Sketch Story - Rokko the Sewer Troll - Annals of Ai'a

Rokkos
Lovely
Baubles

The stream of water was thick today. The humans seemed to have poured less of their stinky waste into it recently, and as a result the usually wet stream of cool liquid had turned into a muddy pile of foul stench. Rokko squatted in a foot deep mud, and while it only reached his ankles, he weren't happy that this part of the sewer pipe were only large enough, for him to fit in if he squatted deeply. But he had to. When the foul smelling water didn't run all the way to his nest it didn't bring him the food he was used to. A large sewer troll like him needed his grub to avoid the annoyingly grumpy feeling of hunger. Therefore he was venturing deeper into the center of the sewer system. In there he knew of a large room where many tubes joined. It always had food it in. But that part of the maze regularly saw human traffic as well, and Rokko didn't like the way they yelled at him, poked him with their pointy rods and the crunch of their armor hurt his teeth.

There better not be humans, he repeated to himself at he slowly side-stepped through the narrow pipe, while being careful not to touch the muddy water with anything but the bare minimum of his feet. Better not be humans.

As he reached the large dome room with the many pipes and tubes emptying into it, he sighed in deep relief as he could finally stretch his huge body, and the room appeared empty. Empty of humans that is. It had many piles of food, and an equal amount of piled up human waste. It seemed one of the large sewer pipes had been blocked by a knotted up pile of food, Rokko agreed with himself that he would unplug the pile and then hopefully the water would start bringing food to his nest again. Being away from home for this long made him anxious. Fix problem. Rokko unmake knot. he said aloud, as to give himself the instruction to hammer down a monstrously large flat hand on the pile. The knotted up human bodyparts flew apart, splashed around the room and filled the air with the stench of rotten flesh and decomposed guts. Unfaced by the fact that his body and face were painted a reddish brown from the splash of old blood, mud and human waste, Rokko stood silent like a statue. Commotion like this would attract humans if they were patrolling nearby. He listened intensely for voices. After a few moments he agreed with himself that he were still alone in the sewer. Knot gone. Rokko snack, he whispered to himself as he very carefully picked a large bloated leg from the remains of the pile. He grabbed it by the small piece of bone that poked out of the muddy blood-filled water, careful not to touch the water itself. He lifted the leg high above his head, and lowered it carefully into his mouth like a long string of spaghetti. The tender leg melted in his mouth, he didn't even have to chew it, he could mash it into a fine paste with only his tongue and palate. This was his favorite kind of snack - even the bones had souped around in the sewer long enough for them to be rubbery soft.

He carefully picked up a few other limbs and carried them daintily between two fingers, careful not to touch the muddied parts of them as he equally carefully tip-toed towards the pipe that led to his nest. The water had already started running smoothly through the pipe again, and as it did it washed some of the mud away with it. In some places the water was almost transparent all the way to the floor. Two small glittery specks of blue and red was revealed in between a couple of rotten bones and limbs. Rokko pulled a small pair of chopsticks from his belt when he spotted the glimmers. Lovely baubles, he muttered as he carefully picked each of the perfectly round orbs up with the chopsticks, one was shining a bright cyan blue and the other a deep red. He put them into a purse he had hanging around his neck, the clear white light that shone from his purse as he opened it revealed a satisfying smile on the large trolls face. Good day, he agreed to himself as he continued towards his homey nest.