“Your leader is dead! Lay down your arms! We don’t need to fight anymore”.

 

A few arrows whizzed past me, but fewer than I would’ve expected. Some of them were unsure. I could see a few looking at the splashing water where I pointed. What must’ve sealed the deal was Randy’s head coming back up gasping for air. The creature was playing with him. I knew it was more than strong enough to keep a nearly dead Goblin under if it wanted. Yet, this didn’t disturb me. I enjoyed it in fact. It was poetic justice. Just as he had pushed me in front of a truck, I figuratively pushed him in front of a monster.

 

“I know he made you do this”, I said. I wasn’t sure if he did. It wouldn’t have surprised me and something about it did seem like they didn’t want this. But all of that didn’t matter now. “Lay down your weapons! We don’t need to fight anymore!” Taking them from him just felt right. None of this bloodshed should’ve happened in the first place.

 

Both the villagers and the Goblins had stopped firing arrows, though they seemed all too antsy to start again. I had their attention, if only for a while. “What do you get out of this?”, I asked the Goblins, “Is it really worth dying for?” None of them answered, but I could tell they were considering it. Realising that the answer was no. One of them piped up and started shouting in their own tongue. I didn’t understand any of it, but his mannerisms told me enough. He was panicked and scared. Whatever they’ve been promised as a reward likely came with a threat if they failed. “I can tell you’re scared”, I hurriedly said before he could fully convince them, “There is someone else who will hurt you if you don’t listen, right? It’s always the same. The little guy gets bullied and enslaved. Made to do what his captor could do better, just because they’re too lazy to do it themselves. Tell me, does that seem fair to you? Do you want to continue living this way? Is it even worth living at that point? I can tell you my answer. I would never suffer-”.

 

The panicked Goblin tried to shoot me down. To silence me. But Thet charged him and messed up his aim. The arrow plummeted in the water not far from me. There was a moment of silence. Each side waited for the other to react in shocked silence. Thet threw him to the ground and got him in a lock, her knee resting on the small of his back just like a police officer would do. She looked up at me expectantly. I saw this as my chance.

 

“See! We don’t want to hurt you! She could’ve killed him. Had every right to. But she didn’t. You don’t have to go back to the one that sent you”.

 

I thought carefully about my next words. I had thought about perhaps recruiting these Goblins since I killed Randy. It seemed like a good idea. At least if you ignored the logistics of it. But I didn’t want to be rash and get Eidechse angry. Nor did I want to promise something to these Goblins I couldn’t fulfil. I actually felt bad for them. I should’ve been angry at them. I should’ve wanted to kill them, like I did Randy. Yet, I wasn’t. I saw too much of myself in them. Both the old me and the new me. They were bullied into doing what that bastard wanted and they were fighting what to them seemed like a large scale war to defend each other to do it. They were scared and panicked. Their lives seemed uncertain. And so seemed the lives of their families. Hell, they’ve already lost some.

 

In a softer tone, I said: “Let’s lay down our weapons for now and rest. I think we all need that right now”.

 

With that I practically fell down. I had just about enough energy to not plummet to the earth and break my neck, but the land was rough. I laboriously made my way to Eidechse. He’d begun getting the villagers to calm down and get some rest. This actually surprised me. I was sure he would protest or call me an idiot or something. Instead, the moment I got to him, he swept me off my feet and took me into the village. He ran straight into a building I hadn’t really noticed before. One with lots of flowers and plants on the windowsill. Now with nothing keeping me focused I began to feel my consciousness slipping. Everything became a half-experienced blur.

 

When I woke back up, I first noticed a strong herbal smell. I was laying on a bed that creaked with every movement I made. The room was dark, but nothing I couldn’t navigate. I slowly sat up and winced in pain. I noticed I had enough linen on me to make a mummy jealous. Some of the herbal smell also seemed to come from me. I knew I should’ve laid back down. Still, I got out of bed anyway. Each step was painful, but I pushed through it. I had to see if the Goblins were still okay. And I had to talk with Eidechse.

 

When I opened the door at the end, I saw a homely little herbalist’s shop. Flowers and all kinds of other plants took up most of the space. Sunlight streamed through the windows to land on them in a picturesque scene. The smell was also lovely. It wasn’t the strong herbal one from before, but a mix of lavender, mint and jasmine.

 

“What are you doing out of bed?!”, a shrill voice yelled.

 

I turned to see a hunched woman quickly making her way over to me. Her scales were brown like copper, though faded and with specks of greenish blue all over them. Once she got to me, she started pushing me back towards the room I had been in.

 

“You should be resting!”, she yelled.

 

“But-”.

 

“No ifs and buts about it!”.

 

I tried to squirm my way out, but she was like a solid wall pushing me ever closer to the door.

 

“I need to check on the Goblins! And I need to talk with Eidechse!”.

 

“Those green bastards are doing better than you at the moment! Get back to bed!”.

 

“It’s important tha-”.

 

“Nothing’s as important as keeping the blood still under your scrawny hide! Now shut up and sleep!”.

 

She practically threw me in bed as she said that. She then grabbed a belt that was attached to the bed and bound me to the bed with it. Why she had this installed already was beyond me. It almost seemed like a scene straight out of Looney Toons. I tried to move, but couldn’t even budge. She got my arms under the belt as well, so I couldn’t even cast anything to break it.

 

I was stuck there, staring at the ceiling. I waited there for hours. I couldn’t sleep to pass the time either. Eventually, Eidechse came in. I expected him to be sombre or something. That is what people are usually like when you nearly die. At least, that’s what I always saw on shows and games. Instead, he wore a smile on his face. It didn’t seem like a fake one, but one filled with pride.

 

“Eat up, small scales!”, He said as he sat down on a stool, “You’re gonna need it if you no longer want to be bullied for being little”.

 

He put down a bowl of stew. It looked white like cream, with chunks of mushroom and beef floating around in it. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until I saw it. Almost like a rabid animal, I dug into it.

 

“Hahahahahaha! Slow down there, buddy! If you choke to death now it’ll just be embarrassing”.

 

“What happened with the Goblins?”, I asked once I had finished.

 

“Nothing. They’re still sitting in the forest. Probably sulking”.

 

“Sulking? They just lost friends and family in a horrible war they were forced into!”.

 

“Calm down, will ya. It’s not like they’re the only ones who suffered losses”.

 

I wanted to retort, but I couldn’t. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that we’d lost people.

 

“How many?”, I asked.

 

“Only three”, he said sombrely, “And a couple of injured, though none as bad as you”.

 

“We shouldn’t have come here. This wasn’t their fight”.

 

“Maybe. But they were willing to fight for us. Just like we’d fight for them”.

 

“Still…”.

 

“They died as heroes, not as chumps. Don’t let their deaths be in vain by getting all depressed now”.

 

We were silent for a while. I needed time to process all of it. Hell, I hadn’t even fully processed the deaths of my family. I still thought about our nest. Still dreamed of it occasionally. Still had nightmares of that battle. Of those bastards that slaughtered all of us. I sighed. At least this time I put an end to the fucker who started it all.

 

“Lotocra said you wanted to talk about something”, Eidechse said.

 

“So that’s her name? She’s one mean lady”.

 

“She’s kind when you’re not actively undoing her work. The name suits her”.

 

“Well, I don’t know about that”.

 

“Just stop dodging the question”.

 

“Yeah. Sure.”, I said. I wanted to talk to him about it, but now that I was about to, I suddenly felt nervous. I saw no way to convince him. No sane person would agree! So I took a deep breath and just let it play out.

 

“The Goblins. They can’t return to where they came from”, I stated.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Remember what Rand- their leader said in the cave? They were hired by someone because we stole that amulet”.

 

“Right”.

 

“Well, they seemed scared. And not just of us. Something kept them fighting despite their leader being dead. Despite them clearly losing”.

 

“You think whoever hired them is also threatening them, right?”

 

“Yeah”.

 

“Alright. Seems likely to me. But why did you want to discuss it with me?”

 

“Well. Because they can’t return and the villagers won’t want them to stay. So maybe they can come with us?”

 

“Come with us?! To where? Back to town? They’ll be killed at the gates and we’ll be arrested for trying to get them in!”

 

“But we can’t even return there in the first place. Their client still hasn’t forgotten about us. I doubt that’s just some amulet you stole. It must be crazy expensive!”

 

“It’s an amulet of ancestry”, a voice interrupted.

 

We turned around to see Thet leaning on the doorway. She walked over to us and took a seat on an old table.

 

“I had that amulet checked with some old friends. They told me what it was”.

 

“Wait, so it’s a magical item?”, Eidechse said. His jaw was agape. He had no clue what he had stolen. No idea how big the bounty on our heads truly was.

 

“Yes. It’s supposed to store the spirits of the dead. When activated, it can summon them to fight on your behalf”.

 

Everything just clicked for us then. We fucked up. Worse than I could’ve imagined. They’d hunt us down until all of us were dead. There was no laying low until they forgot. They would never forget.

 

“Wait, why haven’t those ghosts attacked us again then?”, I asked.

 

“Because you need to activate it first. More worryingly, I was asked if we buddied up with an arch mage”.

 

“Why’d he ask-”, Eidechse was about to say before his eyes bulged out.

 

“Don’t tell me he thought it was new”, I said.

 

Thet just nodded. We had lost those spirits inside of it. The one after us likely knew that as well. Well, we hoped they didn’t, but they knew more about this thing than us. We had effectively killed off their entire ancestry. Death was probably a good outcome for us.

 

“Oth”, Thet said, “What you said earlier to those Gobbos. It resonated with me. I’ve had friends who suffered because of what they were. I don’t want these guys to suffer as well. I suggest we take them with us. There’s going to a whole army after us sooner or later. We could do with one of our own”.

 

Eidechse thought about it for a while. Using those guys as our army didn’t seem right, but then again, they likely would fight regardless. They’re targets too, if only minor ones.

 

“Right. Let’s hit the road”, Eidechse said, “We’re going to the Vran’gria Peaks”.