Day Thirty Four : Ersatz - You Would Even Say It Glows

Ersatz

Definition

: being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation

Ersatz can be traced back in English to the 1870s, but it really came into prominence during World
War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently
applied as an adjective in English to modify terms like coffee (made from acorns) and flour (made
from potatoes)—ersatz products resulting from the privations of war.

“I just don’t see why we can’t just use the real sacred stone?” i argued to my goblin compatriot,
Gobbers. 

“I told you.” he said patiently, used to being a mentor the younger, newer recruits. “Yes, it would be
better bait to use our actual sacred stone, but heroes and adventurers tend to be a wanky nobbish lot
and they’re not going to believe that random looking piece of concrete is our actual sacred stone.” 

 I covered the sacred stone with hands, in case my colleague's blatant disrespect hurt its feelings. It
was a perfectly fine sacred stone, even if it did, indeed, look a bit like a random chunk of concrete that
had fallen off a skip somewhere.

“What they like,” he continued on in that oh so patient tone of his that was beginning to grate on my
nerves. “Is a bit of bling, a bit of sparkle. Put our actual sacred stone on the pedestal and they’ll just
walk right past this room with barely a glance.”

“Are you saying that the human’s revered heroes are basically just money grubbing wideboys who will
go for any sort of tat as long as its sparkly enough?” I asked in disbelief. 

“Basically, yeah. I mean, why else would anyone want to be a hero in the first place if not for the money,
fame and free sex?”

“Free sex?”

“Oh yeah, those rescued village girls tend to throw themselves pretty intensely at them.” he paused
then added. “If they actually tried to refuse them in the first place, i’d actually feel sorry for them, seeing
how crazy those girls can act. But they don’t and just take what’s offered, regardless of the girls
obviously delicate mentality at the time of said rescue,  so sod the lot of them.”

I looked at the sacred stone in my hands. Its unprepossessing dusty grey surface not even trying to
shine back at me 

“We could spray it with glitter?” I offered, hopefully.  

“Nope.” was Gobbers instant reply. “Gotta be gold, gotta be shiny, gotta be like…..blam!”

“But a meter high golden statue of one of Father Christmas’ reindeer? I mean, it was half off in the sale
section of the discount store and it’s not even Christmas yet! It’s so tacky that not even the chavs
wanted to buy it!” 

“Which means,” Gobbers said calmly gluing on yet another diamante crystal to its large and twiggy
horns, “that it’s exactly the right level of bling to capture our heroes.”

“It’s made of plastic!” 

“Easier to lift onto the pedestal.”

“They’ll notice!” 

“Pft! Not with this lighting. And they’ll be dead long before they get close enough to check.” he looked
up. “Speaking of lighting, be a mate and go check the spotlights are working.”

I dutifully trundled off and flicked the switches on and off. 

“Perfect!” Gobber declared and delicately placed the now rhinestone encrusted, golden coloured
plastic reindeer  on top of the pedestal. 

With the right lighting, I did indeed have to admit it didn’t look like plastic. Trashy beyond compare but
not plastic.

Gobbers gave a satisfied nod. “Mmm perfect.” He repeated happily. 

“Won’t they wonder why we have a golden statue in our den?” I asked.

“Nope, they’ll just assume it’s our sacred beast or something.”

I paused while I digested this. “But we’re carnivores.”

“So?”

“So deer is one of our staple foods. Why would lunch and dinner be a sacred object?”

“Well, food is sacred.” he started and then caught my look. “But honestly they won’t care. Heck, they
do so little research on us that they probably think we’ll eat them.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Groos.”

“Right? I mean, we wouldn’t even bother with the lot of them if they didn’t keep coming in here and
killing us all the time. I mean, why? IT’s not like they want to live underground too. They just swoop in,
slaughter the lot of us and then nick our stuff and abandon our home. They’re just your average
thieves but with a bit more pomp and circumstance.”

He drew himself up to his full three foot. “Well, we’ve had enough of them coming in here and
murdering our babies. If they’re looking for a fight, we’ll give them one.” he sent me a savage grin then,
his diamond teeth glittering in the dim light. “And we’ve done our homework.” 

Soon the loud, cumbersome noise of the approaching heroes party filled the tiny cavern. Boisterous
and arrogant, they clearly hadn’t sent any guards or watchmen ahead to scout out the enemy territory
and neither did they feel compelled to hide their presence or even pay attention to their surroundings.
After all, this was a battle they knew they could win. 

Gobber and i set in the dark by the switchboard. The sacred stone sitting snugly between us. 

“Oooh, check that out! Some sort of golden statue of their sacred beast!” I heard a voice cry out
excitedly. “Wonder how much that’ll be worth on the open market.”

“We could let the museum buy it off of us?” another voice suggested. 

The first one laughed. “Why?  For their exhibit? Like anyone gives a damn about goblins. Nah, better
to melt it down and sell it off in parts.”

Multiple feet entered the room, shadows playing about beneath our outcropping. They’d all, willingly,
walked into a room with clearly no other exits, all for the sake of a plastic reindeer.

“Go, go poison arrows.” Gobbers sung softly to himself and flicked the switch. 

***

Afterwards, as I was stripping the corpses of anything valuable or useful (not surprisingly, most of what
they carried was tat but at least the rations would make an interesting addition to our dinners) and
Gobbers was cleaning the blood off the reindeer, he stopped and paused, staring at its face.

I leaned on my now pinkish red mop and said, “I still can’t believe that worked.”

“Magpies, everyone.” Gobbers said absently. “I told you.”

He continued to stare at the reindeer.

“What?” I eventually asked. If I didn’t he’d be looking at it all night and somebody needed to help me
with these corpses. Humans were heavy and awkward - never more so than when they were dead. 

“Well, i was just thinking..” he started.

“Yes?” I asked, a little impatiently. 

“He turned the reindeer towards me and pointed to a patch on blood that had been splashed on its
face. “Don’t you think he looks a bit more dashing with his nose all red like that?”

I stared at the reindeer and then stared at Gobbers.

“No.” I said flatly. “Now held me get this crap out of here before it starts to stink.”

Grumbling, he jumped down and grabbed the other foot. Together we dragged it to the mouth of the
cave, to be thrown down the fill along with the rest of the trash.