The Ursapus lay dead in the muddy water, the goblins grabbed what they could before leaving the place of its demise far behind them. They left the creature half skinned and its death pulled behind, hoping that no others of its kind would follow them and no army of scavenger beasts would think them easy prey. Zalrodal and most of his goblins had never seen a beast of such size before and nobody was planning to find out if there was a larger or more dangerous one lurking in the Dusrian marshes. With limited rest, the goblins resumed their march through the dirty waters and the insect riddled islands. Although they could not possibly see anything through the thick fog they were more alert than ever before jumping at every passing shadow and movement from the dark. The journey continued for hours, Zalrodal felt as if they had been walking in circles but there was no way of knowing if that was the case so they simply continued. There was of course the possibility that the new goblin arrivals didn’t know what they were talking about, but both himself and Zalrodal were quite adept at catching out liars and traitors amongst their number. Finally, after the goblins’ steps resembled dragging more than an actual walk they stopped.

They set up camp on another island on the marsh that consisted of slightly more solid dirt than the usual mud and prepared to pass the night. The goblins set up a small fire in the night and set up guards around the perimeter of the island. The ones that slept constantly looked over their shoulders to see the small figures of their companions trudging through the fog around them. It was probably the worst night most of them had ever spent anywhere. Zalrodal woke up in the early hours of the morning, he looked around the improvised campsite of the swamp, most of the goblins were still asleep and huddled in big green piles while a couple of the remaining ones still patrolled although their heads were sunken, they were probably still part of the first watch which hadn’t been allowed to go to sleep. Zalrodal stood up and observed his surroundings, the very first thing that was noticeable was the distinct lack of fog compared to the previous night, the second was of course the giant pillars of smoke rising in the distance. Smoke meant fire, and fire meant intelligent creatures. If anything in this swamp should prove to possess intelligence it should be the trolls, and so their course had been set.

The goblins were quickly kicked awake by their sleepless companions at Zalrodal’s orders and readied themselves for travel. The smoke did not seem to be too far away but there would have been no way to know this with the last day heavy fog screen across the land. Zalrodal commanded some of the goblins who seemed to have gotten the most sleep to carry their tired allies on their backs across the marsh which wiped the grins of their faces as their body was submerged to the shoulders in mud as they crossed the deeper ends. It took them half a day to travel to the troll village if it could be called that. The trolls were currently migrating and had set up large hide tents in an area of smaller islands in the marsh and went about their daily business. Trolls similar to most creatures were forced to move locations every couple of years when the local humans, elves, or dwarfs got tired of having them roaming in their own lands. At which point they would send adventuring parties and armies after their targets till they were dead or fled the area. This could of course only happen to smaller groups as humans were generally not stronger than many creatures they fought against but just as a single dog could not fight a bear if you increased their numbers eventually the tides of battle would switch. In general, if greenskins and other creatures were not rallied by a great leader, they would work in small clans which would be easy pickings for a properly armed force.

Zalrodal and his goblins waltzed into the troll’s encampment, they marched around the central plaza and waited to be received. The trolls standing around the tents had their eyes focused on the two stenjin which rivalled them in height while also possessing harder skin than them. Two things trolls had great pride in. Zalrodal looked around himself, he was surrounded by his goblins and stone guards and thereby relatively safe even amongst a village’s worth of trolls. Trolls looked at them from every angle, many of them poking their heads out of their giant tents to take a look at the commotion, most trolls had tattoos and markings across their bodies and faces in different colours and shapes symbolising their roles in the village, hammers and fires being the most common amongst them as most trolls were smiths by trade.

After waiting for a while a group of trolls finally approached the group, the troll at the head of the group was a rather tall lanky creature, blue skin covered its entire body and the bodies of various wild beasts were plastered in orange ink over his body. The troll leader greeted Zalrodal and his companions and introduced himself as Drok’Ir, beast slayer of his village and current chief.