hall. Then everything exploded.
