Chapter Text
Larizu frowned and sniffed at the air. He pushed up his glasses, set down his inventory list, and straightened away from the little workbench. “Da fuck is dat?” The skinny healer-troll paused to grab his grungy blue glass pipe— not to smoke, just for the feel of it— and set aside the lead-free-lead-pen, which he had been using to take inventory of his dwindling herbal supplies (which included herbs of both the medicinal and medical variety). Larizu squeezed the blue pipe in one hand, as he ran the other hand over his chronically messy blue hair. He stood up from his creaky little wooden stool, and shuffled across Larizu’s Healing Shack (Blessed Salve Sold Here! Accept No Substitute!).
Larizu peered out through the propped-open door. His hazel eye flicked around for the source of a familiar motor-and-linseed-oil smell. His glass eye stared whitely. The smell passed, as it had before. Larizu shook his head, scritched his asscheek through his sarong, and shuffled back to his workbench. “Losin’ my fuckin’…” Larizu sighed and set down his blue pipe. He picked up his less-blue pipe, which is what it was currently called.
As he packed his less-blue pipe with his self-prescribed ‘medicine’, Larizu glanced up at the open front-window shutter. It seemed as good a day as any to air the place out, seeing as his big brother-from-another-tribe I’wilo was on one of his huntin’-and-stuff trips, and restless Larizu was squarely in gettin’-stuff-done mode. He struck an extra-stinky match, and lit his less-blue pipe full of stinky weed. KFFFFFFFT.
Larizu shook out the match and dropped it in the ashtray, which was an oyster shell. He grabbed the original blue pipe, checked if it was still grungy— yep— and bent down to place it between his toes for safekeeping. He rocked the pipe foot from side to side as he resumed squinting at his inventory list. His shit-to-do list rested nearby, and at the top was Shave, which was crossed off, then Air Out This Shithole, followed immediately by Do Inventory. Soon he would cross off both, and then he could work on Get Practice C C’s From Corner Shop (Eat?), which was blech, or Clean Outhouse, which was preferable.
As he weighed the merits of not-eating for another day, Larizu turned on his little wooden stool, which creaked, and he froze, as a giant potato rat with a monkey face turned and scampered out through his front fucking door.
Larizu nearly tripped over his grungy blue pipe, as he hopped up and ran to the door, to behold… no giant monkeyface potato rat in sight. The oil smell was faint, but it lingered. Larizu pressed his fist to his mouth. His eye darted from side to side. He checked himself. He was not freaking out. Well, he was freaking out, but he hadn’t been freaking out. He started to close the door. “Maybe… maybe since Wil on da huntin’ ting…” Nope. No. Fuck that. Larizu yanked the door open. He stepped outside.
Larizu looked at the neighbor goblins— the boogers, as Larizu would have it— on their booger porch. It was only Nardo and Fizzik standing around. Trixxi was probably off getting her hair did or whatever the fuck. Larizu stepped back and looked up at the roof. He looked— “YuhSNAKE huhuhuhhuh nooo!” Larizu stopped dancing as scanned the ground. No sign of whatever had brushed his ankle. “Fuck dis.”
Donning his everyday casual resting fuck-you face, Larizu started back into his shack. Tak-tak. Ta-tak…Takkita takkita takkitatakkitatakTAKTAKTAK! Larizu froze with his eyes bugging out. Eye-and-other bugging out. He peered around the corner of the door. There, past the chicken wall (yucky), the giant monkeyface potato-rat was beating the closet door with its creepy little stick arm. Probably in search of his chicken plate, Loa (bless all o’ ya names). Larizu backed out of the shack. He looked around. “Where a good trowin’ rock when ya fuckin’ need it.” He would have to take the night-stand/rock-collecting bucket and get some more throwing rocks. He looked over at the booger porch. Nardo was just going inside. Fizzik was just sitting down to smoke cigarettes and look like a general predator.
“Psst! Fizzik!”
Fizzik looked over at Larizu, who was cowering by the side of his shack. Fizzik glanced around and started across the street. He dug out his cigarettes. “Yo?”
Twitching, Larizu grimaced or smiled. “Want to make some gold?”
Fizzik stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He tucked his Zippy™ back in his pocket. He eyed Larizu up and down. “How?”
“Ya gotta kill a giant rat wit backup-sharpened-stick-for-emergencies. No guns. I give ya tree gold. Five. Five gold. Ya take da body, once it dead.”
Fizzik shrugged. “Okay.”
“Great.” Larizu nodded. “Great. Okay. Wait… Wait here.” Larizu hustled around to the back. Fizzik glanced in the open door of the shack. From where he stood, nothing appeared to be amiss in Larizu’s Healing Shack (Blessed Salve Sold Here! Accept No Substitute!)
Larizu returned shortly, backup-sharpened-stick-for-emergencies in hand. Larizu looked at the non-business end of the stick, where a spider struggled on a collapsed bit of web. He wiped the web off on the Larizu’s Healing Shack sign, and that became the spider’s new home. Larizu handed over the stick, which was a bit longer than Fizzik. “I got… I got an oil-pushin’ broom. Out back.”
“Uh-huh.” Fizzik took the stick and handed Larizu his cigarette. He walked into the shack with the pointy broomstick, which is not what it was called.
Larizu paced around with the cigarette between his thumb and finger. He crossed his arms. He uncrossed his arms. He scratched some dried blood off of his face. From shaving. He whisper-shouted at the shack: “Ya can stare at it after it dead!”
Fizzik came out the door with the stick. He held it out. “No rat.”
Larizu looked at the stick. “Check under di bed. It huge. Size o’ cat. Squashed cat. It got a monkey face. It smell like oil.”
Fizzik lay the sharpened broomstick up against the side of the shack. He took his squished cigarette from Larizu’s hand. He started to turn away, then looked up at Larizu. “Ya want, I could get Nardo.” Fizzik shrugged.
“Nardo kill rats?”
“Man, I don’t— Yeah, I’ll get him.” Fizzik crossed the street and strode up the steps. “Yo Nar-DO! Nar-DO!” He disappeared inside. The screen door hissed shut. Larizu picked up the sharpened stick, in case the monkeyface potato rat tried to rush the door. He pulled the door shut. He checked the lock, which was not locked.
“Heya, Larizu,” Nardo said, from Larizu’s blind side.
Larizu jumped, spun and looked down at Nardo. The neighbor goblin’s hair was damp. He had a towel over his shoulder. Aside from the towel, the only thing Nardo wore on top was a gold goblin-loa-cross necklace.
Nardo looked down and tied the drawstring on his shorts. He looked up and Larizu was holding out a pointy broomstick. Nardo waved it off. “I’m good. Thanks.” He looked from the stick to Larizu’s face. “You good?”
Larizu looked confused for a second, then he scowled. “I ain’t bein’— I got a giant fuckin’ monkeyface potato rat in my fuckin’ shahaaahfuck!” Larizu dropped the stick and started dancing all over the place, slapping at his legs. Larizu spun all around with his head cocked like a crazy bird as he scanned the ground. He looked at Nardo. “Sometin’ touch…” Larizu shook his head, stooped, and snatched up his pointy broomstick. “I give ya five gold. Five gold to stab rat. Wit stick.”
Nardo looked at the ground. His brow rose as his eyes flicked up to Larizu. “Arright. Let’s go look atcher rat.” Nardo shook his head as he followed Larizu into the shack. “You want I leave it open?”
“Shut it. Dis fucker need to die.”
Nardo shut the door. As he stepped along the workbench, he glanced at the wall near the front shutter. “Izzat a gaslight?”
Larizu shook his head, still looking all over the shack with his head tilted. He was blinking an inordinate amount. “It just a lamp. I got da hook from Vic’s Used Shit. Lamp kept fallin’ off da fuckin’ nail.”
“Looks good. So, when’s Wil comin’ back from the spirit world?”
“One week. Tops. Dat usually mean...” Larizu crossed the shack and got down next to the bed. “… five day. So, tree days left.” Larizu reached under the bed and started hauling out baskets of clothes. Nardo crossed his arms and shook his head as Larizu crawled under the bed and shoved out more baskets. “Fuck.” Larizu’s feet disappeared under the bed. He crawled out headfirst. “I don’t fuckin’…” Larizu stood and looked at Nardo. “Ya don’t smell oil?”
“I don’t smell nothin’ but smoke.”
Larizu leaned out the back window and looked around. “Tink it climbed up da big chair. Fuckin’ rats… Need ta clear out da ___- pit.”
Nardo nodded. “That’s good. Keepin’ busy’s good.”
Larizu leaned the backup-stick against the big chair, for Wil to sit. “Yeah. Yeah, I got to get all dis shit done. I guess da fuckin’ ting gone.”
Nardo pulled the towel off of his shoulder. He looked around as he folded it over his arm. “Well, hey. Problem solved!”
Larizu opened the closet. A plate on the closet floor tried to fall out. Larizu caught the plate with his foot. He dug in that blue bag of his, which was hanging off the door. He kicked the plate upright as he shut the closet. Larizu came over and held his hand up, fingers down. “Tanks.”
“What’s this?”
“Monkeyface potato rat tax.”
Nardo shook his head. “I’m good.”
…
..
With a sigh, Nardo accepted the gold. “Listen. Larizu. I know you’re busy and all. If ya feel like takin’ a break or somethin’, we were gonna get some subs from Kezan Mike’s, and hang out on the uh…” Nardo’s brow dropped; he half-smiled as it rose. “… boogie steps.”
“No. No. I got to... I got a list. Tanks.” Larizu was squashing his hair with both hands.
“Sure thing. Well, I’ll leave ya to it.” Nardo paused at the door.“Door open?”
“Yeah.” Larizu watched Nardo leave. He put the baskets back under the bed, then scooped his blue pipe off of the floor. He sat at the workbench with the blue pipe in hand, as he took another hit from the less-blue pipe. KFFFFFT. Setting both pipes aside, he grabbed a lead-free-lead pen. To the list of shit-to-do, he added: Get Giant Rat Trap Or Medium Raccoon Trap. He tapped the pencil against his nearly-average-size tusk. He added: Or Monkey Repellant. And below that: Throwin Rocks. “Pfff.” He crossed off Throwin Rocks.