I awake feeling terrible, not knowing why, or for a moment even, how exactly. Slowly the day before filters into my brain and the world begins to make sense again. My stomach is cramping from whatever I'd eaten while under the effect of the Sidhe's illusion, and the pixies had done their damnedest to kill me by a thousand cuts.
In short, I feel awful.
I'm in my tent. Somebody has removed my muddy clothing and tucked me in. Outside my tent there's the sound of humming, which nearly sends me into a panic thinking the Sidhe has found me again.
After a moment, though, the way the humming lacks structure, blends with the sounds of the woods, and doesn't force my attention or awe, makes me relax. I still wonder who it could be though. So I slowly crawl my way out of the sleeping bag, wincing at the way the small wounds pull as I move. Already a lot of the little cuts and bites are beginning to itch in a way that makes me very nervous. I dress as quickly as I can, adding extra layers for warmth, then head out of the tent.
Outside the tent, the autumn morning light is bright and the sky is clear. My camp fire is going strong, casting much needed warmth into the area around it. Sitting next to the fire, tending it, is the hamadryad, humming softly to herself, accompanying the natural sounds of the woods.
The hamadryad is tending the fire, her soft humming accompanying the natural sounds of the woods.
"Good morning," she says, stopping her 'song', if it could be called that. She turns to look at me, smiling the way most nature spirits do that don't deal with humans a lot. Like they know what the gesture is and what it means, but it isn't a part of them like it is a human. Like they have to remind themselves they aren't baring their teeth, "I stayed the night to make sure nothing else tried to take advantage of you. I would have made breakfast, but human food makes little sense to me."
I shake my head and smile weakly back at her as I set about preparing the instant oatmeal I brought, "That's fine. I honestly didn't expect any of this. Especially not the fire, which is very nice."
She gives me a much more natural close lipped smile, "While a tree may fear fire, the forest knows it has its uses." I nod in understanding. Forest fires burn trees, but renew forests. A matter of scale, I guess.
"Do you know what you want for the debt?" I ask. A hamadryad isn't a fae, so I'm not too worried about owing her. Nature spirits are pretty alien, the things they want rarely make sense to humans, and even when they do they usually don't matter. I'd once spent a week figuring out how to shift the course of a river by two feet for a naiad.
I still have no idea why.
The exceptions, of course, are when they want something like a dam destroyed, or all the loggers in a lumber camp turned into beavers. I hadn't taken either of those jobs. The first, because just... no. Jobs like that are how you end up on terrorist watch lists. The second, because I have no idea where I'd even start trying to do something like that.
I have added transformations to my list of things to figure out, though.
The hamadryad shakes her head, "No. I will hold this until I have some task worthy of you."
I nod, that's fairly common. Using a favor owed from somebody like me to heal a random tree would be a waste, "Alright, let the debt for transportation to my camp while I was helpless, and watching over me while I recovered, while at no risk to yourself, lay quiet until called."
She nods, agreeing with how I define the debt, thus defining what I could be called on for.
"Do you still intend to hunt trolls in your current state? I have the information you wanted, if you wish to proceed."
I hesitate, thinking. My original plan was to get strength first, figuring that it would make taking down a second troll easier. Now though, I need that regeneration if I expect to recover any time soon. Or at all. I've only had a night's rest but many of the wounds I can see on my hands and arms are already turning red. Infections can be lethal out here.
I suppose that I can craft a transport Script and head back to Cait or Pua. Either of them would be able to patch me up. That would take time, though, weeks if not months of no progress, when I'm so close to the finish line.
I'll still go back if I can't bag the troll I'm after on my first try. I'm still largely functional, and if I succeed, I'll be fine in minutes at best, hours at most.
And I'm very much ready to stand on my own.
Still, I think I'll craft the transit Script now while I'm at my best, so if something goes wrong, all I'll have to do is activate it. Some part of me is reminded of pre-dialing 911 and then proceeding to blow myself up repeatedly in the kitchen when I was younger. I ignore that part, as it's clearly insane.
So I look up at my breakfast companion and nod, "Let me finish eating, and then get a few things ready, and we'll go." The forest spirit across from me only nods.
###
The hamadryad really came through for me and found two trolls, a male and a female. I decide to take the male first, since it'll be the smaller of the two. Some part of me thinks that trying to differentiate between the ten foot tall mass of muscle and the twelve foot tall mass of muscle, when I'm five one and likely suffering from blood loss, poisoning and seemingly infections, is somewhat ridiculous. Still, it's a place to start.
The hamadryad delivers me to an open space on a game trail that the troll frequents, and I set about preparing my ambush. First things I put in place are a series of trap Scripts, all centered around a central point on the game trail. When activated they'll... chain, for lack of a better word, the troll in place. No physical chains will be involved, but each Script will exert a powerful attractive force on anything caught in their line of effect. Theoretically, between the dozen or so I'm attaching to trees, the troll will be caught in enough conflicting pulls to be rendered immobile. All of these are connected to what I call Script fuses. Long strips of twisted paper with nothing but connecting Script on them, that will lead back to the beginning of the Script story and the energy gathering Script, from where I'll be waiting. Theoretically allowing me to set the Scripts off from cover without having to confront the troll directly. The Script fuses are incredibly obvious, so I'm counting on troll's legendary stupidity to let me get away with this.
Now, Scripts activate quickly, but not really at battle speed unless they're fueled by a sacrifice. The energy gathering Script takes just a couple of extra seconds. In a fight, though, a couple of extra seconds are seconds too long. So I need some way of getting the troll to stand and wait where I want it to until everything goes off. For that, I turn to something I've only just started experimenting with, illusion Scripts.
Illusion Scripts are, honestly, extremely limited. Anything with any complexity at all takes days to write out, and even then they're very static. Whatever I produce can't be changed after writing it down, so the illusions very much followed a... script.
Ow.
Visual illusions are right out. Getting enough detail to make what I produce look like anything other than a cartoon is something I haven't managed yet. Auditory illusions are easier, especially if I can imitate something, but again, can't change or adapt or respond to changing circumstances. All of this would become much simpler if I could find or derive the Script symbols for specific objects, rendering the equivalent of pages of description down to a single symbol.
Those name symbols are very hard to come by, though, and even if I had all of them it wouldn't make the illusion any more flexible.
Scent based illusions, though, are something I've had a remarkable amount of success with. I never would have thought of them before I upgraded my own sense of smell, but they are surprisingly easy, and what I'll be using as bait.
Right where all my trap Scripts are pointing, I lay down the Script for an illusion of the smell of fresh meat. Trolls are absolutely willing to kill something for food, but if the opportunity presents itself, they are lazy enough to be perfectly happy for something else to do the work of getting their food for them. The smell of a free meal will draw the troll in. Hopefully, it will proceed to where the scent is strongest, right over the illusion Script, and then stand there trying to figure out where the free lunch is. Ideally, the troll will stand there at least long enough for the trap Scripts to activate.
Once trapped, I can take my time and pick one of a troll's few weaknesses to stick my knife in.
That was the original plan anyway. In my current diminished state, though, I think I might need some extra help. Destructive Scripts aren't something I use much. They take forever to set up and I have to be nearly on top of them to activate them, usually leaving me in the area of effect. My one experiment with the lightning-calling Script had been more than enough to encourage me to look for more subtle applications. They tend to both work better and be safer.
Now, though, I'll need something to soften up the troll for me. Fortunately, while difficult to apply, destructive Scripts are spectacularly effective. In this case, I need something that will get me through a troll's primary defense. Primary defense aside from being large, strong, and angry. So around the bait Script, I lay another that will, if it works, remove the skin of anything inside it's area of effect. An area I spend extra time defining very precisely.
It takes me most of the day to lay everything out. Once I have, though, there's nothing left to do but activate the illusion, lay out the fuses behind me as I move into a tree, trusting that trolls, like most other things, never look up, and wait.
###
I wake to the sound of something crashing through the woods. It's dark and cold, but thanks to my cat's eyes, the dim light really doesn't matter to me. The cold matters more, especially since I strangely both feel hot and am shivering at the same time.
Pretty sure I'm running a fever.
Whatever's moving through the trees is very big and moving in my direction. I shift slightly, getting ready and watching where my illusion Script still produces the scent of a fresh kill. It seems a little odd to be excited about the giant thing headed in my direction. Like this is the point where the audience is yelling at the heroine to run in a horror movie. Not that my life is a horror movie. I still have fond dreams of getting powerful enough for monsters to run at the sight of me.
Off to one side of my hiding place a tree is pushed to the side, its trunk cracking and popping, as a large shape steps past it onto the game trail. It stands taller than me by a ridiculous margin, even hunched over. Claws drag on the ground from heavily muscled and too long arms, thick legs like tree stumps complement its movement, stomping with every step. Its head juts forward from its neck in a smooth line, it's skull almost bullet shaped. Small, beady eyes are set deep into its skull, and its large mouth hangs open slightly, drool dripping from peg-like teeth.
My gaze, though, is focused on the back of its neck. One of the few weaknesses of the troll species is that their spines haven't quite caught up, evolution-wise, with their hunched posture. So the spine is curved in a way that forces the vertebrate to separate. If you can get through the leathery skin, getting a knife into the spine there is relatively easy. I just have to remember to leave the knife there until the thing is completely dead, or it'll just get up again in an hour or two.
The troll pauses at the edge of the small open space, and some feline instinct that came with either the eyes or the reflexes, has me crawling on trembling arms and legs onto a branch that stretches out closer to where the illusion Script is.
The troll raises its snout into the air snuffling wetly. I freeze on the branch. The troll stomps closer to the bait Script and pauses. I lean forward slightly confused, what's it... it's looking at the fuse.
Oh crap... maybe trolls aren't as dumb as I'd thought, which could be a problem.
It leans forward to snuffle at the twisted strip of paper, then starts to look around.
I'm not here, I'm not here. I chant over and over again in my head and go completely still. I'm not here...
For a moment I feel like I'm engaging in some great effort. My lungs burn, my heart hammers, and sweat rolls down my face.
The troll looks right at me, then keeps looking around, sniffing, without pausing.
I have no idea what just happened, but at the moment I don't care. I'm not here, I'm not here.
Finally, the troll keeps moving forward, continually scenting the air, until it stands almost on top of the illusion Script. Carefully, I cut my thumb and began whispering the Script.
I'm not here, I'm not here.
Finally, the Scripts activate and the troll jerks, pulled in too many directions at once. The moment the Scripts light up, I press my bloody thumb against the second fuse to activate the last Script and hold my breath. For several panicked and strained beats of my heart nothing happens. Then the troll explodes.
Flesh splits and flies off the troll like scraps of a popping balloon. Skin is flung for distance, and with a not insignificant amount of force. The troll howls in pain as its armor is torn from it. Only my enhanced reflexes allow me to lean out of the way of a hunk of skin that continues upwards to shatter a branch as big around as my arm. I may have overdone one of the descriptors in that Script. That piece of skin probably would have taken my head off had it hit me. Still, a moment later the mass of leathery skin below me is replaced with an equal mass of strange, slick, wet, grey muscle and black bones.
I drop from the tree. The next knife to be tested is gripped tightly in my hand. I land on the creature's back and for a moment my boots slide across wet, exposed muscle, and then I fall. My knife plunges downwards, but skips off bone. For a moment I think I'll be caught in my own trap, but then the knife sinks into muscle leaving me hanging from one hand. The troll under me roars, throwing itself back and forth, barely moving at first, but gaining more and more slack as my traps slowly begin to burn out. I use the knife to pull myself up until I can kneel somewhat stably on it's hunched shoulders. Carefully, I line the knife up with the gap in it's spine now exposed, though for how long I'm not sure. I can already see skin beginning to regrow across its body. My arms tremble and feel weak, so I lunge forward and land on the knife with all my weight.
The knife sinks home. The troll goes limp where it stands, held up only by the trap, and I only just manage to hang on to the hilt as I slip again. I hang there across the troll's back, gasping, feeling awful, and focusing as hard as I can on what I want.
It takes far too long for the damn thing to die. By the time it does I've slipped into a state somewhere between meditative trance and fever dream. The idea of healing and regeneration is easy to keep in mind though. I'm shivering and aching all over and the desire to feel better is about all I can think of.
When the troll finally dies, the effect is dramatic.
Once again I feel the Script tattoos activate, something flowing through them, distributing itself to my chakras and sinking into my soul. Unlike whatever I'd gotten from the fae, though, this time I feel my body twist and writhe in response, a million little things altering spontaneously. It feels like ants crawling all over the underside of my skin.
Then I start feeling better. My fever breaks almost at once, the red fading from the hundreds of little cuts and bite marks before they, too, fade away. Slowly, I can see the scar on my thumb, where I've cut myself over and over again to activate my Scripts, fade away.
A giggle forces its way out of my throat. Holy shit, it worked! Already feeling so much better, I pull myself to my feet, standing on the still upright troll. If I stay where I am I'll fall asleep, and I have no desire to sleep on a corpse. The hamadryad will be by in the morning to guide me back to my camp, so I can rest before going after the last troll she's found. I honestly can't wait, my sleeping bag sounds heavenly right about now.
Also food.
Suddenly I'm really, really hungry.
###
After eating six power bars, a night's sleep, and another couple of bowls of oatmeal, I'm ready to get back to hunting.
Also, I miss showers.
I set up my next ambush pretty much exactly like the first one. It worked after all, and as my new troll healing has gotten me back to one hundred percent, it should be even easier. I'd done the last troll while in the midst of a fever that probably had me half out of my mind, after all. This will be a cinch.
The trap Scripts have gone up in good positions, the illusion Script is easily placed, and I find the descriptor I'd put too much emphasis on in the flaying script last time. I hide up in a tree again with the ends of the fuses and settle in. This troll even has the courtesy to show up much faster than the last one. Otherwise, its entrance is the same. Lots of stomping and snuffling the air. This one, being a female, is two feet taller and has tusks, but otherwise it really looks much the same as the last troll. It even spots the fuse like the last one had. I'm much more relaxed this time, though. The last troll hadn't spotted me even when following the fuses. I see no reason the same won't happen here.
Then it looks up and everything goes to shit.
It gives a howling roar and smashes the branch I'm on, and me, off the tree. I hit the ground and roll, narrowly avoiding getting clipped by the branch. I pop to my feet and have to immediately fling myself to the side again to avoid the charging troll. Rolling to my feet, I watch as the beast crashes through a tree, reducing it to splinters. It turns, digging its fore claws into the ground, its hind legs skewing around until it faces me again.
In spite of everything going wrong, and facing down something that I have no business fighting, I find myself smiling. Normally after a hit and fall like that I'd be bruised and sore at the very least, but I can already feel the bruises fading. I feel great, honestly. Which is why when the troll charges me again, I charge it back.
I have no intention of meeting the troll head on, but the unusual action actually causes the troll to stumble slightly. It's probably never seen anything charge it back before. At the last moment I dive off to the side, rolling back to my feet as fast as I can, and run after it. With it already slowing to turn, I catch up quickly and fling myself at its back. My leap lands me on the things lower back, but it does the skew turn again and I'm flung off.
That isn't going to work, is it?
The trick with trolls is that if what you hit them with doesn't at least disable them outright, then you're just wasting time, and there are only three ways to do that aside from overwhelming power. The spine, the weakness I'd used on the last troll, is less useful when I can't ambush it, and it still has its skin. The eyes, if you have something narrow enough to get through the eye sockets, which my knives aren't. Or going up through the mouth, which involves getting in its mouth. They tend to bite and while you'll still kill it, the hand you use is pretty much a write-off.
...Of course, I have just gotten some serious regeneration, so even if I lose the hand I'll get it back...
I can't believe I'm seriously considering this.
I duck the troll's claw as it swings at me and try to stick too close to it for a charge. I'll hopefully only need one shot at this. I'm not sure, regeneration or not, that I'll get the opportunity for a second. It flails at me, its swings big, looping, and obvious, which is the only reason I haven't been hit again. It honestly feels like riding a wave surrounded by rocks. I can't think about what I'm doing or I'll fall. I just have to keep going forward, staying ahead of failure by only the scantest of inches.
And like the wave, if I fall off I'll get broken badly, a thought driven home as I watch one of it's missed strikes reduce a tree to splinters.
Finally, it leans forward to roar at me, out of frustration I think, and I lunge. Before I can think about what I'm doing, I stuff my right hand, with the knife, into its wide open mouth. I drive the point of the blade upwards as hard as I can. I don't do more than nick it, the palate bone too tough for me to force my way through, even as thin as it is.
Then it bites down.
I scream as flesh tears, and the bones in my arm are crushed. At the same time it forces its jaws closed, sending the blade of the knife through bone and into its brain. It collapses to the ground, jerking me after it, causing me to scream again.
Broken bones and crushed bones in no way feel the same. A part of me, a large part, wants to just lie there and sob.
I can't afford to, though.
So I remind myself that it'll heal, and quickly. That the wound is nowhere near as bad as it would have been yesterday, I would recover, and unless I want all of this to be a waste, I have to move.
I carefully extract my right hand from the troll's mouth. I can't let go of the knife, I can't feel my hand. I can't grip the knife either, though. So all I can do is grit my teeth and pull as straight out as possible. The skin, thus the tattoo, is shredded. My hand flops, the bones of my forearm, reduced to powder, can't hold it up. I try not to think about how much that hurt and quickly thrust my intact left hand into the troll's mouth. Gripping the knife with an intact tattoo, I wait for it to finish dying, focusing on its strength.
Minutes later the Script activates. I'm getting used to the feeling of the tattoos working, it actually feels kind of nice. Though whether that's in my head or not, I can't say.
There's a ripping sound as my body changes again to match my soul. It felt like a really good stretch. Then I feel the cool breeze with an odd intensity. I open my eyes and look down at myself. Trying not to look at my injured arm.
I'm naked.
I'm naked, and surrounded by shreds of fabric that look suspiciously like my clothing.
I'm also ripped. I've always been in fantastic shape, but now I'm huge. Built like a female bodybuilder, really.
Rolling to my knees, I pull my left arm out of its mouth, and carefully let my injured arm dangle to keep it as straight as possible. With my intact hand and a foot, I pry the troll's jaw open with surprising ease. Recovering my knife is slightly more awkward one handed, but I manage. The knife is twisted and ruined, but I'm still not going to just leave it lying around.
Standing, I feel dizzy for a moment, like I've stood up too quickly, and something in my torso twinges painfully for just a moment. Shaking my head to clear it, both sensations fade and I swear softly. Female bodybuilder is an understatement and not at all what I want. This will have to be mitigated somehow, I'm going to be too bulky to move easily and...
I hit my head on a branch and stumble backwards.
...There are no branches low enough for my tiny self to hit my head on...
I have a terrible thought, and turn to look at the troll.
What the fuck!? I'm huge! Not as tall as the female troll by a good few feet still, but the difference isn't nearly what it should be.
I don't know how tall I am, but it has to be pushing the upper edge of what's humanly possible. I need to do something about this fast.
I also need to eat.
A lot.
Damn, I'm hungry.