Yeller was elated and proud of his brother. He might be a little weird and say a lot of stuff Yeller didn't understand, but he had just defeated a great monster all by himself. Now Scratch was talking at him angrily about his bruised arm and how he shouldn't be reckless like that. He simply gave a big smile and patted his head, Scratch fell silent in surprise at the sudden skinship.

Yeller skipped over to the dead beast. It was heavier than the two of them put together. Scratch was talking again, just by standing next to him Yeller's understanding of language had grown immensely. He had been able to glean the meaning of Drool's commands from context, Scratch's babbling was a bit harder to parse but just being exposed to language had made him better at recognizing sounds and words. Right now he was able to make out a number of distinct words from his brother's endless stream of blabbering and place a meaning next to them.

"... bring ... food ... Drool"

He was right, the carcass needed to be dragged back. Scratch had said before that he thought Drool had no problem sacrificing their lives for a small chance at getting food. But they did get food and they didn't die, so it wasn't a problem, right?

Yeller grabbed at the hind legs of the best and tugged, despite the pain in his arm. It didn't move. Even with the two of them they were barely able to drag the thing a single step further.

"Go. Back." Yeller said.

Scratch began babbling again. "... leave behind ...? ... great ... haul!"

"Get others. Carry together."

Scratch relented and some time later five of the six siblings where dragging the animal together. They hadn't been able to find Drool and Runt but with the five of them transporting it was manageable. In consistent intervals First would grunt and then the five of them pushed and pulled together as one. Yeller eventually used only his good arm and Quiet wasn't able to get a good grip from the side of it, where he was walking, but in the end they got home eventually.

They were hungry, Teeth had already tried to take a bite out of the beast, only to get a mouthful of hair. They all understood that they needed Drool to somehow turn the creature into food.

When they arrived they found Drool beating Runt to death with a stick.

"Hey HEY." Scratch ran up to Drool, but stopped before he could get in range of his wooden club.

It was First that dared to come close and grab his father by the arm. He got an elbow to the face in return.

Runt wasn't even crying anymore, he was spasming on the floor. The damage to his cranium had already gone too far, he was dieing.

Apparently Runt had challenged Drool's authority and the patriarch had had to kill him in a struggle for leadership.

Or maybe you didn't see a use in him anymore. Thought Scratch, although when he recalled his own stupid act he realized that a small creature like Runt challenging the larger Drool wasn't that unrealistic. Their species had to have some sort of reduced fear response. Or maybe just their family.

-

While First and Quiet got rid of Runt's corpse, somewhere between the bushes, away from where they slept, Drool cut up the game for them. No word of praise, no acknowledgment of the danger of the task or the prestige of the result, he simply accepted the large beast as if it was perfectly natural.

To skin it he used a knife. It looked sort of bad, with rust forming on the blade, near the handle, but it was probably his prized possession. It was something he wasn't willing to lend out to children he had sent on a deadly hunting trip. The fur of the animal was cut up into crude patches of bloody skin, which he gave to his children as loincloths. It wasn't properly tanned leather, but flaps of bloody skin, they smelled and would probably start rotting after a while. Drool himself wore a similar piece himself and it smelled of death. However, they covered the nether regions, Scratch could already feel his dignity as a person return as he wore the first piece of coverup of his second life.

He straightened his back and looked out over the area in front of the cave. It beats being dead, I think.

-

While they were getting dressed Drool was cutting the flesh of the beast into hunks of meat. When Scratch tried to take one he almost got stabbed.

"Leader eat first."

"Jeez. Fine. Whatever."

The children stood around watching Drool slurp the blood out of savagely cut open animal, which he needed for hydration, and then stuff his face with raw meat. He made a mess of himself so eagerly feasting on bloody uncooked flesh. He probably hadn't eaten himself for days.

When their father stood up it was the children's turn. With painful aching in their stomach they set their teeth directly in the exposed innards of the carcass, sucking up its juices and chewing on the pink flesh. Scratch had understood that fire was beyond them at this point in time, but to eat the meat raw... He stood still, first looking at his siblings feeding, then over to the spot where Runt was unceremoniously buried and into the cave where Drool was lying down. He took a big breath and put a piece of ripped out muscle tissue into his mouth. It was chewy and tasteless, but surprisingly satiating. It did not trigger any gag reflex. His body seemed to accept this kind of nourishment.

I can't continue eating this. I'd get some sort of disease. Fire. Fire can't be hard, it's just rubbing sticks together. He thought, as he put another piece into his mouth. He'd work on fire when his hunger pains were relieved.

The sun had already gone under hours ago. He only realized it when he wanted to put sticks into the sunlight to dry.

There hadn't been any shadows or bright spots for some time, with his new eyes he had just as much vision in the dark as in the light, so he hadn't noticed the sun going down. It had to have been twilight when they killed the swine, then the sun came down completely during the group effort in moving it. After the meal the others had gone to sleep while Scratch had been stripping young hazel branches of their bark with a chipped stone. With some ground up dry leaves and some more twigs for kindling it should be possible to create a fire in front of the cave. That the sun had gone under so quickly had thrown a wrench into his plan though.

Is it winter? That can't be, right?

The similar vegetation had made him believe this world was mostly Earth-like, with some strange creatures in it like the large-tusked boar and his family. The plants still may have had lost a lot of their leaves, but it was too warm for this to be the winter season with these plants around, even if they were in a coastal climate.

The sticks obviously still had some moisture in them, maybe the leaves too. He managed to produce smoke but no fire and after a while had gotten blisters on his hands from twisting the wood too hard. In his single-minded focus he would have damaged his palms a lot more if he hadn't been distracted by the sudden screams and sobbing of a familiar female voice. Reinvigorated by the full meal Drool had woken up and decided to celebrate by trying to create a new batch of younglings with the captured human woman.

A back-alley, above a storm drain.

He was vomiting.

"Come on, you've seen victims before."

The one speaking was a partner in crime and confidant. She had her hand on his back in a token comforting manner.

"These ones are alive." Was the response.

"That makes a difference?"

His expensive lunch was gone now, for a moment he had felt like he would continue to spew all the gastric juices in his body, but he had been sufficiently purified now. He closed his eyes and visualized his discomfort leaving his body with every breath and cleanness and purity entering in its place. The redness in his face disappeared and he entered a calm and disconnected state of being. It was a trick of self-hypnosis that he had come to rely on way too much over his life.

"Let's go inside." His friend said. "We've got cleanup to do."

"Yeah, yuh-" He barely gave an audible response, but he followed her back.

-

They had a big discussion about his unprofessional conduct afterward.

"So when you're disgusted by what goes on in there, that's like a moral judgment, right?" She said with a smug grin.

"I mean... not really? It grossed me out. If I had moral qualms I wouldn't have facilitated in the first place, I don't think."

She stopped him. "Even if you don't act on it. It's still, like, empathy and stuff. And you said-"

He sighed. "It's like you're making an effort to misinterpret my philosophy, it's not about not feeling emotions. It's... how do I say this." He began gesturing with his hands, which he did mostly when he had trouble articulating himself. "It's about not projecting a state of how things should be on the world. I don't come up with any ideas about how those girls should be treated, or what our client should or shouldn't be able to do to them and I definitely don't come up with anything that should happen to them if they don't live up to my ideal world."

He got a skeptical look. "But you still want to take down the don, right?."

"That's not revenge. We're getting rid of something that's dangerous to both of us. I still look out for me, I'm not that zen."

-

He got the feeling that he had disappointed a friend with his contrarianism. But they were his true thoughts and he respected her enough to talk about such things openly.

It was unbearable having to stay near the cave with those noises going on. So he went for a walk. The immediate area around the cave did not seem very often trafficked, it was a mess of branches and leaves and he had to look out where he stepped. Yet there were no harvestable fruits around. On closer inspection, this really was winter vegetation.

The summers had to get unbearably hot in this world, if the depth of winter, at a latitude where days where this short, was so mild. He looked at his own hairless arm.

Or maybe this body just doesn't register temperature as well. Am I going to enter hypothermia without knowing it?

These kinds of thoughts occupied his mind during his walkabout, when the scenery had gotten repetitive rather quickly. He wasn't able to travel very far on his naked soles and had to cut his journey short back to the cave.

Untreated ground was unnavigable for someone like him. All in all the trip hadn't been enough to spare him from having to see his father abuse his mother. It was getting deeper in the night and he was getting tired so he eventually resolved to go in.

There was nothing erotic about the green-skinned geriatric child imposing himself on a struggling woman. Once again the ugliness and banality of the human form, as he saw it, was laid bare as the two forms collided into each other like slabs of meat and liquid. None of the other children were actually asleep. First was watching the spectacle, Teeth and

Yeller were playing quietly with sticks and Quiet was lying on his back, staring at the cave ceiling. There was some strong inner instinct preventing him from peering into the abyss that was the deeper cave. The grunting and crying was too loud to properly ignore.

"Leader go first." First said to Scratch.

"What are you saying? Are you waiting your turn? Get outta here."

All five of them had grown noticeably over the course of the day, they weren't that far apart now from Drool in size.

Perhaps their species was mature enough for that kind of thing after two days, but it was not a pleasant notion to entertain.

First looked at him in confusion.

"Why do I even bother talking to you creatures. You're barely cognizant are you?" Scratch kneaded First's face like a child's while insulting him.

Angrily the eldest child grabbed his arms and tried to push him over, the struggle turned into a wrestling match. It wasn't a gentle fight and Scratch lost, ending up with a black eye and a ringing in his left ear, but it was some distraction from the loud rape not ten feet away and when it was over Drool had sauntered off and let himself fall on the heap of moss he had collected for himself to sleep.

The mother was staring into the darkness, her unseeing eyes, having nothing to focus on, just peered into the distance. Now that Scratch got a better look at her she looked emaciated, her clothes hanging wide off her body and her face gaunt and pained. Drool was barely able to feed himself, never mind his pet here.

And let's not forget, birthing his children must drain away a lot of nutrients too. We're really like a parasitic existence, aren't we? Scratch added in his mind.

She looked half-dead, to Scratch she seemed more like someone in need of emergency medical attention than healthy breeding stock. First had his reservations too, trying to knead his genitals to get ready for the act like he had seen his father do. He wasn't quite able, it may have been part of their species' social structure to share a mate, but it's something different when that mate is your direct ancestor. Their community was too small to follow such rules.

Scratch came back with a piece of raw meat clenched in his fist. He had decided to try to communicate with this person. Drool seemed to speak a few words of his own language, that he knew from his time on Earth. With any luck the limited language Drool was using and teaching to his offspring was based of the human tongue in this area, if not this woman herself directly. His peace offering was a piece of raw boar, which he didn't think she had been fed with yet.

First just looked on as his brother approached the upper part of the human woman, the part with the face on it.

"Did you eat today? We have a special pork carpaccio on the menu today, it's a thickly sliced assortment of shoulder and fore-rib cut-"

Her eyes suddenly widened like she had awakened from a dream. Wildly she shook her head to determine the source of the sound. Scratch simply continued. "- all free-ranged, organic, grass fed and so on..."

"Is somebody there?!" Her voice was hoarse and raspy but she raised it to such a volume and pitch that it made Drool twitch in his satisfied slumber.

"Yes, there is somebody here. It's me. I am here. Right in front of you. I was offering you food." He held out his stretched out arm with the bloody ribbons of pig flesh.

"P-please, take me out of the place. Take me away." She started sobbing.

"Were would you go? Do you have a home?"

"I'm from Eston, down the river. I have family there, they'll... they'll give you something. Just. Please. I'll die here."

A human town. Even if it was a medieval society, it had to be a step up from the animalistic life Drool had supplied for them. If he brought her back, he'd be a hero. What's more, they were relatives, her family was his family.

Eagerly he inched closer to her. "Do you know what direction this river is in? Can you lead the way to Eston?"

"What do you mean? The river is... you must have seen the river to the north of here when you..." she crawled towards her savior, reach out her hand and grabbing his small bloody fist. "AAAAGH"

She threw herself back, throwing the raw meat on the floor.

"What a waste. You know someone that looks like you shouldn't go around wasting food." Scratch complained.

"You're... Where are you." Said the woman, said the woman, fearful and suspicious.

"I'm still right in front of you." He walked towards her, close enough for her to see the contours of his small head at the low light level. He had guessed what her apprehension was about. At first she had thought a human had come into the cave to save her, now it had become clear to her that one of the monster spawn was talking to her like a person. "Do you still want me to save our life?"

She crawled backwards, curling up in memory of the recent violation and those preceding it. "No. no. You're a monster."

"Then die."

They were harsh words. He wouldn't be able to smuggle someone out if they were protesting his every move in a traumatized state of delirium, so he gave her a curt answer and turned away. With two breaths he had banished the thought of her suffering from his heart, in his philosophy nobody deserved anything, what happened simply happened.

-

Briskly he walked out of the cave, out to where he had left his boar tusk to pick it up and back to the rest of the beast, where he began to use it for ripping off what was left of the skin. His actions had a fast and hurried pace to them.

"What you doing?" First had followed him out and was inquiring about his sudden action.

"What am I doing? I'm making foot covering so I can leave this place and go to where people are." He had procured two acceptable tatters and was scraping the remaining blood and flesh from the insides.

First sat down next to him. Interested in this mythical other place. "For me too?"

"No." Scratch did not look at First to acknowledge him when he said that. He had made bags to go over his feet and tied them around his ankles with the waste skin he had produced by skinning with such a crude instrument.

He took a moment to recall the passing of the sun over the previous day and set off to the north, leaving the tusk and all other tools behind.

Scratch had to pass some smaller streams before coming to the riverside. He knew that the river was a significant landmark so he passed over small ones that could be crossed in a single step, as long as he was going more or less north he would eventually find something. He had just developed doubts about this strategy when the rushing of fresh water became audible. He hurried over the forest floor to where the sound emanated from. With his makeshift shoes running was possible, although he still had to watch out not to step into larger sharp objects.

It was a significant stream, easily ten feet wide, but not very deep. A grown man might have been able to wade to the other side, but the flow seemed quite significant. Greedily Scratch plunged his head into the fresh water and slurped up the life fluid. The blood of the boar had kept him alive, but not comfortable, what's more it had been an unpleasant liquid, leaving the taste of spoiled meat in his mouth. This fresh water was muddy but infinitely better.

When he was done quenching his thirst he began scooping water from the river with his hands and washing his body with it. He was a bit cautious about bathing in it since the flow seemed relatively powerful but he still needed to wash the old sweat off his body.

The refreshing and rest had invigorated him and he quickly set off again, following the river towards Eston. He was content, having closed a chapter in his life, and a nasty one at that. The next part would consist of convincing humans of his gentle nature and intelligence and carving a place out in their society. He had discarded the family given to him by the goddess, they probably weren't meant as much of a gift anyway.

I have no need for them, therefore, I have done away with them. He thought to himself. I'm more of the lone wolf type anyway. I wouldn't want to associate with a bunch of troglodytes. They'd only slow me down.

As he had made up his mind like this he started humming a popular song from his previous life. Not a critically acclaimed one, a modern one that he had kept hearing and had gotten stuck in his head.

The sun was just about to come up when Scratch noticed the tilled fields. These were lands tended to by a farmer. He didn't see anybody in the immediate vicinity, so he continued his path past them alongside the river, until a wooden farmhouse with a straw roof came in view. It wasn't a very impressive building, not a hovel quite yet but not much bigger than a family apartment in the modern world either. They were dirt farmers, close to no cattle of their own, only a piece of arable land and woods to gather wood from. On the outside he could see a young girl, wrapped in winter clothing, carrying a bundle of wood from the shed inside, the breath visible as thick white mist against the orange sky.

At first he increased his pace in his enthusiasm, but then he slowed down in order to think about his plan of action. He had to make a good impression if he was going to convince these people to bring him to Eston to meet his family. He straightened his back, wiped off his loincloth and walked around the house to find the front door to knock on. Just as he turned the corner, walking on a muddy path he almost bumped into the young girl he thought was inside.

She was about his size, which all but equaled Drool's by now and the same apparent age. Her clothes where hand knitted wool in various colorful patterns and they didn't cover her face, which was frozen in fear.

"Oh, uh. Hi" Scratch tried.

Now she was able to react.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaa"

He covered his ears and stumbled away from her.

"Pumpkin!? Pumpkin, what's wrong?" An adult male voice came from inside. The father of the girl naturally came running at the screams of danger.

The girl hid behind her fathers leg as he let his gaze fall upon a startled Scratch.

Through the screaming, which was still going on, Scratch tried to make himself heard. "Listen- if you could- I'm onl-"

"PATTY. THERE'S A GOBLIN BEHIND THE HOUSE. GO GET A KNIFE." The father yelled inside. Not slowed down by his own lack of sharp implements he charged Scratch to kick at him.

The first kick hit him straight in the chest and knocked the wind out of him. Despite this the fear of death was able to move his body backwards quickly enough to avoid the next one.

Scratch gasped. "I'm.. not..."

But he had to flee. He sprinted away from the farmhouse, opposite from the direction he had come from, without looking behind him. When he finally ran out of breath he stood on an empty farm field. He collapsed on the ground. His body did not have the stamina to run for extended periods of time.

All the limitations of a child and none of the charm that's supposed to come with it.

He gasped and wheezed, digging his hands into the earth in frustration. Just in time he noticed movement in the corner of his eye. The farmer had not been content merely chasing him away from his home, he came after him, with a weapon this time. He was holding a shiny hoe in his right hand and he swung the head at scratch like it was a halberd.

The goblin dodged the initial strike but was immediately hit in the ear. A sharp pain and red liquid filled the right side of

Scratch's face, the implement has gone clean through his ear.

Scratch yelled in pain and tried to turn his face away, but the farmer was was unrelenting, hitting him with an overhead strike and piercing bone right next to the temple, driving the head of the tool partly into his eyeball. This time he didn't scream he simply fell on his back. Dazed, blind in one eye, in denial about what had happened during the last 2 minutes.

He was awakened to reality when the man set his boot on his throat, lifting the spud above his head once more, ready for the kill.

"This is what happens when they come out of their stinking caves."

Scratch grabbed the foot of his attacker but could not wrestle it away.

Just as the farming tool was about to come down and separate the top part of his skull from the rest he mustered all his strength to throw his entire lower body up and plant his foot in the back of the farmer's other knee.

When the support of his ground-planted leg suddenly gave out the human suddenly tilted backwards, Scratch gave a good twist to his other foot to make sure he went down. The tilled earth was softened and his face buried into the tilth without any injury, his arms flailing down afterward.

Fighting the urge to flee Scratch grabbed his leg and pulled away the pant leg and sock, he buried his teeth in the exposed skin, making sure to inflict a painful wound. The man screamed and kicked at him, hitting him painfully in his gory wound. The goblin scrambled to his feet, only now was it time to flee, with such a painful wound in his leg it would be hard for the farmer to give chase. Alternating between two and four limbs Scratch hurried back into the forest where he had come from.

"I'm glad we're all together like this." Said Scratch, putting the finishing touches on Teeth's foot bindings. The third of the five family members he was making them for. "You know, people like us, we need to stick together. We can only reach our full potential by working together."

The five siblings were together, sitting around the patch of ground that had developed to be Scratch's workshop.

"Humans chase you out?" First said bluntly.

"I... well, that's not the point. The point is. We're all brothers, you know. We've got to look out for each other."

"Yeah!" Yeller reacted enthusiastically, grabbing Teeth and Quiet, who happened to be standing next to him, by the shoulders. "Brothers. We work together."

Eston

Faction: Reddington

Size: C

Level: F

A medium sized city in the northern reaches of the Reddington empire. It falls under the duchy of Dichtershire and belongs to the Dichtershire family, however it does not belong to any county or barony and is not equipped with military defenses. This is because the city is quite remote and away from disputed territory. Because of its size Eston has an adventurer's guild, however, the surrounding monster population has historically been low-level enough for peasants to deal with themselves.

Eston's economy is based on its river port and ability to transport goods from the surrounding farms to the rest of Dichtershire. Manufacturing guilds and the adventuring guild are quite small compared to the rest of the continent. Reports on the thieves' guild suggest that it is relatively influential.

No nobility live in or nearby Eston.