After resting for awhile and then searching around the village, Jed found a few coins, bringing his gold balance up to 163, as well as an old potato sack which he was able to fill with goblin ears as proof of his deed. There were also some sparse bits of food in some of the huts but one of the benefits of being made of stone is not getting hungry. After one last check for any hiding goblins, he flipped the sack up over his shoulder and hit the road under the rising sun.

The goblin corpses had been sitting around all night and were starting to smell, not that goblins smell very good while they're alive either. Of course, Jed took no notice of the rank odor wafting through the breeze, luckily for him he has no sense of smell, a blessing as well as a curse. A few rats and one of the half beaver, half raccoon things were chewing on goblin parts (not that kind) and Jed gave them a friendly wave as he made his way toward the forest.

The crunch of fallen leaves under his feet, the occasional branch smacking him in the face, the sound of bird poop splattering down his shoulder, all the noises of the forest overlapped with his voice as he practiced talking to himself on his way down the trail.

"Gree...tings..myname....is...Jed.  ..Nice... weth...er..we're..hav...ing.  I..li..ke...big..butt...s... and... I... can...not..lie."

*Splat*

"..Fuck...you... bir..ds."

That went on for a while until he gave up on talking and instead just took pot shots at birds as they flew by, missing them all horribly. Eventually he stopped with that too and just sighed to himself, trudging along silently.

'My aim doesn't suck...it's just windy and the sun got in my eye...yeah.'

Jed neglects to mention the fact that with his magic vision, his eyes are working just fine.

He picks up the sound of voices in the distance and makes his way quietly through the trees, or at least as quietly as a 6 foot rock man can get. Getting close enough to hear them but hopefully remain out of sight, he crouches down behind a bush and peeks out just enough to see what's going on.

A man with a staff stands in his underwear with a deep frown across his face, he's being held at crossbowpoint by some guy in black clothes and a mask, who looks just like a generic highwayman. But something is wrong... the mask has no holes where the eyes should be and he is holding the crossbow the wrong way, with it pointed at himself.

"Hold it right there! I am the infamous Blind Bandit, famous throughout these lands for my great exploits of courage and daring. Also thievery. And by lands I mean this particular part of the forest... about twenty feet in diameter from where I'm standing. Okay, this is my first time. But mark my words, soon all shall know my name and whisper it in hushed tones around the campfire at night!"

"Dude... come on, I've been having a really shitty day. I already had most of my stuff stolen so I've got nothing to give you. Also, you're an idiot."

'Wait... is that the mage that I left face down in the dirt yesterday?'

"Hohoho, aren't you a cheeky one. You've got some huge balls to dare mess with me, we're talking like... the size of cantaloupes! But uh... anyway, back to business. I've got a family you know, can't feed my kids if I don't work! ...Okay, yes, it's for drugs and booze. Shit's expensive these days. So I'm sure you can empathize with me and realize I can't go home empty-handed. Gimme your pants."

The half naked mage closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, probably trying to resist the urge to light the insane bandit on fire.

"I told you I've got nothing! I'm not even wearing pants, so get away from me and go find a healer for your head."

"What!? No pants? How bold! Now prepare yourself for penetration!"

The mad bandit pulls the trigger of his crossbow and by some miracle it doesn't hit him, instead grazing his ear and flying past him and into a tree. He jumps back in surprise and slips on a tree root, falling on his ass.

"Wha-...you deflected it!? You must be some kind of ninja, shit!"

The robber jumps to his feet and sprints off into the woods, tripping on things and bumping into tree trunks on his way.

"You haven't seen the last of m-... waaaah!"

*Thud. Tumble. Crash.*

For a few moments the mage just stands there with his hands on his head and his eyes closed. Once calming down, he turns back toward the path to the town and starts walking off, supporting himself with his staff like a walking stick and muttering angrily to himself.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

When the mage is out of sight, Jed hops out from behind the bush and slowly heads the same way, careful not to catch up to the man.

'Well that was... interesting. What the hell is wrong with this world? Seeing that mage again though... it reminded me of the other two adventurers who escaped. Hopefully they didn't mention me to the rest of the town.'

The mage kept stopping to rest, which annoyed Jed since it just made him have to wait longer, but eventually they made it to the edge of the forest. Something good must have happened, because the mage was jumping around and waving his arms in excitement. Waiting cautiously, Jed slowly crept up through the foliage until he could see out into the clearing. Wide, flat, grassy land spread out in all directions before him, further to the west it turned into hills where the town was, while to the southwest a large pond glimmered in the sunlight.

Further down the dirt road, a wagon came to a halt as the mage ran up to it in his underwear, waving wildy and yelling for help. Jed couldn't make out much more than the figures of what looked to be a man and woman up front, along with three kids in the back. After the figures looked at each other as if they were discussing something, the mage was tossed a tarp to cover himself and he hopped up onto the wagon with the others. A few moments later the horse that was pulling it took off down the road at a slightly faster pace than before.

Deciding to make a detour to the pond so that he might wash off the bird poop, Jed walks along the edge of the forest, away from the road until he's straight across from the water. Glancing around a few times to make sure there is nobody nearby, he makes a mad dash for the water and upon reaching it, dives straight in with all the grace of a turd hitting the water in a toilet. He quickly sinks until he's fully submerged and hits the bottom of the pond. Various fish dart around through the water like tiny torpedoes and out in the middle of the pond he can see a much larger monster of a fish with scary looking teeth jutting from its mouth in all directions. Thankfully it seems to pay him no mind and just swims around, stalking some of the smaller fish who starts speeding away for their lives.

After spending some time admiring the underwater view like a diver, he waddles back over to the shore and pulls himself up and out of the water. The sunlight quickly dries him off, not that being wet really mattered in the first place, and he gazes back at the road, then the town, deep in thought. 

'I've been trying to sneak around out of habit for awhile, but now that I think about it, it doesn't really matter since I'm going to be seen eventually anyway. Too bad I don't have a white flag or something... ah well, I just need to get close enough to show the guards the goblin ears and then hopefully we can all be bros.'

An hour or so later, Jed approaches the town gates where two buff looking guards equipped with chainmail and the generic sword and shield combo, as well as four archers up above on the wall, stood in defensive positions to keep all unsavory characters or monsters out of the town. As they take notice of the incoming earth elemental with a sack slung over its shoulder, the archers scramble for their bows and the two warriors in front of the gate draw their swords.

Before they do anything stupid like shooting arrows at him, Jed quickly starts waving and as he's close enough for them to hear him, he grumbles out a greeting.

"I...come...in...pea...ce!"

They all stand there stunned and mutter a few things to each other, then one of the guards takes a small step forward.

"W-what are you and what do you want? State your business!"

The bag full of goblin ears is tossed and plops down at the man's feet, spilling a few of them across the ground and onto his boots.

"..gob..lins...all...dead..or..gone."

The guard jumps back in surprise when he sees the massive amount of severed ears below him and after staring at them for a few seconds, looks back up to Jed.

"You're saying the goblins that took over Riverside are dead? Did you kill them?"

Jed gives him a swift nod.

"Yarp...I..am...friend..ly."

The guard stares at him with a little bit of doubt, but he at least looks like he's less ready to kill him on the spot. 

"There's no precedent for this... Hey, Jeff! Go get the mayor, tell him that there is a talking rock man at the gate who took back the village and we have no idea how to handle this ridiculous situation!"

One of the archers turns to climb down from the wall and vanishes from sight, probably headed to get the mayor. The others relax and lower their weapons when they see Jed sit down as he waits.

"..come...here...off...ten.?"