Rolling his eyes at the more extravagant battle cries from his compatriots, Deor grins, looks backward to make sure we’re not being surrounded, and continues to look for good casting opportunities.
Thoroncir laughs at Bitur’s jest, and shouts, “Of course, we all knew that, but I think he’s emboldened enough now. Strike him, Bitur, strike him hard!” The knight-errant has neither seen a bigger foe than the cave troll (on land, anyway), nor smelled a fouler one, in all his days. He steadily hacks away at it, being careful not to hit Gwaelur, who is closest to him in the shield wall, as he does so.
Thoroncir takes off his helm, claps the Dwarf on the shoulder with a grin and says, “You struck the blow which began to bring him down to his final rest, dear Gwaelur - well done, my friend, well done! When will these hulking brutes learn not to trifle with you?”
He makes sure that Gilraen is unhurt, and then cleans and sheathes his longsword. He will go a little further west to watch for any other attack while his companions recover their magic arrows.
“These depths belch forth much that is foul, but our teamwork gives us the advantage. Well fought, friends. Gwaelur - that was quite a blow you took. You are a stout warrior, indeed.”
Hraedsig will help Thoroncir dispatch sleeping goblins if needed. Then he’ll take a closer look at the cave troll. Never having seen one before, he wants to get a sense of its anatomy, looking for potential weak spots in case we run into any more of them.
Just a reminder, I do enjoy any and all of the roleplaying that goes into the game and it is of course reflected in experience later on. I just quote several of the most recent examples.Malacandra , what you said about the Elves reminds me of something similar Heinlein wanted us to grok about his Martians.