Chapter 271 Empty Bellies With Longing

As Larry gazed upon the pitiful sight of the goblins, their bodies hunched and their faces etched with the agony of years of suffering, a wave of despair washed over him. With a heavy heart, he turned to Hermit, his voice thick with emotion as he struggled to comprehend the depths of their plight.

"What's wrong? Why aren't your fellow goblins coming to the tables? We've provided food and drink, a chance to celebrate. Why do they stand there, crying and sobbing, as if afraid?"

Hermit's response came in a broken whisper, his eyes glistening with unshed tears as he struggled to find the words to convey the magnitude of their suffering.

 "Larry, my friend. They... we, goblin slaves, we are not allowed to eat unless permitted by our masters. They hold the power of life and death over us, dictating when and how we may nourish our starving bodies. Please, friend, grant us this boon, this small semblance of humanity in a world devoid of mercy. Please, permit feast."

Larry's heart shattered at Hermit's words, the weight of their shared anguish pressing down upon him like a leaden weight. He reached out to his friend, his voice firm but filled with compassion.

 "Hermit. Tell them to eat, not as slaves bound by chains of oppression, but as friends standing shoulder to shoulder in defiance of tyranny. We are not enslaving you, but rather offering a hand of friendship, a chance to reclaim your dignity. So go ahead and eat, my friends, as much as your hungry hearts desire."

With a sobbing squeal that echoed through the clearing, Hermit relayed Larry's words to his brethren, his voice cracking with emotion as he granted them the freedom to partake in the feast before them.

With each step, they emitted sounds of high-pitched squeals and guttural grunts, their voices rising in pitch as they drew closer to the tantalizing aroma wafting through the air. Some even tripped over their own feet in their haste, tumbling headlong toward the tables with all the grace of newborn foals.

Their minds struggled to comprehend the bounty laid out before them, their simple thoughts consumed by the sight of food so plentiful and delicious it seemed almost too good to be true. They pawed at the platters of roasted vegetables with clumsy hands, their fingers smearing gravy and sauce across their dirty faces as they shoveled food into their mouths with recklessness born from years and years of starvation.

Some goblins even went so far as to dunk their entire heads into the boiling cauldron of stew, emerging with burned-faced and wide-eyed expressions of blissful ignorance. Others grabbed handfuls of bread and soup, stuffing their faces with such a rush that bits of food flew in all directions, coating nearby goblins in a sticky mess of gravy and crumbs.

In a flurry of chaos and desperation, the hatchlings followed the lead of the adult goblins, their tiny feet beating a frantic rhythm upon the damp earth as they charged toward the tables. Like a swarm of locusts descending upon a field, they clambered up makeshift ladders of leaning chairs, their eyes wild with hunger and their bellies empty with longing.

 They dove headfirst into the remnants of the feast, their tiny hands and mouths working feverishly to devour whatever morsels of food remained. They darted between half-empty plates and leftover scraps, their tiny bodies a blur of motion as they scrambled for sustenance.

A pack of hatchlings, their faces smeared with stew and bread crumbs, used a pot as a makeshift pool, diving into the hot broth with gleeful squeals. They laughed and splashed, their tiny bodies bobbing in the steaming liquid as they slurped greedily at the tasty stew.

Tearing off chunks of soft bread with their tiny hands, they gleefully descended into the pot, sliding down its walls like adventurers on a treacherous slide, before scraping the last traces of stew from its steaming depths and cramming them into their voracious mouths.

Plate after plate was plundered by the ravenous hatchlings, who gorged themselves until their bellies bulged with an obscene excess of food. They devoured with such ferocity that they barely had time to breathe between mouthfuls, their jaws working furiously to consume every last morsel in sight.

They paid no heed to table manners or decorum, their only concern was the insatiable hunger that gnawed at their empty bellies. They laughed and chattered amongst themselves, their voices rising in a racket of joyous noise that filled the clearing with the sounds of their newfound freedom. With gleeful shouts and squeals, they devoured everything in sight, their clumsy hands grabbing at whatever morsels they could find, their faces smeared with food and drink. The bread was torn apart with wild hands, soup slurped greedily from wooden bowls, and roasted vegetables vanished in a flurry of gnashing teeth and grasping hands.

But it was the discovery of the beer barrels that sent the goblins into a frenzy of excitement. As Jake filled tankards with frothy, golden liquid, the goblins crowded around him, their eyes gleaming with anticipation. With cheers and shouts of excitement, they reached out eagerly, grabbing the tankards and taking hearty swigs of the beer, their faces contorted in expressions of pure bliss. To goblins, beer was delicious, a quencher like nothing they had tasted before.

Some goblins chugged the beer with reckless abandon, their tankards held high as they guzzled down the refreshing liquid with gusto. Others took more measured sips, savoring the taste of the beer as it washed over their parched throats.

Meanwhile, Hermit's curiosity got the better of him as he stumbled upon a mysterious bottle, its fine craftsmanship and alluring crimson liquid drawing him in like a moth to a flame. With trembling hands, he reached out to touch the bottle, his fingers tracing its smooth contours with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.

With a hesitant touch, Hermit gingerly picked up the bottle, his heart pounding in his chest as he lifted it to his nose. The smell that assailed his senses was overpowering, a potent mixture of sweetness and bitterness that burned his sensitive sniffer like a fiery dragon's breath. He recoiled instinctively as if the bottle itself had lashed out at him, slapping him across the face.

But Hermit was not one to back down. With a defiant gleam in his eyes, he raised the bottle to his lips and tilted it back, swallowing the crimson liquid in one swift motion. A triumphant chuckle escaped his lips as he savored the taste of victory.

"Haha, take that, you stupid bottle! Who's the boss now, huh? Not so tough after all! Ha! Take that, you quencher!! Thought you could outsmart me, did you? Thought you could best me, did ya? Well, the joke's on you, quencher! I'm the king of this jungle, and you're just a measly... uh... bottle! I showed you who's boss!"

Little did Hermit know, he had just gulped down a potent concoction of the fermented vine, its effects far more intoxicating than anything he had ever experienced before. As the liquid burned its way down his throat, Hermit's vision began to blur and warp, his surroundings twisting and contorting into grotesque shapes before his eyes.

He chuckled to himself, a manic grin spreading across his face as he reveled in his supposed victory over the bottle. But as the effects of the vine intensified, his laughter turned into a series of disjointed giggles with occasional hiccups.

"But wait... what's happening? Why's everything spinning? Is the ground moving, or is it just me? Whoa... everything's... spinning. But... I'm fine... I'm... I'm... oh, look! Stars! Oof! Okay, maybe... maybe I overdid it a bit."

He staggered and swayed on unsteady legs, the earth beneath him shifting and morphing like quicksand. With a final wobble, Hermit toppled from the table with a resounding thud, his body hitting the wet dirt with a dull thud.

"Oops... heh... guess I'm... not as... as... as... steady as I thought."

For a moment, he lay there motionless, his naked form smeared with mud and grime. But then, with a low groan, Hermit began to writhe and squirm in the dirt, snoring loudly. He lay there unconscious, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths as he succumbed to the potent effects of the vine.

As the rest of the goblins indulged in a few more hearty swigs of beer, the effects of intoxication began to take hold with a vengeance. It was as if a whimsical spell had been cast upon them, each one experiencing a wildly different reaction that bordered on the absurd.

Some goblins, their meekness washed away by the potent brew, erupted into fits of giggles and chuckles, their laughter echoing through the clearing like the cackling of mischievous sprites. Others stood frozen in place, mouths agape and drool cascading from their lips in thick, viscous streams, their vacant stares fixed on a single point in the distance as if their brains had taken a vacation, leaving their skulls empty and hollow.

A few brave souls, emboldened by liquid courage, attempted to dance in wild, erratic movements, limbs flailing about in a chaotic frenzy that defied all logic and reason. One unfortunate goblin slave simply collapsed face-first into the dirt, his body limp and lifeless as he succumbed to the blissful oblivion of sleep. With each snore that escaped his lips, clouds of dust billowed forth from beneath the ground, swirling around him like a shroud of drunken dreams.

Tiny hatchlings too found amusement in sipping from toppled tankards of beer, their tiny heads spinning from the intoxicating brew. One particularly adventurous hatchling, emboldened by liquid courage, climbed atop a tankard and leaped in with a gleeful shout.

But his joy quickly turned to panic as he realized he couldn't swim. Thrashing about wildly, his tiny limbs flailed for purchase in the murky depths, his lungs burning for air. With each passing moment, he sank deeper into the frothy abyss, his tiny body disappearing beneath the surface.

"Help! Help!" he chirped.

"I can't breathe! I'm going to drown! I-I don't want to die! Somebody help me, please!"

In a moment of sheer desperation, the hatchling's mind flashed with a brilliant idea - or at least, brilliant for a goblin. With a gulp of air, he opened his mouth and began to drink, guzzling down the beer until there was nothing left but an empty tankard and a bloated, waterlogged body.