This is a tale from back when Gobta was just another goblin in the horde.
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The sky stretched blue across the heavens, a refreshing breeze flowing in the air.
And the humans advancing on him like always. Today, as lively as ever, Gobta was under pursuit.
“Halt, you! Speed’s about the only thing you’ve got, is it?!”
“How dare you vandalize our fields again! I’m gonna kill you this time!”
The humans, eyes red with rage, were closing in on Gobta.
So he sprinted at full speed. It’d be bad for him, probably, if he let himself get caught. He could only imagine it, since he hadn’t been captured yet, but none of his friends had ever come back alive from such an encounter, so all Gobta could do was imagine the terrifying results.
He could’ve just kept his hands off the fields and gardens, of course. But Gobta and the other goblins didn’t quite grasp the concept of agriculture. All they saw was an open field with lots of fruits and vegetables growing in it. It was human territory, and they knew from experience that getting found would lead to a chase, but nothing could overcome their hunger.
So Gobta escaped down a narrow trail beaten into the earth by the local creatures, chewing the sweet flesh of a melon the whole way. The trail was barely visible at all, the sort of thing only a small goblin could successfully navigate. There would be no entry for the larger humans, who could only stop at a distance and lob insults at him instead.
He breathed a sigh of relief at his good thinking. Finding an escape route’s a basic move, it is! he thought.
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Upon arriving back at the village, Gobta found a group of the older goblin elders gathered around and discussing something. They were joined by a few kobold merchants who were in town.
“As I told you, these are too valuable for us to be able to trade elsewhere…”
“But that means this magical equipment will simply go to waste. Are you sure you can offer nothing for them?”
“If they were somewhat smaller, we would be able to wield them ourselves, but…”
“Hmm. I see. Indeed, these are too large for us to handle, either.”
Eavesdropping as he passed by, Gobta figured they were trying to sell some magical something-or-others to the kobolds. Human equipment, barring shortswords and daggers, was too large for goblins.
Armor, too, was out of the question. Clothing made out of things like hard leather could be taken apart and used in piecemeal fashion, but metallic pieces were too much to work with. None of the goblins had that kind of knowledge.
Magic items were a big unknown. Even touching them, they feared, would break them and make them worthless. If not even the kobolds wanted them, it was a classic case of pearls before swine.
“How about this, then?” one kobold suggested to the goblins as they scratched their heads. “If you are willing to travel to the Dwarven Kingdom, they should be able to take these items from you. They would be willing to accept it as payment for dwarven hardware and the like, and they will gladly deliver your purchases to you as well. It will be a fair distance from here, mind…but as long as you travel upstream along the river, it is impossible to lose your way.”
This led to a clamor among the assembled goblin elders. “The Dwarven Kingdom?!” one bellowed. “That is an impossible distance! I have only heard rumors of that foreign land!”
“How long would it take to travel to such a distant place?”
“Yes! And who would embark on the journey? Our young are our most valuable workers; we cannot afford to spare a single one!”
Nothin’ I need to worry about! Gobta thought as he blithely ambled by, paying little attention to the seemingly never-ending bickering.
Fate had different plans.
“Hold on,” the village elder said, stopping him. “You look like you have little occupying your time. Could I ask a favor?”
Gobta immediately froze. Something told him this favor wouldn’t be much to his liking.
“Look at this knife,” the elder continued. “Don’t you think it’s a wonderful piece? If you do this favor for us, I’ll be happy to give it to you!”
The gleam of the blade was more than enough to grab Gobta’s attention.
“Say what you will, sir! I’ll handle whatever you need!” he blurted, immediately forgetting his earlier sense of foreboding. But perhaps that was unavoidable. The silvery gleam on this knife was the product of the magic imbued inside. It immediately robbed Gobta of the ability to engage in critical thought. His mouth had moved before his brain did.
Ah!
But it was already too late.
“You will, then? You will travel to the Dwarven Kingdom for us?”
“Huh? Me?!”
“May we count on you for this?”
Now the elders surrounded Gobta, identical smiles on their faces. The sight of their stern eyes above their upturned lips forced Gobta to nod meekly in response.
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It was said that the average goblin’s life span was no more than a fifth of a human’s. Their lineage could be traced back to the ancient fairy-affiliated races, allegedly, but given their current degenerate monster selves, it was a tenuous link at best. Even the longest-lived were lucky to see their twentieth birthday, and most racked up only a decade or so before shuffling off. The age of three, when goblins were ready for reproductive activity, was seen as the start of their adulthood, with full maturity at age five.
They were not very strong creatures, and as a result, their species made up the difference through explosive numbers of offspring. Relatively few survived to adulthood, however, making the cruelty of nature all the more obvious. Only about half of all goblin children reached full maturity, and of those, less than half ever saw that fifth birthday.
It was simply the lot they were given, and considering these short lives, goblins did not have the habit of acquiring language skills. They could speak words, yes, but this was done strictly to communicate their intentions to each other and nothing more. There was no concept of gaining knowledge and imparting it to the next generation, nor any habit of stockpiling resources to improve their living conditions.
This was exactly why the goblins saw no use for magical items apart from selling them in exchange for their daily needs, along with any decent armor they could get their grubby paws on.
The lack of intelligence among even the elders meant that they truly had no idea what a journey to the Dwarven Kingdom would entail. The round-trip would take several months—a hefty part of a goblin’s life span—and he would have to risk everything he held dear. Yet nobody in the goblin village considered it to be a terribly important mission. To the elders and other mature adults, they were simply taking a rough-sounding assignment and giving it to a child with nothing better to do. They held no ill will toward him—nor, really, the arithmetic skills needed to appreciate the scope of this quest. It was just how it was.
And so, with only a few moments of hesitation, Gobta’s journey to the Dwarven Kingdom was set in stone.
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Why is everyone so mean? Gobta whined to himself.
He had a valid point. He was a goblin child, still not fully grown, and they were strapping a load the size of a mountain on his back and sending him off on some grand quest. He had heard from the kobolds that it’d be a two-month walk by itself, but with all this baggage? It was hard even putting one foot in front of the other.
But no point complaining about it. Gobta started to think. Then he had an idea.
Why don’t I put all this junk in a box and pull it behind me?
This, unfortunately, didn’t work. The box refused to move. Gobta scratched his head some more. Then he remembered the really big box he saw once, near a human settlement, with a horse pulling it around.
Oh yeah, that one had some round things on it, didn’t it…?
What he was remembering was a cart, and the “round things” were wheels, although he didn’t have the words for them in his vocabulary. So Gobta foraged around for something that would work in their place. What he found was a pair of abandoned circular shields.
This oughta do it!
Things proceeded commendably quickly from there. He took a straight club, then used his shiny new magical knife to whittle it down to size. Then he put a couple of holes in the box with his belongings and ran the stick through the both of them. He jammed the twin shields onto both ends of this makeshift axle and bound them in place with some handy vines he’d found. A couple extra pieces of wood for handles, and voilà—an instant pull-wagon.
With a few rags piled on top to keep things from falling off—and a few more from the village to keep warm in the evenings—he was set. The elder was kind enough to provide some food and water, too.
So Gobta left the village. Long, sentimental good-byes were never really the goblins’ style anyway.