Khalo's Journal: You've Got to Pay That Troll Toll

On this journey upriver, we have faced and defeated trolls and ogres. I found the experience very gratifying.

Elmo the Loon used to tell a story about trolls, but that story had many digressions, unsubstantiated claims, and often, an ulterior motive - usually to convince someone to share their food. But one bit of critical information did stick with me: if you want a troll to stay dead, you've got to kill it with fire. And so I did. I tried out a new spell wherein a blade of flame sprang forth from my hand. 

The troll fight took a heavy toll on my friends, and so it was decided that we would rest nearby. That night, Orenthal observed a redcap spying on us. The next morning, I did a little investigation, and concluded that the beast was getting around by leaping from tree to tree. It was a distressing discovery. Among us, there was some speculation as to why the redcaps were observing us, but not attacking. Our encounter with the senior redcap, Blackbriar, no doubt factors into this somehow. 

We set out again and made it to a bridge, where we found a group of goblins, ogres, and a man. I had the opportunity to try out many spells - some summoning, an entangling trick, but it was the tried and true shillelagh that provided the most showy demonstration of might. Unlike trolls, I have had some first-hand experience with an ogre. Though he was not a member of our enclave, Kroger the Ogre was well-known to the community in which I grew up. He had a weakness for eating sheep, and the only way to keep him away from the nearby shepherds' flocks was to wait up for him, when he would approach the grazing lands, and as group pummel the ever-loving shit out of him. Such a beating would typically keep him away for several months. Some in our community debated about whether or not to simply kill Kroger, but other than his fondness for livestock, he was mostly harmless, and the idea of slaying him never got much traction. Kroger is lucky, then, that he never took a blow such as the one I laid upon an ogre during this last fight. Even I was taken aback as his brains splattered across the bridge's wooden beams.

Entry concluded.