Goblore Pt. 03

"You didn't tell me there were cat...fox...there were others on your expedition besides Kith," he said, voice lilting up to make the statement a question.

"She wasn't with us on the Looking Glass. That's Keela's crew member and contact for our dealings in Spitetail. Forget her name, truth be told."

As the raft neared the dock, the woman with the fluffy ears threw a line out to be caught by one of the more muscular spectators. They worked in tandem to haul in the boat, tying it off to a series of notched bronze mooring posts.Once secured, the pair pried the door off the pilot house and dropped it down as a gangplank. Out of the little shack walked a third member of the raft's crew.

Black curly hair matted with spray and sweat framed a gorgeous face marred by a smarmy grin that removed any sense of genuine mirth from the equation. She was buxom, even for the prodigious chests of her fellow Kith, a golden cog perched between her cavernous cleavage. Her simple clothes contrasted with the golden ear rings she wore. Despite her outward beauty, the closest thing to the vibe this woman gave off was the one time he'd tried to buy a used car from a dealer. Worst mistake of his life.

"Keela!" came a familiar voice. Miri raced out and threw herself at the disembarking raft captain. In a surprising display of strength, she lifted the raft captain into the air, squeezing her in a bearhug before letting her drop down to the dock in a daze.

"Hasn't been that long," she said with a little laugh.

"Yeah, but it's been long enough!" Miri shuffled off to let a little crew of workers start taking items. One Kith at either end of the big boxes, occasionally struggling with some of the heavier items. "What have you got for us?"

"Not as much as I wanted. Running low on buyers who want pelts, might have flooded the market in town given that it's mid summer. Another load of ronk husks, needles, thread, arrows, a few loose copper statuettes that I, ehm, 'found' on the dock."

"You stole them?" Jesse asked. He knew he wasn't involved in the conversation but he couldn't help his curiosity.

"Who's this tall guy? Looks like Folk to me," Keela said, her eyes narrowed into slits.

"He's okay," Vee said, holding out her hands in a forestalling motion. "He's lost, like us."

The sailor goblin tilted her head, waited for further explanation, then let her hand drift off her weapon and onto the tied up end of a rucksack. "Sure, why not. This bay's like a basket trap for all kinds of weirdos. Well, pleasure to meet you, Jesse. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bunch of stuff to offload." She pushed past the assembled crowd with the heavy bag slung over her shoulder, shoulder to shoulder with Miri. With the goodies revealed, most of the curious went back to whatever they were doing beforehand.

"Well...she's certainly different," Jesse said.

Vee nodded as she watched the smitten couple go. "Yeah, she's a bit of an acquired taste. She was our 'guide', hired by the Looking Glass crew to get us through some of the choppier waters in Southern Castis. Ended up being near useless past the Throat, but she speaks the trade pidgin that the Vulperi and the Lotor use. She's also the only one of us with sailing knowledge besides Kalvis, and he's needed at the village most of the time."

"Do you trust her?"

"I think so. If she wanted to, she could have bartered her skills or stolen something for passage back to her old area of expertise. That she's stuck around say something about her character."

"Or that she won't leave Miri," Jesse suggested.

"That too. But Miri wouldn't leave us voluntarily. And unless Keela planned to wrap her in a sack and take off for Spitetail, she's stuck with us."

They headed back to the main square of town, a day of labour winding down around them. He heard the hammering of metal coming from the far end of the village. Kalvis was still hard at work. The lumber workers, three gals he didn't know the names of yet, were cutting and planing wooden boards. A profoundly laborious task done by hand, he realized. With the river nearby, there was a way to harness it for power. Somewhere in his notes there was a water-powered sawmill idea. That and the mill, and a dozen other things you could use...

"I got preliminary permission from Nell. We can start in the morning," he said, voice tinged with excitement. It'd be a lot of work, but he could finally prove that his ramblings weren't complete nonsense.

Vee nodded warily. "I still have some misgivings about militarizing...but if we can make ourselves look like a dangerous enough target, maybe we can prevent a conflict altogether."

"That's the plan. We'll get you back to your home at some point, but from what you've all told me about these Folk dicks, I doubt they'll actually be accommodating."

"So. What's the first step?" she asked.

***

"You know I'll do anything to strike back at those Folk bastards but...do you have any ideas that Aren't completely insane?" Kalvis asked.

Jesse looked between the small blacksmith and the hastily sketched sheets of plans that he had placed on the table next to a variety of tools. "I don't know how to respond to that."

Kalvis stood about the same height as the rest of the people in the village. He did, however, sport as impressive a set of muscles as he'd seen on Huntress, and the callouses of hard work to match. He wore a pair of goggles on his forehead that mussed with his hairline. Unlike the delicate glass lenses that Vee used, these were heavy, practical protection against wayward shards of burning metal. Likewise, he favoured full pants and long sleeves, complete with a leather apron to keep him safe from the heat. He reminded Jesse of his Dad's friends from the plant. The memory made him wince, knowing he might never see his family again.

The blacksmith thumbed through the pages he'd written up. Though it was written in English, he tried to includes as many illustrations as he could manage with his limited artistic experience. Each page, however, kept him aware that blank paper was a finite resource in this little village. Yet another resource they would have to replicate in some fashion to keep the wheels turning.

"I recognize some of this. I'm not an expert in the finer points of machine making, mind. I can't build a clock from scratch, but I can certainly try to replicate this 'crossbow', for instance. If I can spare the material." He held out his hands to indicate the small smithy around them. "This is about all we got. I have some reserves of iron, various parts we pulled off the ship. But the XO took a lot of what we could have salvaged when the Looking Glass went down in the razorreef waters offshore. And if I'm going to work it, I'll need a steady supply of charcoal. Coal, preferably, but we haven't found a supply of it in the area."

Jesse gave a weak nod. It was about what he expected, but nowhere near what he wanted. A lot of his ideas couldn't be done with just the supplies of iron they had already, plus whatever other metals they'd found. "Didn't your ship have weapons?"

"That we did. We had blades, bows, harpoons, even some light armor. Not enough to sink us if we got knocked over board, of course. But a lot of that was taken by the expedition. The stuff they left us with was basic. Knives, a few hatchets, the bow that Huntress carries. I've done my best with the tin we found, and our trader connection has been getting as much as she can from her dealings with Vulperi. But..." he spread out his hands.

"Honestly, from what I've seen you've done incredible. Why'd the ship have you in the first place?"

He leaned back against one of his shelves. "I was the Quartermaster. Sort of fell into that position because I knew my way around a blacksmith hammer and a ledger. I was only with the others for a few months before we set sail on...this adventure."

"So you have experience as a smith before?"

"Of course. Plenty of metalwork needed to keep a ship in action, though obviously not a great idea to start forging in the middle of a boat mind. But being the sole provider of metalwork for an entire village? It's been taxing, especially with the little iron we have on hand. I had enough experience with copper and brass to have a head start in figuring out bronze. I tried my best to replicate weapons. But there's only so much we can do..." He balled up his little fists.

"Progress is progress. Without you, the others would be up shit creek."

The colourful idiom broke the blacksmith out of his frustrated funk. "Heh. Shit creek, eh? I'll have to remember that."

They spent a while going over all the things Kalvis had forged before and after he'd arrived on this continent. It was an impressive collection of items ranging from the incredibly useful (nails, hinges, bridles) to the trivial (rings, simple filigree). But where they would get the resources to make these objects was another matter entirely.

Kalvis unrolled crude map of local resources on his work bench, keeping it flat with some of his tools laid down on the corners. He pointed out the details as he came to them, Jesse trying to take mental notes. "A few weeks into being marooned in this place, I bothered Huntress enough to help me venture around the local area, looking for ores. Unfortunately, I couldn't find iron to save my life. Our resident geologist didn't make it off the ship the first time we crashed, unfortunately. We had some books on the subject but I'm still a layman. I've been heading up when I have time to pull tin from deposits along the old river beds, close to the root of a mountain range west of here. I'm not exactly burdened with free time to do so, but I've made a few trips to pull as much as I can. That, combined with the copper we can get from trade, gives us bronze. Copper on its own is good for decoration, but not much else."

"Why not just trade for iron?" Jesse asked.

He huffed. "The damn Vulperi won't sell it! Or more accurately, they won't sell it in meaningful quantities at prices we can afford. Besides, Iron isn't significantly better than bronze, at least from a toughness standpoint."

Jesse tilted his head. "I thought iron was better than bronze?"

"Steel is better than bronze," Kalvis amended, "Iron on its own holds an edge just about as well as bronze does. Only it's more plentiful...or it should be. Making steel...that'd be the goal. With steel I could make armour, weapons, axes that don't break..."

A thought dawned on Jesse. "What if I had access to a few hundred pounds of steel? Could you use that?"

His eyes lit up. "Could I use another few hundred pounds of steel? Yes, of course I could! Why?"

Jesse told him about the car. Though the front and back of his sedan were likely plastic or aluminium, there was a significant amount of steel still in automobiles. Galvanized, even, though that would probably be lost (or at least mitigated) in any kind of reforging process.

"Presumably you are not raving mad and this was indeed a self-propelled carriage, why take it apart? That sounds like a technological marvel we could learn so much from!"

Jesse gave a shrug. "Maybe from the engine, some of the other parts. But I bent it around a tree. Even if we repaired it, I wouldn't have any idea where to get gasoline. And even if we found fuel, where would I go? One car as a whole component is useless, besides maybe the inherent speed one can get up to if we needed to deliver messages or something. No, the steel that makes up its chassis is much more useful for our purposes. And as much as I'd love to keep it around, if only for nostalgia purposes, I have to consider what would help us all survive."

With some descriptions and creative use of the map, they were able to pin down a rough location on the car. "Getting it to us will be tricky, if it's as big as you say. In that kind of dense forest? You'd have to break it apart. Then...wagons, maybe?" He brushed at his wisps of a moustache. "No...clearing a road to there would take time. Time we don't have."

Jesse decided to give the relocation plan some thought in the coming days. But in the meantime, they had to consider the options that were immediately at hand. "What other resources can we access in the immediate area around us? No wrong or too obvious answers."

"Well, there's the crops we grow. Miri's the expert there, of course. Furs and pelts from the animals Huntress hunts and catches in her traps. Lumber is plentiful, at least. There are things we could, in theory, exploit. But without the tools, hands, and industrial backbone, they're little more than flights of fancy. In particular, this cave here," Kalvis circled a lump on the map far to the north of the mountain range with the tin ore. "This used to be an Imperial mine, judging by the fallen in buildings and the scraps of equipment that haven't been looted. There's deposits in the rock of runestone."

"Runestone?" Jesse said with a raised eyebrow.

"You don't have runestone?"

"Maybe we do and it's just called something different. What is it?"

Kalvis made a ring with the fingers and thumb of one hand. "Blueish gemstones around this big or smaller. They used to be important to the Empire's magic, if you believe those stories. Not anymore, of course. The magic power that the Folk were said to have is long gone. The stones themselves are beautiful and fetch a decent price at market. Extraction would be an involved process, but it has some value as a trade commodity. Plenty of Folk looking to play up an ancient bloodline by making or buying jewelry with runestones embedded. But it's not like a necklace is going to let you throw fireballs anymore."

He looked for a hint that the blacksmith was kidding. Jesse tried to remember he was in a different universe and that he was talking to a three foot tall green Humanoid. "Is...is magic real here?"

Kalvis thought a moment before replying. "I'm not sure. Some of the more grandiose descriptions of what the Eternal Empire could do? Probably not. But the world is full of strange things. I've seen some. Other instances might well just be advanced technology. Your pocket library, for instance."

Jesse smiled. "You all pick up things pretty quickly. I'd be surprised if you weren't making things like my phone sooner than either of us would think."

He grunted an affirmation to that. "Maybe. Can't say I'd see it replacing paper, though. How would these academics waste everyone's time without it?"

***

"And this," Miri said, bending at the knee to cup a large green fruit on a trellised vine between her fingers, "Is a guago!"

Jesse had been getting an earful of horticulture from the village's resident expert for what had to have been forever. It was a lot of unfamiliar proper nouns to keep track of, and truth be told his eyes glazed over a bit when she explained the difference between the flavours of blue pinnerts vs orange. But her enthusiasm was genuine and infectious, and soon he was back to asking clarifying questions.

"You didn't do all of this yourself, right?"

She laughed. "Oh gods, no. Lena's an arborist and helped me immensely with picking, digging out, and relocating enough of the smaller trees for viable harvests. Zima and Sheena did a lot of the crop planting with me. They're an astronomer and a hydrologist respectively but they grew up on farms. Others pitched in where they could. Plucking weeds, trimming dead stalks, twisting vines on trellises, checking for pests, warding off grazers. Farming's a lotta work!"

"I bet. I've never done it myself. Unless you count a little potted plant back at my apartment...damn, poor guy's probably not doing so hot now."

Worry creased Miri's eyes. "I suppose you're in a worse place than we are, from what you've said you're the only one of your kind around. I might have disagreements with some in our little village, but at least I have them for company. For what it's worth...I'm glad you're here, Jesse. We need someone like you with some fresh ideas and a different perspective. Plus, you enjoy my cooking, and that's always a plus!"

Jesse gave a slight smile back. "Thank you. Means a lot to know I'm not a burden...forget it, back on topic. How much food could we pull from your crops if we harvested now?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "It's only midsummer! A lot of produce isn't finished ripening. These guagos aren't even edible til they turn red."

"I realize it's not optimal. It's just that we'll need a lot of food regardless of what the village decides to do. Whether it be for travel or for...siege."

She nodded slowly. "You've been talking to my sister again."

"Glora? No. In fact, we haven't exchanged words since she wanted to burn me alive."

"Ah. Well, as you've probably noticed, her little cabal and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye on the question of the Folk's offer. If I had my way, I'd start negotiating for safe passage and get us all back on a boat to Voxus as soon as possible. As much as I've enjoyed the opportunity to expand my skills, I miss feather beds. And proper lamps. And books..." She trailed off in wistful contemplation.

"And if the Folk are lying?" he asked.

"Why would they do that? They want us out of here, we want to go home. Seems like a perfectly reasonable exchange to me."

"They don't seem like reasonable people. At least from what Kalvis was saying."

"I certainly don't condone what they did to the men. That was...truly awful." Miri's eyes bored into the plants at her feet, a tinge of moisture in her eyes. "But I have to believe we can come to some kind of peaceful arrangement! The Folk can't want an armed conflict any more than we do. The Wolven, though? I don't know. They're supposed to be intelligent, I heard one speak after all, but their behaviour makes me think they're more beast than person."

"But that doesn't let the Folk off the hook. You blame the hand holding the bow, even if it looses on accident."

She chewed her lip before giving a slight nod. "Quite. I'll start figuring out what we can take from the garden without needless harm to the plants that are nowhere near ripe yet. That means no guagos, no loppies, and definitely no flamefruits."

"Flamefruits?"

They walked over to the edge of the little orchard Miri and her team had planted. She stopped at a copse of tall, reedy trees with a single round cluster of tightly packed foliage on top. Within it, green lumps about the size of her fist grew in bunches of three or four at random intervals.

"These little guys make excellent tarts and preserves, but they won't be ready until early fall."

"Why are they called flamefruits? Do they turn red, like the guagos?"

"Huh? Oh, no, they turn lighter green. But their peels, when dried, burn like crazy! They're excellent firestarters, plus they can keep fires extra hot! That's why the flames on the...erm." She trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck while looking off in the distance. "The pyre. It's why the flames were blue."

Jesse threw her a casual 'whatareyagonnado' shrug and examined the flamefruit. It looked like a lime, but longer. Or like a bumpy, chubby cucumber. Somewhere in between. That it had some kind of flammable material in it was remarkable. Some kind of oil, he wondered. "Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. May I take a few, to study?"

She shrugged. "For sure! I'll get the ladder. Just don't try to bite into them. This early in the season they're about as hard as rocks!"

***

Miri was far from the only Kith who was reluctant to put their full effort into the idea of fighting. Though trust in the Folk was threadbare and none of the women could be considered naive after so long on their own in harsh country, the idea that a cadre of short academics could be a threat to a heavily armed and apparently disciplined mercenary force had few adherents.