Improving the Lair and Supplies

In the days to come you spend some time and resources further improving your lair. Using the basic workbench you’d previously constructed you create tools for your new minions. You set them to the task of building a shelter for themselves and for any future minions you may acquire. The building resembles a long hall and is filled with more of the simple cots that your own lodge contains. The first level of the construction gives you housing for up to ten minions, so you figure it will do for the time being.

With shelter taken care of you decide that food and other resources are your biggest need. You’re tired of eating only mushrooms. You task the goblin warriors to hunt smaller creatures outside the domain of the glade. It will provide a little bit of experience to them as well as satisfy the desire for meat that you and your new minions shared. Sylvana wouldn’t be happy about this but you knew that you can convince her of the necessity if it comes down to that.

For Chava you have a different job. When she’d joined your suspicions that she was a shaman of some sort had been confirmed. That very class being listed in the information you could access about her. You think that maybe she would be able to find a use for the medicinal mushrooms that Sylvana has brought you; so you give them to her and tell her to do whatever she can with them.

As the week goes on you find yourself satisfied with how your lair is progressing. You’ve taken time to set more traps on the outskirts to prepare for any would be heroes that stumble upon your territory. You take care to inform Sylvana of these traps, and ensure her that only heroes would trigger them. You don’t want her meddling again under a misunderstanding.

Sylvana spends the time tending to the grove and gathering resources from within. The simple act of maintaining a balanced ecosystem provides a steady, if slow, income of plant fiber and wood. As well as more herbs that Chava could use to produce salves and other useful products.

As the days stretch on you feel a growing itch to once more leave the glade and hunt. The itch becomes more pronounced the longer you’re complacent until finally there comes a night where you know you can wait no longer. Once more you become the hunted in a dream. They hunt you. Show them who the real hunter is. You receive a series of blurred visions, each depict a different hero. A warrior, a hunter, and a mage. Each travels alone and you can tell little more than their class from the details you’re allowed to perceive. The vision/dream ends and you bolt awake in the early morning gloom, startling Sylvana who has fallen into a habit of sharing your cot.

“Wassa matter?” She mumbles, pressing her face into the fur of your chest and snuggling closer. You hadn’t thought that her kind needed sleep, but she certainly seemed to enjoy seeking your soft warmth during the night.

“Nothing for you to worry about Sylvana.” You pat her head and a muffled sound of comfort sounds from her, followed by a sigh of disappointment as you disentangle yourself from her clinging arms. “Mind the grove. I need to go out.” You ready yourself with some basic gear you’ve been able to put together with the assistance of the goblins: a couple of wooden javelins with fire hardened tips, a spear with a sharp stone tip, and a bandolier that held a collection of useful herbal salves and weapon coatings each in it’s own sealed wooden tube. Your current progress is primitive at best and you thought that maybe you should have spent more time acquiring better materials.

You forgo waking your goblin minions, not wanting to risk their ruining your chance of surprising any possible enemies with their comparatively low stealth. Ready as you’re going to get you leave the glade and ghost through the forest searching for sign of any recent travel through the area. You think again of the quests that had been issued for you and wonder if these heroes are some of those that had accepted the scouting quests. Non-lethal quests or not, you didn’t plan on going lightly on any trespassers in your territory.

Soon enough you come across tracks and broken foliage that spoke to the passage of one of the intruders. Seems like the warning from Nire had been accurate after all. All that remains then is to decide how to handle the heroes before they can meet up and possibly form a party. You don’t relish the thought of taking on three players at once although you think there may be a way to handle even that situation if you leverage your skills the right way.