The Copper Rose

by David Lingard

  ‘Now this is a chief’s hut,’ I thought to myself as I drank in the new building.

  Having seen the light, Ushuk came bounding out of the woods and approached us with concern in his face.

  “What happening? What happening?” he asked as he danced from foot to foot with his little knife drawn.

  “It’s OK, Ushuk, we’ve just activated the Chief’s Hut,” I explained, to which he replaced his belt in the loincloth that usually housed it. His eyes widened as he examined my new building.

  “Where my house?” he asked as he traced the perimeter of the new building, touching the furs with his fingers.

  “Well, you can use this one,” I said. “It doesn’t make any difference to me.”

  Snafu placed a hand on my shoulder and I noticed that she was shaking her head. “Only Chief allowed inside. Not for Ushuk.”

  ‘That’s not something I’d expected’.

  “Oh, I didn’t know,” I said apologetically. “But don’t worry, we’ll get you an even better shelter made!” I announced. “That one was no good for you anyway, was it,” I attempted to pacify his annoyance, but it didn’t seem to work as I heard him mutter “I liked my house.”

  I tried to work out how exactly I could make good on my promise to Ushuk when I remembered that by the end of the day, another goblin would probably be joining our growing clan. That would mean that he or she would also require food and shelter, putting even more of a strain on our already limited resources. In any case, I spent a little time making yet another low-quality tent just in case. I was well practised now so it didn’t take too long.

  Judging by the descriptions that the breeding hut had provided me with, it was clear that I’d need a feeder first, and probably second and third too, just to keep up with the demand that these insatiable creatures had for beetle meat. Actually, that wasn’t really fair to them, the goblins didn’t really eat that much and I was sure that if we had any larger races with us, like ogres for example then we’d probably need three times the food that was currently in demand.

  My decision was to make another tent for Ushuk, just like my first one but bigger this time. I wanted it to have room for at least three goblins without them having to sleep on top of each other.

  ‘Wait, would that be such a bad thing?’ I thought about natural conception as a method to get baby goblins for free but shook that from my mind when the thought of Ushuk and Snafu getting together entered my mind. He wasn’t quite an adult yet after all.

  That was another thing I had to think about, Ushuk would soon be turning into an adult goblin if the information from the breeding hut was anything to go by, and that meant that he’d need a mentor so that he could turn in to a fully specialised adult goblin, otherwise... well I wasn’t really sure what would happen otherwise, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been anything good. I could always get Snafu to turn him into a cook?

  Arranging my thoughts, I needed to take things one step at a time. I was very aware that the steps I needed to make weren’t the kind that allowed themselves to be pushed to the back of the queue, but my logical mind forced me to make a mental to-do list, and that meant it had to have an order.

  Priority number one, send Ushuk out hunting again, nothing will get done without food. If I went with him we’d take in the same as yesterday, but I wouldn’t be able to build him his tent. If I let him go alone, he would likely get around half of the food that we’d got together, so around six pieces, maybe seven if we were lucky.

  I didn’t want to let Snafu out of my sight ever since I’d found out that the breeding hut only worked if she was alive, so there was no way she was going hunting, she could stay at the camp and get cooking. If she ran out of meat to cook, then she could have a go at fishing again.

  I would spend the day building the bigger tent for the clan’s shelter. It wouldn’t be a long-term solution, but I’d made a promise to Ushuk that I’d intended to keep.

  When I relayed these plans to Ushuk and Snafu, I was pleasantly surprised by their agreement that it was the best thing to do, and that they were totally on board. Usually in these situations one of them would tell me of some game mechanic that meant everything I’d planned went to pot, but thankfully this was not one of those situations.

  Everything went exactly as I’d planned it that day. My new tent was built and even Snafu had helped me at one point when the walls had proven too long for me to manhandle into position alone. Ushuk had triumphantly returned with seven beetle meat, but sadly no crocodile this time. I’d assumed he didn’t fancy pitting his wits against it on his own. I didn’t blame him.

  With our new food, less the dinner allowance, a quick check of the breeding hut told me that we had a whopping thirteen food going spare, well that’s without factoring in breakfast. I did a quick mental calculation and thought that if I spent ten food on a new goblin, three food should’ve been enough to cover breakfast, and if he went hunting with Ushuk then we’d be rolling in it in no time.

  “Do you like your new house?” I attempted to make small talk with Ushuk and Snafu. I was acutely aware that after tonight – after I summoned a new goblin – it wouldn’t just be the three of us anymore. To me it felt a little like a sending off ritual, like the end of an era. I wondered in passing if they shared my feelings.

  “It very big,” Ushuk said nonchalantly. He was far too interested in tearing apart his meat to indulge in small talk. “It for everyone?” he asked.

  “It should fit three goblins inside, really,” I said. “Once we have some new recruits, we’ll get to building something better again.” I was aware that constructing small short-term buildings was never a sustainable plan, but right now it was the only plan I had.

  Although I did very much like how my little clan was progressing, I did have one thought – if there was any way to add some variety to our diet, it would’ve been very welcome. Beetle meat although tasty as it was, was getting very old, very fast.

  You are attempting to summon 1 Goblin Feeder

  Goblin feeder - 10 Food required

  Without food, any clan will perish and die. Goblin feeders can forage, Hunt, fish and farm more efficiently than any other type of goblin, greatly increasing the clan’s ability to generate food.

  Progression to: Goblin Hunter, Goblin Farmer, Goblin Gatherer, Goblin Fisherman.

  Do you wish to summon 1 Goblin Feeder? Yes/No

  This was a very big deal for me and I inhaled sharply as I selected ‘yes’. I watched the breeding hut eagerly as for a moment, nothing happened. But then it started to glow. A brilliant white light traced the breeding hut from underneath its wooden walls. I thought it looked just like how scanners looked in the real world when they were taking their images for copies, and when the light reached the far end of the hut, it dissipated to nothing and the wooden door slammed open to reveal my newest goblin ally.

  ‘It’s a…female?’ I thought to myself, but on reflection I didn’t know why I’d been expecting a male. Perhaps I’d subconsciously attributed the very sexist ‘homely’ tasks like cooking and homemaking to the females of the species and hunting and fishing to the males, after all, Snafu and Ushuk had fallen into those roles perfectly.

  I analysed my new gobliness, who for an adult looked very young, as her features weren’t as sharp as Snafu’s and she wore a kind of tattered red dress.

  Name: Mog [Crocodile’s Teeth Clan]

  Level: 1

  Race: Goblin Feeder/Female

  Attributes:HP: 4/4MP: 0/0

  Strength:1

  Wisdom:0

  Social:0

  Skills: Feeder Class

  Goblin feeders can forage, Hunt, fish and farm more efficiently than any other type of goblin, greatly increasing the clan’s ability to generate food.

  Equipment:None

  Chapter Six, Determination

  M

  og was a very shy little goblin indeed. In fact, she was so shy that I thought she looked as though she was about to turn right
back around and rush into the breeding hut that she’d just emerged from as soon as she made eye contact with me.

  I felt as though I was teasing a new kitten from under the sofa as I stretched my hand out toward her in a beckoning fashion.

  “Welcome to the clan, Mog,” I said as delicately as I could to my new gobliness.

  She didn’t respond but took a few nervous steps toward us. I noticed Ushuk and Snafu standing either side of me and wondered how this must have looked to Mog. New to the world and confronted by a human, a female and an adolescent. We must have seemed like the perfectly dysfunctional family.

  “Come on, you’re a part of the family now,” I said as her pace quickened towards us. To my surprise, when she reached us she darted straight past our group and picked up a piece of the beetle meat that Snafu had prepared earlier. I guess goblins really did march on their stomachs.

  “Eat what you like,” I assured her. “Everyone is equal here, and everything belongs to us all.”

  She looked up at me to acknowledge my words but didn’t stop tearing away at her new meal.

  ‘Pfft,’ I thought, ‘ten food, and the rest’.

  When Mog was done with her meat, she replaced the part she hadn’t wanted onto the pile, folded her arms and leant forward.

  “So...you’re a feeder?” I asked attempting to engage the pensive female. This seemed to pique her interest somewhat as she raised her gaze to meet mine.

  “Yes, me feeder,” she acknowledged.

  Her voice was much smoother and softer than Snafu’s which, by comparison now seemed rather gruff.

  “You not goblin...yet you clan leader?”

  ‘Ah, there it was. A little casual racism to make my day’.

  I hadn’t thought about that, when Mog was incarnated she’d probably expected to be greeted by a budding clan of goblins, not a human and a pair of goblinesque sidekicks.

  “I am.” I said, “but don’t let my race be my judgement, I’m sure that once you get to know me, we’ll be the best of friends.”

  “Tandy tell truth,” Ushuk spoke now to my aid, “he save life of me and Snafu. Tandy good person. Good leader.” I was a little shocked at Ushuk’s defence of my character, but it looked like it’d done the trick.

  Thinking about it, I’d come to view Ushuk as a friend and I assumed he thought the same of me, so why wouldn’t he defend me?

  “So you good human?” Mog asked as she unfolded her arms.

  “I don’t think I can answer that,” I answered honestly, “why don’t you just wait and form your own opinions?” It was the most truthful answer I could give, after all what could any right-minded person say if they were asked outright ‘are you a good person’? Of course, I thought I was but wasn’t that kind of subjective?

  “I’ve made a tent for the three of you,” I announced when Mog chose not to answer any of my pondering. “It should be big enough to make you all comfortable,” I added in an attempt to make the tent seem more appealing.

  “That for us?” Ushuk said as he started hopping happily again. I noticed that even Snafu and Mog had started smiling at the announcement.

  “Well of course, who else would it have been for?” I asked, not quite understanding their delight.

  “Tent bigger than Ushuk’s old house,” he said. “And new. Not normal to get bigger houses in old clan,” he explained.

  I came to the conclusion that goblins received some kind of social standing from having bigger huts, which kind of made sense to me actually, after all, it wasn’t that far removed from humans with their big houses and fancy cars. I’d never bought into all that personally, I’d always felt that a happy, comfortable life was much more important than one filled with late nights at the office to pay for a big house I could never even enjoy.

  “Well just you wait and see until we make the next shelter, this one won’t last forever you know,” I smiled as I spoke to incite wonder into the goblin adolescent.

  Ushuk looked at the new tent and back to me a few times with wide eyes and his mouth open before whispering to me “even bigger than that?”

  “Much bigger,” I chuckled as I spoke. Sometimes goblins were so easy to please.

  Ushuk ran away from me and started running laps of the new tent in some kind of happy dance, jumping up and down and flailing his arms above his head. His actions wouldn’t have been out of place on someone burning alive. I noticed that even Mog laughed at his display of eccentricity, it hadn’t taken long but it seemed to me that she’d started warming to our little family.

  “So you’ll be hunting in the morning with Ushuk then?” I asked Mog as though she’d probably already made plans. She looked at me in confusion.

  “You want Ushuk be Hunter?” She asked, brows furrowed.

  I understood that she was asking if I wanted her to train Ushuk so that he could become a full goblin adult, but that wasn’t the case – at least I thought it wasn’t anyway.

  “No, not at all. When the time comes, Ushuk can decide whatever he wants to be, I won’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to. It’s just that at the moment, he brings in pretty much all the food we use,” I explained.

  “Until now,” Mog corrected me with a devious smile.

  I smiled back at my new goblin feeder and said, “just do whatever makes you happiest.”

  “OK, in morning I hunt,” she announced, much to my pleasure. “Just you wait see how good!” She added.

  When I sent Mog and Ushuk out in the morning to hunt, I took a moment to check the breeding hut’s information page again, as I knew that it would show me the balance of our food and give me an idea of what I could be aiming for next in my path to world domination.

  Goblin Breeding Hut

  Current Food Available: 0Current Maintenance Level: 6

  Current Food Generation: 8 Units / Day

  It was close to the breadline of course, but I already understood that the generation number didn’t include what Ushuk or myself could bring in to the stores. It seemed as though because Mog was actually a feeder and allocated to the task, her daily generation counted towards my statistics, which I was sure would come in handy in the long term.

  After I was done with the breeding hut, I thought it would be prudent to analyse the other buildings that I had in my settlement, after all, the breeding hut had a wealth of information hidden right inside it, tucled away behind the simple analyse skill – I thought absent-mindedly back to a time before information was so widely available, that humans had started to eradicate the element of surprise in video games. I found it amazing that anything I found out on my own had a possibility of not being known by anyone else inside Freedom, which in some ways could come in very handy.

  I started with the new tent that I’d built, but it didn’t seem to divulge anything. I attributed that to the fact that it wasn’t actually a real building, well, one that hadn’t yet been activated at least if the breeding hut was anything to go by.

  My attention turned to the Chief’s Hut. I’d left this one for last because I expected it to show me something amazing, and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest.

  Coyote Creek Settlement Information

  Central Building: Goblin Chief’s Hut

  Current Occupant: Tandy [Crocodile’s Teeth Clan]

  Buildings:Goblin Chief’s Hut1 (100%)

  Goblin Breeding Hut1 (100%)

  Unspecified Shelter1 (100%)

  Campfire1 (100%)

  Occupants:Tandy [Human/Male] Level 3

  Ushuk [Goblin Adolescent/Male]Level 3 Snafu [Goblin Cook/Female] Level 3

  Mog [Goblin Feeder/Female]Level 1

  Skill types:Goblin Adolescent1

  Goblin Cook1

  Goblin Feeder1

  Current Food Available: 0

  Current Maintenance Level: 6

  Current Food Generation: 8 Units / Day

  ‘Wow wow wow!’ I thought as I read the wealth of information that covered my vision. ‘This is going to
make my life so much easier.’

  I’d always loved kingdom building and strategy games and was well aware that in almost all cases, knowledge was power – so with this information available to me at all times I’d have no problem keeping a track of just how well my clan was progressing.

  After a little mental arithmetic I made the mental decision not to summon any new goblins until I had a bit of a surplus of food, just in case of emergency, and within three full days of hard beetle farming, my settlement panel informed me that I had thirty-six units of food, even after everyone’d had a hearty dinner. I always liked having a surplus as a backstop, it tended to make me feel secure.

  The next morning, I made my plans to summon three new goblins at once. I knew it’d put a strain on resources, but you needed to spend money to make money, right? I purposely waited until after breakfast when the food stores showed thirty-three so that I probably wouldn’t have to feed the new clan members right away – well that was kind of the hope anyway.

  I’d decided upon two new feeders and one builder. The feeders were a no-brainer, but I chose to include a builder as I knew that upon their summoning, Coyote Creek would instantly fall into a housing deficit and considering the promise I’d make to Ushuk about making a bigger tent for him and his friends, it was something I didn’t really want to deal with.

  All three of the new goblins were males. I wasn’t sure what the algorithm or probability of each gender was, but it did go some way to restoring the balance of the sexes.

  I couldn’t have been positive without asking, which I did, but the two hunters appeared to be twins. As much as most goblins looked similar to me, these two were particularly identical. I saw that their names were Bishook and Grishook once I’d taken the time to analyse them.