As Alistair reached the hole to what he now knew was another world he took a deep hesitant breath. While he had been there once before, this somehow felt different. He was nervous, he was crossing to someplace other than earth, and was going to be surrounded by creatures he didn't know.
As he took a second breath the pale light the goblins had been sitting around caught his eye.
“What is that light?”
“Ah” The kobold mage said, sticking his head back through the hole.
“Here, hand it up to me” the kobold said, holding out a hand.
Alistair bent over to pick up the stone and noticed it was sitting on small black clothing. Picking both up Alistair looked to the kobold.
“I will give it back, and explain it all during our talk. By the law of combat the Goblins are yours, body and possession.”
Alistair handed the cloth and stone to the kobold. As the kobold took them through the hole, that portal to another world, the stone started glowing far brighter. What had been the equivalent to a dim phone screen had grown to the brightness of a lantern.
The kobold mage wrapped the cloth around the stone blocking its light, and placed it in a pouch.
“Follow me” he said.
Alistair stood at the hole and realized he didn't have a rifle sling. This oversight seemed so stupid now that he had to climb up out of hole and needed both his hands. Hoping the dust cover on the FAL was worthy of its name, Alistair tossed the rifle ahead of him onto the sand and climbed up after it.
Picking up the rifle and rising to his feet Alistair gazed upon the other world.
Looking around again at the wide tall cavern yet again Alistair was still in awe.
Extending over a hundred feet in all directions. The area he stood was a small island of sand and rock maybe 40 feet across with a periodic ring of large rocks about its perimeter. The island was surrounded by the pond that extended all around maybe 150 feet across. As he climbed out of the funnel of sand around the entrance to his world, he saw that the rock which appeared to be the roof strata in his mine was a lone jutting crag extending maybe 20 feet up.
The pond itself had clearly not drained much at all when he opened up the hole to his world, likely only draining inches or less down to the level of the island, preventing any further water from draining down into his mine.
Alistair noticed that the darkness was slowly encroaching before realising one of the kobolds was holding a glowing stone as a lantern. There appeared to be nearly 20 of them in total, but only 1 “lantern”. He nearly did a double take as he watched the armed Kobolds walking away, in the dim light, it seemed they were walking ON the water.
His gaze drifted to the Kobold mage who was waiting for him nearby.
“This way”
The Kobold mage turned away from Alistair and started walking to the edge of the island following the other kobolds.
Following after them, rifle in hand, Alistair approached the edge of the island and noticed that there was what looked to be a natural stone bridge only inches under the water’s surface. Stepping onto the bridge and looking over the edge, the floor of the pond seemed to gradually grow deeper as he walked from the island until it vanished beyond sight in the dim light.
The whole arrangement seemed unnatural, it reminded him more of a ruined keep with a moat more than a natural formation of rocks, but he could see no trace of craftsmanship or artifice upon the stones.
Walking at the end of the procession Alistair examined the kobolds, they were all around 4 feet tall and nearly naked, save for carved bone necklaces and belt pouches. Unlike the clean processed leather of the goblins, the leather of the kobolds still had white gray and brown fur on them, even the thin leather strings of their necklaces kept the fur of whatever beast they had made the leather from.
Their spears were of various lengths from no taller than them to nearly 7 feet, and most seemed tipped with stone though a few seemed to be metal like those of the goblins. In fact all of those metal tipped spears seemed to be looted goblin spears of about the same length.
Still nervous and mind still in shock at the events of the day Alistair followed them across the stone bridge, part way around the edge of the pond to a vertical crack in the rock. Maybe 3 feet wide at the base, and tapering together high above he head. Following the kobolds into the crack it turned sharply right, then left, then left again, then right. The whole time getting brighter and brighter. In seconds, he was at the exit.
Exiting the crack in the rocks onto what seemed a small animal trail Alistair stood in awe.
He was half way up a mountain, with a sharp valley undeserving of the name below, more a meeting of mountains than a valley proper, covered with fallen stones and other remnants of landslides. The peaks all around with jagged and rocky things, harsh and brutal. The mountains themselves were covered in scrub brush. The air was cold and crisp, the odd tree a rarity, only smaller plants and bushes seemed capable of clinging to the sheer and rocky landscape, and far off across the “valley” a large mountain goat could be seen scampering up slope even Alistair would be loath to scale.
Looking to his right, he saw the mage, standing alongside him. Patiently allowing him to take in what was a marvelous view.
“Its beautiful” Alistair said
“Few goblins seem to think so, and fewer humans… … Thank the gods for that. Follow me, our den is not far.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
They walked in silence for maybe a mile along the small animal trail to a large indentation in the rock, a rare section of flat ground where stood a very large circular tent like structure, and a few small tents.
“Can you really call them “Tents” Alistair thought. “Surely they seem to be made mostly of animal hides, but there is a large quantity of dry stacked stone in the construction. I'm not sure if I should call the large one a tent or a building.”
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If the editor may interject… yes, yes you can call them tents… or huts, or a building. Go nuts
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The large structure was circular, maybe 40 feet across, and far taller than he would have assumed for a structure built for creatures so small. The walls were dry stacked stone, and roof was made of sewn hides draped over the top of the walls with some sort of support holding up the center
The small village was bustling with activity, what appeared to be children were playing some sort of game. There were kobolds at work with one chore or another, and at least 3 were involved in butchering one of those mountain goats with stone blades, impressive since it was nearly the size of a horse. Large for Alistair, but for these small creatures, it seemed a monumental task. That might explain why it was already quartered, as he doubted they could have carried or dragged it back in one piece.
As the other kobolds of their party merged back into the gathering, the mage guided him to one of the smaller tents, similar to the large one but only 10 feet or so in diameter.
Nervously, Alsitair followed him inside. There were hide blankets across the floor and cushions that seemed to be nothing but loosely rolled and folded hides tied together by slits and strands in the leather.
The mage took a seat, upon one such cushion and gestured for Alistair to do the same.
“My name is *unintelligible*, but you may call me Elder White. What is your name”
Elder White's speech was eloquent from the translation magic, but littered with pauses and stops. It felt like Alistair was watching a badly dubbed movie.
“Alistair”
“Well Alistair, you, as a new neighbor, pose for us a problem.”
“How so?”
Elder White paused for a moment to consider.
“Let me explain, with some background, you may understand better. West of our mountains are lands of men, forests and fields, little hills and valleys, farms and timber. East of our mountains, lay the great plateau, a sea of grass lands, inhabited by Goblin tribes. The humans don't want our land, it is too harsh, too steep, no way to farm, and has nothing they desire. The goblins are nomadic, grazing their herds, far and wide across the grass sea, our lands are too steep and jagged for their herds. Humans hate goblins, goblins hate humans. We are too few to stop either, from taking our lands, but the only value each see in our lands, is that the other does not hold them. Both the high goblin chief, and the human Kings agreed, and now it is written, none shall enter our lands.”
Nodding along, Alistair thought he understood.
“So you act as sort of a demilitarized zone between the goblins and humans?”
Elder White thought about it for a moment before replying.
“Yes”
Alistair thought quickly. He could understand Elder White’s position, but wasn't going to lose access to mine. Or more importantly the large quantities of gold just sitting in that sand.
“And how does my portal pose a threat to that balance?”
“Your kingdom is not yet a part of the pact, we have no assurance that your king has no desire to take this land. I should make clear that if your king moves, to take these mountains, he would only provoke war, with the goblins, and possibly with the human kingdoms, of this world. You would do well, to tell your lord, of the dangers of this land, so that he may inform your king, and your king may sign the pact.”
Alistair was near laughter. After all the stress and shock, and everything that had happened this day, this was… … well it was funny… wait, being in Vegas would Elvis be the king?
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Alistair was at this point not just NEAR laughter, he had in fact crossed the line into laughter, as the image of him telling an Elvis impersonator that he needed to sign a pack with the kobolds to avoid war with the goblins.
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Choking down his poorly concealed laughter
“Elder White, I don't have a king, or a lord, or… look I don't want to conquer your mountains. They are not a super hospitable place for me either…”
Elder White at first in shock at the laughter and statement seemed to settle when Alistair expressed there would be no desire to conquer the mountains.
“… HOWEVER, there is something in these mountains that I do want.”
As Alistair continued speaking, it was clear Elder White’s guard was back up.
“What is it you want?”
This was it, with his humor back under control, Alistair was down to business. He had built one business, and had it taken away from him, but here was an opportunity to build a new business, a different kind of business. One he wouldn't be so naive to share ownership in. He had decided to go break rocks for a year to clear his head, and give himself a new purpose, a new drive. He wouldn't let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
“Mining rights.”
“Mining? Rights?” Elder White was confused. “What are mining rights?”
Alistair paused for a moment to think his response over. These kobolds were primitive, He had not seen any metal except for the spear heads clearly looted from goblins. They were sitting on a LITTERAL gold mine, and not only did they not know it, they likely had no way of exploiting it. He could lie to them about what he was mining, but for all he knew they might find any metal or mineral he cited as more exciting than gold. He didn't know how they might value anything. Further, to be caught in a lie with these kobolds would be bad, and perhaps even dangerous. The truth. It was in his best interest to use the truth here, and find the most advantageous way to frame the situation.
“Yes, mining rights. That is the right to extract metal and materials from these mountains. I would pay you for the right to mine on your land.”
“What mineral or metal do you intend to mine? You would not be asking or seeking such a thing, you would not be seeking these “rights”, unless you had something in mind.”
“I believe that parts of your mountains contain gold”
At this Elder White stood, the fear and terror on his face was plain, pacing back and forth in his small tent
“Gold!?!? No! This is terrible, we should kill you now and bury that portal in stone”
“Woah, wait just a moment” Alistair said reading his rifle “no need to get violent or jump to hasty action”
“Goblins want gold, Humans want gold, if news of gold were to reach them it would be war and genocide.” while he spoke Elder White placed a hand on a dagger hanging from his belt.
Alistair’s rifle was now pointing at Elder White, but Alistair had not yet raised it from his shoulder. He could likely hit the kobold firing from the hip, but escaping afterwards would be nearly impossible. He didn't have enough ammunition to hold off a whole camp of kobolds.
“Wait wait wait, no one here needs to know, no one is going to invade, and no one is going to kill your people, lets calm down and talk”
Elder White saw the muzzle of Alistair’s gun following him as he paced. He may not know what it was, but he clearly understood it was a weapon. He stopped pacing and took his hand off his dagger and looked at Alistair. Alistiar returned the rifle to lay across his lap, turning the barrel away from Elder White he said.
“Lets talk this out, we both benefit from this and no one has to be in any danger. We can make this a win win situation”
Elder white sad back down. “How?”
It only took a moment for Alistair to finish sorting his thoughts.
“I can mine the gold, and take it back to my world, in exchange I can pay you for the mining rights with goods from my world. Food, tools, pretty much anything. No one in this world needs to know that there is gold in these mountains, and at the same time we both profit from it. I am removing it from this world entirely. Decreasing the threat to you in the long term, and paying you for the service from day one.”
Elder White sat in silence to think. Just as the silence was getting awkward he responded.
“What of your world? Your kings and lords will notice you bringing gold, and then we have the same problem, as if you told the kingdoms here.”
“I told you before, my nation does not have kings or lords. As for anyone in my world noticing, that's the beautiful part of it. The caves we met in were an old gold mine in my world.
Elder White’s eyes opened with realization. Alistair continued.
“I bought that old mine to explore and see if there was anything left. To anyone in my world it will only seem that I have indeed struck a new source of gold in the mine. Nothing will seem out of place, no one will even need to know you exist.”
“This… … this is a good plan. The gods must be smiling upon us. We will grant you mining rights in exchange for items from your world… … … but you will need to do something special for us first.”
Alistair was excited, this was going well, and he couldn't wait to start getting all that gold.
“What do you need me to do?”
“There is a band of goblins, wanted by their tribes, outlaws. They have taken up residence in our mountains. We need them all killed”