[X] Critical. He was an idiot in your opinion, and a good chewing out would educate him greatly. You'd tell him what he had done wrong, and what he should have done instead. Hopefully he would know better next time.
-[x] don't be condescending
-[x] try to end on a sympathetic note, mentioning that you almost made a similar mistake a while ago, and explain the whole incident with the ranger holding a sword to your throat, and how it changed your outlook.
The boy slumps against a tree, exhaustion and fatigue etched across his face. You lean against a nearby tree, collecting your thoughts. You let your temper cool before speaking.
"Why?" you ask.
John looks up in confusion. "Why what?"
"Why go after the girl. No offense but you seem to be out of your depth here, so why risk it?"
You see anger flash across his face for a moment before it fades. He sighs deeply before speaking. "My Mom is sick, and the medicine is expensive. I was hoping to get the reward to help pay for it. I mean" He shakes his head "I didn't think I'd be this dangerous."
He'd overestimated himself as well as underestimating the dangers. Foolish, but you could sympathize. You'd almost done the same ting a few weeks ago. If it hadn't been for Salmer's demonstration you'd likely gone charging back into the woods. It wouldn't have ended well. Perhaps you could do to John what Salmer had done for you, albeit with less violence.
You quoted Jurgen. "We can never fully anticipate what dangers we may face, but we can prepare for them. Mitigate them, face them with the best of our knowledge and our tools. That is what it means to be prepared." You give him a stern look. "Do you understand?"
He looks at you, confused. While he seems to understand what you said he failed to grasp why you had said it. You try something else.
"How did you expect to find the girl?"
He looks down, not willing to meet your eyes. "I, uhh, was going to look for tracks."
"Do you know how to look for tracks, how to follow them?"
"No." he mutters.
"And if you had found them, what then? Do you think you could sneak past their sentry's? rescue a captive singlehandedly?" You pause, John shrinks in on himself, but you needed to continue, to strike while the iron was hot. "would you be able to guide the guards back to her?"
"No."
"Do you even know how to defend yourself?"
John doesn't respond, staring at the ground shaking. You walk over and sit down next to him.
"John," you say softly "Do you know why I'm telling you this?"
"Because I'm a damned fool who nearly got himself killed?"
You smile slightly 'Because I was a damned fool who nearly got herself killed."
He jerks his head up, meeting your eyes "Wait what?!"
"A few weeks ago I was ready to go off into the woods and look for the missing children, but Commander Salmer told me no. I objected to that and she offered to meet me in the ring. I had a sword to my throat in 3 seconds. Do you know what that taught me?"
"That Salmer is a really good swords-woman?" he offers.
You chuckle "Yes that too, but the important lesson was this. Never overestimate yourself. Know your limits and avoid pressing them in an uncontrolled environment."
"And what if you don't have the right skills?"
"Learn them; work with others to cover your weaknesses. That's what I did, I was lucky enough to be offered some very valuable lessons." You offer him your water skin, which he takes gladly.
"Your mistake John was not going into the woods. It was doing so without the knowledge to survive. You're lucky that I was here or you'd be Goblin stew."
John passes you the waterskin back, smiling "Yeah, luck's gota count for something right?"
You feel the faint thrumming vibrations from the bow. Yes luck did count for something.
"Of course" you reply "But never rely on it either."
"Yeah, I won't forget this. That said, it all right if we rest for a bit longer? Running for one's life is tiring you know."
You stand up, and turn your head smiling slyly "Trust me, I know." You begin the grisly work of collecting the ears from the dead goblins. No senses in letting good money rot away. When you finish you and John begin to head back to town
.
"Hey, how big do Goblins get anyways?" John asks you after a few minutes of walking.
"About 3 and a half feet, give or take a few inches." You reply.
He nods "And what about tusks?"
"John, what did you see?"
He cringes sheepishly "Well it looked like a real big, burly goblin with tusks. Bout 6 feet tall or so."
6 feet, vaguely goblin tusks. That would clearly be an orc. Orcs where bigger and smarter than goblins, but tended to reside in the desolate forgotten places of the world. Occasionally they would raid into more populated territory, bringing the locale goblin population to heel as well. An Orc at a goblin encampment could only mean that a band of orcs where planning on raiding the nearby settlements. You had to warn the city.
Then there was the fact that you had ambushed a group of goblins, and some had got away. They would no doubt report this and the Orc would likely be hunting you now to prevent you from warning others.
"John?" you ask sweetly.
He replies slowly and fearfully at your tone. "Yes?"
"Why didn't you mention there was an orc earlier?"
"I didn't know! And I was a little out of it too!" He nervously runs his hand through his hair. "What do we do now?"
[ ] Run for it. Try to outrun them and make it to the city.
[ ] Escape into the woods. They will expect you to head to the city, so you'll head into the woods and try to lose them. You'll double back into town tomorrow.
[ ] Set and ambush. Tell John to run back into town, he just needs to follow the trail. You'll stay behind and ambush them. On your own you'll be able to pick off the goblins and evade the patrols. Goblins are pretty stupid so you should have no problems evading them.
[ ] Other.
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Well that was a meaty update, or dialog makes thing seem bigger. Anyways, I'd like to give Hyrdoplatypus and thanks for his comment there. Gave me a really good base for how Rose wanted to approach that conversation.
