What followed the fight with what must have been a hundred waist height otter/monkey creatures that were a lot of physical labour. This involved stacking the creatures onto a massive pyre to burn them. We also removed claws from some of the creatures along with the skull and heart from the queen. The skull, we could apparently get a reward for handing over to the guild and the heart Simon ate.

“So, why can’t we just dump the corpses in the bog?” I asked as the bodies started stacking up higher and higher.

“Because this many bodies will likely cause undead to spawn if left alone. But more importantly it will attract all kinds of nasties.” Franz said as he easily chucked two additional bodies on top of the pile. This was rather impressive as he was by far the shortest in the group.

“Are you sure you don’t know what a flag is?” I asked exasperated. Franz just shook his head and kept working. I had an extremely bad feeling about all this, and tried to work as fast as I could while not overexerting myself.

Despite my worries we managed to clean up the carnage by lunch time, we even managed to get the twenty or so Gruvers that had been impaled on the stakes by the hordes headlong rush onto the pyre. We did this by ripping out the beast along with the stakes and tossing it all on the pyre. When that gruesome and heavy labour was done Kiyara tossed a small pouch onto the pyre and then lit the entire thing with a fire steel.

“We should move on.” Gilana spoke as the bodies caught fire with unexpected ease. The sight of all those bodies going up like dry tinder distracted me enough that I barely heard what Gilana had said.

“W-wait w-what? We are continuing?” I was dismayed.

“Of course.” Gilana smiled at me and began walking off in what looked like a random direction. “We have yet to complete our objective and it is only noon.”

“I want to eat so get a move on will you?” Franz said as I just stood there slack-jawed. Not wanting to be left behind I followed and could suddenly feel all the bruises I had received in the fight. The wyvern leather might have held, but the plethora of attacks had left more than its fair share of bruises, something that I had failed to noticed during the macabre pyramid building.

After a few minutes we or rather I, was attacked once more. It was another Coradras. One I had failed to notice even though I think I was making a good effort. It shot out of what looked like a large patch of mud and sent mud cascading over me as Franz somehow managed to slip in front of me with very little effort. The most surprising thing was that almost none of the mud landed on the still blood-soaked dwarf.

CLANG. The sound of something heavy hitting steel was near deafening as Franz intercepted the massive mouth with his shield. The Coradras looked stunned and its sunken eyes had a hard time focusing.

“Stab it in the top of the head while it is still out of it, if you don’t mind.” Franz said calmly without taking his eyes off the thing. I tried to stab the thing in the top of its head but it thrashed around too much and I ended up stabbing it in the eye. This made the eye explode and spray greyish white fluid all over my arm as my weapon sunk deep into its skull. It was disgusting.

“Nice hit!” Gilana said approvingly but Franz was not so pleased.

“What was that?” He asked discontentedly. “Not only was your form all over the place but aiming for the eye with your meagre skill is beyond reckless.” Franz berated me. I almost answered that I hadn’t aimed for the eye, but I doubted that would make things better for me so I accepted the dwarf’s scolding.

“Aw don’t be so harsh on Victor, he hasn’t even been training to use that weapon for more than two days.” Gilana said once again stopping herself from giving me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. I was still very filthy after all, but… “How is Gilana so clean?” I wondered as I looked over the Gilana. Her bare arms and tight-fitting leather armour was almost spotless. “What?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. She must have noticed my staring.

“I was just wondering how you managed to keep all of the blood and… other stuff of you.” I looked her over and then looked down at my thoroughly disgusting self.

“Aw, don’t be shy. I know it is hard to keep your eyes off such a stunning beauty such as myself.” Gilana said only half-joking. I just gave her a deadpan look.

“Beauty she says.” Franz shook his head “Now Sirial that is a…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Gilana said, interrupting the dwarf before he could really get going. “We have heard about your crush enough for two lifetimes already!” She gave an uninterested wave of her hand. Franz bristled at her words and looked to be about to go into a tirade but Kiyara just appeared out of the canopy.

“There is a raised clearing up ahead, we should be able to have some food and a short break there.” Kiyara reported and turned around and began walking away. Franz growled at Gilana but followed the elf. “Kiyara is barely dirty at all… how do they even manage that?” I thought and had to exert more effort than I’d care to admit to stop staring at her swaying behind. I apparently did not do so fast enough as Gilana snorted and gave me a haughty look. There was the glint of laughter in her eye, so I was reasonably confident no accident would befall me because of this.

The clearing that would be our camp was a rocky area with what looked like a bed for dried clay surrounded by the mud of the bog. With the sun filtering through the leaves it was rather beautiful really. But it was oddly silent and we had only been attacked that single time in our trek so I had a very bad feeling about this.

I must not have been the only one as Kiyara was completely immobile in a crouched position near the centre of the tennis court seized clearing. The three of us stopped at the edge and I was only just able to hear Kiyara’s silent curse.

Looking over to where the elf was focusing I saw a massive four fingered hand appear behind a massive rock at the edge of the clearing. The four thick fingers grabbed the rock with enough force to chip it. The puke green and warty hand, was easily the size of my head and the body that followed was equally massive.

“Fuuuuuuck…” Franz hissed.

“Troll…” Gilana said, chewing her lip. The troll had an oversized head of a frog filled with countless uneven dark teeth. The two frog-like eyes looked at us without even a hint of intelligence and drool dripped down its lips. In one of its four fingered hands it was dragging a discoloured log, while the other was still resting on the rock even as it had moved over two meters away from it.

As it released the rock and straightened its back it towered over the short trees and it must have been at least four meters tall. Even as it stood there looking down at us with its back and stubby legs straight it could still almost reach the ground with its disturbing three jointed arms. At least it looked like the arms had three joints in them considering how oddly they bent.

There was a long moment of peace and quiet as we looked at the troll and it looked at us. But, like with any peace, it did not last. The troll’s face changed to a horrid impression of a smile and viscous droll dripped from the many teeth.

“Victor, run.” Gilana said as firmly as she moved closer to Kiyara who had yet to move from the spot. “Franz, any tips?” She asked with a grim expression

“It is a young one.” Franz said darkly as he pushed me back and joined the other. “It will be faster, softer and far less powerful. Also as you can see it is rather small.”

“That’s small?!” I shouted frozen in place as by the one eye that had locked on to me.

“Why are you standing around for?” Gilana snapped at me and was about to shout something else when the troll shot forward at a speed that felt unfair given its size. The three scattered and the log slammed into the ground with enough force that I lost my balance.

The fight that broke out before my very eyes defied all the common sense I had. Franz bounded around with movement that despite all that armour could only be described as immaculate. Gilana was a flurry of steel and I could see thick purple blood splatter on the ground as she waved through the troll’s attacks with what looked like pure intuition.

The troll roared and I could see a dagger sticking out of its left eye. As the troll swiped its arm backwards to retaliate, Kiyara suddenly just appeared by one of the stubby legs and jammed a knife deep into the knee joint. The troll roared again and swept the log around itself forcing the attacker back.

All this happened in but a few heartbeats and I felt as though I was watching some action sequence of a movie. I wish I could say that I was watching because I was sure of my party’s victory, or that I stayed because I didn’t want to leave the others behind. But that was not the truth. “I can’t move!” My whole body was frozen with terror and I couldn’t even muster enough strength to flee.

As the others were fighting a literal troll I had to fight my own useless body. Problem was that neither fight was going very well. Sure there was a lot of troll blood dying the clearing purple but no wound remained for long on the massive creature. On the other side, even in the short moments the fight had lasted, I could clearly see the exhaustion piling up on my friends.

After fighting the Gruver horde and now having to avoid every single attack to avoid becoming paste, I could clearly tell that their time was running out. “I have to do something!” I thought and forced myself to rise on unsteady legs. I don’t think that my pitiful struggle to get to my feet took me more than a few heartbeats but what I saw when I got up wanted me to fall back down again.

Kiyara had just avoided the log with a precise and almost beautiful sideways jump but she did not manage to avoid the arm that followed after the log. She just managed to raise her arms and legs into a guard position before the troll, who had spun his entire body in a way that made me doubt it even had a spine, hit her with its free arm.

Kiyara let out a scream and was sent flying off into the mud like a broken doll. I could hear but not see Kiyara hit the mud off in the distance and Gilana despite her all experience was unable to look away from her loved one as she was sent flying. This cost her.

The troll aimed a kick at her, a kick she had no way of avoiding. Before the torso sized foot could strike her however Franz shoulder tackled her out of the way. Franz was however, not fast enough to get out of the way and was sent flying almost straight at me before smashing into a tree and bouncing away out of sight. Had that not been a friend or even person that might have looked almost comical, but alas the sight was just terrifying to me. The WOOSH of air that ruffled my hair a heartbeat later did nothing to improve my state.

Left alone Gilana was almost casually swiped away by the troll's free arm and I could see her leg bend in an unnatural angle when she hit a tree by the edge of the clearing and slumped to the ground. And that was that.

In no more than a minute the strongest people I had ever seen had been utterly demolished and their attacker looked no worse for wear, despite all the purple blood staining the ground.

The troll’s frog-like eyes snapped to me and I could see the damned thing smile at me in that same horrible way as before. I wanted puke, to run away, to walk up from this messed up dream, but such things were not in the cards for me as the troll liked its lips. A calm part of my brain noted that the aura of the troll was colourless and wondered why that was.

The troll took a calm step forward, sending light tremors through the ground. I almost by reflex, I pulled out my Soul weapon and brandished it at the troll. The troll just sneered at me, at least I think it was a sneer.

I did all I could think of and threw the knife/sword at it. It lazily raised a hand to block my weapon, but was then as amazed as I was, when the sword cut straight through the troll’s hand. The sword just cut off two of the sausage like fingers and half of the hand they had once attached to before sailing off into the mud.

Me and the troll just looked at the hand that slopped to the ground with just about the same amount of incomprehension. Then our eyes met, and I could see fury bloom in those dark unintelligent eyes. It charged me.

I was about to die and time seemed to slow down to a crawl as the troll almost leapt forward raising its log to turn me into human paste. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know if there was anything I could do. So I defaulted to the thing I had trained the most in this world. My oh-so useful Telekinesis. “If that bastard is going to turn me into paste, I will at least get one good punch in!” I focused all of my Will into an imaginary fist and watched in slow-motion as the troll came closer and closer.

As the troll was about to start swinging his log at a full sprint I had the brilliant idea of turning my mental ‘fist’ into a spike just to be spiteful. With a tremendous effort that caused blood to start flowing from my nose and a truly all-consuming headache to explode in my mind, I even made the thing spin. Then I slammed my ‘drill fist’ into the troll’s ugly face with all my might.

The sensation when it was like being hit in the head, by a truck. I ended up on the ground, eyes seeing nothing but flashing lights. My ears run and I couldn’t feel anything past the mind boggling pain in my head.

I was only vaguely aware that I hadn’t died and I have no idea how long I just lay there but after some indefinable amount of time my vision turned from white to a foggy red. This along with the dull ringing made it clear that I had somehow survived and I pushed myself into a seated position.

What I saw when most of the blood drained from my eyes was a sea of purple and green. After a few additional moments and some rubbing at my eyes with my filthy hands was the twitching feet of the troll. Next I saw the log. It was lodged into the ground next to me and I scrambled away on all four as if the thing could somehow bite me.

When nothing happened I pushed myself to my wobbly legs. I saw the massive but hole in the troll’s ugly head. “Who did that?” I blinked at it and puked a little at the smell and nausea that followed the headache that was reluctant to fade. I looked up and saw the head of the troll slowly knit together. “OMFG you have go to be joking?! That thing won’t die from having a football sized hole in its head?!” I felt a rising panic.

“..hea.. heart!” I vaguely heard somehow shouting through the dull ringing of my ears. I looked around and found an immobile Gilana shouting, bloody spittle flying from her mouth. “You got to destroy the heart!” She shouted.

“You are joking…” I said looking at the massive troll. Gilana glared at me.

“The only way... to kill a troll is to destroy or remove the hearts!” She shouted and began coughing.

“Hearts?! Plural?!” I shouted in a half groan. Gilana glared at me pale-faced. And I pulled myself up on the twitching body. The body was moving far more than I liked so I crawled over to the head. “Um…” I looked over at Gilana. “Have you seen my… oh.” I was about to ask if she had seen my sword, but as I thought about it, it appeared in my hand.

So I used it to make the most disgusting scrambled eggs I have ever seen. The entire body shook, almost throwing me off as I scrambled the thing’s brain. I looked up at the very pale Gilana and was actually glad to see her glare at me.

“Where are the hearts?” I asked, regretting my lack of knowledge on monster anatomy.

“… heart and liver maybe?” She spat, sending a glob of blood flying onto the already blood-soaked ground.

I moved to where the heart would be if the thing was human and plunged my sword in. This was surprisingly easy. Cutting however, that was hard. Even with my overpowered sword, the skin and muscles were like an old car tire. I could see my stamina bar drop in real time and felt more than a little daunted by my task, even my mana bar dropped as I cut through the tough muscles around what I hoped was the heart.

Something even worse was that I could visibly see my recently inflicted wound close even as I tried to gain access to the heart. Despite this I somehow managed to bend up the flab of meat that fortunately did hide a purplish rugged looking beating organ. “That has to be a heart.” I started cutting like a madman trying to remove the heart. I did this because the heart started healing the same instant I stabbed it, almost sealing my sword inside of itself.

The tissue around the heart healed incredibly quickly and my free hand got stuck several times as I ‘worked’ but somehow I managed to pull the heart out after cutting the arteries several times. For good measure, and not at all because this was magnitudes more disgusting than anything I had ever done, I filled the now empty and slowly healing cavity with vomit.

“What do I do now?” I shouted with the heart held above my head.

“Fuck if I know! Just destroy it!” Gilana shouted weakly.

“FUUUCKK!” I shouted as the heart started forming flesh around itself and in extension around my hand. I panicked and shoved my hand into my Storage. The whole body shook violently for a moment and I almost fell face first into the vomit pit. I also noted that one of the arms of the things fought desperately to trying and grab me despite the still regenerating brain.

I looked at my more than half depleted stamina bar and my slightly more than half full mana par and swore before I crawled over to the mostly healed head of the almost vibrating troll. After making another attempt at the world's least appealing scrambled eggs I made my way over to what I hoped was the liver area.

I was not great at anatomy in school and I sorely wanted to check my Mind Palace for more accurate information. But I did not have the time. The arm had already started twitching. I did, however, have a rather brilliant idea if I do say so myself.

I began stabbing the troll around the area I thought the second heart would be. I probably looked like some famous serial killer or very pissed off girlfriend. Well, if you ignore the size difference and you know, the purple blood. Why was I a purple painted scream impression? Well, because I learned that the troll regenerates faster the closer you go to the heart and I hoped that… “YES!” I found it, I wanted to celebrate somehow, but not only was I way too tired to do so, I also had more important things to do.

I shifted over to the place where the wound healed the fastest and went to town. Or well, I used both of my shaking arms, pushed with my legs and slowly cut apart the flesh. My stamina bar dropped to 0 and I almost fainted then and there, but I held on. I could feel blood flow out of my nose as my vision turned a disturbing red.

“…There it is!” I thought through the haze that fogged my exhausted mind. The far smaller and rapidly beating second purple heart, was now in view. I grabbed it and felt the tissue start to form over my finger immediately. I pulled with what little strength I had remaining and because it was easier than cutting, I began stabbing around the heart, trying to clear away the connecting tissue.

The foul smell of troll blood filled my nose to the point where I was unsure if I would ever be able to smell anything else and my arms felt like they would fall off. I even used whatever it was that had grown over my hand for extra gripping strength and pushed with my legs to try to rip the heart of the body. “It moved!” But not by much and I was about to collapse from sheer exhaustion.

My leg was about to buckle and my mind was about to give into the alluring darkness when Simon shot out of my sleeve and locked his jaws around the entire still beating heart. Coiled around my arm my damned pet pulled so hard that I thought my arm would rip out of its socket. But my body held somehow and with my last remaining strength I swung at the last remaining tendons that held the heart in place.

The heart came loose and the green arm that was about to grab me forze in place and I fell on my arse, tumbling off the troll. With its second heart the troll realised a gurgling noise and just as I was about to fall into blissful unconsciousness Simon did something.

I was suddenly assaulted by the sensation of having something large and foreign beating in my throat. Even before the taste, which Simon shared with me either because he couldn’t help me or because he wanted me to share his misery I vomited out what little I had left in my stomach. Then, the taste of a rotten, offal filled, oddly warm and solid apple assaulted my senses and I started dry heaving. This is the point where an idiot would say ‘Well, it can’t get much worse than this’ but I did not. Not that it helped.

The troll started dissolving with a gurgling sound and the smell it gave off perfectly complemented the taste that Simon shared with me. When I say complemented, what I mean to say is that it combined into something so awful that I finally and blessedly fell into unconsciousness.