Challenge Accepted

You think about it for a moment.

The bet sounds like just joining her side. It is too late to go back now, and to offend her too wouldn't be smart - besides maybe you kinda like her.

"I accept the bet. I wanted just to support you, but if you look down on me I will prove you wrong." you say with some determination.

"But do I have to wear that collar now?" you add.

"Yes you do. I need either strong or loyal goblins by my side, and I need others to know that I have them. So you do have to wear it. Except if you really believe you can become the next Chief, in which case why would you want to support me, huh?" she asks.

When she puts it like that, you can't really argue with her. She puts the collar on your neck.

"I would love to add a leash and walk you around, but that will have to wait till after I become the Chief." she says to you.

"Now I have to prepare. Remember that you wear your collar because you want to. If you want to remove it feel free, but I won't consider you my follower after that.

"Also, don't tell anyone about the competition, it isn't really a secret but they will think I had help from my father to win" she adds.

"You don't?" you ask, kind of puzzled

"No. Now get out."

It looks like your final question made her a bit angry. You decide to get out before bad things happen.

You spend the rest of the day enduring laughs and giggles for your collar, which you ignore. First you practice a bit with your spear, run a couple of rounds around the village, and then you go to sleep so you can be fresh when the sun is down. Then you wake up when Barlx summons the tribe at the center of the village, to start the competition.

He is standing on a big log, which is more than enough to make him stand out from the surrounding goblins. He wears a dirty robe decorated with skulls and bones of dead animals, and he is holding a wooden staff with a human skull at its end.

Goblins, our Blacksilk tribe is in need of a new Chief. Without a leader we are just goblins. With a leader we are a group of warriors!

The new Chief has to be a warrior. But he also has to be smart. He needs to be brave and lead us to do what the High Chieftain expects us to do!

Our God gave me the way to select our new Chief. Listen, goblins.

There are 7 coins hidden in the forest and around. They are the ancient coins our tribe always had. They can't be faked and new ones can't be found.

Whoever manages to bring back most of them will be the new Chief. This can't be done in one night - so the time limit will be one month.

You can make teams if you want before you leave, but only the team leader can be the Chief. When you leave this camp you will not return until you have finished your task, or until you give up.

If one manages to get all the coins, the Mighty Maglubiyet will bless him.

Those are His words.

I will tell you where each coin is located, but not the exact location.
The first coin, is in the Devil Wolf Den.
The second is in the Spider Gorge
The third, for now, is in the Bloody-Madbears stomach.
The fourth in the old well, inside the Keep of Regret
The fifth has been looted by the Harpy Queen
The sixth was found by the leader of the humans of the village next to the river
The seventh one...will be carried by one of you. The one who has it, will have to wait for the whole month before returning. As for which one of you will have it, it will be a secret.

You will leave without weapons, cloths or items, so drop them here. The Chief shall claim them as spoils.

Those who want to lead our tribe to glory...step forward.

You are stunned. Is this a selection for a new leader, or they want to send you to your deaths? Those are all places that your tribe avoids, much less a lone goblin. And without any weapons or armor the forest itself is hard enough to survive.

Sure enough, you see many of the goblins that looked determined before, to look scared now.

Siki is the first one to step forward, and she starts undressing without saying anything. She attracts many gazes from the male goblins, and you hear whispers about how sad it will be for her to die.

Then Varg steps forward after a while, with a team of 3 other goblins. You are pretty sure his team would be at least a dozen of goblins, but probably the majority of them chickened out.

"I am the leader of this group" Varg announces, and they similarly strip and wait at the side.

You are hesitating for a bit, but at the end you make your mind. Worst case you will just turn back without any ancient coins.

You step forward and you begin to strip.

"You can leave this on" Barlx says, pointing at your collar.

You turn a red shade of green while you hear laughs from the goblins around. What is most embarrassing is that this also excites you, giving you a boner you can't really hide.

You can only pretend not to care, and you try to go for that.

No one else dares to step forward, and so Barlx speaks again.

"I will lead each of you outside of the camp, and then you will go. You first." He points at you.

He jumps down the log, and nods you to follow him.

He leads you outside of the village, after he orders the rest of the goblins to wait where they are.

"Here, take this." he says, and gives you a coin.

"I would run if I was you. And may the Battle Lord show you the way to victory." he adds.

"Wait..." you want to add that you don't want the coin, but you then stop yourself.

"...thanks." and you start to run.

Now that you have this coin, it means that if everyone else fails and they don't find you for a month, you will become the Chief! And even if they somehow manage to find a coin themselves, you can still win the bet with Siki. But if Varg becomes the Chief, then things will be bad. Then again, if the competition is set up and Siki finds the coins, you should be safer not even trying. But is it really set up? If it was, shouldn't she have this coin too?

You take a look at the coin. It has a gold-silver color, with the face of Maglubiyet on one side and some letters on the other. You see a magical symbol shining on the side of the letters. Of course the old shaman would never place something on his gods face.

You think for a moment all the alternatives.

The Devil Wolf Den is basically a huge cave where a tribe of worgs live. Worgs look like scary wolfs, but they are very smart - sometimes smarter than goblins. They can also speak. And finally, they are definitely stronger than goblins. They used to have an agreement with your tribe to serve as mounts, but at some point the tribes had a disagreement and there was a war. It is obvious how difficult searching their cave will be.

The Spider Gorge is a gorge filled with spider webs. Spiders live there. Well, you don't know much about them, but they are the spiders your tribe abducts and makes them mounts. However there has never been an operation there without goblin losses. If they sense a goblin around, they won't let it do as it pleases for sure. That is also the reason why you don't have your own spider yet.

The Bloody-Madbear is a fucking monster. If bears had kings, this bear would probably make them run for their life. You have heard stories about it - if you climb a tree it will smash that tree down. If you run, it will run faster than you. It is afraid of fire, but afraid as in "gets even more angry" not as in "runs away". Few goblins met it and lived to tell the tale, but they certainly weren't alone. However it will probably shit the coin somewhere if he ate it. Maybe in its lair. If you dare to go there.

The Keep of Regret. It is an old abandoned fort in the forest. Your tribe tried to claim it once, but they were attacked at night by some huge plants. Half the tribe was wiped out. So it was named "Keep of Regret". Because everyone regretted going there. Story goes that the plants emerged from the depths of the well, so the coin being there means nothing good.

The Harpy Queen lives with her tribe of harpies on a side of the forest which you don't visit at all. And you don't because it is forbidden, since said harpies abduct whatever goblin they can get their hands on. What they do with them...they probably eat them.

The last coin is in the village of humans. you have no idea how it is called, but you know that they have had enough fights with goblins. Their village has a wooden wall and it is always guarded. They sometimes send adventurers to kill goblins and collect their ears. Fucking humans. Won't going there mean that you will die for sure? Or maybe even something worse than that.

Well on the positive side you know were all those are. They are in areas you were taught to avoid after all.

You could also just try to do some important things first. Like finding a weapon, hunting, resting etc. Or keep running to be safer from the other wannabe Chiefs.

What do you do? (This option will be repeated at the following chapters. You can also explain your plan)
1 Go for the first coin
2 Go for the second coin
3 Go for the third coin
4 Go for the fourth coin
5 Go for the fifth coin
6 Go for the sixth coin
7 Try to find supplies/rest/etc
8 Try to run further away
9 Other

__Every day there is a chance for a random encounter at the forest. Meeting a monster or a human without any weapon may turn out bad. At most you can go 3 days without food. If you want you can skip sleeping in order to have better results on the option you chose, but if you go too long without sleep you will have negative effects (like sleeping at in inappropriate place).