The Gathering
Adjusting to the Surface
Walking about five hundred meters away from the camp, Henri stopped and looked at the ground, clearly displeased the tracks looked similar to wild pigs but much bigger. Zilvra was lost wondering why he was looking at the ground all she could tell was that a short animal had made a path.
She asked wondering, "What are you looking at?"
He said softly, "I think this is a boar run. Boars are a small, yet very powerful animal, and good eating, I might add. This isn't good, having boars this close to our camp it will only be a matter of time till we have a problem with them, they are very territorial."
She looked at the path, wondering why their territorial behavior would be a problem, and asked, "How big are these boars? Are they poisonous?"
He answered, "They are about as tall as those bushes and weigh more than I do with very sharp tusks that would split your lizard's skin open very easily. We need to kill the boars. Once we do, we will have fresh meat for about 3 days, and if your family has anything to cure the meat then it can last longer. Besides with a build as big as you are we need to increase our caloric intake of food if we are going to be working in the sun, it will cause us to burn more calories so being this thin isn't good, we need a little more mass on us."
His attention was caught by the wind as it changed. He got up and took a deep whiff, his stomach grumbled and smiled at the memories that smell brought up.
By comparison Drow eat like birds and he had had enough of their diet and the thought of grilled boar was great but this smell was even better.
'A smoke house, perfect' he thought.
He signaled to Zilvra as she caught up to him, she was lost as to what had caught his attention. As he followed the smells for about two kilometers he came to a clearing, as he looked at the house Henri saw the cows in the pasture.
Zilvra was surprised by his sense of smell; she didn't smell anything but smoke until they got to the clearing, when the smell of cooking meat came to her. In her defense, with all the new smells around her, she couldn't tell what was what. Henri told her to stay there, he was going to go and talk to the people at that farm. He just hoped his fatigues wouldn't cause too many problems.
Stepping out of the woods and across the road, Henri started calling to the house not wanting to shock anybody, he told Zilvra to stay hidden and wait for his return.
When he got about fifty meters from the house a little girl, about eight years old, came out of the front door and looked at him.
Henri waved and smiled his best 'I'm not here to hurt you' smile while asking, "Is your mommy or daddy home, I need to talk with them."
Before she could answer, a woman of about thirty came out. She saw the sword at his side which sent her back inside where she began whispering something to the girl.
The little girl ran further into the house, as the woman spoke but Henri could see the fear in her eyes, "What is your business here?"
She looked at his sword fearfully, this wasn't good, if she thought he was a threat she wouldn't trade.
Henri smiled at her and in a very friendly tone said, "I smelled your smoke house and wanted to do some trading."
She looked at him and said still not trusting him, "Where are your goods to trade?"
Out of the door came three boys, one holding a crossbow, the others with spears in their hands. Henri kept his hands in view as he didn't want this to get ugly.
Henri carried on talking, "My goods are back at my camp site, I found a wild pig run and was going to hunt the pigs. I stopped when I smelled the smoke. I would like to trade any meat I kill for some smoked meats for my trip to Delliletum"
She smiled and told her boys to lower their weapons. Her voice showed her relief, "You would get rid of those bothersome pigs for us? My husband has talked about hunting them down because they keep destroying our fields, and he will be thrilled if you have taken care of the problem for him."
Henri smiled in relief, happy this was going to work out, "Then we have a deal? I'll bring some coin and maybe I'll buy some fresh goods if you have some. I'll come by in the evening then."
With that he bade them goodbye and was happy to be able to get some real food. When he got back to Zilvra, he was pleasantly surprised to see that she had remained hidden, as she stepped out of the shadows and greeted him.
"Well we won't starve out here, and I've made a contact for your family," Henri said proud of his accomplishment.
She retorted back like he was a moron, "You expect us to trust those humans?"
He shook his head, but understood such ignorance would slowly fade with time on the surface.
Henri said trying to sound worldly, "Right now you need all the friends you can get."
She couldn't argue about that, but still didn't like the thought of trusting these people, and he really couldn't blame her.
When they got back to their camp Henri looked around for a bow and some arrows. He found one and handed it to Zilvra.
He asked Belar if she wanted to help, but she shook her head no and told him that her head hurt from the light. He was guessing it would be the same as being outside in winter on a sunny day without something to shade their eyes.
Henri looked around and saw that it was late afternoon and the shadows were setting in. As he looked around he saw a length of rope and an excellent idea occurred to him. Henri tried to talk Belar into walking out of the cave where she and everybody else were hiding, but he got nothing but attitude from her about not wanting to go out of the cave because of how much the lighthurt.
Henri took the time to speak with Alak about the human farm that he saw and the deal he had made and asked for some money to get the things they would need. Alak agreed, after all he had no real reason to mistrust Henri; it was good to know somebody trusted him.
