Callmi Parre

UP : Near Britain (Sonoma)

    Trolls descended upon one of the travel paths out of Britain last night, but they exhibited a strange fighting formation, not unlike humans. Witnesses say the trolls were lined up in ranks and an ogre lord, speaking the language of Britannia no less, was issuing them commands like a rank of warriors lined up to do battle.

    "When I ran up at first," one unidentified warrior told the Town Cryer, "I thought it was the end for me because there were fifteen trolls and only one human to face them... and it was me. But strangely enough, they didn't attack right off. That crazy ogre lord was giving them orders or something, and they stayed in place until he released them and told them to attack. Thankfully, by that time enough others had arrived to help with the fight, so I jumped into the battle and we were eventually victorious."

    Town Cryer readers will note that this attack sounds strangely similar to an attack on Vesper that we reported on yesterday. In that attack, a lich lord was commanding a pack of dire wolves, and they, too, fought in ranks like a platoon of soldiers. The lich lord was invulnerable, though, and he made his escape through a red moongate... fleeing the battle scene with promises of more to come.

    It appears more did come, and this time in the form of trolls. However, many brave human fighters responded to the call of the town criers as they shouted for help in the wee hours of the morning, and the troll horde was defeated.

    There was one other interesting thing to note about the attack. Many times warriors can escape from the wrath of monsters near the town of Britain by fleeing into the town limits and calling for the guards. However, in this particular battle a wooden fence was somehow erected with a locked gate, preventing fighters from fleeing into the city. The warriors were forced to turn and fight or flee into the woods to escape.

    Sources also tell the Town Cryer that a book was found on the ground near where the fence was. Apparently the book contained instructions for ogre lords on how to build just such a fence as was there. The book was reportedly written by a man known only as Balart. Anyone with information about this is urged to investigate further to see if they can discover why this Balart is instructing monsters.

From the Town Cryer - The Journal of Ultima Online, Tuesday, April 14th 1998