Dance of the Loot Goblin
Gareth slumped over the counter of the video rental store and played with a Kinder egg toy while his girlfriend, Fran, was stocking shelves. It was 4PM on a Friday night and families were coming in after school and renting films like ‘Ferngully’ and ‘The Land Before Time III’, the usual sort of shit that kept kids quiet on tumultuous weekends.
Gareth let them come in, as a blur of indiscriminate, tired adult faces, smiling wanly as they the dropped brain rot to rent. That was until one family came in, the child with them had a Gameboy Advance with a cartridge that had the ‘GOBLINS’ logo emblazoned on it.
Before Gareth could say anything, Fran had already made a beeline towards the little person, dumping her stack of VHS cases as she did so.
“Hey,” she crouched down next the kid, a smile spreading across her face. “What are you playing?”
“Goblins!” The kid beamed back.
“What level’re you on?”
“I’ve got to the castle.” The kid continued to be excited that an adult was interested in what they were doing.
Fran’s expression broke, stood up and turned on the surprised pre-teen. She looked at Gareth, scowling, and went back to the pile of boxes. Gareth rented the family a tattered copy of ‘Hook’ and then waited for Fran to return the desk to hear what she was going to say, even though he knew the beats of it already. She finished restocking the porn section (old guys always rented on week nights other than Friday) and returned to the counter, her face more neutral than before. She didn’t say anything, so Gareth started the conversation:
“So, what were you expecting?”
“The kid hasn’t even finished the castle, that’s the second area of the game!” She snapped, she was scowling, but her mouth was turned up meaning she was only a little pissed off.
“What were you going to do force it to trade with you for all its rare stuff, right in front of its parents?”
She looked at him with a sly look on her face, he could see her brain ticking over how to respond.
“First off, ‘it’? That is a bit dehumanising don’t you think?”
Gareth shrugged.
“Secondly, she wouldn’t’ve needed it, not in the same way I do.” She paused, and turned to look him straight in the eyes, that caused him to turn away.
“Thirdly, it’s not like her parents would have known a goddamned thing about GOBLINS.”
Gareth turned back to try and hold her stare, making it look like he really didn’t care, or at least make it seem like he didn’t care.
“What?” She bounced off of him.
“Nothing, it’s just that-“ He hesitated.
“Just that, what?” She poked him playfully, he laughed and pushed her back.
“Don’t worry about it.” He said mussing her bob cut, she deflected his hand after the second rub. She shot him a scowl that immediately softened.
“Just you wait until tomorrow.” She said.
***
GOBLINS was the current fluke craze made by an unheard-of developer. A rip-off of Nintendo’s Pokémon that was all about 3 creatures (goblins) battling 3 others. The style was cartoon-grotesque, that with the handheld’s limited presentation did a good job of making the characters look like the close-ups from a Ren and Stimpy cartoon, all mutated and hairy with emphasis on nasal and ear hair. The game would have been passed off as nothing if it weren’t for what it did. Coming with a unique cartridge with an ethernet port in the top of it, players could connect to other players by using two cables to plug directly into a dial-up modem and connecting to the game’s website. If it was purely through connection the website would simulate the fight, if the players were face-to-face the game was directly controlled by them.
The developers Toys Headquarters for Dave were not prepared for the game’s success, with over 3 million units sold, through 7 reissues. Local tournaments started erupting naturally. People wanted to figure out who was truly the best and going head-on was the only way to prove who was best because auto-resolve battles failed to understand the intricacies of combat.
It wasn’t just the fighting between players that was unique, but also trading. At first it seemed like an afterthought, but players realised that they could optimise their goblins and beat other players over the world wide web. There was a demand for the best goblins and abilities — and the competition became fierce to optimise their combinations. That is when the developers started selling sealed cards with unique goblins and upgrades in them that were redeemed through codes, the trick was that no one knew what they were going to get before they opened the sealed collections. It was simple but addictive, like collecting stickers but the stickers meant something more tangible to a collection, seeing a shiny orange-laminated card with the words ‘ULTRA RARE’ never failed to cause a rush in Gareth.
More intoxicating was that the cards couldn’t be used properly until the cartridge was connected to the world wide web and once connected those cards became unique to that player’s cartridge. Most normal cards could be earned through natural play but some of the higher-level cards took hundreds of hours, and some of the UNIQUE cards could only be unlocked through buying the packs or trading with others.
After closing the video store, Fran and Gareth went to the local newsagents and bought 4 packs of 5 cards. Fran found two platinum embossed PRESERVED cards, something that was introduced in the latest iteration and that was a step down from UNIQUE.
Fran rushed them home and punched in the codes — they generated some new armour that was ‘perfect’ for one of her goblins, and a mutation that caused one of her crew to grow a perfectly deformed extra arm that added a +2(!) to all its attacks.
They got home and Gareth went to sleep in the bed they shared, while Fran confirmed and uploaded her earnings. He drifted off to the sound of the modem buzzing then Fran clacking on the keyboard.
He started to dream about stats, how earth goblins are weak to fire goblins, fire goblins weak to water goblins and so forth, his mind started to drift away from GOBLINS and as that happened, he felt a gentle shaking and his name being whispered. As if coming out of roaring tunnel he opened his eyes to find Fran inches from his face.
“Oh good, you’re awake.” She smiled.
“What is going on?” He said slowly, and groggily.
“Can I borrow your credit card?”
“What, why?”
“This guy has an armour set I want, and he wants 5 pounds for it.”
With a groan, Gareth slid out of bed and started to look for his wallet.
“I’m a bit overdrawn, but like, yeah, sure.” He mumbled, then paused. “Wait, you can’t just buy armour sets.”
“Yeah, I don’t have anything to trade with him that he wants, so I am chucking him money online.”
Gareth handed her his card and then went back to bed and dreamt about new skins for his goblins.
***
They took the train up to London. Fran was completely focused on her teams of goblins, what their strengths and weaknesses were, what weapons best synergised with what armour etc. She was still poring over them as that sat in the second-class cabin at the front of the train.
Instead, Gareth just listened to the clacking of the train on the tracks, he found the rhythmic sound soothing, like it was a metronome keeping time to an unknown song. He shuffled his head so that it leaned against the window and allowed the vibrations to rock his skull.
“Why do you do that?” Fran asked him. “Surely it’s annoying.”
“No, I told you, it calms me.”
“Weirdo,” she shot him a scowl that turned into a smile. “I still don’t believe you.”
“What is your best build looking like?”
She glanced back down at her handheld:
“I’ve got a good Fire, Poison and Air team. I can combo into each of these pretty easily but there are problems like the fact that Water goblins have advantages over two of them; I could add a disfigurement to my Air goblin-
***
They got off at Victoria station and made their way to the central square, they got the usual London greeting, in that 3 people bumped into them with no comment before they’d even got to the ticket stall. They then waited for their friend Joshua to show up. After 10 minutes of waiting, Gareth called him on his mobile, Joshua answered, and Gareth could tell he had only just woken up.
“So, are you on your way?”
“Huh?” Joshua muttered.
“Are you on your way to meet us at Victoria station?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, I’m on my way.” Joshua said in a way that sounded uncertain, Gareth could hear the sound of a toilet flushing.
Gareth looked at Fran, who was fidgeting already.
“He’s already on his way.” Gareth lied.
They waited 50 minutes and Gareth could sense Fran’s mounting impatience. To his relief Joshua emerged from the crowd of commuters, looking like a homeless goth: Jet black spikey hair, a Bauhaus T-shirt, and a long, tatty grey coat with a ‘Fields of Nephilim’ patch on one shoulder. He walked with an uncertain step as if he was lost (which he might be) his wide frame not commanding space it required as people brushed into him, causing him to recoil a little with each nudge. His head was swinging from side to side, scanning the crowd but not seeing his friends. Gareth waved and Joshua caught the movement, his eyes immediately lit up and he made his clumsy way towards them. As he got closer, Gareth could see that his buddy’s pupils were tiny pinholes.
“Hey guys!” He enthused, immediately fussing with his hair as he listed from foot to foot.
“What time do you call this?” Fran asked irritably.
Joshua shrugged and tried to look innocent.
“We need to get there soon or else the easy pickings will be gone.” Fran gently chided.
“Well, why are we waiting here then?” He shot back.
“We were waiting for you.” Fran shot back.
“Well I’m here now.”
Fran shot a stare at him, he wiggled his head comically and widened his eyes in a ‘What?’
“I am not arguing with an idiot.” Fran snapped, but her face had already broken into a smile. “Let’s go.”
***
The venue was a cavernous arena, that allowed noise to be amplified and then reflected down to the floor that seemed to crush Gareth as he walked in. There was a security line where they exchanged tickets for wrist bands and then they were in. The venue was already packed with hordes of people, there were a few cosplayers dressed up as famous goblins. Huge banners hung from the ceiling reminding everyone of the big prizes available. Anyone competing that secured those items would be known online and, in some respects, be feared by players that saw them. Gareth looked up at them, every sign reminded the audience of why they were there.
Still looking up, Gareth heard Fran swear.
“This is, possibly, worse than the time I got really wasted and went to that B*Witched concert.” Joshua said.
Gareth looked at Fran, and she was positively beaming with satisfaction. He looked out on the crowds and it registered more clearly what he was looking at. Children, almost none of the competitors were even in puberty, the only adults apart from Gareth, Fran, Joshua and the event hosts, were parents of the other competitors. Gareth looked back at Fran, she had the widest, wickedest grin, he almost couldn’t believe how many teeth were on display.
“This is like taking candy from a baby.” She said.
“Does anyone else feel like a paedophile?” Joshua asked.
“A little.” Gareth nodded. A parent walking past the three of them overheard the exchange and glowered at them.
“Let’s not waste time boys.” Fran said. “Let’s split up and meet for lunch at the pub.”
Gareth made his way through the clusters of parents watching over their offspring engaged in digital warfare. Tentatively, nodding to a few adults that looked suspiciously at him.
He took a seat opposite a kid that couldn’t have been older than ten years-old. He had a bowl cut, coke-bottle glasses that had strings attached to them, dangling down by his shoulders. His T-shirt had a nerd reference on it, Gareth couldn’t see but he was almost willing to bet that the child was wearing khakis like his dad that was hovering over him. The dad had the same haircut, a T-shirt with some first-person shooter logo, and the same glasses as his son. The reason Gareth sat down was mainly because the dad looked like he understood what this meant to his son, and that Gareth wasn’t a sex offender, but a fellow game enthusiast.
Gareth and the kid hooked up their handhelds and started their match. The kid launched his first attack and demolished one of Gareth’s goblins. Gareth felt paralysed, he wasn’t as devout a player as Fran but through osmosis he had ended up playing over 200 hours of GOBLINS, levelling and grooming his trio of goblins to what he thought was competent.
He stared at the kid, the youngling returned the look with a nervous look that flitted between pride and discomfort.
The father saw the move and clamped a hand down on his son’s shoulder.
“Excellent move!” He congratulated.
His son replied in an awkward, self-deprecating, but also slightly condescending to his parent:
“Dad, I can only do that once per fight, obviously”
I should fucking hope so, Gareth thought. He’d never seen that move previously and was under the impression that only a few players could even perform it.
Within 3 turns of trading attacks, Gareth’s team was dead. Spaced out, Gareth didn’t know what to do except accept his defeat. One of the event’s officiators checked both of their devices and handed a token to Gareth’s opponent. He sat there in half-shock.
The father guided his son away and the kid was replaced by a girl. She was clearly a teenager, her skin was ravaged by acne, her back straight but neck inclined towards her handheld, her drooping head making it so that she was unable to maintain eye contact.
Gareth played her for less than 10 minutes and his 3-goblin team was destroyed. It actually took more time to connect the devices
It continued that way for round-after-round, Gareth managed to win 2 games and even then, they were closely fought and not decisive victories, unlike his defeats, where he felt like his teams got massacred.
Physically shaken Gareth exited the venue and headed to the pub — a bland, chain bar with ‘hand drawn’ signs that were clearly printed out and shipped to their venues. Joshua was already in there playing with a tall glass of clear sparkling liquid.
“Hey.” Joshua smiled, as Gareth sat down next to him with a pint.
“How did you do?”
“I think I won one.”
“One?”
“Yeah, I am not sure.”
“Well, do you have a token or not?”
“Token?”
“You get a token for winning.”
“Fuuuck, is that what that was?” Joshua looked crestfallen. “I mean, it makes sense, now that I think about it.”
Gareth started laughing, Joshua looked a bit embarrassed and then joined him.
“These kids are so good; how’d they get so good?” Gareth grumbled.
“Most of them haven’t discovered masturbation yet.” Joshua concluded. “They can put a lot of energy into these things.”
“Not sure how comfortable I am talking about kids and masturbation.”
“That’s not what I meant-
Joshua stopped talking and started fiddling with his hair, Gareth looked over his shoulder and saw Fran. He had to pause for a second when he saw her face. Fran had a stormy look that he recognised, it was like a bad day at the video store but multiplied by a thousand. He quickly turned back to his drink.
A few minutes later she sat down next to him with a decisive thump on the bench next to him. Gareth cast a glance at her and saw that, if anything, her mood was escalating.
The table was silent for what felt like minutes.
“So, Fran.” Joshua started tentatively. “Not going well?”
Fran just exploded:
“Those little bastards have to be cheating!” She fumed. “I’ve spent months, months, fucking months on my teams, it is impossible they aren’t cheating.”
Gareth gave her look, that he hoped said really?
She took a long chug of her drink and then glanced at them both.
“They’re probably not cheating.” She conceded. “They’re still little bastards.”
“Well, actually.” Joshua replied. “They aren’t bastards because most of them are born in-
“Oh shush.” Fran retorted.
“How many games did you win?” Gareth asked.
“Eight-
“Eight is good.” Gareth said hastily.
“Yeah, but I can’t count how many games I lost. Little bastards.” Fran drank more beer. “They have to be cheating. Or, I don’t know…” She trailed off and just drank more beer.
They ordered the kind of plastic pub grub that was prevalent in that kind of chain and forked high starch chips glumly.
“We might have a bit more luck in the afternoon.” Joshua offered helpfully. “All the really good kids probably already got their rewards and have left.”
Gareth crunched down on some sterile lettuce and shrugged in agreement. Fran didn’t even seem to acknowledge the statement and instead stared into reheated minestrone soup like it might contain a strategy to winning.
Joshua disappeared into the toilets just before they paid up and came back with a spring in his step and a series of nervous twitches. Gareth looked at him and half smiled.
“What? What?” Joshua said defensively.
“Nothing, it is just funny is all.”
They walked back the venue to find even busier than before. There were now people, dressed as famous goblins, mingling with the parents and kids. A couple had drawn small crowds of fans and were posing for photos with beaming children.
The three split up to find spots and Gareth took a deep breath as he sat down opposite his newest opponent. He didn’t even register what they looked like as he went on a 5-game losing streak before eking out a close-fought victory. He only remembered the kid because he had coke-bottle glasses and had said ‘that was bullshit when he lost.
Gareth spent over an hour getting destroyed over and over. He had even taken a time out to realign his team and tweak their gear and still it made no difference. Joshua came and found him not soon after, a look of dejection written across his face, his body jerking as if he had ants crawling across his body.
“Hey dude, I think I’m done. Word got around and I just had kids queuing up to play me, some of them multiple times. They even started calling me ‘Feeder’ to my face, ’cause I was feeding them tokens. Damn when did kids get so cruel?” He blurted out.
“Yeah, I’m not having much luck.” Gareth admitted.
He ended his game with another crushing defeat. That didn’t bother him as much as the kids’ attitudes. They were bad winners, there was no ‘good game’ (unless it was sarcastic) or ‘well played’, just quiet determination followed by a smirk, some niggling comment, or outright gloating.
Deciding that he was done, Gareth joined Joshua in looking for Fran. It took a while to find her but when they did, she was playing and the look on her face made Gareth’s heart sink. If she had looked angry at the pub it was now a molten fury that he had never seen before.
She was playing a chubby, brown-haired kid, who had dimples and a cheeky grin. His mother was one of those people that looked like they existed in a permanent state of worry and appeared to not stand, but hover over her son.
Gareth didn’t need to see the either screen to know that Fran was losing. Gareth leaned in to talk:
“Hey, we are probably-
“In a minute.” Fran cut him off.
The battle lasted longer than anyone expected, Fran pulled out a couple of decent moves, but with a little cackle the kid ended her. Fran put her Gameboy down and glowered in his direction. Immune to the death stare, as only kids can be, her opponent got up on his chair and started doing a victory dance as an official verified the victory and placed a token on the kid’s pile.
“I’m the winner. I AM THE WINNER.” The kid started chanting as he continued to do a little jiggle on his chair. “You’re the loser, I’m the winner!”
If the mother hadn’t chosen that point to intervene, Gareth wouldn’t have been surprised if Fran decided to murder her underage opponent. To the parent’s credit she took her child by the wrist and yanked him off the chair and started to scold him on his manners, even sparing a moment to glance apologetically in their direction.
Fran hadn’t moved from her seat and was just staring at the two of them.
“How many tokens do you have?” Fran said in a scarily neutral tone.
“Three.” Gareth replied.
“Perfect.”
It was then that Gareth saw what was happening. Fran wasn’t looking at the mother in the middle of having a discussion with her son. She was looking at the stack of unattended tokens on the table in front of her.
“Look, Fran, how many do you have?” Gareth asked.
“Eleven.”
“Just take mine and we are done.”
Fran did not reply.
The conversation escalated between the family unit, with the kid clearly disagreeing with his mother and then it happened, the mother, out of embarrassment turned to block their view of the conversation, so that she could exchange sterner words. She also blocked her son’s view of the table.
Fran leaned across the table snatched the pile of tokens and returned to her seated position as if nothing happened. It was so quick that Gareth barely had time to register it.
Gareth looked to Joshua for some kind of support. Joshua wasn’t even looking at what had transpired, instead he was fussing with his hair and gazing out the event.
Fran got up and started to walk away. Gareth glanced at her opponent and his mother, they were still deep in discussion.
He broke into a hurried walk after her.
“Fran, Fran.” He called out.
She made a beeline for the Token cashing-in booth and took her place to wait behind two happy kids and their guardians.
“Fran.” Gareth repeated. She turned:
“What?”
“Are you really going to do this?” He asked, half laughing.
She started to smile, it was sort of playful, but Gareth recognised it as the same expression she had used with the kid in the video-store.
“Can I have your tokens too?”
“Fran, like, no.”
“Why, what’re you going to do with them?”
“I don’t know, it is just that.” Gareth hesitated.
“Just that what?”
“This is wrong.”
“I know I shouldn’t get involved in this.” Joshua interjected. “But that kid was being a bit of a dick.”
All three of them looked back across the open space and spotted the mother practically dragging her son across the arena, as the boy was screaming, tears streaming down his face.
“Can I have your tokens, or not?” Fran asked.
Gareth handed them to her. Fran then turned back to the officiator and gave them 25 tokens and her device. As they installed the skin and unique goblin she turned back to Gareth.
“Fuck it, might teach them a lesson in manners”
