Mercy refused to elaborate, and eventually claimed tiredness from the road to retreat into her grove. You let her go, a troubled frown tugging at your lips. It's not like her to be so... closed off. She keeps her secrets close to her chest most of the time, but it's been increasingly rare as time has passed. And if she doesn't tell you what's going on, it seriously limits your ability to plan.

You sigh, and place the entire ordeal of recruiting demons on hold. If she wont tell you what's causing her distress you'll just have to do your best to avoid it.

At least the stone she purchased will set you in good stead for the second floor, and the challenge lock will let you finish off the first floor. Once that's placed, the children can hide upstairs during adventurer attacks, and hopefully you'll be able to stop any more deaths.

An uncomfortable, acidic bite grips your heart at the thought and you pivot on the spot. No time like the present to hand out names, after all. It would be a shame if, after you invested so much in them, the new goblins went and respawned elsewhere.

You nod to yourself, the acid receding. Yes. You're rather glad you got over your old fear of naming things. Keeping your friends around is well worth it.

The goblin town is a bustle of activity when you arrive. Hammers are banging, saws are sawing, goblins are chatting in high pitched voices. The work pauses for a moment when you arrive, but only a moment. You can already see the outline of a few circular huts going up on both side of the ravine, goblin work crews throwing up scaffolding and scurrying to and fro to collect tools.

You approach the nearest group, a small collective of greenskins who are enthusiastically strapping hides onto thin wooden frames. For what purpose, you're unsure – roof panels, maybe, or perhaps furniture.

Again, they pause as you reach them, turning and greeting you in their own way. Two of them bow, one salutes, and one picks her nose.

“Did Amanda tell you about names?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

You waste no time with preamble. You confirm they know what they're doing, get their names, and move on to the next group to do it again.

Red-hair, No-hair and One-hair were all about what you expected from goblin names. The same could be said for One-ear and Six-finger. Knife, Sword, Spear and Bow were all well within expectations, but as the names started to form into trends you had to stop and ask one goblin if she really wanted to be known as Woodsaw just because it happened to be the thing she was holding when you asked. She paused for a few seconds, put it down, nodded, and picked it up again.

Guff didn't say much, and you didn't stick around to find out why he was the only goblin to be working alone.

Stain, Moss and Mushy were also names you just nodded at and moved on. The three goblins who took those names were indeed stained, with pouches of mosses and mushrooms on their person. You tentatively labelled them as druids and/or procurers of tribal drugs.

Pigger was unsurprising. What was surprising was the fact that he had procured a pig from somewhere. It was a great, fat bellied mound of pink and grey flesh, sparse patches of bristles sprouting unevenly from it's back and an evil sadism glinting in it's little red eyes. It was a good five foot long and could stand shoulder to shoulder with you. You'd shudder at the damage the jagged tusks could do if it didn't seem perfectly happy with the muddy corner you prepared for it. As it was, the lumbering beast oinked happily as Pigger scampered around it, scratching at drying mud with long fingernails.

Then the names took a turn for the weird.

Smaller Than Big Jim Jim was certainly not the largest goblin in the tribe... but there wasn't any goblin called Big Jim, and the name had come so easily to him that it had to have been a previous nickname.

Uncle Cheese. You hated to ask, but you had to. Uncle Cheese just smiled at you, and passed you a small chunk of rank goblin cheese. The description provided by your perception was non-specific as to if the cheese was made by goblins, or from them.

Ten-Feet-Of-Hemp-Rope, who was fine being called Ten-feet, apparently learnt to read from a low level shop catalogue said she and had always liked how that particular entry sounded.

Peanut wouldn't answer to anything else. You really tried to make him, but the short greenskin refused anything that wasn't your derogatory nickname for the ex chief. When he started blushing and squirming, you beat a hasty retreat. You have no problem with a goblin with a humiliation fetish, but he's not for you, thank you.

Finally, you had Dave-who-looks-like-Dave.

You just sighed, confirmed the name, and walked away. A minute later, you nearly doubled back, your curiosity rising, but you made yourself stop.

No answer would be worth it.