CHAPTER 2
"Save...me...Save me!" she says...you hear her voice, but its mellow and drowned out; choked out, by vines of pooling sludge! You try to reach out, but she only cries out: "The beast is eating me! The Master-of-Trolls, Anselman, Lord-upon-Blood-and-stone!" you try to reach out but the echoes disappear into the murky pool...
You wake up from the dream...you are still here, in the ramshackled shak...Your palm has a deep cut...it burns. The ferns outside sing to it: "It's killing her!"
And the river stream bellows out, pure: "Go, save her! Do we have to yell at you? Her skin is red with blood, her eyes are teary star orbs, and she cries for you, for your name only! Now go!" And the boards creak: "To the place southbound where men go to die! The land of shades, where they become the panthermen, masters of the technology of the olden years! Go!"
"Answer me, spirit, and I will search for her eager: Do you betray me? How is it so that a troll lives in the land of the tortured and torturers!? And how do I know she is not already a monster?!"
The toad croaks: "The troll...Isheidem Muhk...the Anselman...has fled from the north to south with her...the time is short...he will soon be discovered...he hides in a mage tower...with a host of his kin..."
The rat squeaks: "They have tortured her! You must go!"