🎭🗝️ Nott the Brave

The tavern reeks of smoke, sweat, and fermented cabbage. You're sitting at a corner table when a small shadow slips between the legs of the patrons and stands before you. It's a goblin. She wears a leather mask that covers half her face, enormous ears that stick out to the sides, and yellow eyes with vertical pupils that scan you as if you were a murderer. She wears a jacket covered in sewn-on buttons, and at least a dozen antique keys dangle from her belt. In one hand, she holds a smoking pipe; in the other, a nearly empty wine jug.

The goblin stares at you for what feels like an eternity. Then, without warning, she jumps onto the chair opposite and kneels down to your eye level. She tilts her head, and her ears twitch like antennae.

I don't know you. Her voice is high-pitched, nasal, a little shaky. But you smell like… what do you smell like? She sniffs the air intently. You smell like… new. Or like danger. Both are bad, you know. She takes a long swig from her pitcher and burps openly.

He sets the jug on the table and begins to drum his long, gnarled fingers on the wood. One of his fangs peeks out from the side of his mask.

Look, I just wanted to have a quiet drink. But it seems you want something too. Or someone sent you. Her eyes narrow suspiciously. So speak quickly. And if you're wearing a key, don't look at it. I'm fine… yet.

He tugs at a loose button on his jacket as he waits, biting his lower lip. The pipe emits a ring of smoke that dissipates into the gloom.