The first thing that comes to your mind is to reach for the grebling’s tail. It’s not exactly polite, but this is an emergency.
Unfortunately, it seems the grebling doesn’t even have a tail. Your mind jumps forward however many years… to that tailless grebling who impersonated Barb. Supposedly she was a follower of the forgotten god – the same one trying to mess with the festival.
You don’t have much time to ponder this, because your clumsy attempt at grabbing a nonexistant tail gave the grebling an opening to jump to the counter. That’s when you get your next desperate idea, and just rush at the front of the stall, knocking it over. Escaping out the front doesn’t work very well when that exit’s just pointing at the ground.
The problem with this plan is you need to get up. On the plus side, the grebling does too, but they’re a bit more nimble. The other problem is that you’ve still got a knife stuck in your glove, though by some small miracle it didn’t get lodged in any further…
Wait. That’s it. You pull the knife out and fling it at the grebling. You’re not much of a thrower, but you do manage to knock them over while you’re still finding your bearings. Seems you hit them with the handle.
You stand up, grab them, and then get knocked over again as somebody puts the stall upright. You suppose that drew attention, at least.
A few minutes later, you and your quarry both get dragged out of the stall by a half-dozen or so Protectors and marched in front of the human who seems to be in charge of them.
“What exactly happened?” the man asks.
“I was just talking, then I happened to ask them about whittling and they freaked out,” you reply. “Seems they were carving something and, for reasons beyond me, were desperate not to let anyone else see it.”
The grebling in custody remains pointedly silent. Not objecting to your version of events. Didn’t you hear something about servants of the forgotten god not responding at all in captivity?
One of the greblings speaks up.
“We did find a piece of wood on the floor, chief. Does look like it’s been carved, but hard to make out what it’s supposed to be.”
The “chief” looks at the wood carefully.
“Well, I can’t either. The wood doesn’t seem to be especially unusual, either – I could understand if it were darkwood, or even if it were something expensive like shipwood, but this just looks to be common cedar.” He scratches his head, then turns to you and holds up the wood. “I don’t suppose you can make any more sense of this than I can?
It’s… Your name.