Meadow leads us down a rough slope into a ravine in the huge cavern, where an underground river runs by. Occasionally I catch glimpses of weird glowing fish in the water, but we didn’t come here to fish. Although come to think of it, fishing sounds fantastic right now. There are so many skills I would like to be learning that don’t involve mortal peril.
“Alright,” Anise whispers. “I’m only seeing one goblin outside. You want to try stealth first? There’s no telling how many of them are inside, or whether any of them are way beyond our league. Goblins aren’t usually very strong, but the few of them that manage to learn magic can be a problem.”
“I’ll try,” I say, handing my dagger to Anise. “It’ll look weird if I have that and I don’t want anyone stabbing me with it.”
“We’ll cover your retreat if you have to escape,” Meadow says. “We should be able to handle any normal goblins that come out of that door.”
I approach the back door to the goblin village. Several primitive fishing spears and crude lures lay scattered on the banks of the river near the back door to the goblin village.
You have discovered Grubwick. Skill acquired: Subterfuge (Disguise)
… which is apparently named Grubwick.
A goblin fisherman spots me approaching, and my party stays back out of sight. This goblin is unarmed and not particularly threatening himself, but if he calls for help, I’m sure guards could be here in an instant.
I try to act natural and mumble a few probably naughty words, pretending to be disgruntled about my patrol or whatever, not that I can communicate coherently enough to even bluff about what I’m doing here.
The fisher goblin grunts and gives me a reply in a tone like, “Yeah, man, I know, right?”
I wonder if the goblin language in general could be considered “foul language”.
I might be able to slip past this goblin, although my team wouldn’t. And it seems downright rude to kill an unarmed fisher goblin. Still, I’ll leave it to them to figure it out. I head in through the door.
Although it bears some similarities to my own Hearth, I don’t know if any of my assumptions about how Hearths work would carry over. Specifically, outsiders aren’t allowed inside Corwen Hearth. Would that mean they wouldn’t take Uncle Hawk inside? He might just be sweating in another cage like the one at Skullburn Outpost. It was difficult to see what exactly is inside the walls from a distance.
Act natural. Act natural. What the heck is acting natural for a goblin? I stomp around angrily and snarl at anyone that gets close.
Your Subterfuge (Acting) skill has increased to level 3.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, system. I’m shocked that this disguise has lasted so long.
I finally spot Uncle Hawk tied up on a stone table. A small goblin is repeatedly poking him with a stone knife and failing to break the skin. Entirely puzzled about what’s going on here, I approach, and overhear the little goblin muttering to himself.
In English.
Skill acquired: Language (English)
I guess that’s just acknowledging that I already speak English and can understand him perfectly fine, but I still find it funny. This odd little goblin, however, is much more interesting.
“Why isn’t this working?” the young goblin says. “Ugh, I knew stone knives have a penalty and you’re two ranks above me, but I was expecting to at least do some damage!”
Uncle Hawk, barely conscious, does not respond.
I prop my spear up in a weapon rack and approach the goblin child. “It doesn’t look like you’re making much progress there,” I say in English.
He spins around, pointing his stone knife at me. I hold out my hands to show I’m unarmed, and he relaxes just a little. “Who are you?” he asks. “There aren’t any other reincarnators in this Hearth… and that’s a terrible disguise.”
“It was good enough for the goblins who weren’t reincarnators,” I say with a shrug. “You can call me Drake.”
“You know, I could have you killed in an instant.”
“Sure,” I say. “And then you can miss out on the opportunity to talk to someone who has read Tolkien.”
He works up his face into several interesting expressions before finally putting the knife away. “You could have killed me before I even realized you were here if you were actually after me, I suppose. What do you want?”
“Right now? I just want to talk. What’s your name?”
He grunts. “I was given the name ‘Grabrat Grubwick’ in this life but I hate it. I would prefer to be called Milo, my name from Earth.”
“Milo,” I say with a smile. “Nice to meet you. So what exactly are you trying to do here with this human?”
Milo sighs. “I was hoping that killing a Heroic-rank adventurer by myself would help push me to Elite. And I wanted to learn Necromancy, and I’m told that requires a sacrifice.”
“You don’t have to sacrifice someone to learn Necromancy,” I say.
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“That’s what my grandmother told me. Have you heard differently?”
“You just need to have your Soul stat unlocked. As a reincarnator, you should have it already. We can use Necromancy naturally since we’ve already been dead.”
“Huh…” Milo says. “That makes sense, actually. Good to know. Goblins rarely live past twenty-one and I was also hoping increasing my rank enough would increase my lifespan. The higher rank you get, the more your aging slows.”
“True,” I say. “My great-grandmother is Legendary and she’s over eighty but still looks like she’s in her twenties. That’s quite a tight timetable for goblins. How old are you?”
“Two years and five months,” Milo says.
“That’s… exactly my age,” I say. “My naming day is November 30th.”
“Same as mine…” Milo says. “Both of our Hearths decided to incarnate a hapless Earthling at the same time?”
“In accordance with ancient scheduling, it seems so.”
Some other goblins have overheard us talking and have gathered around to watch at a distance, no one wanting to get too close. They seem to be afraid of Milo.
“What’s wrong with him, anyway?” I ask.
“The Hearth’s [Elder Witch] cursed him,” Milo says. “She’s Epic rank, and forty years old. Grandma Griza is kind of scary, but she made sure I had all the resources available as we had. Which… is not terribly much. Stone knives and pointy sticks! This place sucks.”
“I believe I can help with that,” I say.
“You have a weapon that might be able to hurt a Heroic?”
I shake my head. “I can help you level up. My Hearth has resources and expertise. You can join my party and we can get lots of Deeds.”
Milo mulls that over thoughtfully, looks at Uncle Hawk with a frown, and turns back to me. “You’d do that for me?”
“Sure,” I say. “I would, of course, want the human released. Preferably de-cursed, too.”
“Ugh, I don’t know how I’d explain that to Grandma Griza,” Milo says.
“You said she wanted to provide you with the best opportunities,” I say. “She should recognize this as a priceless opportunity.”
“Yeah, you’re right… when you put it that way…” Milo says. “Alright. You’ve convinced me. I’m in.”
Your Persuasion (Diplomacy) skill has increased to level 2.
Milo starts untying Uncle Hawk. “Best get him out of here, then. I’ll help you get him to the gate.”
“Can we take him to the back door?” I ask, and Milo nods.
He barks a few words at the other goblins that I assume mean something like, “This guy’s a friend, don’t kill him!” since they proceed to not kill me or stop us.
Uncle Hawk is weak and can barely walk, but with our assistance, we manage to get him outside and to my party and lay him carefully down on the ground in front of them.
“Hey guys,” I say. “I made a new friend. This is Milo.”
“Huh,” Anise says. “That’s great!”
“Can we trust him?” Daisy asks. “How did you even manage to communicate with him?”
“I don’t speak whatever language the humans are speaking,” Milo says in English. “I’ll have to learn it.”
“Ah, yeah, he doesn’t speak Common yet,” I tell my party. “He’s a reincarnator too, though, and we both still speak the language from our previous lives.”
“That’s cool,” Anise says.
“Uncle Hawk still looks pretty cursed,” Meadow says, waving a hand in front of the unresponsive Ranger’s face.
“Is your grandma in the Hearth right now?” I ask Milo.
Milo nods. “I’ll go talk to her. She’s given me everything I asked for so far so I’m sure I can convince her.”
Milo returns to the door and heads back into the village.
“His grandma, possibly with a ‘great’ or two, is an Epic rank Elder Witch,” I explain. “It sounds like she dotes on him, though.”
Anise sighs. “And if she decides to wipe us out, there’s nothing we can do to stop her, so we might as well just stay put. Well, I’m glad we didn’t try to storm the Hearth, then.”
After a few minutes, a message pops up in my third eye.
Congratulations! Your party has negotiated peace with the village of Grubwick.
Daisy’s eyes widen, and I assume everyone else got that message too. “Good Heavens, that did it!” Daisy exclaims, in her excitement completely forgetting stealth. “I’m an Elite! I’m going to be a Wizard!”
“I got it too!” Meadow says, only slightly more sedately. The two of them hug one another, on the verge of tears of joy.
Uncle Hawk stirs on the ground, blinking and slowly sitting up. “Ugh, what happened? Where am I?”
Meadow breaks off from hugging Daisy to hug Uncle Hawk instead. “You’re alright! It worked! I can’t believe it worked!”
“What worked?” Uncle Hawk wonders, looking around. “We’re in the Underside?”
“You got cursed and captured by goblins,” Anise summarizes. “Drake disguised himself as a goblin and snuck in and negotiated your release. He’s a reincarnator and one of the goblins is too so they could understand one another.”
“I’m not sure if I’m still dreaming or not,” Uncle Hawk says.
“Did you rank up too, Anise?” Daisy asks.
Anise shakes her head. “You two were close enough to rank up that it pushed you over. But me, Drake, and Burdock still have a long way to go. Still, that was a fantastic Deed.”
“I didn’t really do much,” Burdock says.
Milo re-emerges from the village back door and approaches us. Uncle Hawk starts to ready himself for a fight, but Milo holds out his empty hands.
“It’s alright, Uncle,” I say. “This is the goblin I mentioned. Meet Milo.”
“Odd name for a goblin,” Uncle Hawk says.
“It’s his name from another life,” I explain, then turn to Milo and say in English, “Uncle Hawk is better and we got a Deed, so I assume you were successful in convincing your grandma.”
Milo nods. “She’s been very supportive. She was surprised but not opposed to the idea. I was hoping she’d give me some fancy heirloom but apparently we’re really, really poor. I hope we can change that.”
We head back to where we left the captive goblin. Milo goes up and unties him, and speaks with him in Goblin for a minute before sending him off back to Grubwick.
“I hope the lives of whichever of my clan mates you had to kill are sufficient compensation for our actions,” Milo says, and I translate for the others.
“Trust has to start somewhere,” I say. “Maybe next time we visit Grubwick, we’ll be able to sleep in the inn.”
“That’ll require building an inn first,” Milo says with a chuckle. “I have a number of ideas both on how to level up myself as well as improve Grubwick, but most of them revolved around my prior assumption that killing was the only way to earn Deeds. I was a businessman back on Earth. I don’t want to kill people. I want their money. Dead people can’t generate capital unless you’re a necromancer, so I was planning on using undead as a cheap labor force, but that still requires having consumers. And goblins are idiots.”
Daisy frowns thoughtfully as she listens to my translation. “You were probably incarnated to become an evil overlord. But perhaps even villains can choose another path.”
“You know, I’ve apparently lived five million lives, but for some reason I’m 100% certain that I’ve never been a merchant before. And a goblin cultural and industrial revolution sounds like it would make for an excellent Deed.”
“Have you gotten any quests?” Milo asks. “Grandma Griza said I should expect quests to show up to give me direction but I haven’t gotten any.”
“Neither have I,” I say. “I suppose our Hearths are content to take a hands off approach, sit back and see what we do. And… they incarnated an engineer and a businessman. If they wanted warriors, we were poor choices.”
I definitely have been a warrior in many of my past lives, but I don’t actually remember them and don’t want to. I killed those goblins without a second thought or twinge of guilt. Still don’t feel any, even after seeing them being people. I must have been a freaking murder hobo once, and I don’t want to be. I like my family and my new friend.