All That Remains of Zot Elf-Ender
In goblin lore, Zot Elf-Ender is remembered for two things: Slaying an elf and taking his magic sword and killing so many of his rivals (real and suspected) with that sword that he single-handedly halved the goblin population of the Nashoba Valley.
Armed with this mighty Elven sword, which he dubbed G’gak!, Zot terrorized the goblins of “Nasho Land” into submission. Both ruthless and paranoid, Zot never hesitated to kill any goblin he perceived as a threat. Within months, he had slain nearly every goblin strong enough to lift an axe.
So when trolls of the Meat Ripper tribe invaded from the south, the goblins of Nasho were hopelessly outmatched. The trolls pillaged and slaughtered unchecked for months, halving the goblin population yet again.
Zot, the petty thug who had slain hundreds of own kind, proved himself an utter coward. He was always the first to flee when trolls approached. He wielded G’gak! only to slash the legs of other goblins so he could make good his escape while the trolls fell upon the stragglers he’d hobbled.
The desperate mob of goblins who still followed Zot did so only out of fear. But as their numbers dwindled, one among them resolved that Zot must die. Inconveniently, this goblin was also named Zot. To distinguish between the two, the lore speakers referred to the lowlier one as “Zot Stone-Dropper.” And that's how the deed was done. Zot Elf-Ender was ended by a rock dropped on his head as he slept.
Zot slayer of Zot claimed G’gak! for his own. He raised the sword high before his fellow goblins and declared that he would lead the fight against the trolls. Zot was instantly slain by a volley of hurled weapons. The fight for G’gak! was on! A wild scrum of goblins stabbed and slashed as one claimant after another fell.
This ruckus reached the ears of a nearby sniggle of trolls who gallumped to the scene and began tearing goblins limb from limb. Only a handful escaped the slaughter.
The trolls were very hungry after all the rending and smashing so they started sifting through the heaps of goblin parts for the choicest bits. After they had eaten their fill, they stuffed the leftovers into sacks. One of the trolls noticed G'gak! upon ground. He picked it up, used to pick his teeth and then tucked it into his belt.
That night, while the goblin-gorged trolls slept, a hungry zot* crept up to one of the meat sacks and dashed away with an arm of none other than the late Zot Elf-Ender.
(*Yes, another zot but this one is a ferret-like creature with bright purple fur which was hunted to extinction millennia ago).
The zot dragged Zot’s arm back to its den and nibbled flesh from bone. A few hours later, the zot was dead. Goblin flesh is nasty stuff.
A season passed and then hundreds more. The Elves departed for the Endless Forest and magic faded from the Nashoba Valley. Then dawned the Age of Men. In the fullness of time, humans built dwellings a mere stone's throw from the den where millennia ago a purple furred zot ate the noxious flesh of Zot Elf-Ender and died.
So your mission is to find a necrotic goblin body part.
Sound fun? Then have at it!
Visual hint: Find this tree, the branches bracket the search area. See Photos
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Please be nice to nature.
Also, please note the location and orientation of the cache container before you retrieve it and put it back just as you found it.
Thank you for your consideration.
For maps and more information on Sprong Land: https://littletonconservationtrust.org/property/sprong-land/
Permission to hide geocaches on Littleton conservation land was granted by the Conservation Trust of Littleton, MA. https://littletonconservationtrust.org/
Special thanks to Littleton Conservation Trustee Dustin Neild.
A gift from Hrothgar, the self-styled sovereign of the Nashoba Valley!