Chapter 12 Part C

  The head goblin shaman walked up to the best stick hut in the goblin village again. He was fuming mad. Well actually he was always mad. Goblins were hot blooded that way. But this time more than usual. He usually came here only when he was mad. To solve their problems with the goblin chief. Between the two of them they'd in the past always been able to find answers to their problems over some goblin rum. Usually the chief donated the rum, though that was usually where he had to trick him into it.

  Plus, the best stick hut in the village was fun to de-stress in, which was the chief's hut. And they'd be able to munch on that special human jerky that the chief imported from the orc traders. That was the best jerky ever. He was drooling now just thinking about it. The goblin chief knew how to whip his downtrodden ugly wives into running the household so well. In a way he was jealous, though the wives of the chief had faces worse than trolls...

  The chief saw the shaman coming through the front door where one of his ugliest wives were standing there in only her loincloth.

  Him again, he just comes to steal my hard earned meat, the chief thought. Although he didn't say it aloud it annoyed him to share his human jerky with the chief shaman. So instead he slapped his ugly goblin wife around and sent her out to the yard.

  "Greetings. I'm here to talk," the shaman said.

  "You again... I'm tired of this. We didn't accomplish much last time you came here. I seem to remember you drank too much of my rum also," the village chief said.

  "Ah but this time I really do have something good for us to talk about and discuss," the shaman said.

  The chief was right not to trust the head shaman. His eyes were already taking into account the items and potential treasures in the chief's house. He was on the look out for a chance to...

  Well no matter... the chief had killed more goblins than anyone else he knew in his life time. He'd killed the last 2 head shamans when they tried to steal from him also. This one thought he was more clever than the other 2 but he was acting exactly the same way they had. Well no matter, he expected this one would be no different. The truth was most goblins just couldn't help themselves.

  This was why he stayed armed and even had a backup dagger in the back of his belt tucked in.

  "So... what is it this time? Is this about the bear?" the chief asked.

  The shaman chuckled. "Ah but I have something good. We now know its not a bear that was killing our younger pups up on the mountain top where that glade is."

  "Not a bear? Are you sure? You have had whole squads go missing up there since a month ago. Nobody comes back alive. that's what you'd expect from say a great hunger mutation bear. Or something like it. Its on a level we should think about if we should send our hunting teams to other areas," the chief said.

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  "Ah! But what if its not a bear? What if its... 2 legged prey instead?" the head shaman said.

  The chief blinked. "That's not possible. There would have been survivors if that's the case. We sacked the last settlement of 2 legs decades ago. We were careful to not offend the blood god and searched extremely thoroughly to be sure no more of them were left in this area. If we've missed one of their settlements, he will be full of wrath. I myself helped that search and confirmed we'd left no stone unturned. Its too hard for a 2 legs to stop everyone from running especially if they all run different directions also. They wouldn't have the means to prevent discovery this long."

  "Unless if its someone that's very cunning. IF its like that then they could exploit the situation to prevent running."

  "You think that's what happened till now?"

  "I do think that's what's been happening," the shaman said.

  "What's your reasoning?"

  "Its a 2 legs."

  "A 2 legged prey? Are you sure. If you are wrong we both lose face," the chief said.

  In the goblin language they didn't actually have a word for humans. Instead they had used the loan word from the human language for human. But prior to that, goblins were such a murderous race that their own original word for what became 'human' was a word that meant '2 legged prey'. And in some tribes '2 legged deer' was used. Then their word for '2 legged deer' became a shortened contraction. This reflected how bloodthirsty and cruel their race was.

  "We have found evidence someone is making weapons up there," the head shaman said.

  "Making weapons? Oh. This is interesting," the chief said.

  In the goblin language, a translation problem that occurred often is that goblins weren't builders or creators themselves. They only built if they were facing death, such was the way their brains worked; they were built for murder and not building. And this had effected their language. So if they said, 'making weapons' it could actually mean making housing. Or it could mean making weapons. Or it could mean making firewood, that might be used to make a fire while making weapons. Their language was very bastardized by their brains being built a certain way. The idea of being a builder and creator wasn't in their mind set and spirit. There was only 'making weapons' and making weapons better, or making weapons so you could sleep without freezing in winter or making something that was a part for making weapons...

  In their language everything was usually classied in terms of prey and weapons. So a house might be called 'a place to store weapons' and therefore could be in a general sense described as, 'we found someone building weapons' over there.

  And there were always things like saying 'we found a human making a place where deer might rest', or 'making weapons'; translation actually meaning, "...making a grass hut." And since they were going to murder the prey anyway it didn't matter to describe what the prey was actually doing. Plus it sounded more glorious if you killed a strong prey instead of a weak one.

  So if you didn't ask follow up questions, translating goblin to people might be confusing. Because their brains were so different than people.

  "So he was making weapons there? What kind?" the chief asked.

  "We found a place where deer might rest. Its exceptionally complicated. Definitely not a bear," the head shaman smiled big.

  The chief now was drooling also.

  Both of them had ... for lack of better terms, 'gold fever for goblins'. Gold fever was a dwarven thing. If you hit payout of got rich they'd be so fascinated that they could get gold fever. But for goblins, their version of gold fever was actually 'blood or meat fever'. They especially got feverish for human meat. To them human meat was like the best sushi that ever had been to certain cultures of a certain world.

  "Let's sound the horns then. We'll call everyone up. I've wanted a 2 leg hunt for some time. I feel so excited. When we hunted the last of them in this area out I was so disappointed that we'd run out of prey. This... it sets my teeth on edge. I'm so... soo... excited," the chief felt happier than he had in a long time.

  And he couldn't stop drooling at the thought of tasty human flesh.