Reply To: Keli… short for Keli

[Aelswith]

Now I’m gonna’ get back ta what happened when we left Faith’s house. First off, Frankie’ tells us there ain’t gonna be no wagon takin’ us to his camp. He said we’ll have ta walk. He said the price o’ oats fer the horses what pulls the wagons is goin’ up sky high.

For a trip like that, he’d have ta feed ‘em first and it would be too ex . . .expen . . . uh, the trip’ll cost to much . Ya see, here in Markshire, oats don’t grow so good. Oh, they get’s a few ta pop up here and there but most o’ the oats fer the horses is imported, ya know?

Geez! You’d think Lord Mark and the rest o’ them would come up with somethin’ ta keep us from havin’ to depend so much on foreign oats!

Anyways, we started trudgin’ along to Frankies’ camp in the forest and it took so damm long ta get there, Walis started grumblin’ ‘bout bein’ hungry again!

Then Frankie’ tells us we’ll have to make one more trip down in the cavern! Yup! Now he says we’s gotta pur . . . uh, clean up all the water in it, so’s the damm shaftin’ tree’ll have somethin’ untainted fer its roots ta suck up! Oh geez! I’m really gettin’ ta hate that cavern!

He’s translated some more o’ the writin’ on the backs o’ those canvases I told ya ‘bout earlier, and has a list o’ stuff we’ll be needin’ to make the water in the cavern sparkle again.

So we starts ta make our way toward the hole by the shaftin’ tree, ready to climb down into the cavern, and Frankie says we can’t use that hole to get there. He says we gotta use another hole a good distance away and hands us a map with directions on how ta get to it.

All the boys study the map o’ where this new hole is, and Bel says from the looks o’ where someone put the X, the damm hole is sittin’ smack in the middle o’ a goblin stronghold! Oh geez!

Well, walkin’ don’t bother me none, since I took off those gray burlap sacks what Durok give me that was chafin’ and scratchin’ everywhere they touched. So . . . now I ain’t wearin’ nothin’ underneath and I’m gonna stay like this til Sun’ gets my new fancy silk ones all finished! As long as I got me armor on no one knows the difference anyway.

So with Bel leadin’ the way, me and the rest o’ us set off for the goblin camp.