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

"These here are my most treasured darlings," Maven was saying. "Blue-Helmed Wort and Faerie Rose."

What started as a recounting of the night of the attack on the greenhouse devolved into a tour of her botanical arsenal. She hovered from plant to plant, pointing out the particulars of each breed while Stump strolled behind, nodding along and silently reciting their goblin names to himself.

"This one is Bloodleaf," said Maven, tracing a finger along the wide crimson leaves of a black root—Clot-Snot, his tribe had called it. "And this here is Deadman's Coin. No, those aren't real copper pieces. And there, the tall one next to it. Whisper Gourds. Ah, goblins took the other two. And their pots."

Here-Lies-Plunder. Speak-To-Me-Nots.

Pockets of soil collected in the nooks where the servant's brooms couldn't reach, and grains of shattered glass glimmered at the corner of his eye—all signs of the recent attack.

"They pilfered all of my Spider Ferns"—Sticky-Tricky—"but nothing to be done about that now, I suppose." She stopped suddenly and turned to Stump, appearing to recall something. "Oh, look at me going on and on. You had questions for me, did you not?"

She leaned in close, and he gathered from the patient blinking of her glassy eyes that she was hoping for further excuses to rave about her floral collection.

After ten minutes of living vicariously through her memories of the assault on the garden, it took him a moment to retrieve what he was going to say. "I was curious about these vampire sightings I've been hearing about," he said.

The roll of her eyes suggested the topic was indeed a disappointment. "Sightings, eh? Is that what Tydas has told you?"

"Not really. But Morg and I did see an animal on the road. It had been drained of its blood."

Maven mumbled under her breath, then gave a weary sigh. "Listen," she began, in tones equally quiet and sharp. "I'm not certain whether vampires roam these lands so far from Borovic. Perhaps they do, perhaps not. It does not matter. Real or imagined, my son-in-law will continue to use it as pretext, as he has done before, to disturb the fortunes of the families around us. To keep them from competing with our yields."

She'd hinted at something similar at dinner the night before, and after meeting with Tydas himself, Stump couldn't say he'd be shocked if her story was closer to the truth.

"And Kestrel?" he asked.

"He'll do Tydas' bidding, I'm afraid."

The admission slumped his ears. "I suppose enough glimmer will do that to anyone."

Maven gave him an odd look. "No, dear. The Black Sun has a tragic history with vampires."

He has a personal stake in the matter, Tydas had said. Before Stump could muster a reply Maven was already stepping around him, signalling her exit from the conversation.

"Well, I'd best be off to bed," she said. "Will your grumpy dwarf be joining your vigil tonight?"

Her mind had moved on faster than his. "Hm? Oh, no. I told him to sleep through the night this time. It's just me."

"Ah, well. Good luck to you, then." Once again Maven began to saunter off with surprising agility. As she slipped through the door connecting the greenhouse to the manor, she called back to him. "If the Whisper Gourds urge you to depart this mortal realm it means they're ripe for the picking! Don't eat the fruit, though, or inhale their fumes. Without a boiling process I'm afraid you'll be badgered by voices for the next twelve to eighteen hours."

One by one the lights of the manor died. The buzz of servants fell away as they retired to their bedchambers, and the house slipped into a deep slumber. The sun glided across the sky and winked out over the horizon, but still twilight lingered.

And Stump surveyed the traps.

He'd dug the holes beyond the greenhouse. They were shallow, about the height of an average goblin, but were littered with upward facing pitons, covered with thin sheets of wood, and peppered with dirt to mask their location.

They were simple, straightforward, and inspired by the mechanisms of his own tribe. He walked between them, placing small stones to mark them for himself, then wandered back to the greenhouse for a long night.

It was small, affixed to the back corner of the manor. Warmth from the recently doused hearth breathed through the doorway and settled in the muggy interior. Stump removed his pouches and set them on a nearby workbench. He peered out over the gentle slopes that led to the woods of the Shadowlands and the dotted farms nearby. Is one of them the Orwen farm? he wondered.

A sound came from his pouch. He fished for the Sending Stone and brightened at the gentle whisper of Denna.

"Stump… Stump, are you there?" she asked. Her voice was distant and crackled like a campfire.

He cupped it close to his face. "Denna, can you hear me?"

There was a mild gasp. "I can hear you! I wasn't sure it would work. How are you? Are you alright?" A wind picked up on her side. Before he could get a word in, she went on. "Stump, it's night time here. Actual night, like we talked about on Seabrace."

He looked up through the garden glass only to be met with a sky fuzzy with orange and pink. It was beautiful as always, but after a couple weeks in the Shadowlands he found he missed the stars.

"I just can't believe it," she continued, and he didn't interrupt. He was content just to hear her wonderstruck about something that had been so mundane to him his whole life. "My mother told me about it, from her childhood in Nevae. The night was dark, almost black, she said. And there were lumens in the sky. Big ones, thousands of them blinking untold leagues away."

Stump nodded along, throwing in an "mhmm" or an only slightly feigned gasp at her description.

"And we're all learning Boren's terrified of the dark," she said.

"I am not! Denna, who are you speaking to?" came Boren's distant whine.

"He's hugging his cloak like a blanket across the fire and keeps turning his head at every sound in the woods."

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"Denna!"

The rustling of a struggle commenced. Her laughter tangled with Boren's desperate grumbling, and the stone sounded like it was recording its tumble down a steep hill. Eventually her voice won out, and the chatter and flicker of flames fell away. Grass crunched underfoot.

"Sorry," she said, out of breath. "They owe Ilora and I a silver and a half, and I don't think he's very happy about that. They've tried counting them but they keep losing track around two hundred."

Her footsteps slowed, then stopped. He imagined her craning her neck and staring up at the glittering velvet night.

"Those are battles, you know. In the afterworld," he said solemnly.

"What's that, Stump?"

"Those points of light. They're wars in the afterworld of our people. That's what the matrons told us. Endless flaming battlefields."

"That's very interesting," she said, her voice choked with awe. "My people told me they're the Bright Queen's lumens, strung in the sky to guide us when she's not around. Our gods are gone, but their works are still here. Isn't that a wonder?"

Stump allowed a smile. "It is, Denna."

He listened to the faint sounds of the world beyond the Shadowlands through the Sending Stone. Trees rustled. Grass swayed. Somewhere nightflies chirped, their tiny bulbous lanterns like little stars, blinking in swirling clouds between trees. His tribe was there, too. Yeza.

And tomorrow they would meet the Iron Fleece.

"Did you find the wagon?" he asked, more serious.

It sounded like her voice returned from the stars, too. "We did. Not much left of it, though. Just charred road and bits of whatever goblins or beasts hadn't devoured. Nothing new in determining why our members were there or what they were doing."

"I hope you find something in the morning," he said.

"We will. We're deep in goblin territory now, and we've joined the rest of our contingent."

He held no love for his tribe, or the tribes they'd so often fought against, and he held a kind of hatred towards Thrung he rarely reserved for anyone, but the thought of all of them, all those faces he'd grown up around, being slain by the tall men brought a strange feeling over him, and his stomach pinched at the thought of Yeza's fate.

"And you're going to kill them?" he said.

The question took her by surprise. "Uh… well, we'll drive them out," she said, softening the blow. "Can't have them destroying farms. Right?"

He nodded, even though she couldn't see it. "Not all goblins are like that."

"I know. I'm glad to know one who isn't."

"There's another," he said. "My tribe was cruel to me, but she wasn't. Before I came to the Downs and met you and Morg, she was the only one I could ever call a friend. Her name is Yeza. I know you have a quest, but I want you to promise me that she'll be alright."

There was a long silence interrupted by the distant chatter of her company. "How will I know her?" she said.

When Stump closed his eyes, Yeza formed in the darkness with perfect clarity. The sway of her hair, the sun glowing off her skin, the quiet rhythm of her voice. Survive. For me, she said as if standing beside him in the greenhouse.

"She has messy hair," he began, eyes still shut. "Brown like tree bark, but streaked with silver like snowfall on its branches. Her ears are smaller than mine, and pointier, too. One is a little bigger than the other, but she'll hit you if you say that. She's taller than me, of course, and her eyes are big, but slender. That doesn't make sense, does it? She squints when she reads, and her war cry is deeper than you'd think after hearing her speak. She's kind. And she's mean, if you upset her or the people she cares about. She's..."

He paused, realizing the listing of her features was as much for himself as it was for Denna. When he opened his eyes again, Yeza's presence was still with him, forever in his memory, like she had been pressed there by one of Wasptongue's wax seals.

"She's a prisoner, I think. Thrung knows I care about her," he continued. "Promise me she'll be alright. That you'll protect her."

"I do. I promise," said Denna, without hesitation. "We'll find her, and bring her home."

Home, he thought. It was oddly comforting thinking about the world of the tall men that way. And he knew if Yeza got to see it she would feel the same.

Denna yawned after another beat of quiet. "Alright, then. I'd better get some sleep," she said.

"You've got a long day," he agreed.

"You've got a long night."

"Be safe."

She scoffed. "I've got twenty Knights and Rangers to protect me. Uh… Nineteen. I'll have to keep Boren from running from his own shadow."

"I think my big angry dwarf can take your nineteen Knights."

Another scoff. "I don't doubt it," she said, then softened. "I'll talk to you again tomorrow. After everything's done."

He didn't want her to leave. Like their conversation in the morning outside the manor he could have spoken to her for hours. "Rest well, Denna," he said.

"You as well, Stump."

The sounds of her footsteps receded into nothing.

Stump placed the stone aside, then sat back and closed his eyes again, and found Yeza waiting for him.

Survive. For me, she said.

I did, he told her memory. Like I promised. Now you, too.

A sound jolted him awake.

Stump rubbed his eyes and glanced through the panes of the greenhouse. None of his traps had been tripped. No figures crept over the hills or through the fields. Did I mishear? He slipped off his seat, armed himself with a hatchet, and carefully wandered outside.

A cool wind swept in from the forest, prickling his skin after he'd gotten used to the damp warmth of the garden. The manor's shadow was long, stretching down the slope and threatening the pickets of neighbouring fields. To his left the glow of roving lumens spilled around the north side. To his right the stables jutted out of the south wall.

And the back door whined softly on its hinges.

Was that always open?

Stump crept forward, his body low. His feet pattered in near silence.

With the hatchet in hand he slipped through the back of the stables. Hay and manure graced his nose. Somewhere a hoof stamped. He moved along the side of a stall, and peered around it.

Straw was scattered about. Each stall was closed, locked up for the night, except for one. The door was slightly ajar, tapping against a lock in response to the wind funnelling through.

But there was another sound. He leaned forward, straightening his ears as far as they would go.

Munching…

One of the animals was eating, was his first thought. But a second later came a gulp, then an exhale.

No. Someone's drinking.

Stump swept across the floor like the wind, the straw only mildly disturbed by his careful footfalls. He neared the stall, the sounds growing louder. Slurp. Slurp.

He pushed it open, drawing the hatchet back.

Fingers curled around his neck. The weapon left his hands. He was on his back as quickly as his feet left the ground. He coughed, blinking away the stars dancing across his eyes, and struggled to breathe beneath the weight of a shadowy figure.

"What the… Stump?" the assailant hissed. Blood trickled from his tangled beard.

Stump blinked harder, and saw a dwarf sitting on his chest. "Morg?" he wheezed.

"Ye damn near frightened the daylight out o' me eyes," said Morg, stepping off. He wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. Behind him stamped a horse, unbothered.

Stump struggled upright. "You were drinking it's blood," he accused.

Morg frowned. "Just a little. Got hungry, s'all."

"What about Reema's mixtures? Five skins she gave you, Morg." The anger bubbled to the surface as Stump pieced together the dwarf's irrationality. "Maven talked about vampires in the area. What were you thinking?"

Morg wore the pout of an oversized child. "I was thinkin'… them skins hardly go a night, y'know. And…"

"Five, Morg."

"Alright, I heard ye. Don't got to tell me twice."

Stump dusted himself off and stood. He glanced towards the front of the stable, but the doors were still closed and no shadows speared beneath them. He lowered his voice anyway. "Morg… Kestrel's a vampire hunter."

The dwarf's brow fell. He matched Stump's volume and leaned in close. "A what?"

"Tydas wants me to look for a vampire at a nearby farm. It sounds like Kestrel really doesn't like them. Morg, if they catch you…"

"Damn well could've told me before—"

"I didn't know you'd try to drink their horse!"

"I wasn't gonna kill it! I just needed a sip."

"You can't let them find out."

"I know."

"We still have nearly a week here."

"I know," the dwarf repeated, louder.

"What are you going to do for blood? Sneak in here every night?"

Morg squeezed his eyes shut as if suddenly struck by the weight of their situation. "I don't know."

In the silence that hung in the stables came the chittering. Morg didn't notice, but Stump did. He'd heard the sound all his life. He'd made that sound.

"Goblins," he breathed, and broke for the open stable door. He flattened himself against the wall and peered out.

Scuttling up the hill from the woods were small bushes, sticks, and figures plastered with leaves and dirt. He spotted two of them. Then three, four, six, eight.

Eight goblins, and their eyes were on Peaktree manor.