Oh gods… he’s gone quiet… is he dead? That means he’d dead. Gods, no… no.

  Phoenix: “Dwynfel, focus. It comes for you.”

  Shit, shit, shit. The huge lumbering troll’s attention had moved back to me. What do I do? What the hell do I do?

  Kiyui: “We don’t know if he’s dead, the river may have carried him out of range.”

  Phoenix: “He is too stubborn to die from drowning, now focus!”

  She’s right… assess the situation. They don’t view me as much of a threat. Only one of them is coming for me… the other two that had been throwing boulders before seem to be going to assist with the assault on Damecus. That’s not good… even he can’t defend against three of them.

  I keep backtracking away from her, but she is gaining on me quickly. I should have run when she was distracted by Phoenix and Agaroth before. I need to draw my daggers… I don’t have the speed to run from her.

  Phoenix: “Ice prison.”

  Kiyui: “Salient Blade.”

  A tower of ice formed around the troll’s left leg and the dagger in my right hand began to glow.

  Kiyui: “Go for the legs!”

  Dwynfel: “Right.”

  She’s big and has a large striding distance, but her attacking speed is relatively slow. I can dodge her attacks… especially as her movement is limited due to her leg being frozen in place… I can do this.

  As she brought her club down on me, I swiftly sidestepped around it. I felt the ground vibrate around me from the force of her blow. She’s strong… if she hits me head on with that club, then I’m dead. No matter what happens, I need to avoid the club.

  I slipped round the back of her right leg and brought my knife to her tendon. Fucking hell… it glided through it like water. It took all my strength to thrust the short sword into the other one’s neck. That spell of Kiyui’s is bloody effective.

  She roared and slammed her club off the ice prison, shattering it. She dropped to her right knee as blood spread out from the cut tendon. I retreated to reassess the situation and… shit… I need to help Damecus… he’s going to get overrun…

  Thank the gods… the others have found a way down. Just before the other two trolls reached Damecus, Farrow and Dietrich stepped in. Farrow’s flying swords swooped in, cutting the female with the great sword in several places and Dietrich slammed her Halberd directly into the rear of the male with the club. Which certainly drew their attention.

  Right… this is good… they have one each… mine is injured… we can do this… we can. I just need to work out how to finish mine off. She’s lower to the ground now… that means I can damage her in more vital places… but it also means that her attacks need less time to reach me. It may only be a fraction of a second less… but in the moment, that time makes a big difference. I need to be much more aware of her club now.

  Okay… attack two. As I approached, Phoenix shot another fireball at the troll. This time, she used her club to bat the fireball away; this left her vulnerable and I was able to slice part of her stomach open. I swiftly retreated before she could hit me and got ready for a third strike.

  This time, it didn’t let itself be so easily distracted. It batted the fireball away and brought the club down towards me in one swift motion. Fortunately, the extra time she took to go for the fireball gave me ample time to dodge the club and urgh…

  Gods… is my mouth bleeding? Have I bit my tongue? No… it’s internal… fuck. I was so focussed on the club that I didn’t pay attention to her other hand. She grabbed me… she’s crushing me in her hand… I can’t even move my arms to slice my way out… fuck… is the illuminate spell wearing off? It's getting darker…

  Svampe: “I’m coming!”

  Suddenly, she released her grip and I fell to the ground. The room started to get lighter again… Kiyui ran in and started to pull me away from the troll. I looked up at what was going on. Svampe was crawling all over the troll, using his tendrils like spider legs and stabbing them into her to move around her at great speed. The wounds weren’t very deep however, and she was clearly getting pissed. I think he's just buying me time to get out of harm’s way. We need a way to kill this thing.

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  It took her a while, but she was able to bat Svampe away with her hand and he hit the ground with a large thud. Shit, we aren’t doing well here. Damecus still hasn’t been able to get an attack in against his… it is just relentlessly slamming his shield with its club. It is pretty much a competition of endurance at this point… whoever gets tired first will lose. Or if either of them gets assistance from an ally.

  Farrow is doing well. She hasn’t been injured at all. The troll is doing a pretty good job at deflecting the flying blades using the great sword. That being said, Farrow has landed a good few hits, but all of the injuries that she has caused are superficial. Probably due to the incredibly thick skins that these things seem to have. I would love the chance to just sit and watch Farrow in a fighting competition or something… her fighting style with those flying blades is so graceful and fascinating… alas, now is not the time.

  Dietrich… well… there is a lot of screaming coming from both her and the troll that she is fighting. Both have been hit several times. Not that that ever seems to bother Dietrich. When she’s hit, she just screams at it and dives right back in.

  As it stands, I would say that Dietrich is probably the most likely to win any time soon. Mine might be the most injured… but I’m struggling to move… I think she crushed my ribs. Kiyui can only really offer support. Svampe isn’t experienced with fighting and Phoenix has to be careful with her spells in here… she doesn’t want to cause a cave in… I can tell that even the fireballs that she has been throwing have been purposely weaker than normal.

  Svampe: “Distract it!”

  Fuck… what’s he planning?

  Phoenix: “Icicle barrage.”

  Kiyui: “Multiply projectiles.”

  Hundreds of razor-sharp icicles started flying across the cavern towards the troll. Causing tiny little cut after tiny little cut. Blood was dripping all over the place. I have to admit… that is certainly going to distract her. Now, what the hell is… oh shit.

  Dwynfel: “Svampe, don’t touch that… it’s toxic!”

  Svampe: “Trust me, I’ll be fine.”

  Svampe stabbed his tendrils into the corpse of the malignant python. He pulled them back out and they were dripping with that horrid toxic blood that flows through those things. You don’t even need to consume the toxin for it to affect you, even just getting it on your skin can lead to a whole host of problems. Whatever Flora did to him has certainly made him resilient.

  Svampe: “Ready.”

  Phoenix ended her spell and Svampe dived towards the troll. The troll was struggling to see as blood dripped in its eyes. Svampe plunged his tendrils into its back. It let out a pained roar. Svampe jumped away from her and her breathing became laboured in no time at all. She collapsed flat on the ground in about ten seconds.

  Fuck, that poison is virulent… that thing is huge and it took effect that quickly. Then again… if you think how diluted it must be in that water supply and it has still poisoned an entire village… I am so glad that we didn’t have to fight the bloody python.

  Phoenix: “Help Damecus next.”

  Svampe: “Okay.”

  Svampe swept across the room. I often forget how fast he is capable of moving when he uses his tendrils. There isn’t really much need for this kind of speed on the farm, but gods, the guy is fast. He sunk his tendrils into the back of the troll attacking Damecus and the same thing happened. Within seconds it was collapsed on the ground from the toxin.

  Dietrich went flying across the room and smashed into the wall next to Damecus. She stood back up, spat a worryingly large quantity of blood out of her helmet, cracked her knuckles, picked up her halberd and smirked.

  Dietrich: “Oh… it is on now.”

  Damecus: “Do you require assistance, Dietrich?”

  Dietrich: “Don’t be ridiculous. This is just getting fun.”

  She cracked her neck and dashed back towards the troll. Svampe looked at Damecus with a look of confusion.

  Damecus: “Assist Farrow.”

  As Svampe made his way towards the great sword wielding troll, Dietrich launched her halberd straight at the troll that she was facing. It blocked it with its club, leaving the halberd embedded within. The now unarmed Dietrich jumped an abnormal distance, I assume due to the pain power enhancement, straight towards its face. Having obscured its forward vision in order to block the halberd it didn’t see her coming.

  The troll lowered the club, and as it did, she reached her destination. She grabbed its ear with one hand, planted one foot on its shoulder and the other on its chest and proceeded to punch right through its eye socked. It looked like her entire arm went in. It staggered around, flailing its arms for a few seconds before falling backwards into the water. Fortunately, Dietrich was able to dislodge her arm from its eye socket and jump to the ground beforehand.

  By the time I had finished watching that rather sickening display from Dietrich, I realised that Svampe and Farrow had also killed the one with the great sword. They stood over its corpse as Farrow placed her swords back in her void.

  Phoenix appeared, levitating over the water, holding a lit torch.

  Phoenix: “I shall locate Agaroth.”

  Damecus: “I shall follow you along the walls. There does not appear to be any kind of pathway that the rest of you would be able to take. Stay here until we return.”

  Dietrich: “Good plan.”

  As Dietrich uttered those words she collapsed to the ground and entered a deep sleep. Damecus rolled his eyes.

  Damecus: “Keep an eye on here, please.”