The headless troll was far enough away from the mermaids they didn't need to worry about it and they turned their attention back to the severed head. "It's certainly ugly, isn't it?" asked Tukio. She swam around to face it and it scowled and snapped at her[9] but, being unable to generate any movement of its own, was not much of a threat. Keeping well out of range, Tukio gave it a thorough examination.
The head was rather flat, much wider than it was tall, and covered in green scales. A veritable mane of course, long hair waved slowly in the ocean currents, similar in both coloration and texture to seaweed. Its most prominent features were its powerful jaws, filled with rows upon rows of deadly, slender teeth. A pair of ears, pointed like those of a sea elf, protruded from each side of the creature's skull.[10] All in all, Tukio decided, it was a creature spawned from nightmare.
"It seems like it's looking for its head," observed the young mermaid, watching the motions of the creature's body. "What happens if it finds it?"
"I've heard that trolls can reattach pieces of themselves," replied Thiossa. "I don't know whether that's true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they could."
"Then let's bring it back home with us," suggested Tukio. "That way, he'll never be able to find it!"
"And how would you explain that to Father?" asked Thiossa. "As it is, he'll have our heads if he knew we were this close to a troll cave!"
"Hmmm, you're right. But still, we ought to at least hide it from the troll's body, so he doesn't find it. What if we bury it?"
Deciding upon that as their best course of action, they grabbed the ugly head by the hair, keeping it at arm's length between them. Then they dug a quick hole in the sand by the sea-grass and unceremoniously dumped it in, covering it from view by filling the pit back in with sand.
"Let's get out of here," suggested Thiossa. "There's no telling how soon those other two will be done, and I don't want to be anywhere near when they come out. Plus, it'll be dark soon, and we'll catch all sorts of trouble if we're not back by then."
"You're right. Let's go." Silently, the two young mermaids turned to go, when a sudden movement from the cave mouth caught Thiossa's attention. "Down!" she hissed, pushing her sister flat among the sea-fronds.
Cautiously, they scooted themselves to the edge and peered out from their concealment. The two sea-trolls had exited the cave and were searching along the ocean floor, looking this way and that. Looking for the head we buried, thought Thiossa, but dared not voice her opinion to her sister, for as the trolls expanded their search radius they came closer and closer to the mermaids' hiding spot.
"Brokk!" cried the she-troll, waving her hands in exasperation. "Mar gruu fishing!"[11] Tukio's eyes grew wide in fear at the creature's nearness and she would have bolted and made a swim for it had her sister's hand not grabbed her wrist, silently imploring her to remain motionless. Staring at each other in fear, the two sisters waited, paralyzed by fright, until the two trolls swam off above them, heading further out to sea.
Tukio let out a long sigh, sending a stream of bubbles dancing toward the surface. "That was close," she commented.
"Come on," said Thiossa, swimming after the trolls. "Let's follow them at a safe distance. They're heading in the same general direction we are, and I want to be sure that they're not going to attack our village."
"Didn't the she-troll say something about 'fishing?' That sounds relatively harmless."
"Still, I don't trust them."
Keeping the misshapen creatures well within sight, the two mermaids followed at a discrete distance. They kept back far enough to permit conversation without fear of being overheard by the trolls. "What monsters!" said Tukio. "I've never been so frightened in my life!"
"I know what you mean."
"Do you think they fear anything themselves?"
"Probably not. What's to fear, if you can grow back any damage and even survive getting your head ripped off?"[12]
"Do they always regenerate?"
"As far as I know, they do. Grandfather says he's seen little baby trolls and they heal really fast, just like the adults."[13]
"I wonder what baby trolls look like. Do you think they're cuter than when they grow up?"[14]
Thiossa made a face. "I'd almost say they'd have to be, wouldn't you?"
- - -
NOTES
9. In such an instance, the severed head of a marine scrag maintains all of its sensory abilities as it did while still attached to its body. Thus, it can see, hear, taste, and smell as well as it did before being severed. However, this information remains with the head; the headless body is unable to make use of any sensory input gathered by the head and is reduced to using only its sense of touch.
If the headless scrag manages to stumble across its head within 24 hours, it can reattach it at once, at which time the head and body become one again and the now-complete scrag will remember everything the head experienced while it was separate. If, however, the 24 hours elapses before the body comes across the head, the head will die and the body will spend the next week growing a new one. In this case, any sensory input recorded by the "original" head will be lost.
10. Scrags have only average hearing, despite their oversized ears - better than a normal troll but not by that much. However, while lacking the enormous nose of the standard, land-dwelling troll, a scrag's sense of smell is equal to a troll's, able to detect the scent of blood from miles away, much like a shark. Their vision is geared toward the darkness of the sea, but while they dislike bright lights and will seldom pop their heads above the waves during daylight they suffer no combat penalties during daylight, either above or below the surface of the ocean.
11. Much like the "trollspeak" used by trolls on the surface, marine trolls use a conglomeration of words stolen from the languages common to the beings around them instead of developing a language of their own - in this case, a strange mish-mash of Common, Merman, Sahuagin, Kuo-toan, and Kapoacinth serves as their "scragspeak." This artificial language is, quite naturally, very simplistic, with a lexicon of several hundred words at best. Still, this seems to serve the marine scrags well enough. It is interesting to note that "scragspeak" consists mainly of command verbs and names for objects; there are no words for such intangibles as "happiness," "love," or "devotion," but at least three separate words for "kill."
12. Marine scrags are indeed fearless in battle but there are some things for which they do have a healthy respect, if not an outright fear. Fire and acid, being the only means of permanently damaging a scrag, top the list. Fire, of course, is not often encountered underwater and may be another reason scrags do not often venture onto land. Acid, however, is more of a danger to the marine scrag - specifically, stomach acid. If the scrag can be said to truly fear one creature, that creature would no doubt be the mottled worm, the aquatic relative of the purple worm. Mottled worms, with their ability to swallow their prey whole and digest them in a matter of minutes, probably account for the greatest number of marine scrag deaths. To a lesser extent, any creature large enough to swallow a marine scrag is given a healthy dose of respect (this includes whales, giant sharks, and kraken) - although there is no guarantee that the scrags will not attack such creatures anyway.
13. Scrags are born with the ability to regenerate and are taught at an early age not to fear pain. This training consists of a series of brutal attacks by the pack elders, during which time limbs are severed and allowed to grow back, deep scars are gouged into the young scrag's flesh and allowed to heal, and so forth. The "training" continues at regular intervals over the scrag's first several years of existence, inuring him to pain. While it might seem cruel from a human perspective, such harsh treatment is necessary to reinforce to the young scrag that pain is only temporary and not to be feared and that in time all physical damage will heal. Eventually, as a coming-of-age ritual, the young scrag demonstrates his own fearlessness by chewing off his own limbs. At that point, he is accepted as an adult by the rest of the pack.
The regenerative ability doesn't last forever, though. When a marine scrag reaches about 100 years of age (their lifespan is around 120), the regenerative process fails. Once this happens, the other scrags in the pack mercilessly attack and destroy the elder, as he is weak and cannot "pull his own weight" in the pack anymore. As a scrag gets older, he will often bite off his own finger just to see if it grows back. If it doesn't, he'll high-tail it away from the pack to live a solitary existence for the rest of his days. Similarly, pack members will often slash at an older scrag to see if the wounds heal - their form of "just checking."
14. Cute or not, they're vicious little buggers. Most scrags are not born in the normal sense; rather, they perform a sort or "inverse Caesarean" by clawing their way out of the mother's womb. The mother, of course, is not harmed in the process, as she immediately regenerates.
