[Thinlómien]

By now, dear readers, you must be familiar with how this story goes. The trolls go to sleep as the sun rises, and the wizards go out and enjoy the daylight and the birdsong. They speak words that sound wise, they argue and in the end, they decide which one of the trolls they find the most menacing.

Then they creep back to the troll cave and one of them says something - usually something quite obvious - such as: "Okay, let's kill this one."
"But how?" someone asks, because wizards enjoy listening to their own voices, and those of their intelligent fellows.

So this day, one of the wizards pointed out: "See the sleeping bag she is using as her blanket?"
"Stolen from some poor traveler, no doubt," spat the second one. "It's barely large enough to cover her belly. Maybe it once belonged to some merchant or a merry elf who met a dreadful fate."
"A precious work, it must have been, before this beast dirtied it," opined the third. "Look at those finely shaped silver studs that were used to hold it together."
"Exactly," interjected the first wizard with a grim smile. "Watch."

He stepped closer, raised his staff and began to sing in a deep, quiet voice. First, nothing happened, but then, as if by a stir of the wind, the blanket - or actually, the sleeping bag - shifted, and then slid upwards, and wrapped itself tight around the troll's chest and throat like a strangling snake. The wizard clapped his hands, and as if commanded, the studs clicked into their places and the sleeping bag squeezed the troll, her chest and her throat pressed to the point that the sleeping bag would have burst, had it not been held together by an invisible force. The troll was now awake, her bulging eyes popping out, but she could not make a sound, not even gasp for air. She struggled in vain, the studs held, as the sleeping bag continued squeezing her, and at last, she stopped struggling and became still.

"That's done," the wizard smiled and turned to his fellows.
"How impressive," the second one nodded.
"How did you come by this idea?" asked the third.
"I once gave a friend a set of magical studs that fastened and never came unfastened until commanded," the first said. "But this troll would never have had the chance to unfasten those."

The wizards walked back into the shadows, sniggering under their beards.

When they woke up in the evening, the rest of the trolls found Brin's body. They searched the corner in which she slept. Hidden underneath her straw bedding, they found a small slab of flat stone, inscribed with complicated geographic data, philosophical thoughts and mathematical operations:

"Cave haz entrance."

"I am. Hungry."

"1+1=2"

There could be no doubt - Brin had been the Clever Troll.


~*~


Dumb and Dead
Thinlómien, "Lom", dispatched by the Wizards as a threat on Night 1
Legate of Amon Lanc, "Leg", dispatched by the Wizards as a threat on Night 1
Pomegranate, "Pom", a Wizard, boiled and eaten on Day 1
Ozban, "Oz", an Ordinary Troll, crushed to death by a troll pyramid on Day 2
Volo, "Vol", the Traitor Troll, magically opened up like a door on Night 3
Bane Mantra, "Bane", an Ordinary Troll, turned into stone while hunting (modfired) on Day 3
Boromir88, "Bore", an Ordinary Troll, forgotten outside the cave and turned into stone on Day 3
Brinniel, "Brin", the Clever Troll, strangled to death with the assistance of magical studs on Night4

Dumb and Walking
A Little Green, "Green"
Coppermirror, "Cop"
Gil-Galad, "Gil"
Inziladun, "Lad"
Kath, "Kat"
Loslote, "Lot"
McCaber, "Cab"
Morsul the Dark, "Mors"
Nerwen, "Nerve"
Nogrod, "Nog"
Rikae, "Rick"
satansaloser2005, "Sal"
Shastanis Althreduin, "Shaz"


~*~


Day 4 has started. No PMing anymore, but discussion is welcome on this thread instead.