In the forest wold of Urf, Batheser was a little regarded troll, who spent most of his time sucking the juice out of mushrooms, or fungus, or toadstools, or anything that grew out of fallen and rotting trees. It was deep and dark in the hollow where he lived, the canopy was close and gripped together in a bugger's embrace; and the little light that filtered through was the efflorescence of mouldering things. Still, in the dark stillness, he was happy there. Until that one night when the two soft pink things fell into the hollow. One, in particular, did not appear to be broken, it mewled a little, and dribble came out of its front red-lined hole. The other one was dead though, bones sticking out, bits of it looking asymmetrical where it should not be (just by the extrapolation of form, not because Batheser knew any better). But the one that was left came good after a while. It didn't thrive on the rot fruit Batheser found, but it could eat the dried and salted bits of the ot...
