Chapter 82

Goblin Come Here Inn

Chance of Mutiny: 00%

243 levels until fleet evolution.

Yulidd led me back down to the shore. In a short distance, by the water, warm light glowed from the windows of a building in the fog.

“There it is,” said Yulidd.

I ran, and Gabby followed close behind. It wasn’t until I stood right beneath a rotting wood sign that I could make out what it said.

“Goblin Come Here Inn. Wow, what a beautiful name!”

There was a ruckus inside. There was lots of clanging, lots of shouting, some screeching, lots of laughing, and lots of gulps and nose-blows. The door handle hung by a long brass pin. The latch had to be wrestled with and lifted to open the door. After thanking Yulidd, Gabby and I burst in.

At least 40 goblins filled the space. Many tables were missing legs, so they sat at a slant. The floor was filled with straw for thatching. Twine loosely ringed the furniture where there must have once been thatching.

There was a goblin standing on the counter of the bar. It was Thumb-up, one of my snots! She was waving her hands in a gesture to shush everyone.

“Then what happened?” a goblin said.

“That’s where Slime-tooth came in.”

“Slime-tooth, the god,” another one of my snots said in a reminding tone.

Thumb-up took a deep breath. “Bigger the fish, deeper the sea, thicker the line, sharper the hook. That’s what Slime-tooth said. He said it with a big voice from a big ball of green fire.”

Goblins balked. “No!”

“He did!” said Thumb-up.

“He did!” my snots corroborated.

“Listen,” said Thumb-up. “So we cast the line deep into the boiling, spitting magma!”

“Not possible because of the melting!”

“But I rolled a number twenty with this!” Thumb-up held up a small wooden die—one of Boggo’s dice! All goblins squinted. Their heads moved forward like the slight ebb of snaking snakes.

“Because I rolled a twenty, I was able to fish the blue rimmed lava manger!”

“Tell them what Slime-tooth said,” said Slur-speak.

Thumb-up cleared her throat and waved a hand really big. “If small fish can be shared, then big fish can be more shareder.”

Goblins oohed and aahed. A goblin behind the bar, wearing a reed-woven mat for an apron, and with quills piercing her nose and ears, mouthed Slime-tooth’s words. Suddenly, Slap-knee’s voice rose above others.

“Let me tell you about the talking pickle Slime-tooth helped us find!”

Goblins bounded across the tavern like monkeys racing and leaping downhill. Laughing so hard that my belly moved in and out, I dodged the goblins and clomped over mushy floorboards and slanted tables. Gabby and I greeted the goblin at the bar.

“Well, well, welcome to Goblin Come Here Inn. At your service is me—Quill-quill-quill. You must be Admiral Barnacle-eyes, knower of Slime-tooth!”

“That’s me! I know Slime-tooth personally. Also, I miss him.”

“Can I get you some water? For anything you can trade.”

Instead, I offered to share goblin spit beer. Quill-quill-quill put her smaller assistant goblin Quill-quill at the bar to manage things while she led Gabby and I to a back room in the inn. The room was missing a wall and the fog was inside. But holding hands, we made it altogether to a creaky thatched mattress where we sat to enjoy goblin spit beer.

“Is it true?” said Quill-quill-quill. “The giant onions and giant garlic?”

“Giant; big!”

“Is it true—the evolutions?”

“Sloop, ketch, galleon!”

“It’s true—the goblin spit beer!”

“Super good, isn’t it?”

“Hiring and recruiting? That’s true too?”

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“Lots of goblins!”

“But paying goblins can’t be true.”

“It is! I promised I would pay all my goblins, and I did.”

Quill-quill-quill retrieved a silver coin from her apron pocket. She turned it over and over. “You have a good crew member in Pinky-chew. Never seen a goblin so selfless. Paid for everyone’s water.”

“She lost all her goblins in a sinking.”

“I know what that looks like. See it every warm season when goblins shipwreck. Some Captains survive. Some…”

“Some, what?”

“Banana-nose was a captain who survived a shipwreck, but his snots didn’t. Night after night, we had to wrestle him from the water; he was wading in the dark rippling starlight, making such a noise, saying Chom-chomp!, Little-toes!, Graggle-throat!, Pick-ear!, and all such other names. One day Banana-nose went too far out in the water. We had no boats to go after him. The hurlicorns were too slow in waking when we went for help. Banana-nose just kept screaming for his goblins as he swam further out to sea. You see, his ship sank just out there. He was still screaming the names of his goblins even when he was neck deep. …Then he splashed a lot.”

“A goblin’s life is a hard life, but a goblin life is still a goblin life, and that counts for something.”

“Did Slime-tooth say that?”

“So I’ve learned.”

Quill-quill-quill cast her gaze to the foggy sky. “Do you think Banana-nose is with Slime-tooth right now?”

“Uhh… No, Slime-tooth is across the sea making ptooey.”

Quill-quill-quill looked stunned all of a sudden. “Slime-tooth made the ptooey in this beer?”

“Yep!”

“I am honored, Admiral!”

“Me too! I’m so honored.”

Gabby, sipping from her tankard, said, “I’m honored too, please thank you!”

We drank from our tankards, and the spit beer seemed extra special for some reason. Moments of foggy silence passed. A floorboard above us slid when a goblin walked over it.

“We had a beer like this one day,” said Quill-quill-quill. “We found a barrel in the sea. Had the name Hawkin on it.”

“I know Hawkin! He makes these beers. Gloom-glower, a mean old stupid king goblin, had a ship that sank once. Lots of Hawkin’s barrels floated away…Wow! Floated all the way to here!”

“It couldn’t be. It was nowhere near as good as this one.”

“Like Slime-tooth used to say, getting better gets even better the better one tries. Hawkin got better-er over time.”

“Then I bet, I bet.”

Quill-quill-quill suddenly exposed how badly she wanted to serve more than just water. Her Come Here Goblin Inn was made from flotsam, and it was a nice place to collect lost goblins. Yes, the inn had holes like a sloop, and it leaned one way in the wind, but it was a safe place for goblins. Yet, if only she had beer to sell instead of water.

“Thrush can help with that! I’ll call him and we’ll sell all the beer you want.”

After preparing Quill-quill-quill for the horrific arrival of Thrush, I poured a libation of his dreambon ale. I was so, so happy to see him and hug him. Within the next hour, Thrush was pleased to complete his 3rd Merchant’s Contract. Chimeric colored barrels were stacked to the ceiling behind the bar column after column, and goblins switched from drinking water to slurping spit beer. And my, what fun they were having!

When Quill-quill-quill and the smaller Quill-quill had filled all the tankards, I climbed a rickety stool to announce that I was recruiting. Snots surged toward me. There were so many things said, I couldn’t make out a single said thing! But after persistent, strained listening, I began to pick out the questions.

“Where we sailing?”

“Lurk-murky marsh!”

“Please thank you!”

“Then where?”

“Float-some Barge!”

“Paid? What’s paid?”

Oh, and that was the best part. All my snots enthusiastically shared that they were paid in full by coin! No take-backs, no lies, no fake-outs; just paid.

From the crowd, Remember-not spoke up. “All crew snots get hammered flower backpacks with lots and lots of pockets and dresses with lots and lots of pockets!”

“Lots of promotions too,” said Soft-song.

I couldn’t handle the sudden rush of goblins that wanted to be the first next snot aboard. I had Remember-not and Gabby help me…and where was Pinky-chew? This was a most perfect job for my Commodore! So while my goblins hired goblins, I dodged around the inn looking for Pinky-chew. I leapt over legs, ducked under armpits, bumped into tankards, dashed through dripping foam, climbed over slanted tables, fell through rotting stools, and slipped on ptooey until I finally made it back to the bar. Quill-quill-quill was bouncing on her toes and smiling big.

“Have you been recruited yet?” I said.

“Oh no, not me. I think I should stay.”

Just then, a floorboard beneath a stack of barrels broke in half and the barrels tumbled down. Goblins were put to task to restack those barrels.

“Yes, I should stay,” Quill-quill-quill continued. “Other goblins will be stranded here and I want them to have a place to be safe.”

That was something we bonded over as we sat to drink together at the bar. I wanted my fleet to have lots and lots of onions and garlic for all my snots to have so that they never went hungry. A home—that’s what it was!—was what I wanted.

“A home?” said Quill-quill-quill. “For goblins?”

“Somewhere that belongs to feeling belonged—like Slime-tooth was said to have said.”

“Slime-tooth said that?” Quill-quill-quill turned her gaze to the ceiling.

I looked there too, at the ceiling, and I saw straight through slats between floorboards. Through those slats, I saw between the slats of crooked shingles. Between crooked shingles I saw the stars. I thought of Hawkin’s Home Camp ethereal plane, and I wanted—all of a sudden—to write another letter to Slime-tooth.

The wind howled. Fog suddenly streamed through the holes of the inn like misty milk through comb tines. Goblins hurrahed. In the sudden cloudy inn, I heard goblins stub their toes, stools suffer cracks, and tables fall apart.

“I wish I were like you,” said Quill-quill-quill.

“Me?”

“You’re an Admiral. I want a quest thing too. Something that would help me build a big, big inn. It’s so, so broken.”

“I should help you fix it! You can borrow my skills. I have a Boat Builder skill. I can build with wood super easy.”

“Would you?”

“Thrush has lots of trees in his inventory. He’ll help too.”

As one, we turned to search for Thrush in the throng. After his delivery, the goblins had slowly warmed up to him. There were plenty still scared of him though. Thrush was in the middle of the inn with his head tilted back and his mouth wide open. One goblin stood on Thrush’s bottom fangs and held onto his upper fangs. He peered deep inside and shouted, “Hello!”

“When do we start?” said Quill-quill-quill.

“When the starting starts!”