Chapter 47: How Tragic... (Part Two)

Escaping upstairs when besieged is hardly a sound retreat; it only shrinks the space for maneuver and leaves the exit even farther away. Yet for Dramatic Sobs, it was his sole route—trolls had barricaded the main door tightly, and unless he wished to be chopped into mince where he stood, the stairs offered his only hope.

My dwarven companion’s plight looked truly dire: his battered armor trailed in a ragged line behind him as he staggered up the steps; his helmet hung askew at the back of his head, and but for the dwarves’ characteristically large skulls, it would have tumbled off long ago; even his sturdy war boots had not survived intact—a gaping hole in the right toe revealed a tuft of hairy toes poking through. I guessed that if he endured a few more such assaults, he’d be forced to dash naked all the way back to Reed City.

Though the trolls outside were not cowed by the “Fearsome Roar,” their frightened companions blocked the way, preventing them from giving chase. Only a few “Flame Rift Totems” on the ground continued to lob fireballs after him, but such attacks paled into insignificance beside the deadly axes that had threatened him a moment before.

Within seconds, the trolls stunned by the “Fearsome Roar” began to recover. Bellowing in rage and shame, they brandished their crude weapons and surged upstairs in pursuit of the dwarven warrior.

I longed to see what transpired above, but the walls blocked my view, denying me the chance to witness how the dwarf would confront such peril. All I could do was remove the wadding from my ears and strain to infer the battle’s progress from the sounds drifting down from the second floor.

“Oh, Mother of Mercy!” No sooner had I pulled the cloth from my ears than a wretched cry rang out from the upper floor, followed by a chorus of agonized screams almost too dreadful to bear. Just as I thought my dwarven companion was about to meet his end once again, an unexpected twist occurred...

Several windows in the second floor of the temple stood open, each facing a different direction. Now, cornered and desperate, the dwarven warrior must have spotted his sole chance of escape. Without hesitation, he leaped headlong from one of the windows. His squat, sturdy frame posed no hindrance to this leap of faith; he moved with the grace and agility of a panther weaving through a forest.

But there was a catch: he had chosen the wrong window.

As I have mentioned, one side of the temple abutted the mountains, and two others faced the village. Anyone leaping from those sides would land on rocks, a slope, or the village road itself, sustaining little harm. The rear of the temple, however, stood flush against a sheer cliff.

Alas, among the ten or so windows on the second floor, Dramatic Sobs, in his desperation, had picked the one nearest the precipice and flung himself out with no second thought. Only as he reached the apex of his leap and began plummeting downward did he realize he was passing drifting clouds, with nothing below but a sweeping vista of open fields.

“Aaaah…” His wail of despair echoed from the far side of the temple to my ears, and his figure plummeted swiftly from view. The strength and resonance of his cry lingered, reverberating through the valleys long after he had vanished.

By the time I had slowly chewed and swallowed a morsel of apple cheese, and wiped my greasy fingers clean on my armor, a damp, sticky splat echoed up from the base of the cliff—a sound that reminded me irresistibly of a rotten persimmon hurled against a wall.

From the sound of it, the cliff was indeed quite high.

Still, at least this way Dramatic Sobs had escaped the trolls’ territory and the reach of their soul-binding magic. For someone who had faced death a dozen times, perhaps that was a blessing in disguise. I hoped that, once he revived at the resurrection point, he could complete his mission and leave this unhappy episode far behind.

Such were my silent wishes for him.

Beyond sympathy, I also felt deep gratitude toward this stranger: his courage—or perhaps recklessness—had inspired me and illuminated a path by which I might steal the Troll Banner and then escape in safety. Until now, I had been at a loss as to how I might slip past the mob of rampaging trolls. But now, a brilliant plan had formed in my mind—risky, perhaps, but with a good chance of success.

My spirits lifted further when, not long after he made off with the tribe’s banner, a brand new one appeared in the temple, and my class advancement quest had not been reset. This meant I still had the chance to finish the quest and become a Martial Warrior.

This, after all, should not have surprised me: it was only natural for a troll tribe to keep a spare banner on hand to swap out as needed. On Farvey Continent, one quickly grows used to finding five or six human heads on a single corpse, so two flags were hardly worth remarking upon.

With the dwarf gone, the trolls of the Foul Axe tribe milled about in confusion for a time before giving up the search and returning to their posts. The tribe’s spirit-caller, once concealed in the temple, had perished beneath Dramatic Sobs’ greatsword, and his corpse had vanished, replaced by a new Foul Axe spirit-caller who now paced slowly through the temple.

Soon, life in the Foul Axe tribe returned to normal. No one seemed the least bit ashamed or angry over the lost banner, as though such things happened all the time.

Now that the commotion over the stolen banner had subsided and all was calm, I seized my chance and, with utmost caution, crept toward the temple…