(Book One Complete!) Friendly Neighbourhood Goblin (Mercenary Company LitRPG)

The door to Portentous Finds swung open. The bell dinged, and so did Mort.

"Goblins! Goblins!" squawked the mimicaw.

Stump sauntered in first, having already put the adventurer's pack to good use. He tugged at the rope behind him, dragging forward the goblin it was tied around.

Elmee jumped out of her chair and fetched her cane from somewhere in the darkness, and hobbled around the desk and its many adjoining stacks of books. "What's this, now?" she demanded.

"Let me go!" Griza smacked herself against the doorframe in her attempt to slither free. "Fight me, coward! Fight—" she cooled at the touch of a dagger at her back.

"Not another word, dear," said Reema, holding the weapon.

"You were right," Stump said to the shopkeep, out of breath. "About my past! You were right!"

Elmee leaned forward for a better look at the captive goblin. Alarm flashed across her face. "No, no, I don't think I said such a thing," she said, shuffling back.

Griza stopped digging her teeth into the rope long enough to register the shopkeep's presence. "This is the goblin I told you about!" she said. "Strike him at once! I'll give you more gifts."

Elmee prodded her cane in the air. "No, I don't remember you," she said, then turned to Stump, her tone almost pleading. "I've never seen this creature before. Please remove her from my shop."

"She lies!" Griza spat. "I told her about you and our tribe. About the Wildrun!" She hobbled forward, but tripped over an abacus and awakened a pillar of dust as her face met the floor.

Stump glanced from Elmee to Griza and back again. After the lantern to the head, he and Reema wasted no time rolling the unconscious goblin into a hemp cocoon, but he'd been too shaken by the experience to immediately put together the pieces that were now falling into place.

Elmee chuckled nervously. "She must have me confused with my twin sister Almee," she said. "Why don't I fetch her from the back room?" She turned to leave.

"Wait," Stump called, harpooning her in place. "Is that how you knew my name? Because of Griza?"

Elmee shook her head vigorously. "No, friend. It was Chrona herself who bestowed upon me visions of your coming."

"I gave you gifts!" Griza went on. "Gifts for the whereabouts—" Reema lifted the goblin off the ground and pressed her into a nearby rocking chair.

"What was my name before Stump?" he said, ignoring the other goblin.

What began as Elmee's incoherent mumbles struggled into the vague form of a sentence. "I… I… well, I cannot choose the worlds I see. And they are often incomplete… partial… visions, that is…"

"You chose to see that I knew about the book when I mentioned the pages."

"Oh. Heh."

He let the silence simmer between them.

"Ah…" Elmee began, mustering a reply.

"You knew about my name, about my tribe. Griza told you, didn't she?" Stump pressed, more curious than angry. "She almost killed me, you know."

"Well… she may have come to me this morning, now that I'm thinking on it," Elmee said, choosing her words carefully. "She may have… asked about a little green fellow named Stump. Not so many goblins here, in the Downs. I thought to myself, 'Elmee, you've heard such a name whispered of late, haven't you?' Goblin of Seabrace, I heard. A friend of Wasptongue, maybe. How was I to know you'd step into my very shop only hours later? She gave me such nice trinkets, and for no price! Best answer her questions, I thought. That was when Chrona offered me a vision of you. Yes. That's when it was."

"I see," Stump said evenly. "I'm glad you got something out of the trade."

Elmee narrowed her eyes. "Right…" she said, confused.

"And I'll forgive you—" he began slowly.

"—Thank you—"

"—if you're willing to trade something with me."

"Uh… well, sure," she said and followed his gaze to the soft purple glow emanating from within her desk. "Now just wait a moment…"

"I'll pay you one silver for them."

Her words fizzled with her gasp. "One… they're worth significantly more than that!" She retreated back behind her desk, settling in for the haggling siege.

Stump clambered up a small stack of books, high enough to see clear across the cramped interior, and drew a measure of confidence from his newfound height—the barter lines had been drawn.

"One silver and I forgive what happened today."

"You mustn't be serious," she said, then changed tactics. "And I've already said I can't sell them. Chrona has gifted me a vision of its proper owner."

"Great stature, right?" said Stump, looking down from his makeshift tower.

"Yes, exactly."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"What else?"

"I don't… let me consult my goddess." Elmee lowered her chin and closed her eyes. The arcane hummed through the gloomy shop.

This time Stump noticed the bird.

"Humble birth, you said," he interrupted. "I was born in a cave, you know."

She opened one eye. "Hm?"

"There was one more thing, wasn't there?" Stump held his hand out, palm open, and this time Portentous Finds hummed for real, drawing from the gloomy decay of Lumensa all around them.

"You…" Elmee said, eyes widening at the glowing light in his hand.

He traded a virtue for Minor Illusion, and the lumen bubbled and warped into the shape of a coiled dragon with two heads, like the one from his fortune. The flames flickered, and the scales were ruby red.

"Great power, was it?" he said.

"One silver!" Mort chimed. "One silver!"

"Shut it," said Elmee, without much bite.

Atop his stack of books Stump felt more powerful than ever. Griza had given up her struggle with Reema as both looked on the illusion with slacked jaws. "If Chrona's right, maybe I'm the one from your vision," he said.

Elmee nodded thoughtfully. When she spoke a twang of admiration coated her words. "You have a touch of the Bright Queen about you." She reached down and produced the Sonurgy stones from the drawer and placed them on the desk. With an exhale of surrender and the pinched scowl of defeat, she muttered, "One silver."

Stump dismissed the illusion and gingerly accepted the items in his cupped hands, and marvelled at their soft glow. Like a warm hug Reema's magic washed over his shoulders. Good job, it seemed to say.

- Magic Item Acquired -

Sending Stones

A pair of Sonurgy imbued pearls with the ability to absorb and emit sounds between them, even when separated. Quality over distance depends on the skill of the original enchanter. Gently squeeze for several seconds to use.

Value: ~10 silver

He dropped them into a pocket and surveyed the shop from his height. Behind Elmee and a maze of oddities was a door, mycolight spilling through its cracks. "You mentioned a back room," he said. "Could I use it?"

Elmee, who had been staring vacantly at a darkened corner of the interior, stirred as if disturbed from sleep. Her frown deepened. "What for?"

The back room of Portentous Finds was suspiciously tidy compared to the main shop. Dark curtains separated a floor devoid of clutter from Elmee's quarters, and blue and green mushrooms glowed in compost beds along the opposite wall, splashing seawater swirls across the ceiling. Musty spores thickened the air.

Griza writhed as she hit the floor.

"You're a coward! Cut me free!" she said, failing to wriggle to her feet.

"If I do that you'll try to kill me again," said Stump, standing over her. Reema pulled up a stool and sighed into it, resting the day's goods on the floor.

"You're marked! You can't live. You should have died on the Wildrun," Griza seethed.

"What about you? You're here in the Downs, just like I am. Were you condemned? Banished?" What he meant as concern landed as an attack. Her green face flushed red and her pupils grew to the size of grimknots—the bloodlust had seized her.

"Not if I kill you!" She lunged from a sitting position, crashing face first in her own tangle of rage. "They'll let me back if I bring your head! Fire-Spitter will forgive me!"

"Thrung?" asked Stump. The name alone stoked awful memories of the goblin. His stomach knotted. "What does Thrung have to do with it?"

"Fire-Spitter! You call him Fire-Spitter! How dare you? How dare you!" Griza's bottom half squirmed in the opposite direction of the rest of her body. "Show respect, you worm!"

"Fire-Spitter, sorry," Stump relented. "Why would he have anything to say about it? It's the matrons who revoke a banishment."

The anger abated long enough for malicious laughter to wheeze through Griza's bared teeth. "Matrons," she mocked. "There are no matrons. There's only Fire-Spitter, Grumul's crowned king."

Stump took a step back. No matrons? "What do you mean? What happened after I was gone?"

Fear choked the rest of her laughter. "He returned. The matrons berated him for his failure and he used his powers against them. Grumul's powers! He overthrew them. How could he not? We all bowed and he took his rightful place on the throne."

The knots in his belly tightened. It didn't surprise him the rest of the tribe would submit to a goblin as awful as Thrung, but it wasn't the tribe he was fearful for. His throat was dry when he uttered his next words. "What about Yeza?"

She grinned. "Ahhh, she always liked you, didn't she?"

"Tell me."

"Always liked the weakest among us."

Stump hauled Griza to her feet. The room shuddered as he slammed her into the wall. The bloodlust was strong, but it wasn't his enemy anymore. "Answer me!" he spat.

"She's alive!" said Griza, turning her face from his. "She's his prisoner."

"Prisoner?" He pressed her harder into the wood. "Why?"

"He knows he can use her against you!"

Stump searched her face for meaning, but found nothing amidst the goblin's punctuated struggle. "Against me? What does that mean?"

"He's still looking for you, Ergul," she grunted. "You're his greatest embarrassment. You escaped his powers."

He looked back to Reema. The innkeep watched on in silent horror, but at what exactly was hard to tell.

Stump loosened his grip. "He doesn't have to worry. I'll find him myself and rescue Yeza."

"You can try."

"I have powers too," Stump promised. "You saw them back there. I already beat him once with them, and I'll do it again."

"No, no, you don't understand. Whatever tricks you employ are nothing compared to the powers of the goblin king!"

Goblin king? That title should be his biggest embarrassment, not me. "I don't care what he calls himself. I've read the Words From the Sky, and I've been trained by a goblin more powerful than he could ever hope to be."

"No," she insisted, a brief moment of genuine concern sparkling in her lust-stricken eyes. "He is king. Already six other tribes have bowed at his feet. Prophecy is being fulfilled."

"Prophecy?" he said, bemused. Goblins held no love for such fated futures.

"Six and thirty. The numbers Fire-Spitter speaks in his sleep or in bouts of rage. Six tribes. That has been fulfilled. We have more than a hundred of our kind in our horde. We no longer raid. We wage war. We take from the tall men like we never thought possible. We raid into the Shadowlands. We raid through them! Even now the tall men cower in their boots!"

Peaktree Manor. Torrig mentioned an increase in goblin raids. Elmee's warning. It's all true.

"And I have—no, I lead a mercenary company," said Stump, partly to dissuade his own fear. "Tall men pay me to kill goblins like you. Just yesterday I took on a quest like that."

Griza, who had stopped writhing, gazed up at him with a glimmer of respect. "It doesn't matter what you do, Ergul," she said, shaking her head. "He has drank the blood of Grumul and turned it into fire. He is the successor to the bloodlord's burning domain."

Stump had only been gone from his tribe for two weeks, but the mythology Griza spoke of was nothing he'd ever heard before. It was blasphemous, even, if the matrons were alive to say so.

"What are you talking about? Our god has no successor."

"There are no gods," she said. "Like the Godslayer dethroned Grumul, Fire-Spitter has ended the reign of the matrons."

"How do you know about all that? About Jaessun? About Grumul being dead?"

Griza's laughter returned, but it was strained, the kind of laughter that remains as the only option in the face of cosmic terror. "Fire-Spitter has said so, and he knows all. You've read the Words From the Sky, you say. The Words are in him, written on his soul, and he speaks with the voice of the writer itself. He knows of places beyond our world."

She's lost her mind, he thought. "What places?"

Her grin returned. "Shekago."