Chapter 142
Final Final Version
Boggo
The Hand-O’War didn’t pitch like the galleon did. Sailing was smooth, and the horizon didn’t bounce in the view through the open hatch of the crow’s nest. It lay flat and steady. Thank the elder besties for that, because I didn’t think Ella would be able to handle the galleon’s rocking.
We slept much better at night. The spring air warmed as soon as the light of the sun hit the fleet. The sky was a charming blue. Five goblin fingers appeared at the edge of the threshold and grasped the wood.
“Come on in, Mister Stumble-not!” I said. I scampered over, lifted his pinky finger, and pulled him up.
“Wow!” said Stumble-not. “What a big, big crow’s nest. There’s room for…” He counted five of his fingers. “At least twelve snots.”
“Shh! Keep that bit of information to yourself. We don’t want this to become a goblin get-away. Anyways, we have a special task for you. A daring task. A wild task. A task that you might not come out of the same!”
Stumble-not hunched so that his head wouldn’t bang the ceiling. He took one look at Ella and cocked his head. “Aye, aye, Captain Ella’s bestie! Uh… How is Captain Ella doing?”
Ella grunted as she sat up and rearranged her yellow poof of fur at her back. “Just fine for now.”
Stumble-not slapped his belly, and it jiggled. “Captain Ella’s tiny bestie is gonna have to eat more fish and catch up to us!”
Ella’s fur bristled. Her snout wrinkled, and she didn’t hold back from once more reminding everyone that it was rather humid out. Humidity did things to fur, and fur needed maintenance, and maintenance was hard when it was humid, and going from dry to humid meant that fur had a hard time of it.
…Dawn sunlight sparkled on the crashing sea. Rigging clanged around the topmast. The sails flapped and snapped with strikes like those from a soft whip.
I skittered to Ella’s side and gave her kneading rubs on her back. “Okay Stumble-not, let’s focus on the task at hand. Here, have a seat. Are you ready?”
“Aye, aye!”
“This task is going to require cunning! And brawn! And-”
“We want to test out the final version of our board game,” said Ella.
“I’ll round up…” said Stumble-not, and he counted two fingers. “Three more goblins.”
“Just you is plenty,” she said. “We’d like to run a few campaigns with you and test out some mechanics.”
“More than one? Is that going to take a while?”
Ella’s gut rumbled. It rumbled on. We waited for the rumbling to end.
“I’ll go get some fish-on-sticks,” said Stumble-not.
“W-we don’t have anymore lime smack?” said Ella.
“All out.”
Ella turned onto her side and began bawling. Stumble-not and I shared a very, very surprised look. A wave of panic rushed through my limbs and stiffened my tail.
“Get us some fish-on-sticks and anything else you can get your hands on! We’ll set everything up until then.”
∞
Ella was all good again! She leaned against her giant blue and yellow poof. She munched on her fish-on-sticks while she hummed. She wiggled her feet. Never had I see her so content and with such big glossy eyes.
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Her eyes were so big, they were perfect for observing. She wanted to watch from the sidelines while I played as the game master. The first campaign was going well! Stumble-not had his whole heart in it.
He played an elephant named Best-captain who sailed an underwater ship. He quested for sunken treasure, and the final moments of the campaign were upon us. I stepped forward.
“Here we go, Best-Captain, listen up! The freebooter ghost of Pepper-breath floats above the loot. ‘Halt there,’ says the ghost. ‘You have braved the hammerhead sharks and the saw-head sharks and the knife-head sharks and the scissor-head sharks. But before I relinquish my loot, answer me this. What do you hold dearest in your heart?’”
“Promotion boots!” said Stumble-not.
“The body of Pepper-breath wavers like seaweed beneath crashing waters. He says, ‘here be the key,’ and hands you the key.”
I placed a key carved from bone before the big goblin’s elephant token.
“I step on the chest to open it!” he said.
My ears lay down. “You…don’t want to use the key? I mean, the whole campaign was based on getting the key.”
Ella, with her mouth full, pointed at us with a stained stick. “He wants to smash it. Sometimes you just want to smash something.”
What? Why was she looking at me? Why was she looking at me like that?
I gulped. “Sure…roll these.”
Stumble-not rolled an 11.
“The chest cracks, but that’s not enough for an underwater elephant freebooter to break it. Now’s the perfect chance to use that awesome key.”
Ella bit into a fry and slid the skewer out. “Nah, he’s got four paws. Try again, Best-Captain!”
Stumble-not rolled a 23.
“Crash!” Ella mumbled around her chewed fry.
I mimed an explosion. “The chest crashes apart in splinters. You take a look at the loot and you see…”
“What do I see?” said Stumble-not.
“Four beetle-black promotional boots in your size!”
Stumble-not leapt to his feet, turned to the open hatch of the crow’s nest and hollered his victory. “I got a promotion!”
What a campaign that was! We weren’t tired just yet. There were more campaigns left to test! In the next one, Stumble-not wanted to be a freebooter human who raided cities. At first he went after hidden coffers. As the campaign progressed, his interest jumped to shiny objects, to gleaming objects, and finally to stinky cheeses. He heard how good they could be.
In the following campaign, he chose to be a bestie, and he wanted to fly!
“Are you sure? Because besties don’t really fly. Like at all. Not even a little bit.”
Ella, with her mouth double full, said, “It’s because we’re always leaping from rig to rig. It probably looks like we’re flying all over the ship.”
Stumble-not rolled a 15.
Ella swallowed. Just when she was about to speak, she slurped up another fry. “Well, there you have it. The first flying bestie.”
Okay, I had enough. “Now wait just a minute, you two. Let me check the rules.”
I hauled out our fiber bound rule manual and dragged it over like I was dragging Thrush’s backpack. After a couple of pulls, I opened the manual and flipped through it.
“Well I’ll be…” I said after a minute.
I was so into the campaign with the flying bestie that I was shaking with trepidation at some point. Stumble-not did not care what cliff he hauled himself down, nor what window he threw himself out of, nor what gap he tried to close. Oh, it was terrifying! Ella made whooshing sounds with every action. It didn’t help that the wind came curling into the crow’s nest from time to time.
It wasn’t until the next campaign where Stumble-not played a jellyfish that Iw as able to calm down. As a jellyfish, he owned a jelly-smack shop in the middle of a goblin city. His shop had sails, and it could sail up and down the streets with the gentlest breeze.
I played a happy paying customer. “Thank you for the smack. Will you be here tomorrow?”
“You’re welcome. Who knows? I’ll be wherever the wind takes me.”
Ella started bawling. “I love Jelly-block! He just wants to be nice to goblins and sell jellyfish and sail his shop around.” She plucked a fish-on-stick from her bucket and slurped it up like it could calm her nerves. “What a life. Favorite character so far, paws down.”
Paws down, the following campaign was the true test to our game mechanics. Stumble-not desperately wanted to play as goblin god Slime-tooth. He was an incorporeal character, but I still gave him a bigger than average player piece in Slime-tooth’s likeness. It was the one which all the goblins had loved to play with. None had ever been Slime-tooth himself until now.
Stumble-not promoted goblins left and right. Nothing was excepted from promotion! Even the onions and garlics were promoted, and they evolved into tastier wonions and warlics! The campaign hinged on a big goblin whom I decided to name Stumble-not.
“All right-y,” I said. “Last one. Roll.”
Stumble-not, playing as the goblin god, rolled a 20.
“You did it, Slime-tooth! You promoted every goblin and garlic and onion on your fleet. Your fleet leveled up to super-diamond-emerald rank.”
Stumble-not rose and shouted to the heavens. “I am Slime-tooth, god of goblins! Bless you, and you, and you, and you! I bless every goblin with good luck and long life!”
It was suddenly very quiet. The goblins below were never so quiet during the day. I scampered to the threshold and peered down.
All of Barnacle-eyes’ goblins looked at the sky in wonder!