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

48 - The Blight



As Wick told the tale of the Stillwater Fellowship, its beats sounded familiar. There were knightly deeds and gallant feats aplenty, but there were monsters too, lurking in the dark. And though the stories rarely told it, sometimes it was the monsters that won.

"My father, uh, started from n-nothing. A stall in Penny Square's all he had," he said, fighting his way through and avoiding eye contact at all costs—especially with Rilla. "Uh, um, it took a w-while to get to copper."

"Over a year," Rilla recalled. "Wicket's father Gerris hired me then. Fifth member of our company. We were on our way up in Guttershine. Got ourselves the Stilted Post as our hall. You know the Post?"

Stump shook his head. Griza fidgeted impatiently with her feet, so he let her sit on a nearby bale.

"Down and out delivery system outside the Mudflats. We started getting it up and running again, and that's when we found success. Lots of delivery quests. Bronze was within reach, easy. Only needed what, four, five more members?"

"Four, as I recall," said Durgish, the bald dwarf.

"Only real problem was the Ocelots," chimed Tallas.

Rilla huffed in his direction. "I was getting to that. They'd already come to us, shortly after we reached copper. They do that to all the companies if you get far enough, and at least in our case it's what got us fixing up the Post. Gerris complied 'cause it's the smart thing to do. But then…"

She turned to Wick, who was looking at his own feet. After an awkward pause he picked up on the cue. "M-m-my father got sick, and I… I, uh… took over."

"And he wanted to do the brave thing by breaking our contract with the Ocelots," said Rilla, dragging the words out of him.

"Really?" Stump said, surprised. Disobeying the Ocelots is what had gotten Morg's company, Seawind Silver, run into the ground. It's what got Reema's father arrested. It had convinced all the inns of Hogg's Hollow to mint secret coins of resistance against their brutal reign. He watched the nervous shuffling of the leader of the Stillwater Fellowship and couldn't help but feel a strange swell of inspiration.

"Stupid, I know," Rilla drawled.

Durgish shifted on his stool. "Easy now, Rill. Wick was just gettin' us out from under."

"Under? We were over. We're under now. The Post has flooded what, three times? And now without the Ocelots we don't have the quests and the income to fix it."

"I thought m-m-maybe we'd be able—"

"Now a year later we have fewer than ten members and we're losing more every month," she went on, ignoring him.

"So lying about me being part of your company is to keep up appearances?" said Stump.

Rilla did little to conceal an eye roll. "That was Tallas' idea."

"I was thinking on my feet!" said Tallas, offended.

"Only reason we're here is to work our fame back up to what it was before the Ocelots destroyed it. it certainly won't be for the glimmer."

"Sabotaged our routes," Durgish grumbled. "Stole our deliveries, threatened our couriers. Shameful business, if y'ask me."

Stump kept his eyes on Wick, who listened to the exchange with the patience of someone who had something to add but was afraid to say.

"Why did you break the contract?" Stump asked. "If things were going so well?"

Wick's eyes lit up like it was the first time anyone had been interested in what he had to say. His mouth formed around words, but a sudden look from Rilla chased them back down his throat.

"Doesn't matter now, we're on our way to penny and there's nothing to be done," she said, then turned to Griza. "Who's that goblin prisoner of yours?"

"She's—" Stump began.

"I am Griza of the kingdom of Fire-Spitter, and I'm no prisoner."

Rilla snorted. "No? Must be a personal choice then, those ropes."

Griza's ears stood straight out and her eyes glowed with the fury of a goblin who was about to pounce. "I can escape anytime I want. But you're trapped, aren't you? Those coins you like so much tell you what you're worth."

Rilla's knuckles flared white around the rapier. The two might've come to blows if it wasn't for a hearty chuckle from Durgish.

"Little lady's got a point," he said.

"I'm not a lady," Griza hissed.

"Keep your mouth shut, the both of you," said Rilla. She turned and stalked out of the barn, adding, "Durgish, talk to our prisoner. Stump, you talk to yours."

Griza muttered deadly threats under her breath.

If Rilla had been born a goblin, Stump imagined she and Griza would have been the best of friends.

"Your help means a great deal," Faelan said from the other end of the table. A curtain of steam drifted from a bowl of sporridge in front of him. "We've had our livestock killed, or stolen. Our crops burned."

Nell, his wife, slid a bowl in front of Stump and another by Griza, who delved into it, face first, without a word of thanks. Broth spattered on the table.

The Orwen house was somehow even smaller than it looked from outside. A hearth—an indoor campfire, really—burned along a wall. Straw was strewn about a dirt floor, and behind Faelan an open doorway led to their cramped quarters and a second doorway to the barn. Wind whistled through gaps in the ceiling, and the whole structure lurched.

"I'm sorry for your troubles," said Stump, after ladling a spoonful into his mouth. "How long have you had our company here?"

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"Fellowship's been here two days. Before that it was Shields of Dusk for three, but they couldn't spare the help without getting some glimmer in return. I'd give something, but we can barely keep ourselves afloat what with these goblin raids. And what little we earn from our harvest gets paid in tribute to highwaymen."

Nell kissed her teeth. "They come as sure as rodents in our fields. Just another loss to tally at the end of the month. It's the tyrant who's the real pestilence."

"Tyrant?" Stump asked, feigning ignorance.

A brief knowing look passed between the two farmers. "Tydas Valroy," said Nell. "He sits up there in Peaktree manor with his magic suns, bleeding the rest of us."

"With the bandits we could manage," added Faelan. He shook his head slowly. His meal remained untouched. "But it's been five years now since Tydas came to Peaktree. And every harvest is worse than the last. First it was the Balins who had to abandon their stead for the Downs. Last year it was the Kuresh family."

"Might be Ruggan and his sons come year's end," warned Nell.

Faelan hummed grimly.

Griza straightened and lapped her tongue across her broth-stained cheeks. Bits of vegetable clung to her chin. "Why don't you just kill him?"

Faelan chuckled awkwardly. "It's not so much the man himself. It's that one from the Amber Bastion whose come to stay with them that we've had to fear for our livelihood. The Black Sun bleeds all and spares none."

Griza shrugged, then eyed the cook pot above the fire and flared her nostrils at the onion and potato wafting from it. "More," she said.

Nell took the goblin's bowl to the fire, unbothered by the rudeness in the demand, and continued Faelan's thought as she refilled it. "He's a blight if there ever was one," she said.

"The man from the Amber Bastion? Is that what you meant by magic suns?" said Stump.

He didn't like lying to them, even if it was for his quest. Clearing them of any charges of vampirism or subterfuge would help them, he hoped, but still a tremor of guilt ran through his ears.

"Aye, he's been 'round to most of the farms in the area. Looking for the Beast of Umbral," said Nell. She placed a refilled bowl under Griza, who buried her face in it with a hungry snarl.

The name brought a twitch to Faelan's frown. "Fool's errand," he mumbled, but his wife caught the objection as she joined them at the table.

"Not so," she said. "Seen it myself, like I told you."

Faelan's shoulders slumped with exhaustion. "You saw a spinegoat. Or a grummox."

She was about to argue, but turned to Stump instead. "I saw something dart through our field nearly a year ago. It was bigger than any spinegoat I've ever seen, and quicker than a grummox. It stole two of our muckhens."

Stump sat up. "I saw an animal dead on the side of the road on the way to Peak—uh… on the way here. It was drained of all its blood."

"Could've been the Beast."

"Why's the man from the Amber Bastion looking for it?"

Faelan's chair toppled as he stood. Whatever anger rose with him died when all heads turned to him. He cleared his throat and adjusted his tunic.

"It was nice to meet you, Stump," he managed, his tone restrained. "And you, Griza. There is space for you in the barn to spend the night with the rest of your company. If you'll pardon me, I have more work to do."

He rounded the table and pushed through the front door before anyone could argue.

After a quick awkward glance to Stump and Nell, Griza resumed her feast.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to upset him," said Stump, ears at half mast.

Nell watched the worn and frayed door with a regretful frown as it clattered shut. "Oh, that's alright," she said absentmindedly. "I was the one who brought it up. Again. He believes the Beast isn't out there, that Peaktree is feigning some sort of danger as a reason to incur on our lands and cull their competition. Can't say I'd think different had I not seen it myself."

Stump picked at his food and mulled Faelan's strong reaction and sudden departure. Why had the conversation bothered him so much? "Do you think the vampire is evil?" he asked.

Nell plucked a root from her stew and bit into it. "Vampire?"

"The Beast of Umbral."

Her brow lowered. "The Beast's not a vampire," she said. "It's a werewolf."

"A werewolf? What makes you certain?"

"I saw fur, heard it panting. It ran on all fours, I'm sure of it."

"But… the carcass I saw…" he glanced over to Griza, who was too busy licking the final holdouts of food at the bottom of her bowl. "The blood…"

Nell shrugged. "Might be a werewolf could do that. Might be there's a vampire, too. Bitter enemies from Borovic, maybe, fightin' their war amidst our farmland."

Griza collapsed on the bedroll when Stump unfurled it.

"Comfortable?" he asked, and fished one of the lanterns out of his adventurer's pack.

Despite the ghost of a smile on her lips, Griza's goblin pride wouldn't let her admit such a thing to her captor. "No," she said, nuzzling into the fabric. "Just tired."

Stump lit the lantern in their little corner of the barn, wedged between a bale of hay and an empty stall. Elsewhere Durgish was keeping watch on their bandit prisoner, and Tallas leaned against a wall, his head bobbing in and out of sleep.

"Why don't you use your magic?" said Griza.

A flame slowly came to life behind the panes and chased nearby shadows into narrow nooks. Stump set it beside her. "I want to save my virtue for our tribe. For Thrung."

Her anger stirred at the insult. "My tribe. You were marked," she said.

"You were banished."

Griza's scowl nearly staggered him, but instead of arguing further she turned away. He stood and headed for the exit when her voice, small and frightened, caught him in place. "You're not going to stay?"

The pleading undertone disarmed him. "Do you want me to?"

Her scowl returned. "I didn't say that," she said, and turned away again. "I just can't defend myself in these stupid ropes."

He couldn't help but allow a faint smile. She thinks of me as a protector. "I won't be long," he promised. But before he could reach the door, it creaked open and Rilla sauntered through.

"What did you learn?" she demanded, stirring everyone who was on the edge of sleep. She stepped around Stump without acknowledgment and snapped a finger at Tallas. "Relieve Hadder of his watch."

"Why me?" the felari complained.

"Now."

Tallas trudged to the door with an exaggerated sigh.

Rilla turned to Durgish, who was rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What has he told you?"

He relayed the information he managed to drag out of their prisoner. The bandit hideaway in the woods. Their numbers of between thirty and forty. The plunder they split from highway robberies, tolls, and the occasional raid or ambush.

Stump was surprised to find so many parallels between the bandit camp and the tribes of his past. For him the recollections drew feelings of guilt and regret, but Griza sat up attentively, salivating at their shared memories.

Rilla rounded Durgish and towered over their prisoner. He scowled at her through his ropes, much like Griza's defiant display.

"That's how you make your living? Taking copper from those on the road?" she said.

The prisoner blinked blearily. "Sellin' our finds too," he grumbled.

"Meanin' yer plunder," said Durgish.

Rilla shifted closer. She glared down at the captive dwarf like a snared hog. "Selling to who?"

He seemed more annoyed than intimidated by the proximity. "Whoever buys," he said, attempting a shrug. "Sometimes it's 'em folk in Grimsgate or the Hollow. Other times it's that manor on the hill."

"Manor on the hill?" Stump blurted, stepping forward.

Without looking back Rilla extended an arm for silence. "Peaktree?"

"If that's what ye call it," the dwarf muttered.

"They buy your plunder from other farms?" said Stump, ignoring Rilla's command. She shot him a heated look.

"Livestock, mostly," the bandit said wearily.

Animals.

A silver tongue. Manipulative. A dimly lit room and drawn curtains. Pale skin. Even without a cool wind whistling through the barn, Stump's skin prickled. He thought Tydas might not have been entirely forthcoming during their last conversation, but now he was almost certain of it.

"Who did you sell to?" he found himself asking.

"I just told ye—"

"No, who? What did they look like?"

Curiosity sparkled through Rilla's fuming. She nudged the bandit with a knee when he didn't immediately answer.

"Don't know," he said. "Wore all black, 'n some kinda mask. Gloves, too. Couldn't see no part o' them."

"Were they tall?" said Stump.

A shrug. "Taller'n me."

Durgish swivelled in his seat and considered Stump with a frown. "What are ye gettin' at here?" he said.

"Nothing. Just trying to help," Stump lied.

"You want to help? Then go stand watch outside. Let Durgish and I deal with our prisoner," said Rilla.

He nodded and left without complaint.

Because he'd already learned everything he needed.

All in Black. Mask. Gloves.

The vampire is at Peaktree Manor.

Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (7/9)


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