Legend of the Spellthief

Logan, Marcus, Amalia, and the elementals started to shift their way past more of the countless trees that hugged each other a bit too closely for comfort. Small branches snapped on their shoulders, while leaves fluttered to the floor as their frames brushed up on the flora.

It wasn’t long until the couple hundred feet was traversed, showing Logan, who was at the front with Stealth, an inviting sight ahead of the others.

Two large trolls were hunched over within a large clearing of the forest, several tree stumps showing that they had fashioned weapons here before. The trolls stood at around 13', they were a massive wall of green and brown blotch skin. Their under fangs almost reached their eyes, making Logan question how they hadn't blinded themselves. The lower half of the trolls were covered in stretched furs, he couldn't even call them trousers, though it seemed like the trolls wanted them to be.

“Identify.”

“Troll ☠️ - Giant. Level 10: 196/196 HP.

A rare race of giants, the troll is an elusive target for many people wanting to drink their blood. Trolls are famous for their regenerative capabilities, healing most wounds in seconds, and limbs in a minute. Highly resistant to effects that would hinder them, these are often a prize of a raid team more than fewer numbers.

Trolls have yet to reveal their place of origin, making it hard to gauge their numbers. But when one leaves the group, it wreaks havoc on the neighbouring area.

Skills: Regeneration ?, Scent, Sixth Sense.

Reduction: ?.

Resistance: ?.”

Logan held his hand at his back, signalling his allies to halt their progress. Inching his way forward a bit more he hugged a tree with his back as he spied on the two foes. They were crunching down on the corpses of two deer. At their sides, slammed vertically into the floor, were two large clubs with spikes at the end. Though they were really just tree trunks that were infused with spellforce.

It seemed their assessment before was correct, the trolls had some form of crafting. Using Identification on the clubs, Logan saw they weren’t too powerful, around level 11 or so, if they were normal-sized.

It was a better guess they were on par with a level 10 weapon if they were shrunken down. However, it seemed they were “unstable”. Too many whacks and they would break. Unlike a normal weapon of that power that could last a hundred and more strikes, the clubs would shatter in a dozen or so.

Shoddy workmanship indeed.

Logan wagered the trolls had some form of damage reduction or resistance to boot, but without prior knowledge, it would be hard to scan for it with his current mastery of Identification.

Logan had yet to spend too much time researching how he could expand the skill, but he had heard some rumours about it. It was a hard thing to investigate, as it wasn’t a common skill amongst the populace.

Regardless, Logan already knew that the regeneration of the trolls could be slowed or even halted entirely with the use of fire.

Logan waved his hand behind him, motioning the others to flank to the right and left, his own mind formulating an attack plan of teleportation and ignition. However, as if sensing his and his allies’ intentions, the trolls jerked their heads upwards and grabbed their clubs.

“There’s that Sixth Sense”, Logan cursed in his head as he darted from the treeline.

Fully red eyes stared at the Spellthief, seeing a new snack appear from the brush. The trolls let out loud roars that scattered birds and squirrels from the vicinity.

Logan commanded another ring to activate as he warped into his centre and blasted behind the troll on the right. However, as this occurred, Logan heard the large cracking and snapping of bone, as the troll broke apart and dislocated its left arm and slammed it behind them.

Logan kicked off the troll’s back to avoid the grapple, landing with a backflip on the grassy floor. The troll snapped its arm back to its front, protrusions in its skin showing its morphing skeleton underneath.

“Now that’s a trick”, Logan thought.

The two trolls charged at Logan who warped away once again as he used his final ring, apparating atop the large branch of a tree. Forming flames in his hand, Logan threw out two jets of Flame at the trolls, blasting into their raised defensive arms. The dancing specks of red and orange clung onto the trolls as it ignited them for a time.

Bolts came out from the trees, Amalia and Marcus landing solid hits into the trolls’ legs, but, Amalia’s dealt very little damage at all. The elementals kept back, so as not to hinder the experience gain of Amalia.

Logan drew up two Bowen daggers and threw them at the right troll, aiming for its eyes. The troll raised its club as it blocked the daggers, however, it was more of a feint by Logan who had teleported behind the troll again.

Placing a hand on its back, he used the final ring to use another charge of Flame, igniting the troll in a furious inferno. Whilst the troll’s regeneration would be turned off by fire damage, it seemed they had gained some form of innate resistance to the barrage, only taking 152 Backstab fire damage.

Logan would have followed it up, if the other troll wasn’t aiming a downward club slam onto the Spellthief. Kicking off the back, he slid across the ground once again as the club crashed into the dirt.

Marcus ran into the fray to offer some more melee assistance, seeing that Logan’s tactics were being disturbed.

Slamming his staff into the blocking fist of the left troll, Marcus backstepped away and drew it from Logan’s confrontation. The Devout’s staff being hit with the club and the fist of the troll.

The right troll spun around and waved its club over the Spellthief who had bent backwards as if he were engaging in a game of limbo. Placing his hands on the floor, Logan flipped backwards away from the troll, landed on a tree trunk, and kicked upwards over the troll’s head.

Cracking and snapping occurred again as the troll whipped its arm up and backwards as it tried to grapple Logan. But the Spellthief was able to twist and turn to avoid its grasp, landing closer to the centre of the clearing.

The flames died down around the trolls, as their flesh was failing to piece itself back together. Their regeneration had certainly halted, now they just had to be defeated.

Wanting to clear things up before the enemies had time to recover, Logan used a spell he had had for a long time, but didn’t have the slots necessary to use it. “Haste”, he chanted aloud.

Logan’s body sped up, leaving behind a blurry image as he moved. Darting forwards he turned to the side to dodge a mace slam, then did a cartwheel to avoid the grasp of the troll as it dropped its club.

Logan then jumped upwards to dodge the grapple of the left hand, and threw out two more daggers at the troll’s eyes that penetrated them this time. Backstab text flew up as Logan blinded the troll for a while.

Landing on the troll’s chest, Logan clambered over and dug his hand into its back as he yet again chanted, “Flame Grasp”, engulfing the giant in flames and causing it to crumple to the floor in a mess of roasting flesh.

On the other side of the confrontation, Marcus was holding his own against the other troll. Spinning around to dodge blows, side-stepping to entice a grab, and punishing with a heavy staff slam into the forearm.

The troll even tried a heavy strike from above with its club, slamming down with a two-handed strike, Marcus held up his staff horizontally to block it. A torrent of wind and grey energy surged away from the two weapons, cracks forming over the club as its bark was stripped apart. Marcus could only grin at the scene, someone who was once weak, blocking the strike of a giant.

Pushing against the troll, Marcus was able to overpower and set the troll off balance, his staggering 41 Strength beating out a 13’ monster. Following his push, Marcus threw his hand out and chanted, “Gaia Shot”, shooting a spike of stone through the troll’s shoulder and sickening it.

Hopping to the side, Marcus hit the troll’s knee and forced it to a kneeling position, jumped up, and slammed down on the troll’s head, blood splurting everywhere with each hit.

A fist came flying from the right towards Marcus, but it was blocked by Amalia’s shield that had flown to his side with a yellow aura around it. The fist collided with the shield and let out a loud battering metallic sound and that of cracking bones, the shield bending inwards as it fell to the floor with little force as the skill faded.

This was a new skill that Amalia had learned, Vigilant Shield, it was one that Logan had seen before and knew of its use. However, Amalia’s shield was much weaker against the attack of the troll, and so it was almost useless after the fact.

With the fist blocked, Marcus was unharmed as he chanted again, “Gaia Shot”, impaling the troll’s other shoulder with a spike of stone.

Logan was given ample time, and opportunity, to get up to the rear of the troll and hit its back with another, “Flame Grasp”, its back and shoulders letting off such intense fire that Marcus took a step back to not get caught in the friendly fire.

The final smouldering body hit the floor, Logan gasping out for a second and wanting to take a break. However, the trolls weren’t done yet, as he purposefully kept them alive. The experience wasn’t appearing, as their regeneration could kick back in.

Leaping onto the closest troll, Logan dove a Bowen dagger through its chest to carve towards its heart. Next to a large beating heart, Logan saw the violet sack that was connected to its arteries. Cutting into it, Logan gathered up the violet liquid that poured out into a large flask which he promptly corked.

As he cut into the sack, however, its colour dimmed quickly, and its arteries turned black. He barely had enough to fill the one flask. No wonder it was a prized item.

Running over to the other troll, Logan did the same manoeuvre, but the troll was waking up just as he stabbed into the sack. The troll let out a final roar and lurch as its final essence drained from it into the last flask, its limbs slamming into the floor as it became lifeless.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Logan put the flasks back into his inventory, green cubes of data and static electricity disintegrating the items into nothingness.

Amalia picked up her almost-destroyed bouche shield and frowned at it, “I was expecting it to survive that hit, obviously not.”

“Thanks all the same”, Marcus replied with a smile.

“They had a skill called Sixth Sense, I believe I saw it in action a few times, but, it didn’t seem constant”, Logan informed.

“Really? First I’ve heard of a skill called that, but most do have cooldowns between uses.”

“Yeah, that’s what I am thinking. If it was fully mastered, it’d be a pain to fight against”, Logan replied as he thought about the bending arms.

“Looked easy from my perch, to be honest”, Amalia added as she shrugged, “but then, I haven’t seen that many fights.”

“How’re the nerves?”

“Fine enough, I suppose. I wasn’t in any danger. You zipping around means I won’t be in trouble for long anyways.”

“I still had a few Dimensional Jaunts left, so you’re right there.”

“That’s two flasks. One for Marta, one for us. Do we want to track down some more trolls?” Marcus asked.

Logan shook his head, “From what I can tell, this isn’t their home either. These two just split off. To add to that annoyance, the quest circle has been removed and is just telling me to return.”

“Same for me”, Amalia informed.

“We could search around, spend the rest of the day here and teleport back in the evening. But our buffs would have ended by the time we find another troll here”, Logan calculated.

“Could be best. Regeneration is a strong ability, it’d be amazing for us all to have it”, Marcus replied before looking at Amalia, “what is your rank now?”

“This fight gave me 4,480 experience, straight into level 4.”

Logan whistled in awe, “Quite good. You’ll hit 5 for the 7-day timer with speed.” Loading up his map to charter a good enough course through it, Logan continued, “I’ll have the elementals scout. We don’t need them if we stick together well enough.”

The elementals were only there for support if needed, but in the case of scouting, going in six different directions would speed the whole process up. There was little danger with this, the elementals would return the next day if they were defeated.

The party continued to scout and scavenge through the thick jungle of tangled roots and branches. Aside from a few packs of wolves, crowbolds, and lizard-like creatures, the group were unable to pick up the trail of any more trolls. The tracks they could find just belonged to the two they had killed already.

To aid in the progression of Amalia, she and Marcus went after what monsters they did find without the aid of Logan. Marcus was more than able to bring down most foes of such a low level with a single and sometimes double hit. Logan’s job was Harvesting the monsters to improve that skill’s mastery for later crafting.

With the small skirmishes done, Amalia easily passed into level 5, her HP so abhorrently large for her level at 118. 12 of that came from her earring, but it was still quite the number. Accessors would see her starting attributes as quite high, bordering on hero level if it wasn’t for the rest of her stats being low. They would have to think of a way to mask or explain it later.

Marcus was making some progress towards matching Logan’s level, a task they thought would be best to keep their difficulty low. While the elementals tangled with some monsters on their own, the corpses of which were ferried to Logan when they met up in a few hours. Servoir went up to level 5, while Umbra hit 2.

Logan noted the quests he had picked up from the hall in Tinte, in total the party had finished up five for the hall in this jungle. Since the monsters were in separate packs it was easy to deal with them, but the closeness of the jungle would mean that not many adventurers in Tinte could deal with this. At least not if the adventurers weren’t thinking of making a large raiding party.

With the cleanup of the quests complete and no sign of any more regeneration reagents on legs, the group made their way to the extent of the jungle.

Dismissing his elementals, Logan pulled out the eagle’s eyeglass and looked towards where Tinte was. A single Dimensional Jaunt into the sky, and then a follow-up to the floor, was all that was needed to get back to the village.

With everything done in the day, Logan had used all of his rings, slots, and signature spells for teleportation, leaving only his MP for further casts. It brought peace of mind to be safe with his reservoir of spells, though seeing the outcome of the day he could have teleported to the jungle to start. Nonetheless, the words of Cassius stuck with him about preparation.

“Overprepare, and prepare some more, or die with a platinum in your pocket.”

With their swift return, the trio headed to the hall to hand off the materials and confirm their completion of the quests. The man at the counter had a small smile appear on his face, though it was a bit lacking in lustre.

Updating their signets, Logan handed the rewards to Amalia, a total of 20 silver. Selling off any spare components also granted Amalia another 40 silver. Logan didn’t need most of them, he pretty much just wanted the Harvesting mastery, but a few were kept back for crafting items to give to their newcomer.

Logan’s quest log noted where both the Devout they had brought with them from Gauntlet was, as well as the place where Marta had remained. Thinking it best to get the healer first, they took a detour to let the man know the good news.

With a shocked expression, the Devout asked, “So soon? You really are a diviner-expert. Alright, I have the other supplies necessary. Do you have my payment, or am I getting it from…” he trailed off at the end, seemingly feeling a bit wrong to ask it of the injured.

“We’ll pay”, Logan replied as he handed over a gold coin to the man.

The Devout nodded as he took the coin, “Ok. She must mean a lot to you, to both track down trolls and to also pay for treatment.”

“Closest thing I have to a mother”, Marcus added as he stepped to Logan’s side.

Accepting the situation, the quad of classed beings moved on to the church of Tinte, flasks of troll blood in hand.

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