Next update: Goblins!I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of armored boots on the loose shale pebbles. I quickly jumped to my feet and saw two goblins aproach, one armed with a mace, the other with an axe. In the moonlight I could see the scars, both on the goblins and on their weapons. It was clear that these creatures were far more experienced in combat than me: I got up and ran. Despite their heavy armor and my lack of protective clothing I could not outrun them, especially the axegob was too fast. Desperate I ran for the edge of the sea, forcing the goblins to do the same. As I ran along the coast I glanced at the deep water to the left of me, it was cold and the currents were strong, an inexperienced swimmer (like myself) could never get out once he fell in.
The axegoblin was closing in now, this was my chance. Just before he reached me, I turned around and jumped for his legs, the goblin dodged away in a reflex, lost his footing and tumbled into the sea. This enraged the other goblin; he charged at me with his mace held high. I grabbed a sharpened shale rock from my pack and threw it at him, straight at his head. In an effort to dodge the rock, this goblin too lost his balance and fell into the water.
I stared at the water for a while, and watched the goblins in their final struggle, it took them longer than expected. I had been lucky.
After this rude wake up call, I decided to move on into the Grimm Hills, cursed territory. This reminded me about rumors I heard about settlements deep in this forsaken land. Its odd that despite the proximity of the Grimm Hills to Dinnerwandered, so little is known about this area. I decided to investigate. After a long walk through the hills, I finally saw some scattered buildings and houses on the horizon, I made it to the village just before nightfall.
A friendly voice called out at me from one of the buildings, asking if I needed a place to sleep, I turned around and was shocked to see that it was a goblin who had spoken to me. "Welcome to Boarmenace !" The creature continued. "We mean you no harm!"
I find out that the goblins truly are friendly here, we share some food, and stories, they laugh at my quest for strange rocks, saying they only know shale rocks. I fear they are right, maybe you have to be a dwarf to properly recognize the different stone types, I just can't find any! It would take me years to even start a small collection. I have failed as an artist, but I decide I'll not return to the museum empty handed. I'll have to find something worthy before I return.
I talk some more with the goblins and learn why they are friendly, asking them about their capital they tell me they are ruled from Dinnerwandered! The kingdom of Omen Woge is larger and more diverse than I thought.
Looking around the village I learn that it holds more surprises; there are dead dwarves everywhere:
The entire living population of this town is goblins. I have no clue what happened here, did the dwarves attack these remote goblin villages? Did these dwarves come from one of the many recently build dwarven fortresses in the vicinity?
I also find a goblin prisoner, held captive by the friendly goblins. Because I come from Dinnerwandered I can speak with some authority here. I demand the goblins to release their prisoner, so I can take him to Dinnerwandered so it can receive its just punishment. I'm not planning to do that of course, but I can use him as a travelling companion. His name is Tode nururar. Another goblin from another part of town also joins me, his name is Rosmic rozmorith.
We travel to the adjacent large town of Ruthlessmob, I'm hoping to see more of the culture of these strange goblins, but find the entire town in ruins. There's not a goblin in sight, we decide to head for the keep, as there's light burning in its windows. Me and my goblins enter the keep and happily announce ourselves when we open the door. The inhabitants will be happy to see us.
We find out that in fact they are not happy to see us. We are greeted by Snang flightyseduced, a tall goblin who introduces himself as "THE HOLY TERROR" He screams something about people he killed and attacks us. The battle takes ages, and the goblins body is completely broken and punctured before he finally dies. Judging by his perseverance, and jewelry, he must have been a vampire.
We kill another goblin royal, and make it to the highest level of the keep. A dark female voice announces herself:
"I am Lide Dreamsquickness, goblin lawgiver!
prepare to DIE!" Looking around ,I'm surprised to see she is human, and very very old, with white hair and ochre eyes. She is a lot easier to defeat than the holy terror we met earlier. And so the last remnants of the royalty of this dying goblin civilisation have been put out of their misery.
We flee the town and return to Boarmenace where we sleep for the night. When we wake up its raining. Not ordinary rain, but bright, fluorescent pink
mucus. The entire town looks like something from a fairytale, its all glowing in pink and purple colors.
Having abandoned my quest to gather different rocks, I decide to bring back a barrel of this weird substance for the museum. Lacking a barrel I scoop as much of the pink mucus into my backpack as I can. After breakfast we head back for Dinnerwandered.
It takes me two days to return to the capital. Tode and Rosmic run off after the first. I can't blame them, Dinnerwandered is unlikely to accept goblin visitors even if they are part of our empire. I am sure I will miss them though.
I finally make it back to the museum, and decide to put my treasure up for display, a glorious moment.
I can't put the mucus on display in my old leaking backpack, so I run upstairs to get one of the chests from the top floors. Then something horrible happens: when I try to transfer the mucus from my backpack to the chest, somehow my backpack ruptures, and the entire contents spill on the floor. In vain I try to scoop the mucus back up, somehow it all drains away through the floor and is lost forever....
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OT: Aaack!!!! so I somehow messed up with the interface there. It is all gone, curse you DF!!
I'll have to get back for more. Also I had great fun in those goblin towns, a lot of interesting things happened there...