Not quite...

The good news is that the figure is humanoid and can at least speak Common, so you're not dealing with anything eldritch or wild beasts. You manage to make out greenish-grey skin almost camouflaging into the swampy landscape, though it might also be the leathery leggings and top the stranger is wearing. Their build is a strange combination of lithe, yet clearly muscular, with shoulders wider than the waist but a suggestively curvaceous contour around the ass, and definitely a nice healthy bit of chest. You turn your eyes towards their face, surprised at what you see. There's no mistaking the sharp, elongated ears of an elf, but the piercing eyes are an odd shade of purple with a hint of bloodlust behind them, along with a bulbous nose, narrow mouth and slightly thick lips. A mess of dirt-brown hair caked with swamp grime tops her head, just about covering her brow.

"AAARGH! Swamp demon!" screams your trapped companion.

"Well, isn't that the nicest thing someone's called me all day," she leers. Her voice has the characteristic gruff boom of an orc, yet the brightness of an elf's lilting soprano. "Thought I'd finally captured some players, but I didn't think NPCs were dumb enough to wander in here. The hell are you two doing in Griever's Swamp, anyway?"

"You're a thrall!" you can't help yourself from exclaiming.

"Oh, right. Acting like you're the first genius pointing that out," she sniffs. "So what'll it be? Racial slurs? Projectile spells? Anything else you want to rudely hurl in my general direction?"

"How about a little HELP!" Another yell from the pit. "Togos' teeth, I'm feeling these little fuckers in my pants!"

"Ah, calm the hell down, will you? I didn't even use the deadly ones! ...Can't use the deadly ones, actually," the thrall snorts. "They're cowperleeches. About the only thing they eat is semen."

Another howl, more panicked and high-pitched than ever, rises from the pitfall trap.

"Uh, be that as it may... whoops!" You make a failed grab for your new hammer as it falls off your back, splashing into the swamp muck. "W-we mean no harm or offense. If, as I believe we are, not in particular danger... would you mind helping us down? Up? Whichever applies?"

"...Eh, why not?" shrugs the stranger. "I don't feel like having human today. ...Ugh, will you stop struggling?! It only makes them more excited! I was kidding about the human!"

Some time later you find yourself on a small raft, crudely lashed together but sufficiently sturdy, put out on a dark aquamarine lagoon. Among a bed of reeds stands a circular hut presumably made of the same material. Every now and then bubbles and foam emerge to the mucky surface, and you hold onto your robes even tighter.

"Well, we're here!" barks the thrall, literally kicking you two off the boat. "Make yourself at home or whatever."

Unsurprisingly, "cosy" is not a word you would use to describe her little setup. A sputtering fire in the middle, bags and collections of plants and who-knows-what, a hammock and worn stone axe hung from the bristly walls. The thug tries his best to wring the murk out of his clothes, then places himself near the smoky fire when he fails to do so.

"So, brainiac," he asks you, when he thinks the host is out of earshot. "The hell's a thrall, anyway?"

"Ssssh!" You shush him. "Uh... well, there's not really a particularly nice way of saying this, but - "

"If you two lovebirds are done flirting with each other by the fire," she snaps. "It's fine, I can explain. When an elf and a troll aren't busy trying to strangle each other to **** - for once - and the stars align for some dumbshit reason, they get a room."

"Wait, you mean... oh."

"Put two and two together on your own now, didn't you? You smart, smart human, you," sneers the thrall. "Course, given that elves and trolls generally hate the sight and scent of each other, anything that comes out of a horizontal fling like that is basically dirt. Like little old me, see?"

"I didn't know there were free thralls in Alluvia," you point out carefully.

"There aren't! Not that I've heard of, anyway," your host admits. "If we're not strangled by our birth parents, most of us don't even survive abandonment. And those're the lucky ones - domesticated thralls don't even get half the rights that animal companions have. I remember breaking my way out of captivity but that's it. Maybe I was troll on my mother's side; I hear thralls with troll dads barely have the strength to break wood barehanded. That's about all I can do."

"So what are you doing out here?"

"Nothing! Think the game developers thought it was a good idea dropping me here, then forgetting about me. I don't know if I'm a witch doctor NPC or a midboss. Nobody cares!" she sniffs. "Most players don't even come in here, not since the corruption came and turned the forest into muck."

"I thought the swamp was here since forever," remarks the thug.

"Ha, no. It used to be at least semi-decent for living by your lonesome," scoffs the half-troll. "The pixies and dryads didn't mind me. Then all of a sudden, it's like some dark god jackass decided that taking a dump on this place was a good idea. Boom, corrupted swamp! About the only things that're up and about are corrupt dryads and driders. Oh, and about a metric ton of leeches. All of them looking for something to suck off or get their wood shafted in." The thought sobers the bandit quite noticeably, and he shivers.

"And you never thought about leaving?"

"Why? Why would I leave? Sure, it's not a picture postcard home, but at least things generally don't want to kill me here. Like they've got, oh, I dunno, royal elven blood or something." At this she performs a stunted mimicry of a hoity-toity elfin princess. "That was years ago. Came across this team of elves, trying to take my head off for 'dirtying her highness's battle bustier'. No, you know what, I think I'll take my chances with the leeches. Not like I'm going to get off on anything aside from the odd vagsucker."

"Too much information, thanks," mutters your friend, looking incredibly disgusted, but he turns to find you scratching the mess of mustache under your nose. "Hmmm..."

"Oh, no. You can't possibly be thinking - ?"