Izzy Chapter 18: Gnolls Are Nasty Bastards, But At Least There’s A Lot Of Them (Patreon)

“To find the fuzzbutts, I reckon we go back to the road, then follow that.” Caj suggested as they trudged along.

This was, of course, what they were already doing. They’d found the place where they’d hidden from the gnoll patrol before they found the scrum, but there weren’t any tracks to follow. Thus, they’d set off towards the road. It had been the obvious next step.

Izzy chose not to point that out. “Right,” she said.

“I’ll go ahead and keep my eyes open for more hunting groups, yeah? So you have plenty of warning in case you need to hide, or set another ambush or whatever.”

“Good thinking. You won’t have any trouble finding us again?”

“You? Sylvana’s smoky eyes, the lot of you are impossible to miss! Don’t you worry, gobbo. I’ll find you.”

“Great.”

Izzy wasn’t sure that was great at all, but at this point she mostly wanted to be rid of Caj for a bit. Ever since she’d brought up the idea of him maybe evolving if he helped them out enough, he’d been… enthusiastic, was the word Mash had used. Excessively so. Izzy preferred “pain in the ass,” but that probably wasn’t fair. He was trying to help, after all.

Didn’t make him less of one.

The thing about evolving, though, that wasn't something Mash had just said. The thought that she might be lying to the fairy to get him to help out had gnawed at Izzy, but the ghost insisted that it came from her knowledge Skill. It was possible. And thinking about it, it made sense. Izzy knew, from Mash's memories, that goblins would evolve every now and then, getting new Classes and Skills depending on what they’d been doing in the tribe. Mash had always figured it was just that you evolved as you got older, but maybe not? Maybe goblins and everyone else got experience, too, just in a different way, in leaps and bounds instead of step by step?

It would sure increase their chances if she could have a scrum of Level 5s and 8s instead of 2s and 3s. But how much did she want to risk?

“Hey, Mash?” she whispered.

Don’t use my name! They think you're Mash!

Izzy flushed. “Right, right. But… what do I call you?”

Mash didn't reply right away. When she did, she sounded — well, she didn't “sound,” but same thing — tired. A little lost.

Just call me “Spirit” if you have to.

Izzy immediately felt terrible. She hadn't meant to take Mash’s body, and she had no intention of giving it back, even if she could, but this felt like taking her name away, too.

“No,” she decided. “That’s your name, and I’m using it. If they hear and think I’m talking to myself, let ‘em.”

Izzy—!

“No! Mind’s made up. So there. Now, what do you think about us trying to push the scrum to evolve?”

…thank you.

“What?”

The name thing.

“Oh. Yeah.”

But you need to be careful. They believe you about having a familiar spirit. If they decide you're just really crazy that might be almost as bad as them thinking you're an imposter.

“Yeah,” Izzy sighed. “You're probably right. Usually are. So…?”

So I think it's risky, but if we could ambush a few small groups we might get Crack to evolve to a Warrior, and Howl and Squirrel to Ambushers. Twitch and Buttercup won't go anywhere, I think, but they could use some practice with their spears anyway.

She went silent, then finished with, Risky, but if we get an opportunity we should take it.

Risky, but it was decided. They were going to hunt some gnolls.

  *

There was no need to follow the road. The mass of footprints left the road immediately after the bridge, and the gnoll camp was easy to find. It was a sprawling, chaotic thing, situated about two fingers’ walk upstream of the bridge, near the water and below a small waterfall. The scrum had come across a few groups of gnolls on their way, but had to dodge them. They had all been too large to fight, but that was okay. They’d have plenty of opportunities.

Finding the camp had been good enough for the moment. That done, the goblins circled it, then made their way up the steep slope into which the river had cut the waterfall. From there they continued upstream a bit and sent out Caj to search for a suitable place to camp. He succeeded… sort of.

The place he found was a tree. Of course it was. It was a huge, old, hollow tree, like a much bigger version of the one where Izzy had slept her first nights, and it would house them all with room to spare. It wasn’t far from the river, so they had easy access to fresh water, river clams, and maybe even some fish. It even sat in a depression, so that you had to get really close to see the opening. But it was a tree.

Fairies. Go figure.

They spent the rest of the day setting up camp, and between Buttercup’s and Twitch’s improvisation Skills it was a decently comfortable camp at that. When they were done they had a storage area, a big communal bed in the tree, a firepit with a cooking rack and a reflector to keep them fed and warm and to block the light from curious eyes, and a nice, deep latrine on the far side of the depression from the gnoll camp. What else did they need?

For her part, Izzy set to covering the depression with a maze of brambles. It was slow going, since the Spell used a decent bit of mana, but by making each section long, tall, and thin she made a decent job of it. Then she set to making sure that every section had a passage in it, low enough to the ground that a goblin could get through, but anyone bigger couldn’t. She wasn’t going to let her scrum get trapped in there if she could help it.

That night Izzy had the best sleep of her life, not that she had much to compare to. A nice, soft surface, a pile of goblins to cuddle up with, and a fire to keep them warm was a powerful combination. And with Mash not needing and in fact being completely unable to sleep, they didn’t even need to set a watch!

They’d offered Caj a place in the pile, but he’d declined, citing his wish to “Not get either et or crushed in my sleep, thank you very much.” He was sleeping on a pile of leaves on the other side of the hollow. His loss.

The next day they split up, meaning Izzy and Caj would go to spy on the gnolls, while the scrum headed into the forest to stock up on food and materials for weapons and traps. Before leaving the tree Izzy worked on the maze of brambles, so that her mana regeneration wouldn’t go to waste. It was shaping up nicely; it didn’t look at all obvious that there was a path through, and it should hopefully delay any nosy gnolls that ventured in for long enough for the goblins to mount a response. And there were so many delicious berries!

Izzy left the five youngsters strict orders to stay together and to only ambush gnolls if they had absolutely no other option, then prayed to Rozgar that they wouldn’t forget or ignore her the moment she was out of sight. They very well might, but hoping was free.

Sneaking their way back to the gnoll camp was easy. It took as long to find a good, hidden vantage point as it did to get there, but after some searching they found a thicket of bushes set on the slope of a hill overlooking the collection of several dozen tents and pens. Izzy crawled in, using her knife as little as possible, and finally had a good view. And with Mash watching her back, she felt safe, sure that she’d have enough time to get out and run off if anyone got close.

The gnoll camp was chaotic and loud. Gnolls left on patrols or hunts. Gnolls lounged. Gnolls sparred. Gnolls fought and, judging by the sounds from one nearby tent, they were doing other things as well. The way they treated each other, fighting and snarling and insulting each other, Izzy didn’t get the sense that this was one tribe or anything else like the tight-knit community she — or rather, Mash — was used to. No, this seemed more like a dozen small groups, each with a handful of females and a larger number of males, all held together by the biggest, baddest female and her clique.

Izzy saw her once, when she left the biggest tent in the center of the camp. She was a monstrous specimen that towered at least a head taller than the second biggest among them, probably two and a half times Izzy’s own size and outweighing her by who knew how much. She prowled the camp on a long, winding circuit, talking to the most important-looking gnolls, male or female. Izzy couldn’t hear the words, but based on tone she frequently handed out harsh reprimands or beatings, and rarely praise. Whatever part of the camp she was in calmed, and when she returned to her tent the whole camp seemed to sigh with relief.

Level 21 Gnoll Chieftess. Stay. Away. That’s official my-Class-is-made-for-this advice.

“Yeah, yeah,” Izzy whispered. She had no plans of tangling with that monster if she could help it.

The most important thing they saw in the camp, though, were the pens and the prisoners.

The pens were mostly empty, except for a few poor wretches who were either asleep, sick, or just too weak to move. Most of the prisoners went around the camp, doing their best to avoid the gnolls while carrying things, cooking, cleaning, mending equipment, chopping firewood and doing any of a multitude of other little things. In short, doing all the hard work. Importantly, some of that hard work consisted of building more permanent huts.

The gnolls were putting down roots.

There were perhaps half as many prisoners as gnolls. Some were humans, others were smaller, non-goblin sapients that Izzy didn’t recognize. Only a few were goblins, but among those goblins were many of the tribe, friends and relatives that Mash had known her whole life.

Mama Badger, the old Matron who’d herded the little kids into the forest when the humans attacked, was not among them. Nor were the kids. Izzy decided to take the most hopeful interpretation of that: she assumed that they hadn’t been found, and refused to even think about the alternative. And they’d be fine. Goblin kids could forage and scavenge with the best of them, and while Mama Badger might be old she wasn’t named Badger for nothing.

“There sure are a lot of them,” Izzy commented softly. “Gnolls, I mean.”

Yeah. About a hundred. A few Level 3, a few Level 13. Most of them are Level 5 or 8, though.

“Why don’t the prisoners run off? It doesn’t look like the fuzzbutts watch them too closely.”

I think they’re hurt. See how most of them are limping? So they can’t run fast, and it would probably be worse for them if they got caught again.

Looking closer, Mash was right. None of the prisoners moved all that fast, and some had noticeable limps.

“Nasty bastards.”

Yeah. We’ll get our tribesfolk, and then we’ll find a way to hurt the gnolls, right?

“Right.” Izzy didn’t quite share Mash’s vindictiveness. She was in it as much for the experience as for the freedom of her people and payback against the humans, and now the gnolls. But she did feel it. Mash was a part of her, a big part, one that changed how she thought. Just… Mash didn’t have a body, and Izzy did, and she really didn’t want to face off with that gigantic bitch of a gnoll.

But she also felt she owed Mash something, and wanted her to be happy.

“We’ll figure something out,” Izzy muttered. “Promise.”