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Only two gold pieces!
Readers! Oh, my readers!
Accept these apologies - a thousand and more! - for my disgraceful outbursts of late! What icy horror I feel, to recount the sordid words that stained the pages of this hallowed journal with their bile! Oh, what misery! At my cheeks burn the fires of a sanguineous excess, and my humours cast wildly about, far out of all balance and keeping with the usual phlegmatic ideal…
Would that I could furnish you with a proper explanation to accompany this self-indemnification, but I must sadly report the last two weeks to be lost in a mysterious haze. Quite the bender, you might think - but I assure you that I never touch the stuff! This is an altogether different affliction than drink. The past is another country, as they say - but for me, it often may as well be another plane of existence.
In truth - forgive that I feel compelled to make this sudden confession, for it is only in hopes of exculpating my wrongdoings - it has been this way for many years. Days, weeks, sometimes whole months - they will simply disappear from recollection, into the dark miasma of lost remembrance. Friends and neighbours scorn me, complaining of slights and abrasions dealt to them without cause. Letters bearing my name, but written in a strange, wicked scrawl, are brandished at me with scathing indignation. Marry, readers, I must work three times as hard as the common man, merely to preserve any shred of a reputation that these mysterious outbursts so thoroughly lacerate!
Well, worry no further about me. I will endeavour to ensure that this never happens again - in the meantime, I proffer sincerest gratitude for your indulging me in my travails. Let us move on to more propitious matters.
The Crunch Cup season has matured most excellently. Much in the manner that a nascent seed metamorphoses into the blossoming sapling - a miracle so often I have tried to replicate in other types of matter - our vantage is now one of a competition quite at the half-way mark. Some teams we see have become bold and bright young seedlings, forging ahead into the sun-kissed heights above - while others seem to wilt, and skulk, cowering amidst the cold soil and shade…
And yet, potential still lies in every team to flourish. Three games remain in which to secure a play-off berth. Nine points could prove enough - that was the minimum by which qualification would have been made, if we look at the tables from last year. Eleven appears to be a safer target, and twelve will all-but guarantee progression. By my reckoning, that leaves even the Sidekicks with something to aim for - beyond the maiming and destruction that of course remains as every Goblin’s unassailable priority.
There remains great potential in the denizens under my employ, as well. I am convinced - I must be convinced - that it only remains to find a suitable catalyst that will rouse them from their inertia. Gold - after all, a base and vulgar metal - seems not to be doing the trick, and I am minded to move on, and attempt to experiment with other elements, other environments...
However! My most esteemed and helpful colleague, the one by the name of Gunnar, has just this second been to see me - and he made a most excellent point: that it might not be that the choice of catalyst that is failing to produce the desired effect, but that there is a threshold of quantity of that catalyst that must first be reached before changes can be observed.
A most learned and intellectual contribution, such as I’d never expect from a Goblin! Heretofore, I subscribed to the widely-held understanding that such creatures were only motivated by selfish desires, relying on cunning to exploit the stupidity of others with their underhanded schemes. Clearly, a most unfair opinion to have held! I shall increase the expense account sevenfold, in the sure and safe expectation of only wholly positive results.
Heinrich Jenkyns, PhD.
