They finally found the goblins. It turned out that they had moved into the plains.
It was the day after they had entered the plains that they encountered a few of them. It was a handful of under goblins, along with one goblin. Under goblins were almost like runty, more beastial, goblins. they were more grey than green and produced greyish blue blood rather than the greenish yellow that normal goblins bled.
From what Markus told them, under goblins had better senses than a normal goblin, but they lacked the intelligence that goblins had. That was another thing. Goblins, as they were often described, were supposedly unintelligent beastial creatures. Markus had told the group that, though that could be true for some, most of them had intelligence at the same level as a normal human. this meant that the group needed to watch for traps, ambushes and a multitude of other random things that humans would be willing to do. In short, not a whole lot was different from when they were watching out for bandits.
If anything, goblins were somewhat preferred as to humans. It made everyone in the group feel less guilty about killing them. Sure they were smart, but they were another species entirely, and moreover, if they attacked first, even if they were human, no one in the group would hesitate to kill them. Bandit attacks, though rare, had taught them that rule well enough.
It was however quite surprising to find a small town in the middle of the grasslands that had a wooden wall, completely occupied by the goblins. Not in a way that they took over a town, though they had been known to do that here and there, at least according to Markus... No. Instead of that... It looked to be built by the goblins. From where The group stood on a hill, they could see about 6 trolls that were wandering around outside of the walls. They could also see orcs that were tending to fields.
"Huh... A goblin lord must have been born. I know that this has been seen a few times, but I've never seen it myself. Either way, we should pretend we saw nothing and take a wide berth around that. Goblin lords are highly dangerous and far stronger than most goblinoids, with the exception of troll knights, which protect them, and goblin kings, which are a greater goblin lord, similar to hobgoblins as compared to goblins. Either way, we do not have the strength to deal with that." Markus remarked.
Johan wholeheartedly agreed to that, as did the rest. Sure it would take an hour or two longer, but it was far preferable to dying.
----
Johan was overjoyed to see the stone wall in the distance. From what Markus had said, that was Hammer. It was a city of humanity, but more importantly, it meant proper rest. That was what Johan was most excited for. He had been drained of nearly everything he had in terms of stamina. Even after he had toned it down, his studies had still kept him from properly resting.
"We're almost there. We'll be staying in Hammer for a month, maybe longer, mostly because we all need to have maintenance done on our equipment, but also because we all need some proper rest. I suggest that after a week you guys find some work to do while we stay here. It can be good to build connections, not only that, but it is also useful to have some money." Markus stated, "I'll probably be doing some work with the adventurers guild for a bit, mostly because they'll need to be informed about the goblin lord."
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"Sounds great. We should hurry up. we might not get there in time since it's already midafternoon." Johan urged.
"We'll be fine. Though we need to stick together in town, Hammer was never really that safe, and I highly doubt that it's gotten any safer in the last decade." Markus warned.
"Okay." Anne answered.
"I wonder what kind of information I can get in a town this big..." Jen muttered to herself.
"Hey, Johan." Pat walked up to him as they slowly came closer to the walls.
"Yeah?" Johan looked at her.
"When we get some rest we should start work on that 'gun' you wanted to make." She didn't even try to hide her excitement.
"I suppose we should. Oh! That's right! Hey, Markus..." Johan turned to the older man.
"What?" He answered without looking back.
"I found some coins a while back, but I don't know what they are worth. It was back when we fought those bandits near the mountain, could you tell me their value?" Johan reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of flat discs as well as small round balls that were mixed in.
"Oh. You have what seems to be about 19 silvers and 12 coppers, as well as some pips. The way these work is that pips are the lowest currency, they are usually used for small items, like bread and fruits, maybe something like a waterskin. coppers are used for slightly bigger purchases, think clothes and small weapons. Silvers are for things like weapons, armor and, weakly enchanted things. and though you don't have it, things like gold are usually for things like buying land or a home, maybe a strongly enchanted item. of course bartering is always an option, so try to do that first. Honestly, currency is really only used in larger cities and towns."
"Oh... Alright, but how much is a copper worth in pips?" Anne asked, seeing it as important.
"Well... " Markus thought a bit "It can depend, since some people use a slightly different system for it, but according to the monarchy of Menstra, its 10 pips to a copper, 10 copper to a silver, etc. Honestly, I wonder how you managed to get so much money from bandit. Maybe he was really successful, or perhaps he was the guy who was holding all the coinage. It's more likely to be the second option, since it's a lot smaller once you split it with 8 others. To put it into perspective for you, usually a farmer would only earn about 12 golds in a year. With all expenses it'd probably be closer to only 2 gold. Food isn't a huge issue for farmers since they tend to grow a small garden for their own use."
"I see. So I have about a months worth of finances for some people." Johan thought carefully.
"Yeah, but, you can heal, so that isn't that much. Moreover, you haven't had to pay taxes on it." Markus laughed a bit.
"What do you mean?" Johan asked, dreading the answer a bit.
"Well... The churches aren't known for charity, at least not most of them. The church of Beatrice for whatever it's worth does a fair bit of charity work, but when I was last here they were quite low on members, at least in this region. Knuth is actually one of the larger followings here since he is the god of knowledge, and many techniques can be learned from studying in his temples."
"So, in other words I can charge people to be healed?" Johan asked, trying to clarify.
"Pretty much." Markus nodded.
"Good to know, that should make things easy enough for me." Johan said.
"Alright. Well, let's just focus on getting there now."
"Got it."