In what he thinks is a firm and fearless voice, but actually shows more than a bit of fear in it, Tobey says
"I'm not afraid of any ghost. They don't exist!. Desna will protect me from them!. Lets dig it up. There could be buried pirate treasure there. Who is with me?"
With that, he starts to use his hands to dig
"There might be some grave consequences if we do," Silas says while smiling slightly. "I remember Dad saying the thing about a day's labor a lot. We could ask him about it?"
Jewel stands back to watch at first. Then, quickly bored she turns away. "Tobar, you're wasting play time and all you're going to get is dirty, and maybe some torn finger nails. What can we play with just five of us since Clara went home?
Randolf gets out one of the few books and gives it to Clara. He writes the alphabet with a pencil on the first page in normal and capital letters. While he continues with the preparation of the meal he exercises the alphabet with her. "A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z" And again. And again.
Clara repeats after her father. That's easy she thinks. You know how the letters sound and then you can read. After the fifth or sixth repetition she finds that she learned enough and flips a few pages in the book. She reads "C-a-l-l m-e I-s-m-a-e-l."
"That's stupid. That's not words." she complains.
"It reads Call... me.. Ismael." Randolf corrects.
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"That is not what the letters say! It's a C and no K. And your Ismael starts with an I not an E. The one who wrote that couldn't write!" Clara concludes.
The kids play some more in the woods until sunset. As it starts to get dusky all go back home together.
Simon asks his dad about the saying with the work done and gets the explanation, "This is a saying representing the value of honest work in the eyes of Erastil. And remembering those simple wisdoms keeps you grounded. For it's the ground that feeds you and not some lofty ambitions." Solid advice from a farmer to his family. The question why Simon wants to know luckily isn't asked.
With the hard work of the day everyone is tired and the families go to bed as soon as it gets dark. But the night is not a silent one. At least not for the Branston family.
In the midst of the night when everything should be silent, the chickens suddenly make a huge fuss. Will and Shelly jump out of their bed, armed with clubs and a lantern to see what's up.
The chicken pen is in chaos. All the chicken are running around like headless chicken. One chicken is a bloody mess and dead. But no predator is found. After a while the chicken calm down again. Will stays in the pen for the night, to make sure that no more chicken are stolen or killed.
In the morning sun Will finds, that besides the dead one two more chicken are missing. Scared chicken lay no eggs, so this breakfast is without. "Two of you have to guard the chicken pen today and find where the fox came in. This needs to be repaired. Any volumnteers?" he asks at the breakfast table. He is in a sour mood. Three chicken is a big loss.
Jewel considers Tarjun's suggestion and nods quickly. "Sure. But let's play while walking toward the creek. And Tobar can clean his hands in the creek. And maybe.... we'll see a fish and be able to catch it!"
Focusing her hex to let Brina understand too she 'commands', "Simon says let's go to the creek and see if we can find a fish!"
Seeing the blody mess is stressful for Jewel. Had she been here maybe her magic could've saved one or more of the chickens!?! She quickly steps up when the 'guard duty' is mentioned. "I'll do it! You know I don't want any of our hens hurt!"
She considers suggesting talking with the chickens but knows they'll just get scared again if asked about the fox. But maybe Someone could track the fox? "Maybe Tobar Johnson could help hunt the fox? He's got that cat of his trained pretty good so he must be OK with animals!"
The news of the nightly attack quickly travel through the village. It's the talk also at Johnson's table. "That's bad news. If they don't get the fox or badger, or whatever stole the chicken, it will come back." Gertrud tells.
"But you little ones have work to do. The weeds won't go away on their own. You all will go weeding today." She tells.
The chicken pen is a wooden house with straw for nests and bars to sit on. Around the large area is a fence made of brushwood, artfully wattled.
The vegetable garden at Johnson's is a collection of seemingly endless rows of weeds that stand between the kids and checking with their friends what happened at the chicken pen.
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"I could help with the pen, Pa," Tarjun offers.
It is no secret that he has a hobby of carving out wood -to the point that he sometimes had his tools confiscated so that he would stop procrastinating. But his parents have stumbled upon enough of his "creations" to know that he's quite good at it.
Some even earned him a compliment.
But since he's been assigned to the weeding, he now silently hopes he won't have to do both works.
"Ma, we should REALLY try and catch the fox. Can Brina and I go over and see if we can pick up the scent? It would be better to do that earlier than later!. I PROMISE that if we can't find the fox or after we kill it I'll come back and help with the weeding. Surely stopping the fox is more important. Pleeeeaaaaaaassssssseeeeee?"
Not sure what rolls may be necessary so I'll make a bunch for you to pick from :-)
(she will take on the aspect of the Falcoln)
If Tobar can't talk his mom into accepting his offer he'll go into the garden and then sneak out anyway. He is a good boy but not THAT good :-) :-)
"Following a fox into the woods won't help anyone, but you avoiding your work." Gertrud replies. No sweet talking is gonna change her mind about that.
"Hey!" Clara tells as Tobar sneaks off. "You at least tell me what you find." Tobar hears as if Clara would talk directly besides him even though she is a growing distance away. But half way to the Branston's chicken pen Clara's voice is gone.
Frustrated she starts weeding. She considers telling her mum, but that wouldn't help her any to get to the chicken pen herself. Every now and then she looks over if something happens there.
Tobar gets away unseen. It tells a lot about the Johnson's kids working morale, that a boy of his age can sneak away through the weeds without beeing seen.
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Tarjun lets out a whistle when he sees the state the chicken pen is in.
"Wow, that's pretty wrecked. Now how did that darn fox get in? Jewel, see anythin'?"
After looking for traces of the fox, he starts to inspect the pen more closely. He never worked on anything bigger than his favorite wooden whistles (which still sound a bit squeaky), and he is understandably fascinated.
"Not sure it's gonna be fixed that easily..."
Tarjun is totally prepared to fix the fence, or door or whatever is broken, that let the fox in. If only he'd find it.
Seeing Tarjun looking for how the predator broke in Jewel joins the search.
The fence is thin vertical sticks, one besides the next that are wattled with even thinner sticks that are woven in horizontally. But at one position all horizontal sticks are cut from half height down to the botton and at the bottom for about a foot. Which allows to slip through for a child.
With Jewel and Tobar standing at the newly created backdoor, Tarjun also finds it and immediately starts fixing it.
Silas wasn't feeling too well in the morning but by afternoon he felt a bit better. He comes outside to help Tobar with the fence.
Once Tarjun starts working to fix the 'new back door' Jewel looks arund for what materials are available. "Too bad we can't just mix broken glass or some other shards in the dirt so the beast would bloody its paws if it tries to dig in again!"
Seeing the stab wound Jewel picks up the chicken and runs for the house. "Daddy! Come look! This chicken wasn't killed by a fox!"
Will comes over from the barn as he hear Jewel screaming. "What is it?" he asks. After being shown the wounds at the bloody carcass and the stabbing wound he pales. "I have to show that to Butch. She should know what that is." He takes the chicken and walks over to the Johnsons.
"Hey Butch. Jewel pointed out that this chicken wasn't killed by a fox. Can you tell what did this?" Will inquires.
Taking the chicken Gertrud inspects it. "Bitemarks from a large mouth with many pointy teeth and a stab wound? That's from a goblin." she sighs. "Tell the kids they are grounded. No going into the woods anymore."
"Shall I cut the rest of the chicken for cat food?" she asks looking at the sad remains.
"Great. Life was obviously too nice lately." Will replies. "Yeah, do that. Better than letting it go to waste."
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GM:
Tarjun whistles happily while he works, and doesn't really pay attention to what happens around him. It is only when he tries to plant the last stakes further into the ground that he freezes.
"Wow. Whazzat?" he suddenly asks aloud -perhaps to the other kids, but also to himself.
With a weird fascination, he puts his own foot next to the footprint in the earth, comparing the sizes. He glances at the chicken pen, suddenly finding it very fragile.
"Er," he says. "it ain't gonna last if the fox's got hands."
Jewel is a bit upset about being left out by her dad, but goes back to help Tarjun finish with the repairs. When he mentions foxes with hands she chuckles, "Foxes don't have hands any more than chickens do! Why're you being silly?"
Tobar quickly found the hole in the fence and started looking for tracks
"This wasn't done by an animal. I bet we disturbed the dead yesterday. Its a Creepy Ghoulie!!!!! Tarji, it was YOUR idea to dig it up. I bet its trying to find you to kill YOU!!!!!"
With that, he runs back to his house
"Clara, hide!!! Mom, Tarjun disturbed a Creepy Ghoulie yesterday!! THAT is what attacked the foxes!! We have to get inside and hide!!"
"What is he screaming about? Oh, time to play chase"
On the way back to the house, Tobar is passed by Brina who gets ahead, waits for him to pass, gets ahead again, pounces on him as he flees in terror, and then chases after him, arriving home before Tobar and casually grooming herself as he arrives.
"Man, I didn't know there were gonna be actual consequences. Though maybe ma and dad were gonna yell at us. If its a ghoulie we could see why it's angry."
Jewel watches as Tobar comes, searches, then leaves talking (loudly) about ghouls.... "That's even sillier than thinking that foxes might have hands! Ghouls wouldn't sneak in to the chicken coop and kill a couple birds. It would come after whoever dug it up!"
Clara is not happy. Not only does she have work to do, but everybody else seems to have fun at the chicken pen. Everybody else but Kygar. When she sees Will coming over with a dead chicken in hand she drops her hoe and runs inside. Under false pretense of being hungry she joins the talk of the adults. "Mum, what is a goblin?"
Gertrud pauses from cutting the chicken. "Goblins, are almost as tall as you. Little green monsters with a large head and their mouth almost as large as their head. And their favorite meal is children. They catch you, rip your clothes off and then they bite with their hundreds of pointy teeth into your legs, and arms and belly and rip you apart like that chicken."
Clara stands there in shock. Her jaw dropped, eyes wide and frozen in place.
Gertrud finishes dissecting the chicken and hands Will the parts in a bowl. "Here you are."
"Thanks. I'll make sure all my kids stay at home and I'll tell those of yours that wandered off to our chicken pen the same." Will replies and leaves.
At the chicken pen he tells all the kids "Hey kids, listen! Gertrud told me that it was a goblin that stole our chicken. They are dangerous and they not only steal chicken, they also eat kids. So none of you is leaving the house without an adult to accompany you."
"Tobar, you go back to your house. Johnson kids aren't allowed outside too anymore."
Once Clara recovers from her shock she frowns at being grounded. Until a smile appears on her face. "That means we can't go weeding again!" she exclaims.
Gertrud chuckles. "You wish. Give me a moment to finish here, and I'll come out with you. Can't let you out alone, but can't let the weeds have all the garden. We need our vegetables."
She cleans the tools and puts everything at its place. Then she grabs her bow and arrows. Lat she takes Clara's hand. "Let's go and do the weeding together."
Once out she also tells Kygar about the precautions and then watches over the children while they do the weeding. As there is quite some distance of open field between the trees and the garden and the lumberjacks working there, she joins in with the weeding and only now and then gets up to watch out for whatever might be wrong. "Hopefully they don't come out at day." Gertrud tells mostly herself.
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"This wasn't done by an animal. I bet we disturbed the dead yesterday. Its a Creepy Ghoulie!!!!! Tarji, it was YOUR idea to dig it up. I bet its trying to find you to kill YOU!!!!!"
"Youve've got more meat on yer bones, it'll get ya first!" Tarjun replies, but the comment obviously chilled him to the bone.
Jewel's comment somehow reassures him, and he ruffles his siter's hair.
"Anyhoo, let's go back home if we're done here."
If the ghoul -or whatever- is still around here, he doesn't want it to go after his siblings. He picks up a large branch on his way back, just in case.
"It ain't no fox," he tells his Ma once they're back. " Somethin' left footprints everywhere."
At the chicken pen he [Will Branston] tells all the kids "Hey kids, listen! Gertrud told me that it was a goblin that stole our chicken. They are dangerous and they not only steal chicken, they also eat kids. So none of you is leaving the house without an adult to accompany you."
Following into the house Will tells Shelly "We got goblins around here. We need to be careful. I will inform Dwayne, that he tells the others and maybe have a gathering to talk about what to do."
Jewel accepts the hair tousling from her older brother and moves inside with him. Hearing the bad news from their father sets her mind spinning. Nobody outside without an adult? That ruins any fun! But parents don't accept anything that kids say.... "OK dad. We'll stay safe from any old goblins."
She pretends to think for a second before continuing, "But how do we protect the chickens? We can't bring 'em in here, and as good as Tarjun's fix was that gobber will cut through again. Maybe we can rig an alarm? Just something to make noise when he comes to steal another chicken? Then we could all run out, yellin and such and throw rocks at the critter. Even if it could eat a child, it wouldn't try with all of us attacking it!"
"An alarm is a good idea. If you can rig something up that would be great. But don't go out. I'll be over at the sawmill. I'll be back soon. Stay inside and keep the doors closed." With that Will leaves.
Back at the Johnson household.
"Its a goblin and not a Creepy Ghoulie? Mom, are you sure? Do goblins live in graves?"
He bends down to talk to Brina
"Brina, you're a pretty fierce girl when you want to be. Just look at those teeth and claws.
Ok, you have to watch out for us as we garden. Keep watch. Call out really loud if anything dangerous comes. Ok?
No napping, now. You have to stay awake! If you do a really good idea I'll give you some chicken gizards later"
Brina very, very attentively listens to Tobar. Her eyes go large as she suddenly can see even better than normal
"Right, I understand. Go hunt a rabbit and bring it back to you after. I can find him REALLY well now"
With that, she disappears into the weeds. With her wonderful senses, she quickly finds a rabbit hole. And, good girl that she is, hunkers down watching the hole totally and utterly concentrating on it and ignoring everything else. She will wait until the rabbit comes out.
Jewel listens carefully to Dad's words, but doesn't see a loophole in the instructions. "Darn. He specifically said to 'dont go out'. So I guess all we can do is plan. Tarjun, Think about the tracks. Did they look like bare feet or boots? If they are bare feet we could put sharp stuff in the trail where it walked. If it comes back it'll probably try to break in the same place as last time. I know a little about sewing and tying stings together. We could make a loose net and lay it on the ground. Then when it walks on the sharp stuff, and we could put small dry sticks too that'll make cracking sounds, then we pull on the cords to the net and tangle it up. While it's tangled we can all throw sharp rocks and stuff at it! What do you guys think?"
She whistles quick to call Chirp to her. "And I'll have Chirp sit up on the roof to watch and warn me. She can see better in the dark than I can and she'll let me know when something is coming. I wonder what a goblin actually looks like. It would help if I could tell her what to watch for...."
"If it's something eating the chickens, we should put something on them to make them taste bad! Like you know when ma makes the chicken with things she forages? Let's do that to them!"