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	Osker Quickwits and the Stone Giant You’ve all heard of Osker Quickwits, right? The troll who out-sneaked the sneaky, out-lied the liars, and confounded the conmen? Osker was strong. As a child, he could lift his father right over his head. He was tough. One time, he worked for a solid week without stopping for a meal. He was skilled with a blade. He could cut the wings off a passing fly and never leave a scratch on its body. But more than all of these things, Osker was clever. He could think his way out of the darkest of situations, could talk his opponents into surrendering without a fight, could run his enemies round in circles until they dropped from exhaustion. He could charm the light right down from the moon if he set his mind to it. And the chief of the moot was oh so very glad to have Osker on his side. Now, one day as Osker was at work, carrying trees to the dock to be cut into planking, the mountain shook as if struck by thunder. Everyone looked up, surprised, for there were no clouds in the sky. Again, the mountain shook, a distant boom making small pebbles dance all around. And everyone wondered, for the mountain had given no warning that it would shake itself awake, no groans or grumbles to tell the moot to be wary. A third time the ground shook, and this time the thunder was closer. Now everyone knew that whatever it was, it was approaching, and they ran for their axes and spears and shields, to defend their home. Osker put down his tree, and drew his sword, for he always had it with him. But he looked at his blade dubiously, sure that whatever was approaching, a sword wasn’t going to be enough to stop it. So he ran toward the sound, and up the mountain’s side, so that he could see the threat sooner. And was it an airship, dropping charges of elemental fire? No, it was not. Was it an angry spirit, hurling bolts of lightning as it came? No, it was not. Was it Grandfather Sky Himself, riding in His cloud chariot, drawn by the goats of Thunder and Storm? No, it was not. Above the next ridge, Osker saw a moving boulder, a huge rock that moved toward the moot, rising a bit, then falling with each great boom and shake. Perhaps the next mountain over had decided to come visit its brother? But no. Osker squinted at it a bit, and saw the boulder had a sort of a face. No tusks, but a huge, lopsided mouth big enough to bit off the prow of an airship the way you would bite off the end of a roll. Two eyes, not quite even with each other, and shaded under a brow ridge so deep and heavy an entire war party could shelter under it and never feel a drop of rain. And a nose like the biggest potato in the world, stuck onto the middle of the face as if it had fallen there from a great height, splat, and might fall off at any second. Now, Osker had seen ugly before. He’d come face to face with the Hag of Skytooth Peak. He’d confronted the Specter Captain aboard his ghost ship. Osker had even spent the evening drinking with the world’s ugliest ork, a man so hideous that wolves ran away crying. But this huge rock face was so ugly, Osker could hear it. The rock was so ugly, the stone of the mountain cracked as it passed by. And a pair of shoulders hove into view, around the side of the peak, and then arms and a body, as the giant came closer. For it was a stone giant, a creature made of rock, that eats metal as well as flesh, and is as strong as it is ugly. By now, rocks the size of your fist jumped with every step the giant took. The children and the old had been sent deep into the caves. The magicians stood ready on the high ground, ready to rain down destruction. Everyone able to hold a weapon had put themselves between the oncoming giant and the moot. Osker looked up and down the massive, misshapen hulk as it drew closer, and sized up the moot, and knew he had to do something and quick, or the situation was going to get more ugly than the giant. So he ran further up the mountain, and leaped out onto a ridge, climbing up to where he’d be level with the giant’s face as it strode by. As tall as a drakkar is long, that giant was, but thrown together wit so much less care, its parts all this way and that. No wonder it walked so heavily. Not only did it weigh more than a Brotherhood of Obsidimen, it had less grace than a drunken ox. “Halloo!” Osker shouted as the giant drew up even with him. The giant hauled up short, stomping down with a foot the size of a rowboat, halting in mid-step with a dangerous sway. It swiveled its head, looking for the source of the cry. Osker was not a small troll, but he was only as big as the giant’s – well, it was at the end of his arm, so we’ll call it a hand. Osker jumped up into the air and waved his arms over his head. “Halloo!” he called again. The giant squinted, squeezing up his face in a truly awful way, and took a step back. “You,” the giant rumbled, sounding like a landslide would if it could talk. “You chief these?” He waved a hand at the trolls of the moot, holding their line far below. Osker glanced down to the center of the line, where his chief stood. The chief was strong, and tough, and wise, and he knew that Osker had a faster tongue. He gave a nod. “That I am,” Osker proclaimed, putting his fists on his hips, and taking a bolder stance. “I’m Osker Quickwits, chief of this moot and of all that you see!” He swept an arm grandly about, to include the moot, the mountain, and the sky above. “You bring me gold!” the giant demanded, in his deep, slow voice. “All you gold. I hungry! Eat little mans if no gold!” Osker looked the giant in the eye, and barely saw his own reflection, that eye was so dull. A plan came together in Osker’s mind, just like that. “Trolls!” he ordered, turning away from the giant. “Hear me and obey! Spread a great hide, on which to set this giant’s meal!” And he bounded down the side of the mountain to help. The hide of a great ox was brought, and Osker set to with the rest of his moot to stretch it out, wetting it thoroughly to make it more stretchy. Oh, you think you see where this is going, do you? Think yourself the equal o Osker? Just you wait. While they stretched the hide, and turned it, and stretched again, Osker gave orders in a quiet voice, so the giant could not hear. His moot brothers and sisters ran off to their longhouses and caves, and brought back each a gold coin, just one per person, but they also painted large rocks with gold kept for the drakkars, and brought those too. The giant stared hungrily down at all those great chunks of glittering stone, and its stomach rumbled like the sky before a storm. Onto the stretched hide they put the rocks, and sprinkled the coins over the top like salt onto meat, to make it taste better. They folded up the hide, and ran spikes through it to stitch it closed, and the moot’s Elementalist blew upon it and it dried, shrinking down into a tight, hard ball. “Here!” Osker shouted up to the giant. “Here is our gold!” The giant reached down, and down, and down, and picked up the hide ball, and shoved it into his mouth. But he did not choke on it, no, he chewed it up, crunch, crunch, crunch, and he swallowed it, gulp, gulp, gulp, although it took him some effort to get it all down. Osker hoped for a bit. Then the giant belched, and through the sound nearly knocked everyone over, the smell nearly drove them to their knees. “Your gold not tasty,” the giant complained. “I still hungry. Eat you all!” And it took a threatening step forward. Osker held up a hand. “Tha was all we had, because gold is hard for us to get. But you could get it much easier.” The giant stopped, working through that. “I get my own gold?” he said at last. “Yes,” Osker replied, having made use of the delay to give rapid orders and send his moot brothers and sisters running this way and that. “There is a cave, that way,” and he pointed back the way the giant had come, “where thereis much gold.” “Why you not dig it out?” the giant asked suspiciously. “It’s in the cave roof,” Osker explained. He held his hand as high over his head as he could reach. “Far, far up. We have trouble climbing up to it. You are big.” The giant nodded, a slow grinding of head against shoulders, for he had no neck to speak of. “I big! And strong!” Back on familiar ground, the giant was more confident. “You can reach up very high!” Osker said, raising up both his arms over his head. “I reach up high,” agreed the giant, and Osker deeply regretted it when the giant raised his own arms up high. The stink from its belch was as nothing beside this. “You shake down the gold,” Osker said, hastily putting his arms down and hoping the giant would do likewise. “You shake it down, have plenty gold to eat.” The giant dropped his arms down and patted his stomach, which rumbled alarmingly. Either the giant was still very hungry, or the rawhide ball full of rocks was having a bad effect. Either way, Osker had to get the giant moving away from the moot. So Osker walked up to the giant, and past him, beckoning to follow. “I show you the cave,” he said, falling into the giant’s bad speech habits. “You follow, get plenty gold.” “I get gold!” the giant agreed, and turned in his ponderous way, knocking the corner off a cliff with his elbow. And off they went, Osker and the giant, away from the moot and down the mountain to where the bigger caves were. Osker walked ahead, turning around every so often to make sure the giant was still following him, and not getting distracted by thoughts of the moot and all its crunchy, tasty trolls. “Gold!” he said, whenever the giant lagged, or “Not far now!” At last they came to a great crack in the side of the mountain, a fissure tall and wide enough to fly a drakkar into. Here, Osker stopped, and waited until the giant realized what was happening. “This is cave?” the giant asked. He took a deep breath. “Smell gold!” he said, and went stomping inside, ignoring the small rocks that rained down upon him from the shaking of his passage. Osker followed the giant in, opening his light quartz’s box, and directed the giant through the first gallery. In the second, the giant stopped to examine a bright metallic streak across the cave wall, right at his eye level. He ran a finger across the streak, and stuck the finger in his mouth. “Gold!” he pronounced it happily. A bit of scraping, though, played out of the vein, for it was only the thickness of a coat of paint. The giant made an unhappy face, and the stone of the wall cracked. “This way,” Osker called up to the giant, his voice echoing around the great cavern. He ignored the flakes of falling stone that bounced off his horns. “We’re not there yet.” The giant followed him once again, suspicious now, but the smell of gold lay ahead, and the giant was willing to follow that for now. In the next gallery, Osker stopped just inside, and shone his light quartz up at the ceiling. An answering glitter came back. “Gold!” Osker said. “Gold!” the giant boomed, rocks pattering down from the ceiling with the echoes of his great voce. He reached up a hand, and poked at the ceiling. A scattering of shiny nuggets came tumbling down from where they’d been wedged in the cracks that ran hither and thither all across the cave roof. The giant scooped them up, not even a handful, and popped them into his mouth, and chewed, almost thoughtfully. “Gold!” he shouted, and a few larger stones came tumbling down. He reached up with both hands, and Osker turned and ran like the wind for the entrance. The giant shook the roof, and crash, crunch, bang, boom, down it came. The trolls hadn’t used such a big cavern to put their drakkars in, or to live in, because it wasn’t stable. But Osker had found a use for it. Osker came staggering out of the cave in the middle of a blinding cloud of dust and grit, spitting and swearing and bruised, but the giant didn’t come out behind him. No, the giant never came out. Not then, and not ever again. For the cost of a handful of coins and a few gold nuggets, Osker had rid the moot of a great menace, and Thystonius smiled upon him for taking on such a dangerous opponent and winning out through his own strength, not of arms but of mind. And thus it ends, for such is the truth of the thing.

Osker Quickwits and the Stone Giant

You’ve all heard of Osker Quickwits, right? The troll who out-sneaked the sneaky, out-lied the liars, and confounded the conmen?

Osker was strong. As a child, he could lift his father right over his head. He was tough. One time, he worked for a solid week without stopping for a meal. He was skilled with a blade. He could cut the wings off a passing fly and never leave a scratch on its body. But more than all of these things, Osker was clever. He could think his way out of the darkest of situations, could talk his opponents into surrendering without a fight, could run his enemies round in circles until they dropped from exhaustion. He could charm the light right down from the moon if he set his mind to it. And the chief of the moot was oh so very glad to have Osker on his side.

Now, one day as Osker was at work, carrying trees to the dock to be cut into planking, the mountain shook as if struck by thunder. Everyone looked up, surprised, for there were no clouds in the sky. Again, the mountain shook, a distant boom making small pebbles dance all around. And everyone wondered, for the mountain had given no warning that it would shake itself awake, no groans or grumbles to tell the moot to be wary. A third time the ground shook, and this time the thunder was closer. Now everyone knew that whatever it was, it was approaching, and they ran for their axes and spears and shields, to defend their home.

Osker put down his tree, and drew his sword, for he always had it with him. But he looked at his blade dubiously, sure that whatever was approaching, a sword wasn’t going to be enough to stop it. So he ran toward the sound, and up the mountain’s side, so that he could see the threat sooner.

And was it an airship, dropping charges of elemental fire? No, it was not. Was it an angry spirit, hurling bolts of lightning as it came? No, it was not. Was it Grandfather Sky Himself, riding in His cloud chariot, drawn by the goats of Thunder and Storm? No, it was not.

Above the next ridge, Osker saw a moving boulder, a huge rock that moved toward the moot, rising a bit, then falling with each great boom and shake. Perhaps the next mountain over had decided to come visit its brother? But no. Osker squinted at it a bit, and saw the boulder had a sort of a face. No tusks, but a huge, lopsided mouth big enough to bit off the prow of an airship the way you would bite off the end of a roll. Two eyes, not quite even with each other, and shaded under a brow ridge so deep and heavy an entire war party could shelter under it and never feel a drop of rain. And a nose like the biggest potato in the world, stuck onto the middle of the face as if it had fallen there from a great height, splat, and might fall off at any second.

Now, Osker had seen ugly before. He’d come face to face with the Hag of Skytooth Peak. He’d confronted the Specter Captain aboard his ghost ship. Osker had even spent the evening drinking with the world’s ugliest ork, a man so hideous that wolves ran away crying. But this huge rock face was so ugly, Osker could hear it. The rock was so ugly, the stone of the mountain cracked as it passed by.

And a pair of shoulders hove into view, around the side of the peak, and then arms and a body, as the giant came closer. For it was a stone giant, a creature made of rock, that eats metal as well as flesh, and is as strong as it is ugly. By now, rocks the size of your fist jumped with every step the giant took. The children and the old had been sent deep into the caves. The magicians stood ready on the high ground, ready to rain down destruction. Everyone able to hold a weapon had put themselves between the oncoming giant and the moot.

Osker looked up and down the massive, misshapen hulk as it drew closer, and sized up the moot, and knew he had to do something and quick, or the situation was going to get more ugly than the giant. So he ran further up the mountain, and leaped out onto a ridge, climbing up to where he’d be level with the giant’s face as it strode by. As tall as a drakkar is long, that giant was, but thrown together wit so much less care, its parts all this way and that. No wonder it walked so heavily. Not only did it weigh more than a Brotherhood of Obsidimen, it had less grace than a drunken ox.

“Halloo!” Osker shouted as the giant drew up even with him.

The giant hauled up short, stomping down with a foot the size of a rowboat, halting in mid-step with a dangerous sway. It swiveled its head, looking for the source of the cry.

Osker was not a small troll, but he was only as big as the giant’s – well, it was at the end of his arm, so we’ll call it a hand. Osker jumped up into the air and waved his arms over his head. “Halloo!” he called again.

The giant squinted, squeezing up his face in a truly awful way, and took a step back.

“You,” the giant rumbled, sounding like a landslide would if it could talk. “You chief these?” He waved a hand at the trolls of the moot, holding their line far below.

Osker glanced down to the center of the line, where his chief stood. The chief was strong, and tough, and wise, and he knew that Osker had a faster tongue. He gave a nod.

“That I am,” Osker proclaimed, putting his fists on his hips, and taking a bolder stance. “I’m Osker Quickwits, chief of this moot and of all that you see!” He swept an arm grandly about, to include the moot, the mountain, and the sky above.

“You bring me gold!” the giant demanded, in his deep, slow voice. “All you gold. I hungry! Eat little mans if no gold!”

Osker looked the giant in the eye, and barely saw his own reflection, that eye was so dull. A plan came together in Osker’s mind, just like that.

“Trolls!” he ordered, turning away from the giant. “Hear me and obey! Spread a great hide, on which to set this giant’s meal!” And he bounded down the side of the mountain to help. The hide of a great ox was brought, and Osker set to with the rest of his moot to stretch it out, wetting it thoroughly to make it more stretchy. Oh, you think you see where this is going, do you? Think yourself the equal o Osker? Just you wait.

While they stretched the hide, and turned it, and stretched again, Osker gave orders in a quiet voice, so the giant could not hear. His moot brothers and sisters ran off to their longhouses and caves, and brought back each a gold coin, just one per person, but they also painted large rocks with gold kept for the drakkars, and brought those too. The giant stared hungrily down at all those great chunks of glittering stone, and its stomach rumbled like the sky before a storm.

Onto the stretched hide they put the rocks, and sprinkled the coins over the top like salt onto meat, to make it taste better. They folded up the hide, and ran spikes through it to stitch it closed, and the moot’s Elementalist blew upon it and it dried, shrinking down into a tight, hard ball.

“Here!” Osker shouted up to the giant. “Here is our gold!”

The giant reached down, and down, and down, and picked up the hide ball, and shoved it into his mouth. But he did not choke on it, no, he chewed it up, crunch, crunch, crunch, and he swallowed it, gulp, gulp, gulp, although it took him some effort to get it all down. Osker hoped for a bit. Then the giant belched, and through the sound nearly knocked everyone over, the smell nearly drove them to their knees.

“Your gold not tasty,” the giant complained. “I still hungry. Eat you all!” And it took a threatening step forward.

Osker held up a hand. “Tha was all we had, because gold is hard for us to get. But you could get it much easier.”

The giant stopped, working through that. “I get my own gold?” he said at last.

“Yes,” Osker replied, having made use of the delay to give rapid orders and send his moot brothers and sisters running this way and that. “There is a cave, that way,” and he pointed back the way the giant had come, “where thereis much gold.”

“Why you not dig it out?” the giant asked suspiciously.

“It’s in the cave roof,” Osker explained. He held his hand as high over his head as he could reach. “Far, far up. We have trouble climbing up to it. You are big.”

The giant nodded, a slow grinding of head against shoulders, for he had no neck to speak of. “I big! And strong!” Back on familiar ground, the giant was more confident.

“You can reach up very high!” Osker said, raising up both his arms over his head.

“I reach up high,” agreed the giant, and Osker deeply regretted it when the giant raised his own arms up high. The stink from its belch was as nothing beside this.

“You shake down the gold,” Osker said, hastily putting his arms down and hoping the giant would do likewise. “You shake it down, have plenty gold to eat.”

The giant dropped his arms down and patted his stomach, which rumbled alarmingly. Either the giant was still very hungry, or the rawhide ball full of rocks was having a bad effect. Either way, Osker had to get the giant moving away from the moot.

So Osker walked up to the giant, and past him, beckoning to follow. “I show you the cave,” he said, falling into the giant’s bad speech habits. “You follow, get plenty gold.”

“I get gold!” the giant agreed, and turned in his ponderous way, knocking the corner off a cliff with his elbow.

And off they went, Osker and the giant, away from the moot and down the mountain to where the bigger caves were. Osker walked ahead, turning around every so often to make sure the giant was still following him, and not getting distracted by thoughts of the moot and all its crunchy, tasty trolls. “Gold!” he said, whenever the giant lagged, or “Not far now!”

At last they came to a great crack in the side of the mountain, a fissure tall and wide enough to fly a drakkar into. Here, Osker stopped, and waited until the giant realized what was happening.

“This is cave?” the giant asked. He took a deep breath. “Smell gold!” he said, and went stomping inside, ignoring the small rocks that rained down upon him from the shaking of his passage.

Osker followed the giant in, opening his light quartz’s box, and directed the giant through the first gallery. In the second, the giant stopped to examine a bright metallic streak across the cave wall, right at his eye level. He ran a finger across the streak, and stuck the finger in his mouth.

“Gold!” he pronounced it happily. A bit of scraping, though, played out of the vein, for it was only the thickness of a coat of paint. The giant made an unhappy face, and the stone of the wall cracked.

“This way,” Osker called up to the giant, his voice echoing around the great cavern. He ignored the flakes of falling stone that bounced off his horns. “We’re not there yet.”

The giant followed him once again, suspicious now, but the smell of gold lay ahead, and the giant was willing to follow that for now.

In the next gallery, Osker stopped just inside, and shone his light quartz up at the ceiling. An answering glitter came back.

“Gold!” Osker said.

“Gold!” the giant boomed, rocks pattering down from the ceiling with the echoes of his great voce. He reached up a hand, and poked at the ceiling. A scattering of shiny nuggets came tumbling down from where they’d been wedged in the cracks that ran hither and thither all across the cave roof. The giant scooped them up, not even a handful, and popped them into his mouth, and chewed, almost thoughtfully.

“Gold!” he shouted, and a few larger stones came tumbling down. He reached up with both hands, and Osker turned and ran like the wind for the entrance. The giant shook the roof, and crash, crunch, bang, boom, down it came. The trolls hadn’t used such a big cavern to put their drakkars in, or to live in, because it wasn’t stable. But Osker had found a use for it.

Osker came staggering out of the cave in the middle of a blinding cloud of dust and grit, spitting and swearing and bruised, but the giant didn’t come out behind him. No, the giant never came out. Not then, and not ever again. For the cost of a handful of coins and a few gold nuggets, Osker had rid the moot of a great menace, and Thystonius smiled upon him for taking on such a dangerous opponent and winning out through his own strength, not of arms but of mind.

And thus it ends, for such is the truth of the thing.