TYOV- Experience 5

 Prompt 25: You need new feeding methods.

[ Lose Knife Given By My Father Resource, Create Rationing my food stores Skill. Added to Memory 5 ]

It would seem the bandits and rogues of the area have grown wiser lately. 

Word spreads I suppose, and so many of them not coming back from this area must have caught the attention of the rest of them. Needless to say, food has been... not easy to come by lately. The wild game is still around, as I try to hunt it rarely, but the more of the blood of other people I drink, the less effect that animal blood seems to have on my thirst.

An idea strikes me listening to Kenric talk about fishing. I take some of the (stolen, probably) finer (or less soiled) clothes from my previous meals. I wash some of the dirt away in a nearby stream, pull my hair back now far longer than it once was, and wrap a blanket around my shoulders.

If the food won't come to me, I shall go to it.

I set off, covering ground quickly. Getting far enough away from the forest that I think is adequate, I slow my pace to a crawl as I make my way down a dark road. I spend most the night like that, sometimes singing, sometimes stumbling to appear drunk, all in an effort to lure some wild cutpurse. Of course, none of them bite. I'm not lucky enough to just have food wander into my mouth it seems.

I spend a few nights like this, returning to my cave hungry each time. But all is not lost. I finally find a likely group of roughs. Three of them in fact. Long story short, I lure them close pretending to be some drunken fop, and rather than my usual messy and glutenous feed, I knock them out. It takes longer, and I have to be much more careful. One manages to strike me in the ribs while I tie up one of his friends, and yanks the wood knife from my belt. Stupid, I should have left it behind. 

I crush his hand, making him drop it into the bushes. Swearing at my haste I cover his crushed hand with some cloth to stop the bleeding, and finish knocking them all out with a gentle tap to the head. My new strength amazes me, I was no weakling but being able to overpower multiple grown men like this does feel somewhat good.

It's a slow evening, but I carry each of them back to a place near my cave, but not at it itself. I had scouted out a likely cave already prior, with enough of a pit inside to make it hard for them to climb out with their hands bound but still covered and out of the way.

My plan is to use it like a larder. I will bring them food and water, and bleed one of them at a time in order to ration their blood out. Hopefully, I will be able to make them last longer this way, and I can try to ensure I have supplies for the future as I go. Hopefully they won't escape before their turn.