Stump gaped at the sight ahead, and for more than one reason.
He'd never seen the sea before, but there it was, some ways away, flat and endless. The sun was directly above but still the magic of the Shadowlands was strong. Scattered rays of orange and purple burst over the horizon, and pink clouds puffy with twilight cruised leisurely above the waves.
The city that stood before it was nearly as enchanting. The high stone walls cut a dark path across the land, following the meandering of a river on its north side as it flowed east to west and spilled into the sea. Tiny points of light burned along the towers and spires above the crenelations.
"We don't got all day," said Jin, gently nudging him forward. "Damn well told Reem you'd slow the journey a pace, didn't I?"
The oxfolk, Stump learned, were naturally harsh and hot-tempered, and that he shouldn't take Jin's disposition personally. Being a goblin, he could relate to that clarification.
"It's bigger than I thought," Stump observed as the two of them walked the road along the river's edge.
"Hm?"
"The city. I've never seen one before."
"Don't count on seeing more than them towers, neither. Aubany's unfriendly to our kind. Yours and mine. Best get used to livin' this side of the Brightwater if you plan on calling this here home."
"The Brightwater? That's the river?"
Jin grunted in the affirmative. "The Blightwater, if you're feelin' cheeky, on account of what flows out of the city."
"What flows out of the city?"
"Shit."
"Oh."
North of Aubany and the Brightwater, the Downs rolled like a carpet of dwellings from hills to seashore. The unwalled metropolis was so dense with buildings a ribbon of sky above it burned perpetually orange with lamplight.
"Are there other Lumenurgists in the Downs?" Stump asked.
"Not many. Most of them study at them Amber Bastion towers."
"I'd like to visit those some day," he mused, mostly to himself.
"Haven't you been listenin'? It's a school for magic users and the like, and it's inside the walls. I got just as much a chance as you, which is to say no chance at all. By the way, if you do plan on stayin', you better not bring your tribe down on us or I'll be addin' goblin stew to the menu."
Stump was too entranced by the sprawl to be offended. "My tribe's what I'm trying to get away from," he said as his eyes flickered across the conflicting textures of the Outerward.
Jin huffed. "If you say so."
As they neared the trappings of civilization staggered into view. Lengths of low stone wall and sprouting weeds bracketed their path, and small ditches of foot traffic criss-crossed around signs designating points of interest.
One of them read, "GRIMSGATE."
Garron the knight is from here!
"I know about this place," Stump said excitedly. He instinctively felt for the badge in his pouch, but he'd left it back at the inn.
Jin glanced down at him with narrowed eyes. "Yeah?”
"Is Grimsgate in the Downs?”
"It's part of it. Grimsgate used to be some kinda military outpost long ago. Old crumbling ruins serve as a foundation for what we've got now," he said.
A strange sort of anticipation built in Stump's belly—a minor bloodlust, an anxiety that urged him to pick up the pace to see the world the knight who'd been living in his pouch had come from.
As they traversed the next rise in the road the full glory of Grimsgate wheeled forth. It rose and fell in great sweeping mounds and hillsides, like the sea had been driven to land by storm and long ago calcified around the crumbling bones of a drowned empire.
Great rocky arches greeted them at the entrance. They speared out of the mud between and through buildings and curled over the main thoroughfare like the ribs of a long dead god, now hosting all manner of lanterns.
From a distance the colour of the Downs had bled into a single strip of sunset orange, but up close paper lamps housing mushrooms of red, gold, and blue lit roads that curved and wound between buildings erected around the stone structures of a much older world. Tall fungal stalks towered like trees, their caps wider than the roofs beneath them, and walls shimmered green and silver from warring kingdoms of lichen. Warm wind swelled through the hilly arteries, depositing whiffs of mildew, booze, and leather.
It was chaos. Noise. Unfamiliarity. Too bright in some places and far too dark in others. There were all kinds of creatures—hairy oxfolk like Jin standing on two legs, and slender pale-faced figures with sunken eyes and sallow skin. Black-horned beasts of burden that resembled algae-crusted boulders with stubby legs pulled carts stuffed with sacks of sporegrain and radishes—grummox, Jin called them. Bony goats with yellow eyes—spinegoats—orbited their herders. There were creatures that were cat-like, lizard-like, human-like.The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Stump and Jin wandered by all of it for what felt like hours, but every street was different. Unique. And no one paid Stump any mind. He was just a monster among monsters.
A goblin, and no one seemed to care. No one hated him, no one feared him.
He smiled.
Tenet Of Lumensa Fulfilled: Virtue +1 (5/5)
 

 
It might've been dusk, but Penny Square was bleeding light and colour.
It sprawled around an ancient tree, taller and wider than the buildings of the square. Instead of leaves the many gnarled branches were strung with dozens of chromatic fungal lights. Ropes webbed from its crown, themselves hung with glowcaps, bridging the tree to the structures around it.
The scent of dung and sweat hung in the air and urged Stump to breathe deep. It reminded him of the glorious rotting thrones of the matrons.
And it was madness. Stalls sat askew in the mud. Gangs of many races swaggered by or lounged by the signage indicating their companies. "Hellcats" was scrawled on a sign nailed to a stake, and beneath it mingled a posse of catfolk strapped in leather armour and brandishing knives and hatchets.
"The Bottom Feeders" milled about behind a stall awash in lantern light and etched with the approximation of a blue crab. "Blightwater Scoundrels", "The Ups and Downs", "Silverwings", "Shields of Dusk". The penny companies.
Stump weaved between them largely unnoticed. Jin had broken off some time ago to shop for a new cask of Amber Glow and some ingredients for their stews, and left Stump to navigate the tumult alone.
Morsels of conversation fell his way—job requests, the haggling of price and reward, a joke here, an angry reply there. A human of the Caper Brothers clasped the hand of a burly green-skinned fellow, sealing their transaction. Elsewhere coins clattered on a table and spilled in the mud. A short, hairy creature of Fool's Folly diligently scratched notes while his companion negotiated with a cloaked patron.
He dawdled about the confused brew of shady deals until he spotted a poorly carved door in the trunk of the tree, and a barely legible sign above it that read, "PENNY HALL".
A handful of undesirables crowded the entryway, barely noticing the goblin as he waddled between their legs and made his way inside.
"Welcome to Penny Hall," intoned a very bored human hunched over a desk a few paces inside. He didn't look up. "Company or citizen?"
Stump approached the desk. Only his ears poked above it. "Goblin," he said. "How do I start a company?"
There was a pause. The desk creaked as the clerk leaned forward to spy the goblin on the other side. "You want to start a company?" he said in the unmistakeable tone of someone who was about to break for lunch.
Stump nodded.
The clerk made no effort to conceal an eye roll. "Fine." He sank into his chair, out of view. "Have you read the Rules and Regulations of the Conduct Becoming a Certified Company under the Collective Council Guild of the Municipality of Aubany and her Extended Territories Therein?"
He took a breath.
"No." Stump dragged a chair over and climbed up the leg. Even standing atop it his eyes barely breached the top of the desk.
"Here you are." Puffs of dust scattered from where the clerk dropped a heavy tome. He wasn't lying about the title.
Stump cracked it open and went cross-eyed at the minuscule font and lack of illustration. "Do I have to read all of it?"
"What's the name?" asked the clerk, ignoring him. He produced a sheet from a drawer and readied his inkwell.
"Goblin Knight." It sounded silly, but Stump resolved to change it later. "It's only temporary."
The clerk raised an eyebrow. "Your mother named you Goblin Knight?"
"No, sorry. My name's Stump. Goblin Knight is what I want to call my company. At least until I think of a better name. I can change it later, right?"
Another pause. The clerk's expression shifted towards someone who was beginning to suspect his leg was being pulled. "Your name is Stump?"
"It's my warname. I'm the shortest of goblinkind, they told me. I've been going by that name since I was four. I'm six now…" Stump considered the clerk's soulless glare. "Never mind. Ergul."
"Alright," sighed the clerk. He scratched the name down. "And the name of your witness?"
"Witness?"
He set the quill in the inkwell and steepled his fingers. He took a deep breath. "You don't have a witness?"
Stump shook his head. "I can get one, if it's required," he said carefully.
"Do you have the fee, at least?" When Stump didn't answer, the clerk rested his forehead in his hands and gently massaged his temples. "You need to make a deposit of eight copper pieces and have a witness vouch for your credibility. The witness must themselves currently be employed by a company, or have been employed by an existing company within the last year. It helps if you've already completed at least one paying job yourself. Do you understand?"
"I do," said Stump, then added hastily, "Sorry."
The clerk softened somewhat. "Here, take one of these." He reached beneath the desk and handed Stump a rolled parchment. "It'll have more information for you. Company levels, frequently asked questions and whatnot. Oh, and I recommend coming in with your own logo. The stock pieces the hall uses are not very good."
Stump received the paper like it was made of glass. "Thank you," he said, and gently unfurled it. He was met with an array of dazzling colours and descriptions of the many rungs of the company ladder. A blurb wedged between marginalia detailed in an oddly unserious tone the prospects of the lowest possible rank—Penny:
 
"You are a budding plant, or a fungus, growing in a field of dung. You hold nothing to your name but the clothes on your back and perhaps a shack to store your earnings—if you can make any. The road ahead is long and dotted with holes and puddles of mud and flanked by highway bandits, so grab your sack and get moving! The quests you take on are small and local. You have fewer than five permanent members and less than ten fame."
 
Before Stump could read his way to copper, an exaggerated cough urged him to lower the parchment.
"Will that be all?" droned the clerk, in a manner that suggested only one acceptable answer.
"Yes. Thank you. I hope to be back soon with everything I need." Goblins often snarled to end a pleasant conversation, but Stump feared doing so to a tall man would be followed by the unmistakable hiss of a blade leaving its scabbard.
"I'm sure you do," said the clerk, who then busied himself with paperwork.
Jin was towering above the crowd near the entrance to the square when Stump returned. The oxfolk balanced a keg over one shoulder and a sack under an arm, and was looking rather peeved.
"Nearly a silver for this keg. A silver," he complained. "I'd be more willing to part with a lung if they'd ask."
Stump looked up at the tall oxfolk, whose head blotted out the sun. "Do you have any paint?" he said.
Jin gave him a cautious look. "What for?"