In a rage, I swing back at it, as my cws scrape through its chest, gouging out a rge k of flesh. It yelps again, and again tries to hit me, but this time I swing my other cw down towards its arm, and I hear a siing ch sound as its arm that was swinging for me loses rigidity. The imp in desperatioo bite and swing with its remaining cw, and this time I aim my cw for its head.
The imp falls limp on the floor, blood scattered throughout my room. I check my hp, 243/303, and while that isn't that bad, I'm currently bleeding from where I was stabbed in my abdomen, and I don't really have anything good to close the wound, so I just brace it with my hand. However, it looks like a gaiwo levels from the fight, although I don't have time to look carefully for now.
The real question though, is what the hell is going on? I quietly make my way towards the cavern, and very carefully peek outside, and spot a familiar sight. There are imps all hting each other. I notiethihis time though. Up by the exit, I spot a familiar goblin, and a few oblins with him. The goblin that cast fireball before. He seems to be fog on something.
After a few moments, an imp appears in front of him. It initially luowards him, but is easily kicked back down, and it turns and runs down into the cavern. The Goblin touches a crystal in the floor, then another, and another. After he drains 5 crystals pletely, I see him start fog again. I watch for a few minutes, and sure enough, another imp appears, and again I watch it try to attack a goblin, only to be kicked back.
I re-check my hp, 229/303. Well, I'm definitely still bleeding, so I'm not surprised. I keep gripping my side to try to stem the flow of blood. All things sidered though, the wound isn't that bad... I think. It isn't debilitatingly painful at least. For now, I head bato my room, and I grab a few crystals with my free hand, and start closing off my room. I still have the dead imp in here, but I don't want to be attacked while I'm already hurt.
Although it took a little bit with one hand, after I've sealed off the entrance, I go back over to the dead imp. I feel bad. It attacked me first, but I wish I didn't have to kill it, though I'm thankful for a new soureat. I decide to fashion a ko improve the amount of meat I harvest from it. My bleeding has stopped by the time I've fashiohe k an uneasy 185/303 hp. By moving over to the bucket that I moved into the room yesterday, and moving the drying rack here, I gh the process of cutting useable meat off the imp, and moving the innards into the bucket.
As I process the imp, I take note of a few things. Their skeletal structure isn't that different from a human's. Their ans are a bit different though. I mean, after all, I don't go to the bathroom. There are twe chambers in the digestive tract. One is presumably a stomach, and the sed occurs at the end of what would likely be iines. sidering the imp likely hasen, I don't bother opening them up to see the insides. For now I want to get as much meat as I , and put it on the drying rack, which thanks to the knife, is looking like I'm going to have even more usable meat than before.
When I'm finished with the butchery and disse, the bucket is full, and the drying rack has meat on it again. While not a huge amount of meat, it's probably about 50% of what I got from the st imp I harvested from before. At this point, my hp has recovered to 212/303, which means I'd rather not open up the room yet. Ohing I do however is start using magic to the blood. I simply fold the blood under a yer of stohehe level to ehat I didn't actally shift the bance.
While ing, I notice where the imp tripped before. There are a few of the stone marbles scattered about here. I suppose the messiness came in handy this time.
As I sit and though, I realize that maybe my act before was lucky in a way as well. After all, if the campfire was still going down in the cave, those goblins would probably have iigated the cave. I might have never woken up had that been the case. I guess I should sider it a silver lining oter.
Once I've ed all the blood I could find, I check my status as a whole.
sidering I'm mostly healed now, I check where I was attacked. It's not pletely healed, there is still a patch of fur missing, and a lot of scar and scab tissue, but apparently it's close enough. I'm surprised by how quickly I've healed all things sidered. It's only been a bit past half a day. sidering my newfouh, I decide to reopen a hole in the room enough that I go out and check the dition in the cavern.
Imps are still duking it out and fighting each other, but now the goblins are gone from the entryway. That's at least somewhat f. Although now I'm faced with a new dilemma. If some of these imps will turn into goblins, and will join with the oblins, then I should probably hide myself. Oher hand, fighting clearly gave me more xp than every day living, and I get fresher meat this way. I doly want to fight other imps, but after seeing what happe time, it's not like any imps that are remaining will exactly be spared. The goblins will clear them out, and take the ohat turn into goblins. If they're doomed to die either way, I guess I'd rather them be helping me.
With that I set up a pn. I don't have long. If I recall it was only a day before the fireball goblin came ba. I guess some of the imps evolved quickly after they won a fight or two with other imps. What I want to do is bait an imp into the entryway to my room so I fight it without others notig. I'll have to thhly ter, but it's the price I'll have to pay. I grab my bucket full of dissected imp parts, and head back towards the cavern. Ohere, I wait until I see an imp getting somewhat close, and then pour the bucket out.
It's quite disgusting all things sidered, but the smell and sound seems to have gotteher imp's attention, and it begins making its way over to iigate. I set the bucket down to my side, and ohe imp is close, I make a small 's the first time hearing my own voice. It's not quite as high pitched as the other imps, but it's still the nasally whihe imp spots me, and begins ing towards me. I make my way back to near my room entrance, and pick up my knife, and prepare to fight it. This time, I'm ready for a fight to the death.
The fight itself goes a little too easy, and I feel a little bad again. Although it's clear that the other imp would take my life if it could, the issue is that if I'm trying, I'm pretty sure that a regur imp simply couldn't. My bigger stature, muscle, and simply put, raw HP, means that the other imp doesn't stand a ce, and I quickly take its life with a stab to the throat with the knife. I then hold it up upside down by a leg he entrance, and use stone shaping to attach a leg to the wall to let the blood drain from the neck, and make a small bucket underh the imp to collect the blood. Then I make my way back to get the bucket.
Unfortunately, I'm greeted by another imp that came to look at... a... the dissected imp remains. Well, I did say I pnned on killing a few. I repeat the process of baiting it further in, and quickly dispatch it, and hang it up o the other imp. Holy, ohe imp saw the imp being drained by the wall, it should have run if it had any intelligence. I mean, I clearly just dispatched the other imp without any issue.
This time, I easily retrieve the bucket without being interrupted, aarted butchering my two new quarries. The bucket ends up piled a little higher than I'd like with remains by the time I'm done, but I'll have a good amount of meat for a while now at least. I don't io pour these remains out into the cavern though. If I do that, it could attract the goblins attention, and they might wonder why there are a bunch of eviscerated remains. Hopefully one will just pass off as a brutal battle, and one imp feasting oher after. I take a bit of time to fashion another bucket, in case I find another imp to fight, and then I head back out to watch the cavern and check my status.