Stump woke to the smell of honey and mildew.
"Where…"
He sat up and clutched the sides of the cot. Slowly the darkness peeled away and the cramped room took shape. Soft mushroom light flared from a table in the corner while the gloom of dusk lanced through a window behind his head. Pain trickled up his ankle, and when he threw the covers aside to inspect the wound, his foot was already bandaged.
Who did that?
Piece by piece the fuzzy memories of the night before sharpened. He remembered the Wildrun. The Shadowlands. He remembered warmth, and the hut.
Did I pass out?
He touched his forehead, and when he pulled his hand away, ash dusted his fingertips. His heart leapt into his throat. The Mark of Grumul.
Being branded with it was a horrible fate, but trying to trick your way into Grumul's afterworld by brushing it off was even worse. The bloodlord might even deign to take him then and there. Stump considered rubbing the ash back between his eyes, but he was too afraid of ruining it further.
A clatter sounded up through the floorboards, followed by a muffled voice that might've been Reema. The hag.
But was she? He'd been so sure. He saw the hut, he heard the voice, yet he was still alive. His bones hadn't been ground into soup, his skin wasn't flayed from his body, and she'd gone as far as to treat his wound.
Yet he'd attacked her. Strike first and think later, that was the goblin way.
And I'm one of them, he thought, sighing. He was just different enough to never feel at home in his tribe, but too similar to belong anywhere else.
He swung his stubby legs off the bed and noticed the magical pages next to the mushroom, with the Iron Fleece badge resting on top. For a moment he thought about grabbing his things and scampering out the window. That would be the goblin thing to do, maybe even the smart thing. But there was nowhere for him to go.
Instead he sat back in bed and called to Grumul—Lumensa, or whoever it was bestowing on him the Words From the Sky. Scrawled out before him and commanding his attention was his own name, his level and class, and the updated numbers of his Virtue: 2/5.
He'd hoped it might've replenished after his rest, but after spending two points on Flash to try to escape the hut, the number hadn't budged. The only thing he'd discovered to increase it were the tenets of Lumensa, but he'd acquired that by standing around doing nothing.
What are the tenets? Is that the only way to get virtue back? What about focus points? How do I get those? The questions rattled around his skull without so much as a whisper in reply from his god.
Stump yelped when the door squealed open. Reema carefully peered in from the hallway, no doubt as a shield against further assault. She managed a smile.
"Sleep well?" she said.
He hesitated, licking his dry lips. "I think so… How long was I out?"
"Just through the night. Don't take the colour of the sky as a guide. We've got one time of day here under the Bright Queen's shroud and that's dusk. You can thank the Godslayer for that. Breakfast is downstairs, we don't bring anything up. You've got room in that belly, don't ya?"
Stump replied with silence. Why's she being nice to me? Is this some sort of trick? He'd attacked her, he tried to steal her food. Maybe she really was the hag, and it was all part of her trick to lower his guard.
She frowned at the lack of conversation and edged into the room. "We've got glowcaps and sporridge, mostly. Some beer, too. If I don't find you downstairs in five minutes you'll miss breakfast. Then you'll have to wait for lunch."
"I… I don't have much to trade," he said warily.
She waved away the protest. "You passed out, dear. I'd be some Host if I took your glimmer for a coma."
His ears twitched. "My glimmer?"
She nodded. "Glimmer. Those little coins that light up? Copper, silver and the like. First meal's free, too, but don't tell Jin. You've got to get your strength up. Now am I going to have to ask a second time?"
It was a demand, but it landed with such motherly warmth Stump could hardly disobey. "I'll be right down," he said. Reema smiled and turned to leave, but Stump added, with great hesitation, "Thank you."
"Don't need to thank me, but you're welcome."
The door clicked shut.
 

 
Stump teetered downstairs to the grumbling of Morg.
"Two coppers? By Lumensa's toe, the prices," he said, pinching the glowing coins between his fingers. A sizzling plate of beets, honeyed carrots, and mushrooms sat next to a cup of dark frothy beer.
Reema cupped her hands around the glimmer and slipped them into her apron. "You want cheap, you head on over to the Downs and see if you can find someone who'll take care of you the way I do," she said and spun to her next task.
Stump hesitated halfway down the steps when he noticed the dwarf wasn't the only patron. Two others sat at solitary tables, ladling spoonfuls into their mouths with mute determination. They registered Stump's presence with a curt nod.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He fought the urge to flee. If it had been anywhere near his tribe the mere sight of a goblin would throw any tall man into battle.
He crept the rest of the way down, ears tucked, and pulled himself onto a stool in front of a barrel short enough for him to see over. Before he could get comfortable, Reema slid a plate of greyish blue mushrooms in front of him. Three faint scratches ran up her hand.
"I'm sorry," said Stump. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Reema looked down at the wound as if noticing it for the first time. "Oh, this? It's nothing, dear. Bubbles skewers me worse." She nodded to the beer kegs behind the counter. It took a moment for him to spy the crescent moon eyes hovering above one of them, and the faint shimmer of what looked like perfectly clear water in the shape of a large potato.
"It's invisible?" he asked.
It hissed.
Stump hissed back.
"Morg found him in the woods 'bout a year back," said Reema. She flattened her apron around her legs and took a seat across from him. "There have been stranger finds than wild tattercats. Can't say I've ever served a goblin before. That said there's always new creatures showin' up every now and then, times being what they are. I guess that's what you get when the gods are dead. Could be worse, I suppose."
He nodded, pretending to understand what she was saying. Dead gods? Grumul was alive, he knew that. The matrons had always said so.
"Speaking of, are goblins native to this world?" she went on, offering no chance to comment. “Bit of a complicated question, I know. Who is and isn't seems unimportant when we're all here anyway. Either way, I'm glad you're here. Jin and I don't get many visitors these days. Are you really a mercenary?"
Stump sunk his teeth into his meal and groaned at the earthy warmth gracing his tongue. "The badge isn't mine. I found it in the woods. I thought it belonged to a knight, not a mercenary," he said.
"It did, by the looks of it. Knight is a class, but anyone can be a sword-for-hire if you're keen on the trade. We've got hundreds, probably thousands, in the Downs."
Stump flicked his tongue to the crumbs between teeth. "The Downs?"
"The Downs. The Outerward. Aubany."
He blinked.
"Right. Not your part of the world."
Stump was acutely aware of how little he knew of the forest beyond his cave. The Shadowlands had been a death sentence to him only a day before, but here he was, caught in its belly and finding little more than curious creatures and kindly innkeepers.
"I was with my tribe until yesterday," he said.
"Ah, well…" there was a clatter from the kitchen. "You alright in there, Jin?" she called. A round of grunts and curses came back in reply. Reema sighed. "The Downs is the outer city of Aubany, just down the road. Mostly poor folk live there. That's where all the penny and copper mercenary companies are."
"Calling 'em comp'nies is like calling an ass a steed," said Morg, from across the room. He leaned forward in his chair and raised his cup like it was the banner of his people. "They're gangs, more like. Lumensa's turds. Ass up their own heads, they are. Ass up—" a hiccup "—up their own ass."
"Keep to your cups, Morg," Reema warned, then leaned in close to whisper her next dose of information. "He's been kicked outta three or four of them. It's why he's so bitter about it. Nowadays he's stuck helpin' out around here and the Tackled Hack over in Brinetown. We like him, though, even when he's drunk. Oh…" Reema licked her thumb and rubbed it across Stump's forehead. "Your face is dirty."
Fear anchored him to his seat. The Mark!
Before he could lash out in a surge of bloodlust, the ash was gone. He braced for immediate immolation or a similarly dramatic exit from his fleshy vessel, but after squeezing his eyes shut hard enough to stir a headache, all he heard was the sound of Reema rising from her seat. She unfurled a rag and began cleaning a nearby table, humming softly.
He gawked at her. The Mark was gone, yet he was still alive. Had Grumul disagreed with the matrons' decree? Did Stump prove himself worthy of life by escaping the Wildrun? Or was the bloodlord really… dead? Every bit of the world he'd come to know from his days in the tribe was falling away. The Shadowlands. The Mark of Grumul.
His silent crisis of faith ebbed as Reema weaved happily from table to table, unaware of the small kindness she'd shown in removing his curse like it was nothing more than a smudge of dirt. Maybe that's all it ever was.
"I'm sorry I thought you were a hag," he said, his voice low.
She didn't take her eyes off her work. "What's that, dear?"
"Never mind. My name's Stump, by the way. Not Thrung."
She brightened. "Oh. That's a nicer name."
"And… I'd like to repay you. For the food, and for last night."
"You needn't trouble yourself over it."
"No," he said, harsher than he intended. "You've been kind to me. I want to repay you, please. Maybe I can go into the city and return the badge. I can trade it for a reward… or something."
Her mouth formed around the words of another protest, but on meeting his eyes she faltered. She considered the offer.
"If you insist. But they won't let you inside the city gates, not unless you've got a good reason or a sack of silver. If you're looking for a quick way to make some glimmer you might want to try the companies in Penny Square. I'd rather you work here at the inn, but it's hardly busy enough to keep Jin and I afloat. He's heading to the Downs in an hour for supplies if you'd like to accompany him."
Her diligent cleaning took her to a table farther away, and she pulled the warmth with her as if an aura of kindness buzzed about her being.
"How did you do that yesterday?" Stump called after her, remembering the bloodlust leaving his body as fast as it arrived. "I felt so calm."
"It's my job, dear. I've got some levels in Hospitality. Making people feel welcome is what I do." She tucked a plate in the crook of her arm and scooped an empty cup with her free hand. "Don't tell me you're the one who's impressed, though. It's not everyday you run into a goblin with the light of Lumensa."
She's impressed with me? A twang of heat coloured his cheeks.
With that she departed through the kitchen doorway, and he found that he missed the sound of her hum.
Morg burped. He leaned forward and urged Stump to come closer. Stump didn't, but Morg went on anyway. "If yer thinking about gettin' involved with ‘em lackwits in Penny Square, don't. You'd have an easier time startin' yer own company," he said, and then chuckled himself into unconsciousness.
Stump sat there for a while, alone with his thoughts.
His ears stood to attention. Starting my own. He didn't know how, he didn't even know the first thing about what a mercenary company was. Would they let me, as a goblin?
He remembered finding Garron in the fire and the gleam of his armour—the half that wasn't burned. He imagined his life, the life of a mercenary, of a knight, and couldn't shake the words of the Iron Fleece. From thread to thread we defend. It sounded so noble, so kind, so unlike the tribe he had once known. So unlike a goblin.
He was one of them, and that would never change, but he wasn't in his tribe anymore. There was no Thrung. No matrons. Grumul may have been out there somewhere, watching, but the bloodlord respected bravery above all.
And it must be brave to be a mercenary.
Tenet Of Lumensa Fulfilled: Virtue +1 (3/5).
Stump looked up to the ceiling where the Words had come from. "Grumul?" he asked.
But it couldn't have been. Grumul gave no rewards for sitting around and thinking. Lumensa was Reema's god, and by the sound of it perhaps the god of all the Downs, and it was the second time she'd awarded Stump with a point of virtue.
The first was when he'd been in the Shadowlands, reminiscing about what his life in the tribe had meant up to that point, when he realized he wanted to get through the forest and find a new home. And the second was…
Realization. It was deciding what he wanted to be, to do, where he wanted to go. It was being lost and finding his way.
"Is that right, Lumensa?" he asked the ceiling.
Tenet Of Lumensa Fulfilled: Virtue +1 (4/5).
I guess so.