Chapter 138

Goblin Spuck

Abigail

The smell of hops hovered in the spring air in Lavenfauvish. How I wished Hawkin could be here with me.

I was so surprised to see goblins in line among the humans to get into the Oude Brewer’s festival. Group by group, their tickets were shredded at the wrought iron gates. Like squirrels set free, once past the gates, the goblins sprinted through the crowd of humans.

Before long, with such and such small talk to the entrants around me, my ticket was shredded. I stepped onto the festival grounds which took place in the Verlough neighborhood just up from the pier.

Programs were passed to everyone filtering in, and I grabbed one. As I flicked my gaze up from the program every few feet as I went, I noticed a lot more goblins. They were so short in the crowd of humans that they had to form what Barnacle-eyes had taught me was a green ladder. Each green ladder was at least three goblins tall, and two of them sat on another’s shoulders. Each ladder made them seem even more out of place. They wandered like a stacked totem with six arms that pointed everywhere all at once like a wooden sign at a six-way intersection.

I hoped they saw the map on the program. With it I was able to navigate to the most crowded streets. There were vendors of hops and grain and adjuncts; there were performers, ice carvers, glass blowers; there were coopers and keg welders; there were kilners and roasters; there were brewers and vintage vendors….

I wanted to look at everything! I was especially interested in some of the glassware. Foremost, I wanted food and beer. I wiped the corner of my mouth several times because I thought I might have been salivating too much to the smell of beer and food.

After a short wait in line, I had myself a corndog the size of a small bat. The corndog attracted quite a few green ladders. Their eyes were huge as they eyed what felt as heavy as a weapon. They sniffed the air like dogs did.

Another wait in line earned me a half pint of a watermelon and blueberry spontaneity beer. The beer was watermelon red, with black popping flavors, and the foam was a blue Crushed Ice Foam Cascade. In one hand I tore at the corndog; in the other I chewed beer foam and sipped a marvel of melon flavors. All the while, performers commanded my attention. Overhead there was a parade of massive beer foam bubbles. Each one was the size of a wagon and there were folk in them. There was even a goblin in one of them. He was on his belly and laughing. Green hands rose from the crowd and pointed at the bubble-imprisoned goblin.

I watched the parade until I came to an archway of vines which blocked my sight. The archway was the beginning of a tunnel of vines, and I recognized the flowers. They were birds of paradise, and there were vines of honeysuckle striped among them.

“I did it again, didn’t I?” said Corylus, coming out from the tunnel.

“My dear friend!” I said, and I hugged him. “Yes, absolutely stunning!”

“Come this way.” Corylus took me by the arm and led us through the tunnel.

Goblins were passing through as well, and several times I witnessed a few green ladders bump into humans. They didn’t exactly apologize, but it didn’t seem that anyone was too upset about it. Oh, how good it was to see more goblins around people!

“Why are there so many goblins?” I said.

“Greenfin has been attracting a lot of Beer Collectors. The attention has made that part of the pier quite rich. Seems the little creatures have more coin burning through their pockets…And Hiccup did provide a number of tickets to certain goblins.”

A part of the tunnel let more light through, and I noticed that were suddenly beneath rainbows of different gop varieties. Each vine was a darker color of their flowers. Among them were flowers I’d never seen before.

“I recognize the hops,” I said. What are the other ones?”

“Bells of Glendale.”

“It’s not often you see green flowers.”

“Oh, before I forget! Remind me that I have a gift for Hawkin back at the mansion. It’s a plant. A very special plant.”

Erik Skullander slipped between lurching green ladders. “I knew I’d find you two in the flowers. Good to see ye, Abigail.” He had a few sugared pretzels in one hand and a ramekin of red dip in the other.

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Suddenly a goblin leaped up and grabbed onto Erik’s forearm like it was the branch of a tree. He pulled himself up and sniffed at the edge of the ramekin.

Another goblin said, “Don’t even bother, it’s all human food. Nothing for us.”

They both ran off, leaving Erik bewildered.

“I’d like a drink!” Corylus said with a clap.

So while Erik laughed to himself about the goblin, we meandered through the rest of the tunnel. We observed several other kiosks, discussed the program’s order of events, and purchased more beer. My second beer had purple foam in the Mellow Marshmallow Foam Cascade.

Erik nudged me on my first sip and said, “There they are.”

We’d arrived at the square where the judge’s pavilion was. There was a half-orc judge, along with Lady Agav, and another woman. They were in the midst of a heated argument. The half-orc passionately argued, and I caught a few words. “Spectacular…Magnificent…You fools…I’ll bite off your tongues if you refuse to use them properly…It should be gold!”

All the arguing had made the crowd pause. It didn’t take the judges long to realize that, and they lowered their voices and returned to their seats.

We continued on, but I nearly bumped into Erik when he stopped suddenly. Around his large frame I saw a grout of goblins attempting to read the program where the Brewer entrants were listed.

One of the goblins pointed to a name on the list. “What’s this one?”

“How am I supposed to know?” said another.

“I can’t read it either, but it looks like a human name,” said another.

“They all look like human names!”

Yet another goblin burst into the group. “Fried onions! Follow me!”

In what felt like the blink of an eye, they formed ladders, leaned forward, and rode off.

“There’s a wheat brett ale I’d like to get me hands on,” said Erik. “Ye game?”

I was so tempted to tell Erik that he should lead the rest of our adventure through the festival, because the beer that he had us try was phenomenal. Brett ales were some of the most magical beers.

It tasted like the sweet musk of bales of hay with the always delicious pepper: grains of paradise. With every sip, I felt that I was leaning against a barn with a sprig of rye between my teeth and with the sun setting on my face.

As we had our fun, as we filled our bellies, and as the sun moved over the sea, I kept thinking of that beer. By that time, we had made it back to the pavilion. The throng was thicker. There were many goblins, but they seemed almost bored.

The half-orc judge was smiling. His arms were crossed and it seemed like a pleasure was like a glint in his eyes.

Erik leaned over and said, “Luck to ye.”

“You too!”

Corylus bounced on his toes. “Good luck you guys!”

Lady Agav soon stood from the judges table and rang a bell. She crossed to the fore of the pavilion.

“Hop-heads and Barley-bellies! Welcome to the sixth hundred and thirteenth Oude Brewer’s festival of Lavenfauvish.”

The crowd cheered, and it seemed like the goblins hooted only because the humans had suddenly gotten loud.

“One hundred and ten thousand Brewers have assigned gods to their quest paths this year! Twelve new ingredients have been catalogued in the Brewer’s Guide to Magic Ingredients.”

Cheers rose.

From the crowd, someone said, “Thank you to the Alchemists!”

“Yes, thank you to the Alchemists and their efforts to organize the guide! And we have seen a ten percent increase in entrants this year. Yet another exciting development for the festival is our new judge. Welcome, Adam Nim!”

Adam showed his palm as if that was hello enough.

“Let us begin with this year’s overall best beers, starting with bronze,” Continued Lady Agav.

The crowd pressed closer. An assistant to the judges brought forth the bronze trophy. It was of a large bronze hop cone with sheaves of wheat curling out from beside it.

Lady Agav opened an envelope and removed a folded sheet of paper. She smiled at the crowd. “I never thought I’d see the day. This year’s bronze medal goes to Erik Skullander for his Slime-tooth’s Goblin Spuck Clone Brew!”

The crowd cheered madly. Erik punched the sky and shouted his triumph. Corylus and I hugged the large man and congratulated him.

But something began to happen as the cheering subsided. The whispers of goblins began to grow louder. Their voices became excited, and they grew even louder.

“Slime-tooth?” said a goblin.

“Our Slime-tooth?”

“I told you there was a goblin name in there!”

“A goblin?”

“A goblin! A goblin!”

“We did it! We won!”

“Slime-tooth won!”

Their voices rose in volume that doubled the humans. They leapt, and they cheered, and they bounced around, and they sang.

Erik leapt into a pocket of goblins. “Ye bet yer arses we won! One for the goblins!”

“You know Slime-tooth?” said a goblin.

“Know him? Aye, he’s me second favorite goblin!”

Goblins circled Erik and cheered and hooted and hollered and climbed over each other like panicking cats.

The judges seemed to take the creature’s celebration in stride. Lady Agav waved Erik up to the pavilion. He waded through goblins and waded through humans. By the time he got up there, one of the goblins was sitting on his shoulder and waving to every single goblin he could see. Lady Agav was able to hush the crowd as much as goblins could be hushed.

Erik cleared his throat. “What an honor. This is the first beer I’ve submitted that I can wholeheartedly say I’m proud of. I’d first like to thank Slime-tooth-”

The goblins went berserk. Was it hearing a human thank a goblin that made them come to life so ardently? Corylus and I shared a mixed look of awe and bewilderment. The goblins went on and on about Slime-tooth, until Slime-tooth’s name was even in the mouths of humans.