Will

"Okay," Will said with a sigh, settling himself on the kitchen couch beside Sam, "please take a seat, Gug." He tried for a friendly smile, but the sour ache in his stomach twisted his expression so that he wasn't sure if he had really nailed the effect he was looking for.

The troll steered the chairs on the other side of the dining table aside with the broad side of his boot, producing a loud scraping of wood on wood, and dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Even sitting down, his size was intimidating; a great mountain of blubbery brawn, Detect [Air] barely managing to outline the beady black eyes peeking out from under a jutting shelf of a forehead. Gug watched Will with the unfettered curiosity of a child examining a new toy, occasionally glancing over at Sam as if for reassurance.

"What is it you wanted to interview me about?" he asked. "Is it my book? I would be very happy to tell you all about it."

"Maybe later. For now, I want to talk about you."

"Oh. Okay."

"You're aware you're kind of a unique fellow, yes?"

Gug tugged at his fleshy lower lip with two stubby fingers. "Um…"

"What I'm trying to say is that it's not very often that you get manners from a monster. Which, now that I mention it, I seem to have entirely taken leave of mine." He gave Sam's thigh a pat and stood up. She tried to help him, but he shook her off. "Would you like some tea, Gug? Juice? I should have some coffee, even, assuming it wasn't pilfered while this place was out of my hands."

"Hmm… I…" Gug looked down into his folded lap, and seemed to be giving his choice of beverage great thought.

"Geniuses are supposed to be coffee drinkers, aren't they?" Sam suggested. "Writers too, for that matter."

Maybe more like hard liquor, but I guess introducing him to that is probably not a good idea.

"I've never had that," Gug said.

"Wanna give it a try?" Will asked.

"Um… Okay!"

Will went rooting through the food stocks until he found a small sack of coffee beans nestled in the back of a cabinet, which he identified by touch. He lit a fire in the stove, ground the beans, and while waiting for a kettle to boil he asked: "So, Gug—where are you from?"

"I'm not really supposed to talk about it," the troll replied, his furtive tone clashing oddly with his deep, rumbling voice. "Sorry. After all, a wise man once told me: 'Secretion is the better part of valor'."

Will frowned down at the puttering copper kettle. "That's not really… how the saying goes."

"He does that a lot," Sam explained. "Anyway, you get what he's trying to say."

"Fair enough."

"Gug, I know you don't like to talk about your origins, but we're friends, remember? Will wouldn't pry if it wasn't important, so do you think you could give us something? You're from a place called the Sanctuary, aren't you? Could you tell us a little about it?"

Will's head jerked up at the mention of the name, and the corner of his mouth pulled into a twitchy smile. "Ah," he said. "That's all I needed to know." Taking the kettle off the boil and setting it on a cold part of the stove, he faced the troll and asked: "You're Sage's creation."

"W-W-W-What?" Gug stuttered, shifting uncomfortably on his butt. "Um, no! That's not, um…"

"Who's Sage?" Sam asked.

"No one! Sage who? I've never heard of him!"

"He's a Level 30," Will said, motioning for Sam to take out cups while he brought the kettle to the table.

"Oh, yeah! I feel like Mongrel mentioned that guy at some point."

"He's supposedly the oldest man on the Frontier—the first one ever sent here, if you'll believe the stories. He fled into the wilds during the War of Strife that followed the Deicide. Supposedly, he is now the master of a domain known as the Sanctuary that has only ever been seen by a few. He's a great healer, and a master of nature. Some lifers with incurable ailments venture into the wilds to seek him out for—"

"No!" Gug shouted.

Sam paused halfway back to the table holding three cups. Just a step away from Will, the two of them shared a look. Or at least, Will cracked an eye to make it clear he was looking in her direction, although a blotchy gray smear was all he could make out through it.

"I'm sorry if we upset you," Will said, gently placing the kettle down on the tabletop to avoid startling the beast with sudden movements. "Trust me, I have no desire to violate your privacy. Like Sam was saying, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"No! No! No!" The troll clapped his huge hands over his face. "Brainstorm!"

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The word reverberated through the floorboards, sent a girlish yelp from the living room as Sunny had overheard the sudden outburst. Through his Detect [Air], Will sensed the little girl clambering onto her aunt in fear.

Then silence. Will took a step back from the troll, and caught a handful of Sam's shirt when she tried to approach after setting the cups down.

"Master Troll…" Will said. "Let's not argue over this. If it's that important to you, I won't pry."

Gug let his hands fall into his lap, turned his attention on Will.

Will let another few moments of awkward silence stretch out, then said: "Agreed?"

"Power Word—"

"Cancel."

The troll frowned deeply. "I see. You're not a complete imbecile, it seems." His tone had completely shifted, gone cool and clinical.

Will slowly let go of Sam's shirt to have both hands free in case he needed to cut the head off something. "It's probably not a good idea to threaten a guy in his own home."

"You were upsetting my brother and putting him in danger. You left me little choice."

"Well, if you keep carrying on like this I'll have no choice but to kill you, so simmer down, please."

The troll tilted his head to the side. "You think you could kill me?"

"I'm feeling confident."

"Guys, don't fight!" Sam pleaded.

"Be quiet," Will said, holding up a shushing finger in her direction. For once, she actually listened without protest, though she looked none too happy about it. Turning his attention back to the troll, he said: "This is Nug I'm speaking with, correct?"

The troll gave a long, slow nod.

"In that case—nice to meet you, Nug. To be completely honest, I preferred your brother."

"That appears to be the popular consensus."

"I wonder why." Will made a show of holding up his open palms in a pacifying gesture. "Now, can we agree to keep our sparring in the verbal arena?"

Nug rose so that he stood at his full, prodigious height, nearly brushing the ceiling as he glared down at Will. "That depends. What are your intentions with my brother?"

"To look out for him if I can—we're friends, after all. But I can't do that if I don't know anything about him. You see, I'm afraid I'm not as laid back as Sam—going into something with two brain cells and a dream just isn't good enough for me. So if you want your brother to have a home here, you're gonna have to start being a little less combative and a little more talkative."

Nug said nothing.

"Why's it matter that Sage is your dad?" Will asked. "Aside from the obvious, that is."

"The 'obvious' being…?"

"Well, it would definitely bring some unwanted attention. People hoping to get to Sage through your brother. People wanting to dismantle the sentient troll to see how Sage managed to cobble him together. That sort of thing."

"Those are good guesses," Nug replied in a soft, cold rumble; like an avalanche, "and they're not wrong. But there's one more thing."

"Which is?" Will crossed his arms, tried not to catch any nerves about the fact that he had an intelligent, potentially murderous eight-foot troll standing in his kitchen. Results were mixed.

"Our father is a very private man. He does not like to be disturbed, and he does not want his business dragged out across the whole Frontier. Gug feels badly about running away from home—he doesn't want to add insult to injury by blabbing about our father's secrets on top of it all."

"I see. But you don't deny it?"

"Would there be any point?"

"Not really."

"Then no. Sage is our father. The Sanctuary was our home, once."

"Does Sage have any enemies I need to worry about? Someone who might come after you?"

"Only the traitor."

Will cocked an eyebrow. "This traitor have a name?"

Nug gave a shrug of his bullish shoulders. "A pilgrim who came to the Sanctuary seeking knowledge, calling himself Rook. He was my father's apprentice for a time, then left in disgrace."

"Sort of like you did?" Will asked—couldn't stop himself.

"He is nothing like us," Nug snarled with sudden intensity, great fists clenching. "The traitor only left—fled, really—after failing to kill our father."

Will held his hands up apologetically. "Right, right; I'm sorry. So this Rook guy, any chance he'll come knocking?"

Nug gave a low grunt. "Unlikely. To my knowledge, he has never made himself known or taken action against my father since they parted ways."

"Fair enough." Turning back to the coffee, Will poured three mugfuls and took one for himself to sit down with. "As much as I'm itching to, I won't ask any more invasive questions about Sage or the Sanctuary."

"Appreciated." Nug sank back to the floor, picking up a relatively tiny-looking mug between two fingers.

"That being said, I would like to Identify you. Is that all right?"

The troll froze with the mug halfway raised, stayed like that for a moment, then resumed the action of putting the beverage up to his nose to smell. "Fine," he said. "I will not resist."

"Thanks. I'm glad we could sort out our little misunderstanding."

Satisfied that there was no more risk of a kitchen brawl, Sam went and flopped back down on the couch, her legs dangling over the armrest and her head resting in Will's lap.

"Identify [System Properties] Will said, putting his full concentration into the cast to reveal as much information as possible.

[Name: Gug]

[Profession: Scholar]

[Level: 7]

[Attributes: Awareness (0), Empathy (0), Processing (14), Senses (0)]

[Passives: Mutagenesis, Symbol Mastery]

[Skills: Brainstorm 3, Telepathy, Power Word, Visualize]

There was nothing all that surprising in there except for one detail—the troll had put all his points into Processing. Will didn't think he was quite stupid enough to do it for no reason, which meant it was probably…

"You've got a divine vow, don't you?" Will asked.

Nug took a careful sip of his coffee and smacked his lips repeatedly while he considered the taste. "I do." He raised his mug slightly. "This is nice."

"I assume your end of the deal involves putting all your attribute points in Processing. Any chance you'll tell me what you get out of it?" If it was possible to Identify a divine vow, Will certainly didn't have the mental prowess needed to do it.

Nug just smiled and sipped his coffee.

Will sighed. "Yeah, didn't think so." Dickhead.

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