《The Monster We Are》Chapter 12
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I carve every one a portion of the bastard hare and prop the done one up against a tree and put another over the fire.
“ Thesa once every on is done can you show me what plant life around here you can eat.” I ask her.
“ Eat plants, what do you mean.” She replies.
“ Doesn’t matter.” I tell her in turn. So that cuts down the opening I have at the moment.
I roll up the pelts we have and add them to my backpack. While chewing on some more hare, I find the straightest stick I can find, and cut it into strip like planks. I’m going to use them and make a spear holder to go on the side of the backpack.
I need to set up an individual plan for each of the siblings. Basalt is easy strength based sets with blocking based techniques. Onyx I’m thinking Agi\Str mix and spear or lance style weapons.
And now the girls, Lavender should be a pure Agi build unless alternatives arrive after rank up with ranged weapons. Peony Agi/Dex I’m not sure what weapons yet I need to see more of her style before I decide and finally Lily. Lily I’m not sure on either while being the smartest of the siblings, I haven’t seen her fight or really get into anything yet, unlike Onyx with the spear making.
We sit and eat for a while longer. “ Thesa should we take the extra bastard hares back with us, as we have one spare cooked and the other still by the tree.” I ask.
“ Yeah. It will be good for the other gobs, to help you fit in more, more liked.” She tells me.
I’m not really bothered with being like for now, but I guess I should plan for the future as I’m going to have to train them all eventually if I’m going to have a chance to stop what’s to come.
“ Ok. When should we head back.” I inquire.
Thesa looks at the sky. “ Soon. Yes soon.” She answers.
I pack the planks into my backpack. I cut a few more skewers and slice off some more of the meat and make some shish kebabs and place them over the fire using the earth to hold them in place.
I have the boys hoist the uncooked hare, me and Thesa grab the cooked one. The girls carry the rabbits, we all head back to the cave. There is a couple of goblins outside as we near the cave, once they see what we have their eyes go wide.
“ Go get some help, food for tribe feast tonight.” Thesa shouts at them and they shoot off. As we get to the entrance of the cave there are a few goblins waiting outside. They take the hare’s and rabbits off us and dash back inside with them.
“ Is there any where inside where stuff is dumped, stuff deemed useless.” I ask Thesa.
“ Yes, it not far from entrance.” She answers smiling. I think she know I’m going to do some new stuff. “ I’ll take you there.”
Thesa takes us to a room about a dozen meters into the cave. It’s about 10 x 8 meters big and 4 meter in height It’s full of rubbish.
“ Ok. Find anything that is metal or looks like it can hold stuff in or you think it looks might be useful.” I tell them all. “Put everything by the door.”
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We all head off in different directions to start searching, even Thesa.
Something I notice while searching is that there is no metal in here, not even a spoon, pot or pan. Lots of scraps of material, and ruined clothes a few scraps of leather armor, everything to big for me. I find a couple of packs too damaged to be salvaged.
I finally find a nice small pack made from leather only one of the straps is hanging by a thread, having a quick look into the pack in one of the outer pockets is a complete sewing kit. It has a few metal needles, even a leather needle. Which is brilliant because it will make it easier to fix the actual pack. Packing it away I continue to scavenge.
Finding a few more packs no where near the quality of the one I found earlier, one even had another sewing kit which was better than the one I had the needles where of better quality and even had a few little bobbins of thread, I add the kit to my bag while slinging the other pack over a shoulder.
After a while I find a single leather vambrace, it's quite small must have been for a female, while covered in mud it looks in very good condition. I search around for the other but to no avail. After some more packs of varying quality I now have enough for all of us after a few repairs, I place them over by the entrance.
There is quite a few piles of stuff over here now, but I won't look till after where finished. While continuing to search around I find a small metal container under a load of crap cloths and tarps. After finding no metal apart from overlooked needles in sewing kits, which are a lot easier to miss. I unscrew the top and take a whiff.
*coughing fit*
FUCK. I wave the others off telling them I’m ok, I can see Lily sneaking glances still. I found bloody moonshine, screwing the top back on in put in my pack. I start searching around where I found it and find one more and an empty one missing the cap.
The gobs must have tried to drink it and didn’t like it and threw it and the rest in here. Haha my good luck at that. I search around for another quarter of an hour, and find nothing of use. I head back over to the entrance.
“ ALRIGHT EVERYONE, back over here now.” I shout.
I have a quick look at everything, there’s two packs better than the spares I found so I switch them out with the ones I found and hand them out to the others.
“ We’ll need to repair them a bit but these are good packs.” I tell them.
Searching through the piles I find the other one to the vambrace, it’s good that one of the others found it. I sort the piles into good, ok and bad quality piles. While a put to throw a pack into the bad pile it swings oddly in my grip. Looking inside there is a tightly wrapped bundle with a red cross on it.
Holy Shit a med kit. They even use the same marking from my world. I’ll check this out later, shoving it in my pack. I look at the others they don’t even look annoyed that I’m taking stuff first, they just have eager faces.
Ok, ok. That med kit will have stuff that will prove beyond helpful hopefully. While searching though everything I take the best of the stuff for myself.
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Once the piles of stuff get a reasonable size. I start separating everything into six piles trying to give everyone even quality stuff. I think one of the boys found two small crates of candles, and by the smell beeswax. I can use that to make things waterproof and a few other things.
I now have a decent leather bandolier with built in pouches, a nice leather belt, a cloth vest meant for a child, a wooden spoon, now two sewing kits of equal quality, a metal canteen and a wooden tonfa. I also grab a few packs and stuff them with leather from various things as I plan on making everyone a few things along with stuff for myself.
After everyone equips themselves with their new stuff. Everyone has a belt, backpack, sewing kit, spoon and a wooden canteen.
“Thesa do you know of any plants that help in healing.” I ask her once every one is finished.
“ Yes, a few not many.” She answers.
“Good mind showing me tomorrow.” I ask.
“Ok.” She replies while looking at her new stuff with a smile on her face. The others look equally as happy.
I plan on making some poultice bandages.
“ Can everyone quickly go find some of the best linen here and shove it in this pack.” I show them a piece of linen I picked up just now.
“ Ahhhhhhhhh.” Lavender shouts and runs off to where she was searching. “ Basalt come help.” She squeals. He trundles off to help and they actually bring back a bolt of linen. What the fuck. It’s a bit dirty on the outside but inside it will be great I’m sure, I’m planning to boil the stuff I use first though anyway.
“THESA, THESA!! Food ready.” A goblin come flying down the corridor and slide to a stop outside the room once he sees Thesa. “ Food ready now.” Then he stands there gobsmacked, jaw hanging down. I don’t think he’s ever seen such well equipped goblins before.
“ Yo..yo..You look like Hobs…..?” He stutters out.
“ Go now we’ll be ‘long soon.” She tells him, and he dashes off after giving us one last look and glancing at the piles of rubbish around the room. I think this room will be picked clean of anything useful before the end of tomorrow.
“ What’s a Hob.” I ask.
“ Hob is hobgoblin they rank up when gob gets big and strong. It strange that I didn’t rank into one. But most hob stupid. I not as strong as hob but I’m near and I a lot smarter and I hunt lot better now and have new knowledge when look at different thing like what stuff ed..edib.. stuff you can eat. And stuff that help. Like how you know things..” She looks at me in a peculiar manner like she is near to realizing something.
Shit.
She just shakes her head like the idea is ridiculous.
Thank fuck.
“ Where are all the Hobs then.” I ask.
“ They out hunting adventures that where this stuff comes from. They take nearly all metal things and make weapons and armour. Not as madewell like your stuff. They get best stuff and they strongest, and have swords and axes and stuff.” She informs me. That explains a lot.
“ Ok we’ll drop our stuff off in our room.” As we are about to leave I see what looks like a barrel lid, picking it up it has a makeshift handle on the back of it.Even though it’s a barrel lid it’s half the size of a gob, giving it a thump on the wall it’s pretty solid.
“ Here Basalt this is yours now. It will help you in the way I want to train you to go. Slide your arm in here and you use it to shield yourself and other when you can OK.” I tell him as I give him the barrel lid shield. He is all bright smiles. As we walk away I can see him showing Lavender and Peony.
As we walk back through the cavern we are getting stared at by nearly every one, some are staring between us and the hares and the others are staring at our new gear. I can see the gob that came and told Thesa that food was ready is busily chatting with some others and point to the entrance of the cave. At one of the bigger the uncooked hare is being cut up and passed out.
Once we get to the corridor that leads to our room I look back and see the gob that got us a few of his friend sneak out of the cavern where we just came from. Yep it will be picked clean by tomorrow night.
Once back in the room we drop our stuff and all the spare stuff over near where I bed down.
Taking out the empty metal container and my canteen.
“ Can one of you fill these for me please. I’m going to start work on the stuff I want to make then you can go off and eat more if you want.” I ask.
“ Ok.” Both Lily and Onyx chime in.
“ Would you fill every ones if both of you are going.” I ask again. Both of them nod and they collect them all and place them in their packs.
“ The metal one you’ll have to carry back in you hand as it has no lid yet.” I tell them. They both nod then head off.
“ I’ll bring you back some meat brother Gray.” Peony informs me. I give her a smile.
“I’ll go with her.” Thesa pipes in. As they walk out Basalt trundles out after them licking his lips.
“Ok.” I reply.
I look at Lavender. “ What are you going to do then Lavender.” I ask her.
“ I..I wanna help you, ma..make stuff and do thing to hel..help others.” She shyly replies.
“ Haha ok then. I think tomorrow I’ll show you how to make poultices and some other things to help heal the others when they get injured.” I tell her she looks positively ecstatic at this information.
“ For now though can you roll out the linen bolt you found and then using my knife, be careful it's very sharp and cut it at about as tall as you. Then cut it in strips about as wide as your hand please.” I hand her my knife. “ As we will use them tomorrow to make something called bandages that you can wrap around wounds to stop them bleeding.”
The look in her eyes is one of amazement and wanting. Wow she may actually make a good nurse or doctor type. Well that’s what I’m going to train her in then. It’s always good to have a dedicated medic in large groups though but I’m going have to teach her some rather nasty trick to help protect herself though as she is still one of the smallest goblins I’ve seen. Maybe some poison.
I’m no doctor myself but once you know enough about hurting people you come to the realization that is if you use a small amount of what harms it can be used to treat instead, and I’m very good at harming others in many a way.
While she’s doing that I decide to go through the med kit that was found. It’s wrapped much like a painter roll but on a larger scale. Inside it is a bloody jackpot. AHAHAHAAHHAHAH. Bloody brilliant.
I lay everything out on it. There is a pair of what looks like old style manual trauma shear*1. How did they even make these things from what I’ve seen of equipment it’s pretty much medieval tech level. Could it be from otherworlders. The handles are made from wood, but it’s very doubtful they have plastic in this world. Two suture kits, goddamned suture kits*2. There is even scalpels crudely made one piece things but fucking scalpels. The thread looks like catgut and silk.
I should be able to use the thread off Mags to bolster this after I have sterilized everything. And some bandage scraps, the thing must have been used before the gobs got hold of it. In the scraps of bandages are about half a dozen glass vials. With a cursory sniff it smells like moonshine. So a disinfectant then. There is also a couple of small glass jars with nothing, they smell faintly of herbs. Maybe what I’m looking for tomorrow. This isn’t a med kit like I thought it was it’s a bloody trauma kit.
I’ll quickly make Lavender a pack for half of these supplies. Actually I have a better idea.
“ Lavender pass me your bandoleer and belt please.” I ask her, she undoes it all and passes them to me. The others all come back in at this point, my water is placed near me and the rest is handed back to their owners, my food is placed with my water.
“ Can someone take the pelts from the hares and place them fur down over in the corner so they can dry abit please. Then you can do what you want to.” I tell them.
Using the trauma shears I cut some of the leather to the shapes I want, fuuuuck these are a godsend. By using the belt and the bandoleer I sew some leather in what would be a gap between them so now looks like a one shoulder vest. I cut down the front of it and add toggle buttons I had left over. And finally add what looks like a little half skirt on one side. After this I add pockets and pouches to the thing to place half of all the trauma kits supplies and room for plenty more that we are going to make. I pack everything in it. But I’ll keep the scissor for now.
“Lavender come here and try this on.” I ask her.
Upon seeing what I’ve made her she bursts into tears and rushes to hug me.
“ Fhank*sniff* Wou*sniff* Brober.* Sniff Sniff.*” She strangles out between breaths and tears.
After a while and everyone looking embarrassed and with envy, Lavender gets it on and looks incredibly proud.
“ Brother gonna teach me how to help heal you when hurt.” She proclaims.
“ And I’ll teach you all something that best suits you all.” I tell the rest as they all pout a bit.
For the rest of the evening I finish my food. Clean my equipment up and fix it all. Also guide the others how to do the same with their own stuff as well. I fill the vials up with the moonshine from the metal container splitting them between me and Lavender. Using some of the bandages that Lavender made I have her and myself clean all the Trauma stuff with the moonshine. It makes everyone's eyes water a bit but it’s needed. I even have her clean out the pockets with it. Tomorrow when we’re outside I’ll have her use the wax and a some hot rocks trapped in homemade tongs to make it waterproof and then disinfect it again.
The final thing we all do is the exercise routine, before we sleep. This time Thesa stays with us. And as I finally drift off.
Three days left of childhood.
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