"Phew." I let out a deep breath as Varris stabs into the last of the small group of goblins.
"That makes six total now. Three this time, three in the last group." Calliope says.
"Goblins do like to travel in small groups. Its rare for more to show up unless there is a big target for them to band together to fight. What worries me is that we've only reached the edge of the forest an hour ago and we've already run into two sets of them." Varris says.
"It'd be nice if it was just luck, but if it isn't, then that means there are a lot of them in there. I suppose that just means we should take Garm's advice, and thin their numbers first, it should also help us gain experience. So we're stronger for the final fight." I chime in.
We take a short break to gather goblin ears in the sealable bag, dispose of the corpses in a bit of a natural pit in the forest, and then continue walking the perimeter of the forest.
After another twenty minutes of walking, Elys brings something up, "Everyone, I couldn't put my finger on it before, but I figured out what was bothering me from before. Its really quiet for being alongside a forest. I've barely heard any birds or any other animal sounds the whole time we've been here."
"Do you think we're being followed by goblins and they're scaring them away?" Calliope asks.
"No I don't think its that, all the goblins we've come across have been eager to attack us. I'm more concerned that given the number of goblins, the wildlife as been driven out of the forest." Elys responds.
"Its likely going to make it harder for us to camp out as well." I say trying to judge the time of day, "I'd say we only have a few hours of daylight left. We should gather some firewood, and head a little ways away from the forest and into the plains, hopefully we can find some wildlife out there that we can hunt for food."
Varris nods to agree, and pulls out a bundle of rope from his backpack, "Man, we're lucky Garm packed all this stuff for us, he really knows his stuff."
"Yeah, I'm sure we'd be having quite the hard time otherwise. We should really reflect on all the stuff he sent us with so we know what to get for ourselves in the future." I say, grabbing some kindling on the ground.
We continue collecting firewood for a little bit, when we hear the sound of something rustling through the underbrush nearby. In all likelihood, its more goblins. I'd like to be optimistic and hope its an animal we can hunt, but I ready my crossbow just in case, while the rest of the party also readies their weapons and drops any wood they were carrying.
Shortly later, we hear a second, and third rustle. Four, five, six from the brushes around us. We huddle in closer into a more protective formation, backs to each other. Not long after 6 goblins step out from the bushes surrounding us holding spears. I take aim as quickly as I can, and take a shot towards the nearest goblin. I hit it in the arm, and it drops its spear, and moves backwards clutching the bolt in its arm.
"Firebolt!" Elys casts a firebolt at the goblin that I hit, finishing it off, as the other goblins move in closer, one stepping uncaringly over its dead compatriot. I begin reloading my crossbow as they approach closer, and Varris steps forward to draw their attention and swings his sword down towards one of the goblins, who hastily moves its spear to try to intercept the blow, but its flimsy spear breaks, as it takes a glancing blow and stumbles back. The goblins near it moving in trying to stab at Varris as he knocks their spears away with his shield.
Calliope is using her spear to keep the two goblins near us at bay. Unfortunately, neither Varris nor Calliope can land a good blow as the goblins attack in waves covering for each other's weakness since the initial breakthrough.
I pull my crossbow back, and lift it up, making a quick decision to shoot at one of the two goblins Calliope is keeping fended off, nailing it in the throat. It too stumbles back, clutching the bolt in its throat, and it yanks it out, only to fall lifeless. Taking advantage of the change in the standing of the battle, she rushes her spear towards the other goblin she was defending from. Its small form unable to fully defend against her full combat prowess being displayed, as it takes a hard stab directly into its chest.
As these three goblins are now incapacitated, we can all turn our attention to helping Varris who has been successfully fending off the three goblins on his side, but it starting to look a little worn out from fending off the two healthy goblins and the injured one.
Calliope charges to his side, and peels the attention of one of the goblins off, and Elys casts a second firebolt towards the injured goblin, blasting it backwards, where it looks like it struggles to attempt to stand before falling back down.
From here we clean up the remaining goblins, and take a breath. Despite being caught in the forest while gathering firewood, we managed to pull through. Before I get too much relief, I feel the familiar feeling of a level up to level 4. Its too bad leveling up doesn't work like in some video games where you instantly heal up and feel well rested, but I'm not going to complain about getting more powerful. It seems like everyone else also leveled up.
Soon we begin regathering the dropped wood, and after a short period of time, we've gotten enough firewood, and we begin to make our way back out of the outskirts of the forest when Elys stops us.
"We should dig up these plants." She says pointing to some tall thin plants that I don't recognize. Realistically, I don't recognize any of the plants in the world. Sure, they look similar, leaves, stems, the trees have bark, but looking closely, I don't recognize them at all.
The plant she's referring to has a stem that stands about 3 feet tall with wide leaves branching off. When she digs some of the dirt off, and pulls it out, it looks like a mix between a potato and a burdock root. With a large oblong bulb and then tapering off into a root.
"These are edible. They're not particularly tasty, but when you boil them they turn soft. Looks like there are a handful around here. You also need to cut off the tops before you cook them, the stems are mildly poisonous. Not enough to kill you, but enough you'll regret it." Elys says as she goes for a second plant. Before long we've gathered a handful of the roots, and then continue our way out of the forest.
"Ok, so how far away should we set up camp?" Varris asks.
Judging from the sun, we have maybe an hour before sundown. I pull out the map we were given. My sense of location based on this map isn't great, but I roughly gage on the map a decent place. "Around 40 minutes from here, there seems like there is a stream, we should set up close to that so we can gather water easily." I say, and we begin headed that way.
After only 30 minutes we reach the creek. We move a little bit away from it, so we aren't sleeping in the mud, and begin divvying up tasks. Myself and Elys are in charge of setting up camp, while Varris and Calliope are going to try to find some meat. Calliope wades into the stream with her spear, and Varris makes his way along the shoreline looking for any small animal burrows.
As we get everything cleared and a small firepit set up, I'm thankful that Elys has fire magic, as we set a small bundle of kindling on fire in the small pit we dug with her firebolt, and then put some larger wood pieces on the fire as the sun slowly begins to set. With that, I take the large pot Garm gave us, and go to the creek to fill it with water for boiling, and leave Elys my knife to prepare the roots from before. As I fill the pot with water, I see Calliope stab into the water, and as she pulls her spear out, I see a medium sized fish on the end of it skewered. She gives me a thumbs up, and follows me back to the camp.
As I set up the pot to boil near our campfire, I notice that Elys has already finished preparing the roots and she puts them into the water. I take the knife and sterilize it in the fire before handing it to Calliope so she can gut the fish.
"I uh... I don't know how to prepare a fish." Calliope admits as I go to hand her the knife.
"I can do it." Elys says, as she takes the knife, and begins skillfully removing the skin and organs from the fish. Sometimes I forget that she's from the countryside, so she likely has a lot of experience with stuff like this.
As she finishes preparing the fish, Varris comes back with an apologetic look on his face, "I'm sorry, I didn't find anything."
"Thats fine. I caught a fish! Its not like we absolutely needed it." Calliope consoles him.
"Did you see anywhere that animals might be?" Elys asks.
"No, I didn't." Varris says.
"Well, lets hope its just an unlucky location. We're 30 minutes from the forest, its making me a little worried that there has been so little wildlife even here." Elys replies.
Coming from the modern world, I remind myself that what is normal for me, isn't necessarily the same for them. In the US, even in rural areas, you wouldn't expect to find random wild animals that often, unless you are in a really unpopulated area.
We chat about the day as we cook and eat, and Elys volunteers to take the first watch of the night as the rest of us sleep.
Sleep easily takes me after all the walking and fighting for the day.