(Archive) Singing bushes in the Trollshaws?

Participating Players: Talmandir
                              Grimace
                              Simon

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[Grimace(#1285)] The road is fairly quiet here at night, and while trees seem to grow further in the distance, the only foliage around the road itself are three or four bushes that grunt and whisper to one another. Well, really they're orcs with bushes tied onto their heads, squatting in the dirt. But perhaps an idiot might be fooled.

Walking in the shadow of the night, a lone figure quietly walks upon the long road. Cloaked and hooded, he is but a shadow in the darkness. His gaze under the rim of the hood often travels to the side of the road, looking at the bushes that litter the area.
Suddenly, a soft splash is heard and Talmandir comes to a complete stop. The sound of sniffing is heard for a moment and then movement can be distinguished again. Slowly, the young ranger lifts his foot. A soft murmur, hiding under his breath, escapes the man, as he shakes his leg. The perils of the night are evident.

[Grimace(#1285)] One of the bushes mutters, "So I says to Mabel, I says-" "Shhh," whispers another bush, harshly. "Someone's a-comin'!" "Shh!" says another nearby. "Someone's already a-here! Do you want him to hear us?" The bushes all shuffle about shortly, and then sit quiet. One of the bushes seems to be wielding a bow and arrow another has a small sword.

The faint sound from the bushes reach Talmandir's ears and his eyes distinguish some movement. The talking vegetation is still some distance away and no clear sound can the ranger make out. He stands still for a few moments, listen to any sound that the wind might carry. Silence.

At length, he shrugs and starts walking once more. He approaches the side of the road, the opposite of that which he thought seeing the bushes move. Vigilant yet with a steady pace, he continues on.

[Grimace(#1285)] The bushes begin to make a slow stroll along behind the solitary traveler. One of the bushes begins to move at a slightly quicker pace than the rest, and accidentally stumbles into another bush. "Woops!" shouts the one bush, but the other slaps a hand over the former's mouth. "Shut up, Dafty! You've stubbed my toe, too. Argh." The other bushes slow a bit, the branches sweeping back and forth as the creatures wearing them look from the traveler to their downed companions.
The sun goes away, and trolls come out to play.

This time the ears of the Ranger catch the shout. In a smooth motion, Talmandir grabs his longbow with on hand, strung before he entered this foul forest, and with the other hand removes an arrow from his quiver. He grey eyes keep looking at the stumbled bush, as he knocks the arrow in place. Yet the arrow does not fly. Talmandir is aware of the beasts that occupy this place but also of the few humans.

"Ents are much taller in the stories." The Ranger says suddenly, his voice echoing in the night.

[Grimace(#1285)] The bushes all sit still, except for one that coughs quietly. The other bushes turn to stare at it. "Oh, uh...creaky creak. I'm a bush in the wind." The other bushes groan, and one extends a limb that doesn't look too branch-like to its face below the bush proper. "Uh...creak?" asks the same confused bush-orc.

"And what are such distinguished beings, doing in such a place." Talmandir decides to continue the game, yet pulling on the string of his bow. The tip of the arrow pointed towards the foremost bush.

[Grimace(#1285)] "Er...uh..." the one creature looks around to his fellow plant-animal hybrids. "Uh...just beating around the bush?" The other figures throw their hands up in disgust and shake their heads slowly. "What?" asks the talkative beast.

The Ranger takes a few side step, slowly trying to go pass the talking bushes. "I see." he continues, in a slow tone. "It is said, that Ents sing when they travel away from their grooves. It is in their nature some say. I have never heard an Ent song...." The young Ranger continues.

[Grimace(#1285)] The bushes all look at each other. "Oh, a song. A song. Right..." says the bush that has talked the most so far. The others only look at each other. "Maybe we-" another begins, before being cut off. "Tilly-willy! Habba-dilly! The bush's life for me! Smelly belly, hairy dairy, an orc's not what I be!" The bush begins to dance a little jig, and a rather gruesome grin is apparent beneath the bush's dirty, though three-feet-above-the-ground, roots.

Talmandir, stand some distance away from the singing bush, listening to this strange song. "I must say, I am a bit disappointed in the song. I always pictured Ent songs to sound...nicer." The Ranger says, the arrow still pointed at the closest bush. Another few side steps he takes slowly. "And that they would use bigger words." He continues on. "Well, I shall not hold you much longer. You may continue on your way." He offers to the bushes.

[Grimace(#1285)] The bushes look at each other again. "We're uh...we're bushes. We don't move around." "Yeah," says another. "Not even when dancing or walking around." The rest of the bushes groan again. The confused one sits down. "See? I'm all rooted in!"

"Then you are not Ents?" Talmandir says, an amused tone in his voice. "Well then, that puts me in an uncomfortable position for bushes do not speak either. It would be a shame if this arrow would somehow escape my fingers and hit one of you." The ranger says, cycling his aim through the three bushes. "I don't think we would want that."

[Grimace(#1285)] "Arrows hurt bushes!" says one bush, and the others nod emphatically. "Especially talking, dancing bushes. Then we can't dance or talk or eat travelers." "Oh cripes!" shouts another. "Just go ahead and kill that one," says the latter. "Really. He's worthless."

[Simon(#29999)] To the north somewhere within the hulking forest comes a noise. It is an odd noise. A strange noise. A grumbling noise not unlike boulders being rubbed and ground together. It is not though, for it is more muffled than that. If it could be described one might think it akin to the sound of a terribly upset belly, only many many times louder.

"I hate wasting my arrows on worthless veg..." Talmandir begins to say, as the loud grumbling sound is heard, startling the young ranger making him jump slightly. Alas for the sitting bush, for the arrow slips from the now sweaty fingers of the ranger and cuts through the air towards its target.

[Grimace(#1285)] The traveler's arrow pierces the bush below its roots, that is to say, the arrow finds a path through the throat of the orc wearing it. That particular 'bush' falls over, while the rest jump about, fidgeting. "Oh, he's coming, isn't he?" hisses one of the creatures. "He won't eat bushes, will he? Just tasty wanderers!" Another of the bush-creatures bites its filthy yellow nails.

Listening to the conversation of the remaining bushes, it doesn't take long for Talmandir to understand what made that noise. Grabbing another arrow for his quiver and putting in place, he says, "Vegetables is much healthier. I heard that Trolls prefer bushes." Then quickly, he adds, "Well, that is after orc meat."

With that, he starts to step down the road, while the two orcs are distracted. He continues to face the bushes though, glancing at times towards the dark forest beyond.

[Simon(#29999)]
The muffled sound of stones gnawing on stones is still a ways off to be sure, but it grows louder and more irregular and more violent until it seems as if a giant boulder was being wrenched from the mountain. A belch or worse, rips through the night. Bone shaking it is. As if that boulder were torn in two. All is silent. For only a short moment.

"Phweeew ee..." and thick fumbling lips press into a whistle.

[Grimace(#1285)] Two of the bushes sit down and clutch the sides of their heads, trying their best to remain still. "I hope he don't see us!" says one, quivering too much to really be accurately impersonating an immobile structure. The other two toss off their floral headgear and begin running south, screaming all the way.

"Oh great." Talmandir says to himself. He looks at the fleeing orcs and then at the two remain bushes, their branches shaking as if hit by an earthquake. With the whistling sound, the young ranger decides to pick up his pace eastwards. His gaze shifts back and forth between the bushes and the forest to the north, were doom is coming.

[Simon(#29999)]
Tis a bit closer now, that thick lipped whistle coming from the trees and when only a few paces off it stops and a deep, slobbering, nasaly voice floats out to the road proper. "I smells me some dinner and me sniffer don't lie!"

[Grimace(#1285)] The two bushes cringe. One of them blurts out, "Well my sniffer says dinner's gone that-a-way!" and points east. "No, fool! That way!" shouts the other, pointing south. The two orcs running southward keep up their desperate haul to safety, unaware of the conversation.

[Simon(#29999)]
By now the stench of that 'troll-belch -or-worse' has wafted on a light breeze to the road. It is formidable, it that be the proper description, as even earth worms make for deeper ground.

Making it a few paces down the road, Talmandir then jumps for the cover of the trees south of the road. He crouches down near a trunk and watches silently. As the Troll voice booms and the bushes make their own shaky reply, Talmandir awaits silently for what the Troll will do next.

[Simon(#29999)]
With a great stride and much noise a lumbering mass of troll steps out onto the road. He scratches the matted heaps of black hair adorning his cranium and speaks through a river of sticky saliva that swings from his lower lip and chin. "Funniest bushes I ever did hear talk..." he ponders, his eyes darting from the bushes, to the south, to the east, all the time following his twitching nose. "How's about the sack for ya!" and so dropping his club Simon produces a burlap sack previously hanging from his belt.

[Grimace(#1285)] One of the bushes jumps into the air, whooping. "No! Not me!" It runs about in circles, while the other sits tight, grimacing in anticipation of the troll's actions. It only emits a low growling noise, and bites harder upon its fingernails.

A small grin appears upon the face of the Ranger. With the Troll distracted by the circling bush, Talmandir take advantage of the situation and quietly begins to slip away. Using the trees for cover, he makes his way through the trunks, careful to were he steps.

Well Simon did not get to be his girth without a superior intellect and now does it shine as his logic and cleverness show itself in all their glory. "The nearest meal's always the best..." and he falters now racking his brain for the rest of the saying.... "Err, an...." The trolls arms swing the sack down like a gigantic butterfly net over the bush that shivers. "...ah...and a bush in the bags is better than the nest!" Very pleased with both what lay in the bag and his sharp recall of troll-aphorisms he grins and just watches the vegetation that runs madly about.
[Grimace(#1285)] The bush running about in circles suddenly shrieks, watching the troll pick up the other nearby bush. The shrieking bush-orc pulls the bush headdress off of itself and begins to run down the road, but stumbles and falls into a hole, where it promptly lies motionless, its legs splayed in the air like two very ugly tree-trunks.

[Simon(#29999)]
A tune triumphant comes to Simon's thick slobber-wetted lips. A melody whistled more than once in this dark forboding place.

"Got me a tastey..."
A tastey treat for me..."
Better 'n eatin' stewed scabs offin' me knee..."

With this tune Simon also makes his way towards the bush-orc that fell. Tonight the stewpot may just boil over he thinks.