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

75 - Blink And You'll Miss Him (II)



They called it the Keelgraves. Stump figured it must have been aptly named because, even though he didn't have the faintest idea what a keel was, there certainly was a graveyard of them.

The sea lapped around the corpses of ships driven to shore in the shadow of the black walls of Aubany. Shattered hulls lay askew in the sand, dressed in seaweed and gnawed by time. Others were solitary vessels webbed in strings of fungal lanterns, while many more lay crushed and wedged in monstrous piles, their masts spearing out like broken bones.

"All this from the Bright Queen's fall. Nothin' but dead things 'n ghosts 'tween here 'n the Spits," droned Morg, standing beside Stump. "Still, can't say the folk o' the Downs don't know how to turn a graveyard into a home."

"Is that the city?" wondered Yeza, tracing the walls of Aubany beyond the Keelgraves from its rocky base to its crenellated heights.

Beside her Durza shared her awe. She directly up at the towering structure, but lost her balance and tumbled off her driftwood perch with a yelp. Pebble-Crusher doubled over in a fit of laughter.

Pog occupied a partly buried crate, gazing longingly at the halo of amber light above the walls like a sailor from the deck of his ship catching the distant hint of a land wreathed in fog.

"The Scrap Gulls are down there?" said Stump, climbing next to him.

Pog, pulled from his reverie, nodded. He pointed vaguely ahead, but which of the shipwrecks he indicated was impossible to know from their vantage.

"The Siverin, it's called. There are two ways to get in through the top deck. I can sneak in and find Blinky while you distract them," he said.

It was an approach the oxfolk had insisted on several times, and one Stump wanted to avoid. "Maybe we should try talking to them first," he offered.

"Talking will do nothing."

"Not if we don't try."

Pog peered back at him. After a long moment he said, "They won't give you Blinky."

He's hiding something. In a careful tone Stump ventured, "I want to help you, Pog. And I want to help them too."

"They've already got the help they need. I told them to say no, that we would never leave the Keelgraves, but..." He returned his yearning to the city walls. "They like it here. They don't want to leave."

Stump shivered, and it wasn't because of the sea chill. "Say no to who?" he asked, but already knew the answer.

"Who else?" said Pog. "They've got the protection of the Ocelots, now. Their deal means they're safe. Now they're never going to leave." As if accepting his fate, his gaze left the walls and languished in the sand at his feet. "Neither will Blinky."

Deep roots. Stump recalled the words of Maven and Tydas at Peaktree. Like the great fungal veins of the earth spreading from Lumensa's corpse, the Ocelots were a growth, a mold, a rot at the heart of the Downs. They infected every rung of society, from lordly manors to gangs of thieving children.

But they were spread thin. One hundred to five hundred members, Morg had said. It was a staggering number, one far greater than a goblin army, but it was nothing compared to the tens of thousands living under their thumb.

Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (2/12)

Stump stood in silence for a while before he spoke again. "Well then, it's a good thing I have a deal of my own to offer."

Before they continued through the Keelgraves, he found Morg barefoot by a tattered sail rippling in the wind, shaking the sand from his boots.

"I think I have a plan," Stump whispered. "Will you take Pog back to his home?"

"Eh? Me?" Morg said, offended. He smacked the sole of his shoe, dislodging a sand crab. "I should be in there with ye, 'less ye want a knife through yer neck. Send him on his own. He knows these parts."

"I can't. He wants to sneak in and steal Blinky. I need someone to make sure he doesn't.

"Then send one o' yer gobbies."

"They're coming in with me."

Morg sputtered his way into baffled silence. After collecting himself he said, "Let me understand ye. Ye want to walk into one o' them thieves dens with a crew o' goblins at yer back, the same buggers who nearly killed that fella in Penny Hall, who're always an off-remark from killin' each other, 'n who might kill one o' these Scrap Gulls over any perceived slight, 'n ye want to send me, yer best fightin' man, to escort a child?"

Stump's ears slumped. "Well, when you say it like that..."

"Yer best course is followin' Pog's advice. Sneak in and steal his mouse and be done with it."

His plan sounded like madness when thrown back at him in the gruff harshness of Morg's tone, but there was an angle to the quest the dwarf wasn't seeing.

"The goblins need to help us finish our quest if we want to become a copper company," Stump explained. "And they need to do it without angering the Scrap Gulls. We want our fame to go up in Brinetown, don't we? And we want to turn people against the Ocelots. The yellow matron used to say that a forest grows from its smallest seeds."

Morg groaned. "Don't be gettin' allegorical on me. I hear ye. Win 'em to our side 'n word of our company spreads from the Keelgraves to the terraces. But while yer slinging proverbs, here's a pint o' wisdom o' me own—a house may stand in the safety o' yer mind, but raise it out o' sand 'n all you'll build is dust in the wind."

Stump looked up at his bearded friend with a smile. "Did you come up with that just now?"

"Aye," said Morg, evidently impressed with himself.

"It's quite good. You should remember it."

"Thank ye." Morg cleared the embarrassment from his throat with a cough. "Point is, the goal's fine as it is. If ye manage to do it yer way, everyone's happy. Everyone wins. You, our company, yer gobbies, Pog, the Scrap Gulls, even the damn mouse, too. But the world's got a way o' takin' a man's best laid plans 'n shattering 'em against the rocks."

He didn't need to indicate the seafaring cemetery around them for Stump to take the hint. His eyes tracked the wreckage from the rocky edge of Brinetown's markets to its sandy shores, where waves broke over the sundered vessels unfortunate enough to set sail when Lumensa died.

And he looked beyond, to the sea below the city, where the Bright Queen lay in a grave of her own.

"I'll be careful," Stump promised. "We've got the Sending Stones if anything goes wrong. And I've got my new focus tree."

"Oh, aye? said Morg, surprised. "When did ye decide on one?"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I didn't until now."

"Then you'll be needin' this, too." Morg clutched the amulet around his neck. Its harnessed light flared, buzzed out of the stone, and circled Stump like a nightfly. Warmth crested his shoulders. Virtue thrummed in his veins. Although Lumensa was dead in the water only paces away from where he stood, he liked to believe at least a piece of her was still alive.

Virtue +1 (3/12)

The ship lay broken on the rocks. Its spine was snapped, its hull split like a shattered ribcage. Planks of driftwood slotted into its wounds like battle scars. Lanterns swaying from its railings threw bright circles over an old name carved deep into the prow. The Silverwind, it once read. Now all that remained was a smattering of letters in a crooked scrawl—The Siverin.

The roost of the Scrap Gulls.

"We're not here to fight," Stump had whispered to Ironbone as they crept their way over. "Even if they're hostile."

The older goblin nodded, but when he spoke his words were tinged with doubt. "If it's Knife-Chewer I can stop him. But if these thieves attack first, I'll not be able to hold them all back. Might not even be able to stop myself."

As if on cue, an arrow struck the ground by Stump's feet.

"What was that?" said Yeza. She darted out of the way of a second shot whizzing past her ear.

Growls rumbled from Knife-Chewer and Durza as they bared their teeth and dug their feet into the beach, ready to pounce.

"Who goes there?" called a squeaky voice from The Severin. A shutter had crashed open in the hull, revealing the scowl of a young orc peering out of a porthole. A crossbow was in her hands.

"Did you ask them who goes there?" hummed another deeper within the vessel.

The orc kissed her teeth. "I just did! Can't you hear?"

"If I can't, then they certainly didn't."

She muttered under her breath. "I said," she began, then filled her lungs with air and bellowed, "WHO GOES THERE?"

Ironbone, already playing the part, wedged himself between the goblins, urging calm.

"The Nobodies," said Stump. He introduced his snarling allies with a wave of the hand. "We're a mercenary company, and we've come to talk."

"Talk?" said the orc, regarding them over the loaded bolt with one eye squeezed shut. "Talk of what?"

"Blinky."

The crossbow lowered slowly. She opened her eyes, mouth agape, but remembering where she was she levelled the weapon again. "Blinky? What do you want with him? He in trouble?"

Trouble? A blink mouse? "No," he said, confused. "We just want to bring him a message from a friend."

The orc once again relieved him of the crossbow's sights. She leaned back into the hold and called, "Blinky, someone's got a message for you."

Moments later a second pair of shutters swung open and the timid face of a ratfolk peeked out, blinking quizzically at the evening glow. "Pog?" he said.

Stump offered a look equally as perplexed. "You're Blinky?"

"Pretended he was a blink mouse, did he?" came a voice from behind. Stump turned to a find a human child perched atop a crow's nest leaning precariously on an overturned ship. In his arms was a crossbow of his own.

Knife-Chewer spun to the threat, shuddering with the hunger for blood. Ironbone grabbed his shoulder before he could pounce, but both turned their heads at the thunk of a dagger against a nearby plank. They whipped around to spot another Scrap Gull emerging from the sand, disguised in seaweed. A fourth whistled to announce his presence from the deck of another ship, javelin in hand.

"It's not the first time Pog's tried," said the human. He trained his weapon on Stump.

Despite the sand around them, the ship creaked as if rocking on the sea.

Stump stepped into a hull thick with brine and dust swirling in pillars of orange light. He stopped for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust, but the point of a crossbow between his shoulders urged him forward.

"Over there," ordered the human.

Stump stepped beneath a hole in the deck, covered by a rippling tarp, and blinked away the shadows beyond the shaft of light. Yeza squeezed in beside him.

"Get away from me!" Knife-Chewer snarled, spinning towards the orc.

Ironbone snagged his wrist before he could bury his claws in her neck.

"Quiet!" hissed the human. He, along with the rest of his crew, herded the goblins into the shaft of light. "They're mercenaries," he called to the dark of the ship. Where his voice reached came the crunch of bone, and the heavy breaths of an unseen creature. "They're here for Blinky."

The crunching paused. "That so?" said the darkness. Chromatic fungal light died on the periphery of something shuffling in the bowels of the hold. Whatever it was, it turned, and Stump found himself snared by two hovering eyes in the darkness.Yellow eyes.

The goblin slowly ambled into the light.

Her skin may have been green once, but now it was the grey of salt-bleached rock, bruised with splotches of undersea blue and the purple of a bloated corpse. Her black hair hung in tattered seaweed locks over a wrinkled face, and ran down shoulders draped in a sopping cloak adorned with barnacled treasures of the sea. She was tall—as tall for a goblin as Stump was short—and she navigated over the shattered remnants of her ship with a spider-like crawl, aided by her spindly limbs.

When she opened her mouth to speak, seawater dribbled off her tongue. "Why are you here?"

Her eyes, sunk into the depths of a drowned face, hooked each of them in turn.

Stump gulped, but the fear welling in his throat was tempered by the terror of the goblins at his back. He hadn't realized Yeza was squeezing his hand.

"Um..." he began. Don't start with a lie. "Pog sent us to come find Blinky. He wants him back."

The goblin, creature, thing, breathed a cloud of dead fish. "Why does he not come himself?"

"He says you banished him."

She tilted her head curiously, revealing a pulsing limpet feeding from her neck, and uncurled a bony hand. She beckoned to the dark. "Blinky."

The ratfolk shuffled into the light. He bore a skittish slouch not unlike Wick's, and it only grew more pronounced under the harsh scrutiny of his goblin overlord. "Yes, matron?" he squeaked.

Matron? Stump appraised their leader for signs of her colour, her domain, the slice of goblin life she claimed as her own. Parasitic sea creatures and baubles from the depths would suggest she was a blue matron, but her lordship over their crew might signify white, and yet the stench of death wafting off her being insisted black.

What is she?

Whatever her colour, she regarded Blinky with dead eyes. Water spilled down her chin. "You've been to see him, have you not?"

Blinky stiffened as if pierced by a harpoon. "I... I have."

"And how is he?"

"He's uh..." Blinky stammered, staring at the floor as if searching for the right words. "He's not well. He has a shop in the Sift, but he sells very little."

She let the anxiety swell between them before pressing further, her words slithering like an eel from her throat. "Do you want to leave us, Blinky? To be with him?"

As if Stump had blinked with his eyes open, the ratfolk flickered like a dying candle. He turned to Yeza to see if she'd noticed as well, but fright wouldn't allow her to peel her eyes from the matron.

"N... no, of course not," said Blinky.

The goblin's blue lips cracked as she grinned. "What about you, Cinderpeg?"

The human child shook his head. "No, matron. This is my home."

"And you, Ragbit?"

The orc cleared her throat. "No. I'll never leave you."

Judging by the eyes hovering in the shadows, there were over a dozen children of the Scrap Gulls. The matron swept her gaze over all of them, but she didn't need to confirm their loyalties. The point had been made.

Instead she crept towards Stump and leaned close enough to catch sunlight on her salt-cracked skin. "Pog was not banished, young one. None of my children are banished from the Siverin. His dreams of magic have steered him away from his family. He's felt the touch of land, and has forgotten its dangers. But his quest for Blinky tells us he remembers."

On instinct Stump would have recoiled from the rot on her breath, but he held his ground. So did the goblins at his back, though through Yeza's touch he could feel the tremors of the bloodlust taking hold. I need to get us out of here.

"Remembers what?" he said.

"How lovely it is to be beneath the sea. This is his home, always."

"Always," echoed Cinderpeg.

"Always," said Ragbit.

Another flicker brought Blinky out and back into the world in a heartbeat. "Always," he said.

"Shut up," Knife-Chewer snarled.

"Always."

"Always."

"Always."

"Shut up!" Knife-Chewer pounced for the shadows.

"No fighting!" Ironbone snapped, snagging the goblin's wrist.

But it was too late. The dams of the bloodlust were shattered.

Pebble-Crusher leapt into the dark with a ferocious battlecry. Durza was close behind. Even Dreeg, as gentle as he was, fell to the primeval hatred of Grumul.

Ragbit tumbled into a wall under a hail of goblin fists. Cinderpeg fumbled for his crossbow, then spun from Knife-Chewer's lunge, who'd broken free of his commander. Children dashed out of the dark, leaping, screaming, knives and daggers and axes in hand.

Blinky, sprinting from the chaos, vanished as he passed beneath a pillar of light, leaving nothing but dust in his wake.

Stump threw his arms around Yeza and led her from the fighting, and only when she was safe in the darkness did he turn back to the pandemonium and yell, with all the might of his small goblin body, the powers of his newly chosen focus.

"STOP!"

The hull lurched and whined under the staggering power of his Projected Speech. Axes froze mid swing. Knives paused mid thrust. Goblins abandoned their howling for stunned silence. Durza and Ragbit, in a tangle of limbs, called a truce to gaze on the being who commanded their attention.

Stump waited for the echo to fade, but before he could gather his thoughts on what to say next, Morg whispered in his pouch.

He brought the Sending Stone to his ear listened to the panting of his dwarven friend.

He's running.

"Stump... ye there? We've got a problem..."


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