Chapter 9
Accessing File: Umbra
Their is very little information on the Fallen named Umbra. What is known is that he was born in a village in England and was taken away by Grimm when they attacked it. However the village was not destroyed as many of it's inhabitants were trained to fight. Their is also information that reports Umbra returned to his village ten years later to see it destroyed by starving Gumm-Gumms who ate the inhabitants.
A few records that reported supposed magi being robed by a man calling himself Umbra killing these men and stealing any spell books and magical objects such as staffs, wands, and enchanted weapons.
However any evidence of these magi being able to perform magic and having any artifacts related to magic has not been confirmed and due to the little information on the Fallen named Umbra his threat level is unknown but is presumed to be a minor.
Xxx
As the group followed the signal of Jake's tracker they came into a forest at the base of the Rockies and decided to leave the truck so they could scout it out. As they scouted the woods they came upon the base of the mountain and Roland pulls out his phone.
"What are you doing?" Nier asked.
"My phone's connected to the GPS signal of Jake's tracker," Roland said. "Their's something I need to see. Huh that's weird."
"What's weird?" McCree asked.
"If I'm reading this right Jake's inside the mountain," Roland said. "But there aren't any reported entrances here."
The group then here's some noise coming from nearby and they follow it and to their surprise they find a group of armored bandits with supplies. The group quietly follows them and remain out of site. The bandits stop at a part of the mountain and one of them takes out an object with a handle and an orange crystal on it. This was a Horngazel a key used by Trolls to open doors into their underground settlements. The bandit holding it draws a semicircle on the mountain wall that opens a door way for them to enter it and once they enter the opening closes returning the spot to normal.
"What did they just do?" McCree asked.
"They used a Horngazel," Claire said. "Their keys Trolls use to enter their underground settlements."
"We might be able to break through that spot Nier said. "Unless the two of you have one of those things as well."
"As a matter of fact we do," Jim said as he brought out his Horngazel.
"We'll have to wait before entering," Roland said. "Those bandits already entered and I believe it's best that we have stealth on our side for this mission."
After waiting for a while the group approaches the spot and Jim uses the Horngazel to open the entrance and enter the cave. Once the entrance closed the group proceeded through the cave system they made sure to make sure that they weren't seen by any of the bandits. As they journeyed through the caves they made sure to look for anything that might be important as they followed the signal of Jake's tracker.
The group eventually found a crudely made door and enter it carefully. The room was filled with books and many other artifacts.
"What is all this stuff?" Jim asked.
Nier looks at the books and finds two damaged ones that gets his attention.
"Some of these are spell books," Nier said as he picked up the two damaged books. "These two look similar to the book that taught me the combat spells I use."
Roland looks at the two books and reads out their names, "Grimoire Noir and Grimoire Rubrum. These books were made centuries ago and bear the names of the sorcerers that wrote them. The book you have is the white book Grimoire Weiss."
"My spouse and I found it on a mission to investigate ruins in Norway where we encountered the criminal Tyrann and he was after it," Nier said. "When I touched the book it filled me with power that helped me kill him. I can still feel magic from it but not from these two."
"They're damaged," said Claire. "Maybe they lost all their magic from the damage they took it."
"Maybe Umbra wanted the Grimoire Weiss," Jim suggested.
"It's not just spell books here," McCree said as he looked through the books. "He has books that talk about different afterlives, different dimensions that are connected to magic, a book on something called the Charms of Bezel, a book on someplace called Ledgerdomain, and I think a book about trolls."
Jim and Claire go to the book that McCree was talking about and it's one their familiar with.
"The Book of Ga-huel," Claire said. "This contains the complete Gumm-Gumm history."
She opens the book to a bookmarked page and on the page was a picture of the Decimaar blade and information on it.
"This explains where Umbra learned about the sword," Jim said. "We should take all this stuff once we take out Umbra."
The group leaves the room and follows the tracker's signal. When they get to where the signal is at they find cages containing something they were not expecting. Inside these cages were Trolls that acted like animals.
"What are these?" McCree asked.
"They look Trolls but why are they like this?" Claire said.
Jim looks at one of the Trolls and recognizes it as the girl from the village he saw taken away.
"Cause these are the abducted villagers I think they were turned into half-Trolls," Jim said shocking everyone.
"Why would Umbra want to do this?" Roland asked.
"He must've been in Arcadia when the Eternal Night happened," Jim said. "He would've seen me fight and probably wants the same level of strength, endurance, and agility granted to him."
"How did he know what the ingredients were for Merlin's half-troll formula and why are they acting liking animals?" Claire asked.
"They all have wings so maybe he added some Stalkling pieces to make himself immune to sunlight," Jim said. "But since their wild beasts the villagers minds became like theirs."
As the group discussed what happened to the villagers Roland was looking through the cages to find Jake.
"Jake are you their?"
He repeated the same question over and over until...
"Ro-land..."
He hears a weak voice and sees a tanned half-troll approach the bars. Roland recognized the half-troll to be his adopted son Jake Chambers.
"Everyone I found Jake," Roland said to the group.
They come to him and see what has become of Jake.
"Ro-land," Jake weakly says.
"Roland I'm so sorry," Claire said.
"There is no way to undo what has been done is there?" Roland asked.
"I'm sorry Roland if there was one I would've taken it after Gunmar and Morgana were defeated," Jim says. "Jake's managed to retain some of his mind so Umbra is getting close to perfecting his formula."
As they talked a bandit walks through a large automatic door and sees the group. The bandit then hits a button that triggers an alarm. Once the group hears the alarm they see the bandit and McCree shoots him in the head.
"Well this just got bad," said McCree said. "We're gonna have every bandit under Umbra's control after us."
"If we can destroy the Deicmaar blade we kill every bandit," Jim said. "Remember the bandits aren't working for Umbra out of their own free will."
"It's too close quarters in some parts of the caves," Nier said. "Some of us might get overrun fighting that many."
Roland sees a panel connected to the cages for the half-trolls and gets an idea. He goes to the panel and starts pushing random buttons and flipping switches until...
A buzz is heard and all the cages open releasing the half-trolls. Hundreds of them were free and Roland quickly collects Jake and returns to the group. As the group sees the half-trolls they understand why Roland released them.
Jim takes off his glamour mask revealing his half-troll form and says, "I know you all still have a shred of who you once were and I know you all hate what you've become but their is no way to reverse this I would know. But I can guarantee this to all of you we will end the one responsible for what's happened to you and make sure this does happen to anyone else."
The half-trolls roar in agreement and charge (Except Jake) through the doors that lead into the room and begin attacking everyone armored bandit they can find.
Xxx
Vat room.
Umbra and Mordred are adding a new half-troll formulas into some of the empty vats to be tested once they find another village to attack when they hear the alarms go off.
"They found us!?" Mordred exclaims before Umbra grabs him by the neck and lifts him into the air.
"I thought you said their was no way they could track us through Jake," Umbra said.
"I checked him I swear master," Mordred said though it was hard considering he was being strangled.
"Did you check you serial cannibal or are you just telling me what I want to hear so I don't kill you," Umbra said as his anger increased.
CRASH!
A half-troll and a bandit fighting each other come crashing through a doorway and Umbra let's go of Mordred. Mordred begins gasping for air and slowly gets up to see more of Umbra's armored bandits enter the room and start fighting with more of the half-troll rejects. Umbra then casts a spell on himself making white armor with glowing red lines appears on himself and then he brings out the Decimaar blade. The massive scimitar was emitting a blue aura ready to be used for combat and enslaving the wills of others. The two then see the ones responsible for releasing the half-troll rejects.
Jim, Claire, McCree, Nier, Roland, and Jake emerged from one of the doors.
The group sees Umbra and Mordred and Jim says to them, "It's over we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"We will not go quietly champion of Merlin," Umbra said as he gathered dark magic into his left hand and fired it at the group.
The hunters jump out of the way and Mordred brings out his revolvers and starts shooting at where Roland and Jake landed. The two avoid the bullets and journey through one of the tunnels with Mordred following them. Nier, Claire, and McCree landed near a large group of armored bandits and begin fighting them and Jim landed on the catwalk where Umbra is. The Trollhunter and Fallen look at each other and then they rush each other. They clash swords and red and blue auras are emitted from the blades each time they clash with each other. The two warriors then lock blades, both sides trying tpo overpower the other but they seem to be evenly matched.
"Do you honestly believe that you can defeat me Trollhunter," Umbra said. "I can smell your own fear."
Jim breaks away and both him start slashing at each other but each of their strikes is countered by the other's.
"These are the three rules in being a Trollhunter, Rule number 1: Always be afraid," said Jim. "Fear is but the precursor to valor, and to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero."
Jim now has Umbra on defensive causing the Fallen to walk backwards.
"Rule number 2: Always finish the fight."
Umbra has his back to the railing of the catwalk and locks blades with Jim once more.
"And rule number 3: When in doubt, always kick them in the gronk-nuks."
Unexpectedly Jim then kicks Umbra in the nards. The Fallen cringes from the pain making him drop his guard and allowing Jim to push him off the catwalk and into one of his half-troll formula vats.
"This might have been a bad idea," Jim said to himself as he saw the black of the formula begin to recede.
Once the formula stopped receding...
SPLASH!
Umbra emerges from the vat and lands back on the catwalk. He has become a half-troll, he now has white stone skin, Stalkling wings, pointed ears, fangs, and horns. Unlike the failure half-trolls he seemed calm and not animalistic like the failures were. His eyes but once he opened them they were still the same color but now they were slit-eyed like a cat's eye.
"I still retain my very being," Umbra said as he pointed the Decimaar blade at Jim. "Thank you for helping me find the right formula."
"This isn't going to go well," Jim said as he formed his shield.
To be continued.
