There is one huge problem with nightgowns.
When you're being dragged along the ground by your feet, they have a tendency to ride up, showing off your not so clean underwear. My underwear had been fairly clean to begin with, but after wandering around a dirty cave system, nearly getting eating by slime, and then being dragged along the ground while bound up in a net, the flimsy bit of fabric had gotten just a little stained. It had also gotten wet and covered in slime, which wasn't doing anything for my comfort. It was almost annoying enough to make me ignore how my shoulders and head were being dragged through a carpet of insects and muck.
As I was considering my current discomfort, I was also trying to think my way out of a slightly more pressing problem, how to avoid getting eaten.
I hadn't come up with much, other than promising them lots of stuff until I found some other way out of this. While the promise of being ransomed for food, had kept them from slaughtering me immediately after getting captured, I didn't think I would work for long after I reached their camp. Even if they could contact my parents, I doubted my folks could, or would, provide them with enough food to save me.
So, it seemed that Doom Valley Prep School would manage to kill me before I even attended my first class. Not exactly a record, but pretty impressive if you were looking at it from the schools perspective.
“Let the girl go, evil doers! Or I shall smite you where you stand!”
The shout echoed in the narrow tunnel. I couldn't see who had said it, but there was a brilliant yellow glow coming from behind us. The voice seemed surprisingly confident, despite sounding like a teenager. The goblins dropped me and drew their weapons, chattering to themselves as they ran at the newcomer.
From my position I couldn't see very much, I heard the sounds of shouting, screams, steel hitting steel and bodies falling. A few minutes later a very large person in silver armour knelt beside me, using a a small knife cut me free.
He raised his visor, revealing a boyish face that girls would probably swoon over. “Are you hurt, my lady?” he asked.
My muscles ached and the floor was slippery from blood, making me stumble as I tried to stand up. I instinctively took his offered hand to keep from falling, causing him to grin. Pulling my hand back before he could get any ideas, I said, “I'm fine. Thank you so much for helping me, but what are you doing here?”
“I am Reginald, a freshman of the School of Righteousness and Honour,” he said proudly. “I'm here to find the golden idol and stop the vicious, evil and diabolical student of the Doom Valley Prep School before he completes whatever nefarious deeds he plans on... completing. But you are injured, hold still and I'll heal your burns.”
He placed an armoured hand on my head, whispering a prayer to the Blessed Virgin. As his hand glowed in a nearly blinding white light, my irritated and painful scalp quickly healed. I even felt my hair regrowing. This guy was proving to be very useful, now I just needed to figure out how to keep him from wanting to kill me.
I licked my lips and thought VERY carefully about the next words to come out of my mouth. “Oh, thank you so much, you're my hero! I'm so lucky I ran into you! I was asleep and then I found myself here, and I've been wandering around for hours until those horrible goblins captured me!”
“That vile Doom Valley student must be planning on sacrificing you to his evil demonic overlords! Never fear I'll protect you!” he practically shouted.
Did people honestly talk like that, I wondered. Still I'd take lawful stupid over trying to survive all by myself, since he was in armour and seemed good with a sword. Going over to the largest goblin I began stripping it of its shoes, armoured vest, and spiked club. “Oh my god! Really?! You have to help me get away from him! You said something about a golden idol, is that the way out?” I asked, trying my best to sound like a clueless damsel in distress.
“That's what my teacher told me. Have you seen the evil doer? Anything you can tell me will be most helpful,” Reginald said.
“Uh, well... I think I heard something when I woke up. Someone who sounded really big and mean, lots of armour clanking, and chanting a magic spell. He seemed really powerful and we should probably just escape. Yes, escaping is a really good idea,” I told him, swinging the club a few times in the air to get a feel for it.
“Very well fair maiden, let us escape this wretched hive of scum and villainy. Your weak body and heart isn't made for this type of adventure. Stay close to me and I'll return you to the safety of your home,” my hero said.
I briefly considered clocking him, if he found out who I was he'd probably do the same to me but quite honestly having a meat shield to fight off monsters and things was reassuring. So in my oversized shoes and smelly armour, I followed along behind him. This day couldn't get much worse.
**
I was munching on some dried fruit, courtesy of Reginald when he learned I hadn't eaten anything all day, and was seriously wondering if the goblins might have been better.
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“And then my father slew the last of the Orc temple guards, allowing my mother to begin a magical duel with the dark priest,” the overly proud paladin-in-training said.
He had been talking almost non-stop for what felt like hours. Starting with his ancestor, who had defeated a void walker eight hundred years ago, using an enchanted dagger. Then I got a pretty thorough run down of his entire family and their various great deeds. It was pretty impressive actually, too bad he expected me to ohh and ahh over each story. If he didn't sound so smug, I might have enjoyed listening to some of them, for the first hour.
He had spent the last little while telling me three 'wonderful' stories of his parents valiant exploits against evil, and it was getting just a little repetitive. Almost as repetitive as this cave. Walk down a slimy, wet tunnel, come to a fork, listen closely, let the boring meat shield go down a little ways to check it out, follow if it was safe or wait for the fighting to die down if it wasn't. Rinse and repeat.
My head jerked up as I heard a small splash behind us. Relying on pure instinct I spun in a circle swinging my stolen club against a goblins head. My annoyance increased as my knight in shining armour painfully shoved me against the cave wall for my 'safety'. He rushed past me and cut down the three other goblins who were trying to attack us from behind. This was the fifth goblin I'd clobbered, and the ninth time I'd been shoved into a wall. It was getting old fast, and I was starting to lose feeling in my arm.
“So Reginald,” I said, rubbing my badly bruised shoulder, “how does someone enter the School of Righteousness and Honour?”
“There are two ways of course, the first and most common way is to enter as a regular student. You need to pay the fee and have a letter of recommendation from someone of good standing. That was easy for me, as everyone in my family has gone there, I simply had them prepare a few letters for me,” he said, throwing his shoulders back and taking a heroic pose while cleaning his sword. “To pay they used the tiara of the Witch Queen of the Southern Isle. The dean nearly fell over herself to accept me.”
“And the other way?”
He shrugged. “If someone proves they're capable of doing great deeds they can get a scholarship. One of my classmates was a homeless thief who stole the Cursed Eye of Tamarath, from a sorcerer in disguise. Apparently the sorcerer was going to destroy the city, but ended up looking like a fool for the city guards when he found the eye was missing.”
I chuckled at that, having seen some of it on the magic mirror back home during the summer. “Well that was very admirable of him.”
Reginald snorted in disgust. “Hardly, he likes to joke that he was just hoping to get a good meal from it. You can't accidentally be good.”
“Uh huh,” I said, not wanting to argue with a person in armour and handy with a sword. “So, let's say that, maybe, someone is in Doom Valley Prep and they, you know, wanted to not be a student there. Could they possibly find a way to get into the School of Righteousness and Honour?”
I'd been expecting him to question me, demand why I was asking such a weird question, or openly accuse me of being an evil doer. Instead he burst out laughing, he laughed so hard he had to bend over and grab the wall to stop himself from falling. I considered beating him with the club again, but I still needed him if I wanted to survive.
“Not a chance,” he finally said. “Anyone who is accepted into that school is pure evil and only fit to be slain for the evil doer they are. Let me guess, you have a cousin who entered the school?”
“Yes,” I replied instantly, my common sense and desire to live taking control of my mouth before my brain could screw things up. “I was hoping we could save him, but if someone as smart and good as you says it's impossible, well, I suppose it is.”
He beamed at the compliment. “Yes, yes it is. He was probably the villainous cad who told them to sacrifice you.”
“Definitely. I never really trusted him. He always tried to, um, steal the desserts at family reunions.” I face palmed as I heard what I said, fortunately Reginald ignored what I had to say, as usual.
“Come along now, let's continue on our way. If we go quickly I may have a chance at crossing swords with this evil doer and you can see me succeed at my first true battle,” he said, thumping his chest. “This day shall go down in history, as the first step of Reginald the Righteous and his campaign against evil.”
“My hero,” I said, trying to sound like I was enthralled by his words.
“Now as I saying, my parents were...”
I hated my life.
**
We peered down a steep cliff at a goblin camp that had at least a hundred of the little monsters going about their business. Reginald and I were both tired from hours of walking, while also being hungry and thirsty since we'd used up his rations a while ago. Still the sight of the golden idol in the very center of the camp gave me renewed hope that this would soon be over.
“So what's the plan?” I asked.
“Nothing yet,” he replied. “We have to wait for that wicked blaggard from Doom Valley Prep to show himself. He is probably somewhere in the camp, waiting to ambush us with his goblin minions.”
I had to fight hard not to face palm at hearing this.
“You said that he seemed to be wearing armour and was casting a spell?”
“Yeah,” I said with a groan.
“I don't see him. So we should be able to catch him by surprise, when he comes here.” Reginald said.
“He could be there for hours or days,” I said, my mind frantically looking for an excuse to get moving. “We'll be really hungry, which is the worst time to get into a fight.”
He smirked and got a smug look. “I've trained myself to go without food and water for a week and keep fighting.”
“But I haven't,” I told him.
“If need be, I can carry you, my lady,” he said.
Getting to my hands and knees I crawled away from the cliff. I had to go bash my head on something before I said something I'd regret.
“Where are you going?” he hissed at me.
“The bathroom,” I said.
Once I was out of sight, I started pacing, wondering what I could do to grab the idol and get back to my room. Sure I was risking my life every second I was at Doom Valley, but at least I had a chance at school, and I could get food from my friends. But that big, conceited idiot would wait around for days until the goblins found us or he realized I was his competition.
I stopped and a smile crept onto my face. What if the goblins only found him?
A quick search found a large crack in the wall where I could hide, then I grabbed a big rock. Headed back to the cliff, trying to stay out of Reginald's sight, I threw the rock as hard as I could at the camp and gave a blood curdling shriek. Before the rock hit the ground I was racing for the crack. Behind me the entire goblin camp shouted in fury and started running towards Reginald.
If he was smart, he'd retreat and live to fight another day, and I could sneak in to get the idol.