Moratorium For 1 Hour.
Ettin Meeting 1 - 8834
Technically, the tattoo changes nothing for Zul'Jo in his day to day life. But that hasn't stopped him from occasionally pausing in whatever he is doing to examine them. It is a hard, hard thing to impress just about any specific imprint in the skin and flesh of a troll that won't heal up eventually. Piercings are really only workable for trolls because of the fact that they plug up whatever the pierced portion is, yet if they are ever removed the holes that were punctured would heal over reasonably. Hence why some trolls just leave them in at all times. For those that simply must take them out, for cleaning or otherwise, they must accept that they will have to be re-pierced when putting them back in. On the other hand, often tattoos don't even last that long. Not so for what you have done to your cousin. The tattoo has been engraved not just into his body, but his soul, and even now with your spirit eyes you can see the brimming power within it. It is, in truth, just his own soul and life energy slightly unrestrained before being recaptured by the tattoo, ready for powerful release in excess of what normal limits could even conceive of, let alone allow. When he first triggered the tattoo in sparring combat, it was quite honestly terrifying to see. His already remarkable stature increased, his body literally swelled in every aspect with reddish energies, and then he picked up Zulgo'longo up in one hand and threw him into a wall so hard the dire troll was knocked out. The rest of his sparring partners could not keep up with his increased speed and strength even a little bit.
And now he strides at the forefront of your war party, though the war part should hopefully not come to pass in this instance. Over a hundred of your elites and two dozen dire trolls have accompanied you deep into the Gurubashi Mountains to meet with the supposed leader of at least a considerable portion of the Ettin of the mountains. The old stone tablets of the Gurubashi speak of various sorts of 'Valley Kings' and 'Hill Lords' as titles amongst the two-headed giants, and more often than not the ettin were just as happy to fight one another as they were to fight the Gurubashi when your ancestors came through on a regular purge and bloodletting in the name of the Loa. The one you are coming to meet has shown some intelligence, at the very least, by agreeing to meet with you once your scouts and the Shadow Haunters came through. When you arrive at the specific mountain claimed by 'Da Mountain King', you find a rather enormous settlement by your reckoning, but one that could also rightly be considered small. In that while the walls of wood have been kludged together with mud and rope woven out of smaller trees to bind logs upon logs, the walls are still almost as high as Zul'Gurub's own. There is no gate, only a gap in the wall, a gap flanked by guards. You are faced by two giants, beings you've never seen before in the flesh, with each of the two's pair of heads swiveling this way and that. The moment your group of trolls finally emerge from the jungle onto the well trod path that leads up to their village, two of the heads - one per ettin - lock on to you while the remaining heads keep looking about. You have to admit, that probably makes being a guard easier when you can look two ways at once.
"Puny trolls come!" One shouts, pointing your way with a club made out of a tree. "Tell da king!"
"Oh I'll show you puny, mon," Zul'Jo grunts beneath his breath, though your entire party is far enough away that they surely could not hear it.
The other ettin takes a simply enormous horn from his belt, carved out of who knows what, and blows a single harsh note out of it. Even as far as you are, lungs that size can create quite a painful noise. Other than that, they do not do much than keep an eye on your group as you get closer. They wear little to nothing in regards for clothes other than enough to cover their dignity and a belt to hang various items on, much to your relief. No one needs to see anything like that, mon. Still, you are pretty sure that if you got hit by one of their clubs outright it could quite possibly kill you, even with your regenerative abilities. On the other hand, you can see plenty of ways to kill them back.
"Mountain King waits at his hall," one of the heads speaks, the other still looking around at the horizon, "He strong, so no tricks."
"You make trouble, you get smashed," one of the other ettin's heads says, glaring down at you with their gigantic yellow eyes.
"We did not come to make trouble," you say back up at them, only to get screwed up faces of confusion in response.
Then one of them leans down slightly, direhorn sized hand coming up to cup at his ear. Or at least, that was what one head intended, the other quite clearly was not expecting it, eyes widening before they glare at the head next to them as their watching of the surrounding area is disrupted.
"What you say?" The one head says. "You too low to ground! Speak loud, tiny troll!"
"Why you move us," it's other head says, "Make hard to watch horizon! What if black lizards come back!"
"It fine," the first head grunts. "If black lizard come, we hear, dummy."
Just think of them smashing Hakkari, you force yourself to think. Just think of them stomping all over a Hakkari dire troll or smacking down their defenses.
"I SAID," you shout now, "WE DID NOT COME TO MAKE TROUBLE!"
"Oh! Good," the ettin then straightens, dismissing you entirely.
You completely ignore how Zul'Jo is just barely restraining his amusement to a slight shaking of his shoulders. Slapping him on the shoulder, you make him look straight into your eyes, letting a few pulses of shadow and power flicker from within. His smile quickly disappears after that. He may have been knocking you around while you've been sparring and training, but he shouldn't ever forget that you could hex him into a frog or eat his dreams to use as fuel to make a spell that stops his heart from beating. There's nothing to regenerate if your heart just won't pump blood throughout the rest of the body. Your training had been largely based on the physical part, you've got the spiritual and magical part pretty well covered. Also, it simply won't do for him giggling as you scream your lungs out just to be properly heard by the ettin.
"Let's get going, mon," you say quietly, to which Zul'Jo nods rapidly.
Your advance into the village is met with suspicious gazes, the various ettin here staring at you as you make your way past. Their homes are ramshackle, but sturdy by virtue of being made to deal with ettin, for the most part being mounds of packed dirt, rock, and wood large enough for them to sleep under should they wish it. Off to the side is a massive fire pit, over which is suspended what you think might be one of the largest cook pots in the world, over which a scowling ettin woman stirs with a ladle that was once an oak tree. Even as you watch, she pulls a trio of goat corpses out of a large sack on her belt and just plops them in, quickly followed by several ettin-sized handfuls of what appears to be corn. Then handfuls of kobold corpses. Given the size of ettin, they probably do require quite a lot of food. It is at that point that you think you spy an adolescent or at least younger adult ettin, as the boy is only about shoulder height to the size of the other beings around, who rapidly runs up and tries to scoop a handful of the soup in the cookpot into his mouth - only to get cracked by the ettin woman's spoon with enough force to sound like a thunderclap. There's at least two dozen of these giants living here, and as far as you know that's a pretty high number, ettin being reasonably isolationist and individual most of the time. They also live for considerably long times.
These ettin would make for good sacrifices to the Loa.
But you aren't here for that, yet.
Today, you are here to see if you can convince at least a few of these lumbering brutes to aid you in your quest to obliterate the Hakkari and Hakkar himself. As such, you walk your way up to the 'hall', which is just a gargantuan lean-to, within which sits the largest and most scarred of all the ettin you've seen thus far, one fist coming up to rest beneath one of his chins while the other head - missing one eye - quite plainly appears to be asleep. Stringy wisps of filthy brown hair hang down from both heads. A club of stone rather than wood sits next to him, propped up against his legs, while a pile of boulders that are but hand-sized stones for him to throw lay on the other side. Though he bears no crown, there can be no mistaking that his ettin is the so-called Mountain King. Even though these are
your mountains, you elect not to make an issue of it today.
"Tiny trolls come to Mountain King, wanting things. Normally, trolls only good for eating and fighting," he begins the minute you get close enough. "But trolls stronger than they used to be, like they used to be. Could still crush," he claims airily, rolling one hand through the air, "But trolls claim can give more food - more food than what trolls be," he nods firmly, like he has told you some great nugget of knowledge. "So, we make deal? Or you go and we crush you later?"
Well.
What a sterling negotiator this one is.
What To Say Back?
The Ettin don't really have a concept of money, but you can still pay them with a combination of 'shiny' and food, which depending on how negotiations go might just be taken out of the treasury or directly cut into your farming/fishing/hunting income while you have them 'on retainer'. The more things you try to get the ettin to do, the more they will ask for. Moratorium For 1 Hour.
[] Smashing Hakkari: Try to negotiate for some of these ettin to join the fight against Hakkar. Their aid could quite possibly be invaluable when you call upon them.
[] Smashing Kobolds: Try to negotiate for the ettin to focus their efforts strongly on curtailing the kobold movements in the mountains, ensuring they trouble the Gurubashi less.
[] No Smashing At All: Try to convince these ettin to make the other ettin in the mountains back off, meaning that your travels through the mountains will be less troubled by ettin overall.
[] Something Else (Write-In)?
