“Now then, you miserable shit. You’re gonna tell us everything you know”, Thet casually told the Goblin leader.

 

The Goblin laughed in her face and said: “That's the best yer've got, isit?That's wot them good for nuffinks were afraid of?”.

 

Upon hearing that, Thet stabbed a needle into his neck. The Goblin screamed out in pain before Thet yanked it out again.

 

“Hehehehe! Did yer just poison me? Yer absolute buffoon! Right! Good luck copping the info now, ya slimy git! Yur’ve just put yurself on a timer”, he said mockingly.

 

Thet kept on smiling, however. Confident this was gonna work somehow. She turned towards the rest and started ordering people around. Organising patrols, stationing guards, ect. While she was doing that, I snuck upstairs, where they kept him. I needed some answers of my own. Answers I’d rather not have the rest of them hear. There was the risk he’d rat me out to them, but I doubted he’d figure out I didn’t want that.

 

I entered what used to be mine and Vyth’s bedroom. The windows were boarded up and much of the furniture was moved against the walls to make room in the middle. There, bound up in a chair, sat the Goblin leader. His black hood was still on, though he’d been stripped of the several daggers that were hidden inside of it.

 

“Still 'aven't 'ad enou-”, he began saying before stopping when he saw me, “Wotcher want, then, eh? I fough the bloomin' fat shorty were sposed ter be the torturer”.

 

“I have some more questions for you, while she takes a break”, I began, “You said some strange things during our little skirmish”.

 

“Here 'e goes again! Right! Goin' on like the bleedin' nerd e’ is! Right! Could yer be any more painful ter listen to?”

 

“Things like that? Where did you learn the word ‘nerd’? Or the words ‘Santa’ and ‘shish kebab’ for that matter?”

 

He squinted his eyes and looked at me carefully. The silence was broken by another one of his scratchy chuckles that sounded like they came from a perverted old man.

 

“Yer know wot them are, don't yer? Yor not from 'ere”.

 

“Then where exactly am I from?”

 

“Depends”, he said in English, “Can you understand this?”.

 

I hadn’t heard English in a very long time. My thoughts were still in it, but actually hearing it or speaking it hadn’t happened since my rebirth. Another thing that I noticed was his accent. It took me a while to even realise, but it was the same one I grew up around in California.

 

“I do”, I slowly said back in English.

 

The Goblin smiled impishly.

 

“Then there’s your answer, git. Now my turn. Were you a nerd in the old world or is this new for you?”.

 

“What kind of question is that?”

 

“Why are you talking so funny? Oh, I see! That stupid snout of yours is making it harder. Hahahaha! Anyway, answer the question, git!”

 

“I guess you could say that”, I said back in Duengish.

 

He was really starting to piss me off. It was more than just annoyance at his tone or words. Something inside me seemed to boil with anger each time he spoke. It sounded familiar, somehow. Not his voice, but his tone and way of talking.

 

“Right”, he said while keeping his psychotic grin, “Let’s keep this trade going”.

 

“What were you and your friends after?”

 

“That again? Fine! We wanted an amulet!”

 

“What amulet?”

 

“Ah ah ah. That’s not how this works. Now it’s my turn again. How old are you?”

 

“What? Three quarters of a month. What amulet were you after?”

 

“Hehe. What amulet do you think? The one you stole, of course! You sounded American. What state you from?”

 

He was getting more and more on my nerves. Thet could be getting up here any minute now. Meanwhile, he was wasting my time with pointless questions. I had to do this as rapid-fire as I could.

 

“Cali, same as you. Roseville to be specific. What makes the amulet so important?”

 

“Some kind of spirit magic. I don’t really know. It’s all just useless bullshit to me. Do you like cars?”

 

“Wha-”

 

It was an odd question. The ones before were pointless small talk, but this one was weird. His sneer got as ugly as I could imagine. What was so funny? Why did he need to know this? Then my heart sank as I remembered what killed me. Just as I was about to say something he lunged straight at me. He got on top of me and tried to stab me with a sharp tooth. I managed to just about hold it away from me, but I was losing the battle of strength. I could hear footsteps coming up on the staircase. Thet was shouting my name, clearly looking for me.

 

“Othokentir, huh? Even dumber than Henry. Hehehehe”, The Goblin whispered before he got off me.

 

I quickly got up and shot a frost ray at him, but he dodged it. It hit one of the planks of wood boarding up the window instead.

 

“Thanks, loser!”, he shouted as he broke through that plank and through the window. As Thet stormed into the room, he leapt into the village.

 

“What the fuck is going on?!”, she shouted.

 

“He got away! Quick, we need to catch him!”

 

“Right”.

 

Thet ran to the window and shouted down what I just did. Then, in one fluid motion, she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me with her. She ran down, grabbed her weapons and rushed outside. Eidechse began ordering people in different directions, organising a proper search party. But throughout all the chaos, all I could hear were those words echoing back to me. Those words that send a shiver down my spine. That both made my blood run cold yet boiled it with rage.

 

“You okay, bro?”, Vyth asked as he put his hand on my shoulder.

 

“Ye-yeah. Let’s just help them. This is kinda my fault, to be honest”.

 

“You know you can’t lie to me”.

 

“I’ll explain later. Let’s just make sure this guy doesn’t escape us”.

 

We spent a good hour searching with not even a crumb to point us in the right direction. Eidechse told us to keep at it. There was no way he could’ve left the village undetected, he said, as it’s nothing but upward slopes and meadows until the Tonash river some two miles away. He ended up being right. The quiet searching was interrupted when we all heard a guy scream. When we got to him, his arm and leg had a large and deep cut in it. The asshole had been spotted by him hidden in a  barrel. He cut him and ran the moment he was noticed.

 

Still, we could no longer see him. But, he had to be close. And judging by our position in the village, I figured he was aiming for the river, instead of going directly back to his cave. I took off my tunic to let my wings loose, grabbed Vyth by the shoulders and flew up.

 

“You know where he is, bro?”, Vyth asked.

 

“I have an idea”.

 

“Of course you do”.

 

Once in the air, I saw the local flock of sheep had gotten distressed somehow. They were all running towards the river. The herder sent his dogs to stop them, which seemed to work for the most part. Still, it was too coincidental. I flew closer hoping to find him. By the time I was above them, the herder was using his fiery breath to scare the sheep back up the hill. They were back to behaving normally. I started panicking that it was a distraction. But where else could he have gone undetected.

 

“There!”, Vyth yelled as he pointed to one sheep.

 

It seemed just an ordinary sheep amid the flock. But he kept pointing at it. I began flying closer when it suddenly broke free from the flock and ran past the herder like a madman. Once away from the rest, I could see the Goblin hanging under it, flipping me the bird.

 

The chase had begun. I flew as fast as I could, but with Vyth far heavier than me and me having not flown for quite some time, I was lagging behind. The sheep managed to reach the river before he let go of it. On its way back to its flock I noticed its hind legs were covered in blood. The poor thing had probably been stabbed to get it moving.

 

As we neared him, I dropped Vyth on the ground and began shooting icy rays. The Goblin quickly dashed behind a tree to avoid my shots and jumped into the river. He got out at the other end, behind the cover of rocks and trees. I tried flying over, but stopped when multiple arrows whizzed mere inches past me. More of the Goblins under his command revealed themselves from behind trees, bushes and rocks. Bows and spears in hand, they prepared themselves for a fight. We ourselves got ready as well and were joined by Eidechse, Thet and a few of the villagers, armed with swords, hay forks and makeshift shields of their own.