[Rimetrolls] Bring Out the Rock

[Xarkly 12607]

RIMETROLL EVENTLINE:

BRING OUT THE ROCK

An artist's rendition of a Rimetroll

Spoiler

 

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Every time Bido closed his eyes, he saw it.

 

He saw Troll Village, the humble little cavern in the heart of the Rimeveld where the Trolls had lived in blissful peace for generations, buried under piles and piles of rubble. He saw dozens upon dozens of Trolls, Trolls with families, younger Trolls he was supposed to outlive by decades, staring up at the Rimeveld sky with blank, death-glazed eyes. He saw his home gone.

 

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his people dead. Massacred.

 

Genocided.

 

"UUUUUH ...?"

 

 

The grunt brought Bido back to reality. He stood in a wide, open cave, the flat ground and sloped walls blued with ice, and he was not alone. Beside him, a more hunched Troll, his once greyish-brown fur faded to a pale silver, marched with the aid of a thick, carven stick that the Chief of the Rimetrolls always carried. Beneath the silver Troll's gnarled horns, beady eyes were wide with thought and unblinking as they stared at something distant and unseen. It was clear to Bido that his companion - Chief Oxx - was suffering the same trauma that he was. He was trying not to blink so he did not have to face those horrors again.

 

Slowly, Bido turned his eyes ahead of him towards the front of the cave. There, a row of a dozen shapes sat. To the untrained eye, they appeared as mere boulders, some of them with icy stalactites hanging off them, some of them with sparse mossy growth. Upon closer inspection, though, Bido could make out vague faces sticking out from the 'boulders'; a long, toothless mouth below two tiny, beady eyes. They were not boulders, but Rock Trolls, and fitting to their name their bodies were more rocky mineral than actual flesh. They were a cousin breed to the Rimetrolls, and though their people were considered close, they had little interaction, for they stuck to the tunnels and caves deep under the Rimeveld.

 

"Sorry," Bido muttered groggily. He dipped his head apologetically to the Rock Troll at the front of the group, who stood out for the studs of glittering crystals that grew from her rocky back. She was Igga, their elder. "What you say?"

 

With the rumble of shifting stone, Igga raised a rock-skinned hand, and tapped her stony head. "WHYYY ....HUUUUULP?" Her words were clipped, and her voice was coarse, like the sound of a rock being grinded to gravel. The Rock Trolls were supposedly smarter than their Rimetroll cousins, but their vocal abilities were extremely poor. Bido wasn't sure what he believed -- the Rock Trolls had always lived in such seclusion that he had never had a real opportunity to tell how intelligent they really were.

 

Must not be so stupid, Bido thought sadly to himself. They avoid war for so long.

 

Bido glanced to Oxx; he hoped his fellow Rimetroll would answer, for Bido could certainly not bring himself to give voice to the horror that had befallen Troll Village. Oxx only gave him a slow nod before he repeated the tale for the Rock Trolls in his droning, sad voice. "The warmies ... they come to Troll Village while me and Bido gone. They saw they bring food, so Trolls celebrate ... They sing for warmies, give them fire, but then warmies, they ... they make the Village go boom..."

 

Bido's hands clenched into fists as Oxx spoke. From the scant survivors of the massacre of Troll Village, he had heard varying accounts of what happened. Some of the survivors claimed that the warmies had brought one of their Boomies - the devastating, fiery weapons they used to defend their cities - and turned it on the Village. Others say they started a fire that consumed the Village and melted the icy cave in which it was built. Others still claimed that they had taken up their weapons and stormed the Village, slaughtering all in their path. Bido wasn't sure which was true, but it didn't matter -- the only truth that did matter was that the Descendants had attacked Troll Village itself. They had killed countless Rimetrolls, children included. They had tried to kill them all.

 

" ... gone. All gone," Oxx finished in a broken voice as Bido tuned back in, and both Rimetrolls turned their eyes back to Igga and the Rock Trolls.

 

Bido had never wanted to come to the Rock Trolls for help. The war with the warmies was an affair for the Rimetrolls, but asides from that, he very much doubted the Rock Trolls would be inclined to help. Though they were their cousins, the Rock Trolls numbered much fewer than Rimetrolls - who already numbered few enough as a species - and they looked out only for themselves. Rock Trolls did not share the Rimetroll's desperate need for food -- instead, they were blessed with the ability to survive by eating rocks. But now that Troll Village had been destroyed ... now that so many Rimetrolls had been murdered ... Bido did not have a choice.

 

They needed their help if they had any chance of beating the warmies now.

 

"SUUUUUH?" came Igga's rasp. "WHUUUT... YOUUUUU ... EXPUUUUUHCT?"

 

Bido frowned. It was true that when he had led the first raids against the warmies in the south, he had known there would be casualties. Trolls would inevitably die in the desperate struggle to survive, to feed their families. But he had thought it would be a handful of his brave kinsmen in each raid, martyrs who were a tragic but necessary blood cost to the survival of their species who would eventually be avenged. He had been prepared to pay that price. But the slaughter of Troll Village ...

 

"They kill everyone," Bido snarled suddenly. "They kill cubs, they kill innocents who no hurt them, not ever. They kill everyone."

 

At his answer, Igga's body made that unsettling rumbling sound as she spared a look at her fellow Rock Trolls - who numbered no more than two or three dozen - though none of them gave any kind of response. They just blinked their tiny eyes at Bido as Igga turned back to him.

 

" ... STUUUUUUL ... WHUUUUT ... UUUUN ... FUUUUUR ... UUUUUUS?"

 

Bido's jaw tightened. He knew this question was coming. After all, why would the Rock Trolls get involved in a war in which they had no stake? Why would they risk themselves so needlessly? In truth, as angry as it made him that they even asked such, Bido understood it. He was glad when Oxx spoke up beside him with the answer they had prepared.

 

"Because they no stop at us. You Trolls too, Igga," Oxx said, drawing up his shoulders as if to embolden himself. "The warmies no stop until they kill all Trolls, which mean you too!"

 

"They no see difference between us," Bido added. "They no care if you no hurt them. The cubs in Troll Village no hurt them, but warmies kill them."

 

Even with so few facial features, Bido could see the point rang true with Igga. The elder Rock Troll let out a sigh, exhaling loose pebbles. "EVUUUUN ... UUUUF .... WE ... STRUUUUNG..."

 

"You are strong," Bido agreed hastily, and he did not lie; the Rock Troll name was not just for show. The boulders that covered their skin were nigh indestructible -- they were practically walking fortresses. "But you not many. You, what ... thirty, forty Troll? Warmies are many. Hundreds, and hundreds! Only if we work together, like one clan, can we beat warmies! Can we save all Trolls!" He finished with a triumphant fist in the air, but he knew nerves permeated through his voice. This really was a desperate plea for one last weapon in their fight against the warmies -- their fight against extinction.

 

Igga didn't answer. Not immediately, anyway. Instead, her broad, uneven fingers plucked a loose rock off the floor, and flicked it into her toothless maw. Her stony jaw closed around it slowly, and crushed the rock instantly. She chewed it for a long moment, her beady eyes fixed on Oxx and Bido, before she finally swallowed with a sound like a pebble dropping into a cavern.

 

"FUUUUUR .... UUUULL ... TRUUUULL?"

 

"For all Troll," Bido repeated.

 

Igga locked eyes with him one last time, and then she nodded.

 

[ThatDutchFellow 1054]

Joseph Gaultier sits within his home beaten down from the last interactions with the beast of the Rimetrolls pushing a kind to extinction? that is no good.... enemy or no we have no right to play god we have no right to govern over what race gets to live and what race gets to die.... alas unbeknownst to the armsman the trolls gained a new ally a dangerous one to be sure perhaps peace was beyond reach perhaps he had no choice left but to forge a path of war that will drive a kind to extinction he certainly wasnt going to let them plunder his homeland and have its citizens he works so hard every day to protect starve to death... no he cant allow that he wont allow that if push comes to shove the soldier will not hesitate and defend his homeland wether that means doing things only Godan should be able to this matters not

 

 

Deep within the caves of Krugmar the fearless Olog leader sits in his personal outcrop of the Ungri Cave.... Drekür'Ungri seeing the Trolls as kin after their interaction at Norland he knew that he was kin wether by Krugs grace or not these beasts were just as brutish as he was when it came to it they were both giants who mankind hated with a deep burning passion.... if need be the Olog shall stand with his kin and protect them against the Humans who so dare threathen the lives of the Olog-Hai and its far away cousins Humanity shall feel the wrath of Enrohk if the olog will be pushed to it.... 

Edited April 3, 2021 by ThatDutchFellow

[UnBaed 8945]

 

 

"I was so young, Segn."

 

Alexandria Karina carved the symbols of the near-forgotten and lost language of the Scyflings into a wooden board, a solemn and dour expression marred the princess' aged features and stormy blue eyes, which lost their strength with the passing decades.

 

"I often wish to return to the days where you and I spoke within my greenhouse, where I still remained hopeful that the Haeseni and Scyfling people would find peace between one another.  I was such a fool back then, but at least I felt happy; I felt warmth for my people still.  Now, I feel hardly anything kind toward them."

 

"They crave for nothing except glory and bloodshed for themselves, and would prefer to lie to themselves on who their true enemies are to protect their honors and to find slumber in their pillows.  What honor or respect is a man worthy of, if his only sense of resolution is by the blade?  Your kin were wise enough to be mindful of that, but a foulness blocks that sensibility in every Haeseni knight or armsman."

 

"Any battle of words I would wish to have to change the minds of the crows in this kingdom would be futile, which has brought my thoughts back to the words of Quen, the Chief Shaman as he spoke to be of Bralt's plans; There is an art to losing."

 

With a heavy exhale, the elderly woman laid aside her carving knife and brushed off the chips of wood.  The pale light of the near-full moon shown over her message and reflected upon the black waters of the river connected to the Karosgrad lake.  Like many of her other writings to the deceased Scyfling Warlord, it was carried away by the tranquil currents; forever watched over by the bright Moon.

[Roguechaotic 263]

Aeonn thinks back to the many encounters hed witness of haense slaughtering rimetrolls pondering on the large amounts of red that stained the oh so pure white snow "...something must be done...for we are the true invaders...this is truly their land and we are but pilgrims who landed upon this land...weve no right to exterminate that which call this land home..."