By the time Nikola was allowed to go and bring the gnomes, the sun had already set.
The little 50-centimeter-tall creatures were hiding in their wagons, a blanket over each one. There was a figurine of a cackling witch right in the middle of the wagon circle.
If the gnomes really thought that they could force people to leave them be like this, Nikola thought they were small and naive.
But as soon as he neared the cackling witch statue, it began to glow.
The witch ended up being from flesh and blood!
Nikola backed away slowly.
"No! Don't eat him! He is one of ours!" A squeaky voice came from one of the wagons.
The witch turned into a wooden figurine once more.
"So," the gnome chief said, as he took the blanket hiding him and his 50-member large family from view. "How did it go?"
"What is with the figurine?" Nikola was now a very well-established merchant. He could recognize something he could sell as premium ware when he saw it.
The gnomes regarded him with a bit of mistrust, but then they nodded as one.
"We are small, as you can clearly see," the chief gnome, Paulo, told him, as he pointed at the figurine. "But that doesn't mean that we can't defend ourselves. We have lived under the dragon for the past 2 years. We have been draining it of mana for the past year. So, we now can use dragon magic to bring things to life!"
"It was a very mean thing that you did, killing our dragon," a small gnome grandma said. "I was just in the process of knitting him socks, you know? For the winter. Now, what am I supposed to do with these?"
She pointed at the blanket, which had been covering their wagon. Nikola finally realized it was actually one big sock.
He touched it.
It was very soft.
"You can use the yarn for something else?" Nikola suggested. He didn't want to talk about this right then. He wanted to bring the conversation to better and greener pastures.
Namely, animated garden ornaments!
"We know what you are thinking, you capitalist pig!" One of the gnomes, who had on a tracksuit, instead of the normal gnomic clothes, yelled, drinking a bit from a bottle with a potato on the sticker. "You wish to use us for everything we have! Not give us peace! Refuse us our rights as honest and working people!"
Which was all true, Nikola had to admit. That didn't mean that the gnomes' lives were not on the line.
"Look," Nikola began, as he sat by the wagon. The witch turned into a witch again and took out a bottle with something from her pocket.
Nikola took it.
It had a potato on the sticker.
"Thanks," Nikola said, as the witch winked at him and turned back to her former wooden existence.
Nikola opened the bottle, sniffed it, realized it was vodka, and then drank some of it.
Only to have to clop himself on the chest soon after.
"Do you make this," He waved the bottle during his coughing fit. "Yourselves?"
"Yes," the gnome in the tracksuit told him. "And it wasn't easy, you know? We had a tough choice before us: fries… or firewater."
"It is always tough when you want to make yourself some casserole, but end up needing the potatoes for vodka," the gnome chief told Nikola solemnly.
"It is a tragedy," the old grandma confirmed.
"This is the best vodka I have ever drunk!"
The gnomes were a gold mine. Nikola knew that they should be treated as such.
He smiled.
It was the smile of someone who knew that what they were doing was underhanded but was going to do it anyway.
"How about this? You get the farms; I get the figurines and the vodka? It is goblins we are talking about. They will protect you! Besides, there is enough of the dragon meat to go around! You can eat your fill!"
"And what will you do, world traveler?" The gnome in the tracksuit asked, as he took another swig from his bottle. "Go and kill more dragons?"
"Yes!"
Nikola had no idea how this proclamation was going to place him in a lot of trouble. He was feeling warm from the vodka. His stomach was digesting not just any meat, but a dragon's meat.
Life was good.
For now.
****
The gnomes were in their new mud huts. The latrines were still being dug, but the gnomes had already started making outdoor toilets, with the hopes that they would be able to get a sewer system set up soon.
Nikola took off in the early morning with 5 wooden figurines, all gnomes and meant for gardens, and 100 bottles of vodka.
His brain was swimming with ways to make the gnomes brew more vodka.
For that, of course, they would need more potatoes.
Nikola was just about to enter Big Capybara, when it hit him.
He could make rakija!
Get some wooden figurines, have the fruit ferment, and end up with a trade that was entirely his!
No more Goglina asking him if his skin was oily in an attempt to figure out if his bone marrow was going to be good for her dehydrated hair.
No more Grog looking him in the eyes as he ate a whole haunch of something that probably had bigger dreams than to end up eaten by a goblin.
The world traveler went to the Change Office, dumped his loot there, got the money that the goblins were letting him keep, and then headed to the market.
Soon, the entirety of Big Capybara would be faced with the same problem as the gnomes.
But unlike the gnomes, they were not going to be given a chance to keep the fruit for eating.
Nikola had made more than one batch of rakija in his lifetime.
He had to.
After all, the rakija in the shops was expensive and made from chemical compounds rather than fermented plums or grapes.
When even the last of the fruit was placed in barrels to ferment, Nikola went about procuring the proper containers for the brewing.
Only to see him by the smith.
Gorgeous red curls, check. Lovely green eyes, check.
Flirting with the smith.
Unfortunately… also check.