POV David
"Xir!" I cried out as the little girl leapt into my arms with a beaming smile.
"David! You came back!" She buried her face in my shoulder.
I sighed, thankfully she'd cleaned herself up a bit. She even smelled like she'd bathed recently too. Which I was very thankful for. About twenty goblins or so has gathered close around us. They resembled green kids, about the same size as Xir. I tried not to breath too deeply… but I was shocked that they didn't reek of weeks of odor.
"How's it going Xir?" I asked after she finally peeled herself from my shoulder.
"Good! You are back. Let's explore!" She tugged at my hand and pointed at the distant town I'd turned over to the goblins. Orgrimmar. This little goblin social experiment. Xir pulled me along towards the party that was rushing to meet me that she'd left behind. "See! David came! See!"
I chuckled as I glanced at my guards. Colonel Tullio and the wizard Liscia. Tullio shrugged after a glance at the doodlers that were with the delegation. Liscia sighed but nodded her asset. So I was led around the sprawling village of humans and goblins and… I was impressed by their ingenuity.
Full grown goblins are about the size of a kid, therefore don't need as much housing space. They'd taken to building a half floor underneath most of the homes for the goblins to live in, granted with the original owners permission of course.of course I was treated to another odd sight when I was a three story apartment made to goblin height standards, so it was only a bit larger than a regular house. Xir tried showing me inside… but being… human sized it would have been near impossible.
Satisfied with her exploratory tour, Xir led us to the town hall where I'd been scheduled to meet the governor a few hours ago. I'd sent a messenger ahead, so thankfully they were not still waiting outside for me. The butler lead us to the main office where the governor, face slick with sweat and worry greeted us.
"Ah, lord Fulton! What prompted this unexpected visit?" She asked with a strained smile. I smiled slowly and shook her hand.
"Kalie, I'm just checking in on the social experiment." I paused and ruffled Xir's hair a bit which earned me a glare.
She sighed with relief and smiled. "It's been going rather well lord Fulton. I presume Xir took the liberty of showing you the progress of integrating our cultures?"
"Yes, it's quite eye opening to see how creative you all have been in finding solutions." I replied with a chuckle as we all took seats. Xir climbed up and sat in my lap and the goblins looked on enviously.
"Oh Kyle, how's everything going on your end? No mistreatment… discrimination… anything of the sort?" I asked.
"Oh… no… only can't do certain jobs… because of size?" He gestured to how much taller everyone else was.
I thought for a moment then switched to his own tongue before continuing. "Job discrimination?"
"Yes? We are small, hard to preform some tasks, others because it need your approval?"
"Hard to perform?" I asked.
"Goblins not good at construction." Kyle shrugged.
I nodded slowly. "What about the other thing?"
"Can't join war band. No equipment for goblins." He sighed.
"Warband? The regiment?" I asked.
He nodded enthusiastically. "Warband! Gets to fight! Protect chieftess…"
"I see…" I muttered as I switched back to human speech. Everyone was looking at me worriedly. Like I'd uncovered some dark secret that they'd wanted to keep hidden.
"Kalie, are you aware the goblins want to join the regiment?"
"Yes lord. I sent the request up the relevant chain of command, I haven't heard anything since… that was about two months ago."
"I'll talk with my brother about it." I replied. "In the meantime let them join the guard training events."
It would be annoying to acquire the gear to fit goblins, depending on how many we could eventually recruit we might be able to feild a couple companies… it would be a headache. They'd probably do well in garrison environments, freeing up troops for elsewhere.
But with this little issue put aside for now I could focus on the industrial projects underway here in Orgrimmar. "Kalie, how goes the progress on the iron works?"
"Slow my lord." She bowed her head in apology.
"The technical manuals you provided the guild are… difficult to create here with no infrastructure in place, we've been building it up from scratch as well as bringing in new equipment from Aucterfith."
I nodded, it was in line with the reports I was getting. Nothing to be too surprised or worried about. I suppressed a smile. Perhaps trying to spread out some of my important industries was a mistake… no… it'll help with the economic development here. I just need to stick with my guns. I miss capitalism, where a good idea and a good sales rep could secure a mountain of investments. But in this world you'd be lucky to get a pitiful investment with months of hard negotiations. Almost every project of mine was solely funded by myself and it was telling in my coffers.
"Keep up the good work. It means a lot to me that you all work so hard for this endeavor." I smiled jovially at everyone present.
The future had much to bring, a lot of progress and a lot of potential. I stood and walked to the window… in the distance I could see the mines and crossing the miles of land were tracks of iron, trains laden with raw ores pulled by teams with oxen. Soon honest locomotives would take their place. That would herald a new wave of progress for me, and for the future of the world.