Lepre-Conned

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The forest was silent when Lochlan crawled out of the shallow cave. The ground beneath him was damp with the morning dew, and the sun had just begun peeking through the boughs of the trees. He dusted himself off and, after checking his various pockets to make sure his gold was still safe, looked around for any sign of the banshee from the previous night. He knew she wouldn't have stayed past the break of dawn, but he made sure just the same before setting off away from his shelter, reaching down and pulling out his sack of belongings out as he went. He'd had to spend the night in a cramped opening in the cavern, and he was eager to stretch his legs.

After trekking through the rough ground a short while, he came across an old, partially overgrown path and began following it. As he walked along, he pulled a worn-leather hat from his sack and pulled it down over his head, making sure to cover his hair. He had just swung the bag back on his shoulder when he heard an odd clinking sound inside. Puzzled, he stopped and looked inside, sweeping aside a few spare articles of clothing and trinkets and pulled out the small, wrapped package he'd gotten from the goblin girl back in Ashfurn village.

"That's right," he said aloud, sitting down on a smooth boulder beside the trail. "I never did take a look at this." He smiled as he recalled the innocent-looking goblin girl he'd tricked into thinking that she'd broken a vase of his. She'd given him the small package in recompense.

The package was wrapped in canvas with rounded edges. Looking close, Lochlan could see a dark spot on the canvas, which was wet to the touch. He unwrapped the canvas, revealing a clay bottle, with a small crack in the seal at the top, which was oozing amber liquid. He guessed that his time crawling in the cave had been the cause of the damage. He held it up to his nose and took a whiff.

His eyes widened as he felt his nose hairs curl against the strong scent, and he started coughing. Through blurry eyes, he rubbed the seal off with his thumbnail, exposing the stopper, and then twisted it off.

"Hm," he said to himself, holding one eye up to the opening in the neck of the bottle, trying to see the liquid inside. "Shall I have a taste, then? Why not, I've earned it." He held the small bottle up to his lips, drawing out a small sip. The liquid hit his tongue with a pleasant sweetness, and he swirled it around inside his mouth with relish, and then he swallowed.

He wheezed as his mouth and throat burned, the liquor having turned from sweet to white-hot fire in an instant. His belly clenched in protest to the inferno he'd just ingested, and he doubled over in pain, feeling the sizzling fluid as it flowed through his system toward his stomach. He began wrenching, clutching the clay bottle with both hands to keep from dropping it as his body tried to expel the vicious fluid.

"Whoo," said Lochlan after a moment, his breathing returning to normal. "That's good, that is!" He took another small sip before he replaced the stopper on the bottle and re-wrapped it in the canvas with care after using a bit of clay to fix the stopper in place and prevent further leakage, opting to save the rest for later. Shaking his head in wonder he said, "Those goblins really know how to brew."

Standing back up, he continued along the path, seeing a small farm in the distance, exactly where he knew it'd be. As he got closer, he could make out the simple, square barn with a golden thatched roof typical of most floresiens that worked the land. The forest had been cleared in and the land flattened for a good ten acres, the different crops arranged in their own rectangular sections in a plain but organized manner much like the barn and small house of the man who lived there.

When he'd gotten as close as he dared, Lochlan left the trail and walked back amongst the trees, trying to keep out of sight as much as possible as he got nearer to the fields full of fresh crops. He'd visited this particular farm before, and didn't want to alert the farmer of his return, as the last time he'd been this way, he'd had to run from the old grump to avoid being turned into compost.