You search the wagon, tents and body for anything you can use, keeping to the ground to avoid straining your wound. [Luck: 20!] It turns out that Nal was a very prepared man. You find a leather roll among his belongings that has several pouches full of medical supplies; needles, thread, bandages, gauze and even a splint. Jirn's tent contains something which at a sniff reminds you of gutter cruor, but smelling slightly more of apples and less of fetid swamp. [Wound Dressing: 12+0(S)+4(Medical Kit)=16, Suturing: 1!] You clean and sterilise the wound with the liquor, but your bloody fingers slip when trying to sew the wound shut and you stab yourself - blood starts actively spurting from your leg!
Shitshitshitshitshit! [Wound Dressing: 18+0-5(Emergency)+4(Kit)=17] You grab bandages and gauze and desperately start binding the wound shut, applying pressure in a desperate attempt to staunch the flow of blood. It seems to work and after a minute you feel confident enough to slacken the bandage slightly to prevent cut-off of circulation. Still, that wound is probably going to scar in the future.
[Luck: 2] The wagon and packs of the humans are full of food; days and days of healthy trail rations in the form of nuts, dried berries, biscuits, pickled swede and cabbage and blasted, blasted elven bread. You actually crumble the bread up in disgust and hurl it into the bushes. Not so much as a bit of jerky or a sliver of dried fish! What's an obligate carnivore supposed to eat around here?
[Butchery: 12+0] You take one of your new blades and start cutting thin strips of Nal meat, screwing your nose up slightly at the task. Not that you find mutilating bodies especially disgusting (it's an old goblin pastime!), just the idea of eating sapient beings. The whole concept seems horribly
elven. The sooner you can get back to eating food that doesn't talk back, the better.
You aren't a skilled butcher, so you just shave thin strips of flesh from the limbs rather than risk spoiling the meat by digging unwisely into the body cavity. In any case, preserving meat isn't your thing. You get enough for four days and lump it into a bit of cloth cut from Nal's shirt, then shove that in your satchel.
Speaking of satchels, you find it tucked away with the rest of your belongings under some pickled swedes on the cart. You reclaim your writing kit, quill knife and a couple of crude maps you drew for your own use. [Luck: 20!] A second search of the camp and Nal's body proves productive, yielding a lantern and three pints of oil, a fire piston (for starting fires), some rope, a handful of snares and three large traps suitable for bears (or men), a decent cloak and a change of clothes. You pull on the cloak and clothes in preference to your old garments; they are warmer and the cloak's hood and gloves do a much better job of concealing your nature to casual observers. There is also a stout walking stick which you use as a crutch to investigate Cal's body. You find little of interest except a small pouch containing several sprigs of a grey herb. [Herbalism: 3+0] Unfortunately, you can't identify the herb from your prior experience. Perhaps if you had some of your books...
[Animal Handling: 11+0-2(Reticent Beast)+2(Food)] You get back aboard the wagon and try feeding the mule some of the human rations. It takes a little while, but the beast eventually seems to make peace with you as its new master and starts off at a plod (Plod? Trot? You aren't up to date on mule-related terminology).
[Luck: 20!] Not long after setting off you find a body, horribly mutilated. You recognise the clothes and what is left of the face as belonging to Jirn; at some point during the night his skin was torn away in small chunks by what look like tiny claws. Based on the blood on his fingers, he probably tried clawing them off his face to no avail. You have no doubt the bogeymen made it last as long as they could; after all, they only attack sapient creatures. A quick search of the body turns up more useless rations, so you leave it be. You can at least be confident now that he at least will not be on your trail.
Once Mule is comfortably on his way (you name the mule "Mule" until you can think of something better, if you care enough to name him at all) you settle down in the wagon and start examining the two maps in your satchel. One is a rough map of the eastern world and the nearby nations, the other a local map from your observations.
You seem to remember there were other goblin nations in the East at one point, but they were destroyed before your time or had few to no links with the Knives of Cruelty. You recall that the Gilded Confederacy, Long Dune and Crested Waves are all human nations, while the Velvet Roots is elven and the Conspiracy of Mirth is a dwarven kingdom, but you don't recall many details about them. You know that the Gilded Confederacy is a loose federation of allied city-states rather than an absolute kingdom or unified republic, but little else. One of your book stashes has a journal with your collected findings on the Confederacy, you call.
You marked the locations of your book drops with red X!s on the map to help you remember them. One is hidden in a small wood to the northeast, another at the fork of the local river to the southeast, a third in a small human village on the edge of the swamp (Pilemurk), the fourth deep in the swamps to the south and the fifth at an essentially random point in the plains to the west (you left deliberate clues there to help you find it again).
You don't know the names or locations of most human towns, but they do largely cluster around the rivers. The local seat of government is the city-state of Waterhills to the northwest, the largest settlement in these parts and a notable walled city. It would be the best place to get rare items and trade and perhaps easier to blend into a crowd (in your cloak) than a market town full of questions. On the other hand, more people means more chances to be discovered. Mudcups is a fairly large market town to the west, somewhere one could buy most reasonable things if needed and perhaps even find a place to lay low.
You start heading to the nearest book drop (at the river fork), but you can change your destination if you wish. You could reach the fork or Mudcups in about two nights' travel, or even Pilemurk in three, but without a companion you won't be able to drive through the night as you will be forced to bed down in a tent to avoid the attention of boogeymen (oddly, any sort of cover seems to work so long as you are completely concealed by it - or failing that, a campfire or some sort of fire).
It all depends on your priorities. Is it more important that you get your books again, or that you get yourself settled? You've survived your first few nights since capture, it's time you started thinking about your short to medium term goals.
Vitality: 1 (Severely battered, one knife wound in leg. Blood loss. Bandaged.)
Full
Status: Grumpy, Mildly Disgusted.
Kills: 2 human hunters.
Inventory: traveller's garb & hood
2 plain iron hunting knives
1 -iron quill knife-
1 writing kit
crude maps
1 medical kit (+4 to medical checks, 4 uses remaining)
4 days' Nal meat
1 jug of strong spirits
5 sprigs unknown herb (in packet)
In the Wagon
1 lantern (w/ 3 pints of oil)
a fire piston
8 snares
3 bear/man-traps
ragged, formerly fine black clothing
Expert Administrator
Proficient Historian
Proficient Law Scholar
Skilled Geographer
Competent Negotiator
Competent Persuader |
Competent Liar |
Competent Judge of Intent |
Adequate Dodger ||||
Adequate Leader
Adequate Knife-Fighter
Novice Wrestler ||
Novice Athlete ||
Novice Wound Dresser
Dabblign Butcher |
Dabbling Forager
Dabbling Pump Operator
Dabbling Biter |
Dabbling Stealther ||
Dabbling Suturer
Dabbling Animal Handler |
Languages: Perfect Goblin, Fluent Human, Broken Dwarven, Poor Elven
Been a busy few days, so no update. Enjoy some very, very cheap maps! A quick note, by the by; you recover 1 Vitality for each night of rest you have (provided you can heal and aren't infected), or 2 Vitality for a full day and night's rest. Alternatively, one could always try finding a Life Mage, but good luck with that!
Author
Topic: Goblin (Read 13544 times)