Chapter Twenty-Five
Making my way back into camp, I went straight over to the bear right after dropping my spear and the rest of the loot off in the now growing pile of weapons and leaving the still empty bucket next to my pack. Rubbing his head as he looked up at me, I thought his eyes looked clearer, but that might just be wistful thinking on my part, as it hadn't been that long since I had treated his wound.
Checking on the bucket I had left for him, it seemed that he had regained his thirst as it had been licked clean. While half of the halibut I had left him had been gnawed off as well. Looking down at his belly I could see he had managed to leave the bandage alone, happy I wasn't going to have to figure out some kind of cone for him to wear next, I left to let him go back to sleep. Walking over to the fire and my makeshift grill, I saw that the coals had mostly died down, but one of the kelp pans had broken through the stick grate to fall into the ash. Fortunately, it seemed like the kelp was still intact, keeping the fish from burning up in coals. Judging by the black specks on the fish there had been some ash that had sprayed up to land on both it and the two portions to either side that hadn't managed to collapse in. But as we used to say in the restaurant, that's just extra flavor.
Looking down at my hands, I could still see blood under the nails from digging into goblin innards, also I had plenty of dirt that had been worked into the skin with my dirt bath from earlier. While not the most fastidious of men, I still didn't want any of that nastiness in my food, which meant this called for a sacrifice. So picking up my shovel, I walked over to my condenser. I was grateful to see that the planet overhead had performed as an adequate substitute for the sun back home. Beads of water were still dripping down, running underneath the plastic to stream down from the point underneath the weight, before landing into the bucket which was now closing in on half full.
I was a little surprised at how much this hole had managed to bring in, I was expecting much less. If I had gotten a quart I would have been ecstatic, but this was over three! Gently removing the tungsten weight from the middle, I pocketed it and started carefully brushing all of the dirt off of the edges with my shovel. Grabbing the edges of the plastic sheet by two of its corners, I brought it over to my tent and laid it over the top. Waterside up, careful to not let any of the dirt slide down and mix into the water that would turn to mud and contaminate what looked to be my main way to bring in water.
Going back to the bucket, I wanted to bury my face down into it, not having anything to drink since the dew this morning. Holding back, I brought Gaian his share first, pouring two-thirds of it into his buckets and leaving myself with the rest. Walking over to the unlucky pail that I had brought with me on my abortive trip, I poured in about a cup's worth of the precious liquid. Sighing as I saw that it just barely covered the bottom, I thought about adding some more, but my thirst won out. Lifting the smaller one that I had dedicated to pure water up to my mouth, I carefully began drinking the remaining ambrosia down.
Taking my time, I let the warm water run down my throat. Lukewarm and with a slight plastic taste, I still looked into the bottom remorsefully before I tilted it back up and waited for the last couple of drops to slip into my mouth. With the planet about halfway down the horizon, I figured that there wasn't any point in starting a new hole until the morning. So I set my smallest container just inside of my tent flap, before heading to my pack to grab my small bottle of condensed soap. Dripping two small drops into the bucket still in my hands, I sent it swirling around a couple of times to foam it up before I brought it and two of my cleaner rags over to my camp chair. Sitting down, I placed one of the rags by my side, before soaking the other one and scrubbing my hands vigorously with it.
Leaning the bucket backward in my lap to get as big of a puddle as possible, I started ringing the rag out into it, before soaking it back down and repeating the process. Over and over again until the water turned into a dark brown sludge, I guess hoping to get two of my rags cleaned was a little bit of a stretch. Well, at least I had managed to get my hands to a point where they could touch food and not leave Essence de Goblin behind. The rag I had chosen was also much lighter and nearly back to the tan it had started out as, with all of the blood that had encrusted it before seeming to have made it into the bucket. Hanging the rag over a tent rope to dry, I set the bucket of filth down and wiped my hands off on a cleanish spot of my shirt.
Looking down at my now blood free hands, I went on to my next task of transferring all of the fish over to the remaining baskets. Wobbly and lopsided like the others, I lined the bottom of it with more of the dried kelp, before shredding the still warm fish. Taking some of halibut and chewing on it mechanically to help fill my belly. I found it to be dry and flavorless with all of the water and oil cooked out of it, but it was still calories, so I just tried to keep my mind off the blandness as I continued to work. Trying to achieve a mindless state, I let my body do its thing on autopilot until I finished getting everything off the top of the grill.
Reaching down into the coals, I picked up the last piece and gingerly pulled it apart as well. Leaving the baskets uncovered for now, as I didn't want to trap any of the steam coming off the top and accidentally rehydrate some of the fish. Looking up to the ridge line, I saw that the planet was on its last legs as it continued to dive down to leave me with just the two visible moons for light. With darkness closing in fast and still more to get done, I quickly moved on to building up the fire in the trench, first transferring more coals up to the dirt in front of my chair to give me a soft glow to work with until the branches I added managed to the trench below managed to blaze up.
Grabbing three gore covered rags I had left alone I tossed them into the bucket of liquid, before adding the one I had left back by the chair. I slowly started working them through the already filthy water. While I was under no illusion that this would actually get them clean, I had some hope that at the very least, I could get rid of all of the dried blood and guts. Taking them over to one of the back tent ropes I hung them up as well and would see what progress I had made with them in the morning. Heading over to my corpse pile, I dumped the sludge out over the bodies, before walking into the grass to scrub it as clean as I could with my having to use grass for a sponge.
As I headed back into camp the stench of the dead bodies started making me wretch just a little bit. While intellectually this should have made sense, I really hadn’t thought that the aroma of the dead Troll and goblins could get worse. But apparently, as they started to decompose, a rancidness was starting to cut into the excrement that they had smelled of before. No longer debating on whether I wanted to spend the energy to bury them, now the only thought going through my mind was if I was still going to have to go through the bodies to look for cores tomorrow.
If all went well and my friend was up for it, then I would hopefully be moving my campsite to the first copse of trees where I had gotten the firewood from earlier. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to convince the bear to drag himself along with me, as I didn't think I had any way to force him if he didn't want to come on his own. Surprised that we hadn't had any avian visitors here yet, I guessed they were either still busy with the feast a hill away. Either that or the goblinoid species were just so awful smelling that scavengers couldn't tell the difference between dead and live ones until the decomposition got much further along.
Looking in at my campsite about a hundred yards away. I thought it wasn't bad for the amount of time I had put into it, and it was going to be a shame to move on. But this pile of bodies being so close was bound to attract attention the wrong kind of attention soon. I had no doubt that after the carrion birds started circling, that would be enough of an indicator to the remaining goblins around that something was here to eat.
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Yeah, it was going to be a shame to leave the campsite, wishing I still had a camera to make a memento of what I hoped to be the first of many campgrounds on this new world. I settled with taking a mental snapshot of it with my Mount Tai in the background it really was an amazing look. My path to the ‘beach’ was on the northwest side, heading up the ridgeline, while my tent was placed just to the side of it, almost due west of the beginning of the path. Then there is the ten foot square patch of earth with the turf roll along the southside that, while small enough for me to step over, would hopefully force any invading Goblins to take a second or two to clamber over it.
The fire trench was running on a diagonal from southwest to northeast in the middle of the square. With Gaian lying in the grass along the east side of camp where his hopefully greater senses were my ward against Goblins coming through the tall grass unnoticed. I had covered a good piece of the north part of the square with the branches I had brought over from the woods, most of which I still hadn't used in the fire yet.
With them lying on the ground, while they didn’t make any kind of a barrier, I hoped in the dark they wouldn't be seen and would give enough of an alert that when stepped on I could get out of my tent. No doubt I would still die, but at least this way I would be able to take some of the buggers with me. Also, I would much rather force them to kill me, rather than give them a chance to bundle me up and bring me back to their camp alive. Pack and baskets of food were along the south side of my tent with my two makeshift sleds, while the growing pile of weapons was left in a heap to the north.
Heading back to my chair, I wanted to get started on the last task I had planned for the night before I tried once again for some sleep. Stopping by my pack first, I pulled out the cores the Goblin pack had been carrying. Sitting down with the fire in front of me, I started comparing them with my fresh ones. Looking for differences, both to see if there was anything I could find that would help me unlock my own core, and also to try and figure out why they would be carrying them around themselves.
Every bit of lore told me that Goblins were insatiable so one would think that they would have also had some choice (for them) bits of food, but all they had besides weapons were these cores. While the three I had killed had better weapons, they had even less to show for wealth, if that was indeed what these cores represented. While I did want to get started examining the cores, I made a mental note that I was going to have to take care to explore tomorrow more thoroughly before setting up a new camp.
The lack of food being carried was worrying, they had to have a bigger camp around and if they had any kind of organization to it they would no doubt be looking for the first group soon. Hopefully, the sloppy way I had dug around for the cores of the three I had killed would be mistaken for an animal attack. Although I still had yet to see any sign of predators or prey other than the green menaces that I had run up against twice. They had to be living off of something. Before I could get too caught up in pondering the food chain of this world, I cut the hamster in my head off with a better puzzle by holding up the shinier stones to interest him.
The first thing I noticed after sitting down and pulling my three new additions out of my pocket, was that two of my three new cores had the same hew to them as the previous green ones, but these fresh ones had a stronger glow. While not bright enough to use as a make-shift flashlight, these were instead much more like a two day old glowstick. The rocks that the troop had carried, on the other hand, were more like the luminosity of the year’s old glow in the dark stickers of stars, that still adorned my son's ceiling back home. The third one however was a bright red, and while it looked like it should be warm to the touch, it was instead quite cool to feel, while still smooth like a glass pebble just like all of the others.
Looking at the pile of eight that I had salvaged from the pouches of the goblin troop, I knew I could mix them together with my new ones and still be able to sort them out based on where they had come from should I not unlock their secrets tonight. Well, not which cores the two lieutenants had held, but I remembered Shaman had the only blue and gold cores, and I was pretty sure he had the smallest green one, or was it the brown? I was really starting to miss my phone and being able to leave myself notes.
Holding up the smaller of the green ones that I had collected, I compared it to the other one whose providence I was sure of. They both were the same thickness, looking as if you had cut the center section out of the globe, just leaving off the rounded top and bottom. One seemed to be close in size to a dime, while the other was closer to that of a nickel.
Holding them first up to the firelight, I hoped to use it to see the inside, but all that seemed to do was overwhelm the glowing light coming from within them, almost washing it out completely. Closing my eyes to get my darksight back, I then held them up to the black backdrop that was the night sky. Taking care to face away from the moons on the horizon, in case they had enough illumination to force me to reset again. I held the little rocks up to the backdrop of stars and this finally seemed to be dark enough for my purpose.
Looking from one to the other, it was easy to start picking out differences, the larger of the two seemed to have a glowing that started in the center before pulsing out in an explosion that looped out to the edges before collecting back into the middle. While the smaller seemed to be like a river of energy looping around the outsides of the globe, starting at the top. The energy seemed to be driving through partitions, pooling up in places before moving onto the next blockage spot and eventually ending up in the center where it took a straight shot back to the top, although there was a duller line heading down to the bottom.
Picking up the red one next from the pile in my lap, I immediately noticed that while the light that came off of it, and the size of the stone was comparable to the bigger green rock, only this one was much flatter. Much more in line with an excellent skipping stone in shape if not size. Holding this one up to the night sky, I could see that the energy instead of moving around in loops and whirls was completely different, It seemed to not have any pathways at all, instead, the entirety of the light seemed to gather on one side before dimming and then flowing quickly to the other side where it would brighten once again.
Pulling out the blue and gold ones next, I wanted to see if their inner glow also had its own unique movements to them. Not that this would guarantee anything with such a small sample size, but any data points at this point were better than nothing. Holding up the blue one first, I saw that it was much more in line with a flat soccer ball, round with just slight indentations on the top and bottom. Of size with the smallest green one, I wondered if that was why the shaman had chosen it, or was it because of the difference in color, or perhaps was the fact that it was rounder give it more value?
I remembered the green one that was closer in size to a half dollar had been carried by the smaller lieutenant. That seemed to indicate that the larger one should be less valuable, but again with such a small sample size I didn't want to jump to conclusions. Looking into the blue one I saw that even though the light was dimmer, it was similar in movement to the red one in that it didn't have pathways it followed. Instead this one seemed to radiate out from the center, looping around like tentacles writhing around each other. The light moved from the center outward before coming back, the tentacles themselves however continued moving around with no pattern that was readily available to my novice eyes.
Moving onto the gold core, which I still held with a little apprehension to touching with its similar hue to the core of the troll. Holding it up to the sky, it looked much like the blue one in shape except for being half again as large. The golden energy inside this one however was more in line with the green, as opposed to that of the red and blue. However, this one instead of having any kind of winding pathways, was instead like looking at the fractals in a kaleidoscope, all with very straight edges and the slight glow was moving along the edge of the fractal making a path around the entirety of the core. The light seemed to brighten on the edge of each splinter before moving onto the next, eventually ending back up to where it started.
Dropping the ones I was holding back into the pile on my lap, I debated picking up the largest core I had found, before eventually deciding to finish off looking at the last of the colors I hadn’t seen yet. Picking up the bigger of the three brown ones I had looted, this one was closer to the size of a quarter but was again flat, like a good skipping stone. Holding it up to the ridge line, I started to try and decipher the pattern of energy that was glowing in it, when I was blinded by a flash of light coming from over the hillside.