A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 38: Battle With The Goblins - Part 4

"There he is!" Greeves said loudly as he swung the door open and let it crash into the wall.

Beam noted that he was far more appropriately dressed today. He clenched a long pipe between his teeth that smoked away as he stood there, releasing the familiar aroma of purple mountain grass.

Instead of a wide-open dressing gown, the merchant wore a green tunic and a wide belt and a fur cloak over the top of it all. With his boots a sturdy leather and his dark trousers a reliable linen, he looked well dressed enough to brave the forest.

Beam nodded to him in greeting. "I've come as promised. Have you finished reviewing the tasks that Ferdinand needs completing?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm in a rush as well, so you can spare me the impatient look. And, by the way, you've only got yourself to blame for standing in the rain like that. Don't think I'm going to make the offer to let you come inside again, yeah?" Greeves said, wrinkling his nose as he noticed that the rain was only increasing. It seemed like a veritable thunderstorm.

He unrolled the scrap of paper that he'd been holding in his hand and began to read. "Alright, like I said, this is the list. Golbin slaying – three requests, lots of the fuckers, various locations. One corpse soldier needs slaying too. There's a giant spider problem up in the mountains as well, there's a request to deal with that. There's a request for scouting as well. There's the firewood request too – gonna have to go door to door and see if anyone needs help preparing firewood for the winter. There's a winter food prep request as well – honestly, I don't know who that fucker Ferdinand thinks I am. I'm a merchant, not a priest. Dunno why I'm expected to deal in charity… Anyway, There's another request to get rid of the worst of the ditches in the roads before the mud gets too bad, and another to help the local smith get hold of some iron, since there hasn't been much passing through the market lately. There you go, a handsome amount, eh?"

"That's 10 separate requests then?" Beam mused.

"Oh? That was a quick bit of counting," Greeves said with a raised eyebrow. "Seems like no one can count around here, 'cept us merchants. I wonder why that is, mm?"

Both Greeves and Beam knew very well why it was. For peasants, mathematics and literacy were far less important to their livelihoods than farming and the like. Most of them only needed the very bare minimum knowledge of each to get by. Most, like Judas, could get by without even knowing a single letter.

"So, we're sticking to yesterday's agreement, yes?" Beam asked, ignoring his comment. "I get 5 silver upon the completion of all those quests, and you get the investment money you need for the house that you burned down."

Greeves nodded. "Yeah, that'll do fine by me. Surprised you didn't say anything about the quests, though. You're not worried at all? A single Goblin is enough for one man to handle, but the fuckers roam in packs. Will you be alright alone? That's not to mention the corpse soldier and the giant spiders – they're quite troublesome, they are."

"I'll manage," Beam said gruffly, though he had no experience dealing with any of them. He simply didn't want to let Greeves get involved any further, by offering him help and taking money off him. "So then, every time I complete one of the requests, I'll return here and you'll give me 5 copper coins for each until it's over, right?"

"Hoho! Yer really not half bad at the calculations, are ya boy? You're at the level of a merchant apprentice. Consider me impressed. Aye, I'll agree to that little stipulation, although I can smell your distrust of me through it, consider me unbothered and unoffended. I suppose it's better to do it like that anyway, so you can deal with each quest individually and I can give you the info you need on them – 'cos there's a fair bit for each, surprisingly. Do you want to get started now? What'll it be for the first quest eh? A Goblin hunt? Firewood? To be honest, I reckon the firewood and the food will take the longest, but there's the risk when it comes to Goblin hunting… Difficult choices, eh?"

"I'll go for Goblin hunting," Beam said quickly, as he felt more and more cold drops of rain soak through his shirt and onto his skin. I'll take the details for it now, if you'll give them to me."

"Alright, alright. I can see you're eager. Better not end up a corpse though, eh lad? That would be pretty disappointing, even for a sinister merchant like me. Be irritating to see an investment tank so early." Greeves said.

"You haven't invested a single coin yet," Beam pointed out, recalling his master's words from the previous evening.

"Haha! Right you are. And that's what I call good business, mm? Right then, on to the first little bit of Goblin hunting. Aha… here we are," he said, pulling out another sheet of paper from his pocket, as though he'd predicted that Beam would choose Goblin hunting first from the start, "yeah, we've got a nasty group of the little bastards a few hours walk to the east. A group of 5 from the report, but y'know, those reports are always wrong. Anyway, they've been butchering all the hogs up in the mountains and the deer too. The hunters are getting pissed, and one of them got killed a few weeks back. Been made into something of a big deal now."

"A few hours' walk to the east? Where are they? Near where the forests meet the plains?" Beam asked.

"Oh? Yeah. That's exactly where," Greeves said, with the first hint of true surprise. "I'll just consider that a lucky guess, should I?"

Beam shrugged. "Are we done here?"

"We are. I wish you luck, you little shit," Greeves said, sticking out his hand for a handshake to conclude the deal.

Beam eyed the hand warily for a few moments before accepting.

"I'm not going to force you, but if you get any interesting loot from these Goblins, I'd be happy to buy it off ya. Just the ears and teeth tend to sell reasonably well amongst the potion makers, but I'll be surprised if you manage to get any, what with you going alone," Greeves said, ending the handshake with one of his trademark false white smiles and the offer of more business.