Goblin Politics

A sad smile graced Aeolia’s face as Mason turned his van onto the street her guild’s base was on.

‘Former base now, I guess,’ she thought as she directed her attention to the party of goblins seated behind her. Well, seated was a generous term. Most had promptly passed out, excitement over traveling by car only keeping them awake for a few miles. Only Teri and the lanky female that kept giving Mason ‘fuck me eyes’ remained awake, although she seemed to only remain awake by sheer thirst.

“Better get your people up and ready,” Mason said towards Teri.

“Yeah,” Aeolia cut in. “The base is down a side street. We’ll need to go invisible to reach the edge.”

“Between Kitai and Vivian’s orb, we’ve got plenty of cover,” Teri said, before speaking in her native tongue to rouse her men. The battle weary goblins groggily stirred, the language barrier not masking the unhappy tone in their voices. Mason parked the van right by the entrance to the alley and Teri picked up the Glyph Sphere.

Teri and her party faded mostly from view as she activated the Sphere, a wave of invisibility spreading out from the artifact. It hid Teri and the goblins closest to her completely, while the ones further back were only partially obscured, their features fading in and out of view as they moved. Teri let out a small whistle and her pet’s ability came into play, distorting the still visible figures with shadow.

“All ready,” Teri’s disembodied voice said.

‘I wonder how Vi makes it so the veil only works on people and what they’re carrying,’ Aeolia thought as she activated her own veil, flying out as Mason slid open the van’s door.

“Just down here,” she called back. “Barrier starts right by the door.”

Aeolia didn’t wait for them to reply and flew to the Barrier, willing herself in before dropping the veil and returning to her full height, landing next to Clay’s remains.

She ignored the fractured pieces of the golem as Mason popped in, his face drawn with dark emotion. He nodded at Aeolia, once more conveying his respects as he stepped in, making room for the small trickle of goblins to enter. Teri was the last to come in, deactivating the Sphere as she looked at the ruined entry way before turning her attention to Aeolia.

“I know it might not mean much to you,” Teri addressed the winged woman. “But if you want, I can offer up a prayer for your friends.”

Aeolia felt a small smile twitch on her lips and her eyes grew a touch damp. “That’d be fine. Anyway, let me show you around. Like I said before, we got raided, so there isn’t a lot that wasn’t trashed.”

“We’re no stranger to misfortune,” Teri glumly replied as John, Vivian and Cammie entered the Barrier, having arrived in Vivian’s car shortly after they had. The dark haired woman had the same disponent look as Mason as she took in the ransacked building and quickly moved to her boyfriend, sliding her hand into his. Aeolia caught a look of frustration from the lanky goblin before Vivian’s voice drew her attention to the redhead.

“What exactly happened to you and your people?” she asked, before adding, “If you can tell us, that is.”

Teri bit her lip as she seemed to debate what she could say then let out a sigh. “The elders probably won’t like me telling you this, but I can’t just keep you in the dark. Not that there’s anything major about it.”

“Don’t risk getting into trouble on our account,” Vivian said, a small touch of concern on her voice.

Teri gave her a small smile. “No, it’s fine. We were attacked, and by a **** too much for us to fight. We hadn’t had anything beyond small raids for as long as I could remember, so our fighters weren’t ready for an attack of that magnitude. They did manage to hold them off long enough for some of us to escape, but…”

“But you still lost a lot of people,” Aeolia finished, her voice full of understanding.

“Yeah,” Teri managed to say. “We’ve been on the move for months. None of us have the talent in Barrier creation to create a good long term home and the elders keep finding reasons to keep us moving. I think Elder Vrexty is afraid they’re following us. I’ve never seen any sign that they are, but I can’t just challenge him on it. It’d break the clan and we can’t afford that.”

“What makes you think they’ll listen now?” John piped in.

“We can’t keep running,” Teri sadly said. “Now that we’ve lost a lot of our fighting ****. If it was just that, I could see the elders pushing for us to keep moving, but with you guys as allies, that should be enough to **** them to rule in favor of settling down for a while. Maybe permanently, if that’s okay?”

“Stay as long as you need,” Aeolia answered with a smile, then her face shifted back into a neutral expression. “Sorry about having to make you clean up though.”

“It’s fine,” Teri replied with a smile of her own. “It’ll give my men something to work on while I take some of you to meet with the elders. It should be easier to get them to accept your help if we make a good impression.”

“Mason probably would go a long way to making us look like good strong allies,” John chimed in, earning a nod from Teri.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Teri said. “Your spells were damn useful. Plus, that black fire you used looked like it made that tree unable to attack. I was thinking of bringing both you and Mason. He looks like a strong warrior, and if the elder’s ask questions about how you guys helped us, you can provide the details. I mean, after I translate it.”

“I mean, I guess that makes sense,” John muttered, scratching the back of his neck, his expression unsure.

Aeolia slung her arm over John’s shoulder, standing on the tips of her talons to do so. “You’ll do fine. I’d probably shoot my mouth off and screw it up, even if they can’t understand me.”

John smiled at her. “We wouldn’t want that.”

Aeolia detached herself from John and cast her gaze on the goblin warriors, who had been standing about dumbly while they conversed in English.

“So, are we going to get some cleaning underway before you go off to talk to your bosses?” Aeolia asked Teri. “‘Cus it’ll probably be a little hard to direct your people since we can’t understand each other.”

“Yeah, we can start that,” Teri agreed. “I’ll let them know what you want to do and when to stop.”

“How about making some translation cards?” Vivian suggested. “We can start with you translating our directions, but when you leave, we can use them to try to keep things going. And if things get too crazy, you can make a ‘stop’ card.”

“That could work,” Teri said. “Got a pen?”

“Always,” Vivian answered, pulling her pad and pen from her choker’s pocket space. “Now, where should we start?”

---

It took around a half hour to get the goblins working well enough at their cleaning tasks between Teri’s relayed orders and the instruction cards.

“Looks like things are moving along smoothly,” John said to Mason as he and the larger man stopped their part in the cleanup.

“They are quite eager to get this place back to functional condition,” Mason noted. “I’m sure the accommodations they’ve had to deal with for the past few months haven’t been the best. Having a well maintained, safe Barrier must look like a five star hotel to them.”

Before any more could be said, the female fighter Teri had called Gryit bumped into Mason as she hauled away some wood that likely had been a desk. She said something in her native tongue, her words coming out as something of a purr as she laid a hand on Mason’s forearm.

Teri called her name with a harsh inflection, causing the lanky goblin to flinch and scurry away. The goblin leader let out what John assumed were a few choice curses as she approached them.

“Sorry about Gryit,” she said mainly to Mason. “She’s, um, a bit infatuated with you.”

“Oh,” Mason exclaimed, his face starting to match his hair, and he let out an embarrassed cough. “Well, I’m flattered, but I’m spoken for. Please inform her of that. Don’t want to lead her on or anything.”

“Yeah,” Teri said, looking a tad uncomfortable as she rubbed her upper arm. “I’ve already told her that was probably the case. Still didn’t listen to me.”

Mason let out another awkward cough. “Well, tell her that I’m quite happy with Cammie. Never mind that such an endeavor wouldn’t work, what with the language barrier. Anyway, are we ready to meet with these elders?”

Teri nodded. “I think Aeolia, Vivian and Cammie have a good enough handle on things. I’ve impressed on my men to follow their orders and the amount of specific order cards Vivian wrote up should be enough to keep things functional without me to translate. And there’s no point in putting things off. I’ll give the others one last talk, then let’s get moving.”

“We’re heading out,” Mason called over to the girls as Teri moved to give one last set of orders to her people.

“Have fun dealing with those elders,” Cammie shouted back over the din of manual labor. “Can’t be any harder than dealing with the Feianto over their beef prices.”

Mason groaned. “Let’s hope. Those elves certainly are sticklers for the minor details.”

Aeolia flew over and landed before John, eyeing him critically.

“Feeling nervous?” she asked, concern in her voice.

John shrugged. “A little. Never really been good with talking to people in authority. Always feel like I’m going to screw it up and make an ass of myself.”

Aeolia flashed him a smile. “You’ll do fine. Just remember you helped take down a deadly monster plant. What’s the worst some old goblins can do?”

A smile made its way to John’s face and he let out a small chuckle. “Guess you’re right. I just don’t want to ruin the plan and have these guys have to keep moving without a break.”

“I get that,” Aeolia admitted, eyes sweeping over the goblins cleaning up, a sad look in those amber orbs. “It’d suck if they had to run again. But there isn’t much you or Mason can do besides representing us. Teri’s got to do the real hard work.”

John nodded, watching the goblin leader speak to her men. He imagined she was giving them one last peptalk, reassuring them that they’d get time to rest once the elders agreed to set up a long term home here.

“As nervous as I am,” he said, “I kinda wish there was something more I could do. We’re leaving a lot of this to fate.”

“Yeah,” Aeolia agreed. “But we can’t do anything more than have the meeting. Just got to hope it goes well. They kind of grow on you, ya know. Vivian and Teri really hit it off.”

The two women in question were making sure their solution to the language barrier was all good before Teri moved towards the exit, picking up the Glyph Sphere from where she left it, Kitai flying down from a high ledge to land on her shoulders.

“Guess it’s time to go,” John said.

Aeolia leaned in and captured his lips in a quick kiss. “Good luck.”

---

The goblins had their current hideout just outside the city limits, in a rather rundown area. Mason drove his van down the empty roads towards the abandoned building Teri had directed them to and parked near it.

“Alright, here’s the strategy,” Teri said after a moment, “when we get in there, I’ll present you two as Blood Kin who helped us in battle and explain what happened. Under no circumstances do either of you use any spells unless I tell you to. The elders won’t be happy that we lost most of our fighters and any suspicion that you’re using magic to control me or manipulate them will probably make them just order K’mels to kill you.”

“K’mels?” John asked, a hint of unease in his voice.

“The elders’ personal bodyguard,” Teri responded with a bit of heat in her voice. “Probably the strongest warrior left. And because of that, the most esteemed elders decided he should remain and ‘guard the non-combatants’ instead of leading the warriors in foraging.”

She took a breath to calm herself and continued, “If all goes well, the elders will agree to elevating you to Blood Kin, which means your offer of sanctuary should be accepted. Then it’s just a matter of moving everyone to Aeolia’s.”

“Sounds fairly straightforward,” Mason said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “What if they decline?”

Teri sighed, her exhaustion bleeding through her resolve. “Then we have to round up the others and move on. Hopefully it won’t come to that. Elder Vrexty is the only one pushing hard for the constant moving. Bryjt and Tjkon, the other elders, have been getting more and more tired of it, but Vrexty manages to convince them each time. I think a proper place open to us, with proven friends at our backs, will make it hard for him to uproot us again.”

“Let’s hope that is the case,” Mason intoned, drawing out a nod from John.

A few minutes later, Teri led Mason and John into the Barrier within the vacant building. Much like the original, it was a wreck with knocked down walls and a floor more dirt than concrete. Their entrance hadn’t gone unnoticed even with the seamless entry, and a goblin a head and a half taller than Teri marched towards them. He wore leather armor more well kept than Teri’s that looked tailored to his build.

“What is the meaning of this, Tsxhel?” he snarled, pointing his drawn shortsword at the humans behind her. “You were sent to gather provisions. Where’s Klmen?”

“Dead,” Teri replied, working to keep her voice measured. “The Barrier we scouted had a vile monster in it. It killed all but eleven of us. If it wasn’t for some timely aid, we’d all be dead.”

She gestured back towards the humans. “They stood and bled with us. As clan shaman, I declare them Blood Kin.”

“You dare,” K’mels spat.“That is a warrior’s right.”

“I recall you pushing for me to join the party,” Teri countered. “Klmen’s made me his second. Besides that, you know the history. In times of hardship, any noted member of the clan can declare anyone Blood Kin. It is up to the elders to decide the validity of the claim.”

K’mels grit his teeth at Teri’s argument, obviously unable to counter her, his long ears quivering in anger. “Fine,” he snarled. “To the elders with your so-called Blood Kin.”

He turned sharply and marched deeper into the Barrier. Teri followed, leading John and Mason towards where the elders held council. The three old goblins sat in an arc on scavenged chairs behind a salvaged, wobbly table. The one on their left was rail thin, a fringe of white hair hung limply over his brow as he seemed to stare out blankly. On their right was a wizened old crone, her steel gray hair pulled into a bun, her eyes closed. And in the center, seated on a slightly higher chair, was one that looked less world weary, his scarred face twisted into a frown as his sharp eyes raked over them.

“Honored elders,” K’mels announced. “Shaman Tsxhel has returned from the foraging with some interesting developments.”

“I see,” the central one spoke. “Shaman, I take it some misfortune fell to Klmen?”

“Yes, Elder Vrexty,” Teri answered, bowing as she did. “The Barrier was infested by a most monstrous creature. Klmen and our warriors fought valiantly, but fell. Only eleven of us survived, in part due to the allies we encountered.”

Teri gestured back towards John and Mason. “These two represent a small party that were scouting the Barrier at the same time. Not only did they prove to be crucial in defeating the abomination that infested the Barrier, but they have offered us sanctuary in a more stable Barrier. In recognition of those acts, I have named them Blood Kin.”

The elders didn’t respond to her words, instead they leaned closer together, discussing things in hushed voices. Teri twisted back to look at John and Mason, flashing them what she hoped was a reassuring smile. A light cough drew her attention back to the elders, their private debate concluded.

“A notable title,” Vrexty finally said, his voice cold. “And while I don’t doubt your assessment of their abilities, placing the wellbeing of our people in their hands requires more than just your word. A demonstration of their prowess would be a good way to ease our doubts. A test of their combat ability against something Bryjt can summon.”

“I’m sure they would not object to such a test,” Teri quickly said to the elders. “If I may relay your offer to them?”

Vrexty nodded and Teri turned around and relayed the offer.

“That sounds like it wouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Mason said. “We’ve had a good amount of rest to recover our mana. I presume one of them will call forth our opponent.”

A conflicted look crossed Teri’s face then she nodded. “Yes. The one with the bun. She’s the one who’s maintaining this Barrier. She likely can’t conjure something too powerful.”

“Then let’s have it,” Mason declared.

John nodded at Teri, confirming his agreement with the plan, and Teri turned back to the elders.

“They accept the terms,” she told the elders, drawing out a small smile from Vrexty.

“Good, good,” the head elder said. “I look forward to seeing what that smaller one can do.”

Teri blinked at Vrexty’s words. “Honored elder, you wish for this one to fight?”

She pointed at John, causing the smaller human to shift uncomfortably at the attention.

“He is the weaker of the two, yes?” Vrexty asked. When Teri reluctantly nodded, he continued, “A **** is only as useful as its weakest link. I would rest better if I knew even the weaker members of our new Blood Kin could successfully defend our people.”

Teri had no counter for his argument and she replied, “I understand. May I inform them of your decision?”

Vrexty smiled in satisfaction. “You may. Bryjt will need a bit of time to call forth his challenge.”

Teri twisted back to John and Mason and was unable to meet John’s eyes.

“So, they want John to do the fighting,” she said. “Something about wanting to see if a ‘weaker’ member can protect the clan.”

“So that’s what the pointing was about, huh?” John asked.

“Yeah,” Teri answered. “Sorry. I didn’t think they’d want you to fight. Figured they’d go with Mason.”

“What’s done is done,” Mason sagely said. “If we make a fuss of this, it gives them an excess to doubt our trustworthiness and honor.”

He clapped his hand on John’s shoulder. “I’m sure you can handle whatever they throw at you, John.”

John took a breath and shook his head. “Don’t have any other way out. It’s not like they can throw anything more crazy than that tree.”

John’s fingers moved before him, stabbing at the air and Teri blinked as his armor just appeared on him. “Tell them I’m ready.”

Before Teri could, a growling noise filled the air. She, John and Mason directed their attention to a slowly coalescing wolf-like creature coming into being besides the sole woman elder, her face scrunched in concentration. The monster stood a meter tall, its fur so dark blue it seemed black. Dripping fangs barred from a bat-like mouth and sharp claws atop of human-like hands spoke of its lethality.

“If your human is ready,” Vrexty announced, “let's see what he can do against a barghest.”

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