This is part three in the actual play report from the Faery's Tale game I'm running for my wife. Last time, Liza and Cherry had exited the underground tunnel and once again picked up on the trail left by Markle in the dirt.
Having located Markle's trail, Liza races ahead, certain that she can catch him up - he's toting a large bag after all - fatigue has to set in sometime.
After running for several yards, they see ahead of them in the darkness a big, lumbering, oafish night troll. He is moving in the exact same direction they are going. Liza sees this as an opportunity for a free ride. [This was impressive roleplaying to me. My wife has some clever ideas. Some players may have chosen to find a way to take the troll out - defeat him. But not Liza! Fighting trolls is a job for sprites. Liza is a brownie - she has a different approach.] She turns invisible and darts forth, hoping to reach the troll and grab a shred of his gnarled pants. She whispers to Cherry to follow along, but out of view. She hears the troll mumbling to himself: "Yummy faery snack. I find you, little faery." He has apparently spotted Markle, and is trying to catch him for food!
Liza runs as fast as her little brownie legs will carry her, hoping to catch up to the night troll. [I thought this would be somewhat difficult, considering the size difference, so I rated it at Tricky (2). She rolled no successes.] Liza finds that she's gaining on the troll, and then - TRIP! - her foot catches on something, and she goes down with a high-pitched yelp. The night troll stops and turns around, looking. His nightvision allows him to see everything at night as if it is daytime. Fortunately, Liza is invisible. The troll says, "What is it? Is it a faery?" He sniffs the air and scans the area for a few moments, then turns back to his original pursuit.
Liza becomes visible again so that Cherry can locate her. She waves Cherry over and whispers her next plan: "Pick up some pebbles, fly up, and throw the pebbles down as hard as you can onto some big rocks to create a distracting noise! Maybe we can get the troll to head off in a different direction, off the trail!" Cherry whirs off to the side of the trail, into the trees and throws the pebbles down onto a boulder. They bounce down the side of the boulder, clicking along the way. The troll looks in the direction of the sound and sees Cherry's pixie dust floating down among the treetops.
Now, the night troll faced a dilemma - which faery to pursue. [I figured this would be a relatively simple decision, even for a big oaf. After all, one faery was flying around, the other was stuck on land. So I rolled for the troll against a Mind challenge of Easy (1). He achieved 1 success.] The troll gave up on the idea of chasing after the pixie and returned to his pursuit of the brownie. The hesitation was time enough for Liza to catch up to a range of about 10 feet behind.
"There you are, little faery. Now I will get you," the troll says. He has apparently spotted Markle. Liza puts her energy into racing forward as fast as her little legs will carry her. [I had her roll a Body challenge of Easy (1) to see if she could catch up to the troll. She succeeded.] She gets under his feet and jumps up, grabbing a loose tatter hanging from his pant leg. [I had the troll roll a Mind challenge of Easy (1) to see if he could sense the tug at his leg. He failed.] The troll doesn't feel the brownie's weight on his pants. Liza becomes visible momentarily so that Cherry - a few yards back, high in the air - can see her. She can't tell whether or not Cherry can see her from that distance, but Cherry still seems to be following the troll anyway.
The troll finally catches up to Markle, reaches down to grab him up, and - WOOSH! - Markle is gone, making his bag invisible as well, which is difficult but possible for a brownie. The troll pats around on the ground frantically, grabbing at the air, hoping to grip the invisible brownie. [When brownies are invisible, they retain their physical presence, so theoretically, the troll would feel an invisible brownie if he touched it. But in this case, Markle's had found a way to edge himself out of the way, carefully making sure to lift his bag instead of dragging it, which would have left a trail.] The troll kneels down and pounds the dusty ground in frustration. "I'm tired of faery. I will find something else to eat," he moans. [I later decided that I should have made it a Tricky (2) challenge for the troll to find the invisible brownie. But, it's probably better for the story that he didn't find him, and the troll isn't controlled by a player, so the consequences of his actions don't matter as much as they would for a PC.]
Liza drops quietly from the troll's pant leg and turns invisible again. Once the troll has retreated a reasonable distance, she reveals herself until Cherry locates her and flies down to join her. After a moment, they hear the familiar scraping sound of Markle dragging his bag a few feet away.
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