On a slightly misty yet promisingly warm late summer morning, two young men walked along the sparsely traveled road that led to Valor, the great city of adventurers. One of them on the tall side for humans but awfully scrawny for his height, and despite his shaved head and intentionally rough looking outfit, his bony face and poor posture made him hardly a formidable sight. The other man was noticeably portly by comparison, yet otherwise commonly proportioned. With his neatly trimmed hair and colorful, expensive clothes, he made his position in the upper society clear. Neither of them donned equipment or gear that would make anyone mistake them for the citizens of the city of adventurers, nor was Valor even the goal for their trip.
Older of the two, though only by mere months, Charles Lauferspy, the third of his name – the more weighty of the pair. Heir to a budding merchant family and the new owner of the patch of land the men promptly traversed on. He fancied himself to be a clever man, apt at negotiation and wordsmanship, somewhat justifiably as well, but not to a degree that reflected reality. With plenty of grandeur in his steps, he led the party of two towards their destination.
Meekly following in his friend’s pompous steps, was Rupert Gmorp, a close childhood friend of Charles and in possession of a much less marketable name. Tall, plain and unassuming, Rupert sometimes wondered why his friend was so intent on making him his business partner, as he lacked almost all skills required for the job, but he was equally lacking in his own goals and ambitions and couldn’t even fathom questioning his friend’s plans.
The land near the border of Valor was usually well-contested due to frequent traffic and safety provided by the adventurers, but for some strange reason, the previous owner of the plot had almost allowed Charles to steal the area for free. To most reasonable folk, that alone would have been enough to fill them with suspicion and cause them to seek bargains elsewhere, but the young Lauferspy was eager to make a name for himself as well as show his old man what he was able to do, by acquiring a valuable piece of land and turning it into something extremely profitable.
Upon first surveying his new purchase, the pair chatted up hunters frequenting the forests of the area, who knew to inform the merchant about a considerable goblin infestation within the plot’s borders. With a bit of investigation and scouting, it was revealed to them that near the border with Valor, there was a full-blown settlement of the green little buggers. Apparently, they were ruled by a pair of monarchs that hadn’t been seen by anyone and any attempts to do so had ended up with a sizeable mass of goblins forcibly removing the intruders, no matter how hard they had tried to hide their presence – there were rumors of something larger lurking in the woods as well, but no one could confirm or deny it further.
“Glorious! Simply glorious! Are they not, my friend?” Charles marveled at the bright green, pristine woods surrounding them.
The abundance of wildlife and the complete lack of the taint of civilization was surprising so close to one of the largest cities in the world, but instead of finding that suspicious, the young merchant only grew more certain of it being his big break into the world of mercantile and diplomacy.
“sure, but why are we here again?” Rupert asked warily, as leaving the guarded confines of a city had never been something he found much joy in. After all, there was no telling what manner of dangerous beasties the wilderness had reserved for them.
Charles grinned, showing his pearly white teeth. “Why of course, as the new owner of the land, I am here to greet my tenants! You, as my business partner, are here to witness as I carve out the first steps of my legacy! Our legacy!” He explained and pointed at a thin column of smoke rising over the treetops from a nearby field.
“You’re not talking about the goblins, are you? I think they might literally eat us, that’s something they do, probably.” Responded Rupert worryingly.
“Of course I am! If they’re smart enough to have a king and queen, surely the concept of rent can’t be beyond their comprehension?” The merchant pointed out with the glimmer of gold in his eyes. He grabbed his friend and slowly swiped his hand across the horizon. “Imagine, hordes of workforce that can easily be fooled into paying us with whatever resources this great piece of land hides! All we need to do, is to befriend them with kind words and shiny things.”
Rupert sighed. “Wouldn’t it just be simpler to pay some adventurers to get rid of them? We’re right by the city too.” he suggested. “Shouldn’t that increase the value of this plot as well? I’m no expert but pests rarely make things more valuable.”
“They’re not pests – necessarily, at least.” Charles laughed heartily. “They could be friends with financial obligations! Who knows, maybe their leaders are reasonable.”
As the pair continued on their path towards the goblin settlement, they began passing odd small structures and what could be construed to be totems of some kind. Stones piled in random yet somehow purposeful-looking stacks, decorated with sticks, tools and other assorted trash. Tree branches jabbed into the ground and garnished with discarded items, pieces of cloth and more. Some of the trees around the road had pieces of rusted armor and weapons pied to them with wire and dried vines, some clearly imitating soldiers, others simply thrown together without any rhyme or reason.
All of this would have in most circumstances been exceedingly eerie to witness and could have most certainly been taken as a warning or a suggestion to turn back, but somehow none of the arrangements appeared hostile or threatening in any way. If anything, it gave off a feeling of childhood wonder, as if the countless constructs had been built by children over countless days of merry playing in the forest.
Little ways forwards, the path split and circled around a large flat stone, with a curious arrangement of stones on it. In the middle of the entire thing, was a pinecone with a couple of sticks jabbed into it. By the pinecone’s side was a larger stone, with what looked like lines drawn with crushed blueberries on it.
In front of the two was a pair of slightly smaller stones, one mostly covered by a few dried leaves that were knitted together with sticks to form a cover or a cape, and the other riddled with lines similar to the large one, but drawn with a greenish color made by mushing leaves together.
Arranged around the four larger objects, were dozens of small pebbles of almost identical size and shape. In fact, their similarity was almost mind-boggling when considering how many of them there were. Even for an army, it would have taken days of combing through a beach to find such uniform pieces.
Surrounding and holding together the entire formation was a coil of incredibly long strands of silvery hair that glimmered beautifully in the sunlight. Curiously, though it wasn’t held down by anything, the loop of hair didn’t budge in the slightest in the slight summer breeze.
Charles scratched his head and looked at the formation that obviously held some importance to whoever had made it. “What do you think this means? Some kind of a forest magic rune?” He asked and foolishly picked up one of the pebbles.
Almost immediately, an audible rustle and the sound of a snapping twig came from the treetops near the men, and the underbrush in the woods around them began to move. Garbled whispers and distant screeches filled the air and echoed throughout the misty forest.
“Moved the goblin. Rude.” One of the clearer whispers noted with a raspy, screechy voice.
“Put goblin back!” A second screech commanded from the other side of the road.
The men moved closer to each other and stood back to back, pulling out their hilariously small knives in the hopes of being able to defend themselves. Their weaponry would have been appropriate to have in a brawl outside some tavern, but in the wilderness, such butter knives wouldn’t have spared them from a particularly vicious badger – especially with their level of skill in wielding them.
“Put the stone back where it was!” Rupert helplessly pleaded to his friend and kept watching the movement in the woodline on his side of the road.
Charles, overcome by his nerves as soon as the possibility of physical altercations was on the table, fumbled and accidentally allowed the pebble to slip from his grasp and hide itself among the countless stones of the dirt road. He shrieked in terror and fell prone to look for the stone.
“What are you doing?! Lets just take our chances and run for it!” The meeker of the two wailed. “We’ll come back with a regiment of mercs and clear this area out properly!”
Just as he said that, the noises in the bushes ceased in a blink of an eye, when a flock of birds escaped something from a nearby treetop. Seconds later, a dark figure shot out of the tall birch to their left and blotted out the sun with its flowing cape.
With a landing that was almost impossibly devoid of impact, the figure landed a few meters away from the terrified duo of morons.
Clad in a curious green cloak, before them stood a strange being of stone and metal. Standing almost as tall as Rupert, it stared down at the men with its eyes burning with light blue light. It brushed aside one side of the strangely metallic-looking cape and revealed its mechanical body. Obviously modeled on a humanoid form, the machine mimicked the bare musculature, with both stone and metal parts soundlessly gliding over each other as it moved. Much of its mechanical parts appeared uncovered, as the machine’s only pieces of armor plate covered the upper part of its chest, its forearms and its powerful-looking legs, that started out stocky at the joints of its hips, but ended in points barely thicker than a finger by the time they reached the ground.
“What is that?” Charles whispered and avoided looking directly at the machine, as if that would have somehow shielded him from its sight.
Rupert was shaking from head to toe as he still unintentionally held the mechanical being at knifepoint. “I… I think it’s one of them simulacrumbs.” He whispered back. “The ones Tammy told us about. They’re some old machines that still cause all kinds of trouble near their homes.”
“Why are there simulacrumbs on my property?!” The young merchant continued whispering while laying completely still on the ground. “Do something!”
“What am I supposed to do?!” Hissed Rupert. “Ask if it could get stabbed nicely?”
The machine had been motionlessly observing the men as they quarreled in whispers. Whether it was actually listening to them remained unclear, however, it did not appreciate the pathetic weapon pointed at it and proceeded to swiftly kick Rupert’s hand by gracefully hoisting its foot almost directly at the sky.
The now disarmed young man could have sworn that he felt his fingers fly into the distance along with his knife and fell on his knees, clutching his lightly bleeding hand in agony. “It kicked my fucking fingers off!” He cried in sheer terror.
“Fucking damnit, Rupert! Why does it always have to be me and my silvery tongue that gets us out of trouble?!” Charles asked angrily before taking a deep breath while wiping away the excessive sweat from his face, brought on by the intense situation. He then slowly stood up while holding up his arms to prove he was unarmed.
“Why, good evening to you… uhh… miss?” He greeted the machine, guessing how to address it entirely based on the slight padding the armor on its chest created. “First and foremost, I must apologize for my business partner’s rudeness in pointing his knife at you, but I do sincerely hope you understand that we are not well-learned in manners of the woods.” The merchant apologized with a bright, faked smile on his face and bowed deep.
A few drops of sweat fell from his brow as the machine silently stared down at him. The lack of reaction from its part, particularly a violent one, signaled to Charles that his apology had reached its target and he slowly lifted his head.
“You might not have heard of me, but I am the illustrious Charles Lauferspy, the heir to the grand company of Lauferspy’s Goods and Crafts, who have achieved much acclaim over the last hundred and seven years of our humble operation. I am delighted to inform you that these pristine lands have been procured by yours truly, and my business partner and I were merely surveying this wonderful area in order to see how to effectively allow its esteemed inhabitants to join the great Lauferspy family and enjoy the perks from it!” He continued with a pompous tone and copious amounts of flair in his gestures. The years of practice and lessons for influencing possible customers hadn’t gone entirely to waste, as his spiel would have no doubt had some effect on most people, however, the one facing him didn’t seem swayed. In fact, it almost appeared that the ancient machine had hardly noticed him.
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Suddenly the construct rudely shoved the merchant aside, pushing him over into the dirt again, and kneeled to look for the pebble he had dropped. One by one it picked up small stones, spent a while inspecting them before placing them back down to the exact spot it had taken them from.
This continued for a good while, as the pair stared at the machine in both terror and confusion. Though they both considered running away as fast as they could, neither could muster the courage to move an inch, lest it bothered the machine.
They exchanged panic-filled looks and tried to figure out what to do. Rupert nodded towards the direction they had come from, suggesting escape. Nearest town was only a couple of kilometers away, and he could have no doubt ran all the way there for help.
Charles wasn’t as confident in the shape he was in, and in case they tried running, he certainly didn’t want to be the slower one. He shook his head and suggested that they laid low, avoiding attention as much as they could.
Finally, after countless inspected stones, the automaton appeared to find what it was looking for. It held up a rock that looked in no way special or distinctive and let out a slight hum that scared the young men cowering in its feet.
From the bushes on the left side of the road, appeared a small creature, barely reaching higher than a grown man’s knee, green and completely covered in ants, it was unmistakably a goblin. Stopping every few steps to pick up an ant that had fallen off it and proceeding to eat them, it happily hopped over to the machine and screeched when the stone was handed to it.
With a grand gesture, the goblin placed the stone among the others and ate a few more ants it noticed crawling on its hand. After a bit more excited screeching over the fixed altar, it turned to the merchant with a puzzled look on its face. “Why on ground?” It croaked and pointed at the forest where it had appeared from. “There, ant pile for food if too tired.”
“I… I’m afraid I don’t eat ants.” Charles responded warily and watched as the goblin squirmed a bit while being bitten by countless, fairly large, ants.
Suddenly the machine picked up the wiggling goblin by its feet and began shaking it with quite a bit of force, until almost all the ants had flown off its green skin. For the entire time, the goblin screamed hysterically, and when the shaking ended, it howled for more.
Now covered in ants and goblin slobber, Charles watched the goblin get shaken for minutes on end, completely dumbfounded. “Are… are you the leader of these goblins?” He asked from the machine, that immediately stopped shaking the goblin but did not release it.
“Leader? Leggy a hugscarl! Not queen!” The goblin croaked as it was being dangled upside down.
Charles wiped the droplets of drool off his face while trying to figure out what ‘a hugscarl’ was. “A housecarl? The goblin royals have a simulacrumb as a housecarl?” He asked, now seeing a faint glimmer of hope in the horizon. If the goblin settlement was orderly enough to have ranks such as housecarl, it was likely they would be smart enough to be negotiated or at least bargained with by offering them goods.
“Hugscarl! Hugscarl!” The goblin screeched excitedly as it was finally lowered on the ground, where it crawled on all fours, as it had forgotten how to walk during the time it was begin held up. It skittered to Rupert, who was holding his still bleeding hand and almost crying. “Queen says blood better inside.” It shared its insight.
Rupert had recovered from the initial shock of getting kicked and had realized that his fingers were at least all still there, though a couple of them were broken for sure. Even though the bleeding was light at worst, it was still enough to stain his hand and clothes a seemingly large amount of blood, which terrified him to no end and kept him from answering.
“Goblin sometimes break grabbies too. Forget to move hand when banging rocks.” The green critter nodded knowingly. “Big hurt, but then queen tie magic stick on and hurt go away after sleep.”
Now almost excited, Charles slowly stood up and wiped the dust off his clothes. “Hear that, mate? It’s talking about splints! This queen knows about first aid, we should go meet her so we can get your hand fixed up… and maybe then negotiate about the rent issue since we’ll be there anyway.” He said and walked over to help his friend up, taking a bit of a detour to avoid getting too close to the automaton.
“Or we could just go back and get a priest or a doctor to take a look at it instead of some kind of a forest creature?” Rupert suggested passive-aggressively. “Or maybe you could just go alone since you’re so damn eager? I’m dying here and you’re still going on about your stupid plans, quite a business partner you are.”
“Oh shush! I’m just looking out for us in the long term. We nail this one and my folks will increase my budget tenfold! Think of all the things we could acquire, all the fine food, art and the ladies.” The young merchant dismissed his friend’s perfectly sensible worries and patted him on the back. “You can say goodbye to our admittedly quiet social life! Even people like us become prime candidates for marriage when there’s enough money involved.”
The last bit especially did a lot to sway his priorities. Sure, having a fucked-up hand would be a bummer, but he convinced himself that being rich and having a fucked-up hand would somehow make it a good thing, an ice breaker or the like – technically, it was also a battle injury as well. “You’re right. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this queen isn’t a goblin, but a dryad or something. I hear those like to walk around naked in the woods.” He successfully motivated himself.
“That’s the spirit, Rupert! They say you’re a bit of a coward, but by the gods, you’re brave like a war hero when thinking with your dick, and that’s what I like about you!” Charles cheered on his friend.
Still on all fours, the goblin scratched the countless ant bites it now had and seemed to be trying its best to form a sentence from something it knew. “Preestessss… Queen knows, sometimes bring cookie from the mother of spice.” It croaked and momentarily lost the control of its feet from having to think so hard.
“See? The goblin queen even knows a priestess that can help.” Charles said to finish his case. “Could either of you guide us to this most esteemed of queens? We would eternally be in your debt.” He asked from the residents of the area and bowed politely.
“QWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNN!” The goblin suddenly screeched with an ear-piercing volume that echoed throughout the forests and fields around them.
Every few seconds, a similar scream responded from somewhere in the distance and one by one, more goblins plopped out of the undergrowth, all of them screaming endlessly and forming a small horde of a dozen around the visitors.
Each of the green critters had what even a kind person would call ‘garbage’ strapped on to their person with woolen string and dried vines. Utensils, feathers, pieces of rotten food, random pieces of metal and wood, nails, broken tools, pieces of clothes and more had been attached to their faces, arms and legs, all giving each of the goblins a somewhat distinctive look from each other.
As if the swarm of screaming goblins wasn’t unnerving enough, a few of them carried rusted weapons with complete lack of ability or skill, becoming a threat to everyone nearby. The automaton picked up a few it could reach and threw the weapons back into the woods, but for every blade it confiscated, two more knifes, forks and snapped arrows appeared.
One of the goblins began running a vine around the merchant’s leg and its own arm, trying to attach the entire man on itself like he was a trophy it was claiming. Charles didn’t know if he should have stopped it, but ultimately was too worried about insulting the tribe before getting the chance to meet their queen.
“Charles, I regret everything.” Rupert whispered and pointed at a goblin that had armed itself with a stolen set of rather provocative underwear, donning them as well as it could – which was not well, considering the size difference with an average woman and an average goblin.
Hoping the scarring image hadn’t permanently burned itself into his retinas, the young merchant took a deep breath and let the horde push him into the direction of the settlement. “Just do it for the money, pal.” He whispered back.
As they made their way onwards at the approximate speed of a goblin that was strapped on someone’s leg, more and more goblins joined them, quickly doubling the size of the crowd. The additional ones were no less worrying to the visitors, and when a goblin that was waving around a loaded crossbow appeared from the bushes, both of them considered running once more. Luckily the machine person following them knew wat it was doing, as it quickly grabbed the weapon and snapped it in two like it was a brittle piece of rotten wood.
For the entire duration of the relatively short, yet agonizingly slow trip, the most disturbing of the goblins taunted the men with its presence in front of the group, forcing both of them to see it at all times as they watched their feet to avoid stomping on any members of the horde that happened to fall over; something that happened almost impossibly frequently as they distracted themselves from walking by trying to sing horrifyingly tone-deaf goblin songs – none of them singing the same one at the same time of course.
Barely halfway on this walk of utter torment, both of the men had made a silent agreement that whatever was going on was no longer worth it, no matter what they would get out of it. The goblin royalty’s lair could have been a treasure-trove filled to brim with gold and beautiful concubines, and it would not have been enough to undo the damage caused. However, backing out was equally impossible, since that would have made the torture they had gone through entirely pointless.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity or two amidst continuous barrage of vocal and visual abuse, the group tuned around a tall patch of bushes and could see the castle of the goblins. At the same time, it was both an underwhelming and extremely impressive sight; a circular wall of stone, roughly three to four meters in height and more than thirty meters in diameter. Leaning over it were massive tree trunks that formed a bit of a yurt-like design, topped with discarded carpets, leaves, branches and whatever else that could be used to make it waterproof.
A thin streak of smoke rose from a small opening in the middle of the roof and signaled that someone was home – and to a far more worrying degree, that the goblins had access to fire.
Around the castle, there were still some goblins doing things with purposes that could not be explained by a stable mind, or things that were simply utterly purposeless. A few appeared to be licking frogs and some were either asleep on the grass, or dead – possibly from the poisonous frogs.
“That is… uhh… a beautiful home your people have.” Charles stated and stared at the structure that, regardless of its looks, must have taken immense amounts of work to build.
“Queen wanted castle, goblin make castle.” The critter tied to his leg answered proudly.
Though the makeshift totems and arrangements lined the nearby forests, the area around the castle was surprisingly clean of clutter. Aside from a few buckets piled up next to the tarp that was covering the entryway to the castle, even the grass appeared to be somehow kept, only having a somewhat trampled path where the grass had wilted, leading to the castle itself.
The same feeling of childhood wonder the totems had given off, had only grown stronger near the castle, and the entire thing almost felt like an over-sized secret base, built a bit out of the way from the town by its children. Though the residents of the area were at times disturbing to say the least, the center of their habitat felt completely and utterly serene. The weather appeared sunnier, the air fresher, the grass greener, almost like the entire thing was from a fairytale.
Rupert looked around in awe, for a moment, the pain from his hand had subsided and happiness took over his usually a bit gloomy existence. It was almost like all the weight on his shoulders had shifted off for just a while. “This place… can you feel it?” He asked and turned to his equally stunned friend.
Charles smiled happily as a few birds swooped over them as they played in the air. “I can.” He laughed. “Remember that place by the river, when we were ten or eleven?” It’s like I’m there again.
“The one behind the rocks, near where the maids from your place would go swimming on their time off?” Rupert smirked and high-fived his friend. “Happier times.”
“You know it.” Charles laughed and took one more sweeping glance at the area and filled his lungs with the purest of airs he had ever inhaled. “We’re going to make so much money out of this.”
Their moment of awe was interrupted by yet another goblin exiting the castle. However, unlike the other spry and agile ones that were having a hard time staying put for a second, this one moved slowly, using a large bent ladle as a cane to support itself. Despite it looking almost decrepit in its hunched over posture, somehow this old goblin radiated authority and wisdom uncommon for their kind. The most striking feature on the elder of the village was the thin swath of long, white hairs hanging from its chin, on a quick glance it looked much like a beard, but in reality it was simply attached to the critter’s face with some kind of glue – which did take a bit away from the effect its entrance was having, but not much. However, as it got closer, the rest of its behavior started to look more and more like a clumsy act that actual feebleness.
“That wise Gobby.” The goblin attached to the merchant’s leg whispered, or at least it thought it did, but it was simply talking with a slightly coarser voice. “So wise that immortal. Some goblin say Gobby here from start.”
“Is he well respected? Should we kneel?” Charles whispered back.
“No.” The goblin said and shook its head. “Sometimes kneel with both knee at the same time. Many hurt face, so queen said no.”
As Gobby the Wise approached the visitors, Charles bowed long and deep. Rupert, still stunned by their surroundings, took a couple of seconds to follow his example.
“Oh, Gobby, wisest of the goblins, bearer of knowledge. Tales of your longevity and wisdom too arcane for the minds of men and elf have reached far and wide! It is truly a gift from the gods themselves to witness your compact might in person!” The young merchant immediately started buttering up the first being that appeared to have any authority in the settlement. He lifted his head and smiled widely with an expression that had taken countless hours in front of a mirror to perfect. “I am but a humble merchant by the name of Charles Lauferspy, the third of my name; and this equally humble young man is my business partner and lifelong friend, Rupert. As it so happens, we have come into possession of the paperwork giving me the absolutely enviable right to own these pristine lands. As you, wise one, and your people have been here from before the exchange, I have come to greet you with the purest of intentions. It is my sole wish that our coexistence will be bountiful for all involved, after all.”
Gobby squinted as the gears in its head were visibly struggling to turn at all. “Man of big speak, why come here?” It inquired, completely ignoring the hollow praise it just received. “Speak to queen?”
Charles nodded. “Yes, though you no doubt possess the insight we search for, I would love nothing more than to greet her as well. Is her highness available? I fear that I have not prepared any appropriate gifts, but the bounty for our cooperation will be plentiful, I assure you.” He said despite beginning to suspect that there was nothing much special about the goblin called Gobby.
Without further discussion, the horde surrounding the visitors began forcibly shoving them towards the goblin castle’s entrance.