Better Than One - Chapter 5 Bigfoot.

The following morning, everything hurt. All of the useful muscles were utterly sore. I groaned in pain trying to stand up, but gave up. Estra wanted to continue sleeping anyways, she was depressed and just laid there wallowing in self pity. I wanted a stiff drink. I wasn’t sure what stage of grief she was at, but it hasn’t hit ‘acceptance’ yet. Getting over being backstabbed by family and turning into an ogre was going to take more than a couple of days.

I had no idea what time it was, but them Kobolds were early risers. Estra and I had a conversation about our plans. Hers was simple, kill her brother and mount his head on a spike. I tried to convinced her to consider food, shelter and safety first. After all, it would be hard to mount a campaign on the human nation on an empty stomach. In the end we decided to hold off on our discussion of world domination because breakfast arrived and we were hungry.

There was much that we needed to learn, especially now that we were in charge of the clan. I couldn’t recall what it was called, probably something with a ‘Z.’ We had no idea how many there were in the clan, or what they did. For all we knew, food just magically appeared in the cave. It turned out later that there was some truth to that.

After breakfast was gulped down, I felt a bit better. Estra carried the bejewelled ivory cane in her hand, while I had the crappy club in mine, with the door on our backs. She was disappointed that the jewellery was the mundane sort; she was expecting it to be enchanted, or even magic. Most of it was just silver with a couple of gold earrings. None of it fit our fat fingers or the thick stumpy necks. I suggested piercing her bat wing ears with an ice pick that she carried, but she refused. She did manage to turn one of the necklaces into a bracelet though.

We stood in the central lair chamber and watched the Kobolds scurry about, busy with their morning routine, whatever it was. They could have been just running around in circles pretending to work, in through one tunnel and out the other, and we wouldn’t have known any better. With Zeeld dead, and Zeek gone, we didn’t know anyone else here by name, or by sight for that matter, I still couldn’t tell them apart. We needed to introduce name tags.

First thing first, was the matter of food. Sure, every breakfast, lunch and dinner we had more than we could eat, but now we had a hungry fat ogre in the clan. Food was vital, and I needed to know where it came from and how long it could be sustained. Whereas what Estra wanted to know was how to fashion something for us to wear from the fabric she was inspecting in a box, which was really just full of rags. I hoped it wouldn’t be a dress.

After some time of observing them, I rested my club and grabbed a random Kobold out of the mix. He was frightened, and would have ran if I didn’t hold him the entire time I grilled him for information.

“So, we’re the chief?” I asked him, just to be sure.

“You’re the chief.” He answered without hesitation. It was a good start, and I was beginning to like this fella.

“Where do you get food?”

“We forage and use traps, Zoey is in charge of that. I’ll go and get her.” He said eagerly, attempting to tug his arm free.

“No, no, first you’re going to answer some more questions. Then you’ll get her.”

“How many kobolds are there in the clan?”

“Twenty-three.” He answered promptly.

I asked him a slew of questions and then told him to fetch Zoey. I learned that besides trapping and fishing, they also foraged for roots, berries and mushrooms in the forest. Whereas in the caves they also grew and harvested glowing mushrooms that could only be grown near sources of mana, which this mountain had three that he knew about. These mana vents were coveted resources that the clans fought over. In fact, the coming arena battle would be over one such mana vent, among other resources. Losing would be costly for us.

Zoey arrived shortly after. She approached us with exceeding care and kept herself out of my arm’s reach. With a short tense bow of the head she introduced herself, while maintaining eye contact the entire time. She was rather short and thin, even by Kobold standards, and wore a simple leather jerkin which seemed two sizes too big for her. A long belt looped twice around her thin waist and was strapped with all manner of metal devices and pouches. Her hands and fingers were scratched up and dirty as if she had spent time digging. On her back she carried a quiver of light javelins and a small backpack. She looked ready for some serious adventure.

“We’re the chief.” I said trying to gauge her reaction and see if there might be anyone who would defy us, but she eagerly nodded. This is going smooth, I thought.

“What do you trap?” I asked.

“Mostly Tuskers and Onehorns. Sometimes a Bigfoot if lucky.” I didn’t know what these were, and neither did Estra, but maybe these were just Kobold names. Well, I did know about Bigfoot, but I had a feeling it wasn’t the Sasquatch variety that roamed here.

“Come see.” She motions back over her shoulder, and we followed her through a tunnel we haven’t been down before. It ended in a spacious chamber; the place smelled something awful. A number of creatures were hung by their hind feet in the center, headless and bleeding out. One creature was in a process of being gutted and cleaned. Animal skins were strung up and stretched on racks along the wall. She indicated to one as being a Tusker, and rummaged in a pile to retrieved its head. The creature was the size of a small pig, but with rough brown fur and just as the name implied, it had tusks, four of them. She was going to show us more, but Estra just turned around and waltz us back out to the main cavern.

“When do you check the traps?” I asked Zoey.

“I check every day. I was about to check now.” She said. I nodded and told her that I’d like to see them. Besides, Estra was itching to get out of the cave.

I was surprised by a party invitation dialogue window. I hit yes, and a health / mana bar popped up over Zoey, and just a mana bar for Estra. I could also sense a general direction to party members. It looked like Estra and I were considered as a single entity for the party system purposes, which kind of made sense, since we have a single body, even though we had two separate mana pools.

“We saw three orcs yesterday in the woods, do you know them?” I asked.

“They roam around mountain sometimes, they live an hour East with Ogres. We trade with them for charcoal.” Zoey said.

“Anything else that’s dangerous here?” Estra asked.

Zoey thought about it for a second and replied, “Humans. They come here, running or hiding from other humans, and bring trouble. They attack Ogre and Orc village, and they hunt us.”

A short walk later she led us to a snare trap. It was a wooden contraption with one side utilizing a bent over sapling to create tension in the twine to a trigger point. A circle of twine was spread open over the bait to snare the leg of an animal. It was just one of dozens that she maintained in the forest. We walked in a loop for about an hour, going from one trap to the next. Most of them were snare traps, with a few deadfall traps. Only a single one was sprung, with a Onehorn caught in it. The creature was small, like a fat squirrel. It had a grey fluffy fur, long orange teeth, beady black eyes, and a single horn on its head, curving backwards. It was really cute. Zoey clubbed it over the head, then sliced its throat open. Estra looked on with utter disgust, as if just yesterday she didn’t put an icepick through a Kobold’s head. Whereas I was getting hungry from the walk and was looking forward to some freshly cooked meat.

Essence gained: +23 [Current: 1,978. Total: 26,636]

We had a final trap to check before we were done. Zoey got excited all of a sudden. I heard grunting noises from a distance before we arrived. The final trap had a pleasant surprise. A Bigfoot was caught in a foot trap. The creature was about the size of a water heater, with light brown fur, and a chubby tail like a traffic cone. It had a long beefy neck and claws like that of a sloth. Zoey used its large side as a target practice, throwing thin javelins into its lungs until it suffocated on its own blood. We got good bit of Essence from the kill. I assumed it was because we were in a party together and it got shared.

Essence gained: +1,205 [Current: 3,183. Total: 27,841]

Normally, she’d go back to the cave to get help dragging it back, but this time she had us. Zoey constructed a makeshift litter to drag the carcass. The thing must have weighed over two hundred pounds, and my muscles ached with every step. Thankfully it was a short walk back to the cave, and it was about time for lunch when we returned. Everyone was quite thrilled at the sight of the Bigfoot carcass when we dropped it off at the tannery.

For lunch I had Zoey sit down with us so I could ask her more questions. She knew everyone in the clan, it was a tight woven community. They didn’t have paper or pens, but they did have a slab of slate and bit of chalk so I could take a tally of the clan’s members and their duties. Every one of the adult Kobolds had a job.

1 Fat two-headed Ogre – Chief

2 cooks

1 woodworker

1 lumberjack

1 potter

4 blacksmiths

4 miners

2 trappers

2 foragers

1 tanner

1 leather worker

2 mushroom growing

2 nursery caretakers

If Estra and I were counted as two, then that would make twenty-five adults in the clan, and half were females. There were a few juvenile Kobolds, and just three eggs in the hatchery. Normally, Kobolds are prolific egg layers, however egg laying was lowered to a trickle for whatever reason, maybe it was due to the looming territory battle, or maybe they were lacking in food.

After lunch we got a tour of the place. Zoey took us to the glowing mushroom farm by following the stream deeper into the mountain. We came out to naturally formed caverns of irregular shape connected together. Pools of water joined the spaces such that you could swim from one cavern to the next. The place was aglow by mushrooms as big as a bar stool, and just as tall, hanging upside down from the ceiling. The caps of the mushrooms were like jellyfish blown from glass, crystal blue. The air was pleasantly warm and humid, but the smell of rotten eggs was bad enough that I didn’t want to linger about if could help it. The mushrooms gently hummed and fluctuated in a blue glow, and I hoped it wasn’t Cherenkov radiation.

The Kobold had built wooden platforms so as to reach the ceilings where the mushrooms grew. The platforms seemed badly rotten from the humid conditions. In the central chamber was the mana-vent, deep under the blue waters. A bubbly current of iridescent water was coming up, creating what looked like a gasoline film on top of the water, except the film was evaporating into the air in wisps of vapor that would get ‘inhaled’ by the mushrooms.

“I can make mana potions from those!” Estra exclaimed.