3rd Book: the Book of the Mountain
Copyright© 2025 by Luvirini
Chapter 19: Traps or at Least Pits
November 4
Shalelu Andosana tells that while looking for her sticks, she found tracks in the forest. It’s apparently possible that people have escaped from that fortress. Ra leaves flying as a hawk to see whether he can see those tracks somewhere down by the road. When Ra flies downward, he notices that there is much better weather there; it’s not raining, and the sun is shining. He flies downstream to the point where he reaches the forest and looks around there for a while before flying back. The group camps for the night.
November 5
Morning comes. The group considers whether to go looking for those people who escaped from the fortress in the forest. After a moment’s hesitation, the group decides to go there. Ra thinks about what will happen if the ogres come and accidentally trigger the trap, so Kieron says that there’s an easy solution to that and makes several signs that say “Detour” and marks with them a route around the trap.
The journey there takes about half a day. Ra transforms into a hawk, and the others search for tracks in the forest. They find the place where that ogre seen by Ra had dragged that bear away. The group decides to follow the tracks. After following the tracks for some time, they come to a clear path.
They continue along the path until they come to some kind of farm and they see a large-sized creature running toward them from the field with a sickle in hand.
The creature first runs straight at Shalelu and roars at the same time about some elf roast. Shalelu strikes the creature with her sword, and after that, it roars something about spiky roast and moves to the next elf, i.e., goes after Ra. Ra also strikes back, so this elf roast is also spiky, so it moves to the next one, i.e., Neeia. Meanwhile, Kieron has drunk a pain relief magic potion and dropped her backpack, so after that, she joins the battle, striking the creature in the side, and Jaysek, in turn, shoots it in the back with a fire portal. The creature has already at this stage dropped its sickle and dodges the fire straight into a tree but then starts running away, shouting for mother to help. Ra and Kieron run after it. Ra swings and misses a couple of times, and Kieron hits the creature once, so it falls dead to the ground. Kieron immediately shouts after, “It wasn’t me, it was that one,” and points at Ra standing next to her. Ra responds by cheering.
Next, the group moves to the house. They examine the house, and Kieron notices that on the porch, there is a trap that makes spikes come from the floor. Jaysek examines the door for traps while Ra breaks the window and climbs in through it. In the room, there are fingers on the table, and otherwise, the room appears to be their meat processing room. Ra opens the door at the same time as Jaysek finishes examining the door and notices that there is no trap in it.
Two doors lead forward from the room; behind one door, stairs go down, the other opens to a dining room. Ra steps into the room, and the group hears how a scythe swooshes from behind him, hitting the wall. Ra doesn’t even flinch but continues on his way, although the others warn Ra that there’s a trap there. Ra just says, “What trap?” After that, Ra sits down, panting. Jaysek examines the trap and notes that next to the door is a lever with which it can be switched off. Jaysek goes to examine the other doors too and switches off the traps in the other doors. After that, he begins to give first aid to Ra.
Shalelu points out that we didn’t take the items from that enemy outside. Kieron gestures to the door, and Shalelu and Kieron go there to see what he had on him. Kieron fetches her backpack at the same time. Shalelu finds a ring and an amulet on him. Kieron recognizes them; one is a protection ring, and the other is an armor amulet. They return to the others. When Ra’s first aid is completed, Neeia goes through one door forward. They come to some kind of room where there are two somewhat smaller half-troll children who shout, “Food” and “Yum, yum.”
After that, they attack Neeia, who is at the door. One runs to the middle of the room and attacks the others. The group fights against the children. Ra and Neeia are after one with a leg injury, and Jaysek and Shalelu fight with the other one. Kieron joins to help Jaysek. Jaysek hits his own enemy and gets it dropped, whereupon the other half-troll child shouts, “haha, it fell,” to which Kieron responds that it was Jaysek and gestures to Jaysek. Neeia strikes the last half-troll with her sword, and this one falls too. Ra begins to point at Kieron and shouts that it was that one, to which Kieron responds by pointing at Ra and shouting that it was that one. Neeia claims that she killed it.
The group quickly glances at the children’s room and then continues the journey. They come to a corridor where they pass a couple of doors, from behind one of which comes a really bad smell. Stairs also lead up from the corridor. Behind the next door opens a tidier room where there is a bearskin on the floor and a sofa in good condition. The group doesn’t examine the room any more than that Ra goes to look under the bearskin. They continue to the room at the end of the corridor. When Ra opens the door, behind it is revealed a really fat half-troll, apparently their mother. She scolds her children for letting the group get this far and promises to kill them, that is, those children.
After this, three zombie half-trolls also start moving from the side. Ra retreats backward. Neeia doesn’t want to go past, especially when Ra’s retreat lets the zombies ready at the door.
Neeia tries to urge Ra to go into the room, but Ra doesn’t want to. Jaysek goes to that neat room, and Kieron runs after him. When Kieron gets to the room side close to the sofa, the floor falls away from under her, and she falls ten feet down into a pit where there are spikes. Kieron dodges all the spikes but gets some damage from the fall. Ra runs to the same room, and Neeia follows.