Homestead Survival

<07 August 2024, THE VALLEYS OF AR'HA'NURA , A->
[Theo and Julia]
By the time Theo awoke, the sun had been up for several hours. Julia handed him a meal that she had heated up over the fire. "They left about an hour after you went to sleep."

"Hmm," Theo said, eating the food he had been offered. After a couple of bites, he spoke up, "So, what do you want to do today? Just go work on sand and go from there?"

"I think we should do that, but I also think we should take some time to walk along the edge of the Mesa, see if there are any resources or other things we should know about."

Theo nodded, "Alright, why don't we walk north, and then we can cut west to see if we can find water again."

"Okay," Julia said hesitantly, "That probably leaves us outside the cave come nightfall."

"True," Theo said, "Well, let's walk the wall, so to speak, and then we can decide if we want to do sandy things today or not."

"Okay," Julia said, and they finished their meal in relative silence.

They finished eating and headed out. Turning right just outside the cave, they began walking at a brisk pace. As they walked, they kept an eye on the tree line, noting several more interesting-looking Titan Trees. They also continually checked the Mesa bottom for signs of anything like another cave or ores to be mined.

While they walked, Theo noticed a strange rock cluster on the wall. It looked to be a bulbous geode with crystals sticking out of it. He walked forward, and it seemed to shimmer. "I think that this is another supply Cache."

Julia looked at it and noticed the shimmer as well. She reached out and touched it. The geode popped, dropping the loot on the ground. Theo quickly split the coinage, giving each of them thirty-seven silver and seventy-two copper. Then, they looked at the items.

"Well, I recognize these," Julia said, picking up the bundle of meat sticks. "Six each. What you got there?"

"It looks like water," Theo said, and identified the small glass
globe of water.

"Each of these globes is three gallons of water," Theo said, handing one to Julia.

"Let's add it to our water skins so that we don't need to waste space on it," Julia said, taking out her water skin.

"Good call," Theo followed suit, taking out his waterskin and pouring the water from the globe into it. After the globes were empty, they burst into the familiar blue and purple sparks.

"Okay, what are those?" Julia asked, gesturing to the four items that remained; one was a bundle of leaves, and another seemed to be a wooden coin that shimmered with blue energy. The third was a bundle of three small stones engraved with runes. The last was a pouch of some kind of leather.

Theo grabbed the pouch first, but it suddenly disappeared. He was puzzled for a moment until he checked the indicators for Hand of Gold. "Huh, it's a new kind of currency called Mana Touched Silver Shards. We got thirty of them."

Theo summoned forth fifteen of the shards, handing them to Julia, who examined the pointy bits of metal that had an oscillating shimmer of blue and purple. She put them into her Hand of Gold. Theo picked up the bundle of leaves, Identified them then tossed them to Julia, who also Identified them.

Julia placed it into her pouch and then picked up the wooden coin. She identified it.

"You want to hold onto it, or do you want me to keep it?" Julia asked as she proffered it to Theo, who Identified it as well.

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"You go ahead and hold onto it," Theo said, picking up the three pebbles and Identifying them.

Theo handed these to Julia, too. "They might be useful for figuring something out about runes. With your Runecarver's Touch skill, they could be important."

"Thank you," Julia said, placing them into her pouch. "Alright, onwards?"

"Yup," Theo smiled, "Onwards!"

They continued walking, and by lunchtime, they had come upon a cave. This cave was shorter, only six feet tall, forcing Theo to duck to stick his head in and take a look around.

After a moment, he pulled his head out, "So it looks empty. There is a passage to the right, though, so let's take a look."

They both entered, somewhat on edge. But nothing attacked. They glanced down the passage and found it dead-ended roughly fifteen feet down. Julia relaxed, "Lunch?"

Theo shrugged, "Sure, lunch sounds good."

They ate in silence and, as soon as they were finished, got back to walking. They found two more caves; the first was little more than a deep alcove that contained a pool of rancid water. The second had two openings, the first barely eighteen inches wide and the second roughly three feet wide.

Theo stuck his head in and saw a bear sleeping. He quickly backed out, and they proceeded on their trip. Thirty minutes later, they came upon their fourth cave of the day, and immediately, they knew it was different.

Light shimmered from pockets of Crystal, and the guttural sounds of Goblins could be heard. Theo pulled Julia back a bit from the mouth of the cave. "Do you want to check this out, or should we go back to our cave?"

Julia shrugged, looking up at the sun, guessing that they had about four hours of sunshine left. She thought for a moment, "What if we grabbed a sample of that Crystal and then got out of here. That way, we can know what we would be fighting over in case we need it?"

"That sounds good; alright, let's do it," Theo said, turning back to the eight-foot-wide hole at the Mesa base. Theo looked around and didn't see any Goblins, so he stuck to the right wall and soon saw that they were in a fairly large room. They followed the wall for fifty-five feet before they came upon a massive pit filled with waste.

What they could only assume was Goblin shit coated everything in the pit, bones, rotten flesh, all kinds of waste. Julia nearly gagged. Theo looked a little green but continued walking along the edge of the pit as he started to look for the Goblins and where he might snag a piece of the Crystal they were looking at.

They came upon a five-foot-wide tunnel that drifted off into the depths, and from it came sounds of pain that Goblins were making. Theo and Julia looked at each other and, without saying anything, turned around and headed back along the edge of the pit.

They got back to where they had started, and Theo gently slapped his palm to his forehead. Julia was about to ask what was wrong when Theo pointed, and she looked to where there was a bunch of the Crystal on the floor to the left of the entrance.

She snickered and followed him silently; he grabbed a piece of the Crystal and put it in his pouch; he indicated that he was going to look down the hallway he had just noticed to the left of where they were. He stuck his head around the corner and then jerked it back.

He held on, waiting for something. Then he grabbed as many pieces of the Crystal as he could. Julia followed suit, and they left. Theo guided them outside the cave and then straight out and to the tree line, where he made sure that something was hiding them from the cave entrance.

"What was that about?" Julia asked, putting the Crystal chunks into a pile on the ground.

"That big Goblin was there; it was walking away with one of the smaller ones, so I wanted to get out. Figured if we can use whatever this is, this might be enough to tide us over." Theo said.

Julia nodded, "Good call."

"Alright, we should move fast," Theo said, placing the pile of Crystals into his pouch.

They took off at a brisk pace, following the tree line and keeping the mesa in sight. It took them until the sun had set and moonlight lit the area. As they walked from the tree line towards the cave, a group of goblins, moving in a strange loping run, appeared and cried out at the sight of Julia and Theo being out in the open.

"Run!" Theo cried and took off; Julia moved straight for the cave, and Theo moved to intercept the Goblins just in case they got there ahead of them. Moments later, Julia crossed the Ward runes.

Theo was a few steps behind, and just as he was about to cross the Ward runes, the big Goblin grabbed one of the smaller ones and threw it. The smaller Goblin slammed into Theo's back and knocked Theo over before hitting the barrier that the Ward runes projected.

Theo felt the power surge from Retaliate rush through him, striking at the big Goblin surprisingly. The Ward runes flashed, and the smaller Goblin shivered strangely before collapsing. The big Goblin roared with pain and came forward, kicking a toe at the smaller Goblin.

After a moment of being kicked, the big Goblin gave up and took its place, sitting there. Staring at Theo and Julia snarling.

Theo looked at Julia, "Well, I guess we know what it wanted when it was watching us."

They ate their dinner to the serenade of snarls and guttural curses that issued forth from the big Goblin. At some point, the smaller Goblins dragged the body of their fallen friend into the dark. A moment later, the Big Goblin was handed a green leg dripping with blood, which he immediately bit into.

Julia and Theo looked at each other, and Theo sighed, "I'll take the first watch; I think tomorrow we get our sand and then start back up; we can look at the crystals when we are safe back home."

Julia nodded and went to a corner of the cave farthest from the Goblins to sleep. Theo watched and knew it would be a long night.