Well, here comes another one, folks!
Runescape Chronicles
Goblin Diplomacy
Joe swung open the doors of a Port Sarim bar and looked around at the thieves and pirates glancing at him suspiciously. He was too clean, too cut, was probably the transferred thought of the evening.
He walked forward, taking a swallow, and sat down at a stool, facing the bartender. "A beer, my good man." The bartender raised his eyebrows even as Joe slid some gold across the counter.
The bartender walked over to the tap and filled it up, a rat scurried across the floor, and somewhere ,a table of pirates' chairs screeched. Joe took the beer from him and the bartender shuffled to put away his gold before the trouble started.
As Joe took his first sip of beer, a hooked hand swiped it out of his hand and it shattered on the floor, froth and beer rolled out over the wooden boards.
Joe let out a small little growl, and the pirates mumbled expectantly amongst themselves.
"Ah well, I'll buy another one."
He turned around, and the first pirate, with a long, braided black beard stepped forward with a bronze schimitar, and Joe kicked out his foot and hit the pirate in a sensitive place, he let out a pained squeak.
Joe spun around and slashed at his chest with a mythril schimmy, and with a swift cut to the side, disarmed the pirate. The he jumped and kicked him straight in the chest and he flew backwards, knocking down the doors of the bar.
The pirates slowly looked from their captain to Joe, and let out a simultaneous cry of "ARGH!" in a jolly tone.
And an hour later, Joe was busy chatting with a drunken pirate from another village native to Joe's island, Brimhaven. Babbling about something or other called the Rantuki and totems.
Then the bartender exclaimed and reached under the counter and produced a blue poster with a picture of Joe drawn by Bob the Axe-Salesman that said in blocky, yellow letters:
"Joe PK, Your Friendly Neighborhood Quest-Doer!"
"I recognize you now! You're the chap on the poster that was brought in here b some guy last week." Joe was about to ask What guy? But the Bartender continued:
"You know, I hear that the Goblins in the village north of Falador are arguing about the color of their armor." He winked at Joe, and he felt somewhat irritated. He should've guessed this would happen, all quests start in bars..
The Jolly Boar Inn, Draynor Tavern, just a couple..
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Well, the world did need protection from rioting Goblins, and especially after seeing the state of the Goblin Village, Joe felt that this would need doing one way or another.
The building were often run-down, scorched, or just collapsed. Guthix knows what happened to every single window in the village, and goblin corpses just lay strewn about the streets.
Some were burnt to a crisp, some fresh with spears still sticking out of them, others had been there for weeks, the spears at some point removed. Joe felt like he was going to heave.
Minutes after he entered the village, he heard commotion, Goblin's grunts and screeches, and the pop of bows and swishes of spears and clattering of armor. Joe ran forward and found the battle in the center of the village, a spear went straight through a goblin infront of him.
A goblin, who was quite clearly insane, charged at him with a bronze axe. Joe disarmed him and threw him through a blackened doorway. Then, he hid behind some rubble and dug in his pack.
He had just enough Air Runes, and he pulled out a Death Rune and stared at it oddly for a minute, then he set it down in the pile of three Air Runes. Then he cleared his throat, stood up, facing the battlefield, and yelled:
"Wind Blast!"
And as the runes crumbled, he threw his hands forward and a ball of violent air fanned out and tossed every Goblin aside, through open windows, doors, and into rubble. Ash and dust flew through the air.
Joe stepped to the side, and pulled his hands in, and the blast let out a last violent gust and ceased. Joe wasted no time before the Goblins returned to war.
"Where are your leaders?!"
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The goblins in the majority stared at him with contempt, curiousity, and fear. He was attacked once more with a Javelin, and threw it back into the same Goblin. Nobody bothered him again as his guides led him to their Generals.
Two hours left, they sat in a hut missing part of its roof as they explained what was happening.
The first was General Bentnoze, a bulky and crude Goblin with a heavy hammer who wanted the armor red.
General Wartface, a smaller, yet more vicious Goblin, said that Goblins should wear Green, their natural skin color. But Bentnoze said they wouldn't even be able to see their armor, and would appear foolish.
But Wartface thought red would make them look bloody, and consequently, weak. And Bentnoze argued that'd give them more things to fight.
And Wartface said, blah, blah, blah…
In the end, they both chased him out on axe, spear, and hammer, until he could come back with something useful to say. Needless to say, they were "polite."
But, as he dragged himself back towards Falador, an idea began to form, as he remembered past experiences and things on the way.
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First, as Joe marked off on his checklist, he set off for Lumbridge, and reached it in little more than a day's time. And after a brief visit with both Bob and the Cook, he set off into the nearby forests to hunt Goblins.
He pulled out his trusty mythril scimitar and went out slicing into Goblins, tossing them into the river and cutting them down. He passed by the Goblin Pub deep in the middle of the woods and joined a small band of adventurers fighting off a horde of Goblins.
Afraid he would go home empty handed, he was lucky, in the horde were two goblins with Goblin Mail, the first thing on his list.
After cutting down a tree for firewood, the next morning he got some off a javelin-wielding Goblin.
He spent another idled day in Bob's shop, and ran into Woofy, he accompanied him as far as Barbarian's Village, where they departed at a Tavern.
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As the next day went over, Joe reentered Falador and proceeded to go down to the park, there he sat and napped until the gardeners came out just past noon, And not long after he got up he found the one he was looking for, the Head Gardener, Wyson, right in the park.
"Wyson!"
Having spent some time in Falador, Joe had heard of, and even seen a couple times, Wyson the Gardener. He was the Head Gardener, so, even being a Gardener, he garnered some respect.
And Joe had also heard through rumors at the local inn, that at the beginning of each week, he stole a few woad leaves for his wife's job.
Joe just had to trust that this was true.
The Gardener glanced up, and straightened his straw hat. Joe yelled his name again, and he turned around. Expecting a gardener, he saw a warrior in full black armor. He tugged his goatee in annoyance. What was more, this adventurer had the nerve to give him that sly look.
"Got any Woad Leaves?"
Wyson stiffened, and looked around.
"Foolish rumors, I knew they'd be the death of me." He inched closer to Joe, his hoe at his side. "Okay, I don't smoke them or anything. My wife is a dyer, she uses them, and its just a bit cheap, you know." He looks around. "I'm the Head Gardener, I don't get much respect anyways."
"I'm not going to tell on you." Wyson wiped his brow, and nodded. "Then why you mention the, uh, Woad Leaves?" It was Joe's turn to look around, even if it was mock anxiety.
"I need em."
Wyson blinked, and suddenly became his prudent old self again. "Well, you can have em for twenty gold, that's a bargain compared to the market." And even though he sounded confident, he said it in a harsh whisper and glanced at the Gardebner taking a break on a bench nearby.
Joe merely shrugged, and dug into his pocket, and came out with 20 gold pieces, which he insconspicuously slipped into Wyson's hand. Who in turn reached into the pocket of his baggy, blue shirt and came out with two Woad Leaves.
Joe bowed and left an estranged Gardener behind.
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Joe now returned to Port Sarim, walking straight to the southern side of the docks, he found Wydin's Food Store with a grin. "About time." It wasn't a long way from Falador, he just simply wanted to hurry up and get this Goblin business over with.
He pushed open the door to his shop and walked into a smell of fresh, preserved vegetables and fruit.
"Mmm."
He had visited Wydin's once on a supply trip from Karamja, it was a surprise he'd actually been here that long. He looked across the counter; Flour, cabbage, bananas, bread, tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, and last but not least, his ingredient: Redberries.
The meats were no doubt in the back, but the berries were what he currently needed, so he walked up to the counter and hit the bell.
Wydin was there in almost an instant. Smiling from ear to ear, with a mess of dirty blonde hair.
"How can I help you, sir? Produce in the front, meat and refrigerables in the back." Joe stared at him for a moment "Refrigerables isn't a word." Wydin stared at him. "How do you know?" "I do, trust me."
Wydin lost his perky mood after that. "Eh, what'll it be, wise guy?" It was Joe's turn to grin, for mostly no reason. "Three redberries, my good man." The shopkeep sniffed loudly, and walked over to the end of counter and plucked three of them from a vine.
"Straight from the forests of Varrock!"
The man sure couldn't stay unhappy for long.
"Nine gold, 'my good man.'" Way too perky. Joe pulled out nine more gold coins from his pocket and spun them across the counter, and Wydin scooped them up.
"Have a nice day."
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Joe hopped the fence of a field just south of Falador, and walked across the soil past rows and rows of Cabbages, and rows, and rows, and rows.. It was a pretty big field, after all. But eventually, he found his way over to the south side.
There were now rows, and rows, and rows of onions. Which is the final ingredient for his plan to work that he needed. He looked around, and hurriedly picked up the two ripest Onions he could find. They would probably do.
He sniffed them and wrinkled his nose, then stuffed them into his pack with three brown Goblin Mails, two Woad Leaves, three Redberries, and two fresh Onions.
Now there was perhaps the hardest part there was..
Convincing a witch.
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Joe knocked on the old, oaken door tenderly, half afraid it would fall in. The witch's house looked out of place in the high-maintenance Draynor Village. But there was soon enough a creak as it swung open and the witch looked at him with a look of bemusement.
"Aggie?"
"Yo?" She motioned to herself, and Joe sighed. "You're the Player-Killer guy, aren't ye?" She inspected him, went back into the house, and returned with one of his posters. Bob must really be passing those around..
"Well, you got me, then." He grinned sheepishly. "Whatcha here for?" Joe quickly rummaged in his pack for the Onions, Redberries, and Woad Leaves.
Aggie raised an eyebrow.
"For dyes?" He nodded, and she stared. "Yeah." He breathed. She nodded, swiped them away, then stopped. That'll be fifteen gold, though, hun." She reached out a thin hand and rubbed her fingers together."And that's cuz you saved the town."
Joe once more dug into his pockets and pulled out fifteen gold and dropped it in her outstretched hand. She let him in and whooshed the door closed with a snap of her fingers. Then she kicked a chair forward at him, and it hit him in the back of the knees and he dropped onto it.
"Ow.."
He waited for almost two hours, and as she took a ladle filled with Onion-made yellow dye in it out of her cauldron, she yelled and said they were all ready. She gave him three corked bottles filled with yellow, blue, and red.
He waved her off, and a short ways off he corked open the red dye, and poured it into the yellow dye, and shook it all the way back to Goblin Village..
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As Joe entered the Village for the second time, he was greeted with, in comparison, much warmer salutations:
Armed Goblins poking and prodding him until he was in the hut where Bentnoze and Wartface had joined once again to deal with him.
"Wot ya' doin' 'ere again?" Bentnoze said angrily. "Prob'ly the blow away more a' my men!" Wartface went up in his face, and Joe started to speak, but they started swearing in Goblin.
So he simply hit them both with one of his Goblin Mails.
"Shut up!"
"Ergh?" Wartface grumbled stupidly. Joe cleared his throat and supplied the blue dye from his pack, then he poured it on the Goblin Mail and let it soak in. Then he shook out a few flecks and set it on the table.
Wartface was the first to inspect it, and Bentnoze sniffed in its direction. But then Joe took out a second pair of Goblin Mail, and simply set it between the two of them. And with the third, he pulled out an orange dye and shook it a little more.
"Okay.."
He poured it over the third pair, and it slid over the top, dripping off the bottom onto the table, until it roughly soaked in. He shook it again, and tossed it at Bentnoze, who caught it briskly.
He looked at them both, crossed his arms, and smiled.
"Problem solved."
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The Goblins inspected their new armor, and began making crude dyes of their own, separating the Village into groups, none superior to the other. They worked together as spearmen, warriors, and goblins.
And it was all, believe it or not, thanks to Joe Player-Killer, and they rewarded him with a bar of solid gold.
(Though, since it was their only one, they'd kind of want it back later..)
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And that's the end of that tune!