Posted on 2008/12/14

Joe manages to get home without too many problems and checks his snares alone while Bramble's paw heals, eating the rabbit meat and selling the skins until the rain finally, after another week or more, stops and the roads begin to dry to something more useful than knee-deep mud. Joe takes to spending the early mornings in the hiring queue again, in case he has a chance of hiring.

As he expects, most people sending goods along the muddy roads prefer known teamsters. Then, a week after the roads first became clear enough to use again, he sees a man in a long leather coat heading towards the waiting teamsters. Joe isn't particularly hopeful and, as he expects, the man heads for the more experienced teamsters at the other end of the line. But the first teamster he speaks to listens, pales, and shakes his head. The man sighs and moves down the line, speaking to the teamsters in turn, but they back away, shaking their heads. Joe catches the words 'Haunted Forest', 'not that far', and 'too far, going that close to there' as two in the line leave quickly before they can be asked. Joe thinks of the walking bones and shudders himself. Still, he hasn't found anything he can't deal with in there. He stays where he is and watches the man come closer and closer, hoping against hope that no-one else will accept first.

Eventually the man comes level with him, looks him over and makes as if to move on without asking, but the three teamsters lower ranked than Joe all back quickly away muttering about work elsewhere. The man sighs and turns back to Joe. 'I was hoping for a strong brave man. I don't suppose you're holding place for your father?'

Joe swallows and then snaps back. 'My father is dead. I do my own carting, thank you very much! And you've already asked everyone else there is to ask…'

'Fine then. Need a cartload of stuff taken to Dasil - only a day and a half west of here.'

'And the catch is?'

The man makes a face. ''The road touches on the edge of the forest.'

'The Haunted Forest?'

'That's what they call it,' the man says glumly.

Joe lets out a reluctant-sounding sigh. 'All right. I'll take it. It's work at least. More than I'd get otherwise. Any chance of hazard pay?'

'Possibly. Paid on delivery though…'

'All right. All right. I get it. I get the risk and you get the goods delivered.'

'Not my decision. It's the buyer's - he lives there and thinks everyone should be as happy about the forest as he is.' The man scowls at something in the distance.

'I said I'd take it,' Joe says and holds out his hand. 'How about danger pay, paid if I actually encounter something?'

'He'd have to pay up if that happened. You might need proof though. But it's a deal.' The man grips Joe's hand.

Joe grins and squeezes back. He has easy work, in a not-too dangerous place, and he'll even get paid extra for it….

Posted on 2008/12/21

Joe buys himself and his animals some travel rations, packs his bag and heads off to collect his cartload of goods for delivery. The man in the coat is waiting for him and looks surprised to see Nipper tethered to the side of the cart.

Joe just looks steadily back. 'Yeah, that's my pony, and that's my dog and yes, they go where I go. You did want someone to carry your goods, didn't you?'

'Yes,' the man says, 'I did. I didn't bargain on a menagerie though.'

Joe shrugs. 'Think you can get someone else to go through the Haunted Forest? You already asked just about every other carter.'

The man scowls, sighs and grimaces. 'Very well. But don't think you'll get paid exttra for them.'

'I won't.' Joe lifts his chin. 'Now, the goods?'

'There.'

'Fine.'

Joe eventually gets his cart loaded and directions given and sets off along a road he has often travelled these last few days. He stops on the edge of the forest long enough to retrieve his snares and then carries on along the fringe of the forest itself. He grins, looking at nothing but trees on either side of his road and wonders if he can cadge extra out of the buyer even if he doesn't meet anything or have to fight.

Towards evening, he comes to a roadside clearing obviously set up for camping with a fireplace marked out with stones. Well, he thinks, if it's that good a stopping point, I suppose I might as well stop there.

Bramble bounces off the cart seat and snuffles along the edge of the trees while Joe unharnesses, grooms and feeds the mule and Nipper, gathers firewood, starts a fire and sets a small pot of stew going.

As darkness closes in, so does the cold and Joe pulls his cloak tighter round him. Calling Bramble back, he sits her next to him for extra warmth and waits for the stew to finish cooking. Finally he is about to lift the pot off the fire when someone calls out of the darkness.

'Hello the fire!'

Joe swings the pot clear quickly and reaches for a dagger. 'Hello? Who's there?'

'A traveller, passing through. May I join you at your fire?'

Joe swallows, eases his dagger in its sheath and then calls back. 'Very well. Come on in…'

Paws pad across the road and a wolf and rider appear on the edge of the firelight. The rider swings down, muffled in cloak and scarf against the cold and waits for Joe's nod before moving closer. Bramble bounces over to the wolf and sniffs noses submissively before wagging and bouncing back to Joe. The wolf looks after her and then flops down near the fire with its nose on its paws.

The rider pulls a chunk of meat and bone out of a saddlebag and hands it to the wolf, who begins to eat. Crouching closer to the fire themselves, the rider nudges what looks like a cake of fancy travel rations onto a flat stone by the fire and then sits back on their heels. As the scarf slips a little lower in the warmth, Joe suddenly makes out yellowish-green skin and goblin slanted eyes….

Posted on 2009/01/10

Those slanted eyes meet Joe's gaze for a long moment and then the rider sighs and pulls his scarf down around his neck to reveal a greenish-yellow goblin's face marked out by bright yellow eyes. Gloved hands push the cloak back briefly to reveal twin short swords sheathed at the goblin's sides.

“I see,” the goblin rider says, “you noticed I'm not your race, human. How - clever - to notice that I'm so much smaller…”

Joe winces under the sarcasm and pushes his own cloak back enough to reveal his bandolier of daggers.

The goblin looks at them for a moment and then curls his lips back from his small fangs. “Not such a harmless human yourself are you? Shall we call a stand off? As I said, I am only a traveller and it is too cold to just stand around glaring at each other.”

Bramble chooses that moment to try and play with the wolf. Joe moves automatically to haul her off and tries to hide a grin as the goblin moves just as automatically to haul his wolf away. “Truce then? Camp truce for this night?”

The goblin nods curtly. “Camp truce will do.” He holds out a small hard hand for Joe to shake.

Joe obliges, trying not to squeeze too hard, and they each return to their own sides of the fire. Joe scoops up his stew, the goblin hooks his rations away from the edge of the fire and they eat, each with one wary eye kept on each other.

Nipper ambles over and snickers around a wisp of grass. The goblin's eyes widen and he sits very still. Joe reaches out a hand and slaps Nipper's flank, easily ducking the snap of teeth that follows. Nipper grumbles and moves away to graze some more.

The goblin swallows and says, “There are tales about a demon horse who looks like that.”

And Joe just smiles slowly and says, “I know….”

Posted on 2009/01/18

Joe sleeps fitfully, only half trusting Nipper to do something nasty to the goblin if necessary. Movement before dawn snaps him out of sleep just in time to see the goblin ride off on his wolf. Thinking “Good riddance”, Joe yawns, rubs his eyes and crawls out of bed to trudge through the morning travel routine.

Feed Nipper, feed mule, feed Bramble, feed self, groom Nipper, groom mule, catch Bramble, clean self, pack camp, pack cart, pack on Nipper, harness mule, catch Bramble, set off.

The mule ambles along the road towing a grumbling (but tethered to the cart) Nipper as well. Joe yawns his way back and forth on the driver's seat with Bramble beside him. Beside the road stand trees with webs and webs so big they have trees in, bushes and brambles, and rare patches of bare ground.

By midday he finds himself on the outskirts of a small hamlet and slows the mule to a steady walk, his own gaze flicking out at the residents, some small, some larger, but mostly cloaked or wrapped against the cold. Sallow hands grasp cloak edges and slanted eyes glance from under hoods as a murmur travels from one person to the next. “Found someone, I see…very young…young and reckless I expect…demon horse?….maybe why….”

A red-haired dwarf walks out into the street wiping her hands on her blacksmith's apron. “You'd be the carter from Freetown?” When Joe nods, she goes on, “His Lordship's been expecting you - one of the scouts spotted you were on the way. Reckon he'll be down shortly if you'd like to wait.”

There is a stir among the small crowd as a tall man strides through, his clothes much finer than anyone else's. His face, though, is not partticularly fine - dominated by not-quite elvish eyes and split by a not-quite orcish nose, the final result is the ugliest human Joe has ever seen. Joe hastily looks down and back at Nipper to hide his shock and grabs Bramble by her collar before she can jump from the cart. “My lord?” he says in the end. “Was told I'd get my pay on arrival. I reckon -” he delibarately looks around, “I reckon I've arrived. M'lord.”

“Certainly,” the lord replies, his voice at least warm and human sounding. “Meanwhile, Scout Gretan will show you where you may stable your - animals - for the night.”

“Very well, my lord,” Joe says, trying not to bite the titles off and not at all sure he has succeeded. He is very grateful when one of the smaller figures detaches itself from the crowd and beckons him to a side lane. Or at least grateful until the figure pushes back its hood and an all too familiar goblin face grins at him….

Posted on 2009/01/25

Joe steers the cart into the side lane. “So,” he murmurs at that grinning face, “just a traveller, Scout Gretan?”

The grin fades quickly. “I was travelling….”

“That's what you said - and scouting? And looking for carters on the road?” Joe give Nipper a slight nudge and watches as he saunters forward, teeth bared in what could almost be a wicked grin.

“Well…” The goblin looks over his shoulder at an approaching Nipper and hastily takes refuge on the other side of the cart. “Got a job to do, after all. And there's stuff in those woods can take someone unwary.”

Joe nods. He has a job to do as well - getting this cartload delivered and his wages paid. As the goblin points to a yard, he steers inside and is directed on under a shelter. Stables lie not far from the shelter and the goblin jerks his head at them.

“Your mule and pony can go in there. Your dog too if you want.”

“Thanks,” Joe says, “but I don't think she'd stay. Better if I keep her with me.” He reaches down with his free hand and scratches Bramble's ears. Bramble wags her tail against his thigh and bounces along beside him. He glances back at his cart only to see a group of cloaked figures already grouped around it, hauling the load out and carrying it off.

The goblin hunches into his own cloak as Joe settles Nipper and the mule for the night and paces up and down outside the stables. Joe looks back at him and delibarately takes as long as he can, in mild repayment of the half-truth on the road.

Finally though, he can't find anything else he can do to delay and has to return outside. The goblin lets out a long sigh and points him back to the main street. “Feeding is at his Lordship's. Reckon you'll be at the low tables…”

Posted on 2009/02/01

Joe swallows hard when he hears he'll have to eat in the same place as a lord and firmly reminds himself that he did eat in the lord's hall every year at the harvest feast. He does take a moment to scrub his hands and face at the pump though and the cold water cools his nerves as well. As he looks around he sees at least half the village heading towards the manor house, the lord's house. Taking a deep breath and tucking one dagger well out of sight, he saunters after them, one hand dipped to tickle Bramble's ears.

Following along with the flow, he finds himself seated on a bench among other working people, with a wooden platter and mug in front of him. Dishes line the centre of the table - baskets of bread, butter, soft cheese, sliced hard cheese, sliced sausage, pease pudding, slices of good pie, rings of dried apple and rings of dried peach, roasted nuts and even a small plate of actual meat.

Joe tries not to lick his lips and instead, keeps an eye on his neighbours, sitting when they do, helping himself as they do, waiting to eat until they do. His only reassurance is that the lord himself is at the far end of the hall and probably can't see what joe is doing. Joe relaxes slightly as he finds his end of the table acts like a normal eating hall - he helps himself to a piece of pie, to good sausage and bread, pease pudding and butter. He eats neatly, with half an ear on the musicians playing and half an eye on the lord's table. Talk drifts around him, some in common, some not. By the general laughter, some of the unknown phrases are jests and jokes. Further up the table, a pair of humans tease each other in elvish and others banter in a tongue Joe doesn't know. Finally, he, along with the other workers is dismissed from the hall and he heads out into the night.

A hand on his elbow stops him and he looks down slightly into the face of the dwarven smith, now minus her apron. “His lordship said you needed paying,” she says and holds a leather pouch out on the palm of her hand. “Gave me this for you. Has he said where you are to stay?”

Joe shakes his head and reaches for the pouch. “Not a word about me. Just for the animals.”

She snorts. “Typical of my lord. Thinks everyone knows what he does and thinks the way he does.” She looks Joe briskly up and down and he can't help feeling sized up for something. “If you want to be close to your beasts, I expect there will be space in the hayloft over the stable. If you'd rather have a bed, there's a spare cubbyhole off the side of my forge. I've had visitors sleep there before and you're not that much taller than one of us.” She shrugs and turns away, muscles creasing the shoulders of her shirt.

Joe looks after her for a moment and then decides that in all this strangeness, the familiarity of a loft bed would be welcome, though a real bed would have been nice. He heads for the stables, checks Nipper and the mule and then takes his bedroll up into the hay to sleep.

Next morning, he is awake and up as early as possible, sliding out of the loft to find that his cart has already been re-loaded with goods. With the morning routine out of the way, he sets off out of the village, glad in some ways to be away. Back out on the road, between the quiet trees, he does at least feel like he belongs.

As he turns the corner onto the final stretch before evening camp though, the quiet is broken by a crashing and thumping and out of the trees gallops a massive black carthorse….

Posted on 2009/02/08

Nipper greets the horse with a friendly nicker as it approaches. Joe looks at Nipper and then at the horse. For a moment, he doesn't think he has ever seen such a big - such a solid black - carthorse. Then a vague memory tickles of stables at the end of a journey, a massive horse and an equally massive rider. Joe says slowly, “Smash?”

The horse tosses its head so that blue ribbons flutter in the air and backs away towards the forest again. Joe mutters a curse and keeps going towards the campsite. The horse continues to approach and back away, approach and back away, always turning and looking back at Joe as it moves towards the forest.

“Oh fine, I get it,” Joe grumbles. “I get it! You want me to follow. Well you can just wait…and want…”

He finally reaches the campsite, unhitches the mule, feeds it, removes Nipper's pack and grabs - too late - to prevent him from following the carthorse, which is backing into the forest again. Joe swears, grabs his own pack and storms after Nipper with Bramble trotting nervously behind.

The carthorse looks back at the pair, nickers, and keeps taunting them on, advancing and backing up repeatedly. Joe snarls after it. “I GET THE HINT. If you're GOING to lead me somewhere, then by all the gods in all the heavens, GET ON WITH IT!”

The horse stops on the spot and just looks at him, looks at the increasing number of webs in the trees and lets out a lip-flapping sigh before continuing. Joe stomps on and nearly trips over the body of something that looks like a humanish spider. Slash wounds through its neck rather imply it is a dead human-spider thing. Joe still circles it warily, remembering the last set of massive webs and the way Bramble got caught in them. He doesn't want to get caught himself.

At last, the carthorse reaches a clearing, stops at the edge and neighs loudly. A deep voice mumbles something from further into the clearing and Joe comes cautiously past the horse to see heaped dead spiders, another human-spider thing slumped beside the heap and beyond both, a massive web with a person strung up in it, an oversized metal helm jammed on their head, and their massive body sagging into the bearskin hide armor…

Posted on 2009/02/22

Joe walks slowly into the clearing, looking around for anything moving. Only the branches move, and odd bits of web. And the person strung up in the webs.

The carthorse shoves Joe in the back, sending him stumbling out into the clearing, but before he can do more than mutter a curse at it, the person mumbles something and Bramble scrambles around the horse to shiver against Joe's leg. Joe mutters something at her in an attempt to be able to use his leg, but it doesn't work. With a glare over his shoulder at the horse, he trudges across the clearing to the person, stretches up on tiptoe and lifts the helm away, revealing Yakk's tattoed face. The eyes are open, looking straight at him and Joe shivers like Bramble under their gaze. Then the eyes slide sideways to a pair of abandoned saddlebags.

Joe looks at the saddlebags and then at Yakk before sighing and fetching them, dragging one in each hand and waiting stubbornly for something else to be indicated. He isn't fool enough to go stealing from someone so big, even if they are all tied up in a web at the moment.

Yak licks his lips and croaks, “Left bag, grey vial.”

Joe looks at him sullenly for a moment longer and then crouches to open the bag - just as Nipper saunters round the carthorse and snickers at Yakk. Yakk stares back at Nipper and Joe shivers again, with a feeling that something is going on between the pair. Something unspoken but not ignorable. Finally finding a grey vial wedged between a bag of holly leaves and a half-emptied waterskin, Joe holds it out.

Yakk looks at Joe and rolls his eyes towards his own pinned arms. Joe mentally kicks himself, but he doesn't want to open something unknown. It could be anything in there, good or bad. Instead he grabs a broken sword from the litter on the floor of the clearing and saws through the web around Yakk, doing his best not to hit Yakk by mistake and nearly toppling over himself when a released Yakk falls on top of him. Yakk takes the vial with shaking hands, prises it open at the third attempt, drinks the contents and grimaces. “Ugh. Foul as ever.”

Joe backs away, quickly picking up a handful of stuff as he goes - a small suit of torn leathers, a couple of javelins, an unbroken sword, a few tools. “If you don't need me any more….”

“Wait a minute. Haven't thanked you yet…” Yakk crawls to his feet, calls his horse over and leans on it. “Your pony?”

Joe glares at Nipper. “I wonder sometimes. But yes. Why?”

“Kicks people?”

“Yeah.”

“Red ribbon then.” Yakk rummages one handed through his bags and tosses Joe a rolled red ribbon. “And here, take this for yourself.” He tosses a shiny black stone after the ribbon.

Joe catches both, though he doubts that Nipper will ever let him braid the ribbon in, and leaves hurriedly before Yakk changes his mind. “All right you pest,” he mutters at Nipper. “How about you let me get a decent rest for once….?”

Posted on 2009/03/01

Nipper snorts at the idea of sleep, but doesn't interrupt when Joe crawls into his bedroll. He goes back to grazing instead. Joe sleeps restlessly, half waking fairly often to check the area for spiders and spider-like things. When the daylight comes back, he crawls wearily out of his bedroll and begins to trudge through the morning routine. Tiredness makes him slower and clumsier than usual and it's mid morning before he is ready to leave.

Nipper, though, baulks at leaving, repeatedly lipping at the bag Joe has packed the ribbon in. Joe stares at him. “You want a ribbon in your mane? You want one?” He throws up his hands. “No accounting for some is there?”

Joe hauls out the ribbon and winds it roughly into Nipper's mane, watching Nipper's ears prick and swivel as he does. Definitely, this fool of a demon horse likes having a pretty ribbon…

Mind you, Joe thinks, the warning red flutters do match Nipper's temper and attitude. And, no, it doesn't make him look pretty at all.

They reach home, despite a few false alarms, in the middle of the afternoon and Joe drives the cart to be unloaded - noticing one or two familiar faces in the unloading work gang, although they don't seem to recognise him. Joe sits quietly, and waits for them to finish before turning out of the warehouse and heading for his own home and his own bed…

Posted on 2009/03/15

Joe sleeps late the next day and gets up leisurely, revelling in a laziness he has never before had time to indulge in. He takes time to toast slices of bread over his fire and melt slivers of cheese onto it before he wanders down to feed and clean out Nipper and the mule.

Afterwards, Joe climbs back up into his home, leaves the door open for extra light and sets about mending the tears in the leathers he picked up. They're much too small for him to wear, but he might get a bit of money for them if they are at least in one piece. He also takes the weapons and tools he snatched and piles them neatly by the door ready to take down to the market.

With the leathers mended and the coin payments stacked in his money chest, Joe finally gathers the weapons, wrapping them in the leathers, and heads down to the market to sell them. The weapon buyers grin wryly as he approaches and comment, “More of them? Very well, let's have a look…”

Joe haggles over the price as usual, but the deal seems to come quicker and he moves on to sell the leathers. That deal also goes quickly and he winds his way through the stalls picking up food stocks and - after a bit of thought - a large block of soap. After all, he does have all those battered clothes and cloths that will need cleaning to make them usable, he thinks. He might as well get that done as leave them in a corner for another week.

Once home again, he stows his food on the storage shelves and piles the clothes in the middle of the room, keeping only his old brown breeches back to wear. He heats pot after pot of water and scrubs steadily, until the whole room seems to draped with wet cloth - including the two blankets. Finally he strings rope across the yard and hangs the clothes on that to dry, while he cleans the soap out of his pot, pours a mug of ale out of a jug and starts to prepare his evening meal…

This game is DMed by Heros_Backpack from the wizards.com boards. He holds the copyright to all content.

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