Overpowered Wizard

“You looking red there, puny human,” grunted the massive troll as he towered over Lord Gilbert.

Wallenberg shrank backward, becoming deathly afraid. The troll was fifteen feet tall and the most muscular troll around.

He made Lord Gilbert look truly puny, and Lord Gilbert was relatively a large specimen of a man. But there was no overcoming the mighty height and physique of a troll.

The immense and muscular troll standing over them, just like all trolls, had huge ram horns spiraling out from the sides of his head. His skin was grayish. His face was big, squarish, with a wide flat nose, sharpened teeth, and drooping earlobes that touched his shoulders.

Like all trolls, he was bald up top, but he had a mighty beard that dangled from his chin to his chest in braids with metallic ornaments or the bones of his enemies. All males had beards, whether long or short, while the females remained bare around their faces and heads.

A more obvious way to tell males and females apart was as simple as looking at their chests. There was no mistaking the heavy endowment of the troll females that they barely held back using canvasses or tarps the size of whole blankets.

Other than that, they wore loincloths and sometimes belts holding their personal items and weapons. That was about it. Trolls looked, dressed, and acted as wild as an uncivilized creature could while existing in a city like Crossdeath.

Worse yet, they believed in acting in groups.

Now that Lord Gilbert acquired attention of the biggest and mightiest troll there, the other trolls ventured from their drinking den and came outside. Full-bearded males and large-chested females smiled meanly down at the humans who’d stumbled too close to their more exclusive establishment.

Wallenberg truly felt like a bug, yet the foreigners held their ground still.

“Yeah, red like blood.” The leading troll chuckled deeply, and his kin chuckled the same behind him. “If you’re not careful, my kin will crush you just to make you redder. They’ll send all your red blood flying. Heh heh heh.”

The trolls laughed some more.

“Maybe we should leave?” Wallenberg insisted with a hiss.

“Nah, nah, wait a bit. I want to see where this goes.” Lord Zarian waved him down.

Wallenberg wanted to yell. Then he noticed the looks coming from a few trolls.

The females looked at him in ways that made him feel like prey. Wallenberg was tongue-tied, and the situation only grew worse.

“I’m all red in the face because I’m angry,” Lord Gilbert said boldly, completely undaunted in the presence of such immense and mighty creatures.

“Oh! Is that so?” The muscular troll laughed down at Lord Gilbert again. The other trolls laughed some more. “Why so angry, puny red human? Did a troll take away something from you? Are you here to cry? Don’t you know there’s a troll tax? If it’s not your life, then it’s your stuff. And if you want your stuff, then it’ll be your life.”

The trolls laughed even louder, thunderously so!

Wallenberg felt their meanspirited merrymaking in his chest. He really needed to leave. He needed to escape. Nobody would save him or miss him if he ended up as a troll’s play thing.

But Lord Gilbert remained undaunted as he looked up at the trolls with a steely blue gaze. “Nobody took nothing from me! I’m angry because I’m still thirsty, and I don’t think this place has anything that can hit the spot.”

The trolls stopped laughing.

The leading troll looked down at Lord Gilbert seriously. “You know not what you’re saying, puny red human.”

Lord Gilbert snorted. “Oh, I know what I’m saying. I know it very well. I’ve been drinking and drinking all around this city. I’ve even had beers the people here claim to come from around the world. But ain’t nothing here that hits the spot. I’m getting to where I’ll have to use up my last stock of beer from the Blood Prairie Savages.” Р

Blood Prairie Savages?! Wallenberg nearly screamed. Why does Lord Gilbert have beer from the Blood Prairie Savages? I once heard that even the Death Lords are wary of those creatures!

Now the trolls looked angry.

The males growled in the back. The females reached down for the weapons on their primitive leather belts.

No, no, no, what have you done, Lord Gilbert? To bring up the likes of the Blood Prairies Savages in front of the Death Forested Marchers is asking for war!

Wallenberg didn’t think he would die a troll fun toy anymore. He would merely die as a squashed human on the street if things went any further south than this.

The leading troll roared down at Lord Gilbert, spittle flying in big ropes. “Are you trying to scare me, puny human?! I’m Hoodah the Hulk Meister!”

Hoodah straightened and flexed his mighty muscles as Wallenberg gagged on air. Hoodah turned his baleful glare on Wallenberg and pointed at him. “You! You look like you’re from here! Tell them what it means to face Hoodah the Hulk Meister!”

Wallenberg took that as his cue to explain. “Forgive me, Lord Hoodah, I didn’t recognize you. It seems you’ve grown even larger with greater Strength! Yes, well, Lord Hoodah the Hulk Meister is one of the Berserk Death Lord’s favored sparring partners and a trusted warrior of the Crossdeath Militia Commander.”

“Is that it, small human child?!” Lord Hoodah roared.

“Ah! No, of course not!” Wallenberg wracked his brain quickly for more lore. “Ah, of course, forgive me, milord, for I’m doing my best to explain your magnificence. So, yes, Lord Hoodah is undefeated in most skirmishes along the foothills of the Grimrock Castle Mountains, especially when there are challenge bouts between Crossdeath and Stalwart. Hoodah has defeated some of the strongest paladins!”

“That’s nothing! What else am I known for?” Lord Hoodah demanded.

“And he’s the greatest drinker of these lands! Nobody can out-drink Lord Hoodah the Hulk Meister!” Wallenberg shouted quickly for dear life. “So, maybe we should just continue our tour somewhere else and leave Lord Hoodah alone.”

Wallenberg tried to urge the foreign lords, foreign ladies, and their foreign princess elsewhere. But they continued to stand their ground. All of them.

The foreign humans had an intensity about them that frightened Wallenberg. Lady Naomi kept her focus on her psychic sword crafting, and Lady Hannah seemed more focused on examining the trolls for the specimen they were.

But Lord Gilbert, Lord Zarian, and Princess Bianca looked up in defiance of Lord Hoodah and his entourage.

“Hey, Gilbert, are you going to take that?” Lord Zarian asked. “He’s claiming he’s the greatest drinker of these lands. Is that something you’re going to let go?”

No, no, no! You’re doing that thing you did to make me punch nobles! Stop that, Lord Zarian, please!

Wallenberg tried to think quickly about what to say to avert the oncoming disaster. But Princess Bianca pressed her gauntlet-clad hand over Wallenberg’s mouth and spoke in his stead.

“I bet Wally’s just being nice. He doesn’t want to hurt Lord Hoodah’s feelings by telling him the truth.” Princess Bianca pointed up at the trolls with her free hand. “Gilbert’s the best drinker! Better than Lord Hoodah! Better than all of you, COMBINED!”

Lord Hoodah and the other trolls looked flabbergasted by this claim.

Then things became irreparably bad as Lord Gilbert knelt down and clasped his hands together. “Dear God, forgive me for what I’m going to do. For I’m going to embarrass the hell out of these sonuvabitches and let them know they ain’t got what you gave me. In His Name I pray … Amen.”

Gilbert rose back to his feet. The steely focus in his bright blue eyes sharpened to a deadly point. “Now, are we here to have a tea party and some biscuits? Or are we here to FUCKING DRINK?!”

The trolls went ballistic! They roared so loudly the noise became like a flying wall and nearly thrown Wallenberg off his feet. He staggered backwards woozily and took a few seconds to recollect himself before he caught sight of the trolls acting out in anger.

The trolls turned to each other and smashed their heads together. The female trolls bashed their own weapons against their giant ram horns. The male trolls beat on their chests like war drums. Then they ran about and shook up the street as they kept roaring.

Lord Gilbert, Lord Zarian, and Princess Bianca roared in return.

Lady Hannah stood back and watched.

Lady Naomi kept working on her psychic sword.

Everyone else who wasn’t a troll and was passing on the edges of the Troll District turned and ran away. It was too late for Wallenberg to escape with them.

The trolls were big and fast. They would catch him if he tried to run. They would twist off his limbs one by one, being especially cruel to those they deemed cowards.

Wallenberg hoped for a quick death.

To his ever-growing surprise, Wallenberg remained unharmed and alive. Instead of getting yanked apart by trolls, he watched the trolls grab benches and boxes from the drinking den and slam them boldly outside on the street.

Wallenberg didn’t quite understand what was truly happening when he found himself plucked off the floor by a female troll who grabbed him roughly like one would a detestable baby. Then Wallenberg ended up slammed down onto a bench so hard he felt his spine crinkle a little.

A few tears clouded his vision. He wiped them away quickly. He felt panicky, flinching at every fast and large movement around him. He even felt dizzy, confused, and out of his element.

More crashing sounded off around him. More immense bodies moved wrathfully close by, the floor constantly quaking, which shook up the bench under him.

Only when things finally settled down some, Wallenberg found a smaller than average troll woman sitting across from him. But small for them was still ten feet tall to Wallenberg.

The troll woman smiled at him nastily before barking orders. “Drink, puny little boy. Or I will crush you.”

Massive mugs made for trolls slammed down from across Wallenberg and the shorter-than-average troll female in front of him.

Wallenberg looked wide-eyed at his troll mug. It was the size of a beer cask. He looked to his left and found the others.

Lord Gilbert sat across from Lord Hoodah the Hulk Meister.

Lord Zarian sat across from another mighty male troll.

Princess Bianca sat across from a troll shaman woman wearing a traditional headdress with feathers, beads, and skulls.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Then there was Wallenberg himself who sat across from his own drinking foe.

“I’m only eighteen,” Wallenberg mumbled.

The troll woman grinned, baring her flesh-ripping teeth. “I’m only seventeen! We are meant to be, oh puny boy. I will drink you to death. But if you survive, I will play with you to death! Heh heh heh!”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Wallenberg’s mouth opened and closed. The event carried on with no concern for his well being.

“This is the troll beer of the Death Forested Marchers!” Lord Hoodah boasted, raising his mug. “It is a mighty drink that will destroy your vitality if you aren’t tough enough like trolls are! You will find no greater drink, for this will prove how better we are than the Blood Prairie Savages and you foreigners!”

The trolls sitting on Lord Hoodah’s side along with the trolls surrounding the contestants and serving as audience cheered, roared, and clapped thunderously. Many bashed each other’s heads together or drummed their own weapons against their ram horns.

Ever-opportunistic goblins appeared from the shadows. They scurried beneath the trolls and conducted bets with trinkets that could represent any sort of currency or value only known to certain groups within their Old Death Crawlers tribe.

Wallenberg shook his head and took stock of the situation. The benches were tall enough for a troll to sit on, which placed the humans about six feet off the floor.

The boxes were at the same height and placed close enough to the human side so they didn’t have to reach far. Wallenberg could look over and see the foul, fizzling green sludge that hissed and croaked at the brim of his troll mug.

He didn’t think this would be the way he died, choking on poisonous troll beer. At the very least, he would go out in a blaze of glory before he reunited with his parents in Hidden Hell.

The young troll woman across from him kept looking at him in a mean and nasty way. She kept muttering, “Gonna crush you and play with you, puny boy.”

Wallenberg sighed. He endured the onslaught of threats and readied himself for a most excruciating death.

“Wait,” Lord Gilbert said.

“There’s no backing out now, little human!” Lord Hoodah roared.

Lord Gilbert didn’t back out. He grabbed his mug with both hands and knocked it back. He drained its contents so fast, Wallenberg wondered if Lord Gilbert somehow had void magic.

The vitality-damaging drink smeared some of itself on his golden beard by the time he finished, but he barely wasted much more of the foul troll drink.

He slammed the mug down and let out a small burp. Then he looked up with a steely blue-eye glare into Lord Hoodah’s baleful eyes and said some words that Wallenberg would remember for the rest of his life.

“Mm, okay, it’ll do,” Lord Gilbert said. “Now fill me up again and let’s get going. You’re going to need the head start. Trust me.”

The game was quite simple. The ones who kept drinking without falling out would win. Every time a drinker emptied their mug they would receive a point, but the points mattered less. The spirit of the game relied on drinking nonstop every round.

The drinkers could use the restroom and even vomit if they must. But they had to keep drinking or give up.

The game ended when there was only one left. If nobody remained upright, then the points would get tallied to decide a winner.

Since trolls were some of the rowdiest of intelligent beings, they liked to sing and shout in between rounds of drinking. It was said that trolls who sang and drank invited the power of their ancestors, which made their drinking prowess even stronger.

Thus, it was no wonder why it was highly offensive of Lord Gilbert and his foreign friends to think they could stand against Lord Hoodah the Hulk Meister and his fellow trolls of the Death Forested Marchers in a game that trolls always dominated.

Lord Hoodah led the song with four lines. Everyone – even the foreigners – followed his lines with the traditional troll’s response.

“There’s a corrupted mountain to our backs!

“Our true lords are spiders and want their snacks!

“The paladins cry for heavenly crap!

“Trolls don’t care! We fuck! We drink! We nap or scrap!”

“SCRAP!”

The contestants knocked back their mugs, which included Wallenberg. The foul drink flowed like chunky, bubbly slime over his tongue and felt like a congealed mess down his throat.

He gulped and gulped, filling up fast, and feeling sicker even faster.

By the time he finished his drink, everyone was already done and getting refills. His opponent licked her lips and laughed meanly at him. The young troll woman had finished her drink in a fraction of the time it took him to finish.

A troll tavern woman moved about with surprising grace and filled up the mugs of the contestants with supernatural speed. She’d prepared the next round of drinks while Wallenberg still reeled after the first round.

Lord Hoodah carried on with four more lyrical lines. Everyone else prepared to respond.

“The battlefield is filled with blood and broken skulls!

“My mother’s father’s uncle’s axe broke on the walls!

“The paladins cry to the angels’ ball sack!

“Trolls don’t care! We fuck! We drink! We nap or scrap!”

“SCRAP!”

Wallenberg felt his stomach somersault and turn into jelly as he looked down at the foul drink that filled his troll mug to the top. His misery only grew more profound as the others drank rapidly. Even Princess Bianca powered her way through the drink with such gusto, Wallenberg felt weak and infantile seeing that.

I cannot dishonor myself in front of a princess.

Wallenberg picked up the mug and powered through. He felt a part of his spirit leave his body. The vitality he’d grown from years of hard hunting could only withstand so much.

By the time he finished the second round of the horrifying drink, everyone already had their mugs refilled. The troll tavern woman was looking down impatiently at him.

His young troll opponent continued to laugh and jeer at him. Wallenberg wished he would die already. He watched his mug get refilled speedily. Lord Hoodah carried on with the last part of the singsong ceremony before the drinking contest turned even more awful.

“Trolls are first ones in and last ones out!

“Trolls must face all calvary and mean mounts!

“The paladins cry to their goddess’s fun sack!

“Trolls don’t care! We fuck! We drink! We nap or scrap!”

“SCRAP!”

Now it was a free-for-all. Wallenberg drained his mug as fast as he could. He didn’t know how he finished it, but he got it down somehow.

He held back from barfing and looked around in a daze.

The massive troll tavern woman moved about at a brisk pace with extraordinary grace. She poured and poured and poured as mugs rose and the contestants yelled, “SCRAP!”

It was incredible how the tavern woman could keep track of who called for her attention and in what order as she went around in a frenzy.

The audience kept yelling, “SCRAP! SCRAP! SCRAP!” in the background to add to the cacophony and chaos. The contestants drank as soon as they had their mugs refilled with more of the hellish and awful drink.

Wallenberg truly believed himself to be at the gates of Hidden Hell. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t fallen from his seat and expired. Perhaps he had to endure both the troll drink and the nasty and cruel nature of the trolls themselves.

The looks he’d received from his opponent were harrowing. If he didn’t die from the troll beer, she would surely make him regret it. Based on the stories Wallenberg knew about troll women, he wouldn’t make it out alive.

Eventually, Wallenberg couldn’t help but barf. He couldn’t stop himself from running to the nearest toilet, which was a horrid venture, and running back to the table.

He was behind in points.

He was still alive somehow.

The troll tavern woman had refilled his mug. He drank again. When it came around to being his turn, he was still alive, so he drank again. Eventually, he had to empty his bladder again, but he didn’t vomit anymore.

He went back and forth, slowly keeping along with the game. He drank. He emptied his bladder. He tried not to slide and fall on the floor of the troll toilet. Even Hisscreep’s many creepers and crawlers wouldn’t exist on the floor of a troll toilet.

Wallenberg drank. He cried. He drank. He remained alive. He listened to the young troll woman speak in damning ways about how she wanted to add his tears into her drink and savor it in the morning after she finished playing with him.

Wallenberg used the toilet. He drank some more. Then the damndest thing happened.

His opponent fell out.

“You’re tough for a puny … man,” the troll girl mumbled, falling unconscious on the floor.

Wallenberg couldn’t believe it.

He kept drinking.

Later on, another troll fell. This one was the second troll warrior who sat across from Lord Zarian.

Wallenberg kept drinking.

Then the troll shaman woman fell, making Princess Bianca the clear victor between them. The princess jumped to her feet on the bench, cheering and laughing, and she still drunk from her mug.

Wallenberg drank some more.

He kept going at a slow but consistent pace somehow. He should be dead, but his vitality hadn’t run out yet. In fact, his vitality felt charged up and energetic.

More amazingly, none of the foreigners had fallen out. Princess Bianca kept drinking like she was a troll herself. Lord Zarian was a monster of a drinker.

And then there was Lord Gilbert.

He was a behemoth of a drinker.

With only a few breaks, Lord Gilbert kept up with Lord Hoodah, downing drink after drink. The two roared and yelled at each other, like two mighty and monstrous men who were in the throes of the most primal of matches.

But they weren’t angry anymore. Instead, they seemed invigorated with the utmost of masculine passion that only men like them could ever understand.

They cussed at each other. They swore in ways that Wallenberg found artistic.

And they drank and drank and drank!

Eventually, the clear winners came ahead after another loser dropped out.

Lord Hoodah.

The Hulk Meister.

Fell.

Wallenberg quickly stopped drinking from there. Princess Bianca bowed out. Lord Zarian finished up.

Lord Gilbert remained as the sole survivor of the contest. He stood at the pinnacle of humanity after overcoming a mighty troll in a game that humans weren’t meant to win.

“I AM THE MAN OF FAITH! I AM THE SHIELD OF GOD! I AM THE LORD OF BEER!” roared Lord Gilbert, standing on Lord Hoodah’s chest, the unconscious troll unable to do anything but lay there beneath the triumphant man’s boots.

To Wallenberg’s surprise, the other trolls only cheered along with Lord Gilbert. The goblins scurrying about cried aloud and even went on tantrums, having lost bets that most shouldn’t have lost at all.

Only a few goblins cheered and repeated the same lines Lord Gilbert had said in their fit of zany excitement. Those few winners might not make it back to their dwelling in decent health based on how the others scowled at them.

The trolls didn’t care about the losses. They swept Lord Gilbert up, hoisting him far off the ground. Then the trolls hauled him away to celebrate deeper in their district.

Many of the female trolls cheered in sharper and more feminine tones for Lord Gilbert’s attention, which left Wallenberg somewhat concerned. Thankfully, someone else voiced the question Wallenberg struggled to ask.

“Are we sure we should let Gilbert get taken by them?” Lady Hannah asked, looking up from a book.

“He’s going to miss out on my sword being the best sword, that loser,” Lady Naomi grumbled, still working on her insane weapon.

Wallenberg looked drunkenly at the princess and the black lord.

“Hm. I don’t know. What if he blames me?” Princess Bianca asked.

“Nah. Let him have his fun.” Lord Zarian waved it off.

Princess Bianca shook her head at him. “First a witch. Now a troll woman?”

“Could be more than just one.”

“You just want to hold this over him for a big bad joke, don’t you?”

Lord Zarian’s expression was flat at first. Then it twisted into a nefarious smile before he let loose a dark and evil laugh.

Wallenberg was too drunk to think much about the meaning of all this. He was too drunk for much of anything except for one question.

“How?” Wallenberg asked.

“We totally cheated because of Gilbert healing us. That stuff was hella nasty otherwise,” whispered the disattached voice of Lord Zarian to Wallenberg’s ear. “If you go join Gilbert now, he could probably keep you alive if you want to take your shot with that troll girl of yours. I bet they live by a rule that if you defeat them, they’ll be submissive.”

“No, I’m fine,” Wallenberg said.

“Great!” Lord Zarian clapped his hands as he spoke aloud and in the open. “We’re not too late to catch the tail end of the ball. Let’s get going shall we?”

Wallenberg started to change his mind.

He thought hard if he wanted to take his chances with the troll girl who was a year younger and decently small for trolls. She was getting off the floor and walking about in a daze right now.

Her current state and his more victorious status might mean he was more likely to survive her. But she was still ten feet tall and incredibly mighty. And she lacked the refined features of human girls.

The ball or the troll? Wallenberg thought questioningly.

Unfortunately, he ran out of time to think.

Princess Bianca scooped him up and tossed him over her shoulder like a human sack. He did everything he could not to vomit.

Somehow, he held everything in, but he was quickly carried away toward the Death Lord Ball.

There’s nothing I can do. We’re meant to go there, aren’t we? Wallenberg thought dizzily. Well, at least I got to beat a troll in a drinking game. That’s certainly an unexpected turn of events before the expected would happen.

Wallenberg smiled, preparing his spirit for certain death. He expected the Death Lords would surely put down the foreign black lord, the foreign ladies, and their foreign princess along with Wallenberg himself.

Then they would find Lord Gilbert, who Wallenberg wished a most fortunate time, before the bear-sized lord met his end at the cruel hands and dark magic of the Death Lords. There was no way they could avoid such an ending now.

I think that’s why Hisscreep isn’t responding. He knows I’m a lost cause. Oh well. At least I’ll die with the most interesting company.