Get Ahead
As is becoming far too common, our breakfast is interrupted by a despatch rider with an apparently urgent missive. The last time we had a meal interrupted we finished anyway and then were surprised when we saw that the messenger had waited outside for us with his carriage, when we had unintentionally ignored the part of the message that urged us to make all due haste to the meeting. This time we made sure how urgently we were needed, finding out that we were expected half-a-day's horse ride away and that horses were already requisitioned for us. 'Splendid. As it is still morning and we are only expected today that gives us time to eat breakfast and travel for half-a-day and still turn up on time,' announces Dexter, and we finish our breakfast. Despite our sound logic the messenger didn't appear to be any less impatient for some reason.
After breakfast we got our new horses and headed off to Copperdell, where General Juthe awaited us. Before we got there, a suspicious-looking rock caught our attention, mostly when it turned out to be a large humanoid that wanted to eat us. Master of all knowledge that he is, Dexter tells us that we are fighting a mountain troll. With his new Wild Feat ability, allowing him to choose a different feat each day, Dexter wonders what feat to recall that would help with this fight. 'Maybe I should make use of the horse and gain the Mounted Combat feat.'
'That, or the 'Run' feat,' Ann See helpfully offers. But Tal just sees and excuse for a chance to draw blood, and the battle is engaged. It doesn't take too long to see off this wandering monster, although Dexter's knowledge of the beast is that it can regenerate, meaning that it could become a threat for other passers-by in time. Sadly, Dexter does not know how to stop this regeneration, and so we resign to simply being able to survive the encounter ourselves and hope that others do the same.
It is some distance down the road when something curious happens. We hear strange, guttural noises coming from Tal's direction. Okay, so not that strange, but they seem to be coming from the rear end of the horse. Not wanting a deathly sick horse, we investigate. It turns out that the sounds are coming from inside one of Tal's saddle bags. Opening it up we find the troll's head, conscious and regenerating its body. 'We wanted to stop it regenerating and hurting others, so I cut off its head and brought it with me. The body can't do anything without the head, right?' Tal explains.
We kick the head down the road and continue on our journey. glad that we don't have anything like a bag of holding, in which we might have found a whole troll at some point in the future.