I woke up sniffing the air, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. The bright light directly above me caused my eyes to wince, and leak as a pang of nausea came over me. It was daylight and the back of my head felt like I had been hit with a baseball bat.

“Eurgh,” I groaned loudly, like I was waking from a hangover as I sat up, raising a hand to the back of my head. It was tacky to the touch and my hair was matted, when I looked at my fingers they were coated in my blood. It was warm, sticky and slightly congealed so at least it was healing. All though it would certainly of healed faster if I had a healing potion on me.

Then I looked around panicked, remembering what had happened. We had been robbed, it was the middle of the night, I had fallen asleep whilst I was on watch. How could I have been so stupid. How long had I been out for? I had so many questions whirling through my head that it threatened to send me into another dizzying spiral, this one lined with self pity.

That was it, I was alone again, and I had no idea where I was, I lost my bearings completely when a huff of air caused me to kook tentatively to my right.

Raven was sat on the branch of a tree, she had her legs crossed and her arms, folded. She had a face like thunder as she looked ready to murder me. In fact she looked that annoyed that I was genuinely surprised that she had not strangled me while I was unconscious.

“Did you catch them?” I asked, breaking the awkward silence like I had my tail between my legs. “They took everything from me, dod they take all your things too?”

Raven simply raised her arm to reveal her bare wrist, the one that when she had fallen asleep had had the bangle on, the bangle that we had fought an entire terror camp to get.

“Great, looks like we are right back at square one.” I felt guilty, rightfully so, this was my fault after all. I had fallen asleep on watch, I had let those goblin things in to rob us. I bet they had never had an easier score. “I’m such an idiot,” I said, “I am so sorry Raven, it was just the fire and the long day I must have fallen asleep.”

Raven dropped from the branch and pushed me, before signing more aggressively at me than she had ever done before. For the first time I was grateful that I didn’t understand what she was saying but it was clear that she was furious with me.

“Wh, what do we do?” I asked, nervously trying to break the tension, “Do you have any idea how to find them? What were they?”

Raven continued to sign at me and I swear if we hadn’t have been robbed and she still hd her sythes I would question wether or not she would slit my throat with them.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, whatever it takes, whatever I need to do I will do whatever it takes to get our stuff back, to get your stuff back. I was as angry and frustrated at myself as Raven was, this was a major setback and I knew I needed to make things right.

There was a new found vigour and liveliness to the forest that had not been apparent yesterday, I could hear the chirps and tweeting of what I would assume were birds over head but given everything so far, it wouldn’t have surprised me if they started shooting lasers out of their eyes or dropping bombs on us instead of eggs. There was more than that though I could hear insect noises, howls and chittering within the trees. It only served to fill me with more worry as now we were defenceless without any weapons. It was even hotter than it was yesterday, sweat was beading on my head although I couldn’t tell if that was the heat and humidity of the forest or my nerves and anxiety that was kicking in.

Raven just about managed to compose herself as she paced back and forwards, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Do you have any idea where they are?”

Raven stopped in her tracks and gave me a thumbs up, I knew what that meant.

“Ok so you know where they are,” I paused for a moment, “Then why are you still here?” I was momentarily confused, unsure as to why she hadn’t followed them further if she knew where they had gone.

Raven pointed at me, made a running motion into the tree and fell over, before pretending to be asleep. She then got up and started signing aggressively at me once more, something that I was starting to get used to, even if I still had no inkling into what she was saying.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You waited with me,” I said, Raven stopped signing and sighed again. “You waited with me while I was unconscious and watched over me. When you could have followed those goblin things, got your stuff back and left me behind like a deserved.”

Her eyes softened, but only for a moment before her steely, hardened gaze returned and she ruffled her nose. She offered me a hand which accepted and helped pull me to my feet.

I couldn’t help but wince and shot my hand to my ribcage, it felt like I had been branded with a red hot poker and forced me into taking a few shallow breathes as I tried to regulate the pain. My head continued to throb deeply and my ankle also felt like I had a sprain, not bad to say I had managed to sustain all these injuries myself, even by my own standards.

“Thank you,” I said through short stifled breathes. “For staying with me, you didn’t have to. I appreciate it. I don’t suppose you have any healing potions on you? I feel like I have been run over by a train.”

Raven gave me a hard stare and the thought crossed my mind that even if she did have one, I think she would let me suffer for a little bit longer.

“Right, you said you knew where they were. I suppose there is no time like the present to go and get our stuff back, more than anything we need to get that bangle.” It was quite clear that the bangle had some form of sentimental meaning to her, I had noticed haw she had been running her fingers over it before falling asleep and resting her hand over it when she was sleeping. Someone only does that with an item that has more meaning to them, the question was, what was it.

Grabbing a nearby branch and snapping it Raven set about drawing in the dirt like she had done when she was explaining my berserker ability to me. I watched as she drew some little stick people with a big bag on their backs, it was clear straight away what she was drawing. She then drew what looked like a cave with an arrow pointing between the thieves and the cave and a picture of the sun above them. She then drew multiple z’s all inside of the cave.

“Right I think I have got this,” I said, “The goblin thieves are in a cave somewhere, hopefully not too far. It is daytime, so they will be sleeping, does that mean they are nocturnal?”

Raven nodded, making the hand explosion gesture that I was beginning to get used to seeing now, I couldn’t help but think she was taking the Mickey out of me, but in a all honesty, I deserved it.

“Do you know where the cave is?”

Raven raised her eyebrows at me and gave me a sarcastic smile, like I should already know that she knew where they were holed up.

“Well I guess you should lead the way.”

No sooner than I spoke a new quest appeared in the top corner of my vision.

*New Quest

*Mission Imp-ossible

*Retrieve your stolen items from those pesky Imps

Go figure, they were not goblins after all they were imps, at least now I knew the difference between the two of them.

“Ok it looks like we have been given a new side quest,” I said, still holding my ribs, not that it made the blindest bit of difference to the pain I was feeling. “Out of curiosity, are these missions coming up for you? Like can you see them in your vision, words popping up telling you what to do?”

Raven looked at me as though I had three heads.

I noticed that I had a skill point to assign, I must have missed it from when we defeated the terror boss, there had already been so much happen since then. I quickly looked over my skill tree, swordzerker had four points assigned, one more and I would be able to see what the next skill slot was. Not having too much time on our hands and feeling like we were against the clock to get our items back I quickly allocated the skill point to the swordzerker skill tree maxing the first slot. This meant I was at level six overall.

“Come on, let’s get to this cave. The sooner we get our items back, the sooner we can try and find Sy.” I said, motioning Raven to lead the way.

*****

It didn’t feel like we were travelling too long before Raven brought us to a stop just outside the imps cave. The opening was cracked and broken, like something had smashed into it to make the opening. It was more like a hobbit hole than a cave, the ground and moss covered earth covering the top of the entrance. At the top sat an old, twisted tree, its roots clinging to the side of the cave opening like the tree itself was prising the rocks apart. It was pretty cool to see. I had a quick scan of the area and couldn’t see anyone or anything else around.

“Right are we just going in there?” I asked, something didn’t sit right, this seemed all too easy. “I don’t think we should harm them?” I said.

Raven started signing her disaproval instantly, making a slit throat gesture.

“No, I mean it.” I said. “These imps have been a pain in the ass but they haven’t hurt us, don’t get me wrong if they do try to hurt us then we should fight back but they seemed kind of clumsy, they robbed us when it would have been just as easy to kill us while we were both asleep.

Raven let out a deep unforgiving sigh.

“Promise me? No violence unless they attack us first.”

I offered her my hand, then my pinky finger. “Pinky promise, it’s a binding promise.”

Raven shook her head but offered me her pinkie, and I took her word for it, well as best as I could from a mute kid.

“Do we just go in?” I asked as the two of us crouched behind a bush just a few feet away.

Raven just set of walking, knees bent. I followed suit and the two of us made our way in through the entrance of the cave.