She had a whopping two weeks to get strong enough to fight something that took 15 hit points with a grazing blow. A mountain of a challenge and she didn’t know where to start. She couldn’t go back to the Mikmik tribe location because of Kien.
She was going to need to focus on something else.
Andral might have more information. I should also let him know.
Standing up she once again cast cure on herself and made her way back to the Gypsy camp. Having a general idea of where it was, it still took hours for her to find it, and only coming across animals on her trek back didn’t lift her mood. She had hopped he was able to get more goblins.
Entering the camp at near night fall there was a bit of a commotion. Amara came to her side as soon as she was seen.
“What’s wrong?” Janet asked Amara.
“Cagen, someone is here claiming they know you,” she said and her hands went to Janet’s arm.
Nope, not interest.
She gently maneuvered her arm from Amara and moved to Andral.
“Phionex?” she asked.
“J.. Cagen… I came to help.”
Andral had his arms crossed and looked towards Janet. “So you two do know each other,” the elf didn’t look happy, but his expression lightened slightly when he saw her grim expression. “I don’t think I like that look.”
“What do you know about Hobgoblins?” she asked Andral instead of addressing Phionex.
“Goddess tits, you’re joshing me right now,” the elf’s frown wrinkled his brow and his made deep lines into his face. “Let the boy up.”
The bandits let Phionex go. Janet watched as he moved nearer to her and away from the men. She turned to look at her friend and lifted a brow at him, before turning her attention back to the elf.
Andral scratched his head and frowned. “Did you really see a Hobgoblin?”
“His name is Kien, he issued a challenge, in two weeks his hunt for me begins… I need to be stronger and I need to know about them.”
“Lets talk over supper,” Andral replied. She nodded her head.
“Fang go,” she said and her wolf pup happily went over to the other dogs to start playing. Andral walked off. He likely needed a moment to collect his thoughts. So she turned to Phionex fully. “Lets step out of their campsite.”
They exited the colorful canvas protection of the camp and a few feet into the forest near the stream.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to pl… help you?” he answered her.
“Okay, you do realize you need to log off for school and other things right?”
“Yeah, I’m not dumb Jan.”
“You will be out for five days for me, or one school day for you, including travel. Then you have to leave for twelve hours for me when you go to eat dinner, and again for when you shower,” she rubbed the bridge of her nose, which still stung a little when she was bashed in the face with the shield. “I appreciate your desire to help me, but I am not strong enough to take care of you.”
“Janet,” he groaned and looked around the forest seemingly to avoid eye contact with her. She was right, she knew she was right.
“Even if it is a bad idea,” she started and the look on Heater’s character face was like a child got told they could have anything in the toy store. “We can try it. I admit I am in need of a partner for my quests.”
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“You have quests?” he asked. She opened her quest menu and showed him.
“Don’t you?”
“I haven’t gotten a system quest like that since I finished the tutorial in Oakglen,” he said while he pulled out papers from his inventory. “I did however pick up all the wanted posters and help wanted gathering flyers that I could, and several of the Churches are wanting help slaying undead. There is an old temple to the Heart Mother in these woods somewhere, that is over run with the dead.”
Janet took the flyers and looked at the information on the wanted posters first. She saw one for Andral, and his bounty was 100 gold, she smirked and gave a huff of a laugh at it. Bandit of unknown origin, wanted for banditry along road, theft of supplies and mockery of the guard.
“If they are offering 100 gold for him he’s not some simple-minded push over,” she said mostly to herself. Many of the wanted posters were between the 50 and 200 gold range, many asking for dead or alive, and many seems to be bandits or highway men of some sort, with the exception of one, which is said to be a practitioner of the dark arcane, a necromancer, and defiler of scared ground. His bounty was 25 gold.
“Jan?”
“Hmm?” she hummed the sound deep and resonate. “You should get use to calling me Cagen, or Cags if you want.”
That startled her, how naturally that nickname came out.
I am going insane.
Proceeding to look over the gathering flayers, there was one for herbs, one for furs or leathers, bugs, ores, feathers. Nothing she really wanted to do, though the feathers looked interesting. Feathers from birds, for bedding, fletching, and quill making, any bird will do, more for owl feathers and hawk or eagle feathers.
She kept all the more interesting ones separate from the others.
“We’re going to be doing some grinding, I have a thousand ears to collect, and if we can get some of these done while doing that the better. I can’t touch the Mikmik Tribe yet… what level are you?” She asked.
“Level 2,” Phionex replied.
“Cool, I’m level 3, I have herbalism, hunting and skinning, but my skinning’s not the greatest, also going to be learning Alchemy, it pays better than just the herbs,” she explained. “Most of the bounties we can’t even touch, I mean three of them are pirates, as in ship and ocean pirates, and the rest are different bandits or gang members. I kept this one because you mentioned the church want a temple cleared?” she looked at Phionex and shifted to see Andral lift the canvas.
“Yes,” Phionex answered.
“He might be behind the undead and the cause of the corruption of the temple, so we will need to be aware of that,” she handed all but Andral’s poster back. “We’ll start early in the morning.”
She turned to Andral and held up the flyer as Phionex followed her back. The elf took it and let out a low whistle.
“Damn, their artists suck,” he said.
Laughing she looked at the drawing. “From second hand description I think its pretty good,” she said taking it back and tossed it into the fire. “This is Phionex, he’s going to be joining me for a bit. Phionex this is Andral, leader of these fine folks.”
The two men shook hands and they sat down at a table.
“You’re not going to be able to go all out on the Mikmik Tribe, not with a Hobgoblin,” the elf started. Janet crossed her arms as food was put down in front of her and Andral launched into explaination.
“Hobgoblins are honorable beasts, as little as it is, they have it. They are the only goblinoid that can level if they defeat strong opponents,” she must have had a confused expression because he explained. “Many creatures can’t level like the allied races, there are some that can, like the orcs and lizardfolk. Hobgoblins are one of the ones can can level, but in this part of Nier they are rare. They prefer to form strong military styled fortresses and launch attacks like bandits or gangs would, or go out and make small wars. Unlike their goblin and bugbear brothers however, they have some code of conduct, what ever that may be it seems pretty universal.”
“Like a paladin,” Janet said.
“In a sense yes,” Andral answered.
“Do they follow a god?” she asked.
The elf started to mix the soup while breaking up the pork she had brought back before. She also noticed that Phionex was being quiet.
“I imagine they do, which one, I don’t know, never stuck around to ask. I have heard that they deal in slave trafficing in the monstrous races.”
“So if they dont kill you they can sell you, lovely,” she looked at her bowl, there was a chunk of the hog meat, some roots, carrots or yams, corn and turnips in the soup, and some pan bread.
“This is good,” Phionex said from beside her. Andral smiled at him and Janet could tell it was a tight smile, maybe the elf didn’t like Phionex.
“Do you know of any temples with undead in the area?”
Andral ripped some of the pan bread before dunking it in his stew. “In this area no,” he answered. “Though there is a temple to the Heart Mother East towards the mountains, its a couple of days out.”
“Goblins?”
“Yes, though I am not familiar with the tribes.”
“You have a plan?” Phionex asked her.
She finally unfolded her arms and took some bread. “I agree with Andral, I can’t safely go after the Mikmik with them having a Hobgoblin, and I have two weeks to get stronger and I will need more than just goblin opponents to do that. We head East, cut the goblin population there, and try our hand at the undead. If its doable, get our levels on them and the goblins before coming back here in time for the hob to start his hunt,” she said lifting her spoon. “And pray that its enough.”