Duval Estate.
This had better work, Arguim thought as he mentally, and physically, prepare himself for what he was about to do. If he didn't know any better he'd wager that his forefathers were rising from their barrows as he walked towards the goblin estate.
Course that would be impossible on account that dwarven graves were warded with more runes than damn near anything, and the fact that the last recorded necromantically raised dwarf resulted in said raised dwarf killing the poor sod that raised him. Quite violently.
Such a thing was incredibly rare of course. Even the poorest, most destitute dwarf was given at least the bare minimum when it came to grave warding. Making necromancy more trouble than it was worth when it came to their graves compared to the rather plain and mostly defenseless graves of other races.
Arguim shook his head, he was distracting himself. He's committed to this path and by the Stone Father he'll see it through if it meant his own had some breathing room from the Ulrin Clan.
"Stone Father and kin past, forgive me." Arguim muttered a prayer as he glanced at the human looking gobs he's heard called 'Red Caps' on account of their crimson colored caps said to be dyed with blood.
With a deep, and only slightly calming, breath, he hammered on the door of the estate.
He almost wished a few others had came with him, he thought as he waited for the doors to open up. A few others had made the, rather unenthusiastic, offer of accompanying him. He refused mainly because it was his idea in the first place to go to the gobs, and what leader would he be if he didn't take the risk himself?
It was also in part that if something did happen to him, the leadership of the guilds would carry on with only the slight bump that was his death. A vote would happen and another would take his place. Simple as that.
He jumped a little when the door creaked open and revealed a rather feminine face that he didn't realize came from a gob! The female looking goblin stared at him before speaking in Common with an accent that was common among the local gobs.
"Oui? Who are you?"
Arguim cleared his throat before responding.
"I am Arguim, elected representative o' tha Independent guilds. I have business with tha master o' tha house."
The female goblin knitted her brows before bowing in a curtsey.
"Apologies monsieur, but Monsieur Duval is currently indisposed at the moment."
"I was afraid o' that." Arguim muttered under his breath. He had been hoping to do business with the human leading the gobs rather than the one gob he had dealt with before.
It was about the only thing that made this arrangement even palatable, he thought as he really wasn't looking forward to doing business with the gobs directly. He even thought about turning around and leaving right then and there!
But he couldn't. As much as his fiery beard curled and his stomach heaved at the idea, he couldn't afford to walk away. Not if him and the independent guilds wanted any hope of remaining independent. So he'll swallow his dwarven pride and work with the gobs. But not a second longer than he had to, he thought as he clenched and unclenched his knuckles.
"Then who may I speak with?"
"Oh, Monsieur Gerard will see you!" The maid stated in a fluttery voice as the door opened wider and Arguim was allowed entry.
What beheld him was something he wasn't expecting. The entryway of the estate was bedecked in small shimmering pieces and blinding lights. This strange metal paper stuck to every corner and crevice it came into contact with. Near a tree laden with gaudy ornaments was what appeared to be a small shrine of some sorts with idols of worship. Three bearded men held items and knelt next to an infant manling and what may be his parents with some animals nearby and a winged manling watching over from above.
Given the human appearance of the idols he figured they belonged to the gobs' human master rather than themselves. Or so he thought when he spied a trio of gobs dressed in white robes walk up to the alter and kneel before it and offer prayers!
He shook his head and moved on. He wanted as little to do with these goblins already, whatever strange cult they developed wasn't his concern, he thought as he followed the maid as she led him through the manor, through the kitchen, which he had paused at as he marveled at the things there.
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A metal cabinet that kept things cool and preserved, another that burned hotter than any campfire could that would heat and cook food in seconds if not minutes!
He was pulled from his dallying when the maid opened the back door and he was met with an unmistakable noise. The noise and clatter of warriors. Or as close as gobs can get to being one, he thought as he followed the maid outside and beheld what could only be described as a fortified town.
Where the manor itself ended, rows and rows of personal housing were either built or being built. Despite what he thought of the gobs, their housing looked almost akin to what humans built. Two floors, four walls, open air windows, a slanted roof made from what appeared to be bark shingles, and a single thick door.
The maid told him that these were the officer quarters when they ran out of room within the manor itself. He stepped out not onto mud or dirt, but a properly paved path of cut stone and lined with logs of wood.
If he were a simple commoner he'd be impressed. But he wasn't. He was a craftsdwarf. With an experienced eye he could see the imperfections in all of it. The splintered ends and cracked bodies of the logs. The chipped and uneven cuts to the stone. It was more than he thought capable of the gobs, but not enough to truly impress him.
As they walked, such an opinion was reinforced as everything he was was similar in quality. Stone poorly hewn. Logs crudely processed. If anything it made him more nervous. The gobs were in the right direction, but at this point how many bad habits have taken root? It was always better to work with a clean slate than an old beaten out slab of metal.
A thought that turned into a prayer as the maid led him to what was either a workshop, a forge, or a junkyard. Or mayhaps all three, he thought as he and the maid avoided the various scorched craters scattered about and filled with bubbling oil or other brightly colored liquids that made his eyes burn and hair curl just from the noxious fumes they gave off.
He held his breath when they passed one of the lumbering trogs that the gobs used as some sort of shock troop/beast of burden. Mixing goblins and trolls. He was surprised the creature hadn't forgotten how to breath yet with how dimwittedly dumb they must be.
He held back groan as he watched said dumb creature glance down at a sizzling puddle of caustic yellow fluid, stare at it with its dimwitted face, and then proceed to stick its gnarled and gangly arm into the pool!
It took far too long for it realize it was supposed to be in pain before it pulled the stub where its hand used to be out of the caustic fluid. Yet the dumb creature just starred at the stub and drooled as it blinked slowly before getting distracted and wandering off elsewhere.
About the only other thing around here that made him want to kill it more out of pity were the even more pitiful goblins with skin that seemed permanently bruised in color. Pitiful was all he could use to describe the creatures as their shriveled noses and ears drooped as they did whatever was commanded of them, before and after being beaten.
He knew that the greenskins were cruel. But seeing them drive even members of their own race to the point of such a pitiful state was disgusting. If they weren't about the only chance he had against Clan Ulrin he would've turned around and left as fast as he could.
The large metal door opened with a screech and Arguim was met with a mixture of yelling and explosions.
"WE NEED MORE!!!"
"I told you, if you want more you can acquire it yourself. We won't endanger ourselves any longer." Arguim heard a voice reply.
As he entered the workshop he was met by three goblins. One was dressed in a haphazard outfit of what appeared to be boiled leather stained with caustic burns and still sizzling scorch marks with cracked and soot caked glasses, another was dressed in the leathers and iron of a blacksmith. The third was a cleanly presented and sharply dressed goblin who he had spoken to before.
The goblin dressed in boiled leather and what he realized was rubber, shouted over the din once more.
"WE NEED MORE! HOW CAN WE CONTINUE WITHOUT IT?!"
The goblin he was familiar with sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before responding.
"I do not know. All I know is I refuse to continue feeding that thing in the hedgemaze any more. If you want the fertilizer from there, you are free to go and gather it yourself. But we will no longer be sending dragues to fetch it."
Before the squinty stained goblin could respond, the other goblin held up a hand and turned towards Arguim.
"Ah, our guest has arrived."
The maid that escorted him did a curtsey before departing. Leaving him alone with the three goblins, and the multitude of "dragues" that loitered awaiting tasks or in the process of doing them already.
The goblin, Gerard he took it, cleared his throat and gestured to him.
"This is the dwarf I informed you about."
"WHAT?!" The sooty goblin yelled out.
Gerard sighed and took a piece of parchment from a nearby drague before writing something on it and giving it to the squinty goblin. Said goblin rubbed the stained cracked glasses onto his just as soiled apron before squinting at the paper, and then threw it away.
"DONT NEED NO DWARF!"
"If we want any hope of seriously competing-"
"WHAT?!"
Before Gerard could grab another parchment, the squinty goblin gestured over to where a drague was tied to a plank of wood and where a belching mechanical thing pumped a sharp piece of metal that continuously stabbed it.
"DONT NEED NO DWARF WHEN WE HAVE THE AUTO-STABBAH!!!"
Gerard and Arguim just starred at the continuously shanked goblin. The former in abject boredom, the latter in abject horror. Arguim wondered if perhaps it wasn't too late to turn back.
Gerard turned around and made to speak to Arguim before knitting his brow and producing a pocket watch.
"I wish I could stay and help things along, but I have other duties to attend to."
He turned towards the goblin dressed in blacksmith leathers.
"See to it that things go smoothly as possible."
The blacksmith goblin grunted in reply while Gerard gave Arguim a slight bow and a 'good day' before departing. Leaving him alone with two goblins and the cacophony that was the workshop that he was apparently supposed to work within.
Even if the workshop didn't look like it would fall apart at any second, there was so much going on that he didn't even know where to begin. Some of it he didn't even know if he could begin with as he watched several of the dragues and goblins tinkering with the strange metal hearts of those horseless carriages he's seen through town as well as multicolored fluids that bubbled, sizzled, and fumed noxious gases.
He looked around as the blacksmith goblin smacked a few of the other goblins over the head with his hammer before dragging the squinty sooted goblin before Arguim and gestured for him to listen. But not before a couple whacks of his heavy leathered fist told the squinty goblin that it wasn't optional.
So Arguim found himself before a crew of goblins. Some seemed actually curious and willing to listen to what he had to say, had to teach. But most seemed more than eager to return to their own experiments and projects and about the only thing keeping them here was the threat of force.
Typical greenskins, Arguim thought before deciding to start with the basics.
"So. Who knows how to smelt ore?"
He was only marginally surprised to find a couple hands besides the blacksmith goblin go up.
"Hmm, and who knows how ta do it properly?"
Arguim sighed as the goblins quickly devolved into infighting as they argued over how the best method of smelting ore. Maybe working with the Ulrin Clan wasn't so bad a prospect, he thought.
