RP:No Risk, No Reward

Part of the Through The Looking-Glass: Return To Wonderland Arc

This is a Devout's Guild RP.

This is a Warrior's Guild RP.

Summary: Khitti and Brand make their journey to the floating goblin city of Gorram'frak and things... sort of work out?

This is Part 2 of Goblin The Name Of Love.

Gorram'frak, Somewhere South Of Rynvale

Khitti || In between the time that Camina had brought Miller to Cenril to talk to Khitti and Brand and when they actually left, Camina had managed to get everything sorted out for the Herzegler Honeymoon™! Isn’t that nice? No. No it’s not nice. Khitt hated this idea and she still hates it but… Brand looked so happy with his new bff, Miller! They talked about hats for the next two days, at least! Maybe the beach won’t be so bad, Khitti. Maybe the hotel will be really nice. But, none of that mattered right now, because first they had to take care of business: finding that damn goblin prince.

Khitti || The trip to the goblin-made island called Gorram’frak was a rather short one for the Tranquility. It really had not been too far off the coast of the Belt, in the waters south of Rynvale. The problem? There were magic landmines -everywhere-. Even without capturing the goblin prince from an opposing tribe, the Frakk’in goblins were the violent sort. It would probably take Brand longer to navigate through this hell than it was for them to even get there in the first place. And when they finally arrive? There’d only be one place to dock. It was the only way in and the only way out, off of that jellyfish propelled duct tape city.

Brand || The route may be perilous, and the going may be slow, but Brand is at the helm like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s wearing a feathered tricorner hat today -- the result of one of many conversations with Miller -- and he’s singing as he steers around all the hazards. “Let’s get down to business, to defeat… the gobs! We would surely be there, if it weren’t… for bombs! They’re the biggest bunch I’ve ever met, and they want to go ‘pew pew’. Mister, they’ll… make a corpse… out of youuuuuu.” Brand points to Miller as he finishes his song, for the inspector is leaning so far that he’s practically dangling over the rail. It’s very unsafe, yes. Miller’s excuse, if he were able to verbalize it, would be that he is very busy being seasick. But he can’t. Because he’s too busy vomiting over the edge and almost losing his hat in the process.

Khitti || Brand was singing. Brand was singing? -Brand was singing-. Since when the hell did Brand sing? This was Camina’s fault wasn’t it? She did this to him. Brand doesn’t -sing-. Not even in any of those alternate universe dreams/visions that they had. This was the work of some dark magic that Khitti’d never heard of. This was worse than Facilier. Worse than Kahran. Worse than… that one time Khitti was forced, by her fairy tale book and its magical dust, to sing and dance in Xalious. Was this the work of a siren? Was Camina a siren? Or did Miller’s crazy just wear off on her husband? Khitti had waaaaay too many questions for this situation and none of them were getting answered--and as it went on, it only created more. Right. Yes. Okay. Best thing to do was move on. -Somehow-. It was going to be difficult considering Camina was on her way to helping Miller keep from falling overboard and was cackling the entire frakking way there. “I’m going to kill all of you one day,” Khitti said, her right eye twitching. No one’s going to take that threat seriously though.

Khitti || Thankfully, the ship was eventually, safely, navigated through the bombs and reached the dock. Khitti wished that it had not. But it did. They’d get set foot onto the dock and head over to the nearby building where they checked people’s papers and all that. Along the way, Camina sneakily took Miller’s hat from his head, put it on Brand’s, and then replaced Miller’s with a completely different one. It’s one of those floppy sunhats with a little daisy on it. It’s cute. Miller blushed a little as he realized how pretty he looked in it and immediately started muttering about doors and corners again. The aforementioned papers were fake, of course. Everyone on the Tranquility were upstanding citizens that just wanted to take a trip to the famous Gorram’frak! Except, you know, no one else on the ship came along with them; it was just the four of them. Nothing suspicious about that.

Khitti || “Okay, Miller. Where the hell do we go from here? This place is as big as Cenril and I’m not going to get lost here.” After travelling a few feet, Khitti led the three down a nearby alley, so you know, they could talk about this and not actually do the sight-seeing they said they were there for. “There’s a lot of doors and a lot of corners, kid, and not all of them are right,” said the Belter detective, his geniusness showing through. Khitti just stared at him. She was screaming on the inside again. Taking matters--and Brands--into her own hands, she grabbed the Catalian by the shoulders and shook him a little, “You need to pick at his crazy brain and translate. I think you two might be soulmates or something--it’s the only logical reason as to why you get him.”

Brand , for one, didn’t need to even think about what Miller might mean. To Brand, it was plain as day. “They’re ‘not right’. He means we need to go left.” Duh. And so Brand began to lead the way, every so often stopping to consult with Miller before a fork in the path or a confusing tangle of streets. And not once did he misinterpret what the inspector had to say, for soon enough they’d arrive at their destination.

Khitti || The group went left. And then another left. And then just when you thought they’d go left again and end up back where they were, Miller led them straight down the path without turning at all. After one final turn left, Khitti, Brand, Miller, and Camina ended up at a very ominous looking building--the aura of capitalism would make anything look menacing after all. The goblin tribe had pooled all of their resources to build the elaborate gold monstrosity to house their one true love: The Stalk Market. It turned out that the goblins had made the money to make the city by way of swindling hobbits and reselling the turnips that they’d bought at the low low low price of nineteen gold and ninety-nine silver! At least, that’s what the totally unsuspecting goblin that Khitti grabbed up off the street and interrogated as politely as possible and with minimal threats of violence. “Turnips?! Turnips. I hate turnips.” Khitti blamed her mother for this. There were plenty of hard times growing up in a mountain village, after all, and way too many nights of turnip soup, roasted turnips, boiled turnips, grilled turnips, lightly sauteed turnips with a hint of salt and pepper. Her stomach turned and it was reminiscent of all those long days of morning sickness. She even looked a little green--though not quite as green as the goblin that she shoved away to let him get on with his business.

Khitti || With a sigh, Khitti turned towards her husband and their companions and shrugged. “Well… I guess we just go in then. If it’s a business then we’ll talk business with them.” The redhead headed on through the revolving door… and was promptly stopped by a magical alarm. “Warning! Warning! No gold? No Stalk Market!” was heard as the door spun Khitti around no less than three times and promptly spit her back out the way she’d come in and she’d find herself on the ground, staring up at the sky, with imaginary chickens dancing around her head.

Brand || Miller shook his head and muttered something, but even Brand couldn’t make out what it was, just that it implied Miller had known this would happen. And sure enough, when the inspector pushed through the revolving door… no alarm was given. Miller certainly had gold on him… and Brand did too, of course, because when would he ever not? So, after tossing a few gold coins to Khitti (and hopefully that would be enough), Brand waltzed on through the revolving doorway. “Hello!” Brand announced, to whoever would hear. “I am here to buy all of your stalks.” Hopefully Khitti and Camina hadn’t hoped to pull this off with subtlety.

Khitti || Just as Brand threw coins at Khitti, some passersby… passed by. “Look, honey. How nice of that man to give up his hard earned gold for that broke wretch,” said one goblin to another, the other nodding in agreement.. “I know! He’s so brave. I could never!” The two clutched their coin purses a bit more tightly as they gingerly stepped around Khitti--but not enough, unfortunately, because the green jerks stepped on her hair!--and carried on elsewhere. “Suddenly, everything Kahran said is starting to make sense,” she mumbled as she picked herself up and headed in behind Brand just in time to hear the Catalian declare that he wanted all the stalks. “Brand we do not have the mo--” While Camina would have liked to have done things as quietly as possible, that almost never happened when Khitti and Brand were together. One of them always frakked something up. Today, it looked like it was going to be a joint effort. Thankfully, though, Camina was picking up what Brand was putting down and quickly put a hand over Khitti’s mouth to stop her from ruining literally everything.

Khitti || It eventually hit Khitti too, of course, to which she added, “We have more money than we can count. Take it before our child takes it all for himself for his chicken obsession.” She put her few coins on the counter, addressing the secretary there. “There’s more on the ship. Give. Us. Your. Stalks.” The female goblin eyed the four of them warily, but ultimately let them in fully. “Four doors down on your left, just around the corner,” she said, pointing in the right direction. The mention of doors and corners set Miller off again, his muttering a bit louder, but still unintelligible. Khitti would let Brand lead the way this time and unfortunately for her, there’d be no alarms. Instead, when they got to the door and opened it, they’d find themselves in a room that was filled with goblins, from ceiling to floor on various balconies and stacks of turnip crates. They were all shouting at each other, making their bids for the turnips where they could, and in the middle of it all on a giant pedestal was the prince they were looking for… and he was… working?? He definitely looked like an employee, as his outfit was similar to the secretary’s.

Brand paused to study the scene. If most of the goblins were busy yelling at each other, that meant that they’d be paying little or no attention to the very non-goblin newcomers. Maybe they could get close enough to this princeling fellow to suss out the situation without creating bold new problems for themselves. Acting on this theory, Brand sidled past multiple goblin arguments and approached the goblin prince. “Hey. Hey, Mmm’guy. Heard you needed some help? Maybe we getcha outta here?”

Khitti || Brand was successful and once he got over to Mmm’guy, the goblin was surprised to see a human here. “You know, if you would’ve asked me that last week, I’d’ve been all for it. Turns out though that I’m pretty good with this math stuff and somehow listenin’ to all these heathens at once. When Ugh’wha’tevs realized I was more efficient than the goon he had workin’ here, he offered me the job and put me to work,” he said, scribbling down bids on his notepad. Khitti had followed behind Brand, keeping an eye out for whether or not they’d have to deal with trouble, while also listening to the goblin prince tell his tale to the Catalian. “It helps that I didn’t want to go back. Their tribe leader thought he was wrecking something precious, but honestly he was doing me a favor. I’m not gonna marry Mmm’gal. Her entire family’s off their rockers. And besides, the only woman for me is the sea.” The prince was soon interrupted by some of the bidders, to which he also shouted back and disqualified each and every single one of them--they were all escorted out by very not nice looking ogres. Khitti couldn’t help but roll her eyes, knowing this prince and Brand would be two peas in a pod.

Brand wasn’t going to smooth talk his way out of this situation, apparently. He turned toward Khitti just as Camina and Miller caught up to the two of them. “Prince says he doesn’t wanna go,” Brand explained. “So… what now? Do we try to force him to go? Do we give up on the pay and let him be? Do we try to explain this to the other goblins and hope they pay us anyway, or…” implied: maybe they should explain it to the other goblins but still -make sure- one way or another that they got their pay? Brand seemed to be leaning toward the implied plan, but he wasn’t the only one who stood to lose or gain things from the outcome of this predicament.

Khitti squinted at nothing in particular as she thought over their predicament. As if by divine intervention, one of those big ogre security guards just so happened to have overheard the prince, the Khatalians, and the Belters. “Me want marry princess!” He said it so loudly, and yet, it could not be heard over the din of bidders wanting their turnips. Khitti didn’t speak, however. She was too busy putting all of these pieces together like some sort of misshapen, half-waterlogged puzzle that now needed the help of scissors to be “properly” put together. “AHA! I’ve got a plan. I think it’s probably the best plan I’ve ever come up with.” She looked really proud of this--probably too proud. “Okay, so. We take the big guy here--” Khitti pointed in the ogre’s direction, to which he said, “Me called Boomer. Because me so loud.” The redhead couldn’t finish her train of thought because of the distraction the ogre was causing. “Okay, Boomer,” Khitti said at last, “You’re gonna marry a princess. And we’re gonna help you, alright?” Boomer nodded with much enthusiasm. With her attention back on Brand and Camina, she continued, “We’re gonna take Boomer here -and- the prince. Mmm’guy is gonna be your accountant on the Tranquility, Brand, because frankly, you’re bad at it and try to divide nothing from nothing way too often.” Despite the fact that he’s been told that this can, in fact, not actually happen. “And, if he’s as good as Onyx, he can probably help you with your cheesecake funds and get things to work in your favor. When we get back to Cenril, Camina’s gonna go and tell the princess and her family that we’ve found him and then she’s gonna go get some sort of trinket made up like what Lanara used to sneak around while she was on trial. Boomer here is glamoured up to look like Mmm’guy and gets married!” Boomer cheered loudly as he was wont to do, while the prince thought things over.

Brand || There were so many ways this could go wrong. Sooooo many ways. Did Brand dare point this out to his wife, who was so proud of her plan? Nope, not if he wanted to have sex tonight. “Sure!” He said instead, only slightly too enthusiastically. “It sounds like everyone wins with this plan. My cheesecake fund. Boomer. Probably even Mmm’guy. Everyone.” Everyone, of course, except the princess. But who cared about her, anyway? Certainly not Brand. “Mmm’guy, you’ll come along, yes? It’s less noisy than here, and I guarantee you’ll make more money.” Would he, though? Well, even if he didn’t, it would be too late to go back once he’d committed. Plus, Brand had other ways besides money to convince a person to join and stay with his crew.

Khitti would totally allow Brand to give other options to this problem. Sheesh. But, since he chose not to do so, Khitti’s completely convinced that her plan was flawless and this would never backfire in any way at all. Because none of her plans backfire. At least in the short term, things would be fine! Until, you know, the wedding happened and they have kids and Mmm’gal and Co. realizes that the kids might not maybe be fully goblin. But. That’s a problem for future Boomer. Not Khitti and Brand. “Oi! You down there!” Mmm’guy called down to his replacement that was also joining in with the bidding, “Get your ass up here! Shift change!” The other goblin looked positively baffled, attempting to stammer out that it wasn’t time yet! “Boss said for me to go count turnips til I leave, chump. Now get up here.” The other goblin was visibly perturbed and grumbled his way up to the top of the podium where Mmm’guy had been. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Scrubbing the decks of your ship would be preferable to being in that room any longer.”

Khitti || Somehow, Khitti hadn’t really expected everyone to be okay with this. Camina… kept her thoughts to herself. She would do her part of the job, get paid for it, and deal with the repercussions later on if need be. It’s not like any of them frequented Gamorg anyway. As if nothing was going on whatsoever, Khitti’d lead the way to the door, open it, and step outside to find herself face to face with ‘The Boss’. Ugh’wha’tevs was a pudgy little thing, covered in jewels of all sorts and had a top hat and monocle to complete the look of unhinged capitalist pig. “Just where do you think you’re going with my employees?”

Brand cracked a grin. “-Your- employees? I’m sorry, sir, but you must be mistaken. These fellows aren’t your employees.” He turned to give Mmm’guy and Boomer a look, a look that said ‘now would be a good time for you to chime in and tell your boss you quit’. It would probably mean more coming from them, anyway. And while Brand waited for them to say their bit, Brand held himself in a confident pose: one hand on his hip, the other raised in a fist… and still grinning that obnoxiously confident grin.

Khitti eyed that grin of Brand’s. Just as many times as he’d heard her insane plans, she’s likewise seen that ridiculously cocky grin. And it hadn’t seemed to be working on Ugh’wha’tevs. “Yeah, I said -mine-.” It’s then that Boomer and Mmm’guy spoke up, announcing that they’re “retiring”. “You heard what the guy said. I quit. I’m tired of being cooped up in here for barely any pay. -And- I don’t even get vacation days!” Boomer nodded in agreeance with the prince, “Boomer go marry beautiful princess! Boomer hate beating up goblins. Boomer just wanna have a nice life with a lot of cats!” Khitti looked at Camina. Camina looked at Khitti, as she attempted to keep Miller from going on like crazy about those doors and corners. This was going to turn into one of those things where one of them needed to do something drastic. This idea was only furthered by the fact that several of the chieftain’s guards showed up, intending on “dealing with” the whole group. “I’m not losing my best counter--and no goddamned ogre is gonna marry a princess! Get them!” Ugh’wha’tevs pointed menacingly at all of them, sending his guards after them.

Khitti || Boomer and Mmm’guy had started backing up, hoping to find some sort of safety inside the bidding room, but it wasn’t needed. Khitti yawned, clearly bored with Ugh’wha’tevs attempts at being a villain. “Look. I get it. You like money. You like money a lot. But, to be honest, you need to step up your evildoer persona. You’re just not psychotic or hellbent on world domination enough. I have a couple people I’d like you to meet. Their names are Jessamine and James. They might be able to help you get a little more villain-like.” Khitti pointed, making the chieftain and his guards look behind them. But there was nothing there. There was, however, a portal to the Shadow Plane opening up underneath of them. There’s a very cartoony-like amount of confusion for Ugh’wha’tevs and his goons, which turned into the realization that they were going to fall now. And then they did. And they screamed the entire way down. “Tell those two I’ll see them very very soon!” Khitti grinned and waved goodbye, the portal closing soon after. “Okay. -Now- we can go.”

Brand blinked. The so-called ‘villains’ were there. Brand blinked again. Now they weren’t. He blinked a few more times, then turned to Khitti. “Have I ‘mentioned ‘I love you’ lately?” Look at Brand, not just admitting his feelings, but admitting his feelings -in front of other people-. He really -had- changed. Sort of. Mostly. “Okay, let’s go!” He gestured for the rest of the group to follow, then took off.