“Knock knock Dustin,” I said as I opened the door to my friend's room. “Are you up and ready?”

Dustin grunted his welcome, which I had long since learned was the best anyone was going to get from him before mid-morning. He was still struggling with putting on a boot and his rounded knuckles were wiping the edges of his eyes. I could see he still had yet to wash his face from the night before, his green skin was shining with oils and fresh acne. As he stretched he pointed towards the far corner of his room to a rough stick stand that had an even rougher looking set of iron armor on it. “You mine getting that for me?”

“You can’t get up earlier and get your own armor on?” I asked with a sigh. I walked across his room and pulled it off the wooden crossbars. It was heavy, despite the small size, and crudely made. He shook it free of the dirt from the previous time it was worn and not cleaned properly before walking back to his goblin friend. “If you woke up earlier you’d already be ready to go. Mr. Tumlin is expecting us.”

“You just pick at me because my room is bigger, we both know,” Dustin said with a laugh as he finished lacing one boot and pulled on the other. He took great pride in reminding me that his room was in fact bigger than mine. As he pulled on his second boot he looked up to make a cheeky grin and lost a leather lace in one hand and fell off the end of his bed. With a heavy thump he hit the ground.

I could not help but laugh, but rushed to his side nonetheless. “Your room is only bigger on the ground. Mine is taller because the roof is taller. I think the overall size is actually equal in the end?”

Dustin finished lacing and tying both boots on the floor and securing his padded cloth under-armor before I helped him slip into the jagged goblin iron mail scale mail. He went and grabbed his leather gloves and strapped his club at his side and gathered his short-bow and quiver. “You know,” he said thoughtfully as he picked at a fresh white-head with a jagged, yellow fingernail, “I think you like to use your tall as winning. But no, my room is bigger.”

I laughed and clapped him on the back. He chuckled and mockingly punched me with both fists in my stomach. For the past twenty years we had been friends, raised together almost since birth in this little hamlet. While raised differently, our moms - and his dad - were like a second set of parents to each other. “Your mom is making food, she wants you to eat but we need to meet Mr. Tumlin soon to take the sheep to market.”

“Goblin eat fast, we have time to eat. You can eat break fast too with.” He walked through his door and out into the common area and sat down at the table. I had long since learned that there really was no arguing with a goblin when they had made up their mind about something, especially when it was about food. So I joined Dustin at the table and smiled as Ms. Trugs showed her happiness with an ear to ear toothy grin.