Glibnik Rotgut Dragon Eater

BACKSTORY
Glibnik was enjoying his snacks, rotten apple cores and eggshells from a pheasant, atop the largest garbage pile in the alleyway. Longshanks sure knew how to throw away great food, he thought, as he slurped down the worm trying to hide within the apple core. That was one of the problems with the longshanks - they could not tell shit from silver. One of the many reasons most goblins didn’t understand them. The longshanks called the area Dirt road, the goblins called it the treasure trove. Glibnik and a few other goblins visited this area often, either to feast, or to line their pockets with the amazing metal scraps that had been thrown out.

Glibnik was cold lying here in the shade, he didn’t mind the sun at all, but the cold pissed off Karkaroz something fierce, and Glibnik had decided to dedicate the entire day to pissing off Karkaroz.

“Stupid lizard, that’s what you get for being so mean. I’m the master now, you’re just a little tummy troublemaker”

The dragon had called him names “Unworthy waste of life” and “The smallest scum to walk the mortal planes” amongst others.

He could almost sense Karkaroz’ anger, as his entire belly felt like it was burning from within for a split second.

“So that’s how you wanna play it? Be my guest, the shade is just the start – I know how much you love my diet”

That was true, Karkaroz really detested Glibniks choice in food, choice food more like Glibnik thought to himself. From atop the garbage pile he could see directly down on the hustle and bustle of Main Street. Longshanks fascinated him – they were always in a hurry. In a hurry to get somewhere or leave something behind. They never stopped and smelled the roses or…

His eyes gleamed with joy as he spotted it. A huge decaying carcass of a cat, just a few meters away. It practically danced due to the number of maggots that inhabited it. Flesh maggots at that, those were the best kind. He quickly pounced on it, gorging on the entrails, those were his favourite. This was top quality aged meat. Life was good at this moment, but truthfully it hadn’t been as of late. He was poor, poorer than ever before. He needed to work, as of yesterday. He loved his job as a mercenary, granted the pay was kind of shit – most employers wouldn’t pay top coin for his service. But he paid it no never mind, because the lifestyle, oooh the lifestyle. He missed his old mercenary palls, they even had a nickname for him - “Rotgut”. Even by goblin standards Glibnik could ingest (and enjoy) some truly awful things. His mercenary palls had respected him, which in itself, was rare. Goblins were used to being treated like shit by longshanks, and most goblins just accepted that as a part of life.

But the good old boys had shown Glibnik that it didn’t have to be that way. While every soldier in his squad only got one portion of food, Glibnik got to eat all the scraps and they even let him be the first to charge in at every battle. You truly haven’t lived until you’ve run through an arrow rain or eight. Glibnik was unlike most goblins, he prefered melee combat. Growing up he could rarely outrun or outsmart anything. That lead to him fighting. Alot. And with time, he became good at it. Plus he actually started to pursue physical strength through various workout routines.

Another benefit was that his enemies always underestimated him. When they saw that little goblin charge at them with his two-handed flail, they would sometimes laugh. After 4 or 5 of them were lying bloody and bruised with their skulls bashed in, they stopped laughing. Even back then Glibnik was strong, very strong. Not as strong as after he ate Karkaroz, but still strong.

But alas, all the old boys were dead now. They had gotten lost in a mountain chain, and while the rest of the squad slowly had died of starvation and thirst, Glibnik had survived due to his amazing stomach. After that everything had gone downhill for a while, he couldn’t find work and even to him, commoner trash got a bit bland after a while. But then he discovered something amazing: The trash alley of the Wizard tower. Boy do wizards eat well. If you thought longshanks were wasting good food, well then you clearly haven’t eaten wizard trash yet. It was there he met Karkaroz. See it wasn’t his fault – he was just minding his business, enjoying a all you can eat buffet, in the late hours of the night. But then it happened, a large black burly sack almost killed him, it had been thrown from the Wizard tower – had he not had catlike reflexes, surely it would have crushed him.

In the start he just left it there, but the smell, ooh the smell. It was like a sirens call to his nostrils. He opened the large sack and couldn’t believe his eyes – there it was, a heart the size of him, it couldn’t be an ox heart, it was to large. Glibnik studied it for a few moments, it was warm to the touch, which was strange, as it clearly wasn’t fresh. On the contrary, this was super duper aged meat. Even more strange was the markings that covered every inch of it. Glibnik was no fool, he could read a bit, but these markings were strange to him. It was properly a recipe, well no need, he ate it raw, in a few seconds at that. Impressive considering the sheer size of it.

“You sure this is the place? Smells like shit in here”

Glibnik could hear the voices bouncing of the alleyway walls, as he swallowed the last fleshy bit.

“Absolutely, our man on the inside said it would be in a large black sack”

The voices were coarse, clearly human, and not the good kind either. Glibnik was by no means a frightened soul, but was he jumpy? Sure, most goblins were. Paranoid? Aye, but again – most goblins are, so he remained still, trying to fit in with the rest of the garbage.

“And how in the gargoyle’s twat, are we supposed to find a black sack in this shithole? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all night, and mind you – I’ve spent the entire night in your company”

“Quit moaning, besides, our man said if we can’t see it, we can definitely smell it. He said he would rather lick a zombie’s arse than smell it again”

“And we’re sure it’s a red dragon’s heart? Not just some knockoff?”

“Aye, I’ve heard stories about the dragon when he still roamed the skies: Karkaroz the destroyer, as it so originally coined itself. Took a small army to kill, and half a fortune to buy the heart”

“And the spell?”

“The spell has been cast, all our employer needs to do is utter the command word, and Karkaroz will reanimate under his control”

As mentioned, Glibnik was no fool, he could put two and two together, six, quick maths. And he was pretty sure he had just eaten “half a fortune”. He was also convinced that the two men wouldn’t take kindly to that, properly wouldn’t let him go with a slap on the wrist. He got up, did a quick goblin scuttle and stormed down the opposite alleyway, straight into the night and with that freedom, he hoped.

“The fuck was that!?” he could hear one of the men shouting

“A fucking goblin by the looks of it, don’t mind that, get the sack!”

The men searched the trash franticly: “FUCK ME, that little cunt took the heart! We gotta..”

He didn’t stay around to hear the last part, Glibnik ran as fast as he could, desperately looking for a crowd he could hide in.

He stopped reminiscing as a whole family of dog sized rats had surrounded him and and the cat carcass in the back alley - his prized meal, he was full anyway.

“You get to live another day good rats, I got places to be” He slid down the garbage pile onto the alleyway. He looked at his arms and hands – eating Karkaroz had changed him, his greyish skin had gotten a red hue to it, and his muscles had doubled in size, to the point of looking slightly grotesque. Close to his belly button and heart, small black scales had started to grow. Normally that would be an issue, since that made it easy to identify him as the one who “stole” the heart BUT goblins were known to mutate or evolve as they called it, in all sorts of ways, and he had seen more fucked up goblins than himself, that’s for sure.

He needed work, he wanted to see the world, kill mighty beasts, prove Karkaroz wrong. Unworthy? Unlikely, he was destined for great things, he just needed to find great companions.