While traveling there was nothing but signs of life in the area from large and small birds chasing each other through the trees to a variety of game trails riddled with the tracks of different animals. Also in the tree were creatures like giant squirrels or tree rabbits in this world with a pair of arms that hugged their bodies while climbing between their front and back legs.
In the shrubbery were even more creatures from squirrel sized flying insects to lizards like komodo dragons that hurriedly slithered away or circled up trees like lightning.
Because we had no no priority targets or destinations besides camp, we literally swung or shot arrows at anything that moved while avoiding actual gunfire for fear of unnecessarily scaring prey. Instead of her usual quiver, Eliza wore a large leather bag on her back that contained not one but several quivers containing different arrows.
Currently she was firing these 'small game' arrows that had regular field tips with beveled faces like a pellet but right behind the heads were a protruding ring of shaft half an inch bigger around than the rest of the arrow.
The point of these was the fact that her bow was so overpowered she would just shoot a mile through anything considered 'small game'. With the raised ring behind the arrowhead, not only does the blunt arrowhead reduce traveling power for the arrow but the ring reduces as much, if not more than, the blunt tip. In this way, even though the arrow would still pass through the six-legged tree, they only traveled about a dozen yards further up before arcing down.
Relying on the relative familiarity to this world my goblin would have, Poniard and I were leading the ground with Fred and Eliza while Frank, Emilia, and Emile held the rear. Everyone else was in the middle with the cargo trying not to get shot by our short archer. It would have been comical if not for how dangerous she actually was.
Poniard would stop now and then to investigate this plant or that tree, usually accompanied by some gestures and sounds to me which I could only assume were his attempt to explain them. From the way he would look serious and point to his mouth while shaking his head about a large flower with wet, glistening leaves and petals told me it was no good to eat or touch.
However, Ms. Gwyn identified the same plant and several others as magical or medicinal plants of low and mid grades. This meant that any time Poniard stopped we all had to stop and take samples or collect the plant. I could not help but think of the video game I had not gotten to play recently and how useful it was to have a 'cart'.
There were also times when Poniard would twitch his ears or sniff the air and suddenly stop while dropping low to the ground. Most of the time I could only assume it had found recent or fresh trails but there were a few times when it would peel back its lips in a bestial snarl the likes of which I only saw while sparing the other goblins or disciplining them.
I really had no choice but to inform the others that there was probably something dangerous and predatory in the area or had been after I finally made the connection.
Life became pretty tense for everyone and Eliza started firing less often while recycling the same arrow and carrying a hypodermic arrow clenched between her teeth. We had already collected about a dozen bodies from a few different tree creatures and even a komodo as it tried to climb away. We were probably being followed because of our hunting habits.
Who or whatever was in the area never actually made an appearance, probably due to our constantly high level of wariness. From the overlay of different prints and my lack of familiarity with the greater number creatures in this world, I had no hope of picking out any tracks that would be associated with predators. Without Poniard we would be screwed if we wanted to get to the hill without harassment.
But reach the hill without harassment we did, eventually losing the interest of our follower from the way Poniard eventually began to relax. At the top of the hill we could see most of our surroundings and even pick out the same tree that we had climbed to find the hill. That tree was now our landmark back to the portal.
Poniard got the easy job of setting up all of our tents while Fred, Frank, and I set about setting up our perimeter with fifteen-foot steel stakes not unlike the pipes I used to demonstrate staff techniques to the new goblins. After planting about fifty of these things five feet deep in the ground around our camp, we strung cables through holes lining their upper ten feet of the poles so they were all connected together.
For entrances we just cut and bolted the cables between two rods in our four cardinal directions for gates but left the top five feet of cables alone while gathering up wood for making staked blockades for just-in-case reasons. The blockades, though, would be Leo's job because he could fire-harden the wood and increase its MP with his fire magic. Now I only had to worry about cooking, oh joy.
Once the basics of camp were set up, Eliza, Emilia, and the tankers went out to go hunting while Ms. Gwyn, Leo, Carlos, and Emile took Poniard to go hunting for plants and other resources. Even though the seventh day would be spent logging the area around the portal, anything we brought in and did not keep for ourselves would rake in loads of contribution. It was almost enough to make me feel bad for the team that 'had' to pass on this mission.
Despite the fact that both Karen and I were left to watch the camp, we still had very different jobs. Her current task was to process and organize the resources we had had already acquired while my job was to finished skinning our kills. I would have preferred getting to go out and do stuff but Karen's fortes were close range magic and magical devices you wanted to be long range away from.
Even though the red meat animals in this world were supposed to be safe to eat, the only meats I held onto were the hearts in a small personal pot for Poniard. The komodo carcass and other bodies were stripped of valuable parts like certain bones or the giant reptile's slender arrowhead-like teeth and then dumped on the opposite side of the hilltop from camp.
On Earth, kids were taught to keep careful track of their trash when camping to avoid attracting animals but here in this world we wanted to bring in the big ones.
Even if the bait only brought in some brave scavengers at first, everything here but the smaller bugs were at least E in grade so everything here had a skin that was useful or something else of value to offer. As well, the growing variety of meat will draw in a growing variety of predators. In a portal like this, predatory animals were safe to assume as mini bosses. Always treating a predatory animal like an intelligent enemy above your pay-grade was the general rule of thumb to follow.
When I finally finished my task of processing bodies I cleaned myself up and went to find some real food to start cooking. Since we had brought a large charcoal or wood grill and I had brought a bunch of fresh foods, I took out a small pack of chicken breast from the team cooler before some apples, zucchini, broccoli, and pears from my own stock. Then, after lighting a fire in the grill I set the foods and some utensils on a table before cutting the chicken breasts into large chunks.
I had no idea how to identify which woods but I knew the hardwoods here were as safe to cook with as back home so I just put a bunch of different wood in a bucket before pouring a bottle of cherry cooking wine out over the wood followed by water.
For seasonings I bought a small spice rack for camping and from it I had a plate of salt, pepper, parsley, sweet basil, garlic powder, and rosemary. After rolling the chunks of chicken in this plate of spices I started preparing the vegetables and chopping the fruits into chunks and triangles. Next, I lightly salted both the fruits and veggies before spitting them on a road with pieces of chicken.
Because I had a team of ten to feed I made two dozen kebabs before stretching out a long swatch of foil to start smearing a stick of butter on. When the foil was done being prepared with butter, I would roll a kebab up in some of it and then twist the ends closed around the food. After a brief check on the fire to add some wood as the fire continued consuming fuel to build a bed of coals I breezed through the process of preparing kebabs.
With a few more minutes to tinker with the fire and add different sized pieces of wood, I wait until the smaller pieces start burning before topping the bed of coals and wood with wet pieces of mostly flat wood and bark from the bucket. With the smoking material on the fire, I put the grate on the deep grill and loaded it with kebabs before closing the lid. For a grain to go with the food, I simply put a rice steaming rack and dish of water on top of the closed grill before adding two cups of rice per person.
From where she was nearly done processing resources of her own, Karen suddenly breaks the companionable silence by saying, "Didn't you say this was your first time overnighting in a dungeon? Why do you look so professional at it?"
"The academy would send us on field trips to low grade territories," I reply after making sure everything was set to just sit for a little while. It would still be a couple minutes before the lid was hot enough to hear the water in the steaming rack. "Even though it was still on Earth, with the monsters around it's all the same principles."
"How old are you and how long have you been a chef?" Karen asks seriously, getting to the point.
"I'm usually the guy who ends up cooking," I grumble unhappily. "Besides, this just looks like good cooking as a clever cardboard facade. There's really ipecac all over the food and im just cooking out of boredom. Why do you think I used mostly only my foods?"
"But that plate of spices smells so good im enjoying it from all the way over here," she seems to sadly say, disappointed by life itself at the prospect of not being able to eat my kebabs.
"Well, I left one normal one just for me so I guess I can hide it in your poison kebabs," I say playfully. "Good luck finding out which is which, though."
Trying to look on the bright side with a soft laugh, Karen actually says, "Well, since it's good food at least I'll be able to enjoy it again and again with every bite thanks to the ipecac."
Laughing a little at her childishness, I say, "Oh, yeah, the prolapsed esophagus will totally be worth it. Every bite is like the view of heaven from the pearly gates. Right before St Peter pulls the lever and the cloud under your feet opens up like a stage trapdoor and down to hell you go."
Making a hungry noise and rubbing her stomach, Karen says, "Sounds like it's to die for. You know, Eliza is usually a very picky eater but she loves veggies and Italian food so she'll probably really like this."
"Hm, I should have brought some cheese or something sauces," I say thoughtfully while walking away to a two-story sentry tower the others had set up in the middle of camp. "A nice cheese or tomato sauce to put on the kebabs and rice would help them cool to serve and be a little more flavorful. I did my best to keep from seasoning the fruit, though."
"Oh, yeah, this one's a keeper," Karen remarks quietly to herself, probably thinking I could not hear her from my new location.
Deciding to just let it go after thinking about having been rejected by Emilia when I walked up to basically just say hello, I sit there in the sentry tower and just enjoy the view of the world from up high. Half the trees in the surrounding forestry were still as tall as my location, if not much taller, but there was still plenty of the world to see from up here. It did not hurt that the sky was a cloudless aquamarine or teal with a big bright star setting its way down from the very top.
I had enough time to start cooking the rest of the kebab ingredients before the others finally started coming back from their forays. Even though she had seen me cooking them Karen still waited until somebody else ate first before eating any of her own kebabs just to be safe. She even stopped Eliza from eating until she knew it was safe.
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