Twelve days did not pass swiftly or easily. There was more than one bump in the metaphorical and literal roads; although there were also serendipitous events that seemed to balance it out.
The first of the hitches came on the third day, and had to do with the hunters and gathers. While they continued to bring back food, herbs, and game (even more since they’d left the frequently traveled sections of the woods) one of the failed to come back that evening. This prompted the [Knitwork Knights] to scour the nearby woods. They found him, or what remained anyway. Apparently monsters weren’t so scarce as they’d hoped and the poor boy had run afoul of a nest of giant spiders.
The knights had made swift work of the arachnids, but that didn’t bring back the dead gatherer. However, it did turn out that giant spider, when prepared properly, was quite edible, tasting a lot like crab.
Still, after that incident none of the gathers went out alone, they were always accompanied by at least one knight and a helper; which was fortunate as the was not the last monster encounter.
“Where do monsters come from?” Sigrid asked En on the fourth night as she helped the goblin make a meal out of several horned hares.
“Huh? Oh, when a creature amasses too much mana it becomes a monster. It’s kind of like a sapient creature getting a class; not something that happens terribly often but often enough to be a problem. Unfortunately, unlike a sapient with a class, monsterization is hereditary. So get two or more monsters of the same type, or even just close enough to breed and…” she gestured to the ten corpses.
“Does that mean it can happen to domesticated animals too?” the grandmother asked, slightly horrified at the idea of a pet monsterizing and going on a rampage.
“It can, but usually its not an immediate issue. Monsterization doesn’t usually change the temperament of the animal, at least not in the first generation. Don’t get me wrong, a monsterized animal is pretty much always put down, and never allowed to breed, but they don’t immediately go on killing rampages,” En explained.
“Why only ‘pretty much always’?” Sigrid asked with a raised brow.
“Because some rich folks get their way even when they shouldn’t,” En responded.
The old woman snorted. “Same in every world it seems.”
She then helped strip meat off the bones of the rabbits and get it into the stew pots. It seemed a measly amount, one rabbit per large cauldron, a few herbs and some wild tubers. But, all of the [Grandchildren] and [Grammy’s Little Helper]s had discovered the [I’ll Make a Meal Out of You] skill, which made any scant amount of food go further; given the rationed amounts they were working with at each meal the skill was leveling fast, making the otherwise small portions far bigger than they should have been. That and a little [Divinity] expenditure to bolster the skill made sure that every goblin was decently fed.
Another problem she’d encountered was bored children and teens on the trek, and at first she hadn’t been sure what to do, but that had been solved with another expenditure of [Divinity] granting the [Grammy’s Stories] skill to her priests. The name was a bit misleading, it didn’t just give them knowledge of all the entertaining stories she knew, it also helped with creation of new stories, songs, games, and other entertainments that grandchildren might enjoy. This allowed the [Grandchildren] to walk among the younglings and keep them entertained and their minds off the hard trek.
The final place her divinity was going on this walk was toward the clothing of the goblins. Much of it hadn’t been in good condition before the trek started, and the rough living wasn’t being kind on it. So a bit of power each day went to what the system was calling [Grandma’s Mending], which put the clothes back together, almost as good as new.
Of her remaining powers, the only other she used daily was her ability to spin fate. Each night she sat down and spun a silvery yarn, then released it to alter the flows of chance and change. It wasn’t much, she wasn’t a powerful spinner, and maybe never would be, but as the days passed she realized it was having a cumulative effect. The monumental threads of the tapestry were being nudged subtly but indelibly with each new casting and though she wasn’t sure what the final outcome would be she knew it would be better than how things had started.
And so the days passed, one after the other, until they arrived.
—
Gritmere rose out of the forest, it’s broken and battered walls like the shattered teeth of some long dead giant. The city gates were a gaping hole, its portcullis and doors having long since rotted away, leaving nothing more than a short corridor that let out into the the remains of the city itself.
The column of goblins entered cautiously, the [Knitwork Knights], [Grandchildren], and [Helpers] leading the way, eyes wary and weapons ready. No one knew what might be encountered in the ruins, and no chances were being taken.
As they walked along what once must have been the main thoroughfare of a surprisingly well organized city Sigrid couldn’t help but take in what remained of the buildings. It was interesting, in that many first floors remained intact, and even some second, and she saw one three story building that seemed almost untouched by whatever cataclysm had truncated its siblings. From the lack of rubble, whatever had occurred hadn’t simply destroyed the upper stories, it had vaporized them.
The architecture was unfamiliar, and clearly designed for people no taller than four and a half feet, but other than that it seemed strangely reminiscent of apartment buildings. In her estimation this city was designed for high density living; odd given its location in the middle of a forested region. How had this city supported itself? There was no way simple farming had been enough to supply a city with the population she was imagining.
On they walked, the boulevard stretching before them and a second set of walls rising in the not so far distance.
In all there were three walls, the outer, the middle and the inner. The main road ran over two miles and passed through all three before it terminated at the city center; a large circular plaza at the center of which rose the remains of a hemispherical building.
It must have been grand once, the city center. Even now the old and weathered bricks and tiles showed hints of bright colors and murals built into the very ground upon which they walked. The building itself had suffered greatly in whatever cataclysm had laid the city low, its once domed ceiling mostly destroyed; seemingly melted in places. For all that the bottom half remained standing despite the scoring, pitting, and ancient scorch marks that covered it.
“Well,” El said, a note of doubt in his voice as he looked around at the destroyed buildings. “We’re here.”
“Almost,” replied Sigrid as she looked a the central build. It was large, huge even, more than big enough to hold all the pilgrims at once. There seemed to be an entrance for each eight major thoroughfares that terminated in the central plaza; more than she would have liked, but more defensible than trying to camp in the open here. “Let’s get everyone inside.”
With the urging of their leaders the group of travelers made their way in through one of the large doorways that led deeper into the building, and out into an open area. Around this open floor were tiered layers with open spaces that must have once contained seating.
For a moment Sigrid wasn’t sure what she was looking at. It seemed to be a colosseum, or perhaps an overly large amphitheater; but why would that take pride of place in a city like this? Then she realized. “It’s a senate,” she said out loud.
“A what?” Oict asked.
“A senate, a place where representatives of groups gather to discuss, debate, and confer. Usually on topics such as law and legislation. The idea is that everyone gets a voice and chance to be heard before votes are taken and decisions are made.
“I don’t know if that’s dumb or inspired,” En said. “On the one hand, people should have some say in how their lives work. On the other, I’ve seen groups make some really stupid decisions.”
“It can be a bit of both, at times,” the grandmother replied with a small smile. “Where I come from we use a similar system, though I’m afraid corruption has made it less and less about the people it was meant to serve. Still, that’s something that can happen to any government, so I wouldn’t get too wedded to any singular way of doing things.”
“Fair enough,” El acknowledged. “Let’s get people set up, and stew pots on. It’s been a long trek and a hot meal will do us all good. Then… then we can figure out what to do from there I guess.”
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The other three nodded, and set about walking among the goblins, getting them settled, helping get fires built and pots on to cook. By the time they were done evening was falling and the sky was beginning to darken.
Sigrid looked up as the first stars emerged, and knew it was time.
She didn’t find Oict, El, or En. She didn’t alert anyone; a gut feeling said they’d know once she started and no one would miss the finish. Slowly she walked to the center of the senate building, its broken dome giving her a clear view of the night sky; that was important, though she didn’t know why. Finally she spoke the words, putting into them as much power as she had at her disposal.
“[Inheritance of Grandmother Goblins].”
Her divinity evaporated, four hundred points gone in an instant, and the world reeled about her. The walls of the senate stretched away from her, the floor growing exponentially as if to hold whole armies and the very stars fell from the heavens to alight upon the ground around her. As it fell each star became a goblin outlined in glimmering light. Some were old, wrinkled with age and with the light of wisdom in their eyes; others were distressingly young, with a savage and wild fury that spoke of those who’d had to fight every moment for their existence and that of their children and grandchildren.
They surrounded her, thousands upon thousands, perhaps even millions. The eyes of the goblin grandmothers were upon her and their whispers were in her ears; voices overlapping in a quiet susurrus that was so jumbled it held no meaning. Slowly the whispers grew quiet, and a single figure stepped out of the mass.
She was old, ancient even. So much so that Sigrid wasn’t sure a goblin could have actually lived that long; and more, she had a weight as if the whole world bent around her. She examined Sigrid for a long moment with glimmering, wise eyes and then spoke. Her words were in no language sigrid had ever heard, but perhaps that was just as well for it rang with power and pounded into her in such a way that she could have no doubt as to their meaning.
“Who are you, to call on us?” the figure asked.
The Grandmother Goddess steeled her spine. “I am Sigrid of Clan Hall, the Grandmother Goddess. Grandmother to All Who Need It; and your people need it.” she proclaimed, though her words felt shallow compared to the primal power of those being spoken to her.
“Clan Hall? An old clan indeed. Crafters of The Ways, destroyers of Titans, subjugators of Gods. Clan Hall has done much for and to the worlds which it has come upon. That is your legacy, indeed I can see it laying on you like a shroud. But who are you?” the goblin asked.
Sigrid paused. Who was she? What was she? She’d given her family, her title, her mission. But who was she. “I am a grandmother,” she said finally.
“A good answer,” came the reply. “But why does that give you the right to call us?”
“Because my grandchildren are your grandchildren,” Sigrid replied almost instantly. “Because no matter our differences, be they place in time, beliefs, or species; these are our grandchildren and they need us.”
“Another good answer,” the goblin admitted. “But what do you think we can do, Sigrid of Clan Hall, Grandmother Goddess? We are but woman, old and lost to time. Among us you will find feared assassins, grand clerics, sorceresses of power beyond compare. But that was when we were living. Now, now we are the shadows you see. What can we do?”
The question seemed genuine, but Sigrid knew a test when she saw one. However, the apparition wasn’t wrong. What could they do? What could ghosts give? What could any destitute grandmother give their grandchildren?
Love, affection, stories, she ticked off in her mind, and stopped at that third idea and slowly her hand reached into her pocked to retrieve the spindle.
“Give us your stories, your wisdom and knowledge. Let me bind them into a yarn, that any who see it may know them, and learn,” Sigrid suggested as she held forth the device.
The goblin smiled. “You are full of good answers tonight, Sigrid of Clan Hall. But you are young yet, and do not understand the true powers of your gifts. Why spin words when you can spin the spirits and souls? Make of us a [Yarn of Yarns], and from it craft a quipu, that our magics may be tapped, our cunning may be felt, and our wisdom may be learned.”
“But what if the yarn were destroyed? What would happen to you?” Sigrid asked, horrified at the idea of binding souls.
“Silly child, what happens when your grandson’s totems are destroyed? Are the spirits destroyed with it? We would merely be freed,” the old goblin assured. “Now, we must begin because you have but one night, and there are many, many grandmothers.”
So saying, the elderly grandmother stepped even closer to Sigrid, bringing up her insubstantial hand and offering it to the goddess. Tentatively the human woman took it, only to find herself holding a fistful of fibers. So she sat, on a stool that came from where she did not know, and she began to spin.
Goblins approached her, one after another, each one becoming more, and more fiber for her yarn, and as she distilled them down she heard their life stories. She saw the dawn of goblin life, the first clans to rise, and their fall. She heard the story of rise of goblin civilization, and the horror of the cataclysm that wiped it from the face of the planet. The stories of the clans that took up afterward were hard, and distressing, for they lived like barbarian savages, females became things to be used, other races food for the pot; she finally knew what gizzblit meant, it was the goblin word for ‘female’ but really meant something more like ‘lesser creature that looks like me’. Then there were the more recent grandmothers, who saw their kin becoming civilized once more; who watched the move to cities with tenuous hope, only to have it dashed when they realized how their progeny would be treated. Finally there were only the remaining few, whos lives were of hardship and labor, as they worked for people who cared not that they’d grown old. These grandmothers had died young, much like the ones of the tribal era.
When the final yarn was spun, sigrid found her fingers raw and bleeding, her eyes raw and red. But held in one hand was a dark, forest green ball of thread that thrummed to her grandmotherly senses. She looked to the sky, it was starting to lighten, the wasn’t much time left, but it would be enough.
Swiftly she began to spool out the yarn and began to cut, braid, and knot. As she did different strands took on a myriad of colors. She hadn’t understood what a quipu was before she’d spun the [Yarn of Yarns], but now she knew.
Quipus were an ancient device for keeping track of things or telling stories. They consisted of yarn or string knotted in specific patterns and dyed in various colors. They could be used for numbers, genealogies, story telling, and a dozen other things.
Quickly her hands moved, with a speed impossible for a mere moral, and she knew here [Divinity] was still at play here, for she was racing the rising dawn and winning; if barely. Finally it was finished, and she left the remainder of the yarn attached to the final thread.
She looked up to find herself surrounded by goblins, with the five clan heads standing prominently before her.
“What is it?” asked En.
“The [Yarn of Yarns] and the [Quipu of Keeping],” Sigrid declared firmly. “These are the [Inheritance of Goblin Grandmothers].”
El stepped forward and reached out to touch one of the strands of the quipu, as he did his eyes went wide. “I can read this!” he exclaimed in surprise.
“You can do more than that,” the Grandmother Goddess replied, having crafted the device she had an intimate feel for what it could achieve. “Each strand can be detached to work a piece of magic that your grandmothers knew. Or, it can be crafted into a candle and burned, to impart wisdom to those nearby, helping them gain classes and skills. The quipu will reform every morning at dawn, so fear not spending freely.”
There was an indrawn breath from the onlookers.
“An artifact,” Oict murmured. “What can it- their, magics do?”
Sigrid smiled. “It might be faster to ask what they can’t do. You have grandmothers from the ‘Age of Wonders’ as you call it.”
She looked down at the quipu and plucked off a strand, to a surprised gasp of the crowd. Raising it to the sky, she let it go. The green yarn unspooled itself, the threads coming undone, the knots untying and the colors fading even as the fibers floated into the air. They glimmered in the dawn light like emerald shards, and then they seemed to explode with power as a maelstrom of energy poured out of them.
The senate building shuddered and bucked under the torrential outpouring, and many goblins failed to keep their feet; but those who did stared in awe and wonder as the before their eyes the dome rebuilt itself. Piece by piece the flawless marble of its original construction seemed to just phase into existence, slowly traveling from the broken outer rim to meet in the center, until the entire building was once more enclosed.
That, however, was not the end of the magic. The glittering green moats floated around the interior, alighting in walls, and platforms, creating braziers and wall sconces in which magical lights came into existence, lighting the darkened interior bright as day. Finally, at the very center of the hall, a single pillar of marble rose out of the floor, stopping at about chest height on a goblin, and a bust of an elderly goblin female was molded into existence.
With reverence, Sigrid placed the [Quipu of Keeping] around the neck of the bust, and the [Yarn of Yarns] at the point where it connected with the plinth.
“Welcome, to the [Hall of Grandmothers].” she said into the ringing silence.