Sunset: 1825
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Troll Hunting
April 23
Played 25 January 2012
The day begins with Sir Klaris leading a dozen of his men to conduct a pre-dawn raid on an orc caravan, if one is to be found. Their goal is to capture 6 orcs alive. They hit it lucky, and return to camp just after breakfast with 5 ocs in tow all of whom are slightly the worse for wear.
Kinnaka gives orders for Phase II to kick off immediately, which a search for more entrances to the catacombs / trolls’ lair. They plan to use the orcs to search, after explaining to them that they have a choice between being killed immediately, and searching for the troll caves. They stand a chance against the trolls. The orcs aren’t happy about the plan, but none refuse.
The search is commenced in 5 areas that appear likely to hide an alternate lair entrance. Progress is a long time coming. The day is very warm. The job is boring. So it is that when a troll is finally enticed into showing itself in mid-afternoon, only Kinnaka initially notices it.
He is looking at a particularly attractive wild rosemary bush when his eye catches movement, and he notices a troll closing on the sacrificial search orc at high speed. He quietly lets the others know, and lets fly with his shortbow. The arrow is on targe, but glances off the creature with no apparent damage, although it gets his attention. He comes to a sudden stop as Kinnaka’s second arrow flies, with similar results. This extra bit of attention causes the beast to head back in the direction he came.
He is quickly lost to sight due to the distance, undergrowth, and undulations in the ground, but its path is obvious to Kinnaka and at least one of the men with them. They follow the trail to a small cave entrance that is cleary not natural, and has been hewn fairly recently (as in no more than a decade or two ago). Kinnaka updates the map, smiles, and sends the woodsmen off to let the other parties know that Phase III is ready to begin.
Phase III involves Klaris sending in two fighting teams, one by the main entrance, and one by the newly discovered entrance. Each team consists of 2 spearmen (to keep the trolls at bay), 2 bowmen (to shoot from a distance), 1 fireman (to burn fallen trolls), and 1 healer (for obvious reasons). They will also have about 5 reserve fighters to replace their fallen comrades, should that prove necessary.
In addition to those two columns, K&K will gate into the catacombs. As they do no know precisely where they will appear, they can’t make more exact plans. Instead, they will simply try to rendezvous with the other parties in the catacombs, hoping to trap trolls between them, or at the very least, make them fight on multiple fronts.
When they finish gating themselves in, K&K find themselves in a corridor. Ten feet in one direction there appears to be a room, from which emanate several troll voices. They choose to go instead in the other direction, toward a 4-way intersection.
As they start backing away from the room, the sounds of fighting begin in distance, followed immediately by the sound of a warning klaxon. A gate next to the entrance to the room slams closed, followed immediately by the gate sounds, narrowly avoiding trapping them between the two.
At intersection they turn left, down a very long corridor, and toward the sounds of fighting. As they pass another 4-way intersection, a new sound meets their ears – the sound of troll feet in the distance, but getting louder by the second. It is impossible to tell what direction it is coming from at the moment.
After 20 more feet, they reach yet another 4-way intersection just as the sounds of fighting stops. The troll feet continue to approach, clearly from the direction they have just come from. To that sound is added the sound of human feet approaching from the direction they are headed. With two approaching parties both heading toward them, K&K decide to drop into the two cross corridors, to wait for one or the other party to reach them.
They don’t have long to way, and fortunately for them, it is the trolls. After all 7 of them have passed, the foremost troll has apparently reached the humans, as fresh sounds of fighting break out. K&K take that as their key to attack, with Kinnaka in the front wielding his naginata as a spear, while Kentaro fires his crossbow from
behind the elf.
They both jump out of hiding, attacking the rear troll, and putting it on the floor before it knows what hit it. Kinnaka steps forward to attack the second troll, while Kentaro liberally douses the first with some acid from a bottle Kinaka brought from Shizen Wa for the purpose of keeping trolls from regenerating.
The next troll forward realizes its danger and turns in time to defend itself, preventing its death, but not at the cost of massive damage. If flails wildly at its opponent, and although Kinnaka partially blocks the attack, the beast still rakes two sets of claws across his chest, causing the elf to stagger, and gasp for breath. The pain is brutal – the damage severe.