Chapter 19
"Awake…'smack!'…wake up."
Alric came to alertness slowly. He vaguely heard a repeating noise. His groggy mind tried to place the rhythmic clang he heard. It wasn't an alarm clock. Trolls had no such thing. So… what was that racket. The drowsy Troll reluctantly cracked an eye. There reaching up was Gandalf holding his iconic staff as he knocked the end against Alric's shoulder. He couldn't feel the tiny impacts on his thick hide but his sharp sense of hearing made the sound of wood against stony shoulder loud and clear.
Alric glared down at the fearless geriatric as the wizard smiled innocently.
"Ahh…that seemed to have done the trick."
"You could have just tried talking."
"I did. You must learn not to blame your own shortcomings on others. Your, awake now anyway."
The bright amusement in his eyes flashed but only briefly. Gandalf looked tired. Before Alric could ask why he had been stripped of his last blissful moments in slumber, Gandalf explained.
"I must leave…Radagast brings ever more concerning news. I must investigate promptly. A new foe rises…or perhaps an old one returns. I leave the company in your large hands. Keep each other safe."
Alric gave as serious a nod and grunt as he could muster in his groggy state. Gandalf wasted no time after that. He had already discussed the situation with the rest of the camp before waking up Alric. The Dwarves were busy passing out a hastily cooked breakfast stew or breaking down camp. Alric, unlike the rest had no luggage or need to eat anytime soon. However, he would doubtless hunt soon for power related reasons.
As Alric examined the camp in the dawns light, Gandalf had joined Radagast on his sled and was soon streaking away. Alric mused on the capricious nature of wizards. They seemed to pop up and vanish at will.
How did Radagast even catch up to us? We rode bloody birds to get here, and he just pops up to snag our other eccentric.
Alric sat in silence absorbing the tranquil morning. As he lounged his mind wandered to his next improvements. A quick flex of his hands confirmed his most recent increase in raw strength. He crumbled a piece of rock under him with ease. He decided not to waste the minerals as he mindlessly ate the stone as he planned out his next objectives. Alric's body was large and extremely resistant to physical damage at this point. While Smaug would likely still be able to kill him if he got a few solid bites in there was an even bigger danger, fire. Dragons were consistently known to have a fondness for the element. Alric had little to fear from most flames. His dense stone like flesh would barely feel hot while standing in regular flames. Dragon fire was not normal flames.
Alric knew that Smaug had been very liberal with his fire in the movie. The fire hadn't managed to burn a single member of the party but that was not due to lacking firepower. That was sheer plot armor, the flames had turned stone to slag and even melted some metal. Alric needed a response to such a threat. While he could probably dodge and even trade blows in melee the fire wasn't something he could rely on luck to avoid like the first time. If he planned to actually fight Smaug he needed to be fireproof.
The party know ready began walking into the gloomy woods. Sticking close to the path.
Alric knew that elves or even the dwarves might be able to forge him a shield or set of armor to protect him. In order to stop dragon fire, it would need to be thick and heavy. As a Troll this was a reasonable option. Alric could do little to procure such custom equipment at the moment. The Troll doubted Thorin would be willing to wait for Alric to order such a massive undertaking. Even if Thorin decided to put the dwarves on it themselves, good quality armor of his size would not be fast or easy to make. The party didn't have a month to spare crafting Alric into a walking tank.
With a sigh Alric put the mental image of himself in full plate out of his mind. That meant Alric had his cheat. He needed to eat things that made him less of a seared steak in the making. Of course, if he could eat some dragon scales he would be able to walk through flames and attacks like air. The problem with that being he needed to walk through the fire to get the dragon scales to begin with.
That said the scales didn't need to be from a dragon. Other scales might be weaker, but they would still be added armor and insulation. Something was better than nothing the Troll figured. Fish and snakes were abundant even in such a grim forest as Mirkwood. With a new plan in place Alric began paying closer attention to his dim surroundings.
The forest was grey and damp. The air was heavy and seemed to drain color from the world. The trees seemed to reach with angry still branches that seemed far too similar to withered claws. Despite this the forest still had life. There was lots of decay and mushrooms. Alric even saw rotting mammals. There were lots of insects, however. Alric plunged his hand into dark holes and under rocks with no fear.
The many spiders and other venomous occupants were eaten like candy, not threats. It didn't take to long before Alric had found several dark and venomous serpents. Well…he didn't exactly find them so much as shoved his fingers into every hole he found until they tried to bite him. The poor little nope ropes tried very hard to bite into his massive finger. The eager snakes accomplished no such feat.
The snakes were slurped down to add to the planned upgrade. Alric felt like an adventurer gathering ingredients for a quest. "Gain 10x scaled creatures to craft potion of flame resistance." The dwarves were used to Alric's strange eating behaviors and didn't mention it.
Soon enough the air grew even more damp and the sound of one of many rivers could be heard. Alric ran ahead of the group. Rivers meant fish and fish were an abundant source of scales.
The party soon found Alric waist deep in the river plucking passing fish out of the water. The deep river was heavily stocked with fish and Alric had little problem smacking the fish up and into his waiting mouth.
The dwarves stared at the Troll as he devoured fish after fish. Thorin called a small break at the bridge not that the dwarves seemed to need to be told as they stared at Alric with vague blank stares.
After half an hour of shoveling fish into his cheat Alric was confident, he could get nearly complete scale coverage. As he began to wade for shore, he saw a large boulder with a large dark grey snail suctioned onto it. As Alric moved closer, he saw that there were many similar snails all over the place. The snail shell was yet another defense that Alric could forge into his natural armor. Alric swept his hand across the river rocks scraping up the little critters in crushed handfuls of shattered shells and goo. Alric tried not to gag as he shoveled the revolting mess into his mouth as quickly as he could.
The texture was horrible but only lasted a second before vanishing to his cheat. With a determined frown, the Troll set about decimating the local population. After that was done Alric climbed the far bank of the river. He panicked slightly when he didn't immediately find the bridge. Alric briefly thought it was odd how quickly he had lost his way only feet away. The dense dark forest was hard to keep direction in. After a hurried search he followed the scent of the dwarves back to the bridge.
The march continued and even Alric felt the monotonous pressure building as the forest remained eerily silent and looming. Alric only found a couple more snakes as they walked. Even Thorin almost seemed relived when another river crossing interrupted the endless dull march. Relived to have a reason to rest despite the subdued pace, the dwarves all slumped on the bridge as they watched the Troll repeat the same actions as before.
This river was much smaller, and Alric only caught a few fish. It did have an abundance of snails, however. Alric screwed up his face as he ate them by the handful. He imagined how amazing the gains would be as he forced himself to swallow again and again.
The group stumbled forward again. After an hour or so more of walking the party set camp. The group dared not leave the road after Gandalf's warnings and had no fear of bandits or other travelers, so they set their bed roles directly in the path.
The group hadn't wanted to spend any extra time in the bleak forest but were convinced that continuing in the dark of night was an even less wise option. Alric was eager as ever to begin his dreams. The power to choose and shape his growth at such a rapid pace was addictive.
Despite the frightening abeyance Alric was asleep quickly.
"You have slain thirty-eight Carp. You have gained no new stats. Please obtain stronger material."
"You have slain twelve Salmon. You have gained no new stats. Please obtain stronger material."
"You have slain five Common Pit Serpents. You have gained barely increased dexterity."
"You have slain seventy-six Snails. You have gained no new stats. Please obtain stronger material."
Alric was not surprised how little the lives of such weak prey were worth. If he could become strong eating the souls of ants one nest would be all he needed.
Luckily Alric hadn't wasted his efforts. In a reversal of the Goblin feast this batch of updates had many physical traits that were very useful if very little stats. Feeling the swirling essence below him Alric tried to feel out the scales and the best combination he had available. The Carp had the largest and toughest scales. The scales of the Salmon were small and flexible. While the Snake scales were large and diverse they were rather soft.
Alric knew he could spend essence to strengthen any of the scales but knew the better the base the less wasted energy there would be. Spending half the energy making the scales strong enough not to be worse than his baseline thick hide was a waste. Luckily the Carp scales were abundant and a decent base. Layering them over his arms, legs and torso was a good start. With a push of additional energy, the scales on his chest and forearms grew bigger and thicker. His vitals and arms would need the most reinforcement.
There was a problem. While the scales worked perfectly on the streamlined body of the fish they weren't designed to bend around something with the range of motion his joints had. They would either spread completely apart or gape open from the next scale. Alric added in some more flexible and less uniform scales from the snake essence around the joints. The snake scales were perfect for joints. With a bit of tweaking the small salmon scales were added were larger scales were impractical. The combination didn't look terrible, but the durability was still rather disappointing. The scales were barely adding anything to his defense beyond an additional layer atop his dense skin and muscles.
Alric knew he would need to keep reinforcing as a constant goal if he was going to make these worthwhile. The colors were rather mute, adding flecks of browns but remaining mostly his standard deep green. Without closer inspection only the heaviest scales were obviously visible. Alric added the snail shell sections next. The snail was a pleasant surprise. Not only was it surprisingly strong at the thickness he was adding it was much easier to shape than the scales. The scales didn't want to change shape and pattern without much of their essence being lost.
Much of what made scales; scales were their pattern. A snail shell however were grown around the body via excreted proteins and minerals forming layered calcium carbonate. Alric added armored patches to his shoulders and chest forming organic pauldrons and chest plate. He reinforced his forearms even further for blocking. The snail shell was far more uniform in color but did seem to make the deep green color slightly darker. The plates would look black with green sheen in the right light. The bands from how snail shells grow seemed to want to remain on the plates despite not growing out naturally. Alric could probably change that but liked the texture.
Alric still had some snail energy to spend, but not enough to do much more meaningful armor. He reexamined the traits of the humble snail and noticed something. Snails produced mucus. The self-lubrication also served as a form of protection from drying out and other dangers. While a snail produced very little of the slime it was highly efficient at retaining moisture.
If he could harness the power of the snails' skin to excrete the substance, he could sweat it out to help protect him from some of the heat. It would boil in seconds under dragons' breath but was rapidly replenishable and would make the scales far more viable. There was just one big problem. Snail mucus is gross.
Even Alric would hate to be slimy for the rest of his life. No, he needed to be able to choose to excrete the slime. Snails as it turned out had more than one thickness of slime and could choose how thick and the quantity of slime produced. With this information quickly revealed to Alric's examination of the essence he didn't hesitate to add the new ability. He could at will sweat a large amount of mucous of varying thickness. At the thinnest and smallest quantity, it was little more than a light perspiration of slippery liquid that made the scales slightly slippery. At the other extreme he could rapidly coat himself in a thin layer of heat-resistant coolant slime. He still hated the idea of using this ability. It didn't come with a way to remove any leftover slime. He decided it was better to have it than become dragon BBQ without using everything he had at his disposal.
Besides he didn't have to use it if he didn't get hit. Alric looked at his work. The innate armor looked like it had always been there, integrating seamlessly and completely thanks to the nature of his ability and not entirely his own skill at sculpting. The lessons from evolution had been distilled into each of the animal defenses he had used and then willed to combine to form a hybrid that used the best of each.
Alric smiled, he was now an armored behemoth with many advantages he hadn't started this journey with. He would continue to grow and fight. Perhaps songs would one day speak of him as a mythical figure. But for now, Alric just hoped he wouldn't ever have to use his newest forbidden technique: the emergency slime defense. While strong Alric couldn't help but imagine how ridiculous such a last resort would look. A particular pair of mischievous old eyes flashed into Alric's thoughts in a flash of amused blue.
"On second thought it might be better to just let the fire take me…"