Chương 5: A Hard Nut to Crack

Betty awoke the following morning to the wondrous sound of a child's laughter. Even through the grief and fear, the young possessed resilience, seemingly able to bounce back from the darkness of calamity. She looked out the farmhouse window to the backyard where the four children had gathered. She felt a tad guilty for sleeping in and not yet feeding them, but she had had a very long night. While the young ones slept, Betty had driven for another hour to find the vacant farmstead.

Even then, after settling them all in the large master bed, she had led the wagon into the barn and figured out on her own how to unhitch and feed the tired horses. Only then did she retire to the smaller children's rooms and try to find her way into sleep. Given the enormity of the day she had just endured, it was no wonder she lay awake for many more hours, regardless of how tired her body was. Now refreshed, she looked down on a scene she never would have imagined.

In the yard below, Burt and Wik were facing off in a sparring match. But this was no ordinary duel. Instead of dangerous implements of war, Burt was armed with a straw broom that looked rather worse for wear. He was trying to use his makeshift weapon to hit the small goblin girl wielding a carrot like a dagger. Their imaginative play was a sight to warm her heart, filled as it was with an apparent budding friendship.

Seated in the middle of a picnic-like table was Namia, holding a sizeable speckled chicken, who seemed quite happy to be embraced in the little girl's arms and receive her petting strokes down its back. The only one acting as Betty expected was Atmus, seated on the bench with a large book open in front of him. Though, like his sister, he was watching the battle with a smile on his intent face.

Burt swished the broom through the air with a precise strike that seemed exceptionally well controlled, given the awkward weapon and his burly farmer frame. Even so, quick, little Wik slid under the sweeping blow and sliced her orange 'blade' against the boy's stomach, snapping the tuberous dirk in twain. Given the number of broken carrots littering the yard and dirt stripes across Burt's shirt, this was obviously not the first time she had scored a hit. Nami giggled again and waved at the little green champion.

Wik waved back, grinning with a mouth of pointy teeth.

"Great Greva, she's fast," Burt grumbled.

"That's not the problem, Burty. You are telling her every time you are about to swing," the boy with the book coached.

"You bunch up your arms before you strike. By the time you start your swing, she is already ready for it." Atti turned to Wik and added.

"Did you know you did the exact same thing the last three swings in a row? Right foot. Left foot. Duck and charge. It's working for now, but you should try different moves too, or you'll get as predictable as he is obvious." Wik cocked her head at the boy, disgesting his words before nodding and trotting over to the garden to dig up a new dagger. Betty headed down to the kitchen and expected to have to root around to find something to make them for breakfast.

To her surprise, a basket of eggs sat on the kitchen table alongside a small wheel of cheese with a good-sized wedge missing from it. She felt better knowing the children had not gone hungry while she slept. Not wanting to make the same mistake as with the logger shack, Betty left the stove unlit. She would not have a plume of smoke giving their location away.

Lacking milk, she had to search her enormous new index of belt-gifted receipts until she found a way to make biscuits with the sparse materials left in the kitchen. Using just her [Heat], she baked a thin set of cheesy puffs and scrambled the eggs. Having only three minutes to cook was a challenge, but thanks to her memories from the Titan Chef, she knew just how thick the dough could be and how to get the most out of those scant minutes of magic.

When she called, the children boiled in and dug into their meal with gusto. After eating their fill, Betty sent Burt, Nami, and Wik to fix the chicken pen and gather as many of the scattered flock as they could. The knights must have taken all the other animals, so eggs and the vegetable garden would be their staples while they remained on the farm. The length of their stay is why she kept Atti with her.

"I think getting you away from here and to your mother's kin is the best plan, but you have far more knowledge about where we are. I'd like your thoughts, Atmus," she stated, sitting across the kitchen table from him.

"I don't think that will work, Granny. Sure, if we could get there, then it would be worth it. Even if the General somehow defeats King Leofrick, Petrisal is far enough away that people could escape into the next kingdom of Reosomor if they want to. But I don't think there is any way we'd be able to get there," he remarked.

"A bunch of kids and goblins have no chance of crossing Dranadad together. I've been trying to plan it out, and it would take more than a miracle."

"So what is the other alternative? Your uncle?"

"I think that is our best bet. Bucksville is just over a day away if we cut through the forest. Normally, the three of us couldn't do that, but with you and Wik, it should be safe enough. If we can get to Uncle Rom, he will listen to us and not hurt you two. That is the only way I see that we all have a chance together. Otherwise, we have to either try and hide on abandoned farms like this one or split up."

"Well, that last one is out of the question until you three are someplace safe. I couldn't live with myself if something were to happen to you and your siblings."

"I've noticed. So can I ask you, are you cursed, or incarnated, or something?" Atti asked, trying to hold her gaze. The boy was clearly afraid his question might be too impertinent.

"Because you are unlike any other goblin I have ever heard of, Granny."

"That is a good question. I don't believe I'm cursed," she replied gently, proud of the boy for treating the quandary of her new existence in such a mature manner.

"So you're not a princess that has been cursed into a goblin? You wouldn't believe how many times that happens."

"No, not a witch-cursed princess," she chuckled.

"What was that other term you used? Incarnated? That sounds right. Can you explain it to me, please?"

"The priests say that when spirits of other worlds die, they can be incarnated here as heroes or monsters. But only bad people are incarnated as monsters."

"Well, I am not a bad person, but I don't think I was supposed to be incarnated at all. It was kind of a fluke, thanks to my … thanks to someone I know. I think a goblin was the best body I could get. So that is what I am now."

"Oh, that's one of Roggery's Rules of Transcendence. Umm," the boy hesitated, looking over her head as he searched his memory.

"'Minimal essence results in simplest sentience.' That's how it goes." He smiled at her, taking pride in his recollection.

"That makes sense. Much more sense than you being evil in another life. But wait?" he faltered.

"If you only had enough essence to be incarnated into a goblin, how are you so strong?"

"Oh. My magic belt," she replied, running her fingers over the marvelous leather cincture.

"I got a magic frying pan and a magic belt when I was … incarnated."

"Interesting. The frying pan is a little magical, but I don't sense any magic from the belt. One of my talents is [Magic Sensitivity]. I should know if … unless. NO WAY! Is your belt a relic?" Atti gasped. His eyes opened wide in excited awe. Betty looked at the description again.

"It does say relic. I take it that means something special?"

"Yeah, it sure does! Relics are items that are more powerful than the tier they are on. They are so powerful that people on our tier usually can't even assess them. The magic is too much for anyone but a specialist to detect." Atti stared at the belt in wonder before adding, "That is why it maxed your Might. If you were to go to the next tier, your Might should go even higher.

Here in the Copper Valley, attributes are caped at five, and the max level is ten, but I read in the Bronze Hills that attributes go up to twenty and levels to twenty-five." Betty was amazed herself. She recalled asking that nice support person for the best thing 'for her'. She might have been given the best thing in that whole box. Before she could ask more of Atti, their conversation was interrupted by the return of the three youngest, who burst into the room, chattering loudly between themselves.

The trio stopped short when they encountered Betty's skeptical stare.

"I thought you three were going to take care of the chickens, children. I find it hard to believe you repaired the pen and caught them all in just the last few minutes you've been gone."

"We did, Granny," Burt replied.

"Pen just needed the door back on its hinges. I did it with my new [Mending] spell. It only took a second."

"And the birds?" Betty prompted.

"You rounded all of them up that quickly, too?"

"No need catch, Granny. Nami sing. Cluck clucks follow. Easy, peasy, done," Wik warbled, beaming at her new friend. Betty looked at the brown-haired girl, who smiled shyly back at her. Turning back to the eldest brother, she received a knowing nod from the bright young man.

"Nami's always had a knack with animals. She'll get a husbandry class for sure when she gets there," Atti stated.

"Alright then," Betty voiced, looking back to the three nervous youths.

"Excellent work. Come and sit, and we can finish planning." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The children returned to their seats, but only Burt stayed for long. The girls grew bored quickly and asked to be excused. While Betty and Atmus planned and Burt listened, the smallest two found a bag of cloth scraps, from which Nami started teaching Wik how to tie a ragdoll. The decision was to stay on the farm for the remainder of the day to rest and prepare.

Tomorrow, they would take just one of the horses to carry their supplies and have Namia ride. Atti estimated a day and a half to trek through the forest of Grimden Frith, reaching Bucksville on the other side of the deep woodlands the following afternoon. The knights had raided the farmstead of all of the livestock and plundered the pantry of anything but the most basic fare. Betty had found flour, beans, honey, and some cheese, but only a little else.

To supplement their meager stores, Atti had suggested the boys go fishing, to which Betty wholeheartedly agreed. Wik insisted on joining them, but Nami was happy to stay and help Granny around the house. While it was just the two of them, they spent a few minutes cleaning the kitchen first before seeing if there were any treasures the robbing warriors had missed. Namia dug around in the cupboard and found some preserves: a few jars of jams, chutney, and pickles. Betty uncovered a ripped but mostly full bag of oats.

It looked like jam-sweetened oatmeal would be tomorrow's breakfast. Namia, having overcome her fear of Granny, was a sweet child full of chatter and stories, a complete about-face from yesterday's silent, fearful waif. She reminded Betty of her granddaughter, Mia. Emilia loved to putter around in the kitchen with her grandmother, especially baking. It would have been nice to do the same with petite Nami, but actual baking would require the oven, which was still too chancy to use.

Leaving the child in the kitchen to finish tidying up, Betty headed to the garden to gather vegetables for their fish dinner. She dug up a selection of root veggies and found a few tomatoes that were ripe enough. With her basket full, she headed back to the house, only to pause as she was about to close the garden gate. A sound pricked at her long, keen ears. A soft thumping was closing in on her quickly.

Spinning around, Betty caught sight of a massive hound charging across the lawn, its feet making almost no sound on the soft grass as they hurled the beast toward her. She had a split second, no more. Dropping the basket, she panicked and threw her arms forward to block the descending jaws. Her incomparable might saved her again. Her hands crashed into the beast's throat. While she was hurled back into the gatepost, the damage to the hunting hound was far worse.

Its neck snapped backward, and it crumpled to the ground, instantly dead. Betty threw her hand over her mouth in horror.

"Oh no. Oh no. Oh no." she muttered in shock. Some vague, faraway section of her thoughts knew she had been defending herself, but killing a dog was so awful she felt sick to her stomach. She looked around for someone to help her with this tragedy. Instead, her eyes landed on a leather-clad hunter sprinting for her with a spear in his hand and fury burning in his eyes.

"You little green bitch!" he screamed.

"You killed her!" She stared at him in a daze until the man cocked his arm and hurled the javelin straight for her. Her goblin instincts immediately kicked in, and Betty rolled around the gate into the garden as the spear drove itself into the post she had been in front of an instant later. She watched the hunter draw a short sword as he continued his charge toward her. Betty looked around for something. Her frying pan was in the kitchen.

Other than a pile of small rocks that had been pulled from the vegetable garden, there was nothing she could use for a weapon. Except for the spear itself. Betty had learned her lesson with the sword and knew she could not use the long polearm as it was intended to be used. But the end of the weapon had a metal cap on it with a bit of point to it, likely so it could be stuck in the ground. That would have to do. Betty jumped to her feet and grabbed the spear-haft, pulling sideways as hard as she could.

The weapon snapped in two, allowing Betty to flip her section around and use the bottom of the spear shaft like a weighted club. It was long enough for her to have some reach but not so long as to throw her off balance. As she and the sword-wielding hunter closed the gap between them, Betty activated her magic. With the thought [Flambé], the metal cap burst into flames. Betty tried to mimic what she had seen Wik do, sliding under the sweep of the short sword while lashing out with her weapon.

It probably wouldn't have worked if the hunter had not been surprised by the sudden flare of fire out of nowhere. He balked just enough for Betty to dodge his swing and then jam the searing endcap into his gut. He loosed a startled grunt and smacked the burning shaft away. As her grip was far stronger than his, and she retained her hold on the wooden haft, though she was spun around once in a tight circle. As he composed himself to swing down at her, she targeted the blade in his hand with [Heat].

Betty barely managed to block the tracker's first chopping strike with the wooden pole in her hands. Thankfully, she did not have to try and parry any others. With another confused howl of pain, the hunter dropped the skin-scorching sword and cradled his seared palm. Seeing her opening, Betty aimed for the man's knee, which was the easiest target for her. Her spear shaft could not deliver the same force as her heavy frying pan, but it was more than enough to sweep the hunter off his feet.

Once down, Betty smacked the man until a window appeared in front of her. You have defeated a [Hateful Houndmaster] - Level 6. There was another window as well, which she had not noticed until now. You have defeated a [Goblin Gnasher] - Level 3. Betty had no idea what these names meant, but it occurred to her that they were probably not what these people saw when they looked at their own screens. Somehow, her goblin nature must be altering what they said to her.

Looking in the direction the man had come from, her worst fears were realized. More soldiers were coming. A dozen armored forms were walking down the wagon path leading to the farmhouse. This man and his dog must have been their forward scout. Betty looked in the direction the children had gone, and thankfully, the pond they were fishing at was hidden behind a series of hills. Without their dog to follow the tracks, the boys and Wik should be safe.

That is, as long as these knights had no reason to go looking for them. It was up to her to save them this one last time. Namia must be hidden, and these villains led away. The four young ones would be on their own without her, but Atti would keep them together. Betty dashed into the house, hissing in a severe tone to the young girl.

"More soldiers are coming, Nami. I need to hide you. I will be okay, but only if they think it's just me. But I don't know where to hide you." Betty had been all around the little farmhouse, and there weren't many good places for the child to hide herself. It consisted of just four rooms: the large and small bedrooms, a tiny water closet, and the main kitchen and living area. The best hiding places were in the kitchen, but she would have to meet the knights in this room. The slightest noise would give her away.

"I know where to hide, Granny," the little voice assured her. Glancing out of the front window to see how much time they had, the slip of a girl vanished out the backdoor. Betty watched Nami through the open rear door as she used Burts's newly repaired gate to the chicken pen. The child wriggled behind the nesting boxes and into the fresh straw they had laid out that morning. The birds seemed not to care in the slightest this intruder was in their midst as they might have for someone else.

The hens bawked and scratched and dusted themselves as if it were any other day. Betty closed the door and returned to the kitchen, her mind racing. How would she stop them from killing her outright? Surprisingly, it was one of Burt's first words to her that sprung into her head.

"You don't talk like a gobbie." That may be the trick. She had one use of her fire magic left. It would not be enough to save her from a dozen armed men and women. Maybe she could use it to throw them off balance. Sargent Marsh stood over the body of his tracker, Jarvis Kirby. The body was battered and burned. That damned mutt he loved so much was dead too. Captain Spaggins was going to have his hide for this mess. Jarvis and his cur were a pair of annoying shits, but good trackers were hard to come by.

Marsh knew he was going to catch Hells for losing them. His team had already cleaned out this farm a week ago, but the ranger insisted there were fresh tracks. Turns out the poor bugger had been right. Whoever had dispatched the dog and handler was one ballsy blighter for sure. He could hear her inside, rattling dishes and humming to herself as if she had not a care in the world. Well, since he was in for a whole heap of grief thanks to whoever this was, he'd be happy to share some of it with her now.

Booting open the door, he and two of his troopers, Oldham and Fisk, charged into the room, only to stop short, right in the doorway. The last thing he expected was an old gobbie dressed like a school marm, sittin' at the table holding a steaming kettle and delicate cup.

"Well, hello, officer," she stated as clear as a bell. While she spoke with the muttery gargle all the green vermin had, her words were clearly in the King's common, not the broken goblin-speak the little monsters all used. The lady filled the cup in front of her before settling the pot on a towel and adding a dollop of honey to her drink.

"Would you and your compatriots care for a spot of tea, my good sir?"

'What in Grazu's name?' Marsh thought, swearing to the warrior god. Unsure of what he was dealing with, he started by assessing the strange, bonnet-wearing oddity in front of him before speaking. [Goblin Griller] - Level 4 Level 4?

'What in the Icy Hells of Vor is happening here?' Fourth-level goblins were [Pack Chiefs] or [Champions], which this old bag surely wasn't. There was no such thing as a smart gobbie, or a polite one, either. And what the Hells was a [Griller]? The old gobbie waggled the empty cup in her little green fingers and, in a slow voice, as if addressing a child, she burbled, "Tea, officer. The pot is fresh. If you are leery of foul play, I'd be happy to drink first to ease your mind."

"Do you know who we are, lady … gobbie?" he finally barked.

"Why, of course. You are knights of the formidable General Galerus; come to free this kingdom of the vile King Leofrick. Believe me, we goblin-folk could not be happier about it."

"Uhhh. That's not what we've been seeing. You green bastards have been fighting us tooth and nail."

"Only because you all have been rather heavy-handed about everything. Rounding us up and then butchering us to perpetuate the 'ruse of goblin aggression.'" she stated emphatically, making strange finger-curling motions in the air.

"Such a dreadful mistake," the green marm sighed. The old gob poured another cup and slid it and the honey across the table in his direction.

"Generation upon generation of goblins have died to the soldiers of the realm. If you had asked us, we would have been all but happy to assist, you fine folk. I think if we can work this misunderstanding out, who knows what the future holds for us all, man and goblin alike."

"Lady. I don't know what yer game is, but we'll let the Captain figure it out. Grab her boys, and let's go."

"Now. Now. Is that any way to start things off, Sir Knight? I'm quite happy to come along with you all on my own." Hopping down off her chair, she picked up a small backpack off the floor. A frying pan was tied to the bag, and Marsh could hear the click of jars inside it. The old green gobbie plucked the honey and slid it carefully into the haversack, further affirming [Griller] must have something to do with cooking.

"All set," she gurgled cheerfully.

"Lead on, good sir." Fisk and Oldham looked back and forth between the strange little monster woman and him. Nothing about this made any sense, but it occurred to him: why put up with a screaming gob? If she wanted to come on her own, ain't no skin off his back. Tossing a nod to his troopers, they all left the farmhouse together.