I had spent the rest of the night in Roguk’s house. Without rest, I would have trouble staying awake the next day and learning anything. Their night was mostly actual daytime anyways, it seemed. At least judging from when I met Grag.

As my host woke up and stepped out of his sleeping compartment he seemed puzzled to see me for a moment. As I hooted a greeting he came back to his senses and waved me off before dragging himself over to his water barrel and splashing his face.

Only once the cold liquid had woken him up did he greet me. Nice! Now I had a word for hello! Still no way to vocalize it…

It took Roguk a while to wash which I decidedly did not want to see so I took cover behind the tables and preened myself. Once we were both ready I jumped on his shoulder and hooted him to carry me outside with an outstretched wing. He gave me a look but eventually just shrugged and left the hut.

The square was mostly empty aside from the same cook as last night sitting over a small pot kept warm by a few red glowing crystals. After handing a bowl of stew to my ride he presented me with my own bowl filled with dead rats. They were actually feeding me. Why did I go hunt again? Oh right, levels.

I was hungry enough to empty the bowl. It was only three small rats after all. A suitable meal for an important guest.

Once breakfast was over Roguk led me to the entrance I had come in yesterday. Grag was waiting for us with a bundle of rope and a few wooden boards in hand. We left the caves together, again guided by a magic lantern and soon arrived at the broken bridge. As Grag unfolded the tangle of ropes and planks I saw it was already a finished bridge, they would only have to put it up. Although I wondered how they would ever get across the gap without the bridge.

The answer to that came in the form of Grag taking a long single rope tied to the tangle in his hand and simply jumping across. The little one-metre goblin with just a few steps of start-up had crossed a nearly three-metre gap. Maybe ‘Klutz’ was a mean nickname? Good thing I was not using it anymore.

After fixing the bridge to the poles, Roguk on one side, Grag on the other, the goblins made their way down the opposite ledge of the ravine. Naturally, I followed along, though I was nice enough not to unbalance Roguk with sitting on his shoulder. Even though I barely weighed anything, it was easy enough to follow on my wings.

Only a few minutes of walking later we came to another opening in the wall. This one was barricaded only a few steps in, deep enough to not be harmed by the storm. After Roguk opened the way he stepped inside with Grag gesturing me to go before him. I now knew the word for “go” in goblin!

As Grag closed up behind us I took in the area. Lit up by the faint magical lantern and some glowing moss on the walls I made out something resembling a garden. A garden for mushrooms. Going by their colours, poisonous mushrooms. Or acidic, like the orange one with the purple goop inside. There were a few patches cordoned off, trying to create a semblance of order. Most of them had long been overgrown by fungi from their neighbours.

Grag put a hand on my shoulder and gestured for me to stay near the entrance with him. Meanwhile, Roguk went through his ‘garden’ and harvested loads of mushrooms. They were carefully placed into a bag he had pulled from his pouch. Once done he came over and showed me the ones he had gathered more closely.

There was the bright orange one I had seen him use yesterday. Roguk tried to tell me its name, but it was long and difficult to remember. Goop-shroom would have to do. There was also one with a long, crumpled stem and a tip shaped like a small, upside-down bowl. It was coloured a dirty brown and had red liquid seeping out from its crumples. This one was called a ‘demrac’. The third and last one was a ‘fio’, one of my namesakes. White stem, brown tip and black splotches all over.

Roguk removed the cap from the fio and a syrupy black ooze dripped out of it. Next, he cut open the goop-shroom and dripped some of the ooze onto the leaking goo. They made a quick swishing sound and suddenly the goop-shroom was empty. Only its bright orange shell remained. The black ooze had turned a dark shade of purple as if it was super-evil-goop now. Instead, it was completely harmless as demonstrated by Roguk who picked up the viscous liquid and played with it in his hand. He added a few more drops from the fio-shroom and soon it had turned completely black again.

So the mushroom I was named after neutralized acidic substances? Or only that purple goo? The answer to that came in the form of a repeat experiment, this time with the brown mushroom. The same exact thing happened, only without me knowing what the demrac did normally. Poison seemed likely.

Roguk smiled up at me from his crouch and pointed at me and the fio-shroom.

“Fio.”, he said. A few more words were added and then again “Fio”. I had no idea what he wanted from me, but the way he edged the mushroom husks towards me made me shift back. I tried to walk back, but Grag stood right behind me and stopped my retreat. Were they trying to kill me? I swivelled my head every which way trying to find a way out. The next moment hands gently held down my shaking wings and a soothing voice entered my ears from behind me.

As I returned to my senses, I noticed Roguk had put the mushrooms away and sat on his knees studying my face with worry. Grag was still holding me and gently stroking my wings. It calmed me down enough to think.

The goblins had been nothing but nice to me. There was no way they would harm me just for the sake of it. They did not need to eat me, the villagers were well fed. And I was welcomed by the whole village, they would miss me if I disappeared. Conclusion: I was safe. I always had been. Roguk presumably wanted to show me something and my instincts took over since I was the weaker party.

I took a few long breaths to slow down my racing heartbeat. Once it had somewhat settled I thanked Grag with a quick nudge from my beak. Then I wriggled out of his hands and took a short jump away from him.

‘I did not want to cuddle, don’t misunderstand!’

After that we returned to Roguk’s hut, Grag sticking with us up to the square. Before he left to do his own thing, the goblins came to some sort of agreement concerning me. Or so I understood from their gestures. I would stay with Roguk, that much was obvious as he held open the door flap for me.

Once inside he cleaned up one of his tables and pointed me to sit on one end of it. All kinds of things from his shelves were brought, including some of the samples we had just collected. In front of me, but not too close, he placed the three mushrooms from earlier, though fresh ones and not the shrivelled husks made with the black ooze.

He also brought a cage with live rats and carefully pulled one out. With a bone knife, he cut a small piece of the demrac and put it on a freshly sliced wound on the rat’s back. Panicked squeaking met my ears for only a few moments before the rat was dead. A second one was put into a bowl and had a drop of purple goo placed on it. This time the squeals persisted for much longer and I stepped back a bit. The rat was soon dissolved completely only leaving behind a skeleton and a puff of smoke quickly dissolving in the air. The third mushroom did not get a rat. Instead, Roguk simply bit off a chunk, chewed slowly and swallowed. He made a face but was not harmed at all.

Then he put the three mushrooms in front of me again and taught me new words. I was taking these as “poisonous”, “acidic” and “harmless”. I was pretty confident it was poisonous because it had to enter blood. They also might not have a distinction between poison and venom so I was not entirely sure. “Dangerous” was another word I derived from his grouping of poison and acid.

The next lesson included picking up all kinds of things and placing them in piles behind the three I knew about. Roguk showed me all the plants and mushrooms he had on his shelves and categorized them after the three I knew about. A few had both poisonous and acid properties and were placed in a fourth pile in between the goop and demrac. I was listening half-heartedly at first but when I realized this might be my home for a while I committed all of them to memory as best I could. I did not want to accidentally kill myself cleaning up a place to sleep.

Roguk even went so far as to point out the animals he had caged up or their leftovers stored in bowls and jars. He made sure not to mix them on the table and return almost everything to its place on the shelves.

When he was done the next lesson was in order. A goop-shroom, a few demracs and two dead spiders the size of my feet lay on the table, right next to the cutting board. I recognized the spider as one of the poisonous things from earlier.

Getting some water from a nearby barrel Roguk filled the pot he used yesterday. Before setting it on the trivet he beckoned me closer. There was a milky-white crystal sitting ready to heat the pot. I remembered that it had glowed orange when I arrived and was curious how it got like that. I did not have to wait long. The goblin directed my feet to hold onto the crystal. It was a bit awkward at first but I simply stood on it to keep my balance. Then he put his hand on top of my talons and signalled me to close my eyes. After I obliged a warm feeling ran through my foot. It ran from Roguk’s fingers and slowly seeped into the crystal. This was magic. I opened my eyes and saw the crystal slowly turn orange and start to glow.

The feeling ebbed off as Roguk retrieved his hand. I now had a magic heater sitting beneath my foot which steadily got warmer. The goblin gestured me to put it beneath the trivet, which I promptly did, lest I burn myself. The pot went on right away.

Next were the mushrooms. Roguk picked up his knife and started taking the dead spider apart. He made sure I was paying close attention as he extracted its venom glands and some other organ I could only guess at what it was. He put both in a mortar bowl and passed me a second spider. He put the knife next to me but I had no idea how to possibly hold it. Instead, I used my talons to carefully take apart the spider. It was slow and tedious but eventually, I had an unbroken venom gland separated from its body. The other organ was a little poked up. I was not careful enough when opening the carapace.

Roguk shrugged and threw my efforts into the same bowl. There was a short demonstration of grinding up the things before he held out the mortar to me. I tilted my head. Tool use was something for opposable thumbs not talons and a beak. Still, I tried. With my beak, it was possible to somewhat hold the pestle. It was made of light bone. I had however problems exerting any real force with it. It was enough to crush the soft organs at least and once I was done Roguk added the chunky paste into the now boiling pot. A bit of moss was used to clean the mortar, again I had to do most of it.

This was a hassle. Why was he trying to teach me how to make poison? Even if I could somehow do all this on my own, there was no way for me to apply it to my attacks. And with most of my kills being for food I did not really want to use it. At all.

I decided to humour him and returned my focus to my teacher. He was scowling a bit while holding onto a demrac. I tilted my head hooted at him.

‘I was only distracted a little, get on with it.’

With a sigh, Roguk continued the lesson. He pressed his knife flat onto the poisonous mushroom and slid it down its stem. A small puddle of red liquid with a few brown chunks sat on the board and was promptly scooped into the pot with a skilled movement of his knife. He laid down the rest of the demracs and gestured me to wring them. I put one of my feet onto a mushroom cap with some trepidation and glanced at Roguk. He gave me an encouraging nod, so I proceeded. I positioned the knife on the stem and somehow managed to twist my body in such a way to push it along. The puddle I had gotten was almost as big as Roguk’s. I was pleased. But I was stumped when it came to putting it into the pot. Luckily the goblin took care of that and I just continued squeezing the other 5 mushrooms.

Once done, Roguk put on a thoughtful expression. After wiping my feet and beak on some of the cleaning moss, I considered. Was there really no way for me to do these steps? I looked around and my eyes fell on a pair of large bowls sitting on one of the shelves. This would do. I got Roguk to pick them up and bring them over to the table where I placed both right next to the trivet. I gestured to the cutting board. Roguk caught on quickly and put it on top of the bowls. Satisfied I tried with another demrac. This time I was able to squeeze it just fine and then shove the liquid into the pot directly from the cutting board. Placing it high enough and next to the boiling water let me do everything myself.

Satisfied with the result, Roguk picked up the last ingredient, the goop-shroom. This time he gestured me to stay back. A few careful cuts later, the goop and the mushroom were part of our dangerous soup. He shrugged at me with an apologetic smile but I just bobbed my head and hooted in understanding. I was glad I did not have to touch that thing again.

We spent the next hour or so babysitting the mixture. It had to be stirred occasionally, which I was able to do with careful movements of my head after grabbing the ladle with my beak.

As the heating crystal started to cool down, Roguk took a few bone vials from a box and carefully dipped one into the mixture with a string. By the time he pulled it out, the string was already sizzling and he quickly placed the vial on the cutting board. He handed me the rest of them and I got to work. It took some practice but I quickly got used to the movement. I even managed to fill one of the vials using my feet. I did not try that again though, since I almost fell over.

Once the last one was filled, I settled down on the table and overlooked our work. Just in time to get a notification.

~ding~ Requirements fulfilled! For brewing a poisonous concoction under the guidance of a specific teacher you have unlocked the [Goblin Alchemist] class. Only one class can be equipped at this time. Do you wish to replace your current class with [Goblin Alchemist]? Note, all progress will be lost in your current class.

Oh? Was this why Roguk was teaching me? I looked at him, almost being eye to eye due to the table. He grinned at me and said something while pointing at himself. On a tilt of my head, he pointed at the poison vials and then himself again. Repeating the same words while gesturing squiggly lines with a finger finally clued me in. He was saying “Goblin Alchemist”. Right, I already knew the first word. I should have understood this quicker.

This was nice of him, but I really did not think I was suited to be an alchemist. Sure, it might be safer than being out in the wild, but I was not able to reliably use tools. And why did I unlock [Goblin Alchemist]? I was an owl, not a goblin! So I simply shook my head at him.

A slightly disheartened look flashed over his face but he soon smiled at me and nodded. Some more gesturing and speaking led to a bunch of confusion. But then Roguk went back to the squiggling finger tracing lines in the air. He repeated [Goblin Alchemist] a few times, always together with another word. Once I realized he was saying “Class”, I nodded vigorously. Roguk asked a question and I pointed at myself with a wing and nodded. I was hoping he asked if I had a class.

He did. It took another while to convey he wanted to know what I had. And then it took even longer for me to figure out how to tell him. In the end, I made him sit at a table with his back to me while I sat at his sleeping compartment. Thanks to [Sneak] I was able to get up to the table without making a single sound. Surrounding my wings with as dense a cloud of [Owl’s Shadow] as I could, I jumped up. It made not a single sound. When my feet touched the goblin’s neck and I held a talon to his throat he flinched hard. Luckily he had enough presence of mind not to jump, otherwise, he might have taken some deeper scratches.

I jumped off him immediately and put on my most innocent expression. For a few minutes, he just stared and breathed heavily. Then he finally collected his wits and slowly stood up.

“[Assassin]”, a whisper escaped his throat.

He bowed to me and extended his hand once more. I was a bit befuddled but I shook anyways. Somehow I had gained his respect. I only hoped he was not too scared of me.