The shopping bag was nearing holy status in the goblin tribe.
They looked on, as Nikola took a piece of meat after a piece of meat out of it.
The cauldrons were steaming already; the meager vegetable harvest was already boiling.
Happy goblin housewives were lined up to take the best of the meat. The chief was already eating a raw pig leg.
The mood was jolly all around.
"He doesn't seem contagious to me," the chief said between bites.
"No!" His wife yelled, as she took the pig leg off his hands and then swatted him with it over the head. "You are not going to do this! The meat deliveries will stop!"
She had the right of it, that Goglina. She was not someone who should have married the chief, at first.
Deemed too smart for him and all.
But love, and a six pack instead of a beer belly, had paved the way to a partnership which had stood the test of time for a whole of five years now.
The fact that the chief was yet to demand that she was to be eaten spoke volumes about her value in the little tribe.
"And one more thing," Goglina said, as she gave her husband his pig leg back. "Honey, you shouldn't eat raw meat. You'll get worms again!"
The chief sighed. He handed over the pig leg back to his wife, who placed it in the cauldron next to them. Some potatoes were already swimming in the lukewarm water.
"Good goblins!" Nikola began, as he sat down by his empty bag. "I can do your shopping for you! How does that sound? So, you wouldn't have to attack travelers?"
"If we don't attack travelers," the chief began, clearly thinking over the offer, but not being 100% committed. "Then we won't get money!"
"You are thinking about it in the easiest way possible," Nikola told him, as he smiled nervously.
He might have quit his system, but that didn't mean that he could just keep his head in the sand, as goblins killed innocent people.
And the occasional tax collector, but that was beside the point.
"I have seen your arts and crafts," Nikola said, as he nodded to a couple of piled-up masks to the side. "I have seen the extent of your creativity! Let me sell these things, these lovely artworks, and I will give you meat!"
The chief looked at the masks, then back at the human, then at his wife.
"He wants our anger management therapy?" He asked.
Goglina just shrugged.
"Let him have them; if he can turn them into meat, all the better!"
Nikola was given a nod. He began to collect the masks. Knowing that he didn't have much time, before someone got the idea to add him to a soup.
****
The fact that the masks were now all gathered up meant that the goblins had to express their feelings some other way. Even as Nikola was walking away, he noticed that some of the goblins were using the meat bones to carve stuff.
He never claimed to be someone who understood goblins, but he figured that he could go ahead and sell the bones as well.
His feet took him inside Big Capybara, his destination: Gretta Ironheart, the local barter buyer.
All the while, he tried to think about who would possibly need these masks.
The most logical thing was a shaman, but there was just one in the area, and he did his own wood carving.
Then there were the war-loving dwarves in the mountain, who, without a shred of doubt, were going to make it so that Nikola would sell the masks at half-price.
The problem was that he didn't even know what full price was, let alone half-price.
The dwarven lady was stocking up the butcher's shop. Nikola made a mental note to buy off all the meat and leave some of it in his house for personal use.
Turnips were good for you, but if you ate only turnips, then you ended up with an upset stomach.
"Dear Gretta!" Nikola knew the woman. He had chatted with her more than once. Out of all the cashiers in the butcher's shop, she was the one who didn't snort at him, when he bought chicken wings for soup.
The Adventurers Guild didn't pay much. And when it finally paid, it paid peanuts.
"I have a deal for you!" He took out one of the masks, showing it to the lady. "This is goblin made! Sure to put fear in any and all armies!"
Nikola was certain that if he couldn't sell the masks for the army, then he wouldn't be able to sell them at all.
"Oh!" The dwarf took the mask and began to turn it this way and that. "These are ghost repellents!"
Nikola had no idea what that was, but he was feeling optimistic.
"I will buy them all off you! One gold coin per mask!" Gretta looked at his shopping bag, from which a couple of masks were already poking out.
"I will need meat. Tons of it," Nikola told her, as he handed her the bag. "And about 100 gold coins, so I can pay my bills. The rest you can keep on credit and pay me when I have the need for it."
Nikola knew that the main business partner for pretty much every bartered stuff procurer in the town was Dobri the Gnome.
He didn't want to ruin his business.
Besides, with credit came interest. Nikola was playing the long game.
"Oh, you kind, kind, man!" The dwarf said, taking out her calculator. "You have 746 masks. I will give you all the meat we have now, and the 100 gold coins, and, just a moment," the dwarf took out a sum from the total.
Nikola waited with bated breath.
How much would the meat cost? Would he afford a library card, so he could finally learn rune crafting and strike it big?
Like that Matthew Arnolds, who had gotten his books from Dobri the Gnome?
Oh, if that gnome would only be home when Nikola visited, the brunette knew that he was finally going to strike it big!
"And you will still have 300 gold coins on credit from me!" Gretta said.
Nikola did the math in his head.
He would have enough for a small meat delivery plus a library card for Mirstone's Black Market.
He smiled.
"You know, Gretta, that's a fine deal," he said, as he began to pile up the meat in a different shopping bag.
Doing something the world would later think of as the redemption of all goblins!