“Hell yes,” the goblin says as the wound on his stomach heals up. Even the hole in his shirt repairs itself.
“Info, now.” Ryuk says.
Hiccup sticks his scabrous tongue out and savors the last few drops of potion. “Aramis, two days from now at the Hour of the Rabbit. That’s all I know, I swear. One of them whispered it in my ear.”
“And you said there were five kidnappers?”
“I said there were seven. Possibly only six.” Hiccup looks at the letter that was originally sticking out of his belly. “Shinigami. That’s their guild name. I don’t know how many there were. I didn’t really see them because they blindfolded me. Maybe there were four.”
“Three on six … ” Ryuk turns a chair around and sits.
“A bit of advice from a hundred and fifty-four-year-old goblin with a penchant for being right and a track record to match it – they’ll probably just return Tammy once they realize that you’re so broke you can’t even pay attention.”
Ryuk clenches his fists. “It’s Tamana, not Tammy.
Hiccup shrugs.
“Did they say something about a ransom?”
The goblin thinks for a moment. “Not that I can recall. Listen, Ryuk, relax a little. I’m sure they’ll return her at some point. Those kind of fickboys always do.”
He glares daggers the goblin. “For your information, Tamana died in the world up there, and I watched it happen. And just after that, a Thulean warrior attacked me in my own bedroom. Crazy things are happening. From what I can tell so far, NPCs have somehow infected our iNet feeds.”
Hiccup yawns and jams his finger inside his ear. He scratches, examines, and flicks something on the ground. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Ryuk huffs, “Never mind, you wouldn’t understand. The point is, I need to talk to her and together, we need to get to the bottom of this. I need to find Tamana’s RPC; she’ll know what to do next, she always does.”
Hiccup burps and pounds his fist against his chest. “Sorry. Damn healing potions always give me heartburn, and quickly too, let me tell you. Where was I? Oh yeah – so that’s why Tamana spawned with an RPC icon over her head! I was wondering what that was about, but to be brutastically honest with you kid, I was in the middle of a gob-nap so I figured I was dreaming or something.”
Ryuk nearly stomps his feet. “Are you telling me that the Shinigami were able to kidnap Tamana because you were sleeping?”
“I wasn’t sleeping, I was gob-napping,” Hiccup explains. “Parsing, I know, but the point remains: the dumbficks snuck in while I was all snoozled up and I woke up just in time to get sporked in the belly while one of them told me about the exchange place in Aramis.”
Ryuk takes a deep breath.
As a level 96, he could have found Tamana’s kidnappers, and fast – presuming they survived their initial encounter with Tamana, whose algospells could rend the very fabric of Tritania. He exhales and asks, “Did you at least catch their levels? Tell me you at least saw their levels.”
“How was I supposed to do that? They stabbed me while I was sleeping!” Hiccup shakes his head. “They’re some real fickholes if you ask me. Did I tell you about their weapons?”
“No.”
“They’re better than yours.”
“Of course they’re better than mine. I have a fucking slingshot.” Ryuk thinks for a moment. “Well, we need to level-up, regardless. If we plan to get Tamana back, you and I need to be at higher levels.”
“That’s all you,” Hiccup yawns again, “I’m happy with my current level so I’ll just be hanging here until you get back, then I’ll take you to Aramis. We cool?”
Hiccup’s stats appear before Ryuk:
Hiccup Level 8 Shield Thief
HP: 290/290
ATK: 64
DEF: 61
MATK: 11
MDF: 47
LUCK: 8
At level 8, Hiccup is still a handful of levels away from being even remotely useful. The Shinigami could be at any level, but were for sure higher than level 2 and level 8.
“Baka,” Ryuk mumbles under his breath.
“Look kid, you and Tamana are resetters, right? Why don’t you just ask your old guildmates to do you a solid? Then you and I pop some fickin’ Kayian popcorn, steal a twelve pack of Horse Piss Ale, call a few choice goblinette entertainers, and let your old guild handle this. What was your old guild’s name, again?”
“The Knights of Non Compos Mentis, and as guild policy, they don’t support resetters.”
His bushy eyebrows lift. “I forgot that you were one of the Knights! Must be early onset Goblinheimer’s. It’s fickin’ terrible, terrible to joke about too. But back to the Knights – is Sophia still running the show?”
“From behind the scenes, yes.”
“And then you decided to do the stupidest thing you’ve done all your life – reset and start your own guild.”
“That was Tamana’s idea.”
“And speaking of your guild, we still don’t have a name, something that also needs to be addressed.”
Ryuk stares bitterly at Hiccup. It’s not the goblin’s fault. He’s an NPC, he doesn’t quite understand what Ryuk just experienced. “We’ll get a name later,” Ryuk finally says, “when the time is right.”
“I’ve suggested ‘The Mitherfickers’ twice now. Just sayin’.”
Ryuk takes a deep breath that does little to calm him.
Tritanian goblins tended to be unimaginative and repetitive in their choice of lexical items, and overwhelmingly prefer one particular vulgarity for use as a noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, and interjection.
Tritania’s most powerful Mind Mage grew weary of such grammatical constructs as, ‘fuck me, you fucking fuckwit, let’s go fucking fuck up those fucking fuckers right the fuck now,’ and cast an unbreakable algospell that prevents every goblin in Tritania from ever enunciating the word ‘fuck.’
The goblins were not fickin’ amused.
Ryuk sighs. “The Mitherfickers isn’t quite what we’re going for.”
“Sounds like some goblin discrimination if you ask me. Anyfickin’hoo, it looks like you’ll need to recruit a new couple of wankers to help you in your quest to get Tamana back. Now leveling up, that’s not really my cup of tea, but recruitment,” he shoots Ryuk a smug grin, “now we’re in my department. What kind of recruits do you want, anyway? NPCs, immiNPCs, RPCs, PCs, orc chippies – your wish is my command, el capitan.”
Ryuk paces back and forth for a moment. “Sure, recruit as many as you’d like, but I have final say, and we will all level up together. Got it?”
The goblin steps over to him. He’s more than a half a meter shorter than Ryuk, much wider too. “Well if leveling is a requirement, I’d like an additional bonus for my services then.”
The shakedown. This is to be expected anytime one deals with a goblin.
“Come again?”
Hiccup uses his grubby little nose-pickers to crack his neck. “There, that’s better. Here’s what I’m thinking: I get a percentage of the value of any treasure we take during this quest. How about twenty percent of the loot?”
Ryuk shakes his head. “Two percent.”
“Okay then, three percent, gross.”
“Fine, three percent, net. You get three percent net of whatever we get. Deal?”
“Deal!” Hiccup approaches him with an outstretched hand. “I promise it’s clean.”
Ryuk gives him a funny look before shaking his grimy hand.
“I’ll be back soon. Round up anyone you can and we’ll vet them together. I’ll try to find someone too.” He turns to the door. “And remember, I have final say. You don’t have to go for the cream at the top, but try to avoid scraping the bottom of the barrel.”