Day 3; The Rocky Road on the Lost Coast: Ghouls are assholes. "Fireday" the 21 Rova, 4707
When everyone was up in the morning, we had a small breakfast, and Jonathan returned my phone as he did the previous morning. Everything kind of seemed off though, like there was something that I was forgetting or something that should have happened, but didn't. I had spent about an hour this morning going through any of the books that I could think of trying to find something that I could exploit to make to help out the group. There were little things, but I didn't think that any of them would make any major difference right now. Maybe those things would help some other time, but right now, I needed something that could help us in case we ended up in another fight. I just didn't know what kind of fight we would be in. I figured out a decent enough way to tune my scope in to be ultra-accurate, and good way to get a little bit more range out of the rifle. Maybe those two would help with any situations that we might find ourselves in.
With that, we started off. I was trying my best to keep an eye out on the road and the areas around us with my scope. It wasn't much but at least I could see a bit further. My phone fairly well charged, having been charged up by one of the battery back-ups before we left. I couldn't recharge the battery back-up or the phone itself with the solar panel, because we had gotten to the point where the road went through a very wooded area. And when we weren't under a canopy of trees, it was raining. My phone is proof against 6' of constant water for an hour, so incident rain drops didn't mean much. That is as long as all of the panels are closed up, which I checked before setting it to play some classical music. We made it through to our midday break without much of anything happening.
We stopped under a large set of trees that would provide good shelter against the rain and got our meals sorted out. I went with a classic for today's meal tabs, vanilla and chocolate. Maybe I'll splurge tomorrow and have a Neapolitan. Probably not though. I never liked strawberry all that much, it just wasn't a choice to get something different at the time. When I get back, I'll have to sell this as a story to the company who made them. I don't know how I'll prove it yet, but it should be a good read.
Now that we were in the forest, Dame Rebekah "recommended" that we turn the music off and pay attention, as trouble could come from any direction. I backed her call, since it made a lot of sense. I didn't want another arrow sticking out of me because I wasn't paying attention. So for the last few hours of the day, we rode along in mostly silence, watching all of the parts of the forest, looking out for any danger. We were behind, and it wasn't because of me. Our cart was constantly getting stuck in the muddy ruts of the trail the second half of the day, and it took a quite a little bit of time, energy, and frustration to get the cart free every time. So it was that Jonathan spotted something sneaking towards us one of the times that we were bogged down. After he got a good look at it, I noticed a rock shoot forth and hit where he pointed. Is he a telekinetic? Maybe that is what happened with the Goblin Arrow the first day I was on the trip. I didn't take too long to think, and snapped up my Gamo Magnum and hit the thing in the head. I saw the pellet penetrate the skull through the scope and realized that this thing wasn't alive. It wasn't stiff on the ground either. Shit, was this a Zombie? Shit I hoped this wasn't a Romero world. I wasn't ready for Zombies here.
Faunra followed up with an arrow, with at least as good aim as mine, and the zombie dropped. I hope we destroyed the brain. I don't want this thing getting up after we leave and following us, or leading more of its brethren to us. Dame Rebekah rode back to look it over and I cautioned her that to be careful that the Zombie might rise up again. It seems that I'm the fool. It wasn't a Zombie, but actually a ghoul. Not that they are any less dangerous. In fact, it was even more so, as it could spread the disease it carries to others, except elves apparently. Faunra didn't act like she understood that, but then again, it was in a language that I understand, so she probably didn't. As Dame Rebekah inspected it, she determined that it was indeed down, a fact confirmed by the fact that she beheaded it. She also grabbed some things that were on it, and brought them back to the group. We put them into a bag to sort out later. It isn't like it was doing any good on the now de-animated corpse anymore.
On the rest of the way to our next stop I told the group everything about the Zombies we have at home, about how they come to eat living things, how their disease is passed along through bites, and how you have to destroy the brain to stop them. Dame Rebekah was actually listening to what I had to say for once. She asked me if I had ever killed one of these "Zombies" before, but I told her that I any had a chance to do it in simulations. She asked what they were, and I told her that they were preparation scenarios to make us ready for if we ever had to fight them. She seemed to be okay with that.
When we finally made it to the next Inn, "The Drake's Run", we were all too tired and beat down from the slog to even think about cooking or performing. We took our meals in quiet exhaustion, got cleaned up and went to bed. There was a knock on my door before I fell asleep, I opened the door expecting it to be Jonathan but it was Dame Rebekah. She apparently wanted to apologize for her earlier shortness with me. It was now obvious to her that we were from vastly different places. I asked if she wanted a to see how different, I could show her something that might explain it. She told me not tonight, but maybe after we get to Sandpoint. I told her that I could understand that, but that if she had any questions to feel free to ask. She left and went to her room. I slept the sleep of the just, for at least 2 hours before I heard another knock. I knew who it was before I even opened the door. I grabbed my phone and the headphones and went to the door where Jonathan was waiting. I unlocked the phone for him and got the music player going. He thanked me and asked how much music there was on this. I looked at the phone, but couldn't directly tell. I told him that there were at least a couple thousand songs on the phone and a couple of audiobooks. He asked me what an audiobook was, and I keyed up the Art of War and the Book of 5 Rings. I showed him how to go back and forth with the songs, and he left listening to a person narrate one of the best books on being a commander ever written.