Continue along the trade route

Though the red wugs present the greatest mortal peril, it also sounded as if they offered your best chance of victory. You know they will wait in ambush for travelers along the road so you climb down onto the sloping side of the raised trade route. They will not expect a traveler to be creeping along in the high grass here where the going is slower.

You journey on for a few hours, passing blood-stained roadway and signs of struggle. It is unnerving to pass the spot where you know humans recently perished, but you are no coward and you continue on, perhaps shrinking a little lower into the weeds along the roadside.

The sky is going gray and purple as evening approaches. You're wary and tired and concerned about sleeping in this place. You hear something, almost like a croaking bullfrog, and you freeze in place. Up ahead you see four small, red-skinned humanoids crouching in the weeds alongside the road. They are about half your height, perhaps a little taller.

They are communicating to one another quietly in croaks and chirps. White membranes blink across the pale, yellow eyes that bulge from the sides of their wide heads. Their faces are somewhere between a frog and a salamander and they have loose, moist folds of flesh around their throat. They wear loincloths and carry spears that would be too small for a man to use.

You drop low into the weeds. They have not spotted you. To simply go around them is not an option. You would make too much noise in the swamp. You believe you could fell all four with your bow before they could get close enough to hurl their spears, but you do not know how many lie in wait on the other side of the road.

If it is only four more you can probably take them with your bow. If it is more you will be in serious trouble. The other possibility is to creep closer and attack them with your dagger. It is a riskier option on its surface, but you believe you can overpower the small creatures before they can alert any others that might be on the other side of the road.

Perhaps the most dangerous option of all would be to attempt to confront the wugs and bluff your way through them somehow. You do not even know if they speak your language and if they have a chance to be alerted they might just form up and attack you.