*the following chapters are filled with border-line mythical stories whose veracity may well be impossible to substantiate; Gint's mercantile encounters with (and subsequent fleeing from) cannibalistic trolls, battles with entire armadas of human warships, an attempt to market Goblin Sapper explosives to a primitive tribe of ogres, and even an encounter with a dragon while piloting a zeppelin. Flipping through these tales, it is the final chapter of the book which stands out - mostly because a book-mark has been intentionally left at its immediate start*
Chapter 10 - "I Can't Get This Damn Thing Off", or, "Why I Need To Be A Better Engineer Than My Father Was."
After the Second War, and the Goblin's removal of direct support from the Horde, I returned to work with my old man on more of his projects; wars come and go, but profit is forever, baby! ...and hey, if we were going to cash in the next time the next conflict came up, we had to get cracking!
When I got back to Kezan at the conclusion of the war, Dad's workshop was the same mess it had always been; belching green smoke from the chimney, and smelling like an armada of over-oiled Shredders. Alchemy was serious business, and it wasn't likely to entice the neighbours to come calling, but Dad liked it that way. Walking up the road to the house, something was definitely fishy - I couldn't hear a single explosion going off inside. Now, to the casual reader, you probably don't expect explosions to be going off inside YOUR homes, but try to remember who we're talking about, here! To a Goblin engineer and alchemist, an explosion means one thing, and one thing only - profit.
- The view from father's workshop.
Entering the house, something was definitely wrong; not only was the place completely ransacked, with all of my father's notes scattered about the place like, potions oozing themselves out all over the floor... oh yes, and my father's body slumped over his desk. Before rushing to his side, like one might expect, I ran to make sure nothing valuable had been taken; notes, formulate - everything seemed intact, just scattered. Only after double-checking... well, alright, maybe triple-checking that nothing had gone missing, did I go to check on my father. Well, it seems the great vault in the sky was ready to open its doors for the old man. I couldn't tell what was wrong, but he was wheezing like a whirred-out gyro, and that could mean only one thing.
"Alliance commandos. Came. Tried to take my damn suit." My father pointed feebly towards a wall.
" Where's my gold?", he wheezed one last time, and expired promptly.
Now, again, you might expect someone to bawl their eyes out - remember, though, Goblins live for gold. My father's death might mean I could inherit his business, but clearly he had made an enemy. How? Why? Why would an Alliance commando team want my father's grimy old clothes?
I walked toward the wall my father had gestured at; I knew well that it was a false-one, behind which we had always kept our most secret inventions safe from the prying eyes of any competitors. With the flip of a small hidden switch, the wall split down the middle to reveal... a Tauren. Apparently a dead one, and one with a note stapled to its chest.
"Gint, my boy, this is it - furry gold. You ever hear of that fellow Goblin in Dire Maul who managed to cobble together a Gordok Ogre suit from nothing more than some spare thread and rags? Well I've one-upped him my boy! Behold, the latest invention in personal safety! The "B.U.L.L"! Short for "Bovine Utility Life Liberator!". No more do our people have to feel short and powerless! Heck, the potential for espionage is even better - blend in with the herd, as it were! Hah!"
- A rough exterior design sketch of the suit.
I hadn't even a minute to appreciate the fine machining before I heard noises outside; clearly whoever had ransacked the place was coming back to search again. Rushing to the door and peering outside, I saw two tall humans flanking a single Gnome - bloody short-ears were always trying to steal our technology. This one was rather odd looking, with a positively enormous moustache, neatly oiled hair, and a rapier that seemed entirely too big for him strapped to his waist. I didn't know who he was, but I knew he was the one that had to have done this - I made a point to memorize his face... well, actually, I just made a quick sketch - from reading my book, you must know how my memory is.
- The strange Gnome.
There was only one way out of this. Without any hesitation, I ran for the secret room, lifted the Tauren's tail, and scurried up inside the suit. Closing the hatch behind me, I buckled myself into the control harness. It was pretty clear that the suit had been set up so that anyone who had ever piloted a Goblin shredder could easily manipulate this furry... thing. With only a few moments of tinkering, and only half a dozen beeping red lights going off, I was ready - and none too soon.
In through the front door burst the Alliance commandos. The Gnome up front was brandishing his rapier and yelling, "For King and country! Lets get this done properly, boys!". I didn't hesitate. Doing the only thing I could imagine in such a situation, I lowered the B.U.L.L's head, and charged! Out through the false wall I burst, bowling over the Alliance commandos, and hurtling through the front door with a rending crash.
Joy was quickly replaced by an imminent sense of disaster; I wasn't quite sure how to stop. Seeing as how my father's workshop had been beach-front property, this posed a potentially serious problem! Too late! Into the water the suit went, and thankfully, came to a rest of its own accord - clearly, manoeuvring was going to take some practice. Well - at least it was water-proof. Slowly, clumsily, I turned the suit around to gaze at the far-off wreckage that my father's workshop now was - this beast of a machine was clearly a fast runner, as I was several hundred yards away. It was only at this moment I considered the harsh reality that my father was dead, his business (and my profits!) gone, and a crazed Gnome was after me - or rather, the suit... a suit I was now stuck inside.
You see, my father was somewhat crazed, but he wasn't a fool - every device, every potion he made always had a built in control device, whether it was an antidote that he could activate, or an emergency shut-down control rod. Well here I was, homeless, fatherless, and broke, and trapped inside a suit to which I did not possess the control rod - I was stuck in here, and there was no way to get back to the workshop, what with the Alliance crawling all over it, and clearly well aware of what I - or rather what the B.U.L.L - looked like.
I would have to get back home, eventually. Sooner or later, I'd have to get out of this damn suit, get the workshop started again, and find out who this bloody Gnome was who had wrecked my life searching for this flea-bitten mechanical contraption.
They say that war is good for business - well, it had been. Still was! Maybe there'd be a way I could sell my services until I could get back home...
*The exceedingly lengthy passage ends abruptly, marking the end of the book with the fateful words, "To be continued in Volume II". As ridiculous as this story sounds, it's truly something that could only happen to a Goblin.*
((This seemed an entirely reasonable justification for being a Tauren, at present - I drew the inspiration from the Gordok Ogre Suit in Dire Maul; after all, if a tailor can make a believable Ogre suit out of some thread and rags, then a genius Goblin engineer can make a Tauren in his fully-equipped workshop. For the curious, the Gnome picture is a sketch done of one of my last RP characters, Captain Flashheart. This is a neat way to re-use the character by creating an RP adversary for Gint.
As always, comments welcome.))
