I need to test out my new knife marble, he thinks, as they pass a sign pointing towards the city of Jatla. The moon provides enough illumination to outline the sign and highlight its carved letters. He slows his pace so Hiccup and FeeTwix can go ahead, pouches up a marble and draws it back. The business end of the marble stretches into a sharp point, yet the base of the marble remains round.
So that’s how it works.
He relieves the tension on his slingshot and the knife marble returns to its original shape. He tries again, quickly this time, and as he pulls back on the pocket with the marble inside, the silver marble again stretches into a sharp blade on its business end.
He looses the blade and it makes a thunk sound as it hits the sign.
“Dragon Ficks!” Hiccup drops to the ground. “Incoming! Get down! Get down!” His spiked club appears in his mechanical hand. “Down you fickers, down! Someone’s shooting at us!”
FeeTwix laughs. “It was only Ryuk testing his new marble.”
Hiccup tries to push himself up, grimaces at the pain in his lower back, and eventually rolls to his side. “Hey, fick-face. Little help for your elder?” As FeeTwix helps him to his feet, Hiccup curses with a passion and depth of feeling usually reserved for faster cars, younger women, and older whiskey.
FeeTwix is impressed; Ryuk ignores him and looses another shot at the wooden sign.
“This is so cool! Did you see how this works?” he waves FeeTwix over and turns his hand slightly to show him the knife marble. “When I pull it back,” he demonstrates, “the other end stretches into a blade.”
“It’s like you’re pulling a blade out of thin air!” FeeTwix’s scrolls through his list. A classic TruMark Wrist Rocket appears in his hand and he offers a palm to Ryuk. “Let me give it a try.”
Ryuk hands him one and he pouches it up.
FeeTwix pulls back and …
Nothing. Ryuk smiles, feels ashamed for smiling, and looks away. Once he’s sure that his smile has vanished, he returns his focus to FeeTwix, who is still trying to pull a knife out of thin air.
“I guess you have to be a Ballistics Mage to use its magical properties.” FeeTwix gives the marble back and Fwitt! Ryuk sticks another one into the sign.
“You know,” huffs the brass-armed goblin, “some Sotlan signmaker is going to be royally peeved that some fickin’ douche canoe has been dagging his sign all night. How ‘bout you stop all the fickin’ around and we get to town.”
“Relax, goblin friend.” FeeTwix pats him on the shoulder. “It’s only just ahead.”
“I’m jumpy, that’s all.”
“Why are you jumpy?” he asks as they weave through a particularly dark part of the path. The sounds of wild animals howling in the distance prick Ryuk’s ears up. He turns to the misty woods, scans it again for foes. Again, nothing.
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been bamboozled by a racist ficktard ink shadow, had my arm stolen, been zip-tied, carpet-rolled, dragged through the mud, slammed around by a fickin’ vine squid – and that’s just since second lunch! Then Mr. Trigger Happy Japanese Ramen Sushi Sandwich over here just about gives his only friend a Valhalsian tonsure.”
“You aren’t my only friend.” Ryuk stays behind his two guildmates, another marble in the pouch of his slingshot just in case there is actual trouble. He’s entered enough Tritanian towns after dark to know to come prepared. He’s no longer of the ninja class now, but he was one for long enough to have some of the abilities permanently engraved upon his psyche.
Hiccup calls back to him, “Well, maybe FeeTwix here is your friend too, but you’ve only known each other like five hours or something so you can’t be that close. Who am I missing?”
Don’t let him egg you on … Ryuk reminds himself. Too late. “Tamana is my friend.”
“Oh, that’s right! I forgot what all this was about. Okay then, pretty little Tamana. Tammy and Good Ol’ Uncle Goblin, your only two pals.”
FeeTwix, always the mediator, says, “You know, Ryuk, you’re polling quite high with my fans, which is a good thing. I’ve seen them get quite nasty about people I join up with. Now before you get all impressed with yourself, I do have to tell you that you’re not polling quite as high as Hiccup, but I think that’s mostly because Hiccup brings the comic relief, and the fans like to see him get hurt or do something stupid.”
“Hey!”
FeeTwix continues, “But people really seem to like you.” He turns to Ryuk and points at his eyes. Ryuk can see that they’re not recording. “Remember, most of them don’t know why we’re doing what we’re doing,” he explains, “I try to record in a way that leaves those details out. Once they do, I expect they’ll really start pulling for you. Romance sells, and everyone loves an underdog.” His eyes turn black and widen. “Approaching the town of Sotla, who knows what we will find!”
Hiccup tugs on FeeTwix’s sleeve. “How many people are watching right now?”
“A little over 600,000, my dearest goblin friend. Viewership declines when we’re not in battle, which is understandable.”
“We goblins got a phrase for that – bandwagon fickboys. Sounds like you have about 200,000 of them.”
Small cottages and farmhouses occur more and more frequently the closer they get to town. Most are all thatched roofs, cobblestone paths, and flowering window boxes back-lit by softly glowing candle light – the trademarked industrial quaintness and cookie-cutter individuality of KinkadeCo Proxima Properties. The occasional cottage is dark and empty-looking, and Ryuk wonders briefly about the places that don’t look lived in.
Do they belong to NPCs, or have player characters purchased them?
It is quite common for PCs to use real world money to buy digital, intangible real estate in Tritania. Some properties – especially those in Valhalla, the high-end fashion district of Porthos – can fetch upwards of fifteen to twenty million real world dollars. Location, location, location – and if you stick a price tag on it, some idiot will buy it.
“We’re here!” FeeTwix announces to his legion of fans. “Welcome to Sotla!”
Hiccup doesn’t even wait for the guards to swing the city gate all the way closed before he goes to bail on his guildmates. He clutches his groin a tad too enthusiastically with his brass hand, winces, and remarks, “Fick, don’t know my own strength yet. Anyways, fellas, as much as I’ve enjoyed our little sausage party, I need to take my own sausage to a party, if you get my drift.”
Ryuk looks blank; FeeTwix sniggers.
A passerby glances over at the Swede. He chuckles as he shakes his head and moves on.
With a theatrical roll of his eyes, the goblin elucidates. “A Yoshi ranch. A fancy house. The land of happy endings. Okay, a brothel. I need to visit a brothel, specifically one that has orc-gals.” His eyes unfocus for a moment as he murmurs, “Mmmm … orc-gals with nether teeth … ”
FeeTwix cringes at the word nether teeth.
The goblin shakes it off and resumes, “Might as well give you two the straight fickin’ scoop now that we’re guildmates and battle buddies and all – This ain’t my first rodeo, and it takes some pretty fancy bronco-busting to wet my willy if you catch my drift, but we can talk about that later.”
FeeTwix laughs. “Yes, you’ll have to go into great detail for me!”