Matthew Nesheim
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Chapter 41: Calista - Desperate Negotiations
🕑 Added 2023-10-25 17:00:03 +0000 UTCGrumner had missed. As the dwarf grumbled and cursed, Calista knocked another arrow and took aim while beside her, Lefty stepped forward and began muttering an incantation. Inhale, exhale slowly, aim, and loose. However, in the time it took her to loose her arrow, the goblin had slipped beneath the bridge and so her arrow landed harmlessly in the grass. Beside her, Lefty cut his spell short.
She nudged Grumner, “Well what do we do now?”
The dwarf had his iron lever out as he worked at reloading his crossbow. “I suppose we could flank the little bastard.”
“What if he calls for help?” she asked.
“Simple,” Grumner answered. “We run.”
So it was that seconds later, she was creeping through the tall grass with her sword in one hand and her short bow in the other as she and Lefty came at the bridge from the south while Grumner came at it from the north. So far, she had not seen anything to indicate there were more goblins about, but then again, she had so far only been on this side of the bridge.
The bridge was a wooden thing made of planks tied together by wood. As she came to the edge of the tall grass, Calista stopped, set down her sword, and pulled an arrow from her quiver. She could see the dead goblin she had feathered laying beside a rock. As she scanned the bridge, she could see the foot of the other goblin sticking out from under where the bridge met the river’s shore. If she moved a few paces to her right, she would have a clear shot.
“Stop!” the goblin cried from beneath the bridge.
Calista didn’t respond as she wondered what the goblin might be doing. However, Lefty had no such hesitation.
“What do you mean, stop?” the wizard said.
“I mean don’t shoot. I surrender,” the goblin said.
Calista interrupted, “You’re a goblin. You don’t get to surrender.”
“That’s not fair,” the goblin protested. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“You’re a goblin. You don’t have to.” Calista replied.
“In that case, I would like to propose a proposition,” the goblin said.
“And what’s that?” Lefty said.
At this, Calista gave the wizard a dark look, but Lefty only shrugged and pointed to the duck beside him.
“What’s that supposed to mean,” she whispered.
Lefty whispered back, “It means Feathers has a plan.”
“And what is Feather’s plan?”
Lefty shrugged. “I don’t know. He hasn’t told me yet.”
The goblin’s shout interrupted them, “My proposition is this: If your little band lets me join in, I won’t blow my whistle and summon the other forty goblins that are hiding behind a rock on the eastern hillside.”
Lefty went pale as Calista felt her blood run cold. The duck, however, let out a few satisfied quacks.
Lefty whispered the interpretation, “Feathers says he had suspected as much as this goblin immediately appeared far too smart for his own good, which probably means that all the other goblins hate him and think he’s an idiot, which likely means this particular goblin resents his fellows and is looking for some manner of escape.”
Calista looked from Feathers to Lefty and back to Feathers. “Where did you say you got this bird from?”
Lefty’s face was full of wonder as he shook his head, “I have no idea where he came from.”
Just then, a tiny green hand holding a whistle by its chain emerged from under the bridge. “Oh,” said the goblin, “and you can tell your friend with the crossbow to back off. In fact, if he so much as takes one more step, I blow this thing as hard as I can.”
Calista was growing irritated. If there was one thing she hated, it was negotiating with uppity NPCs. “And just what makes you think we believe you? What if we think this whistle thing is just a bluff?”
Feathers let out a low quack.
Lefty whispered, “Feathers says …”
“Shut up,” Calista snapped.
The goblin answered, “If I’m bluffing, you’re just going to cut my throat anyway. So what do you have to lose? A little walking and maybe some pride in exchange for not having to fight forty armed goblins as well as gaining the pleasure of my company?”
“Why would we want your company?” she answered.
The goblin’s reply was firm. “It’s not about what you want. It’s about what I want. It’s part of the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Calista knew that goblins were not a playable race in Sable Unlimited. So, bringing in a goblin meant bringing an NPC into the group, and given how much different the game world was here on this very real world of Wraath, Calista was more than a little leery about bringing one of the most notoriously untrustworthy races into their party. And that was to say nothing of how creepy goblins were in general. Lechers, the lot of them. Given that she was a woman, she had never once met a goblin that didn’t look her over in a way that made her feel like something slimy had crawled down her back.
Looking out again over the grass, she began to contemplate whether or not she could shoot the whistle out of the goblin’s hand. However, it was at that moment that Grumner appeared beside them.
“I have good news and I have bad news,” the dwarf said. “Which do you want first?”
“Good,” Lefty said.
“Bad,” said Calista.
Grumner pointed up at the eastern hill. “Okay, so I looped around to where the river bends just enough so that I could see up the hill and I don’t know whether there’s forty of them or not, but there does appear to be a large encampment of goblins behind a big, gray rock.”
“And what’s the good news?” Calista said.
The dwarf let out a chuckle. “The good news is it appears this goblin isn’t lying.”
