Hello once again, to everyone reading. If you're one of my readers: I know, I know, I haven't updated almost anything, and am rather just constantly flitting about to every new idea, such as this one. So as a bit of an update on my progress, I'd like to point out that I wholeheartedly intend to continue every story I have put on this site, with the possible exception of There's Nothing Left to be Done, as I like how the most recent chapter concluded, somewhat. The next chapter in Shadows of a Silver Mind is in work, and I have a half-chapter ready to go. Whereas I've completely planned out the next chapter in Raised to an Art Form, I have yet to put it to genuine writing, though. Also, I will warn in advance that, at the advice of someone, I also intend to put yet another story up, I'm afraid, an Oblivion Fanfic. I won't give away any of that just yet, though.

But until then, I present this...or rather, these. These "Chronicles" are experimental for me, with the three main goals of: 1. Writing something from new and different viewpoints. 2. Attempt a series of short stories, rather than a long, plot-driven one. 3. Write fanfiction for what is-in my opinion-one of the greatest gaming series of all time.

These series of shorts are all based upon a "stack" of units, a group. I'm not sure how much it will make sense if you have not played any of the Age of Wonders games, however, but suffice to say these stories will take differing and interesting viewpoints, usually of strange members in unfamiliar groups, a common occurrence in the game for a neutral player with good relations towards both Good and Evil aligned races, or for units that have been Seduced or Dominated.

At the start of every "short" I will usually be clearly stating what the group makeup is, and whose viewpoint I am writing from. Most stories will be all about the inner workings or struggles of a group, and will range from the dramatic, to heartwarming, to comedic.

More importantly, I encourage reviewers, if they so wish (it is not a requirement) to state an interesting or hilarious group/stack/party of units, perhaps even a bit more information if the reviewer wants such as what terrain they're on, or city, or whatever. There is a very good chance I may take your idea for one of the chronicles, and will of course be giving you full credit for all the information.

But (sorry for that wall of text) I will now move on to the first of The Campsite Chronicles, "The way to a Goblin's heart...".

Chapter 1: The way to a Goblin's heart...

Group Size: 8
Overall Morale: Content
Group Composition...

1x Goblin Grunt (Morale: Poor)
1x Halfling Cleric (Morale: High)
4x Halfling Peasant (Morale: High)
1x Halfling Slinger (Morale: High)
1x Halfling Swordsman (Morale: High)

'Over-excited, sissy, pansy, dumb, mocking, cutesy, weak, worthless, disgusting, high-and-mighty brats. That's what they are, that's what all hateful Halflings are.' Internally grumbled Dur as he sat inside a dead, hollow log off the edge of the campsite where the rest of his "group" were all crowding around the cleric in the center of the camp on the bright meadow, them 'ahh'-ing and 'ooh'-ing at his displays of colourful magic.

The group was largely made up of various Halfling militiamen and women, with a cleric as cheerful as any other Halfling cleric to keep the group spirits high. The group were no true fighters, simply a scouting party in the service of the elf-queen Julia, but along the way, they'd found a goblin refugee, a survivor from a shipwreck, and decided to help the half-drowned creature.

'Pah.' Thought Dur in disgust, spitting onto the dusty earth in front of him, glaring at the cheerful group as he sat with his small form largely concealed in the shadows. 'Never again am I stepping foot on a boat of any kind, and I don't care if I have to face an orc instead. First the pirates, then the crash, and now I'm stuck far from Skulkan's armies with a group of idiotic Halflings who go dance about pointlessly in the sun. Ugh, it's enough to make you sick.' Dur continued his internal, aggravated musings, watching with despisal as the Halflings now brought out a large pot or cauldron, the cleric pouring a variety of foodstuffs and water into it, making strange cuts and grooves into some of the ingredients, and laying some with meticulous care onto each other on the base of the pot before pouring the water in, a trickle at a time.

Dur snarled at no-one in particular, before his spear-holding-arm snapped out to his side, impaling the large beetle in the dust that he had just seen. It wriggled around the crude metal now sticking out of it, wriggling about before finally stopping when Dur reached over, stabbing at it again with an unclean, long and sharp fingernail. For once grinning to himself, his mood improved slightly, Dur drew his spear from the beetle carcass, picking up the surprisingly large, palm-sized creature in a hand, using his other hand to carefully extract some of the sharp, spiky limbs and appendages from the creature.

'Well. At least I'm paid in gold now, rather than rotten meat, and feeding yourself on the surface isn't really that hard, as there isn't anyone else to compete with when looking for grubs.' Dur thought, a trifle more optimistically, taking what was left of the creature in his hand and biting into it, wolfing down the crunchy exterior and soft interior of the beetle, enjoying the filling sensation and cackling slightly after he was almost half-done at the reward of his 'hunt'.

"Hey, Deu-ur! Could you come over here, we need your help with something!" called out one of the Halflings, recognizable as a feminine voice. The slinger, or maybe one of the peasants, as they were the only two females in the group.

Dur snarled to himself, turning his eyes downward, the Goblin equivalent of rolling one's eyes, put in a bad mood again for the interruption to his meal and the overpronunciation of his name by the Halflings.

"It's. Just. Dur. No Duey-ewey-er, not Dwebebe-ur, no "short for something" Dur. Just. Dur." Dur muttered to himself, whispering aloud, as he walked over, his eyes squinting and halnds raising instinctively as he walked into the meadow's bright sunlight. Through his squint, he glared at the slinger's disgustingly kind face as he approached, suspicious, still carrying his spear in one hand and the half-eaten beetle in the other.

Dur couldn't hide a smirk as he noticed a couple of the peasants suddenly turn away, their faces a bit pale. 'Heh. What's the matter, don't like a bit of dust, or a little insect? Wimps.'

The slinger's smile, however, didn't move an inch, keeping up a pleasant face as, not knowing how else to talk to the Goblin, bowed before going on.

"Deu-ur, Lionel"-she motioned to the cleric meticulously measuring out the amount of some kind of powder-"is busy on making dinner, we've done most of the scouting and this will be rest day, so he'll be spending most of it perfecting this meal to the best of his abilities. A good meal always makes the world seem so much brighter, don't you think? Well, he needs a rare and valuable ingredient. It's actually not that uncommon around these parts, but very hard to find as so often they're below the surface of the ground, a type of fungus we call "Dirtshroom", but I've heard dwarves call them "Truffles". You're the best at finding things of all of the group, so would you help us out, Deu-ur? Please?" the slinger asked, her eyes as soft and genuine as her smile. It was almost enough to make Dur sick as he rolled his eyes towards the ground again, annoyed more than anything else at the concept of sitting around doing nothing, and this strange Halfling obsession with taking so long to make food...surely, if you can keep it down, a meal does all it needs to do?

'What was that slingers's name, anyway? "Lilianne" or something. Pah, Halflings and their "cooking" and "resting" and all that beetle dung. Meh, I don't have anything else to do, and if these truffles are valuable, I can always keep some to sell later, and fungus doesn't sound that bad...for Halfling food.' Dur considered for a time, before nodding, instinctively snarling, silently, for no real reason other to see Lilianne's reaction. Annoyingly for Dur, it didn't change, only grew so obviously delighted at his nod.

"Oh thank you, thank you! This will be brilliant, you'll see. Now they're usually buried about one or two finger lengths in the ground near trees, and-" Lilianne stopped suddenly, her smile suddenly quieting to one of understanding as Dur turned around and already started to walk away. She shook her head, still smiling, going back to talk to the other Halflings.

...

Despite frequent mutterings and mumblings during his search, Dur didn't find it particularly hard to seek out these small fungi. Sure, his sense of smell was just about nonexistent (convenient, considering the environment where most Goblins live), but slight changes in the earth, and certain trees were surprisingly easy for his Goblin eyes to pick out, and his long claw-like nails were well used to burrowing. Indeed, in the space of an hour he had picked almost a dozen truffles, and found a few more grubs worth eating along the way. And a Goblin never refuses food.

Returning to the campsite, not knowing how many he needed, Dur stashed a couple of truffles in the hollow log where he sat beforehand, taking the rest of them with his two hands acting as a makeshift bowl. As he got near, Lilianne almost squealed in obvious joy, running over to see what Dur had even as the other Halflings, for the most part, stayed well back from the Goblin.

"You got so many, and so quickly! These are perfect! May I?" she asked, offering out her hands, ignoring the grumble on Dur's part as he tipped out the truffles to her, rather reluctantly. Her smile increased, if that were even possible looking up at the Goblin in thanks. "Thank you, thank you Deu-ur! Please, take a couple for yourself, we have more than enough, and they're quite valuable."

Dur blinked, he couldn't help it. It wasn't at how valuable the Halfling expected this fungus to be, but at how she so willingly offered them. What...what was this?

"What's the catch, Lilliaaannie?" snarled Dur suspiciously, clearly in hostility as he intentionally drew out and mispronouncing her name in a form of vengeance against her mispronouncing his. She looked at him strangely, confusedly.

"No catch, Deu-ur, you found these after all, you should keep all the spares, surely?"

Dur muttered something under his breath, snatching two of the truffles back and slinking off back to his log, stashing them away with the previous two that he'd kept in secret anyway, grumbling to himself over why someone would ask for something then give it back.

'Bah, forget it. Looks like nothing else is going to happen today. Let the Halflings "cook", I'll just sleep until it's late enough to hunt a mouse or something in the night.' Dur reasoned, still grumbling as he adjusted himself until most of his body was curled up in the nice, cosy dead log, falling asleep within seconds to the hated sound of excited Halfling chatter.

...

"Knock". "Knock". "Knock".

'Ughhhh...what's that? I haven't finished my sleep yet.' Dur thought to himself with a groan, uncurling his body and poking his head out of the log to see the familiar face of Lilianne above him, a steaming bowl in one hand, the other pulling back from the log, having been knocking. For once, her face wasn't a smile, it was more shock than anything.

"Oh! Sorry Deu-ur! I didn't know you were sleeping! I-"
"Well what did you think I was doing, Halfling?" was Dur's tired, grumpy response as he woke up a bit more, his senses sharpening again to that state of constant nervousness most Goblins feel.

"Sorry! I thought you were eating or something, I didn't know Goblin's slept in the day." Lilianne's babbled excuses came before Dur just shook his head in contempt, crawling out of the log to stand next to her, their diminutive statures conveniently about equal in height, Dur being somewhat tall for a Goblin.
"No. We sleep whenever we want. Daytime, or Nighttime, don't mean much underground, do they? Frankly, I prefer it underground." Dur muttered, not awake enough yet to make any clever insult. "So what's your good reason for interrupting my sleep?" He grumbled, curious as to the point of the steaming clay bowl in her hand. She looked at the bowl too for second, before smiling softly, and holding it out to the Goblin in front of her.

"Well...we only had the bowls for seven servings of a meal, since we didn't anticipate meeting you, and Lionel worked for hours so hard on this stew...and, well, seeing as you helped us, and I don't really feel that hungry...I mean...I know it may not be to your liking, but you should try it out, you might like the stew, or soup, it's sorta both. You never know..." Lilianne babbled out, slipping on her words slightly as Dur raised a suspicious eyebrow.

But...he was too tired to ask questions. And Goblins never refuse food.

Dur took the bowl wordlessly, suspiciously eyeing the strangely-coloured water, bits of some kind of greenery the Halflings call "herbs" floating in it along with some sliced meats, vegetables and what he assumed were sliced truffle. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, but brung the bowl to his green-tinted lips and took a large, quick swig of drink from the bowl., making a show of wrinkling his nose further just to annoy the Halfling.

Dur blinked. After he'd swallowed, there was this...thing. A sort of...sensation. Along the tongue, or...or just the mouth. Or was it the throat? Normally there's just a sort of sharp, icky feeling, but...

The...the taste was...was as if it was designed for a body, designed so perfectly, so carefully to be taken into the mouth for just this sensation, and no other reason. Dur understood.

Dur fished into the bowl, spearing a piece of sliced truffle in the liquid and bringing it to his mouth, but before eating it, looking at the Halfling next to him standing so hopefully.

He smiled. "It's perfect."

'Life...is good.'

There, the story itself (discounting ridiculously long Authors Notes) was around 2000 words, a pretty good length for a short short story I think. So there's the first of the Chronicles, detailing a Goblin refugee in a party of Halflings, a rather simple setting, of course. I hope you enjoyed it, as I hope you enjoy the others that will follow.

There is the chance that I may use the same group, or same characters yet again later in the Chronicles, though know that it won't be next chapter. If I do, I'll call the chapter "The Way to a Goblin's Heart... II" or something along those lines, so it's clear.

But anyway, next chapter will, of course, be something completely different. One of my own thoughts, or even one of your ideas sent in. I apologize if you didn't get some of the references, such as the Halfling Cleric's obsession with cooking, as they may only make sense (as is the whole "Party" concept, possibly) to those who have played the games.

I, as always, greatly appreciate reviews. They do genuinely give me the motivation to write more often, on any of my stories, a lot of the time. Also remember to send in a situation if you want, feel free to.

But until next time, farewell, and take care. Good luck with all your exploits, your own writing, your own drawing, your own painting or your own gaming.

And remember, not ALL Goblins are jerks...just most.