We head into Phillipp Kallestad’s manor, a well decorated place with animal pelts, deer heads, a cozy fireplace, and many maps depicting weather patterns, trade routes, and other things. We explain that we’re up in Spueria so that myself and my father can visit since we haven’t been back in over a decade, in addition to looking for work in our usual monster-bashing fashion.
Kallestad tells us of a bridge on the way to Helsinki that is supposedly guarded by something suspected to be a troll, although an entire group of knights that was dispatched to deal with it was annihilated which seems quite surprising for a troll. Given that we want to stop by my hometown anyways, we agree to help investigate. Kallestad is well aware of Folduin Waesvaris, echoing the sentiment of him being an unpleasant man and a thorn in his side. Apparently Folduin frequently puts out calls for magic items and spell scrolls, with the last one that he acquired being “Power Word: Kill”. Quite dangerous for us to be hunting down somebody with that… We then head out to find the “troll” on our way to Helsinki.
We come across a scene of smashed carts, a dead horse, and a wooly mammoth poking around. I carefully approach and shoo it away. Rummaging through the cart, a human worker pops out! He tells us that a red troll attacked the caravan, killing everyone and smashing the carts to bits. However, Momen notes that trolls do not come in red…
The worker points out something moving in the distance, and Tittlin spots a white furry creature moving through the trees. He whips out his spyglass to get a closer look, but flinches and then freezes with it to his face. We give him a shake and turn him away from the forest to no avail. The worker theorizes that the “troll” attacking the caravan emboldened the other monsters of the forest. Tittlin shakes off his paralysis as we’re considering what to do, pointing out that it’s probably a Yeti lurking in the forest. Suddenly we here a loud thumping to the north, and we all duck into hiding. Sure enough, a giant red troll stomps out of the forest carrying a dead goat. It swings under the bridge, but we do manage to get a look at it. It seems grotesque and malformed - multiple arms, two heads, things coming out of it at weird angles. Tittlin creeps over to a rock jutting out of the frozen river and uses the Auspicious Lens on the creature, identifying it as a Dire Troll.
I whisper to the worker, asking if there was anything special that he noticed about the troll during his previous encounter with it. He claims that somebody did manage to lop on arm off, and it simply stuck it back on. Apparently hearing our whispers, the troll hops back up from under the bridge, looks and sniffs around, and then sends a large rock barreling directly at me. I take the brunt of the blow as the back of the cart is blown to splinters. Pissed off, I leap out of the cart and fire off a couple meteors from the Diadem before ducking behind a nearby tree. It barrels towards Momen and wildly lashes out at everything around it, sending Momen crashing into the snow and obliterating a tree in the process. Momen rethinks his life choices and hops onto Nyx, flying up into the air and blasting the troll with acid in the process. Firing off a couple more meteors which both connect, I spread some caltrops behind me and continue back pedaling towards Tittlin.
I get battered by a couple more rocks as I hear a familiar BONG from Momen’s bell. Thoroughly enraged, I lunge forward and absolutely brutalize the troll with Shifty. I cut through its heart, its heads, its arms, and yet after all that, it regenerates and smiles at me. I panic and duck away behind a rock as it swipes at my back, leaving a bad burning sensation from what I presume to be poison. It continues to pursue, clamoring over the rock and clawing at me. I see Momen slide out onto the icy river with a Yeti in tow, and before I know it Nyx is swooping down to pick me up. I grab on and fire off my last couple meteors at the troll which don’t seem to do much as it continues regenerating, albeit slowly. Seeing that fire seems to be slowing its regeneration, Nyx flies me over the troll as I pitch an oil flask at it. It connects and covers the troll… and the cart. I shout at the worker to get the hell out of there and he bursts out from the cart, leaping into the snow. Momen launches a firebolt at the troll in an attempt to set the oil ablaze but it goes wide. Tittlin thankfully has his own firestarting abilities and runs up behind the distracted troll, striking a match and setting it on fire before sprinting off and hiding once again. It pitches two rocks at Momen which he manages to deflect at the last second with his shield spell.
As a last ditch effort, I fly up above the troll with Nyx and dump the entire bag of magic beans onto the troll. They majestically fall through the air as the troll looks up, confused. Connecting with the troll, all of the beans explode in a fiery inferno, completely obliterating the troll with nothing left to regenerate.
Nyx and I descend and we assure the human worker that he’ll be safe with us as we tend to our wounds. Tittlin scouts ahead for the Yeti as Momen, myself, and the worker follow a little ways behind. Thankfully, the Yeti seems to have buggered off after we dealt with the troll. We safely arrive in Helsinki and make our way over to the Beegstick residence.