After a few minutes, the guard returned and escorted me to the guard commander in one of the barracks near the gate. His office was rather spartan, a small room in the wooden building with hand-cut boards, not painted, with little but a rack for a sword and shield and a cot with furs on it in addition to a table and two chairs. He stayed sitting in one and gestured at the chair on the other side of the table. I didn’t humiliate myself too much clambering into it, but it was not made for someone with a tail, so I crouch-sat on the seat, fortunately bringing my shoulder level over the top of the table’s edge.

“You found a goblin raider camp, is this correct?” The heavyset, older man asked. He was bald but had the hard muscle of someone that fought regularly offsetting a slight middle-aged paunch. A heavy mustache merged with blonde muttonchops, a somewhat unusual look considering his shiny dome.

Ruthen Ventus (deadly)

Human

Outpost Commander

Health: 88%

Cautious

At my nod, he stood and reached under the table, pulling out a large roll of what looked like some kind of parchment. “I have a picture here, it’s like a view from far above, it is called a map. Do you know how a map works?”

I didn’t roll my eyes, but it was a true test of willpower. Being the smallest creature around was tough enough, without the automatic assumption that I had an IQ of a garden vegetable. I suppose it made sense, most kobolds wouldn’t be considered particularly bright, but it was still a bit insulting.

“Yes,” I stated flatly, “I am familiar with the concept of a map.”

Commander Ventus nodded slowly, “Right. Well-spoken kobold. Can you point out where you spotted them?” he started unrolling the map on the table. As a deck seaman, I was more than familiar with well-made charts, and this was not one, since the measurements seemed to be guesses more than distances. I was able to spot a marker for the bluff where my ill-fated cave expedition started, based on the approximate curves on the stream I had been following, and noted that if I had headed upstream for only a few hours I would have stumbled across a town called ‘Kor’s wind’.

Apparently, my route had been parallel to a road that I had not noticed since it was right outside of the treeline opposite the river, and I had stayed under the trees for concealment. No wonder I had encountered Cassie, and I was a little surprised that I hadn’t run into more travelers foraging in the forest. I was of mixed minds about this, since, on the one hand, my reception as a monster might not have been pleasant, but on the other, I might have been able to work out trades with other travelers.

After I had pointed out the curve of the stream, the commander threw me a curve of his own. “I would like to set a quest to eliminate the goblins. Are you willing to guide some adventurers to the camp? If it pans out, you are entitled to a small share of the bounties as well as a reward if they wipe out the camp.”

He looked at me thoughtfully, and at first, I was surprised at the level of trust involved. Then I realized that adventurers were not well thought of, and if I was leading a party into an ambush it was probably not much skin off this commander’s nose.

Well, going with a party could accomplish two goals. Number one, I could find out how parties, adventurers, and maybe even immortals worked, as well as getting up close and personal with one of the bands I wanted to study. Number two, I could use backup taking out the goblins and would gain essence from eliminating the little baby eaters. It wasn’t exactly win/win across the board, but I was a lot more confident now that I had a ranged weapon, and having an unkillable player between me and a horde of hungry goblins could be a major boon.

After I nodded, the heavy man reached into his pouch, and carefully set five chips of metal on the table in front of me. “The bounty for the goblin is 1 silver per left ear, and I guess the head qualifies, but I am giving you an advance bonus for locating their hiding place and assisting the adventurers. I would give you 5 silvers for it, but I am assuming that you are going to need a place for the night and some food, so I will have one of my men take you to the red barracks.”

He shrugged, “Right now, if you head to the Chutney Inne, most likely they would not allow you entry or even feed you, so I am treating you like a quest asset. 1 silver for a warm place to sleep and eating at the soldier’s pot, if you can eat cooked food?” At my nod, he continued, “Which is a far better price than the Inne anyway. Most drovers and traders would stay at the trade square or stay with relatives, so the Inne overcharges because their overnight custom is mostly adventurers lately.”

“Is there someplace I could get a treatment for my armor and maybe sell this?” I wiggled the heavy leather roll I was still lugging around and noted the look of surprise on the commander’s face. I suppose a kobold knowing what to do to treat armor was unusual, but he answered, “Yes, you can talk to some of the traders in the morning.” he jingled a small bell sitting on his desk, and the guy with the goatee showed up again to escort me out. “Take him to grab some watch rations and then to the red barracks. He’s a quest asset, so let private Kelman know he is going to have to escort him to the trade square and set up a rotation to keep an eye on him in the morning.”

Goatee nodded and motioned for me to accompany him, and when I clambered off the chair I bowed, and said “Thank you for your time and effort, Commander.” The sentiment caused him to raise an eyebrow, but I knew from experience that an officer having a good impression of your courtesy was like money in the bank for dealing with them. He might have ripped me off on the bounty or reward, but a commander had little reason to waffle around with disbursement, especially if, as I suspected, 5 silver wasn’t very much money.

I was going to have to find out what the local rates of exchange were, especially if I was going to behave like a person and not a ‘monster’, so I tucked the coins, which were about an ounce each, into my backpack/pouch thing. “Excuse me, Private?” I asked the young man with the distinguished facial hair.

Sean MacMalcolm (Challenging)

Human

Private

Health: 99%

Uncertain

“Yeah?” he asked, pointing out a path from the officer’s barracks to a small cookhouse surrounded by rough wooden tables.

“Could you tell me about local currency?” I asked him “Most importantly, a few average prices and how each coin exchanges with the others?” I held up one of the silvers, “I understand the concept of money, but the local values are a little bit of a mystery to me.”

He smiled a little, “The Sargeant was right about you, you are a smart little Kobold.” He directed me into the cookshop and quickly grabbed two large bowls, a pair of loaves of bread, and two wooden spoons before filling the bowls at a slowly simmering cauldron and then putting them on one of the tables. I clambered up opposite him as he slid one of the bowls to me, just flopping the small loaf directly on the surface next to the bowl.

“Umm.. a copper is called a racce. It’s divided up into eight bits, like this.” he pulled out a rather large copper coin that looked like it had an eight-pointed star on it in between bites, and a small triangle that was clearly cut from the coin. “The Lords don’t usually bother doing anything with coppers, because if you cut up a racce and it was fake it would show.” he tucked the pieces back into his pouch. “A bit is about worth a loaf of bread, I guess? In cities that’s usually the price for a big loaf, not a hand loaf,” he said, ripping off a crusty piece of his hand loaf and dunking it in the stew. “You can usually get four of these for a bit or four pieces of cheap horehound.”

I started eating as well. The stew was reasonably tasty for something set up to feed night watch and ignored recognizable chunks of carrot and celery, as well as pieces of turnip, onion, and a surprisingly heavy share of white meat that strongly resembled chicken. I guess you wanted your soldiers to eat lots of protein if you wanted them in healthy fighting trim. The bread loaf was stale, but thick and soft on the inside, and ripped easily into chunks that were clearly meant for soaking in the stew.

He nodded at my silver, and said “A silver Dinar’s three racce, and can buy a novice knife or a night’s food’n sleep at most Innes. A’course, the Innes here charge about 4 silver a night cause adventurers is stupid and will pay it. Most folk that’s not apprentices or better in a craft’ll work for a silver a day.”

He inhaled another bite of stew-soaked bread and continued. “And then there’s gold. It’s worth a gross of silvers and is called a crown, but it’s a little bigger than a dinar and weighs about twice as much. You can get a good quality non-magicked sword for half a crown. You better pay at least a half-crown for a sword or yer getting flawed novice crap that’ll break on you the minute you have to use it for real.” He shrugged a little, getting up and returning to the pot for a second helping and a new loaf.

The bowl was enormous compared to me, so I was barely able to finish half of its contents before I was almost overfull. “So what’s something like this worth?” I asked him curiously, holding up the elk leather roll.

He shrugged, “Depends on where ya go. Traders gotta make a racce, so yer price won’t be so good, but if you want I can take it to the quartermaster for ya? He can fix it up nice and use it for armor or something, he’s always looking for leather, so even though that one’s in pretty sad shape I bet he could recover it. I would take a piece of the price, but I can guarantee I will get you better than a trader will, especially since you are a kobold. Trader will think you are stupid and try to skin you like that hide.”

He smiled a little, “Standing order for skins is five dinar for something that size, and even though it’s not finished well it’s already peeled, will ya take four for it?”

I assumed he probably could get a LOT more for the skin from the quartermaster since, even if it has to be refinished, half the work was already done. Since it was free, though, I handed it over to the man and accepted four silver in return. Sure, he might have been fleecing me, but he deserved a cut anyway. Now I was the proud possessor of nine silver pieces, and hopefully, that would be enough to get some survival supplies.

So, based on my world’s medieval economics, it was safe to judge a bit as about a dollar. So a Racce was eight bucks and a honking four ounces. Silvers were about twenty-four dollars each, and about the size of a penny, about average for our world, and gold was… well, I didn’t know how much it weighed, but a gross was 144, so it should be worth… 3456 bits, or around 1928 per ounce. Once again, the values were very close to my world.

Food, despite being a bit harder to get in a preindustrial society, would be far cheaper because of it almost always being local, not to mention that people were killing things all the time for food and to keep them clear of town, gardens, or fields. Clothing costs depended entirely upon whether weaving frames or their magical equivalent had been created, but if not, a shirt could cost as much as a dozen silvers alone. The soldiers seemed to wear surcoats, but tomorrow I would discover if large-scale cloth making was a thing, based on what townsfolk and farmers were wearing.

I wondered if any of the herbs I had gathered were worth anything? The food was probably not, but if there was a herbalist or alchemist in town they might offer me a few coins for gathering them. I thought about what I would buy… a small pot to use as a dutch oven, a decent knife, some needles, waxed thread, and some pieces to finish my armor. I wish I could turn my armor into cuir-bouilli, but wax tended to be expensive, especially in a medieval economy. And clothes might be nice, but all things considered, they might not be all that necessary. Oh, soap and salt. Definitely salt.

Too bad I was unlikely to find sunglasses. Think like an adventurer. What would I have gotten back in one of those old MMOs? Some emergency rations, or should I make my own? Bandages, a waterskin, some rope. Considering that food could give buffs, and I loved cooking and had a high survival skill, it might be best if I played the hunter-gatherer game for a while. A sleeping bag? Naww, a blanket would probably be more than big enough for me to fold into a bedroll. A Tent? Considering monsters, a tent just seemed like a good way to block your vision and die. A waterproof tarp of some kind might be useful, but I’d need to find a smaller than usual one since they would probably be heavy.

Private Sean got up and led me to the second barracks, and in no time I was tucked into a corner. There was an empty woven cot, but it was gigantic, so I grabbed the blanket, checked it carefully for unwelcome guests, and then curled up next to the fire and the wall instead. The Barracks was less than half full, and I wondered if this place had a bit of a manpower problem. It was still very dark, which meant I was still wide awake, so I planned to take advantage of the relative safety.

I wasn’t entirely trusting of the local hospitality, but it seemed to be mostly on the up and up. Commander Ventus felt like the sort of guy who would take a sense of humor as a personal affront, so his hospitality seemed more like a way to keep an asset out of trouble than a trick of some sort. I was still convinced that finding friendly local monsters, if that was not a contradiction in terms, was my best route to the future, but if I could find a way to get into an adventurer party it might give me a level of information and growth I needed sorely.

I dropped into my zone again, accompanied only by the snores of other men in the barracks.