use some of the goblins' gear to make a fire and camp the night

Once the last of the leeches had been carefully removed from his long-suffering toes and flicked off into the darkness, Kal looked around and wondered if he dare poke about in the Marsh Goblins' packs.

They looked a bit slimy. After all, they were Marsh Goblins.

Still. It was a choice between that and merrily leaping off into the darkness to feed himself to the nearest monster. Or possibly lying still in the darkness and feeding himself to the nearest monster. Neither had very much appeal.

Holding his breath against the terrible stench, he rifled through several packs, finding only an inordinate amount of gold coins which he swiped on the principle of the thing, and unfeasibly big weapons. After unexpectedly producing a full-length iron spear from a pack about a third of its size, he finally struck lucky and found something actually useful. A tinderbox.

Now he had to find something to burn that wasn't either soaking wet or poisonous.

This took a little while due to being unexpectedly ambushed by a Slime Troll, apparently because it was bored. The lack of proper trees also provided an unfortunate barrier to quick and easy fire-making.

Eventually he settled down in front of a fire that didn't so much crackle merrily as flicker drearily and cast unpleasant shadows. It wasn't very warm either, and certainly didn't engender any good cheer in his brave heart.

This confirmed his suspicions that he wasn't cut out for an adventuring life.

If my father was here, he thought as he endlessly chewed on a crust of stale bread he'd discovered in his pocket, he'd have found wood without any trouble and be currently feasting on roast Swamp Rat cooked over a blazing fire. And he'd be enjoying himself. Or at least suffering interesting hardships that he bears with noble countenance.

But since it was Kal, all he had was wet feet, leeches and no food. And he wasn't bearing these with noble countenance. In fact, he wanted very much to go home. The only thing he seemed to be doing right was running into enemies every few steps and butchering them, if only because they wouldn't let him run away. This did not cheer him up. All the blood was beginning to stink worse than the swamp.

He hadn't picked up any of the Goblins' unfeasibly large weapons. He suspected this infringed some sort of Adventuring Code, if there was one.

Well, there probably was now.

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