Pyromania

The wall was on fire. The fields were on fire. A lot of halflings were on fire. Basically, I was getting a lot of mileage from my fire spell. The gates of the camp had been barred to us, or at least had been until a barrage of brown minions and fireballs assaulted it. The smoky haze hung low in the air, bringing a perpetual twilight to the area. I could only imagine the terror that the halflings felt, hearing their screaming comrades and seeing the flickering lights of immolating corpses moments before a minion burst from the smog to tear out their throat. All in all, it was a wonderful way to stretch my legs. Sarah grinned fiercely as she ran up to me. "This is so much better than farming pumpkins." Her blade was dripping with blood. "What do we do with the villagers?"

"If we want the two idiots to let us in, we'll need to keep them alive. Besides, it'll be far easier to take over the village if they hail us as heroes." I started to leave, but paused. "Actually, if they're as dumb as those guards were, you should probably show them the way out."

Sarah brought the hilt of her sword to her temple in a lazy salute. "Aye aye, cap'n." She spun around and jogged back into the smog. I heard her start yelling at a group of peasants we'd just freed from a wooden prison. I called the browns back to me, preparing to push forward. One of the peasants, a man holding a pickaxe with a chipped front tooth, ran up to me before I could move.

"Begging your pardon, milord! The rest of us are up ahead, but the halflings have a troll guarding them. He's a big bugger, already ate some of us earlier. Just thought you should know." I examined him for a second.

"Find me when I return to your village. I will deliver a suitable reward for your information." This was precisely the kind of behaviour I wanted to encourage. Making a scene of it would do wonders for Spree's opinion of me.

"Oh thank you milord! I'll be sure to do so." The man turned and walked off in the direction of Sarah's voice. The browns and I proceeded, leaving the smoke. Soon, we came across a group of wooden prisons, slightly sunk into the ground. Halflings were arrayed around them, taunting the peasants held inside. In the center, stood the troll. It was a head taller than my already large frame, with stooped shoulders and deep set eyes. Rolls of fat hung from every inch of its body, each movement sending rippling waves through them. A ragged cloth was all that covered its modesty, though with the size of its belly I wasn't sure I'd have seen anything even if the cloth came off. Each digit on its brutish hands and feet was capped by a thick, yellow, chipped nail. Frankly, it was a little much. I'm all for the whole indulgence and sin thing, but is a manicure too much to ask for? Or a bath at least.

It seemed that the occupants of the camp hadn't noticed us yet, so I began looking for anything to take advantage of the situation. Thank whatever dark god I'm meant to worship I did, as I found a luminous brown crack in the ground. I positioned myself next to it, and sent my browns toward the troll. Best to remove the largest threat first. With a single blow of his hand, the troll wiped out half the ****, the other half soon following in their comrade's footsteps. They'd barely had a chance to hurt the thing. "Gnarl? How many brown souls do we have stored up?"

"Not enough, sire."

I grimaced. "I see." Pulling out another set of browns, I considered my options. The halflings were alert now, the element of surprise wasted, though the troll seemed unconcerned, not even bothering to look for where the browns had come from. If the previous part of the camp was anything to go by, the halflings would be no match for the browns, but that didn't help at all with the troll. The only other combatant here was...

me.

Now, the clever thing to do would be to wait for Sarah and attack the troll together. Patience would be very helpful here. However, patience may be a virtue, but I'm a lord of sin. I was gonna destroy this thing.

The browns crept along the sides of the camp, engaging the crowd of halflings. I drew my axe and began sauntering towards the troll. It was certainly strong, but with all that fat I doubted it was particularly fast. That was the last thought I had before I was backhanded across the clearing, massively denting my helmet. The troll began shuffling towards me, and I scrambled to my feet. I was going to have to be more nimble with this. I carefully approached again, not bothering to prepare an attack. A wave rippled across the troll's fat, emanating from its left shoulder. Hoping that meant what I thought it did, I began dodging as if a blow was coming from the left. A fat covered limb whistled through the air above my head, and I let out a mental cheer. That was the tell! Keeping my eye on its fat, I began dodging strikes and returning blows of my own. While its fat was too thick to get through in a single hit, aiming for the same areas really began doing damage. It started winding up for a powerful hit, and I rolled under its arm, swinging at its back as hard as I could. Instead of sinking into its spine and paralyzing the thing, I felt my axe being torn from my grasp as the troll spun around to face me. Taking advantage of my surprise, it hit me again, and I found myself on the ground with a crumpled chestplate. I was slower to get up this time, the chestplate making breathing difficult, and I took stock of my situation. Behind me was a closed gate, and surrounding me were walls of dirt and wood. The only exit was on the other side of a slowly approaching, very mad troll with cuts of various deepness into its fat all around its body and an axe in its back. My arsenal, on the other hand, consisted of dented armour and bare hands. I needed to stay out of its range of attack. If only I had something long range-

I would have smacked myself in the forehead had it not been for my imminent ****. I'd forgotten about magic! Having only just gotten it, it had left my mind as soon as I let my battle instincts take over. Fire flickered to life in my curled fist, and I launched it forward to meet the troll's advance. It balked as the flame hit it, and I grinned victoriously, only for my face to fall as it started walking again, almost unhurt. I grit my teeth. Unless Sarah got back in time to save me, this was my last chance. Fireball after fireball hit the troll, almost nothing happening, until all at once, the flame caught on the fat. The troll screamed, falling over, and was soon reduced to a charred corpse, some smoldering ashes, and my axe lying next to it.

The browns had finished dealing with the halflings, and I started them looking around for a way to open the gate behind me. I slumped down against one of the walls, exhausted. "That was an exceedingly dumb move, sire."

"Aren't you meant to tell me I'm doing great and evil things? I thought that was your job or purpose in life or something."

"I'm your advisor, sire. And in this case, I advise you that you were being an idiot."

I chuckled. "I really should have waited for Sarah, huh."

"Or any other plan of action that didn't involve fighting a troll head on. You've barely tapped into the potential of the Overlord. You could have died!"

"Sure, Mom."

"Don't take that tone with me, young man."

The scene that Sarah walked in on was a field of bloody halflings, a charred troll, a slowly opening gate, and me slumped against the side of a box full of villagers, giggling like a madman. She rushed over to me.

"What happened?"

"I uh, fought a troll."

"And WON?"

"Ta daaa." I said weakly.

She stared at me for a second. "We are so gonna fuck once we get back." Sarah grabbed my hand to help me up, and with her help I hobbled through the gate.

On the other side were a small group of cheering slaves, their backs facing the crane that we'd been looking for. Sarah and I looked at each other. "Two idiots are going to be introduced to a world of hurt once we return to the village."

Sarah giggled. "We probably wouldn't have found it without them, you know. I just wonder what they're planning to tell us when we get back."

"Bold of you to assume they thought that far ahead." The browns moved to pick up the crane, and to the sound of cheering villagers we moved off to find a portal back to the tower.