Once we wake we go through the same routine as yesterday. We pack up everything that we collected yesterday. With only three days left till we are adults I need to get everything ready for us as I have a feeling that everything will hit the fan once we are not children.

We all eat a bit of jerky and head out. We check in the rubbish room as we pass the levels in there have dropped considerately but I do spy a few things that will help two buckets and a small beer barrel sadly empty and about a dozen wooden bowls I shove these into my pack.

We are getting a lot of looks today as we are far better geared than all the other goblins. I did notice a few gobs better dressed today.

I have Basalt and Onyx carry the barrel and Lily and Peony grab the buckets off me.

We all head off to a place near running water a bit further round the mountain that Thesa knows. I have Thesa show me the herbs and such that can aid in healing.

“ This one we call green leaf. It make cuts heal faster makes you feel better to.” She tells me. It looks a bit like a nettle.

“ This one we call blue leaf. If feel hot and sick or cuts go bad this helps.” So an antibiotic of some sort. It looks a bit like ivy but blue.

“ And this one we call red leaf, when chew it or rub leafs to much you go numb so avoid it.” HAHA this will work as a numbing agent. Maybe as a nasty trick for Lavender. Maybe.

“ This plant we call stink plant. Only if you break the center of leaf make nasty smell like…like lots of pee.”

Ummmmmm. Maybe like ammonia smelling salts or as a deterrent. By the looks of it the center vein of the leaf is much thicker than most leaves it must have an outer casing to act as a defense mechanism which encases an ammonia like smell.

I break a leaf off from the stem of plant very slowly just in case it will cause a smell, but luckily it doesn’t. Odd but workable.

I notice that the gob from yesterday and his friends are following us. I stop and yell.“What do you want.”

Once they catch up the gob that got us yesterday replies. “ We want to learn from Thesa.”

“ Why me.” She replies.

“ ‘cause you have new stuff from rubbish and hunt better.” The gob answers.

“ It’s not me that has done all this it him.” Thesa tells him while nodding towards me.

“ WHAT, the freak!?” He exclaims. Thesa lets out a low growling sound.

“Yes me, so do you want to learn then?” I ask the gobs.

All of them nod after looking warily at Thesa.

“ Follow then. And remember to do as I say and listen.” I tell carefully.

Once we get to the spot that Thesa has picked out. We set up camp. I send the others out to get some fire wood and rocks to build a fire with, another one fills the buckets and after I remove the top of the barrel and we wash it out, the others then fill it using the buckets.

Once the camp is set up and the fire is going I put a dozen rocks from then stream into the fire. I’m going to use the rocks to boil the water as we have no containers that are able to withstand the heat to boil the water. Normally you would have to boil the water in any outdoor conditions to kill off any bacteria and pathogens, but I’ve noticed that either goblins and or the monster races in general have a better immune system or that there is less pollutants in the native environments.

While myself, Thesa, Basalt and the gob that got us yesterday go off to hunt I have the others go and carefully pick as many of the leaves as they can as carefully as they can.

“What’s your name.” I ask the new one.

“Norm. Name Norm.” Norm answers.

“ Ok, Norm. I’m Gray. This is Basalt, my other brother is called Onyx. My sisters are Lily, Peony and Lavender. Lily is the biggest sister of the three she has….has” I motion around the chest area to indicate breasts. Still not sure why this embarrasses me so much. “Lavender is the smallest with the medical stuff her.” He looks confused at that. “ The healer stuff from the adventures, I’m teaching her how to become a healer to help the others. And Peony is the middle one.” I tell him.

He looks at Thesa. “ How come they have name. They still young not been through passage of age.” He asks.

“ Elder named Gray. And Gray gave names to the others. He smarter than all gobs, I think. Others not happy but his siblings accepted the names so they their names now.” She tells him.

I look at Thesa. “ What’s this passage of age thing.” I ask her.

“ It what goblins go on to prove that they not useless and can’t look after themselves. We take them out in wilds, a day away ,they must survive 2 nights out then make way home. But Tonka not train you properly and started your training later so you not have enough time. I think she was hoping to get you killed. But you have proved better than most gobs and are better than older gobs as well. You ask for knowledge when you don’t know but you know better stuff than we could teach so I never said anything, as it didn’t matter.” She explains.

After mulling this over as we continue deeper into the forest.

“ That’s ok. But we have three days before we become adults and go through the passage, so I need you to teach me and the others everything you can about outside.” She looks surprised at this news.

“ How you know when grown up. You should have more time than that.” She exclaims.

“ It’s part of the knowledge in my head. It let me know last night. If you hadn’t noticed but me and my siblings are advancing at a much faster pace the other youngling. The others might have longer I do not.” I tell her.

Both Thesa and Norm look astounded at this news.

“ How you learn so fast then.” Norm asks.

I decide if I should lie, if it was just Norm I may of but with Thesa there, I decide on a half lie. “ I thinks it’s to do with my skin. I learn faster and those around me learn faster as well, but not as fast as me. So if you want to learn you will need to listen as I don’t think I will have it as easy as the others in my passage.” I tell them.

Thesa know most of this or has guessed most of it, so she only looks slightly shocked at this. And Norm is just standing there with his jaw hanging down. Basalt is just looking nonplussed. I don’t think he knows we’re any different from the other goblins but he hasn’t had many interactions with other gobs apart from us so I don’t think he has noticed, after a few moments he just nods. I noticed he doesn’t really talk much.

Without giving them much time to deal with this I continue on the hunt.

We follow more animal trails and Thesa points out a few new plants that her rank up gave her knowledge of, I think there are all vegetables and fruits most of them look like leafy greens and what looks like potatoes. She doesn’t have names for them but she knows that they are edible. It’s like when she sees something she should know as a huntress the knowledge springs to her mind. Which explains why she didn’t know yesterday.

We come across a single bastard hare a bit disappointing but better than nothing.

“ We need to leave.” Norm says with a scared look when he sees the hare.

“ Shhhhhhhhh.” I continue in a low voice. “ You do remember we brought back two yesterday and we ate the third one ourselves.” I tell him.

“ W..we thought you found two dead ones as they fight each other at times.” Thesa nods to this.

“ No him and the other boys killed one each.” Thesa tells him and Basalt just grins and licks his lips looking at the hare. He is looking at us in awe now. I kinda feel a bit dirty with how he’s looking at me.

“ Ready brother?” I ask Basalt. He nods and answers. “ Yeah.” His voice is quiet raspy and deep.

“ Ok we are going to do this differently than yesterday, as part of your training. We are going to face it directly.” I whisper the rest of the plan into his ear so the other two can’t hear it. It’s going to be a surprise.

The more I tell him The bigger and more excited his eyes looks. I take a quick look at them and they look a bit fearful. We ready our gear. Basalt makes sure his shield is on properly and readies his spear. And I check the edge on the bone dagger and ready my tonfa. I show him how to place his feet to help when he gets hit and to try to push the hits to his sides past him using the shield.

“ Give me to the count of 10 then start.” He looks confused, shit we only got to three or four. “ Ok count to 3 3 times.” At this he nods. I sneak off to circle the hare and as I get into position.

“ ARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHH” I hear Basalt roar. Good it’s started.

Through the bushes I watch. The hare charges to him it’s going to ram him head first. And as it hits he slides aback under the force I see him shift his body to the side and the hare stumbles past his side, he gives it a jab in the ass as it passes. Haha. He starts to walk backwards towards me keeping his shield up. Good boy Basalt. This happens a few more times the hare getting even more enraged at each pass. He is nearly at the point….

“ HUUOOOWL” What the fuck another hare enter from the other side and it looks decidedly pissed.

FUCK. Basalt looks behind to me as he see the new hare, with a look of determination he steps to the side as the hare he is in combat with charges and he uses his body to slam his shield into its face as it starts to pass towards me. Smart boy and then steps towards the new hare. I dash out and whack the hare on the nose with the tonfa as it rises and screeches out in pain I shove the dagger up into up under the soft palate into the brain and twist, it’s eyes roll up and drops to the floor. Letting go of the dagger and dropping the tonfa, I draw my fire hardened spear and dash to wards Basalt, he is just knocking the hare away for the second time. Now the hare is between me and him. It charges again

“ DO WHAT YOU DID TO THE OTHER THEN DROP TO A KNEE WITH YOUR SHIELD ABOVE YOUR HEAD.” I yell.

I can see him nod as the gets to him. As it stumbles past him dazed he hits it in the ass.

It screeches in anger and pain as it spins itself around to face Basalt… “ STAND AND THRUST UP.” It sees me being launched up off Basalts shield with the spear held in my hand point down.

Like deer in headlights it startles where it stands. And I come down the spear piercing its head from above and pins it’s head to the ground the spears snaps causing me to land on my ass. Thesa is at the edge of the area with her dagger drawn about to helps us, just stares in shock at the hare in its death throes.

“ Wha..wha…whaaaaaaaaaaa.” Norm is stuttering. “ HO….ho..how?” Wasn’t he watching us the entire time.

“ It’s because we go for the weak points. And because we’re not strong enough to kill using strength in the weak points like the neck, we have to aim for things like the brains and the heart but in this case the brain is easier.” I tell him.

“ Bu..but, he was stopping the attack and..and you in air wahhh” He whines.

“ And like I told you we advance faster than others.” I tell him.

“ But.But.” He continues.

“ No buts. If you want to learn faster and better you’ll do and copy me as much as can to get better faster.” I inform.

“ You clean this one and I’ll do the other.” I say to Basalt. He nods then gets to work.

Twenty minutes later we’re heading back to our camp. Norms group are gob smacked at the two hares.

“ You found more dead hares.” One of them utters.

“ NO..NO..no they killed them.” Norm stutters out pointing at me and Basalt.

“ WHHAAAAAAA…..” His group yells, I think one of them just fainted as well.

“Ok, Norm you and your group can you go collect as many of the plants that Thesa showed us earlier the one that you can eat please.” In a four neat piles where I sat earlier,are the leaves there are about a foot2 each.

“OK.” Norm replies as he wonders over to his group they begin chatting in hushed tones as they drag their unconscious companion away.

It looks like the piles are sorted then Lavender walks back into the clearing with an armful of green leafs.

“ I sorted them as the other group to stupid to think to do that.” She tells me full of smiles. I potter around the clearing and cut a couple of saplings and bend the ends over and tie the ends together the I tie them together to make a pair of tongs. Heading back to the fire get the bowls out and have a better look at them they seem to be fire hardened and waterproof. So that’s good enough.

Basalt and Onyx are skinning the hares now I decide to set up slanted roasting spit so the fats will drip down to one end so we can collect to make poultices. Once the hare is on the spit I’ll set up the metal container, I might have to carve the carcass a little to get the fats to collect where I want them to, so as much goes into the container.

“ Lavender come here please.” I ask her. I take some candles from the packs and hand them to her. “ Use these and rub into the inside the pockets of your gear. Take it off first after you’ve done that, use the tongs and take a stone near the outer edges and put it near where you’ve rubbed the wax. Once it’s melted in use some cloth and give it a wipe down and the use the disinfectant to clean it all again.” She nods at me and starts.

I get some of the spare leather we have and cut out a couple of dozen sets of shapes, I’m planning to make a load of painter roll style pouches to hold poultice bandages they will only be about 5x5 inches each once packed. I’ll clean them with the moonshine and seal with the wax and clean them again.

Over the next day or so I plan to make a mixture of the three leaves in a ratio to get the best effect out of them. I’ll take amounts and crush them in a bowl, after I make a pestle and add a small amount of moonshine to draw the effects from the leaves then soak a wad of the bandages on the water and the place the herbs onto the wad and fold it to make a type of compress and then sew it to a longer bandages in it’s center.

The stink leaves I’m planning to carefully cut out the center vein and have them wrapped together with a twig to keep it straight and less likely to break and release the smell. And we can use them to wake people and for scent distractions. Norm and his group return with armfuls of the edible plants and places them over by the fire. And the boys have finished skinning the hares. I have them spit it then place over the fire.

“Everyone come here.” Once everyone gathers I continue. “ For the next two nights we will be staying out in the woods, we are doing this to prepare for the passage of age.” My siblings look confused apart from Basalt who was there for the conversation. “ Thesa can you explain to them please.”

While Thesa is explaining to them I go to the down to the water's edge and find suitable rocks to break and make stone axes, once I have the rocks I need. I go and find a branch, to make the first one so I can make the rest. Thesa has finished the explanation. I have them wait while I make the first couple of axes and then hand them out to go cut the branches I need to make the rest.

Once everyone has an axe. I have everyone go cut bigger branches to we can make a shelter to sleep in for a few nights. This will be good strength and endurance training for them all. While they go out and get the branches I need, I cut up some of the stuff that Norm and his group brought back. I take out all of the rock in the fire and place them into the small barrel to boil the water. I place more into the coals of the fire. I throw in the veg and then slice off loads of the meat placing it in the water as I do so. By the time everything is cooked they should have finished the branches. I finish up making the pouches. I eat some of the meat is I work.

Once everyone is back we have enough branches to make a enough lean-tos for everyone. I give everyone a bowl of stew and tell them to eat it and they all love it. I get them all to help make the shelters for the night, after we finished and have gone through a work out and stretch routine everyone including myself is knackered and after building up the fire to help scare off predators we all head to bed.