Dusk Exchange
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Chapter 1: Two Hobbies
David Lee had been looking for the cocoa tree for four years in the dream world and finally found it.
He still called this place the dream world even though he was convinced it was quite real. When he was a child and first started these exchanges at five years old he thought he was just having dreams of being a baby in a fantasy world.
When he was seven years old here twelve in the real world he made an effort to learn what this planet was called. The people here didn’t comprehend that they were on a planet in a solar system so they just said it was called dirt when he tried to ask them what the world was called. David was starting to get frustrated before he remembered that people in the real world just called that place earth; so he just stuck to his childhood names real world and dream world rather than Planet Earth / Planet Dirt.
The dream world had its fill of excitement but food was surprisingly quite a let down. Especially the sweets department if you wanted candy the closest thing to it was dried fruits and berries. So when he turned twelve he decided to take it upon himself to bring his favorite sweet chocolates to the dream world. Of course there was no way to transfer any item from one world to the other, when his exchanges consisted to falling asleep; hence his search for the cocoa tree.
His venture to bring chocolates to this world was a costly one especially travels and under appreciated cooks had a hard enough time just making ends meat. So David paid for all his everyday expenditure as a mercenary. That also helped him get from one place to another. His duties as a mercenary included merchants guard. David would guard merchants from monsters and bandits in their caravan travels and from sea monsters and pirates in their ship travels. Only as long as they were traveling towards the equator forests so that he could continue his search for the cocoa tree.
The pods from the cocoa tree had just turned from green to yellow/orange. David wanted to start harvesting and fermenting them now. ‘The cocoa tree flowers in two cycles of six months the whole year round.’ He thought to him self ‘if I can get a large enough harvest now then maybe the operation will be self sustaining by the time the next harvest comes around.’
“Lee, stop day dreaming keep your mind on the mission.” Gidget Hardcheese his goblin companion said snapping her fingers in front of David’s face. “Hello and welcome to Planet Dirt” she said snidely but he knew that it was in good humor.
“Sorry Cheese I was just thinking of profits” David replied knowing that his little green friend would forgive anything if it was for ‘the greater good’ which was always money in her opinion.
She rubbed her hands together greedily “indeed?” Cheese asked with a quizzical look. Then shook her head fast in denial, long green ears quivering side to side slightly she thought that he was more likely dreaming of Planet Earth; an imaginary place with no monsters. She glared daggers her bright red eyes piercing David accusingly for distracting her. “I smell our prey coming from the north east.” Goblins survival rate is high because their magically enhanced smelling can detect monsters long before they come into sight.
***
He had first met Cheese a little over four years ago in his starting city Brunswick. She had been selling headcheese a meat from pig or young cow’s head, that is boiled, pressed, and eaten cold.
“Headcheese get your head cheese!” The youngest goblin David had ever seen was shouting her ware’s from a street corner stall. Goblins make good traveling merchants because they have very high endurance and can walk for two days without needing rest.
She was barely more than half his height and he was short for a twelve year old. His first thought was that she was cute with her big yellow eyes, over sized head, and matching large ears. ‘She reminds me of a bobble-head doll, her body moves too fast for her head to keep up, and those ears if they were softer they’d flap in the wind.’
A steaming cauldron hung from a tripod over a magically summoned fire near her booth. David moved near and leaned over to peek in. Unable to imagine what headcheese was his curiosity got the better of him. He couldn’t believe this is what she was trying to sell; there was a skull of a calf floating in a thin broth!
He put his hand to his mouth and took a few unsteady steps backward trying not to vomit from both what he saw and the smell.
Gidget looked towards the side and to her cauldron at the sound of someone’s approach. “Well hello cutie, what can I do for you?” She said to the older redheaded hobgoblin, walking over to him and putting a hand on her hip.
Gidget smiled flushed waiting for his reply; hobgoblins were rare, an evolved version of goblin that could pass for human children in these bigger cities. Well not all hobgoblins some started looking like much fiercer monsters upon evolving into hobgoblins.
“I’m Lee Davitlee, and I’m sorry to say your product has no value to me.” Lee said extending a hand to her as he did this his skin tone turned from pail green to pail red making him look even more like a human child.
This is a misunderstanding young Gidget thinks his first name is Lee and that he is a goblin because his face was green from gagging. Also goblins last names are usually close to the same as their favorite product they sell.
She grasped his hand happily between booth of hers shaking it vigorously “I’m called Gidget Hardcheese.” Gidget thought of his family name and tried to think what product his family sold. She knew that to be in the lee of the wall was to take shelter from the wind. She also knew that a davit was a sort of small crane one of a pair equipped with a wench for lifting and lowering items. ‘He must hail from the red goblin tribes near the sea; that makes sense with the red hair and skin shade.’
“Gadget Headcheese, you seem awful young to be a merchant have you been at it long?” Lee asked reaching out to put a hand on her grey/green hair uncertainly as if to ask if the grey was an indication of her age.
“No, no, and no” she said laughing playfully, goblin’s lifespan was usually less than twenty years. Hobgoblins however lived closer to sixty years so they picked the very youngest of goblins for mates since they had three times the expected lifespan of any potential mates.
“It’s Gidget, not gadget and Hardcheese, not headcheese” she said flirtatiously punching him in the gut when she said hard.
Lee flinched and pulled his hand back; she quickly snatched his wrist with her right hand and gently pulled it back intertwining the fingers of her left hand with his captured right hand. “I assure you that I am quite young, I wasn’t born long ago, less than a year in fact. If I seem old it is because my mother had some magic ability and pasted it along to me with most of her memories. She was quite the old maid nearly eighteen by the time she was lucky enough to have me.” Gidget smiled in conquest ‘surly this will convince him that I’m the one he has been looking for. Those fiery green eyes of yours have set my heart ablaze! I know you are the one I have been looking for.’ She thought drinking them in.
“I see, well I’ll just call you Cheese” he said shaking his hand free.
She pouted at both hearing the nickname and him pulling his hand away feeling it was an attempt to keep from being too familiar with her.
Lee smiled and said “I’ve recently decided to bring a product to this land that will change the world. All my friends refuse to even attempt the expedition but if your willing to put your endurance to the test. I will make you a partner at say 60/40 split how dose that sound are you interested?”
David was the proverbial ‘beaten like a redheaded stepchild’ so leaving home at an early age was no big thing for him. There was no love lost between him and his new father nor the children from his previous relationship. He would miss his mother and the chance to be a big brother to the daughter his mother and stepfather just had together. But he thought that it would be better for both his mother and little sister if he was no-longer around.
Gidget put booth hands on her hips in fists and replied seriously “it sounds like you’re a gambler who doesn’t know when to quit! What’s this product? Is it renewable? If it were so great why isn’t it already changing the world?”
Secretly she already knew that she would go with him but feared he wouldn’t respect her business sense. So she made several arguments, careful not to decline outright, asking several questions that skirted the line in-between inquisitive, and rude.
David was surprised at the goblins amiability she was so small and cute but talked like an adult. Other goblins he had met treated him like a child well he was only 12 years old but 17 in the real world and if he added them both his mental maturity was 29 years old. She had proudly stated that she was under one year of age but he decided to treat her as no less than a 19 year old.
The next morning they left the City of Brunswick heading south with a merchants caravan.
Between selling wares in cities, towns, villages, and helping in numerous jobs acquired at the mercenary guilds it took them over a year to reach the sea. During that first year Cheese evolved into what she called a hobgoblin. She wasn’t recognizable as the little green monster he was used to seeing every day. Cheese insisted to that now their partnership would be 50/50 David saw no reason to object. Whenever they would meet a new goblin troop Cheese would introduce David as her acquaintance Lee Davitlea a hobgoblin from the red goblin tribes.
David learned from a pair of goblin merchants that hobgoblins were rare goblins that evolved over night due to accumulated life experiences; and that Gidget was lucky enough to do it thanks to her mothers shared memories.
All the monsters they killed together on their journey played no small part in her evolution ether. Hobgoblins looks could be customized during the night of evolution but if they were very drastic they still had to grow into them over time.
From the sea at the edge of the continent Zetroc they spent two years going from island to island before they finally chartered a ships passage to Oman a large continent to the south; the size of Africa in the real world.
The races on Oman were almost entirely made-up of various beast-men tribes minotaur, lizardmen, etc of them most were cat types.
Lizardmen and mermaids were two of the few gender neutral species and reproduced asexually. They laid eggs that hatched without the use of a second parent and grew to be identical to the parent much like a clone.
The inhabitants of Oman showed more animosity towards David and Cheese than any sentient civilized race he had as of yet met. He latter learned their antagonism was a result of being hunted and enslaved by most visitors whether they were of another race or not. Their own race usually comprised the biggest part of most of the slave hunting adventurer’s teams but there was almost always a human or elf among them giving orders. It didn’t help that slavery played a big part of their society. Someone would turn them self into a slave for a year or five with the option to buy their own freedom at any given time. About like how people in the real world sometimes apply for a loan not caring that they will be paying for it all their natural life.
At first David was appalled at how common slavery was but he never seen anyone in chains, cages or getting beaten. One thing that they did do that would have been cruel and unusual punishment if not for the fur covering their bodies; was to have all the slave’s wear rough brown hemp clothing.
Upon arrival to the continent Oman they entered a whaling city called ‘Whaling Village’ and they were dead broke after the expensive charter costs required to get there. They learned that Whaling Village was the largest city on all of Oman and it was large indeed with a population well over 2 million.
“What the hell happened to you Gidget! Why are you in the hempen remnant?” David asked angrily upon seeing Cheese walking towards him one morning wearing a short brown dress. Remnant was what everyone called the slave garments that usually looked like little more than potato sacks from the real world with holes for your head and arms.
Cheese smiled brightly at his outrage ‘girls’ he thought and then sighed deeply ‘their moods flare up one way or another for the strangest reasons.’
She was now taller than he had been when they first met three years ago, her eyes were now red rather than yellow, her hair lost the green tint was now blue/grey, and her ears were no longer wide but still quite long sticking out past the back edge of her head.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
All these changes happened upon her evolution into a hobgoblin and she never stopped growing ever since the first day he met her. As Gidget grew her skin became paler and paler losing most all the green in it. Unlike many hobgoblins she would never be able pass herself off as a human but she bared some resemblance to an elf.
During their two year escapade from island to island she had a surly old sea dog give her a tattoo; it was showing now. It was a red tattoo of a spider on her left thigh the size a little bigger than David’s open hand.
One thing that hadn’t changed about her; she still liked to boil pig or calf heads strip the meat off them press it into a loaf or sausage then eat it once it got cold. David reminded himself of that every time he got distracted by her shapely legs or when she chose to tease him with flirtatious behavior.
David noticed himself smiling like an idiot as his gaze fell to her over exposed thighs. ‘Headcheese, headcheese, headcheese’ he thought over and over again countless times even bringing up memory of the smell. This ritual was a sort of mantra he would use any time they would sleep under a wagon or the open night sky and she would cuddle up too close to him.
David knew that with his over sized ears, great big honker of a nose, and gapped teeth he was far from handsome. Gidget called his visage striking but in his ignorance of her intended complement he just shrugged his shoulders in indifference. Accordingly he tried not to smile to often knowing it surely wasn’t a pleasant sight. Gidget’s infectious smile caused him to smile back dumbly despite his best efforts.
In conclusion David is an ugly little man that can even be mistaken for a goblin.
Gidget was happy that Lee called her by name even though he said her name in anger but only happy because she knew his anger was for her wellbeing.
When she seen Lee fight the smile that she shared with him she said. “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise…. I wish your ears were three times this size.” When she said the last Gidget was close enough that she was able to reach up and stroke his ear.
It is a sorry thing when beautiful women have such bad tastes.
“What?” Lee asked slapping her hand away, confused because her reply had nothing to do with his complaints.
Gidget sighed “I sold myself into slavery because we have no money and nothing else to sell. It was the only way for us to acquire the resources we needed to continue towards the equatorial forest.”
Her soft skin was already getting itchy. Gidget knew from the moment she saw the coarse hemp fiber cloth that it would be painful after only a few days of menial labor.
“Return the money, buy back your freedom, we will figure out something, we always do!” Lee said hotly, making Gidget wonder if perhaps he had a bad experience with slavers in the past and was consequentially worried overmuch for her safety.
“It is too late. I already used it to buy some supplies and a place for you on that whaling boat.” She replied; Lee looked where she was pointing there was a small boat with about 10 people from a cat tribe making ready to hunt whales and other sea monsters that would try to steal their kills.
It was only 2 weeks before Lee was able to buy back her freedom but it felt like a year. She was glad to be done with her short incarceration even considering that it was sort of self-imposed.
Removing her hemp dress and looking at herself in a mirror Gidget thought not unkindly that she half looked like she belonged to a red goblin tribe. Her skin was irritated and tender putting on her old cloths stung she wondered if these people chose these hemp garments knowing that they would be painful to other races.
The whale hunting season was now over but the harpooners still had to go out for the rest of the month to hunt other sea monsters in order to protect the remaining migrating whales so that their population didn’t become too low endangering the species.
The people of Whaling Village only hunted whales two short seasons a year the rest of the year they protected migrating whales from monster attacks. Gidget joined Lee for two weeks of monster hunting before they once again took the road south west. It made her happy to see mother whales traveling with their young calves under the protection of would be hunters not needing to fear monster attacks.
Gidget and Lee reached the equatorial forest many weeks after leaving Whaling Village but didn’t find cacao trees even after months of searching.
“Oh okay, now that you have shown me a picture I know what you are talking about.” Purred a cat tribe refugee upon seeing a drawing of a cocoa pod that Gidget showed her.
Lee drew several pictures of what the cocoa beans looked like, then some of what the pods they came out of looked like, and last a few of the trees they grew on along with pods hanging directly from their thick trunks or branches for Gidget to show people in hopes of being pointed in the right direction to find the trees.
Werewolves attacked a village to the west word spread to all the other villages resulting in refugees pouring into the lone town of the area. The town had a modest wall meant to protect people in the event of a monster attack everyone would come together just so.
“Everyone in these parts are carnivores so we don’t pay particular attention to fruit. I seem to remember a lizardman inn keeper eating the pulp from those fruit…. What did you call them… cocoa pods? Well whatever they are called you will find that they are quite common to the west of here.”
Gidget beamed and thanked her; the first solid lead in four years that this mystery product even existed. She rushed to bring Lee the good news then she saw him walking through a crowd holding one of the pods.
‘Ah! I wanted to be the bearer of good news.’ Gidget sighed she had imagined him spinning her around in his arms then kissing her when she brought him the information.
***
So after 4 years of searching all that stood in their way of making the first chocolate of this world was a pack of werewolves.
“We should rest for the night and attack them in the morning after all they know these forests much better than we do.” Gidget said opening the cellar of an old burnt down house Asterios Gloryhunter a minotaur and Gorquet of Oyxl a lizardman went down without any question or complaint.
Lee paid for Asterios freedom in the city along with Gidget’s she had become friends with him during her two weeks of slavery. Gorquet had been following them ever since they asked for his help on a quest two years back. He had some talent with water magic and was quickly becoming quite proficient with a spear.
“We will keep guard until morning” purred Talini she and her mate Ra’esi were cat tribe and guards of this village before the werewolf packs attack. They volunteered to help when they found out Lee got a mercenary guild quest to rout the werewolves around their old village and homes. They were skilled archers and would prove invaluable given their familiarity of the area was even greater than that of werewolves.
David had thought to ambush the werewolves at a cliff a short ways to the north east but it was already dusk with the last light of the sunset quickly fading. So he sighed and walked into the cellar past the open door Cheese was holding. She closed it plunging them into darkness before silently summoning an orange flame over an empty open steel gauntleted hand. Once inside she placed her weapon a scythe against one wall next to a spear and over sized double bladed axe.
“Elemental spirit Kasa of fire obey my call, ignite” Cheese called no more than a whisper and four flames came to life in the corners of the room near the ceiling; obliged to follow the instructions of one whom formed a pact. Four fist size flames were about the limit of Kasa’s power without a better accelerant than air. The flame spirit in Cheese’s hand took the form of a woman curtsied and faded out of being; just leaving her four clone flames in the corners of the room.
David knew Cheese could call on a far more powerful fire spirit Efreeti but unless the summoner’s will was destruction Efreeti was less inclined to be helpful. Only a powerful fire salamander or a dragon could expect such a powerful fire spirit to obey their whimsies without pushing the confines of their contract to the limit. But then such evil creatures wouldn’t likely give a force of destruction limitations to begin with.
Asterios got up from were he was resting in a corner and pushed a cloth into a crack so that the light couldn’t be seen from outside.
Cheese took off her steel boots and gauntlets with deft movements reviling dainty feet and hands. She then walked over to David whom didn’t realize he was staring and placed a hand on his chest backing him up against the wall.
“Well hello my little green friend, how can I be of service?” David said apprehensively, Cheese’s eyes flashed angrily, and then she smiled mischievously and said. “How indeed...?” She grasped his studded leather vest and pulled him into a kiss then sighed and released him. “If I had you too myself in here I’d instruct you throughout the night on how best to be of service.”
David was stunned this was beyond her normal teasing she seamed very serious.
Gidget had been patient and uncomplaining showing admirable endurance in the face of Lee’s disinterest despite the fact that she knew he was undoubtedly interested. Even humans and elves had seemed more willing than this undependable red goblin. She was starting to think she would have to dissolve their business relation ship before a personal relationship could grow. She could only think of a few times he’d even been willing to eat the things she cooked. When they fought monsters he would take the lions share but trust her to deal with her own foe he wasn’t very protective. Never jealous he didn’t show anger towards anyone who flirted with her, nor to her if she showed interest in another person.
Gidget was stoic the rest of the night not even handsome Asterios and his magnificent voice could bring her spirits up as he sung songs and folk tales before they all turned in to the night.
There were a million things David wanted to say to Cheese so that he could clear up any misunderstandings but he wasn’t very good with words and emotions. Besides the blasted minotaur started singing outrageously after eating too much of her headcheese stinking up the cellar so the mood just wasn’t right. Before he knew it Cheese let the flames die out and they spent the night without another word.
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Aiden Gray had another hobby when not in the dream world his real world hobbies were numerous and diverse most including extreme sports. But the hobby he pursued with ambition was looking for others like him people who traveled or exchanged bodies and worlds like him. Most leads turned out to be nothing; there was a girl in a mental institute who seemed to do it but she was to far gone to communicate with.
Aiden’s real world body was much dissimilar from his dream world appearance. He was 6’7 tall 210 pounds and very handsome not to the point woman swooned but their eyes did tend to follow him and he had never been turned down for a date. He was tall enough that he seemed thin and could probably gain quite a bit of weight before it showed. He had black hair and was tan; unlike his dream world body that was always painfully sunburned but would never tan. Despite his good looks he was quiet and shy fearing to intimidate others with his height or interest in dangerous things.
His occupation was fencing instructor at a private high school in Boston he was also the disciplinary teacher and sometimes substituted for the regular P.E. teacher. Before coming to this school a few months ago fencing instructing was his only income.
Aiden came here following a lead that a history teacher maybe going to the same dream world as him.
Waking up to the sound of his alarm he got dressed and shaved envious of his dream world self whom didn’t need to shave yet at 16 years old. Aiden had to shave this body at the young age of 14 now that he was 21 shaving twice a day wouldn’t be too much.
Preparing breakfast he cut up potatoes, sausage, adding eggs once the potatoes got soft in the frying pan. Rapping them up in tortillas with salsa he ate two breakfast burritos before leaving the house eating a third one on his way to the school.
He waved to Miss Ericson she was jogging wearing a sports bra and sweat pants she didn’t have class until the afternoon. She was also the 26 year old history teacher he suspected of going to the same dream world.