Tears run down your cheeks as you try to speak, but the anguish in your heart only allows you to cry and sob. In the middle of the alleyway, you found them, your parents splayed out, dead. Your begetters gone forever on this terrible day. Two innocent goblins murdered by careless human muggers who had drunk too much cheap ale to realize that their victims had stopped moving well after the job was done. It is beyond your understanding how this could happen. While your mother showed talent in baking, your father fought to keep the bandits and thieves away from your home. You learned basic survival skills from the pair as they trained you about life in Hythall. In retrospect, their only mistake was teaching you nothing more. Your tears prevent you from seeing the intensity of their frozen, scared expressions.
"Mama! Papa!" Reality sinks in. No one will help you now. Criminals and tormentors filled Hythall; its goblins, few as they are, are under constant threat of harm. It is only because they make cheap labor they exist here at all. Even then, citizens often abuse and exploit them.
Yes, the worst day of your life. And yet, you need to keep moving.
After wiping your eyes, you look around to reassure yourself. Few hours remain of sunshine and you haven't eaten; your stomach growling even as you gaze upon your parent's mangled corpses. At night, a small market opens for business near the outskirts of town. You can get food there. It's the best—and only—plan you have. Your hunger gnaws at you. Walking through the streets of Hythall in search of it, you move past many an individual. Humans, orcs, elves, even a handful of dwarves. The latter seems out-of-place given their reputation of good-natured kindness, but no one pays any attention to you. Hythall's populace focus on themselves and what they want to do next. You feel like an outsider. A strange little goblin boy.
You find the market easily enough. A large building made of wood and stone erected right outside Hythall. There are hundreds of stalls inside selling everything conceivable. Many vendors