Oh yes you said it!! I didn’t even think about Erin’s fortifications needs. That too! And gear for the hobs as others have mentioned. Seems like that money could have been split 5 ways instead of 3 if the Hobs wanted to be super generous towards everyone.

“If someone refuses to give someone else something they deserve , simply because they don’t like that person, that makes me dislike the first person”….

it feels like you’re referring to the jobs here not giving treasure to the silver swords…if that’s not what you’re referring to then whatever but if you’re referring to the Hobs here you’re way out of line. No one is being denied something they deserve, the treasure the hobs brought up isn’t a payment, it isn’t an agreed upon reward (like was denied to the Hobs), it’s not part of the rules of adventuring blah blah blah, it’s a gift. The Hons made a choice to give a gift to the teams who have helped them, who have treated them with kindness and respect (sometimes), yes who they like, because it is a GIFT, and the gift giver gets to decide who they give gifts to. They don’t have to give a gift to everyone because they have a gift to someone. They get to choose, and they certainly have cause to not like Ylawes and his team. Don’t forget that it isn’t just that ylawes is absolutely insufferable, they have a history. A history that should have made Ylawes see goblins as more than just monsters, but instead if anything he hates goblins more, not less because of it. A history the goblins remember…but the silver swords, while they remember the events after all this time still haven’t realized that the Hobs are THOSE goblins.

Not even every physically strong goblin turns into a hob. Redscar is arguably the strongest goblin in Rags’ tribe (except possibly Pyrite) and he has been noted multiple times for not being a hob.

As far as Rags goes, I don’t think it’s even necessarily that she isn’t a hob yet, but that she’s been noted as being small even compared to regular goblins.

From the original post: during one of the conversations Ryoka had with Erin in a Mage’s Guild a while back, Ryoka noted that she should never give too much info in a Message being sent, because the clerks likely get money on the side by selling such information. That’s one of the reasons the mates sending the spells use private rooms. So yes, this was confirm in the story itself.

In this particular situation, though, I imagine the mage helping Olesm does actually need the privacy and concentration. The report she’s sending is likely not some small thing, It’s probably quite a number of pages of detailed writing. Mages normally charge by the word for Messages, and we’ve seen that sending Messages can be quite taxing. Such a long report would probably be exhausting to send, especially since it needed to go to quite a number of cities.

This chapter really felt like a gift. Thank you!