Chapter 190

An Important Ingredient.

Barnacle-eyes was clearly beat. She had slogged until dusk. The skiff she had been building turned out to be as long as the sloop. She lay plopped between thwarts. She had the back of her head rested against the gunwale. My collection mana jar was now only a third full, and it glowed a sharp azurite blue beside her.

We worked just as hard as she did to chop trees and rip branches to hand down to her. When I had thought the skiff was complete, barnacle-eyes had a few more finishing touches to make.

Once the skiff was complete, we all worked with Third Hand attribute beers to cross stack logs in the middle. Abigail gently lowered Slime-tooth onto the bed of logs where I had forged an ethereal label big enough to be called a quilt. Against the spectral colors of the ethereal material, Slime-tooth was silhouetted.

Barnacle-eyes boarded her sloop. She came to me wearily.

“Guess that’s it?” she said. “We burn him.”

“Would you like to send him off with something?” I said. “How about we brew a special beer together, and we can put it on his ship.”

“But he can’t drink it.”

“It’s a way to do something for him.”

“Can we make it a spit beer?” she said. “The one you were helping Slime-tooth make? Oh! And can we add garlic to it?”

“I’ve got some goblin spit left. How about you throw in one last ptooey into Slime-tooth’s black barrel?”

Barnacles sucked air in through her nose. She rattled the deep of her throat. After working her tongue, she shot a big ‘ol ptooey into the floating sphere of Brewer’s Bubble. The beer reached a quality of 28/100 Chimeric.

“According to the quality tier, this is the best beer I’ve ever brewed,” I said. “Why don’t you put it right beside him.”

Barnacle-eyes climbed down the hull of the sloop, boarded the skiff and gently laid the bottle between Slime-tooth’s arm and his torso. The bottle blended with the label Slime-tooth was lain upon.

A few fingers nudged my shoulder.

One of the beer collectors who’d been helping said, “Excuse me, would it be all right if I gave up a bottle of beer for Slime-tooth? Most of us came to Green-fin to add one of the weirdest beers in the world to our collection, but we’ve gotten to know the goblins quite well.”

“Barnacle-eyes!” I shouted.

“I’ll be right up,” she said. “I’m just telling him that he was my favorite goblin.”

“Would it be all right if…” I turned to the man, and asked with an expression.

“Lance,” he said.

To Barnacle-eyes I said, “Would it be all right if Lance gave Slime-tooth a beer too?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Well there’s plenty of room!” she said.

Lance offered up a blueberry pie spontaneity beer. As the bottle was passed through the crowd of goblins, each one sniffed at the cork and licked their lips. Green bellies began to rumble.

Lance must have inspired the rest of the humans who’d been helping. In turn, they each offered up a bottle from their collection. There were a few Brewers who brewed up some sustenance beers and attribute beers.

Hiccup came to me and said, “I was hoping we could offer something, so I had Riggvelte fetch a few items.”

Butlers ascended the gangway. Goblins parted for the men and women who carried baskets of garlic and onion. Goblin eyes went wide, and they stared at the piles. I caught HIccup smiling as he observed them.

“Would you all like to offer something to Slime-tooth?” said Hiccup.

Goblins looked at each other as if they should respond as a group. Heads began eagerly nodding. They kept on nodding until Hiccup grabbed a basket from on of his butlers and set it right on the deck at the goblins’ feet.

“Why don't each of you grab an onion or a bulb of garlic and offer them with some kind words,” he said.

Goblins formed into bailing lines like the formation was gravity’s destination. Were it not for the baskets, I was certain the onions would have rolled into line with them. That’s how second nature their bailing lines seemed.

One by one they plucked onions and garlic from the baskets and went down to load the skiff. At Slime-tooth’s feet, each one said a prayer or whispered for what must have been a request for blessings. A few of them told Slime-tooth that they hoped he liked the garlic.

And what a strange sight it was when the skiff was at last loaded with garlic and onion. Where humans would have received rows of packed flowers, the goblins loved the piles of bulbs.

The goblins, Brewers, and beer collectors weren’t the only ones to offer something. Thrush descended to the skiff. Boggo and Ella’s snouts poked out of the flaps of his backpack. Several colorful round poofs tried to escape. The besties left a wooden figurine of Slime-tooth, and Thrush left an enormous wheel of cheese. Upon seeing the cheese, goblins cheered as if they’d just battled to victory.

Smith offered a brand new pair of black boots, and Barnacle-eyes lost it when she fit them on Slime-tooth’s much smaller feet.

When it was my turn, I descended the netting attached to the skiff. I offered pink apples, some of my favorite beers, dandelion roots, and ingredients for beer. Then I clipped his hair and kept it in my inventory.

“I don’t think we can fit much else,” said Barnacle-eyes just as the last goblin had asked for a blessing.

One pile of onions was too tall. The boat rolled over a particularly large wave, and onions rolled over the gunwale and splashed the sea.

Gabby rushed to the taffrail and she chirped at the sea like a chipmunk. Before I could ask what on earth she was doing, goblins gasped and pointed at the water beside the skiff where onions bobbed. A hammerhead shark surfaced and retrieved the fallen onions for Barnacle-eyes. Gabby tumbled down to the skiff, and she reached out and petted the shark.

“This is pat! What a good familiar!”

“Toss down the tow rope!” said Barnacle-eyes after the goblins bid Pat farewell.

Things went rather quickly after that. The skiff was lashed to the sloop, and Barnacle-eyes sailed us off to deeper waters.

Under Barnacle-eyes’ strong command goblins lowered a jolly boat from its davits. The Admiral and Pinky-chew climbed aboard, and Abigail gave them Fire Dagger attribute ales.

While the two goblins rowed the jolly boat, Pinky-chew blew impossibly strong gales of wind to push the skiff ahead of them, until they were far enough to blend with the dark sea under a clear night of stars.

A flame sprouted in the dark. It stabbed the pile of wood on the skiff, and flames began to spread. Smoke began rising from the piles of garlic and onions. By the time Barnacle-eyes and Pinky-chew returned and boarded, the skiff was engulfed in flames.

“Hawkin?” said Barnacle-eyes as firelight flickered over her.

“Hmm?” I said.

“It still hurts so bad. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts. I wish there was a magic that could make me feel better.”

“I wish the same thing.”

“Will you hold my hand?” she said. “I think that would help.”

I gave her my hand. She reached for Abigail’s beside her. She wept as flames touched the stars.