While many creatures from Caen and Xiivet were obscenely powerful, the most dangerous specimens undoubtedly belonged to the civilised races from their planets. Like us, a select few had been generously gifted with intelligence and set up complex societies. Unlike us, they had evolved to deal with creatures far more dangerous than lions and crocodiles. Unlike them, we had enough nukes to blow them up to the high heavens.

If the System hadn’t interfered and the Ratkin hadn’t suddenly turned their full focus on us to stop our advance, it is my belief that humanity would have become the sole apex predators after a month or two.

Wilfrid Pember - Historian- The Start of the Apocalypse

____

Eight-feet tall, the foremost trolls were a sickly shade of yellow with lank red hair, bulbous noses, and a hint of muscle to their otherwise slim builds. One held a stone club while the other carried a large, mossy log.

Sticking to their agreed plan, Raven headed towards the stone-wielder while Meera shot an arrow at the log-wielder, drawing it towards herself and Faris.

As the two groups split to the sides of him, Silas studied his target with a knotted brow. At ten, maybe eleven-feet, it made the other trolls look half-grown. While it was a darker shade to them, coloured putrid-yellow and orange, it shared the same red hair. This was where the similarities stopped as while its kin were lean and lanky, the Swamp Troll was a hulking beast with a bulging belly and prominent muscles, its skin scored with scars of all sizes. Carrying a metal pole stained with dark blood, it had an oppressive aura, similar to the Alabaster Mink’s but worse.

Sneering, it headed for him, revealing its grimy teeth as if they were anything to be proud of. He wondered what level it was, then decided it didn’t matter and prepared himself, taking control of his breath.

After his duel with Grace, he had raised the intensity of his training, determined to never get caught with his pants down again. Over time, he had grown quicker, especially his reflexes, and more confident in his strikes. Despite this, he now felt that something was wrong as he used Weakness Vision and saw the troll’s entire body light up in red. There was no way a monster this strong could be so unguarded, right?

His thoughts were cut off as the troll swung its pole at his torso, abusing its reach advantage to keep him from attacking. The wind roared in his ears as he sidestepped the lethal blow, lunging forward to drive his spear into its belly. Striking, his glee immediately turned to shock as the spearhead slid off its skin. He hastily sprung back and dodged its grab, before peering at its belly.

Although he had put his all behind the blow, the result was a shallow cut such as to be expected from a careless swipe. A line of dark blood leaked out from it, no different from the rivulets of swamp water running down its body. No wonder the troll was chock full of openings as it simply didn’t care about defence!

He kept moving back, clearing out of its reach, as his mind rushed to think of a way to kill it. The obvious answer was to stab it in its most vulnerable spots, but its face was too far up to reach, and the rest of its body was too tough to pierce. Then, Silas looked lower and had an idea: if not the face, then the balls. It wore what appeared to be drenched shorts made of elastic leather, and it made little sense for it to clothe its groin and keep the rest bare unless its groin was more sensitive. That, or for humility’s sake, but the Swamp Troll didn’t seem the type to hide away its pecker in shame.

The troll must have been sharper than he had given it credit for as it noticed his focus on its balls and grew enraged. It roared and smashed down its pole, guiding him straight into its waiting hand. He slipped through its clutch, dashing past its square-like fingers, and stabbed towards its groin. He missed as the monster turned just in time, the spearhead bouncing off its thigh.

Now fully convinced he was out to castrate it, the troll’s cheeks flushed darker, and its lips split apart to reveal a savage snarl. It didn’t give him a second to breathe as it attacked with increased ferocity, forcing him to dive and leap for his life, snatching away the initiative.

Meanwhile, Faris and Meera were doing far better against the log-wielding troll. With an arrow sticking out of one eye socket and two out of the other, the blinded monster raged in pain, its roars blasting out hot, fetid breath and spraying spittle. It blindly thundered about and charged into a tree double its size.

Thinking it had finally found its enemy, the troll wrapped its arms around the trunk and tried to squeeze it to death. In its fury, it didn’t hear the Horseman’s arrow swishing through the air until it pierced through its palate. Choking, the monster toppled over, and the Huntress waited for it to stop thrashing about to finish it off with a flurry of blows from her machete.

Across the swamp, Raven fought in a different manner, namely by not fighting at all. Stationed several strides away from the stone-wielding troll, the Voidcaller watched in leisure as the troll tried to rip her voidling off its battered body.

The voidling was a misshapen insect half the size of a man with six pincer-like legs. Its shell was glossy-black, and while its thorax and abdomen were thin and straight, it had no head to speak off, missing its eyes, ears, and antenna. To make up for it, however, it had a pair of oversized mandibles at the front of its thorax which it used to attack the troll with primal ferocity.

Finally pulling the insect off of its gut, drawing a stream of murky blood, the troll hurled it into the water with a loud splash. It bellowed and stamped on the insect until it was certain it was dead. Even then, just to be safe, it leapt onto its corpse and pummelled it a couple of times with its chunky fists. Stumbling up, the troll turned to Raven and glared at her, growling deeply, but before it could take a step forward, it felt knives dig into its legs. Screaming, it kicked its feet out of the water and saw the voidling stuck to one, very much alive.

While this was happening, the Swamp Troll shrieked as Silas finally struck gold, more specifically, its groin. It suddenly moved more quickly and kicked him across the side, throwing him off his feet. Before he had a chance to rise, it picked him up by his legs as it clenched its jaw in abject pain.

Looking down, Silas realised with terror that his spine was about to be shattered over its knee, and so he thrust for his axe in panic. To his luck, he managed it in one go and wildly swung the weapon, once at its chest and another at its arm, barely hurting the beast. He was but a heartbeat away from being snapped in half, when he stretched out and chopped into its face, slicing deep in between its eyes. Although deafened from combat, he still heard it scream as it loosened its grip, clutching at its face.

Water breaking his fall, he rolled up, convulsing. His throat was burning from all the swamp water he had swallowed, his eyes stinging, his ears clogged, his head delirious, and his entire body a fractured mess as if someone had taken a sword to it. Feeling faint, he glanced up and saw the troll peering down, bloody eyes and bared teeth and all.

His body reacted instinctively, throwing the axe still in his grasp into its groin. It must have hit squarely this time as it forced the monster to gasp and double over. Fear of what was to come when it recovered drove Silas up, and he found his spear floating in the water beside him. Picking it up, he could barely feel anything as he gored the kneeling troll’s neck over and over, piercing through its muscles repeatedly until his hands cut off from the rest of his body. They dropped the spear, and he could only watch on helplessly.

The loss of sense remained as he stood there, still and unthinking. Perhaps he should have worried about the troll, but it lay there unstirring. Although the unfeeling darkness threatened to swallow him whole, he stayed conscious through force of will and kept up his bare facilities.

Unfortunately, his bare facilities weren’t enough for him to notice the voidling creeping ever closer. It suddenly stopped, however, as Raven collapsed, followed by Meera. Faris’s warnings were lost in his throat as he plopped down from his horse into the water. Silas paid no attention to them, nor the dart dangling from his cheek as he fell at last.

____

You must keep your guard up on Idroa at all times. Even if you are victorious, keep your guard up for Krishna’s sake.

Lavanya Sanghvi - the Monster Bane - Adventurer’s Guide to Surviving the Idroan Wilderness