“It’s really easy.” Malkot a goblin with long ears started explaining, “I don’t like life in the village and you don’t either.” The goblin said and brushed the long robes out from under his feet.
“You got that right,” Ctunk another goblin agreed nodding and rubbed his long nose.
“I don’t see how us not being happy here means we need to leave,” Zeng said and frowned. This goblin had a number of little nobs on his head as though he had been hit around the head recently and he rubbed them gently.
Malkot and Ctunk sighed.
“If we leave then we won’t get hit or yelled at,” Malkot said again, “My mechanical suit needs three to work. We can leave the goblin village and go to the human village. So, you and Ctunk won’t get hit all the time.”
“Won’t humans just hit us too?” Zeng asked and rubbed the nobs on his head, “I mean you’re smart, Malkot, and I trust you and Ctunk but I don’t understand. Humans don’t like goblins. Why wouldn’t they just hit us too.”
“That’s the beauty of the suit, Zeng,” Malkot said, “We’ll be hiding. They won’t know we’re goblins.”
“But I don’t know how to speak human,” Zeng said.
The other two sighed again.
“You and me will be in the suit hiding,” Ctunk explained, “Malkot will be the one speaking.”
Ctunk and Malkot wait. Zeng seemed to be thinking a lot harder than he had ever before. It had only taken an hour of explaining to get this far with Zeng and it looked like he might finally get it.
“Oh, okay,” Zeng finally said, “But won’t we need jobs?”
Malkot opened his mouth and then realized that he didn’t think about that.
“Yeah, but you have a knack at finding magical herbs, and I know how to make potions, and Ctunk is good with tools,” Malkot said, “I’m sure we can just set up a shop to sell potions to make a living, and while we do that I do have some human money we can use.”
“You do?” Ctunk asked, “How much do you have?”
Malkot was a little embarrassed.
“I’m not actually sure, but I think it should be enough for a little while,” Malkot said but he wasn’t sure. He knew he had a total of 200 coins, but there were three different types of coins and that was a little confusing.
Zeng thought for a bit more and a few minutes passed.
“Okay, let’s go,” Zeng consented.
The other two cheered, more to that Zeng finally understood the situation than to Zeng agreed to leave.
They left the village that night and started their journey to a large human town. They walked along the road in the suit Malkot built so they could practice using it. It had three spots, one for the main driver who operated both arms and was the head, and one for one left leg and helping with the left arm and the other for the right leg and right arm. It took a lot of practice to use it right, and Malkot was happy no one was around because he definitively though they looked like a they were about to fall out of a tree. You see, when goblins drink, they like to do it in a tree and when they drink too much they can often fall out.
When they finished for the day every night Malkot would make some adjustment to help out with making the suite work better while Zeng went out to collect herbs and Ctunk collected food and water.
It was a good thing the village was a longways away because it took nearly a week or using it and practicing to get it working just right. They even had enough herbs and potions and medical poultices that they even had quite a store to sell when they finally got to town and it was all held inside the suit. They felt they had a good chance, since they did pass by a few humans and even though they got a few weird looks, none of the humans attacked them.
“Good day, there uh,” Malkot was pretty sure the human he was talking to was a man since they didn’t have visible breasts, “Sir. Is there a place to, uh” Malkot’s vocabulary was limited, “eat and sleep?”
“Yeah there’s a tavern over there,” The man said and gave the walking monstrosity a strange look but pointed to a sign that read “The Sleepy Sow” and had a picture of a pig with drooping eyes and its head lulled to one side.
“Thank you,” Malkot said and then whispered down to the other where to go. They walked to the tavern and Malkot was, after a few attempts, to get the door open and they walked inside. The tavern was not busy and there were quite a few open tables.
“What do we do?” Zeng whispered up in goblin.
“Do we just sit down?” Ctunk asked in a fevered whisper also in goblin.
Malkot thought hard about what to do but was saved but a lady wiping down a table.
“Just sit anywhere you want,” She said and stood up and turned around, “I’ll be right with you?”
“Thank you,” Malkot said and then directed the others to sit at a table in the corner of the tavern.
It took a little while but the lady came up to their table.
“How can I . . . help . . . you?” The barmaid said and she looked at the suit with Malkot’s head sticking out.
“We would,” Malkot caught himself, “I would like three bowls of . . .” His arm moved with a little wooden creak and pointed to what someone else was eating, “That.”
“Sure, that will be six copper,” the barmaid said and her voice was questioning, but Malkot didn’t catch that since he was still new to using the human language.
“Just a moment,” The arm swungings inside the suit and Ctunk held up the money pouch as the hand clutched the bag and then sung it out. The bag slipped out of the mechanical hand and dropped to the table.
“Sorry, wormy fingers,” Malkot said.
The bar maid squinted at Malkot and smiled.
“I haven’t heard that before,” She said, picked up the pouch, pulled out 6 copper coins and put the pouch back on the table, “Normally we say butter fingers.”
“Oh, right,” Malkot said quickly realizing that he made a big mistake, “Butter fingers.”
“I’ll be right back with your soup,” She said and looked at the suit with an appraising squint, unfortunate Malkot was too busy trying to pick up the pouch with the suit’s hand to notice.
When she left Ctunk just reached out and pulled the pouch back inside the suit.
“We should have practiced using the hands,” Ctunk whispered up.
“Yeah,” Zeng whispered up as well, “It’s hard to use the arm if I can’t see.”
“I’ll have to do some adjusting later so we can work that out,” Malkot said trying out the hand motion on the suit and stopped suddenly when the bar maid headed their way with a tray with three bowls of soup on it.
She put the three bowls of soup down and steps back a little bit.
“So, where did you come from?” She asked.
Malkot froze for a moment as he tried to think up something to say.
“We, uh, I came from the forest. . .” Malkot realized he didn’t know the words for the different directs and then swung one arm to point at the direction they came from.
“I don’t know of any settlements in that direction,” She said, “Is it a big place.”
“No, I lived mostly alone,” Malkot said and his nose was twitching at the smell of the soup which smelled really good.
“Oh, what made you decide to come here?” She asked.
“I wanted to make a money and find a place to live,” Malkot said and his words were a little slow as he reached the peak of his human speech.
“Oh, what can you do?” She asked and Malkot could feel Ctunk and Zeng trying to peek though the robes to see where the smell of the food was coming from. Malkot kicked them to have them go back to their stations.
“We I, make,” And he had to think hard about what were the right words in human to explain what they were going to do, “Medicine from plants.”
“We do need a good potion maker here,” She said and looked down at the soup. “What’s your name?”
“Malkot,” He answered before he thought about it and then growled at himself in anger for not thinking up a human name in advanced.
“I’ll leave you to your food then,” She turned to leave.
“Wait,” Malkot said, “I need place to sleep.”
“We do have a few rooms, and they are three silver a night,” She said, “How many nights do you need?”
“Five,” Malkot said and he swung his arm back in to try and get the pouch again, this time he is able to put it on the table without it falling out of the machine’s fingers.
The bar maid picked up the pouch and she picked though the pouch and is able to find 15 silver.
“Just one room?” She asked before putting the pouch back on the table.
“I am one human,” Malkot said and tried to smile.
“Right,” she said looking at the middle of the cloak covering the suit. “I’ll lead you to your room when you’ve finished with your soup.” She left and the moment she turned her back Zeng and Ctunk grabbed a bowl of soup and pulled it inside the suit.
“Hand me up mine,” Malkot said quietly in goblin.
Zeng handed up the last bowl and they all drank it the soup down noisily. It was so good that they didn’t even bother to hide for a second or two, but once they realized they were out of the suit they quickly finished the soup and put the bowls back on the table.
“I’d be willing to stay here just for that,” Ctunk said quietly, “That was delicious.”
“I know,” Zeng whispered, “What do you think was in it?”
“I don’t know, but I know the meat wasn’t squirrel or deer,” Malkot whispered down.
The bar maid walked towards the table from across the tavern.
“Quick get back to your places,” Malkot whispered frantically down to the others.
“Did you like the soup?” She asked smiling.
“It was very good,” Malkot said smiling for real this time.
“Would you like some more?” She asked.
Malkot thought about it but didn’t want to pay for more since he wasn’t sure how much money he really had left.
“It would be on the house,” She said and Malkot looked at her blankly trying to figure out what she said, “It would be free, no charge.”
Malkot understood that and really wanted more, but wasn’t sure if he could get a bowl more for each of them. He suddenly realized that humans must not eat three bowls of soup and still want more.
He tried to whisper down to his friends in goblin as quietly as he could.
“She wants to know if we want more?” Malkot whispered in goblin trying not to move his lips.
“Yes,” was the quick whisper back from both Zeng and Ctunk.
“Yes, w-I would,” Malkot said nodding.
“Okay, three more bowl on the house,” She picked up the bowls and left for the kitchen.
The moment she walked away a man walked up and he was large, covered in hair, scowling, and had a large sword on his hip.
Malkot froze and didn’t know what to do. They must have been found out. Zeng and Ctunk also froze. They didn’t bring any weapons and didn’t plan on fighting this soon.
“Hi, I’m Bert, I understand you make medicine,” Bert said.
This was the largest human they have seen so far and Malkot froze. He heard the words but the words mulled in his head for a few seconds before he realizes what was actually asked.
“Yes, we have medicine,” Malkot said forgetting to use the singular term this time.
“You see, I have a stomach ache something fierce and was wondering if you had anything on you that would help,” Bert said and rubbed his stomach.
“Your stomach?” Malkot didn’t understand the word at first but once he saw where the man was rubbing, he caught on. “Something for your stomach. Just a moment.”
Malkot kicked Zeng and fervently whimpered down, “Do we have a stomach ache cure?” as quietly as he could and swung a wooden arm into his suit.
He looked up at the man and laughed nervously and Zeng and Ctunk searched though the potions they made and put a stomach aid into the hand.
“It’s in the hand,” Zeng whispered up.
Malkot pulled the hand out of the suit and reached the wooden arm out towards the man with the bottle of what looked like a slightly muddy brown mixture.
The man took the bottle and uncorked it and took a deep smell. His eyes grew wide for a moment and he then drank the bottle down. After drinking the entire contents, he sighed in relief and put the bottle down on the table and then pulled out a money pouch.
“I know those can’t be cheap and that worked great and actually didn’t taste like garbage,” the man said and pulled out a gold coin and put in on the table with the bottle.
When the bar maid returned with the soup Bert walked away and gave the bar maid a nod before he left the tavern. The bar maid put down the three bowl of soup and left. Malkot was still frozen with a dumb smile on his face.
The three goblins took a while before they were able to harrow themselves again and eat the soup. They were starving before, but the thought that they were caught really shook them and it took them awhile to finish the soup they were brought. When they finished these bowls the bar maid led them to their room for the night, they walked like there were about to fall out of a tree, and once the door was closed, they all popped out of the suit as fast as they could and sank to the floor.
“I thought we were going to die,” Ctunk said and sank to all fours.
Zeng crawled up on the bed and started taking long deep breath to sooth himself.
“You were in the suit,” Malkot said, “He was massive! I think he could have ripped the arms off a troll and then beat the troll to death with them.”
“The disguise worked,” Ctunk said finally, “If it didn’t, we would be dead.”
“Yes, yes,” Malkot said quietly, “I think we just need to get used to all these people and then it’ll be fine.”
“When are we going to collect herbs?” Zeng asked.
“When we need them,” Maklot said, “It’s lucky we had that potion.”
“We need to leave the suit to collect herbs.” Zeng said.
Ctunk and Malkot’s eyes widen.
“I don’t want to meet that man outside the suit,” Zeng said.
“We’ll have to do that at sunset,” Maklot answered, “and pray we don’t see that man while we’re getting herbs.”
They were greeted by the bar maid when they came to the main room after their first night’s rest. They were told they got breakfast free and after eating were told they could try and just setup a blanket outside. After breakfast of something called ‘pancakes’ the goblins head outside. They set up a little blanket outside the tavern and sat the suit down on it and put out a lot of the potions and poultices, all of which he pulled out of the suit when no one was looking. Malkot made a few small slits so Ctunk and Zeng could see a little bit.
“So, these are coppers,” Malkot said looking at the copper coins, “and there are ten copper coins to a silver coin, and ten silver coins to a gold coin.” He was a little warry since the man that was buying a healing potion was also carrying a large club and a shield.
“Hey wait a second!” Some one yelled out from behind the crowd pointing to Malkot and drawing a sword, “Isn’t that a g. . .”
The person was gagged and then dragged off to one side where Bert and few other people whisper quietly to the person before being let them go. The person then bought a potion before they left.
Actually, everyone that bought from the goblins today were armed, and Malkot was very alarmed at first, but no one attacked them and by the end of the day, they were up almost three hundred gold coins.
They were able to upgrade from a blanket to a small stall the next day. Malkot built the rough rustic looking cart that night while Malkot and Zeng slipped out of the room at night to get herbs from the forest. They snuck out and found that the streets were empty. They were able to take care of everything under the guise of darkness. After a few nights of heading out to get herbs they found that the streets were nearly always empty.
“You put this,” Malkot tried to remember what it was called.
“Poultice?” the Lady said.
“Yeah, poultice,” Malkot said, “put a hand full in water first so it will not be dry and then squeeze it so it don’t have to much wet then put it on the hurt and wrap it.”
“So, you want me to soak some of the herbs in water and then squeeze out the excess water and then put in on the injury and wrap it.” The Lady said.
“Yes,” Malkot took mental notes about what she said so he would be able to do remember it later. It seemed like everyday for a while Malkot was learning new words. Their healing potions were their best-selling items and the most expensive. Adventurers were coming to town to buy them up and some days there even broke bringing in over a thousand gold.
“You know malkot,” the bar maid said after a few months of them staying at the inn, “We really appreciate you being here for so long, but if you are going to stay in town you might want to buy a house or a shop, and there is an empty building on the edge of town. I think I could find out who owns it and you could buy it from them.”
“We-I could buy a house in town?” Malkot asked and was surprised.
“Well, yes,” the Maid said, “I believe you have enough to buy it.”
“Do we want to buy a house here?” Malkot whispered down to the others in goblin.
“Yes,” the both whisper up.
“Yes, it would be nice to get a house,” Malkot said.
It was a few hours and Malkot was at his cart when he was approached by a lady holding some paperwork.
“I understand you might want my old store,” She said, “It is still in decent shape but might need a little fixing up.”
“Yes, we would like a place,” Malkot said.
“It has three rooms above the shop and a back room behind the main shop,” She said and put the papers on the cart, “I’m asking for ten thousand gold for the building and the land it’s on. It does have about ten acers of land that have been fenced off.”
Malkot knew that was a lot of money.
“Yes,” Malkot said, “Let us check to see if I have enough.”
The three spent the next twenty minutes counting out the gold from inside the suit and putting it on the cart.
“That all seems to be in order,” She said and then pulled out a quill and ink and signed the paper, “Now just sign the paper on the other line and the shop will be yours.” She put down the quill next to the page and then turned around for no apparent reason.
Malkot quickly signed the paper with his regular hands while her back was turned since he doesn’t have that kind of control with the mechanical arm and then coughed.
The lady turned around and them smiled and picked up the sacks of gold coins.
“Well, it’s all in order,” She smiled, “It’s all yours.”
“Thank you,” Malkot called out.
There were ecstatic, they now had a place of their own.
The goblins relocated all the items to their new shop. It did need a few repairs and the land was fenced off, but the fence was in poor shape, and the roof was leaking and needed some new shingles and the latches on the doors needed to be fixed and the tables were a little run down. The goblins ended up buying wood, paint, and paid the blacksmith for nails, new hinges, and latches.
“You fixed this shop up really fast,” Their first customer asked when they opened up the shop for business, “Could you possibly do some repairs on my house?” He chuckled.
Malkot thought about it and then whispered down to Ctunk.
“He’s asking if we could fix his house?” Malkot whispered.
“Ask what he wants fixed,” Ctunk whispered up.
“What needs to be done?” Malkot asked.
“My roof is leaking, I think I need some shingles replaced,” the man said a little taken aback.
“He said his roof leaks,” Malkot whispered down.
“It might take a little while, but It could be done in a few days,” Ctunk said.
“Yes,” Malkot said, “But it will take a few days.”
“Sounds good,” the man then bought some pills for headaches and left. “I’ll come back to pay for the roof.”
“Ctunk, Zeng,” Malkot said down in goblin, “I think we should all learn human so we can take turns on the shop. I’ll fix the suit so two of can run it when it’s sitting down.”
“We’re really close to the forest,” Zeng noted, “I think I could actually hide all the way to the forest if we need more herbs. I think it I could even do that during the day.”
“Starting tomorrow,” Malkot said, “yeah we could all takes turns doing different things and we would only need two people here at any time. That way you can get herbs, I can make potions, and Ctunk can fix things when we need to.”
The next few days the goblins all started taking turns running the suit. They had a sudden serge of customers and Malkot and Ctunk ran the suit while Zeng ran off towards the forest to get more herbs. It took longer than expected for Zeng to get back, but when he did return, he was smiling and had a huge bunch of herbs.
“What took you so long?” Ctunk asked.
“Oh, it was fun being out in the sun again,” Zeng said, “We found a lot of herbs in the forest.”
“We?” Malkot asked.
“I,” Zeng said softly, “I found a lot of herbs.” He was still smiling.
The other two frowned but didn’t say anything.
They worked at the shop for a while and they found that they started having slow days, when almost no one needed anything so they decided to close the store for two days a week. That gave Ctunk a chance to fix items that were brought in by the townspeople, Malkot time to make potions, and Zeng time to collect herbs and then all time to practice speaking human. Malkot was better than the others, but Zeng was picking up the language really fast, much faster than Ctunk. Zeng also seemed to know words that neither Malkot or Ctunk had heard before. He was spending a lot of time collecting herbs, but did sometimes come back, exhausted, without herbs. When asked Zeng would just say he must have been in the wrong part of the forest. They really wanted to plant medicinal herbs on the land they now owned but it was one thing to be in the forest getting herbs during the day, but they would be seen in they were in their own back yard for sure.
“I always though Zeng was slower than other goblins,” Ctunk said one night while helping Malkot make some more potions. They were running low on healing salve. The shop was closed.
“You know I thought so too,” Malkot said while melting down some bee’s wax in a pot, “Maybe, since he’s not getting hit on the head all the time, his brains are getting better.”
“Maybe,” Ctunk said and was measuring out some oil in a cup, “But he always did have a way of getting into trouble.”
“Yeah,” Malkot said adding some of the oil and stirring, “But we’ve got a good life here, and I don’t think he would do anything to change that. I mean he’s happier than I have ever seen him before.”
“Well save that one time he was with the chief’s daughter,” Ctunk laughed.
[zombify_post]
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