Even insulated from the biting chill above, the caverns were too cool to be wholly comfortable. Still, they were warmer than the surface. Between her luxurious down-stuffed mattress and a fur blanket that Malik had loaned her, Pacifica slept as well as she ever did.

It was all the more startling, then, when she was jolted awake by the mattress jerking beneath her, a sharp and sudden movement. Deeply-carved reflexes pulled her body into a ball, arms coming up to shield her head. “I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m sorry, I’m getting up!” Her heart hammered in panic. No further blows or harsh words came, though. After a moment, Pacifica risked opening her eyes. Only then did she remember — she wasn’t in her bedroom. It wasn’t her mother or her father, come to shout at her for oversleeping. This wasn’t home.

This was the dungeon.

Looking out from behind her arms, she saw the goblin boy, Kizurra, standing over her. He just looked… shocked. One of his feet was still awkwardly extended from where he’d kicked the mattress to wake her. Whatever reaction he’d been trying to get out of her, this wasn’t it. Was that pity in his eyes? Disgust? Fear? It must have been fear, because after a moment his face hardened as he hurriedly fled that moment of vulnerability. “So?” he said. “Get up! Been waiting hours!” He kicked the mattress again for emphasis. “Bitch.”

Pacifica scrambled upright. Anger and embarrassment swelled in her chest — then deflated just as abruptly as her brain tripped over an incongruous detail of the conversation. “You speak Ploetz?” she said. Indeed, this whole conversation had been carried out in Ploetz. Not the stiff, academic dialect that Persephone spoke either, but Low Ploetz — the language as she’d grown up learning it.

“No, having this conversation in lisan ekutatim. Dumbass,” he said. “Yes! Ploetz! Learned it all! That’s why I was chosen to escort to Ni-galaz Ford. That and…” He reached over his shoulder to smack the butt of the crossbow slung across his back, and gave her a smug look. “Best shot. Kizurra.”

“Nikolai’s Ford,” she corrected reflexively.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, disdainfully blowing a fringe of hair out of his eyes. “Anyway. Persephone said to practice talking Ploetz, so…” He gestured at her. “Let’s practice.”

Pacifica looked the goblin boy up and down. She didn’t see anything that complicated the bad first impression he’d already managed to thoroughly make. The prospect of spending any amount of her day on him, for language lessons or any other reason, was unpleasant. Thankfully, she had an excuse. “I was supposed to help Malik with smoking more food today,” she said.

Kizurra endeared himself to her yet-further by immediately trampling on her small bloom of hope. “No problem, can talk while you work,” he said. “Malik’s cool.”

Pacifica would have cautiously ventured the same opinion about Malik only moments ago, but knowing that Kizurra approved of him made her like him less. She sighed. If he was to accompany her to buy Persephone’s magic clay, she supposed they’d be more likely to succeed on their mission if they could at least understand each other — and she did want to succeed. Just think of the silver, Pacifica, she told herself firmly. Think of the silver. You’ve put up with worse for less. “Okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “Then let’s get started.”

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“How did you learn our language?” Pacifica asked, later, as the three of them gathered firewood from the forest around the hill-fort.

“Human traders,” Kizurra answered. “Visited for many years. Parents loved them. Made us rich — by goblin standards.” With a crack of snapping wood, he tore a dead branch free of a trunk. “Everyone wants human gifts. Glass, copper, cloth, blades, drink. Especially blades and drink.” He laughed. “They didn’t understand, though. Even in the end, didn’t get it.”

“Didn’t get what?”

“Humans,” Kizurra said. He gave her a very toothy grin. “What you are.”

His tone made it clear that whatever he was going to say next wasn’t going to be very nice. Pacifica knew what it sounded like when someone was baiting you into stepping out of line so they could put you back in your place — she’d lived with her parents for a decade and a half, after all. She knew that, and so she knew better than to take the bait. She did, really. She knew better.

“And what are we?” she said, the slightest sharp edge to her carefully-neutral tone. Her mouth had apparently not gotten the memo that she knew better.

Kizurra’s grin widened. “Honorless. Seherim bila ‘garinātim. A tribe of hoarders and suguru. Promises mean nothing to you. Family, friends, nothing to you. Your hearts are as cold and empty as- ow ow ow ow!”

His unflattering comparison was cut off by Malik’s good arm snapping out to grab his pointed ear and yank him off-balance. The older goblin said something flat and unimpressed to the boy in the goblin language. Kizurra’s protest was cut off by further yelps of pain as Malik twisted his ear and spoke several more sentences, the only words of which Pacifica could pick out were her name, Persephone’s name, and “don’t.”

“ Whatever, just-” Kizurra said, and then a few more words she didn’t know but figured were probably something like “” Malik released him, and Kizurra shuffled back out of his reach, rubbing his ear.

Malik pointed at Kizurra and said something else, with the air of a final instruction. He then turned to Pacifica and repeated the last word of what he’d said. He gestured to Kizurra, then smacked his own hindquarters and brought the hand back up with thumb and forefinger in a circle. He said a few more words to her, including that final word of the first sentence, then turned to Kizurra and gave him a brief instruction while gesturing at her.

Kizurra sighed and rolled his eyes. “That means asshole,” he said. “ Malik said to tell you.”

“” Pacifica said, parroting it back reflexively as Malik had had her do with the other goblin words he’d taught her.

“” Malik said, correcting her pronunciation slightly.

“Alright, I get it, fuck! ” Kizurra said. He scoffed and crossed his arms, half-turning away in a sulk. “Wasn’t an insult, anyway.”

“Calling me an honorless hoarder who breaks promises wasn’t an insult?” Pacifica said, raising an eyebrow.

Kizurra shrugged. “You know, goblins don’t have the word for trader? Merchant? Closest is…” He gestured vaguely and said a few goblin words. “Gift-giver? Wanderer? Didn’t, like, buy things before humans came. Not like you do. Most goblins still don’t. Don’t understand buying. Trade. Was all gifts.”

Pacifica didn’t say anything. Even if Kizurra really hadn’t meant to insult her, which he obviously had, it had been a mistake to rise to his bait as much as she already had. She wasn’t going to keep playing his game. If he wanted to monologue so bad, he could do it without a cooperative audience.

Sure enough, he continued undaunted. “Say a goblin is hungry. Another goblin has food. If other goblin has enough to share, obviously will. Then later first goblin does something for them — brings them food, or helps with a chore, loans a bow or a knife or whatever. Sounds like trade, maybe, sort of, but it’s not. It’s not…” He searched for the Ploetz word for a moment. “Specific. Not ‘give food now, so get food later.’ It’s ‘give food, because you’re my sister. Get food, if ever need it, because I’m your brother.’ It’s about the…” He snapped his fingers a few times in irritation. “Fuck! The, you know-” He clasped his hands together, one twisted awkwardly upside-down to pantomime two people shaking hands.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

She sighed. This probably fell under helping him practice his Ploetz, and therefore warranted a response. “Agreement?” she asked.

“No, the- the who you are to each other. The tying-together.”

“Relationship?”

“Relationship!” he said. “It’s about the relationship. The debt. Gifts don’t come at the same time — can’t come at the same time. Someone always owes. To get a gift back, see? No debt, no reason to meet again. Might as well just fuck off into the woods, bye, see you never. Debt. Promise. Relationship. Between people. You see?”

She didn’t see, not really. The idea of debt she understood, of using kindness to make someone owe you. What kindnesses Temperance did show were all of that sort. The price she demanded for feeding, clothing, and sheltering Pacifica was her daughter’s total, uncomplaining obedience in all things — she’d said as much, more than once. In Pacifica’s world, gifts were a weapon, a trap. Goblin society sounded like a nightmare. Once again, despite knowing better than to pick a fight, she told him so. “That sounds like a nightmare. Having to rely on the kindness of others is no way to live.”

His reaction surprised her. Kizurra let out a bark of genuine laughter and slapped her on the shoulder, good-naturedly but still hard enough to sting. “Right! Should have known you’d get it. Nightmare.” He grinned — but after a moment, it faded. A grin, then a smile. Then an expression she couldn’t name. “Or dream, maybe. A nice dream.” His gaze was vacant, distant, for a moment, before he shook himself and continued. “But trade isn’t gifts. Buying, selling, these aren’t gifts. Trade is a human thing. Parents loved humans. Didn’t understand them. I understand humans. I like humans.”

Pacifica very much doubted that.

“It’s true!” he said, perhaps sensing her skepticism. “I like humans! Even after everything they did. You remember, everyone wants human gifts? Parents gave a lot of human gifts. Popular. Got a lot of gifts in turn. Wealthy. Repay the gifts with more human gifts. One day-” He whistled, and made a gesture with his hand like wind blowing through an empty space. “No more traders. Distance too far, goblin gifts not worth as much anymore. Too much danger. So, no more human gifts. No more copper, no more cloth. No more blades. No more drink. Mom and dad not so popular anymore. Like you said — rely on others’ kindness? No way to live.” He gave a mirthless smile. “Traders wouldn’t come back, even when mom and dad begged. Thought they were friends, see? Thought they were sisters. Relationship. Wouldn’t even come to bring medicine while the whole village was dying of plague. While my mother was dying. Laying in bed, shitting herself until all that came out was blood and bile.”

Pacifica said nothing, this time not out of any refusal to engage with the goblin boy but because she didn’t know what to say. She swallowed, mouth dry, as Kizurra continued.

“Still liked them through all of that. Still like humans now. After plague, there were…hm, ninety? Left alive out of like three hundred. Ninety. Not enough to survive. Tribe split up. Some went to other tribes, distant relatives, but most came south. Looking for bigger goblin tribes to join up with, yeah? Safety in numbers. Maybe fifty, sixty came.” He spread his arms. “How many are here now? That’s all that’s left. Humans did that. And I still like humans.”

Whatever definition of “like” Kizurra was using, Pacifica had a hard time believing that it was the same one she was using. “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing it was hopelessly inadequate.

“What for? This has been the best year of my life,” Kizurra said. “Learned the most important lesson. The human lesson. Learned about trade.”

At this point, Malik interjected, saying something in the goblin language to the two of them as he gestured back towards the fort. Pacifica only understood the tail end of it — “” The goblin had placed the wood he’d gathered on a hide spread on the ground, which he now dextrously grasped the edges of and folded in half to form a sort of sling. He hefted the whole bundle one-handed — obviously, since he only had the one hand — and began to trudge back towards the dungeon.

Kizurra hefted a leather firewood-carrier of his own. “Come on,” he said, and started walking. Pacifica, lacking such a convenient tool, simply filled her arms awkwardly with branches and followed him. As they went, the goblin boy continued his story. “Trade is different from gifts. Yeah, duh, no shit, but shut up and listen,” he said, pre-empting an objection that Pacifica hadn’t even thought to raise. “Trade is specific. Single. One place, one time. Gifts have a tomorrow and a yesterday. Giving a gift, getting a gift, makes you someone to the other person. Trade isn’t like that. For trade, there’s only today. Only the moment it happens. Can trade with a stranger and stay strangers. Trade makes a person a stranger. No relationship with them — relationship with the stuff. Trade cuts away everything but one question: what is it worth? What can a thing do for you? And what to give up to get it? Pure cold. Ice-cold. If gifts are a nice dream, trade is waking up. That’s why this year has been the best year. I woke up. I understand now.” He turned to face Pacifica: his voice was almost reverent, but his eyes were open wounds. “Debt, trust, love — they don’t matter. I loved my parents. We all loved each other, everyone in the tribe. It didn’t save the ones that died. It didn’t make any difference. All that made a difference was power. Worth. The ones who survived? Figured out what use everyone, everything was — even themselves. And then they used — everything, everyone they had. If relationships, debts, really mattered? All be dead. Dead trying to keep the others alive. But we’re not. We traded, you see? That’s the world we live in.” He spread his arms, the one carrying the firewood wobbling slightly with its weight, and gave her a wide, toothy grin. “That’s the lesson, and none of the others get it. Do you get it? Do you see?”

Pacifica thought she did see, finally, in that moment. Saw Kizurra clearly, maybe, finally. Beneath the rudeness, beneath the edgier-than-thou posturing, beneath the anger… there was that question. That one, honest question. It was like looking in a mirror, for her — and what that mirror showed was pain. All-consuming pain, the kind that there was no relief from. The kind of pain that did not come from loneliness, but created it — and such terrible loneliness did it create. The question Kizurra was asking was… did she see him? See that suffering? See the black, festering rot of it?

She knew what it was like to have that question. She had it too. So she nodded, for a moment not trusting herself to speak. Finally, she mustered the courage to do so. She looked Kizurra in the eye, hoping that he could see in her gaze everything that was unspoken. “Yeah,” she said, voice a little hoarse. “I do see.”

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A low hum was faintly audible in the long, rectangular cave-kitchen. Two staggered rows of magic freezers now lined one wall. Within, the coils of their cooling arrays were already furred with frost. The fruits of the goblins’ food-gathering efforts rested in temperature-controlled safety. It had been a little tricky to attach shelves to the walls without interfering with the modified basket-formations, but I’d managed after a few false starts. I’d even added two fridges to the end, for shorter-term storage. I wasn’t actually sure how to control the internal temperatures of the freezers directly, so the fridges I’d created by simply cutting the number of times the pattern of the [Little Winter Basket Formation] repeated — a hardware, rather than software, solution.

I wasn’t putting all my eggs in one basket with the freezers, though. A heaping pile of salt sat in a shallow stone bowl I’d sculpted. I wasn’t sure how much more sanitary that actually was than just having it laying on the cavern floor, given that the bowl had been cavern floor until recently, but it felt important to make the distinction anyway. By the salt, I’d sunk a number of holes in the floor. In lieu of proper casks, the goblins would be using them to salt the food that wasn’t going into the freezers. Some of that salted food would then make its way into the smokehouse, which was a smaller cave I’d opened up off of the kitchen. I’d connected it by flue to the kitchen’s main chimney-shafts: I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to offer the smoke any way to escape a smokehouse, but I figured it was better than risking everyone getting carbon monoxide poisoning or something. It had occurred to me that having Malik and Pacifica doing the meat-preservation upstairs on the surface posed an unnecessary security risk, when I could just create whatever facilities they needed down here.

All of this had, of course, slowed down the rate at which I was conjuring silver for Pacifica. As such, I’d tweaked my initial plan. On her first trip to Nikolai’s Ford, she’d only take a small test batch of silver ingots. She’d find an alchemist or silversmith to verify that they were in fact silver — my success with making edible salt should have reassured me, I guess, but I couldn’t shake a nagging worry that I’d created something that looked like silver but was in fact worthless. Hopefully, whoever she found to appraise the ingots would even be willing to buy them from her. This would let us turn conspicuous raw materials into inconspicuous cash, which she could then use to buy the magic clay I needed for my [Azoth-Gathering Formation] — and, potentially, everything else the goblins couldn’t make for themselves.

Scaling back my objectives in this way did, however, mean that I didn’t need to be in such a tearing hurry to crank out more silver. My refrigeration project was finished for the time being — obviously I was going to continue experimenting with them for increased efficiency, potential combat applications (welcome, adventurers, to the Chamber Of Freeze Your Dick Off!), and suchlike, but that was a longer-term thing — so that meant I could spare some azoth for other projects! And I had just the thing in mind.

It was time to start building my second-floor boss.