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

Trekking through the Shadowlands with a small host of goblins was a challenge, but leading them through Grimsgate was a waking nightmare.

Even Ironbone, as harsh and unyielding as he was, couldn't herd them along for more than a dozen paces before they scattered like leaves in the wind, pulled by currents of colour and dazzle and the occasional promise of blood or food.

As they strolled beneath the stony ribcage at the mouth of Crooked Cranny, Stump turned to find Ironbone with a hand around the neck of Pebble-Crusher, and another gripping the ear of Durza. He didn't have the appendages to stop Knife-Chewer, who was already scampering up the back of a grummox saddled with sacks of sporegrain and root vegetables, intent on claiming the creature as his mount.

The heavy beast turned its mossy head to the nuisance, but couldn't be bothered to shake the goblin off.

"Move!" commanded Knife-Chewer, once he'd reached the hairy summit. His legs were barely long enough to straddle it. "What do the tall men say? Hoowa! Heeya! Hyah!" Each attempt was accompanied by a stiff thrust of the hips.

Unbothered or unaware, the grummox continued to chew its cud with glacial patience, its tail lazily fending off a buzzing cloud of gnats. Only when its master returned from the pottery stall he'd been haggling at, armed with a stick, did Knife-Chewer abandon his quest with great haste.

Meanwhile, Dreeg bobbed gently about like a titan made of clouds, smiling contentedly at the rotting wonders of the Downs. He stopped beneath a giant mushroom and asked a seated dwarven lady—bearded, of course—why she was collecting the ruby red moisture dripping from its cap. He listened intently as she detailed the lengthy process of creating dripwine, from its collection and fermentation, its boiling process and transformation into everything from poison to hushcake sweetener.

Ironbone yelled at him to follow along before Dreeg could ask for a sample.

The morning was already gone before they made it to Penny Hall.

The clerk inside rolled his eyes at Stump waddling through the doorway. He groaned when six more followed.

"Good day," he lied. "What can I do for you?"

Stump scaled a chair and rested his tiny hands on the desk. "I'd like to register my friends as mercenaries," he declared.

The clerk's frown was as pronounced as Stump's grin, as if he was trying to balance the scales of joy. "Yes, I gathered. Who are they?"

"My friends."

"You said. Names?" He flipped through a bureaucratic tome and armed himself with a freshly dipped quill.

Stump indicated the group of confused goblins behind him. "This is Yeza. She's my best friend."

"That's nice." Another lie. The clerk began to scrawl her name. "Next?"

"That one there is Durza."

"Mhmm?" Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"And Knife-Chewer."

The writing halted. "A name, not a personal quirk."

Knife-Chewer wrenched himself from the peeling wall he'd been gnawing on. He spat bits of wood. "A what?" he snarled.

Stump, feeling the pangs of the bloodlust emanating from the goblin, intervened. "It is a name. A warname. It's a goblin custom, like how my name is Stump, but it used to be Ergul. It's respectful to recognize them," he said.

The clerk was unmoved. "So, what's his previous name?"

"Knife-Chewer is my name," the other goblin answered through gritted teeth. His fingers curled into fists.

"If you're not going to provide a real name—"

With a roar Knife-Chewer snatched a hatchet from Ironbone's belt and barrelled into the desk. The clerk leapt from his chair, brandishing his pen like a dagger as loose parchment fluttered around them. The goblin was halfway up the furniture, swinging wildly, when Ironbone grabbed him by the neck.

"We're not on a raid, you rat!" he barked, dragging Knife-Chewer across the room.

Like a miasma the bloodlust infected them all. Durza bounced from foot to foot, cheering the violence and claiming the clerk's eyes after the beheading. Pebble-Chewer transferred his rage through raining fists on Dreeg's ample belly, who took the hits like a great willow creaking against a stiff breeze. Yeza, though less unhinged, vibrated in place and began to bite her nails. Even Stump couldn't deny the urge to shove something inedible into his mouth.

"The tall man disrespected me! He must die! Die! I'll carve—" Knife-Chewer's threats ended with a breathless grunt as the bigger goblin slammed him into the wall.

"You'll do nothing!" hissed Ironbone. He peeled the weapon from Knife-Chewer's hands, then turned to the clerk with the smaller tribesman still wedged behind him, and said, "I'll be the one to ensure justice. A finger is what is owed, not a life."

The clerk's fears were not assuaged. "A w-what?" he stammered, shivering against the far wall.

Ironbone started towards him, but Stump slid between.

"No finger!" he said.

Ironbone looked down at him through a twisted frown tracked by battle scars. "What, then? An ear?"

Stump sighed. "No ears, no fingers. No retribution at all," he said, but added upon noting the simmering mutiny in the eyes of his newly acquired companions, "That's how it was in the tribe, under Thrung. That was the old ways."

"The ways of the matrons. Of Grumul."

"Grumul is dead," said Stump, standing his ground. Strength is what they respected, and that's what he was going to give them. "He died, and Thrung overthrew the matrons. Then I, Stump, Slayer of Kings, overthrew him. The old ways are gone. That's not how I treat people."

Ironbone's scars seemed to flare along with his nostrils, but after a long duel of the eyes he lowered his weapon and dipped his ears in reverence. "If it is your way, Slayer of Kings."

Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (1/12)

With Ironbone's submission the others followed.

"Slayer of Kings," said Dreeg, nodding politely.

"Slayer of Kings," echoed Durza and Pebble-Crusher.

Only Knife-Chewer remained silent. When Ironbone turned to him with a petrifying glare, he growled, stalked outside, and slammed the door behind him.

The clerk, still pressed against the wall with his quill held aloft in a shaking hand, looked nervously from goblin to goblin. Papers peppered the floor around him.

"So," said Stump, returning to the desk. He cleared his throat and flashed a hopeful smile. "Knife-Chewer."

Slowly the clerk's fright gave way to the oppressive bureaucratic boredom Stump had come to know as he recorded the names—and warnames—of those present. At the end of it he dabbed his quill in a fresh coating of ink.

"And what are their occupations?" he droned.

Stump blinked. "Occupations?"

"Job. Trade. Field of work. Zone of labour. Vicinity of employment." Each abstraction was delivered with more derision than the last.

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"They're goblins, like me. Like I was when I first came here."

"Does anyone know them? Have they aided you on a quest?"

"Well…"

The clerk sheathed his quill with a sigh. "If they are not known figures in any of the districts, then they cannot be registered to your company."

Stump's ears deflated. "Oh."

With a deft hand the clerk closed his tome and shoved it aside, then produced another, heavier volume from the bowels of his desk and flicked to the appropriate page. He traced his finger down the tiny lettering.

"Ah," he said when he found the relevant article. "To be registered as a mercenary you must prove at least three months experience of legal employment in a registered business, or ownership of one, in one of the four districts, or you must prove material assistance in the completion of a quest assigned to a mercenary company."

"That's all? Help on a quest?" Yeza piped up.

"That's right… uh… who said that?" The clerk glanced about.

"Down here," she said, from the other side of the desk.

"Oh," said the clerk, without leaning forward. "Well, that's correct. Prove your assistance on a quest and you'll be free to register. After a three copper fee, of course."

Of course, thought Stump, sighing.

They were outside again moments later, where Knife-Chewer was sitting in the mud, viciously gnawing on something vaguely metallic. His ears perked at their exit.

Stump pulled the Sending Stone from his pouch. "Morg," he said. "Are you there?"

Morg, having split off from their party some time ago to assess the Hogs In The Hollow quest, had agreed to take the other stone with him. There was a crackle, followed by the recognizable muttering of a dwarf trying to remember how to use the device.

"Ye hear me? Stump? This thing workin'?"

"I can hear you. Have you gone to Plank Runners yet?"

"Aye," said Morg.

Stump knew by his tone that the meeting was a disappointment. "Don't go to Brinetown, yet. Do you know where Portentous Finds is?"

"The home o' that time witch and her winged rat?"

"Right. Meet us there."

There was a pause. "Why?"

"I've got an idea," said Stump.

The dwarf sighed through the stone. "Why does it sound like an idea I'm not goin' to like?"

This time Stump had the foresight to leave the goblins outside. He entered Portentous Finds with only Yeza at his side, and a pack of treasure over his shoulder.

Elmee beamed as it clanked on the table.

"Ah, it holds the sound of gold and silver," she observed hungrily, leaning forward with the glimmer of wisdom in her eyes. "All things can be seen through sound, did you know this?"

Stump recalled Sylas' abilities on Seabrace, and how he'd identified the type of magic emanating from the temple by the frequency of its hum.

"I think so," he said.

Elmee closed her eyes, and Mort played his part. The fake magic was an impressive display, Stump had to admit. Elmee committed to the role and swayed with the sound as if caught in the turbulence of a great power only she could feel.

"Yes. Gold, silver. Trinkets. Necklaces and brooches. From a place of great wealth," she said. Every attempt at divination was accompanied by the covert cracking open of an eye to gauge the reactions of her onlookers. "A manor, perhaps? A manor that starts with the letter 'B'." Another peek. "No. Perhaps a 'P'." And another. "Yes, a 'P'. Per… Poh… Pre.. Pee… Peak… Peaktree Manor, was it?"

"That's right," Stump said, feigning surprise.

Yeza, unaware of the bird's role in the ploy, looked on with a slacked jaw.

Elmee chuckled. "Chrona has offered me pieces of the world through your eyes. But it is not noble baubles that I desire. Beyond the music of your treasure I hear another tune, one much deeper. Older. And I hear it sing from the crook of your arm."

Stump set the ruby tome on the desk.

"Magic! Magic!" said Mort, flitting about his cage.

"Indeed," said Elmee. She cautiously cracked open the cover with long, spindly fingers, and inhaled greedily. "I can smell its power. Fifteen silver is what we agreed to, yes?"

"One gold, actually," said Stump.

She made a convincing show of pondering his correction. "No, I don't think so. Chrona tells me it was fifteen silver," she mused.

"One gold!"

Elmee hissed at the bird. "For a creature of so few words you certainly know how to pick them." She bent beneath the desk and hauled a pouch onto the table. It clinked with the promise of payment. "Very well. One gold."

"But I'm not sure I'm ready to sell it just yet," said Stump, pulling the book back across the desk to Elmee's confounded dismay.

Her gaze, until that moment, had been unfocused and wandering, but as he closed the tome her eyes sharpened, like a mountain bat before the plunge.

"Haggling, are we?" she challenged.

"No. Well, yes, for the treasure, but... there might be more I can uncover from the book. It was written by someone who I think was..." He leaned in close and whispered, "from Shekago."

Elmee's face fell. Without relieving him of her glare she said, "You know this?"

"Shekago! Shekago!"

"Not for certain," Stump admitted. "But the one I took it from had seen it. I think. And when I killed him... when my tribe killed him, I mean, I received what I thought was a new skill in the system. But when I tried to see what it was I fainted and had a dream. Or maybe I went somewhere. Someone there told me... well, they weren't speaking, really, but they told me I had killed Jaessun. Sort of."

A sly smile unearthed in her studious frown. "Sounds like someone's been helping themselves to redvein," she said, wagging a disciplinary finger inches from his nose. "That fungus will soon have you living on the street if you aren't careful."

"No, it's nothing like that. I was even given an extra focus point. I'm only level eight, but I have four points."

She appraised him with a charlatan's skepticism. "Four, you say..."

"Maybe the Amber Bastion would be able to help me understand. Or maybe they'll know how to decipher what I've leaned from the book, but I still need at least one more recommendation from an experienced Lumenurgist, and I don't know where to find one."

Elmee leaned back in her chair and steepled her thin fingers. "Lost, are you?"

His shoulders slumped. "A little."

"Perhaps you'd like to glean a few nuggets of wisdom before we battle over the price of your findings," she said, but rifled through her desk before waiting for a reply. A moment later she produced her prophetic deck of cards and scattered them across the table, setting the dim shop aglow with magical starlight. "Perhaps a heading is what you require."

Yeza gasped. "What power is that?"

"Perspective. Sight, though not through my own eyes. Choose your card, my dear, and I'll see through yours."

"Choose! Heading!" said Mort.

Yeza looked on the flickering constellation with breathless wonder. She gave Stump an uncertain look, and only when he curled his fingers around hers did she reach out. She hovered over one, then another, before settling over her choice.

She held her hand out for a long ponderous moment before pulling away. "I don't want to see," she said. "There is no destiny among our kind."

Mort squawked. "Choose!"

"Destiny?" said Elmee, affronted. She fetched her cane from the darkness and hobbled around the desk. "You think it's destiny I offer? It's clarity. Vision. One path of many."

"Choose! Heading!" Mort's cage rattled with his fluttering struggle.

"The road to Chrona's kiss is not made of stone. It is water. Vapour. Sea mist and storm winds, blowing this way and that."

"Heading! Lumenurgist!" The tower of books beneath the cage began to sway.

"And we are but leaves in its bend, carried on currents beyond our knowing, and—oh, will you shut up, bird?"

"Heading! Water!"

A book slipped from its holding, and the tower came crashing down. The cage bounced off the desk and clattered to the floor, its door snapping open. Mort flapped free, squawking as he circled the dusty shop.

"Ah, damn you!" Elmee turned on the creature, swinging her cane, but Mort flew high, dislodging baubles from the highest perches.

He dove and landed on the table, where he pecked furiously at one of the cards until it flipped over. Elmee brought her cane down like a hammer, but he hopped aside and jumped back into his cage. She grumbled a series of curses as she worked on locking him away again.

In her distraction Stump lit the candle and held it over Mort's chosen card.

A lighthouse shimmered green and yellow over an undulating sea and beneath a sky of fading blue light. But where the tower met the water it was reflected perfectly, a mirror of its upward structure, spearing the depths.

"What's this one?" he asked.

Elmee set Mort's cage on the desk and shuffled over. "Ahhhh," she said, shedding her anger for her usual foreboding tone without so much as a beat between the two. "The Stranded Beacon. Fortuitous. Mysterious. A heading, to be sure. But of what?" She dangled the question with a storyteller's grace while she bent to study the card from a number of angles.

"Green... Blue. A touch of yellow. Red. Orange, perhaps," she went on. "The light is fading. Twilight, you might say. What you seek is here, in the shroud. But where? Hmm..."

"Guttershine! Guttershine!" said Mort.

Elmee groaned and turned threateningly to the bird. "I was leading up to that!"

"Guttershine?" said Stump. "What's there?"

Elmee returned to her seat and lowered into it with great effort. "Your path. A Lumenurgist is what you desire, yes? Find her at the Glimmer Pool, high above the Mudflats. She is your beacon, little goblin, and with her light you will find a road to the Amber Bastion that is far less winding."

"Guttershine! Heading!"

Elmee gave the cage a thwap with her cane.

"You may not believe in destiny, my dear, but my future will see me killed by the stress of this winged demon," she said to Yeza. "Now, might we trade before I drop dead?"

They left the shop with an empty sack and fourteen pieces of silver, and found Morg already waiting for them.

Stump urged the dwarf to a quiet corner of the alley.

"No luck gettin' us to copper, eh?" said Morg.

Stump shook his head. "They need to prove themselves by helping us with a quest."

Morg scoffed. "Ye think it's a good idea, I take it?"

"If we want to reach copper."

"Well, we'll have no luck with Old Ma Bryggin. She's offerin' too substantial a reward, 'n she wants us to meet Brass Ring at her own 'stablishment. We'd be walkin' into a trap, most like."

Stump's ears fell. "The other quest, then. Blink And You'll Miss Him. Looking for a blink mouse should be easy enough for them, right?" he said.

Morg shrugged. "Yer the gobby, not me," he said, and added, bending low enough to tickle Stump with his beard, "But just so y'understand the price o' failure, our fame's only one in Brinetown. Ye know what that means?"

"It's only up from here?" said Stump, hopeful.

"It means if yer new friends cause enough trouble for our name, our fame drops below zero. If yer certain they'll behave 'emselves, then I've got no protest. Otherwise, failure means no more quests in the district. Means yer plan to turn Brinetown against the Ocelots is over 'fore it begins."