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The Romanian Mountains, 1252—Continued.
The troll in question had been terrorizing a village for the past month or so, mostly eating livestock, and stealing crops where he could find it. But that was until the beast grew bold and became desperate for blood. Farmers, their children and their wives—whole families—-taken and left to be only identified by the scraps of the troll that he couldn't digest. A day or more back, a housewife with a pitchfork became brave and stabbed the creature in the rib. But a simple stabbing did not cause the blood that was found by Kain.
The housewife had recounted to the likes of Kain (and unbeknownst to him, other monster hunters in the area willing to hunt the beast), that the creature then swore at her upon piercing the troll’s side, and then ran off into the woods.
“He was hurt good, sir,” the housewife said. “Blood was pouring—green blood, that is, all over the place. I destroyed my best fabrics to clean the mess and bent the fork that I’d stab him in the side with...”
She then handed the monster hunter a portion of the rag that was still stained with the creature’s blood. At the same time, Kain looked towards the corner of the room where he saw the bent spikes of the pitchfork laying against the wall nearest to the kitchen.
“Trolls are known to be heavy bleeders.” Kain had said, then surveying the bloodstained cloth. “But make no mistake about it, Madame, he may be hurt, but he won't be for much longer. When that happens and he’s properly licked his wounds from this encounter, he’ll return and he won't just be looking for revenge on only you. He’ll go on a rampage this time around, and take down a mile’s radius of all villages and people that surround you. Trolls are petty that way—as to say, he’ll probably save you for last.”
Kain currently stared at the last fading grains that stood within the palm of his cladded hand. The crushed sigil sand was nearly gone, and he’d mistakenly only taken one of the stones instead of the usual three. His miscalculating before he packed properly was surely going to cost him this time—more than he likely had thought. It would likely take him even more time, an overnight camp or two to find the beast—if he was lucky.