I was off my horse and rushing to Emma in a heartbeat. After crushing her in a heartfelt embrace, I asked, “What the hell?”

Emma had no time to answer, and Slade was there. He grabbed her and swung her around before setting her staggering back on her feet. Max was nearby as well. He just nodded at her. Slade ushered us all away from the gate as the raiders began filing into the compound.

Before we could ask any questions, Emma said, “I couldn’t leave it behind. This is why we are here: to understand it. It’s the key to finishing the game.”

Max interjected, “The glitch is the key? Not just reporting them? How do you know this?”

Emma bit her lip, thinking, “I don’t. It’s a hunch. I just had a feeling. The further we got away, the more I knew we made a mistake.”

“And so, you just rode off by yourself? Possibly to get killed. And then risk all of us knowing we’d come back to rescue you?” I spat. I was trying to keep my mouth from flying off on its own. This was the gentlest I could trust myself to say.

“I’m sorry, but everything turned out fine,” Emma said sheepishly.

“But it might not have!” I snapped, yelling at her. “You could have gotten us all killed. You had to know that we wouldn’t just let you run off on your own. We would come for you, and that could have gotten us killed along with you!”

Slade held up a hand. His other arm was around Emma’s shoulder, “Chill, Victoria. She’s okay.”

I was still hot, but I addressed all three of them now, “We came in as a team. They wouldn’t have sent us in as a team if one person could do this all alone. We need to stop thinking selfishly and start working together as a team. I want to go home, and I thought all of you did, too.”

“Chill, chill, chill,” Slade said, making a face that implied I was waking a baby.

“We do, Victoria,” Max said. “But we are each seeing things through different lenses. Have you considered that maybe Emma saw, or heard, or dreamed something none of the rest of us did?”

“This goes beyond that. We have to start communicating these things. We can’t just act. We’ve got to talk to each other.” I tried explaining.

Slade said, “You’re the one yelling.”

The three of them stared at me as if I was the one being unreasonable. Slade still had an arm around Emma’s shoulders. Max said nothing, but he glared at me. I had a gift for pissing people off. My mother said my greatest skill was sticking a foot in my mouth, and she was surprised I had any friends at all. I breathed, trying to see things through their eyes, but I was still furious that Emma had put us in this situation. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t holding her accountable.

“I’m sorry, Victoria, but it was the right thing to do. None of you were listening to me.”

I opened my mouth to launch into her, but Slade beat me to it. He shook her in what I can only imagine was some sort of sportsball thing. He told her, “No worries, let’s just celebrate the win right now. We can sort out the fixes later. Right, Victoria?”

Stuttering, I tried to respond, but a burly raider rode up, “King Slade, the keep is empty. No enemies remain within these walls. We need to discuss our next plans.”

Slade nodded, “We’ll assemble in the keep in ten minutes.”

Satisfied, the raider turned away, heading to the stables that were now full of activity.

“Emma,” Max said, “We need to know what happened.”

I kept my mouth shut. I’d already done more than enough damage.

“There’s not much to tell. When I came back, it was still dark. Nobody tried to stop me on the road, I got all the way to the gates of the fort, but they’d been torn off. The glitch was in the courtyard, and a bunch of the goblins were trying to fight with it.

“The wizard goblin was doing something with his walking stick. There was a kind of light coming from it and he was shining it on the glitch. Every time the glitch touched a goblin, it just vanished. And it touched all of them.”

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I looked back to the courtyard; there were dozens of cubes scattered in clusters throughout.

Max said what I was thinking, “They didn’t vanish, there’s loot cubes everywhere.”

“That’s what I saw,” Emma said. “The glitch would touch them, and they vanished.”

“So, it was up here moving around?” Slade said.

Emma nodded, “Yeah, free as it pleased.”

“It’s not just a graphics tear,” Max said. “Not a glitch in the drawing, but it’s supposed to look like that.”

She shook her head, “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Max asked.

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.”

“Anything more than that?” Max asked.

Emma’s gaze drifted down and to the left, “I don’t know how to explain it. I just have this feeling.”

So far, I was glad Max asked the questions I usually would. I figured it was probably best for me to keep my mouth shut. This little group was my entire world, the only chance I had of getting out of here. I understood that I couldn’t afford to lose them. But I had to ask.

“So…” I said. “Where is the glitch now?”

We all looked to Emma, who shrugged. “I don’t know. It just sort of vanished.”

“Alright,” Slade said, moving on as if what Emma said didn’t create another hundred questions. He continued, “We need to be more careful around glitches. But right now, we got a goblin king to take care of.”

“What?” I said, “We’re back to that?”

Slade shrugged, “Well, yeah. We got an army now.”

“No, we really don’t,” I said with a long breath to keep from saying anything mean. “We got twenty extra guys. There’s still a whole goblin army headed north, right to us.”

“Yeah,” Slade said, “And if we don't stop them, they’ll wipe out all the people.”

“They are being displaced,” I said, looking at Emma. “The captain said they were being driven out of their lands by the glitch.”

“Whatever,” Slade said, “We’ve got a monster king to slay.”

“But maybe,” I stopped him as he tried to turn away. “We could negotiate some sort of alternative?”

Slade looked dubious, “What sort of alternative? These monsters are on their way to killing everyone in Springfield. The mayor said so.”

“But maybe we could arrange a place for the goblins to stay, a place to go so nobody has to kill each other.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Emma asked.

“We could try talking to the goblin king,” I said. “We’re here to test things, but it doesn’t mean we can’t also try new solutions.”

“I think we should try that,” Max said. “Talking to see if there’s a different solution to this issue.”

Emma nodded, “I agree.”

I smiled sweetly at Slade, “Three to one. No need for a coin toss.”

“What the hell do I do with all these guys?” Slade gestured to the raiders milling around in the courtyard. “They’re gonna be pissed they came here for battle and are being sent back empty-handed.”

“They’re not real people,” I said. “They’re non-player characters. Actors. Bots.”

“They got displaced too,” Slade said. “Maybe we should negotiate a place for them too.”

“For the bandits? The guys that rob and kill people like us,” I asked. “Maybe we should hire the goblins to clean them up.”

Slade shooshed me, “Not so loud, you want them deciding maybe we’re a better target?”

“If you’re afraid of that,” I said. “All the more reason to cut them loose.”

“You wanna be the one telling them?” Slade asked.

Honestly? I didn’t see that working out well. “Maybe we keep them as bodyguards for now?”

“Okay,” Slade nodded. “That’s good. Keep them on the employ for now. I can work with that.”

“You can?” I asked.

Slade was already walking toward the keep. I glanced at Max and we both followed. Emma came along behind us.

Inside the keep, there were a half dozen raiders. A quick squint confirmed it was a raider captain, some lieutenants, and other level 2s and higher. They’d found a table and some chairs, which was pretty much the only furniture in the wide-open room.

Slade approached the table and greeted the captain and other leadership types. Oh dear, I thought, he’s going to speak. There was an ooshy buttery feeling in the pit of my stomach. I tried to relax, but Slade was going to speak to them. Then again, he was the one who had recruited them to begin with. Maybe he spoke stupid the same way I spoke goblin. I suspected, if that was a thing, he’d been speaking stupid long before we entered the game.

“Listen up!” Slade roared. “Our mission has changed. We were supposed to kill all the green skins in this castle, it seems our holy lady has defeated them already. Our champion Emma the Silent has prevailed securing this fort for us.”

The raiders nodded and listened eagerly. Slade continued, “We have an even greater mission now. We plan to go and speak to the goblin king, Grumash or some such. But we cannot do it alone. We need your help, and your capable arms to guard us on this dangerous mission.”

There was an immediate reaction from the raiders. Voices were raised, tempers flared, and they shoved and shouted at each other. Mostly though, the leadership guys yelled at Slade.

I figured it was pretty safe to assume they were not completely on board with Slade’s request. The problem was I didn’t know how to defuse this. I was considering getting my bow out of inventory, but I thought that might alarm some of the rougher types in the room right now.

Slade roared, “Alright enough of that, ladies. This is a dangerous mission. If things go wrong, we’ll be in the middle of a goblin army with nothing but our brothers to lean on. It will be an epic battle worthy of songs, and tales, and tail. We will be legends if we pull this off.

“Think of the way others will look at you when they hear… that you, Derek Gianthand, were there to slay a hundred of the beasts… or you, Rolf, son of Walf, drove a spear through the king. Or were you afraid? Too timid and frightened for glory?

“I am going south, straight into the heart of the goblins, to the very court of the goblin king. And I will come back victorious, or legend. Who is with me?

I went into my inventory, ready to draw my bow and fight my way out if needed. Instead, I heard the raiders chanting. I exited the inventory leaving my bow, afraid and curious.

The raiders chanted, “Slade the Slayer!”