In the afternoon of a late summer day, a young man walked into Grandma Goblin’s Place. The large hobgoblin who stood just inside the tavern eyed the man with a cursory glare, and then held out his hands. The young man in his turn took in the strange sight, then unhesitatingly unbuckled the shortsword he wore at his side. He handed it to the waiting bouncer. Following this, the man gave over his other weapons, and his roundshield simply for convenience. The man eyed the long chest and barrel that contained numerous other weapons, admired an elegant bastard sword, then turned back the hobgoblin.
“I’m here for a meeting; can you direct me to a…” the man pulled a folded sheet of paper from the inside of his jacket and looked at it before continuing. “A Casias Wilheim that’s staying here? He should be expecting me.” The man looked at the bouncer with an expectant, almost excited gaze, and did not wilt when the hobgoblin directed him to the bar with a thumb jerked over his shoulder instead of a word. The young man thanked the bouncer politely, and headed for the main taproom.
A few patrons looked his way as the young man approached the bar, and he dodged two small children who were running across his path laden with a tray of food. He smiled pleasantly at them as they passed, and they returned it quickly before moving off with their burdens. The bartender turned towards the young man at the sound of his boots on the floor, and he looked with some surprise at an elderly goblin matron behind the bar offering him a clay cup.
“Ah, yes… thank you, ‘mam.” He took the proffered cup, set his large pack down on the floor, and sat down on one of the tall stools. The matron chuckled in a tinny voice.
“You can call me Grandma, boy. You’re still young enough,” and she smiled, showing some sharp teeth at the man.
“Grandma it is then…’mam,” the man replied, still unsure of himself. “Doriyn,” he continued, pulling off a glove and extending a hand towards the Goblin.
“Welcome to New Reven, Doriyn,” she said smiling, and she took the man’s large hand in her own wizened one. “Surprised to see someone like me behind the bar?”
Doriyn tried to act as though he was not, but had to give up. “I confess that when I saw the name of the place I thought that it was no more than a name. Where I come from there is scant friendship between your people and mine, more’s the pity.”
“Where you come from…” the old goblin replied shrewdly as she poured ale from a pitcher into the waiting cup. “Normally I’d say someone of your age and look to be a soldier, but your hair is a little longer than common regulation, nor intentionally so.” She continued with a gleam in her beady eyes. “You wear no colors or sigil, but your weapons are regular imperial issue. You’re too nice to not have friends, but you’re traveling alone.” Grandma Goblin grinned at Doriyn. “So you’re fresh from the Gap and the front lines, here to make your way as a mercenary, have I got that right?”
“Right as the West Wind, Grandma,” Doriyn replied, ruefully running his fingers through unruly hair that was too long to be neat and too short to tie back. “Been on the road for some weeks now to get here. My unit disbanded back eastwards of the Gap, in the Samor Basin.”
“Humans and Goblins there are not friendly?”
“Well.. there aren’t too many Goblins there anymore, to be completely honest, and those there are mostly work for your larger cousins.”
Grandma Goblin snorted derisively. “If you’re talking about Orcs, sonny, then I’ve as much in common with those beasts as I do with you.” Doriyn looked puzzled at her response, but listened instead of speaking further. “You probably think that Orcs are just bigger goblins, or that goblins are just smaller Orcs, but let me tell you, those Orcs are something else entirely. Cursed, they are, so my mother told me. Cursed to be the way they are...created different, somehow, so she said. No closer to an Orc than to an Elf, Goblins are.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Grandma; it was not my intention to anger my hostess at our first meeting.” Doriyn said cautiously, but not without some grace. Grandma Goblin’s sharp face turned back to its typical pleasantness, as Goblins’ complexions went. She sighed a bit, and poured herself a small glass of ale.
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“No need to apologize, young man. Simply a common misunderstanding that I’ve had to correct many times to many travelers who are surprised to see me here running a place of business the same as any other tavern owner in any other town.” She smiled beadily again at Doriyn. “Suppose I should be grateful that one more human knows the difference now. Short as your lives are, you may live long enough to pass the lesson along.” It was Doriyn’s turn to frown a bit.
“We’re not that short-lived; Goblins and Orcs can’t have that much longer a yearspan, and Dwarves and the Littlefolk…” But even as he spoke, Doriyn trailed off at the toothy smile of the goblin matron. “Yes alright Littlefolk live more than twice as long as us, and Dwarves more than three, but surely you…”
“About the same as Dwarves, but we don’t carry the same burdens,” she replied. “In that aspect, you humans and Orcs are more similar.” Doriyn started some, but Grandma Goblin shrugged. “We die more easily than you, that is certain, but in natural years, the meanest kaukas will outlast the healthiest zmogu by at least a century or more.”
“I had not heard of this,” the would-be mercenary said quietly, taking a long drink from his cup. “Then for you to be called ‘Grandma’ must be something of a title or an achievement?”
“You have the truth of it, my boy: I’ve been mother to a dozen children, and grandmother to more than thrice that number before I came to the lands of men.”
“And where did you come from, Grandma Goblin?”
“Oh that’s a long story that I don’t have the time to tell, and you don’t have the time to hear.” not wanting to press the matter, Doriyn nodded, and added:
“Perhaps some other time, then,” and he took another drink of ale, draining the cup. He slid it back across the bar, indicating a refill. “And thank you for the instruction.”
“Think nothing of it; many’s the traveler who’s heard it first from Grandma Goblin,” she smiled at the young man, and refilled his cup. “Now, to business. Will you be needing a room for the night?”
“I am as yet unsure,” Doriyn replied. “As you guessed, I’m here for a mercenary job. There’s supposed to be a contractor here, and a mutual friend of ours wrote me a letter to introduce me. Do you know of a Casias Wilheim that is staying here?”
“I surely do. He’s actually in one of the private meeting rooms as we speak.” Doriyn stood up suddenly, drained his second cup of ale, and hastened to set some coins down on the counter.
“I must go introduce myself, then. I shall see you about a room later?”
“As you wish my boy; as you wish. Take the door over there. Wilheim should be in one of the closed rooms past it.” She pointed out the direction with a skinny finger, and then turned back to washing some cups. Doriyn thanked her, and picked up his pack from the floor before walking in the indicated way. He passed through a door into a hallway lined with other closed doors, and windowless except for a high stained-glass affair through which sunlight still poured. A man stood outside the door furthest up the passage from Doriyn, and from behind that door he heard a loud laugh. He headed that way.
The man standing watch eyed his approach without visible scrutiny, and asked Doriyn his business without apparent interest. Doriyn repeated his intention to find Casias Wilheim.
“You have business with my master?” The man inquired, looking at Doriyn’s travelworn jacket and boots, eyeing especially the dagger thrust into the left one. Doriyn nodded, and handed the man the letter from his jacket, which the man took and read. Doriyn waited awkwardly, the silence only broken by the same laugh as before. The doorward looked again at Doriyn, then nodded, and opened the door without a word. Doriyn walked through.