Chapter 190: Honourable
Before Synchronization was even done activating, Percy rummaged through his sack, hastily putting as many pieces of his armour on as he could manage. Not that he wasn’t confident beating a few Yellow demi-humans without it, but there wasn’t any harm in playing it safe. Regardless, he only got to don his gauntlets by the time the creatures reached them.
‘They’ll have to do.’ he shrugged.
The trolls themselves were downright massive, Percy’s head barely reaching up to their chest. The one in the middle was even taller than the others, despite its hunchback. Their thick hide was marred in warts and granules like their weaker kin, but, unlike the others, these three were covered from head to toe in crisscrossing scars. Some were deeper too – trophies from a lifetime of fighting, apparently.
Even more strangely, these trolls had something else growing on their bodies that the others had lacked. Mushrooms. And not the mundane, edible whitecaps Percy and Nesha had seen on the way here. No, these shone brightly in his vision, shimmering in a deep Orange colour. Not only that, but they softly glowed in the regular part of his sight too, sporting a strange green lustre.
Unfazed by Percy’s observation, the trolls strolled casually towards them, each of their thunderous steps lifting a screen of mud. Their heavy frames sank a few inches into the bog from one footfall to the next, but they didn’t seem to mind it much, apparently well-used to their habitat by now. Their attention was glued to their guests instead, their bulbous eyes scanning Percy and Nesha up and down.
“Take the one to the left. I’ll handle the oth–”
Percy didn’t even get to complete his sentence when the trolls suddenly halted, still thirty or so yards away from them. Then, the one in the middle – their king probably – gestured at one of his attendants to step forward.
“Are they challenging us to single combat?” Nesha asked in incredulity.
That was a sign of intelligence neither of them was used to seeing in demi-humans. Then again, the creatures weren’t that much dumber than sapients, and these three in particular stood atop their species’ ladder. Their higher grade coupled with decades of wisdom had clearly left their mark.