Chapter 3

The goblins snored the night away and come morning they started to wake up. One of them sat up, sniffed the air, sniffed again and sneaked into the kitchen. It followed its nose to a piece of meat and started gulping it down.

Another goblin made its way to the kitchen and saw it stuffing itself with meat. They locked eyes and the first one paused for a moment and then started again with greater urgency. The other one jumped it and started tearing the food away from it. Soon it turned into a brawl, food forgotten. Meanwhile a third goblin came and started eating the left-over meat while watching the fight.

The rest woke up due to the commotion and watched as the last piece of meat disappeared into the mouth of the eating goblin.

He watched the situation unfold and had laughing fit watching them. Inspiration struck him and he summoned a slab of meat above the goblin group. It fell on top of a one and the others watched him for a moment and leaped at him, all of them trying to get a piece for themselves. Another brawl broke out as they scraped, clawed and bit each other.

Eve, did you see his face when the meat fell on his head? So worth the mana.

That was mean. Why did you do that?

Ehm, because it was funny. I mean, did you see the look on his face? Priceless.

Doesn’t change the fact it was mean. They could get hurt.

Eve, they are goblins.

Just because someone is a bit dumb doesn’t allow you to hurt them.

But they are goblins! They probably hurt somebody before.

That doesn’t mean you have the right to hurt them too.

Alright, I won’t do it again. Happy? He gave in, seeing she wouldn’t budge. Aren’t you a bit too smart for somebody born the day before yesterday?

She giggled in response but said nothing.

Meanwhile, part of the goblins left to hunt, probably the ones who were too late to get to the kitchen. The rest just lazed around. He tried to find out which one of them was their boss, but all of them just sat on their asses or bickered with one another. He guessed he was with the hunting party, if there even was one.

Hey.

Yeah?

What’s your name?

Oh, I haven’t told you, did I? The name is… I forgot.

How can you forget your name?

It just… happened. Vanished from my mind. And the window is blank.

So, you don’t have a name? Mind if I give one?

Suure, just pick a good one, please.

She became silent and when he prodded her for an answer few minutes later, she replied: I am thinking.

Is she making one from scratch? He thought, getting slightly worried. Nonetheless he left her to it and went to do something, he just needed to figure out what that something was. The goblins were boring to watch, and he promised he wouldn’t be mean to them. Though he thought it was ridiculous, they were goblins. He looked around the house, meaning he kind of felt everything at once. Being a house was weird. He noticed the bed was unmade and felt a slight urge to fix it. Being a house was weird. He cleaned it of dirt and grime from the goblins, folded the blanket and shook the pillows before setting them down.

Crack

He felt a sting and from the crack he guessed it was the goblins fault. In the kitchen a goblin fell on its bottom after a cabinet door gave out while it was trying to climb it.

Why did that hurt? The fire didn’t, and that seemed worse.

Before he could continue his thought, the cabinet door lifted of the floor and attached itself back to the cabinet. The goblin stared. He stared. The goblin warily approached the cabinet and started moving the door back and forth, before losing interest after a minute.

Well, I am glad the regeneration works. Ohh, I should have checked how much health that was, it could be useful. What was the regen rate again… Five per hour. Okay, that must have been less than one then. It seems I am pretty sturdy, most of the health must be the walls. Does the floor count? Can I survive with just the floor left? Nobody would bother destroying the floor, right?

He took a knife and cut the floor until he felt a prick. His health went down by a point. There were lines carved into the floor and a piece of it was gauged out. The piece started floating and set back into the floor before it sealed itself. The carved lines took longer and disappeared after several minutes.

That should have taken longer to heal, at least twelve minutes. And why did the lines take longer to heal? He wondered Technically, the only thing that had to heal after the piece was set back was the thin space between and the lines had to grow back whole. So, do I regenerate faster than five per hour if there are parts left? Nice.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Finished with his experiments he noticed the goblins were standing outside the kitchen and were staring at the floating knife. Confusion and fear were visible in their faces and they looked like they were ready to fight. Realizing his mistake, he dropped the knife and saw the goblins jump when it clattered on the floor. They watched it warily, suspicious of the magical floaty knife. One of them approached slowly and once within grabbing distance quickly leaped for the handle and held it tight with both hands. The goblin then walked to the door, holding the knife as far as possible from its body. The goblins made space and got out if its way, still watching the knife. At the door, it opened it by a crack and threw the knife away and immediately shut the door.

He couldn’t help himself and laughed for good fifteen minutes, every time he thought he was done he started again. And he didn’t break his promise to Eve, this definitely wasn’t mean, they were just dumb.

The heroic knife throwing goblin slumped against the door and sat for a moment. The rest watched the kitchen for any other suspicious activity, seeing none they visibly relaxed, but stayed away from the kitchen.

Hours later the goblin hunting party returned with a dead doe. They dumped her onto the ground in front of the cottage and walked inside. The goblins greeted each other as they entered, but when the last one entered, the housekeeper goblins turned stiff. The goblin was holding a knife. The magical floaty knife. The goblin, previously slumped by the door, leaped and grasped the other’s hand and tried to pry the knife away from him, which the goblin obviously didn’t like and started defending itself.

The rest joined either side based on whether they stayed home or not, and the Brawl of the Knife started. It ended abruptly when one of the goblins got stabbed in the chest. It fell to the ground, blood flowing from its mouth and wound, it tried to breath, but only inhaled its own blood. It struggled for a minute, while the others stared, unmoving, before it passed out from lack of air and died. Everybody looked at the goblin currently holding the knife. It was one of the home keepers. It quickly dropped it, pointed at it and started screaking.

The home keepers started nodding along and screaking in confirmation. The rest switched from looking at the goblin to the knife with growing hostility. Soon, the heroic goblin grabbed it and threw it out the door again. They cheered; the evil magical floaty knife was out of their lives.

They carried the dead goblin out and started digging a grave with their hands. Once done, they put the body inside. The heroic goblin stepped up and let out few sorrowful screaks before they buried it.

He watched the goblins bury their fellow goblin. His mood turned quite somber after the goblin died. He didn’t blame himself for it, he wasn’t that stupid, but seeing somebody die, even a goblin, isn’t a happy occasion. At least for him.

He was surprised when the goblin buried their dead. He thought them to be more barbaric. It made them look more… human? More than just dumb monsters.

He looked on as they stood around for a while before they grouped around the doe. They conversed in screaks for a moment and then some ran into the forest and inside the house. He lost sight of the forest goers, but they returned soon after with armful of branches and twigs. Meanwhile the house goers ran into the kitchen and with a hateful look started breaking the furniture. They tore the cabinet doors off, picked up chairs and swung them into the floor, breaking them into pieces.

It hurt. When they tore into the cabinets it felt like a beehive decided he was their worst enemy. When they broke the chairs, it was like stubbing his little finger, against a hedgehog, a big and heavy one.

He wasn’t sad anymore, he was angry. He felt like he was being beaten up, without retaliating at all. He was about to make knives fly when he felt disgusted at the thought of hurting them. The knives quivered slightly but didn’t go anywhere.

It was weird. He felt weird, the disgust having passed right after he dropped the intention to hurt them. Being angry usually supressed everything else, but the sense of disgust completely drowned out his anger. It was weird. He felt he was in the right, why shouldn’t he fight back?

He wandered why he would feel like that and the only thing came up with was: Because houses don’t hurt people. In any scenario he imagined he would fight back, and it didn’t make sense to him why he didn’t.

While he was pondering his house induced pacifism, the goblins piled up the wood they gathered and tried to light it up. However, some of the wood had other plans as parts of cabinet doors started to rattle and float towards the house.

The goblins panicked and froze as they watched the wood flow away. It was almost through the door when the heroic goblin started moving again and leapt for the floating wood. Seeing his bravery, the other goblins slowly started gathering the airborne firewood. They piled it up again and stayed wary of any suspicious movement from the pile.

They manged to light it on fire before it started rattling again. Wood floated in the air once again, but this time some pieces burned. Goblins caught and gathered most of the wood, again, but when they reached for the burning pieces, they yelped in pain and let go. Then another goblin would give it a try until all of them burned their hands.

He watched as the burning wood flew towards his very flammable body and started panicking.

Stop, stop! Turn off you stupid passive! You are going to burn the house down!

He couldn’t turn the passive off and almost saw himself go up in flames, when he remembered he actually had telekinesis. He started pushing against the floating wood and directed it back to the fire, where he held it together.

The goblins celebrated as the wood returned to the fire. They brought the dead doe closer to the fire and… stared. They seemed clueless as what to do next, until the heroic goblin perked up and brought a knife from the kitchen. A normal, not an evil magical floaty, knife, which he explained to the rest, that seemed alright with it. They cut the doe into pieces, destroying most of its hide in the process, and stuck the meat onto sticks and roasted it on the fire.

He was confused when the heroic goblin, who he started calling Hiro, just grabbed the knife from the kitchen. Weren’t they afraid of it a moment before? Was it just the single knife? He decided they were just dumb.

On the other hand, he may have found the leader of the group, Hiro, based on his behaviour. He always reacted first and seemed more… less dumb. Still dumb, mind you, but less so.

The goblins ate the slightly charred meat and went inside, took a sideways glance at the kitchen and with more haste walked into the bedroom and scrambled onto the bed, where they promptly fell asleep. None stayed awake to keep watch, which seemed pretty dumb to him. Well, they were dumb so it kind of fit.

Hey, I finally got the name!

Really? Took you quite some time.

Do you want the name or not?

Yes, yes, sorry.

Fal’Lig.

… It sounds kinda alien-ish

You don’t like it?

No, not really. Do you have anything simpler?

Fal? She tried, deflated.

No… He winced.

Arsi? Devi? Myro? Ren? Byro… She continued hurling names at him. Her voice got lower and lower until it was just a whisper when he didn’t react.

I am sorry, Eve. None of them feel right. Here is an idea. Why don’t we come up with a name together?