After fully recovering. I learned to appreciate life, as it is.
I restarted my physical training and re-craftied new stone knives. As you could remember I was too busy to leisurely bend over and pick them all up. So I had to craft new ones.
I could have tried to go find them in the forest with Krikos, but not having ranged weapons made me fearful of the unknown. Plus I just recovered from my injuries and didn't want to risk it.
So playing it safe was the best option for me.
This time I made 16 throwing knives. It might be excessive, but I never want to worry about not having enough throwing knives on hand, when I'm in danger.
They took about 3 weeks to make, significantly less time compared to before. Last time they took 1 week and a few days to complete 4 knives. Now I made 16 knives in only 3 weeks. I saved about a week of time. This goes to show that my skills in crafting are slowly being elevated.
I continued to work on my throwing skills on rabbits. Trying to hit multiple at once and as fast as possible.
Right now my goal is to shoot down 6 consecutive bunnies. I'm only at 2 right now. I'm a little slow in the re-shooting department.
With the new rabbits hides I tanned them and made leather, with this new leather I made a double layered coat and plants. This should offer more protection from mauls and bites from different beasts.
With all the extra leather I made 3 new water flasks, 8 sheaths for the new knives, and a stitched together roll of leather. I'm planning to set this roll of leather as a base for a map. I'll first use charcoal as a pencil, drawing the landmarks.
After taking a while to confirm everything is in place. I'll make the drawing permanent by cutting into the leather. Since leather will be the base of the map and not paper, the map will be extra durable.
I started off by drawing in the centre of the map my home, with the Fish River beside it, and I started to map out different landmarks. I spent my days hunting and making markings from huge trees, mountains, to different animal dens. I mapped out different animal territories that I found with the help of Krikos.
I spend my days slowly expanding the map every day, getting into a habit of reading, checking, and drawing.
With all the exploring, I started to get confidence handling different beasts in the Deep Forest and learn to memorize the map and places of the forest.
My confidence was short-lived because I encountered magical beasts. These beasts have different coats, they're cleaner, bigger in size, more aggressive and more assertive of territory boundaries.
I found a group of 10 wild boar within the forest. They seemed no different from the previous boars I encountered, but one thing that was different was that none of them were eating except for the largest.
His coat of fur was midnight black with red stripes going down its spine.
He seemed normal at first, just bigger. But when a group of wolves came over he opened his ugly mouth and breathed out a huge flame. The flame was so large it covered the pack of wolves.
It was like there was a built-in flame thrower in his mouth.
He burnt the wolves to ashes, before going back to eat the roots of the plant.
The pack of boars following him seemed to be in high spirits and squealed out, it was a high pitched squeal painful to hear. To me it sounded like they were laughing.
It was then that I realized the forest is even more dangerous. Every time I get confident, the Deep Forest humbles me. I was also excited though since this proved my guess was right.
I was transported into a world of magic. Like from a horrible fairy tale. I just hoped I wouldn't become the protagonist of the story. With new found resolve, and humility I start hunting in small territories of normal beasts. From deer to wolves I hunt them all.
I found a family of wolves with 7 members off on a hunt. I followed their trail and paw prints with Krikos keeping watch of the surroundings.
After a few hours of tracking, I found them feasting on a deer carcass. I re-counted the wolves to make sure there wasn't one missing.
Once I was sure they were all here, I had Krikos to check if there were any other beasts nearby just in case the smell of blood got too strong. When I heard a clear "Kik!"
I knew the hunt was on. I sneaked forward while crouching, my hands holding two throwing knives, reading myself for the kill.
I waited until the wolves were just about done, finishing the carcass so they would be slow and lazy. That was when I took my shot.
I threw my first knife at the largest wolf in the middle of the pack, hitting him in the stomach, while my second knife killed the one beside him.
The leader or alpha, was quick he dodged the fatal blow with a jump otherwise I would have hit him in the head.
Knowing my direction would be quickly found, I didn't panic. I snuck around making a small circle around them and threw another two knives.
At this time the wolves howled and looked around frantically trying to find the perpetrator attacking them. They snarled and growled making a small protective circle around their alpha.
My knives sunk into two more wolves quickly ending their lives. After their bodies dropped, the other two wolves roared out loud, with spit flying from their mouths.
All three wolves seemed to be possessed, their eyes turned into a blood red tinge.
I got too excited and forgot to pay attention to a tree root sticking from the ground, as I tried sneaking around. 'thud'
I fell over, but wasn't hurt, maybe my ego was wounded.
With a loud roar from the wolves, I knew they noticed me now.
Rolling over on the ground, I quickly readied and adjusted my knives. While backing away, trying to keep track of the wolves.
From a howl from the injured alpha, one of the lackeys ran straight towards me and the other went a curved route. The alpha disappeared, while I was distracted.
I threw my knife at the lackey, running straight towards me. I hit him on the shoulder and he slowed down, while screaming in pain. I threw my second knife, punctured his neck with blood flowing from the wound he was down.
While backing up some more with steady steps I grabbed another set of knives. I locked onto the second lacky. He seemed to have forgotten his orders.
Right after his companion fell over and died. He charged straight towards me. I threw my knife and hit him in between the eyes with a 'thud' he goes down too. I scanned the area searching for the alpha. Slowly spinning in a circle.
I called out to Krikos. " Where is he?!"
'Kik?'
I didn't get a reply. It seemed like Krikos lost him too, in all the excitement. As I felt the air getting tense and my body getting covered in sweat I heard a loud scream behind me "Keee-ar!"
I trusted Krikos and rolled forward and got back on my feet, while jumping backwards.
I check my shirt and notice it's ripped and my shoulder is bleeding. I'm bleeding…..
Everything seems to slow down and I noticed two glowing dots in the bushes to my right. I didn't hesitate and threw my knife.
The alpha appears and knocks the knife away with his long claws. He growls and jumps towards me with his mouth open. He looked like he wanted a second meal. His eyes were burned with a wrathful fury.
I brought out my spear and took a step forward thrusting towards him. He moved his head ever so slightly and broke my spear into pieces.
Having gotten a closer look at the alpha. He seemed to have a small moon-like, white strip, along his legs.
This wolf is almost a magic beast. No wonder he was so strong. I jumped to the side and slipped on the muddy puddle. I fell on my back and watched the alpha open his mouth and jumped towards me with claws out.
At that moment I heard a swooshing sound and all I saw was a blur of brown and white.
It was Krikos he hit the alpha head on, literally. Making the wolf dizzy from the impact. As Krikos hit the wolf he ricocheted to the side and fell down on the ground.
I didn't have enough time to catch him, so I did the next best thing. While the alpha was still shaking his head and trying to get rid of the dizziness.
I took two knives and threw them at the same time aiming for his front legs. The alpha tried to dodge, but the dizziness seemed to slow him down just enough for the knives to land.
Now that the alpha was incapacitated and couldn't move. I took another set and threw them to end his life.
After that, I took out my spear to stab him a couple times to make sure. I threw the spear away and went to check on Krikos.
He seemed fine, just unconscious. I allowed him to rest in the harness and went to stab the other wolves just to be safe.
After I made sure they weren't unconscious. I retrieved my stone knives and wiped them on the grass to clean off the blood.
I skinned all the wolves, intending to keep the hides for leather making and carved out the best meat sections, like thighs and belly meat for ration.
I didn't plan to keep all the meat. Since it would take forever to bring them all home and the smell of blood they carry even after being bled out is still too dangerous. Since I was quite deep in the Deep Forest.
Now that the hunt was over I washed my shoulder of its wound and searched for a large tree to house me for the night.
After a few hours of sneaking I found my tree. As I was moving through the forest it seemed to become eerily quiet, I didn't remember when. I don't think I cared much or was paying attention.
As I got to the tree I tightened my harness on Krikos and slowly climbed. After I got to a safe height I noticed the tree is quite larger than the other trees I climbed before. While setting my bed for the night, I noticed sounds.
Sounds that seemed new to me. They were weird, cackles of sound; it sounded like chattering sounds. Since it was dead quiet I could hear them easily. Normally living in the forest you could hear all types of sounds at night and that was normal but this was new.
Could they be people? I crouched down and hid within the leaves of the tree branch and waited. The sound was getting louder, I could hear many of them, something light like footsteps, like my own. Maybe dwarfs or gnomes, this could be my new ticket to civilization. As the sounds they made got louder. I saw in the far distance a light, maybe a torch or a lantern.
I waited full of excitement and hope. A smile forming from my face tears in my eyes threatening to fall. I sniffled with snot filling my nose.
As they got closer and louder, I got a better sight of them.
Green short, just under 5 feet tall. Long finger nails are about an inch or two. Ugly clothes barely covering anything at all, some not even wearing clothes.
Teeth pointing out from their mouth sharp and deadly, though looked yellow or black rotting full of cavities.
Those teeth were a dentist's wet dream. The amount of money they would make if these creatures were part of their clientele.
One word popped into my head: goblins and not the good kind.
You might be wondering, how can goblins be good? Well in some lore goblins can be civilized and have working societies, with morals and ethics.
Some could be engineers or greedy merchants. But from the sight I saw these goblins were cavemen goblins, wild, dirty, vicious, and worst yet always horny to mate.
Looks like I wasn't wrong, I see that they brought a young girl with them. Well, the person had long hair, and Goblins won't bring males home.
They'll just eat them right then and there. No point in wasting energy bringing him home. It seems they had hogtied her to a stick with one goblin holding her up on each side.
What a sad and unlucky girl, she will be traumatized and abused till there's nothing left but an empty shell of a person. She'll become a breeding mule, if you will.
I thought so a moment and whispered to myself
'If save the girl and she brings me to her city or town….. she might be just the thing I've been looking for'
If I saved the girl. I might be able to get her to lead me to civilization.
I checked the goblins again, 6 members, thin looking, most likely intelligent since they can make and use fire plus they kid napped a woman.
No weapons and no other animals in the vicinity, since it's dead silent. I say to myself 'Let's do it'
Without Krikos helping, in this hunt. It will be tough.