Hugh never saw it coming
Footsteps rumbled through the tunnels. Not his for once. His own boots were no match for the stampede of troll feet ahead of him. It was supposed to be a routine response drill. Service tunnels like these were the only routes big enough for the trolls to pass through in orderly fashion. These paths were nothing like the halls above or the vaults below. They were simple hollowed-out tunnels of grime and dirt. Wobbly cobblestones had not been serviced in decades and offered little sturdy footing underneath them. With the kind of torture these floors withstood under troll weight, Hugh could quickly figure out the maths behind the decision to just not… bother.
In front of him ran Grub. An older troll, with a large bump for a back. His knees had started to sag inwards with old age, which had him lagging behind the others. Hugh was supposed to keep him in line. Make him keep up. But besides attempting to carry the old bag of bones, there was little he could muster in assistance.
"Give 'em a little crack o' the whip, Lowe!" A goblin sputtered in aggravation as he almost had to skip to keep up with his long-legged subordinates. Hugh did not hesitate. Not by casting any spell to chastise the troll. But by speeding up his own pace and catching up with Grub. As soon as his eyes met up with his gaze, the old troll grumbled in acknowledgement. He was already aware of the situation. Grub was already going all out. Beads of sweat rolled off his forehead and left behind puddles large enough to drown a small mouse in. Hugh noticed Grub's eyes rolling behind his eyelids. He was not going to last till the end of this exercise.
Luckily, they reached the end of the tunnel. Or so Hugh thought. At the point when he and Grub were meant to pass the threshold, a large bronze bell that hung overhead the plaza up ahead got hit by a stray stunning spell. The pealing echoed through the chamber and caused everyone present to cover their ears, acting as burglars and trainee security alike. Grub, however, lost his mind. With a bellowing scream, the old troll lost all composure and started tumbling forward. His arms were flailing wildly in the air, and Hugh's first instinct was to try to grab him from behind and calm him down. He forgot that in this scenario, he would be the small one, however.
With a single loose cannon for a fist, the part-giant was pummeled into the air. Several guards and goblins' eyes looked up in amazement as the nine-foot trainee flew overhead and rammed into the swinging bell, bringing both of them crashing down on the small courtyard that was to be today's training grounds. As the bell chimed its last note, the sound echoed further into the unconscious half-giant's head.
"Get yourself up. You are too damn heavy for me!"
The half-giant's eyes flickered against the blinding light. Someone's wand was testing his pupillary responses. Bromley's old wrinkled face almost pressed against his as the old coot seemed to wrestle with Hugh's arm in some vain attempt to get him up. "I'm, I'm fine Brom." Hugh said, straining himself to sit upwards. Grub lay resting on the floor in front of him. Half a dozen wands that were pointed at him told Hugh enough of what had happened. Magrin had appeared too. After signing some paper slip of another goblin, he made his hobbling way towards Hugh.
"What's going to happen to him now, sir?" Hugh asked with a clear sign of worry.
Magrin's eyebrows furrowed in surprise before responding in his usual rasping voice.
"Grub's old." He said as a matter of fact. "Grub's done." He clarified soon after.
Hugh needed no further explanation than that. He knew Grub would have to be relocated to some Ministry-surveilled troll tribe in the mountains. The paper Magrin signed were his release papers. The goblin passed another slip to Hugh.
"And you're done for the week." He growled.
"I'm not taking no for an answer. The last thing I need is your rich grandpa hanging over me with threats and budget-cuts for not taking care of you. Get some rest, we'll see you on Monday."
Not long after, Hugh heard the bank doors lock behind him as he stood under the open sky of Diagon Alley. Despite today's events, it was that one memory he could not shake. There was no explaining it. He just had this sense of urgency towards it. Looking at the paper slip in his hands, he realized nothing was stopping him from checking out the place. Perhaps if he retraced his steps, he could remember more of it? Had he left Meenauh to her fate? Why would he have forgotten about such an act of failure? The questions piled up in his travels back home. He would have to find transport to Godric's Hollow.
---
The next Monday, though, Hugh was met with yet another curious sight. The entire bank seemed to be way more occupied with guardsmen at the front. A mix of the day and night shifts stood gathered by the entrance to the lower levels. Carts were lining up, and clients were told there was to be no access given to anyone who was not an employee. Hugh flashed his security badge to an unfamiliar face at the head-goblin's desk, and he was allowed to join the large group of guardsmen. Pushing through, he was eventually met with Magrin. The old goblin seemed to be in a heated discussion with the head-banker.
The half-giant kept a respectable distance but made sure Magrin had noticed his arrival. Soon after, the goblin security chief waddled away from his furious colleague and waved Hugh over. "How you doin', kid? Still got all limbs? Yeah? We're gonna really need those two clubs of yours today."
Hugh had never seen the old goblin so weary. As Magrin sighed, he looked more like a rough sack of potatoes than the imposing figure of the old guard he usually represented. "Remember Grub from last week?" He asked rhetorically. By now, he was very aware of Hugh's affinity towards troll-kind.
"Well, since his removal last Friday, we've been getting more incidents with those trolls." He explained. "Disciplinary actions have been necessary to keep them in check and keep them from rebelling too much. But now..." His black eyes rolled up to look at Hugh. "They've gone on strike."
His eyebrows immediately furrowed at the thought. Hugh had never heard of trolls going on strike. They were usually too dumb for any sort of coherent action. A strike required a thought-out plan of action, perhaps even demands. He could understand uncontrollable lashes of anger but not actual tactics for shutting down the Gringotts pipelines. Where was this all coming from?
Magrin had already raised both hands to stop Hugh in his tracks of thought. The old goblin took his time to carefully explain the past events and current plans. Apparently, the troll strike had been orchestrated by one troll in particular. An older male who went by Dench. Hugh had heard of him before and recalled several guards commenting on a smarter troll who patrolled the western levels. A troll smart enough to beat the guards in their games and cost them a few bets.
So now the time had come for Dench to make his move. Hugh was able to gather that the trolls had taken up residence on the third level near a crossroads of cart tracks. It allowed them to essentially bottleneck the entire vault network if they managed to cover the eastern approach from three additional hallways. From the sound of it, they had succeeded. One stairwell had been collapsed, and another barricaded with a spiked wall of bronze sconces. The third offered the trolls the advantage of higher ground, so they were able to bombard anyone who tried to enter with large boulders.
Hugh pondered for a while as he stood behind Magrin, studying the underground maps (it took several layered maps to fully encompass the extraordinary networks of Gringotts' caverns). There was an idea forming in his head, but he did not really see an opening for him to jump on that wagon yet. He tried to remember Magrin's lessons of tactics and patience within guard work.
Hours later, Hugh marched downwards through narrow passages that had been left deserted in favour of more open and more easily travelled roads. Around fifty or so guardsmen had come down with him, with Magrin and his lieutenants at the head of it all. Since there really was only one path left open. Magrin had decided that the main bulk of their forces ought to go down the third gate, which was open for troll ordinance. At the same time, he sent smaller teams to the other two gates to clear both the rubble and sconce spikes. A fourth and final team consisted of their best spell-slingers who were going to make a rapid approach by cart.
---
Things did not go according to plan.
Magrin was yelling at the top of his lungs in all sorts of directions to multiple guards at once. Boulder after boulder came raining down on them, from smaller pebbles the size of Hugh's hand to large rocks twice the size of his entire body. By now, what remained of the fifty guardsmen was scattered across the cave entrance and was hugging the walls to try to stay out of the firing line. No wizard was left enough time to cast and aim at the trolls on the top of the serpentine stairwell ahead of them.
They had not heard anything from the other teams, though they did hear another tunnel collapse somewhere to the north, and they all witnessed the cart team being blocked and pulled from the rails. Moments later, the cart had been thrown down at the main force along with an extra couple of boulders. No guardsmen were still in the cart; no one knew what had happened to them.
This kept on for a while, with the exit to the upper levels eventually starting to be cut off and Magrin ordering a retreat. Wizards and goblins tried to make their way back to the ever-shrinking entrance. Hugh looked back up at the trolls. His eyes locked on one troll in particular. A tall, more slender figure stood watching in silence. His arms were crossed behind his back. His silhouette definitely belonged to a troll, but Hugh had never seen one so composed.
That had to be him. The troll behind all this. Without hesitation, Hugh took this as his opening, finally revealing itself. "DENCH!" The half-giant roared over the noise of dozens of wizards and goblins running away. He thought he could hear Magrin calling after him, but he decided to throw it off as his own mind convincing him Magrin cared at all about him. With large leaps and falls, the half-giant used his length to try to cross the desolation of rubble in front of him. He utilized a difficult pattern of spells to try and confuse some of the trolls. If he made it more work for them to figure out his approach, Dench would need to occupy himself with directing them where to throw their rocks.
For an hour long, Hugh cast shield charms away from him to reveal a false position of himself. He lit up sconces on far-away walls and even physically threw some rubble back towards the trolls. On several occasions, he had to force himself to stop casting and simply dive into the nearest ditch just to not get hurt. He made it to the final steps, where he was met with two larger trolls set up as guardsmen. He disarmed the first with his wand, ducked the second's swing, and rammed into his back to push him down the stairs.
Bleeding from the side of his head and feeling a stabbing pain in his sides, the young guard finally made it to the top. He picked up the first guard troll's club and raised it above his head. Panting heavily, he wanted to scream at them. But felt the effort of doing so would take him out in one breath. A shade to his right emerged and took the club from his hands. Hugh was embarrassed by how quickly he lost his weapon despite being exhausted.
"Yu'z da Ew-fello?" Hugh looked up in surprise. He had been able to converse with trolls before. He had taken the time to learn their grunts and roars. But never had he heard one of them try to speak his language and come so close. The half-giant stared in surprise as the older troll smiled a big, toothy grin. Several in the back had fallen out over the years. Hugh slowly nodded his head, upon which the troll pointed to a pair of chairs on the side.
Hugh shuffled over and took a seat. An old card game from a couple of guards was still splayed out on the table. It was as if they were still expected to come back any second now. Dench grabbed his seat and placed it to the side; instead, he opted to sit on the floor to be somewhat at eye level with his opponent. Hugh swallowed hard and stared in silence at the smiling face. The troll felt so... intelligent. He knew he should not underestimate Dench during the coming conversation. "Zo..." The troll smiled. "Yu ere to talk?"
"Da odder troll tell me, yu laik talk with uz." As the longer sentence poured out, Hugh now did hear the thick accent of a being that barely grasped the language. Hugh looked over to the other trolls who had now gathered around them. He nodded again, still taking his time to catch his breath and come to his senses. The adrenaline was still pumping from when he had grabbed the club before. "I laik dat. Yu 'kay hearin' me talk?"
The young guard took that for a request to hear the troll's demands. He nodded a third time, this time sitting up straight to try and physically show he was paying attention. For minutes on end, the troll had spoken slowly and very unintelligibly. Hugh devised that it all boiled down to three things. Food, wages, and contact with a colony up north in the Scandinavian mountains. While they had disliked Grub being fired from his position, they understood he had grown too old for serving Gringotts. What they did not like was that there had been no news from this troll colony. No one wanted to be shipped off somewhere that offered no news on the current inhabitants. Hugh could get behind that reasoning. Everyone ought to be given respect and dignity.
"What about the wages?" He finally asked. "Why would you like to buy anything?"
"Troll laik shiny dings too." Dench explained. "Troll wan to giff gold for fancy stuff, laik Ew jacket" He said as he pointed to Hugh's coat. Hugh, or rather, Ew as the trolls now called him, looked to this side at his ripped collar and pulled it a bit straighter. "I guess we all want nicer things in life."
For the remainder of the day, Hugh convinced Dench to let him go back down and meet with Magrin. Whom he eventually persuaded to join him and meet with the troll leader. Demands were heard and mostly agreed upon before the trolls were eventually ordered to clear the rubble and head back to their quarters. The bigger negotiations took place between Magrin and upper management, who wanted to sack all the rebellious trolls and look into other means of security for their vaults. Magrin succeeded in getting them to understand that these trolls had mostly all been trained for years and would be a loss of investment if let go. The thought of losing more money shut down all complaints from the goblins, who still held final say in the matter.
---
"Time for you to take the rest of the day off, kid." Magrin told Hugh as they walked off towards the main hall. "I just got back. Getting tired of watching over upstart half-giants?" Hugh laughed.
"Maybe." Magrin grinned with an appreciative chuckle. "But I am liking what I see." As Hugh made his way back to the bank's entrance, he could feel Magrin staring him down all the way to the doors.
In front of him ran Grub. An older troll, with a large bump for a back. His knees had started to sag inwards with old age, which had him lagging behind the others. Hugh was supposed to keep him in line. Make him keep up. But besides attempting to carry the old bag of bones, there was little he could muster in assistance.
"Give 'em a little crack o' the whip, Lowe!" A goblin sputtered in aggravation as he almost had to skip to keep up with his long-legged subordinates. Hugh did not hesitate. Not by casting any spell to chastise the troll. But by speeding up his own pace and catching up with Grub. As soon as his eyes met up with his gaze, the old troll grumbled in acknowledgement. He was already aware of the situation. Grub was already going all out. Beads of sweat rolled off his forehead and left behind puddles large enough to drown a small mouse in. Hugh noticed Grub's eyes rolling behind his eyelids. He was not going to last till the end of this exercise.
Luckily, they reached the end of the tunnel. Or so Hugh thought. At the point when he and Grub were meant to pass the threshold, a large bronze bell that hung overhead the plaza up ahead got hit by a stray stunning spell. The pealing echoed through the chamber and caused everyone present to cover their ears, acting as burglars and trainee security alike. Grub, however, lost his mind. With a bellowing scream, the old troll lost all composure and started tumbling forward. His arms were flailing wildly in the air, and Hugh's first instinct was to try to grab him from behind and calm him down. He forgot that in this scenario, he would be the small one, however.
With a single loose cannon for a fist, the part-giant was pummeled into the air. Several guards and goblins' eyes looked up in amazement as the nine-foot trainee flew overhead and rammed into the swinging bell, bringing both of them crashing down on the small courtyard that was to be today's training grounds. As the bell chimed its last note, the sound echoed further into the unconscious half-giant's head.
"Hugh… Please… " Another voice repeated.He was standing in a square, near a memorial. The church's bell had just finished its last chime, and the final echoes still vibrated through the town's streets. It was a familiar memorial, definitely the famous one in Godric’s Hollow. Hugh had seen it many times now whilst visiting Serena's workshop. Cold air almost froze over his thick-grown sideburns, the village sounds muffled as if behind glass. He looked past his shoulder, then back at the memorial. There was a tug in his chest that drew him away from there. Perhaps back to Serena's?
The memory fast-forwarded; everything was blurred, and the next stop was near a ruined cottage. Perhaps he had once walked past it? There was no noise, though, and it seemed to be a bit out of the way from the village. Ministry-marks covered the place, but they had faded in time. The air grew cold and quiet in there. Inside, things still whirled around as if something had just happened here.
The next tug pulled him inside the building. He was looking into a vertical shaft, but saw only darkness, a pure void. He felt his own arm straining, stretching down the shaft, his hand locked firmly around someone’s wrist. Both their hands were slick with cold sweat. The hand was not just someone's; it was… Meenauh's…
“Hugh… Please…” She exclaimed.
Her fingers slipped, and then Meenauh was cast into darkness.
"Get yourself up. You are too damn heavy for me!"
The half-giant's eyes flickered against the blinding light. Someone's wand was testing his pupillary responses. Bromley's old wrinkled face almost pressed against his as the old coot seemed to wrestle with Hugh's arm in some vain attempt to get him up. "I'm, I'm fine Brom." Hugh said, straining himself to sit upwards. Grub lay resting on the floor in front of him. Half a dozen wands that were pointed at him told Hugh enough of what had happened. Magrin had appeared too. After signing some paper slip of another goblin, he made his hobbling way towards Hugh.
"What's going to happen to him now, sir?" Hugh asked with a clear sign of worry.
Magrin's eyebrows furrowed in surprise before responding in his usual rasping voice.
"Grub's old." He said as a matter of fact. "Grub's done." He clarified soon after.
Hugh needed no further explanation than that. He knew Grub would have to be relocated to some Ministry-surveilled troll tribe in the mountains. The paper Magrin signed were his release papers. The goblin passed another slip to Hugh.
"And you're done for the week." He growled.
"I'm not taking no for an answer. The last thing I need is your rich grandpa hanging over me with threats and budget-cuts for not taking care of you. Get some rest, we'll see you on Monday."
Not long after, Hugh heard the bank doors lock behind him as he stood under the open sky of Diagon Alley. Despite today's events, it was that one memory he could not shake. There was no explaining it. He just had this sense of urgency towards it. Looking at the paper slip in his hands, he realized nothing was stopping him from checking out the place. Perhaps if he retraced his steps, he could remember more of it? Had he left Meenauh to her fate? Why would he have forgotten about such an act of failure? The questions piled up in his travels back home. He would have to find transport to Godric's Hollow.
---
The next Monday, though, Hugh was met with yet another curious sight. The entire bank seemed to be way more occupied with guardsmen at the front. A mix of the day and night shifts stood gathered by the entrance to the lower levels. Carts were lining up, and clients were told there was to be no access given to anyone who was not an employee. Hugh flashed his security badge to an unfamiliar face at the head-goblin's desk, and he was allowed to join the large group of guardsmen. Pushing through, he was eventually met with Magrin. The old goblin seemed to be in a heated discussion with the head-banker.
The half-giant kept a respectable distance but made sure Magrin had noticed his arrival. Soon after, the goblin security chief waddled away from his furious colleague and waved Hugh over. "How you doin', kid? Still got all limbs? Yeah? We're gonna really need those two clubs of yours today."
Hugh had never seen the old goblin so weary. As Magrin sighed, he looked more like a rough sack of potatoes than the imposing figure of the old guard he usually represented. "Remember Grub from last week?" He asked rhetorically. By now, he was very aware of Hugh's affinity towards troll-kind.
"Well, since his removal last Friday, we've been getting more incidents with those trolls." He explained. "Disciplinary actions have been necessary to keep them in check and keep them from rebelling too much. But now..." His black eyes rolled up to look at Hugh. "They've gone on strike."
His eyebrows immediately furrowed at the thought. Hugh had never heard of trolls going on strike. They were usually too dumb for any sort of coherent action. A strike required a thought-out plan of action, perhaps even demands. He could understand uncontrollable lashes of anger but not actual tactics for shutting down the Gringotts pipelines. Where was this all coming from?
Magrin had already raised both hands to stop Hugh in his tracks of thought. The old goblin took his time to carefully explain the past events and current plans. Apparently, the troll strike had been orchestrated by one troll in particular. An older male who went by Dench. Hugh had heard of him before and recalled several guards commenting on a smarter troll who patrolled the western levels. A troll smart enough to beat the guards in their games and cost them a few bets.
So now the time had come for Dench to make his move. Hugh was able to gather that the trolls had taken up residence on the third level near a crossroads of cart tracks. It allowed them to essentially bottleneck the entire vault network if they managed to cover the eastern approach from three additional hallways. From the sound of it, they had succeeded. One stairwell had been collapsed, and another barricaded with a spiked wall of bronze sconces. The third offered the trolls the advantage of higher ground, so they were able to bombard anyone who tried to enter with large boulders.
Hugh pondered for a while as he stood behind Magrin, studying the underground maps (it took several layered maps to fully encompass the extraordinary networks of Gringotts' caverns). There was an idea forming in his head, but he did not really see an opening for him to jump on that wagon yet. He tried to remember Magrin's lessons of tactics and patience within guard work.
Hours later, Hugh marched downwards through narrow passages that had been left deserted in favour of more open and more easily travelled roads. Around fifty or so guardsmen had come down with him, with Magrin and his lieutenants at the head of it all. Since there really was only one path left open. Magrin had decided that the main bulk of their forces ought to go down the third gate, which was open for troll ordinance. At the same time, he sent smaller teams to the other two gates to clear both the rubble and sconce spikes. A fourth and final team consisted of their best spell-slingers who were going to make a rapid approach by cart.
---
Things did not go according to plan.
Magrin was yelling at the top of his lungs in all sorts of directions to multiple guards at once. Boulder after boulder came raining down on them, from smaller pebbles the size of Hugh's hand to large rocks twice the size of his entire body. By now, what remained of the fifty guardsmen was scattered across the cave entrance and was hugging the walls to try to stay out of the firing line. No wizard was left enough time to cast and aim at the trolls on the top of the serpentine stairwell ahead of them.
They had not heard anything from the other teams, though they did hear another tunnel collapse somewhere to the north, and they all witnessed the cart team being blocked and pulled from the rails. Moments later, the cart had been thrown down at the main force along with an extra couple of boulders. No guardsmen were still in the cart; no one knew what had happened to them.
This kept on for a while, with the exit to the upper levels eventually starting to be cut off and Magrin ordering a retreat. Wizards and goblins tried to make their way back to the ever-shrinking entrance. Hugh looked back up at the trolls. His eyes locked on one troll in particular. A tall, more slender figure stood watching in silence. His arms were crossed behind his back. His silhouette definitely belonged to a troll, but Hugh had never seen one so composed.
That had to be him. The troll behind all this. Without hesitation, Hugh took this as his opening, finally revealing itself. "DENCH!" The half-giant roared over the noise of dozens of wizards and goblins running away. He thought he could hear Magrin calling after him, but he decided to throw it off as his own mind convincing him Magrin cared at all about him. With large leaps and falls, the half-giant used his length to try to cross the desolation of rubble in front of him. He utilized a difficult pattern of spells to try and confuse some of the trolls. If he made it more work for them to figure out his approach, Dench would need to occupy himself with directing them where to throw their rocks.
For an hour long, Hugh cast shield charms away from him to reveal a false position of himself. He lit up sconces on far-away walls and even physically threw some rubble back towards the trolls. On several occasions, he had to force himself to stop casting and simply dive into the nearest ditch just to not get hurt. He made it to the final steps, where he was met with two larger trolls set up as guardsmen. He disarmed the first with his wand, ducked the second's swing, and rammed into his back to push him down the stairs.
Bleeding from the side of his head and feeling a stabbing pain in his sides, the young guard finally made it to the top. He picked up the first guard troll's club and raised it above his head. Panting heavily, he wanted to scream at them. But felt the effort of doing so would take him out in one breath. A shade to his right emerged and took the club from his hands. Hugh was embarrassed by how quickly he lost his weapon despite being exhausted.
"Yu'z da Ew-fello?" Hugh looked up in surprise. He had been able to converse with trolls before. He had taken the time to learn their grunts and roars. But never had he heard one of them try to speak his language and come so close. The half-giant stared in surprise as the older troll smiled a big, toothy grin. Several in the back had fallen out over the years. Hugh slowly nodded his head, upon which the troll pointed to a pair of chairs on the side.
Hugh shuffled over and took a seat. An old card game from a couple of guards was still splayed out on the table. It was as if they were still expected to come back any second now. Dench grabbed his seat and placed it to the side; instead, he opted to sit on the floor to be somewhat at eye level with his opponent. Hugh swallowed hard and stared in silence at the smiling face. The troll felt so... intelligent. He knew he should not underestimate Dench during the coming conversation. "Zo..." The troll smiled. "Yu ere to talk?"
"Da odder troll tell me, yu laik talk with uz." As the longer sentence poured out, Hugh now did hear the thick accent of a being that barely grasped the language. Hugh looked over to the other trolls who had now gathered around them. He nodded again, still taking his time to catch his breath and come to his senses. The adrenaline was still pumping from when he had grabbed the club before. "I laik dat. Yu 'kay hearin' me talk?"
The young guard took that for a request to hear the troll's demands. He nodded a third time, this time sitting up straight to try and physically show he was paying attention. For minutes on end, the troll had spoken slowly and very unintelligibly. Hugh devised that it all boiled down to three things. Food, wages, and contact with a colony up north in the Scandinavian mountains. While they had disliked Grub being fired from his position, they understood he had grown too old for serving Gringotts. What they did not like was that there had been no news from this troll colony. No one wanted to be shipped off somewhere that offered no news on the current inhabitants. Hugh could get behind that reasoning. Everyone ought to be given respect and dignity.
"What about the wages?" He finally asked. "Why would you like to buy anything?"
"Troll laik shiny dings too." Dench explained. "Troll wan to giff gold for fancy stuff, laik Ew jacket" He said as he pointed to Hugh's coat. Hugh, or rather, Ew as the trolls now called him, looked to this side at his ripped collar and pulled it a bit straighter. "I guess we all want nicer things in life."
For the remainder of the day, Hugh convinced Dench to let him go back down and meet with Magrin. Whom he eventually persuaded to join him and meet with the troll leader. Demands were heard and mostly agreed upon before the trolls were eventually ordered to clear the rubble and head back to their quarters. The bigger negotiations took place between Magrin and upper management, who wanted to sack all the rebellious trolls and look into other means of security for their vaults. Magrin succeeded in getting them to understand that these trolls had mostly all been trained for years and would be a loss of investment if let go. The thought of losing more money shut down all complaints from the goblins, who still held final say in the matter.
---
"Time for you to take the rest of the day off, kid." Magrin told Hugh as they walked off towards the main hall. "I just got back. Getting tired of watching over upstart half-giants?" Hugh laughed.
"Maybe." Magrin grinned with an appreciative chuckle. "But I am liking what I see." As Hugh made his way back to the bank's entrance, he could feel Magrin staring him down all the way to the doors.
INPC; Cassanora Browne
Race: Half-Giant // Ability: - STR: 16 EVA: 7 WIS: 10 STA: 20 ARC: 1 ACC: 7