The Reunification of the Entish Bow - RPG

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

A piercing shriek, mournful and forlorn, echoed about the camp. Various gals and fellows awoke with the icy chill of fear in their veins as the same voice then launched into a jaunty ragtime piece about fear, fire and foes, which tripped along with the ghastly cheeriness of a clown pretending not to have a coronary. Grrralph had alerted his companions.

Leaping from his blankets, and conveniently fully dressed, the Lord of Dun Sóbrin whipped out his mighty weapon and prepared to do battle. All around him were the sounds of hurried movement as his companions grabbed their arms and their price lists, and made ready for the coming fray. Already they could hear the reedy cries of the trolls as they advanced: 'Wot u flame Kewld00d 4??!!1 u is al facists!' they whined in their uncouth tongue, their voices cracking into squeaks of indignation. 'U r so gonna dye!!!111'

Etceteron's manly respect for intelligibility could withstand no further battering. He leaped forward, sword scything at a pallid neck, even as it vainly protested his unceasing combat. Its voice echoed about his heroically empty cranium, which paid it the attention it deserved.
Wait a minute! No, wait, wait: can't we talk about this a bit first? Perhaps we can negotiate. Here, you haven't even cleaned me since the last time yet!.

Reluctant or no, the blade was of Noodlarian make, and its edge was keen. It sliced through boil-studded flesh and all but severed a stick-like arm as Lord Etceteron berated the degraded creatures in strident tones. 'Thy uncouth speech displeaseth mine ears, foul spawn of the unfortunate!' he cried. 'Be silent, for thy words are unworthy of utterance!'

But some dark magic was woven about their unwashed foe. Even as axes and swords bit the undead flesh it healed again, strings of matter binding and re-attaching limbs and heads; and all the while from foetid mouths poured a torrent of empty words, their sound and fury signifying nothing: 'lol!111! I Rulz! u is lame!1!. u b tost tonite!' cried one.
'**** u u ******* ******* ******* ******** and ******** until u skweel!' screamed another, in a voice that would not be heard again in Muddled Mirth until the advent of the cult television convention. The Politically-Semi-Correct-ship fell back before the fury of this assault, muttering to one another about the cosmic folly that had given voices to these foolish creatures.

'Can you buy me some time?' muttered Kuruharan.

'Do you have a plan?' asked Merisuwyniel in breathless hope.

'No,' replied the Dwarven lord. 'But I do have six gallons of Nurse McCready's Extra-Strong Boil and Wart Ointment that I've been trying to unload. I...er...we could still come out of this ahead.'

'How I hate to hear language tortured so! It brings tears to my eyes!' This from Vogonwë, with whom nobody had the heart to debate the issue under these circumstances.

'I think I smell anchovies' announced Pimpiowyn, stabbing with a short-sword at a red-faced troll. Further along the line, Grrralph wailed ghoulishly as his blade sliced effortlessly through clammy torsos (apparently cutting before it touched them) only for the accursed flesh to heal without a mark as his steel passed through.

Only the Gateskeeper had been silent, stroking his chin as he pondered the situation. In one hand he held the message they had received, and at his feet was the stone around which it had been wrapped. He knew full well how to achieve their victory, but could not decide which suited his purpose the better: to gain the confidence, or better yet utter dependence, of his companions with an effortless rescue, or to watch them die horribly then finish off the victorious trolls. Complete user dependency on the one hand; the theft of vital magical items on the other: the ultimate win-win situation. He was inclined towards spectating until a high-pitched voice broke through his Macchiavellian reverie.

'Oi 4 eyez! U is so a geek! lol!1! thoze glases r so rubish! Wots a litl ******** like you doin on the supa hiwae?' Again a line of asterisks was pronounced with an ease that only a troll long steeped in low-grade evil can achieve. A small stone accompanied this verbal missile, and it struck him on the head, knocking his glasses from his face. At that moment the Gallowship pressed between the two adversaries, and as he scrabbled for his spectacles the Gateskeeper's decision was made. Having found his eyeglasses, he took up the stone and began to work his way around the knot of fighters.

SupaKool, alias Walter, was a troll of great might. Many were the kicks he had received that his bone-hard flesh had scarcely felt, and many was the fellowship that he had disrupted and scattered during his long and pointless career. Even now he looked forward to squashing this collection of obvious literati once he had amused himself with the inefficacy of their weapons. Of course, those are my words, not his: all that SupaKool was thinking at this moment was 'They is so gonna dy (sp?)! I rool!1! lol!!1' and much mirth did this somewhat unoriginal thought afford him.

Suddenly a large rectangular red stone flew out of nowhere to strike SupaKool in the centre of his broad back. Turning in rage he took up the parchment in which it had been swathed, and his brows knit in concentration as he read the original message received by the Gallowship.

'Oo frew vis?!' he wailed, almost apoplectic with rage. 'I iz not lame! I iz kewl!1!1'

Picking on the first fellow troll he saw (for who else would carry the secret rocks of br'ik that they use for communication, and who else would speak their secret tongue?) he began to slap it in a pathetic parody of violent rage. Soon all of the trolls had become involved in the argument, and our heroic whatever-ship were being treated to a free demonstration of a true Trollish flame-war. No words were uttered now, only gutteral grunts and amorphous howls of rage that could only be translated as strings of exotic punctuation marks. Merisuwyniel put away her nocked arrow with an air of relief; The Gateskeeper polished his glasses; Etceteron finally cleaned his sword, glad of the opportunity to shut it up; Pimpiowyn munched idly on an undisclosed snack item and Vogonwë tried to find a rhyme for 'unbelievably stupid'. Grralph's wail was definitely on the cheery side of blood-curdling misery and Orogarn sheathed his oddly greasy sword. Even the horses were looking on in bored curiosity.

The fighting went on for some hours. Lord Etceteron found some herbal tea in one of his saddlebags, and they sat around sipping the fragrant liquid as their enemies battered each other and vomited floods of unformed syllables for several hours. Eventually, though, the sun clomb above the horizon, and all was silence once more. Where the Trolls had stood there was only a stack of crumpled flat cardboard boxes filled with discs of what looked like bread covered in congealed cheese.

'So it is as the bards of Grundor tell it!' Cried Orogarn. 'Even as the sunlight touched them they have returned to the stuff of which they were made!'

'Good.' grunted Chrysophylax, finally emerging from slumber. 'I'm quite partial to pîtsar'

'That is the fabled laze-bread, on which one may sit completely still for two days and more?' asked the Elven bard unbelievingly. 'Much have I heard of it, but never have I tasted its like.'

'Well, yes. But a bit cold and manky' replied the dragon, warming up some of the residue with a well-aimed jet of flame.

And so the mighty combat was over, and once more it ended in a binge; and so it is that some heroic noblemen receive names like "The Fat". And so we shall leave our heroic heroes, as they man (and woman)-fully devour the mystic laze-bread of the Trolls. If nothing else, they will not go hungry for a good long time.