Let her continue
From Torg Adventure
She seems to know what she is doing so you turn your attention to the large leather sacks sitting under the tree. You have no interest in the goblin’s food, weapons or clothing, but these bags are likely filled with supplies gleaned from the human villages destroyed by the army of monsters. With your food supplies nearly exhausted and your decision to not abandon the elf captive you are going to need food and other supplies. One by one you dump the bags onto the ground looking for items that you can use. In the first bag you find a tinderbox and a large folded sheet of canvas that will make a good ground cloth on clear nights and a tent in case it rains.
The second bag contains foodstuff: A loaf of bread several days old, a bag of tubers gleaned from a root cellar and a large soft package wrapped in oil cloth. A small dribble of blood dripping from the corner of the package indicates fresh meat and you open the package curious to see what your dinner for tonight will be. Unfolding the last layer you almost vomit as you see what is unmistakably the thigh of a child.
Holding down bile you quickly cover the package and carry it away from the tree. You should bury it, you think and then as if for the first time consider all the other bloody corpses lying scattered about the ruins. It would take all day to bury these poor people, and you didn’t even do that for your own family. Using your axe to cut into the grassy loam you dig a hole deep enough for the piece you found and cover it with the freash turf and a simple prayer.
When you return to the oak tree you see your new charge has knocked an arrow in her bow and is dancing in circles around the supplies. The contrast between the childish behavior and the lethality of the arrow sitting on the bow makes you pause, but before you can figure out how to take the bow from the elf her dance grows into larger and larger circles and soon she is twirling thirty paces from the tree and getting dangerously close to the edge of the forest. Leaving the other two bags where they lay you toss the tinderbox and food into your satchel and picking up the canvas tarp head after the elf. Muttering to yourself about how much trouble she was going to be.
Suddenly her twirling stops and the bow is fully drawn. An arrow leaps from the bow and flies deep into the woods. Just as you think ‘What a waste of a fine elvish arrow.’ you hear a short cry followed by the crash of an object falling through the branches of a tree. Turning to you with a smile the elf motions with the tip of her bow as a second arrow slips into the bowstring replacing the shaft just fired.
The elf skips as she walks into the woods and you follow after her, soon you see the body of the small goblin that you chased off lying twitching at the base of a tree with the shaft of her arrow embedded in its upper chest just below the collarbone. With a fierce coldness the elf draws her bow again and sends a shaft into the temple of the goblin and the twitching stops. Smiling at you she moves to the goblin and extracts her arrows carefully wiping the slender wooden shafts and gleaming silver arrowheads before returning them to the quiver on her back.
She turns to you and asks a question that you cannot understand.
“Can you understand me?” You ask slowly. Her pretty face lavender eyes squint in concentration and with a shrug she stands waiting for you to do something. She is as beautiful as ever, the braided strap of her quiver rests between the small peaks of her breasts molding the soft fabric to the curves that have been burnt into your memory. The pale skin of her arms and lower legs looks as smooth in the morning light as you remembered when they were bathed in moonlight. The only thing out of place was the crude symbol drawn onto her upper arm in dark blue ink.
Maybe tonight you can find a place for her to wash the ink from her body. As you lead her back to the village you count over eighty paces. She hit a goblin hiding in a tree at a range of close to one hundred paces as smoothly and easily as you might split a sapling with your axe. And she had no hesitation about finishing the job.
Back under the tree she is once again content to dance in the morning light stopping occasionally to pick a flower growing in the commons.
East and North of where you are lies the elven city of Elohin. You have never visited the city because the elves who lived there were often disdainful of humans, but you have heard from others that it is a city of wonders. It is a little off your planned path, but you should do your best to get your companion help the stress of her capture and abuse seems to have addled her thinking. Surely the elves from Elohin can cure her, hopefully they will be grateful enough to provide you with aid in your quest.
The other option is to let her travel with you through the mountains. As flighty as she is, anyone who can shoot a bow like that could be a valuable companion, and who better to help heal her mind than the very Druids that you seek?
Where to?
