RE: Trailer Trash Special pt 3 (Patreon)

   It was a long trek back through the woods towards the pair of broken and discarded goblin corpses in the ravine, and Tabitha slowed to a quiet stalking creep as she neared. The treeline on both slopes was obscured by ferny undergrowth, the unexplored goblin warren was a possible threat, and her heart was racing at the potential danger of being ambushed by the survivors of the raiding party.

   Or goblin reinforcements from the warren, Tabitha thought as she hunkered down to creep forward. One of the Elder Scrolls Eight memes she remembered had insisted that crouching down was somehow synonymous with stealthy sneaking. It wasn’t nearly as funny when her heart was pounding and naked fear tickled through her fingertips, but showing a lower profile as she advanced was a little comforting. Tabi’s rather cursory adventurer training covered a bit on goblins. Each big den’ll have a hag— a goblin mother, abducted human or otherwise. This den looks small. Hopefully nothing in there. Not going in there to see. Nope, no way, nope, not a chance, all of my nope. Should I… what, collapse the entrance somehow?

   Staring at the dark hole clawed in beneath the overhang of tree roots, Tabitha swallowed uneasily. It smelled terrible, she had no idea how to safely collapse even a small tunnel like that, and the Tabi memories didn’t have anything helpful to contribute there, either. Turning her attention instead to the dead goblins, the red-headed adventurer girl drew the simple knife from the sheath on her belt.

   Goblins. They didn’t look anything like the ones from her Goblin Princess novel back in her own world, and there weren’t many commonalities with the popular depictions from Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons, either. They were bipedal humanoids, and stood about as tall as a child but with a much wider, more gangly frame. Naked, their skin wasn’t green or even greenish—it was pale in some places and dark with pigment or perhaps simply filth in others. They looked bad. If anything, it looked like these goblins were unfinished, or created in a rush.

   Oh God they stink, Tabitha choked up at the stench and fought to keep from hurling. Goblins could maybe pass for human. Malformed… pygmy humans with a lot of birth defects, or something.

   She prodded the nearest one with her boot, carefully tipping it back so that she could see it’s face.

   ...Huh. Tabitha blinked. Well, at least I know for sure it’s mother wasn’t human. That’s a good thing, at least.

   The thing’s face was twisted in a rather horrifying expression, but clearly this brood had been spawned by a pig, or hog, or boar-like monster of some kind. Had this been a creature from a video game, the designers would’ve likely cherrypicked only the cool or intimidating-looking features to give it a proper enemy mob aesthetic. In this world, the goblin instead looked like some sort of small subhuman neanderthal that shared certain porcine elements. A bit of ape and a slapdash of… pig or orc or something?

   The ears were elongated but didn’t quite taper to points, and Tabi’s memories warned her that only cutting off the ear on the right side—a careful cut at the base of the ear to ensure the entire ear was removed intact— counted as a proof of kill. Goblin ears were easily recognizable, convenient to collect and carry, and dried out but didn’t rot if kept wrapped in a bit of cloth. Probably don’t stink quite as much as any other… body part that’d be handy to chop off, too.

   Tabitha was more than a little squeamish actually touching the thing, but the Tabi in her was unfazed at butchering dead animals. Seeing the situation through the strange lense of her otherworld memories helped a lot, because Tabi was well-versed in dismantling a wild chicken-like bird that was local to the Mure region.

   Galliforne grouse, Tabitha learned. Not terribly filling, but easy to catch and kill. I guess they were a staple of this previous body’s diet?

   With exaggerated care, Tabitha pulled the goblin ear taut with one hand and applied her blade to the root, up against the thing’s subhuman head. It bled when she made her cut, a sickening little squirt of red, and the sound made when she pulled the ear free was like shearing a stubborn branch off of a tree.

   Oh God gross gross GROSS! Tabitha almost panicked and threw her collected prize away immediately. Okay. Okay. It’s gross but I can deal. I can handle this. It’s just… it’s just like taking apart Galliforne grouse. That’s something this body did all the time. Well, not all the time. Sometimes. Whenever she could. Anyways, I REMEMBER doing it, even if I’ve TECHNICALLY never done it myself.

   The next ear was easier to take, although the horrid state that second goblin corpse was in absolutely mortified her. Hurrying away from the crime scene, Tabitha placed one right ear atop the other and then pressed and rolled them into the kirtle of cloth around her waist with practiced but at the same time unfamiliar motions. This world didn’t have pockets, and only the wealthy carried things in leather pouches. Ordinary peasants like her stowed things wrapped a certain way in their kirtle sash, which in context here was a garment less like a dress and more like some sort of smock. Or maybe an apron?

   The strange fantasy-wear was one of the few things Tabi had owned herself. The shoddy knife, the sheath on her belt, the waxed leather jerkin she wore atop her kirtle, and even her boots were all on loan from the adventure guild outpost. They weren’t worth coin, and calling them hand me downs would be a little too generous in the awful state they were in, but they weren’t free— it was custom for adventurers to either return them in better condition, or replace them when they advanced adventurer ranks. If they survived to advance their rank.

   Annnd my rank’s gone. Naturally, Tabitha thought as she fled through the forest. Tabi was E rank, but whatever happened in the transference messed up overwriting that bit. I guess. I mean, she was super thrilled and proud to make E rank, but with my perspective on things now…

   E rank was pretty much bottom-of-the barrel. Anyone below level five would fall into E rank, and in the town of Mure that basically just means young children. They probably only qualified Tabi to leave the village at all because the local merchants are either out of or getting low on tillyweed. Any normal girl would have parents around absolutely forbidding her to go out past the outer boundary wall alone before reaching D rank. They gave Tabi E rank and let her outside the walls because she was EXPENDABLE. E rank for ‘expendable,’ E rank means ‘hey, she MIGHT not die.’

   “This is all way too much shit to sort out,” Tabitha grumbled to herself. “But, I’m absolutely not going to be expendable.”

   Tabi hadn’t been clear on how much proof of a goblin kill was worth to the guild. An economic system revolving around barter and haggling almost guaranteed that the nobody orphan starving-to-death newbie adventurer was going to get ripped off in every trade she made. I need to make sure I at least get… what, thirty coppers each? A party of goblins sighted near Mure is going to stir up a local fuss, and I AM obligated by charter to report the nest. How can I make sure they don’t short-change me when— 

   Before she could even finish her thought a wolf crashed into her from behind, toppling her to the ground. For a disorienting moment all Tabitha could think of was that she’d been pushed again. This wasn’t a random teenage bully at the school bus loop, however, and the wolf’s fangs immediately went for Tabitha’s neck upon bringing her down. Snarling and tearing teeth ripped across her fair skin, immediately eliciting a shriek of pain from the startled girl.

   Oh my God oh my God oh my God, Tabitha twisted beneath the weight of the beast and flailed, rolling with the wolf through the leaves and ferns. That HURTS, that HURTS YOU STUPID FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT MANGY DOG!

   The young wolf had silently snuck up on her—or maybe it had been tracking her all this while—and Tabitha had been caught completely off guard despite her attempts at watching her surroundings. The flash of panic and terror subsided quickly, however, because Tabitha realized something was really off about her attacker.

┌

  Lodestone Wolf has been defeated!

  250 XP

                                            ┘

   The wolf died suddenly, with only a yelping whine cut short when the easy prey turned out to somehow be ten full levels higher than it. The moment a surprised Tabitha attempted to grapple with the wolf vying to tear out her throat... her superior strength crushed and pulped the creature. It came apart in her hands in a mangled mess of musky fur and steaming innards.

   “What the—pffffttt!!” Tabitha sputtered through an unexpected spray of blood as she flung what remained of the wolf across the forest floor. “What the fuck! STOP TRYING TO KILL ME, YOU FUCKERS!”

   Still huffing as she tried to calm herself back down, Tabitha brushed errant bits of matted gore off her already disgusting leather jerkin. The wolf looked more like a larger, somehow scrawnier dog… probably. It was hard for her to tell now that it’s head and neck had been mostly twisted off its body and it’s entire front half was ripped open and deformed inwards. Wolf, wait, WOLF?!

   Tabitha froze and scanned her surroundings, but there was no sign of the rest of it’s pack.

   Right. Not like a REAL wolf, it’s like… a monster, Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief. Not a pack hunter. Monster wolf; lodestone wolf. Tabi didn’t know much about them, huh. Something to do with guarding a territory centered around a magic rock? Or magnetic rock? Something like that?

   She wasn’t sure if magnetism counted as magic here, and she wasn’t about to go hunting for a random rock right now, no matter how valuable it might be. Probing with her fingers along the back of her neck, she found it was already bleeding. Slight punctures in the skin at the top, with a bit of a ripped gash along the bottom, and it fucking hurt. The scratches and gashes the goblins had given her seemed like insignificant little stinging pains compared to this, this felt serious. Clamping a hand tightly against the agonizing bite marks, Tabitha gritted her teeth and focused her mind inwards.

   ┌

  Lvl 16 Tabitha Moore

  HP   22/280

  STR 30 INT 64

  DEX 44 WIS 35

  CON 26 CHA 40

                                               ┘

   My health was at… what, fifty before? Somewhere around there? Jesus this freakin’ hurts, Tabitha scowled. I was fortunate. But still, at this rate, I might not make it out of here alive. Even if Tabi had somehow escaped the clutches of those goblins, the wolf stalking along behind would have finished her with absolute certainty. All this pain and suffering, and for what? So some villagers have a pinch or two of tillyweed to put in their pipes?

   The knife came out again, and Tabitha stepped over to the bloody remains with a gleam of menace in her eyes.

/// Sorry for the brief inactivity there. Spent a rough stretch of days cleaning house and weaning myself off of caffeine so that caffeine can start being effective again at low mg dosages. It's a grueling cycle, but better than escalating to more and more caffeine as my body adjusts. We're back in business now! 

This post was short and doesn't leave off in a satisfying way, so I'm gonna have one more RE:TT Special section for you guys tomorrow with Tabitha getting back to the village and interacting with people.