The next morning after a hearty breakfast, John joined the party on the hill outside the inn and prayed over them before leading them in a hymn. After they were finished, he gave many warm hugs and waved to them as they marched out of town toward their destination.

As the party was heading out, two harried level-one players asked for help. They were pointed to the large bearded man on the hill in town.

Marching toward the goblin area, Lance thought about his situation. Clearly, he was not the only one who considered Fantasy Mainline a real place. If a denomination the size of John's had decided to send in an evangelist, then clearly others did too. He mused about what makes a place real.

"So, guys," he opened up, "is this a real place, is this real life?"

Grog shrugged his huge shoulders. "Sure feels real to me. And it is the only reality I will experience between here and Heaven."

Polly seemed ready to say something when everything went dark.

********************

Suddenly, Lance's vision was filled with text.

Thank you for playing Fantasy Mainline. Due to a recent loss in court, we have been required to make some changes to the game. These changes were forced on us by a Christian lawsuit. We apologize for the court-required interruption to your gameplay. You will be restricted to your offline home for the next half-hour.

If you were in the middle of a fight, all damage and effects will be rolled back to the beginning of the fight. Please be prepared to re-enter your fight from the beginning when we are able to place you back in the game again.

Patch notes:

⁃ Remove restrictions on speaking or writing the names of old-world gods including ‘Jesus’, ‘Yahweh’, ‘Jehovah’, and ‘Holy Spirit.’

⁃ The Christian Bible as well as other religious books are now a random drop on many creature types.

- Players who have not chosen a god to follow will now be given a basic self-healing spell and a basic mapping skill.

- Players who have not chosen a god to follow will no longer have a level cap of 10.

Just like that, Lance was in his offline home. When he clicked a hovering ‘OK’ button, the words in front of him faded from view.

He immediately called Joe, but the call went to his mailbox, so Lance hung up.

He paced for a bit until Joe called him back.

"Hey, Lance, what's up?"

"They just dropped a system update and it is a solid start, but the way they worded it is totally painting a target on the backs of Christians." Lance messaged the text from the system update to Joe.

"Wow," Joe replied. "Talk about obeying the letter of the law but avoiding the spirit. Actually, they sound like a bunch of fifteen-year-olds on a Reddit rant."

#########

Once back in the game world, Lucinda was the first to speak. "Praise Jesus, but that was just wrong." Her southern twang added just the right amount of sass.

"Absolutely," Lance replied, "they gave us what we needed and then blamed the time out on us, and what is that 'significant advantage' garbage? All they did was take away the advantage other players had over us. Then they do this with no warning? Some people are going to hate us because they got popped out of a boss fight. It is just not fair."

Lucinda was quiet for a minute. "And John is just standing there on the hill, a big target for anyone who is angry."

"Yup, but if he has done street preaching, then he is probably better prepared for that than any of us would be."

The party discussed the update for a little longer and then headed out again.

#########

The entrance to the goblins’ valley was quite evident. The skulls of various creatures, including humans, were mounted on stakes and warning signs were posted, written in what looked like blood. The entrance passed through a dense copse of trees into an imposingly dark and deep valley.

"Well," Lance said, "here we are."

"Yup," Polly said, swallowing hard.

"Um, yah," Sparky said.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Kind of... imposing," Caisin said.

"No time like the present," Grog said as he began forward.

Lucinda took a step toward the entrance and then stopped.

The party followed Grog, Lucinda the last to enter. They pushed through the trees following what looked like an animal track.

"Hold up," Sparky whispered, "this is a trap. If this is the entrance to the home of thousands of goblins, does it make sense that it is this small?

The party stopped dead in its tracks. When they did, they could hear a faint rustling and someone muttering ahead.

Lance, who was right behind Grog, held his hand up to let the party know to wait here and went into full stealth mode. Stepping carefully, he moved up the small canyon. Soon, he could see a large open area and a bend in the canyon ahead. He looked up and took his time examining the walls of the canyon. He noticed large boulders twenty feet up that were held in place by a series of stout ropes. He continued to look and noted another boulder, large enough to block the escape of anyone trapped in the canyon. Lastly, he found a rope dropping down the turn in the canyon ahead. Clearly the trigger. He moved up the valley in a crouch, peering carefully around the bend. There he saw about a dozen level 5 goblins with a single level 7 Sergeant listening carefully and holding the rope. Lance turned quietly and moved back to the party.

Lance whispered, "There is a large stone right above us that is designed to block this passage. Deeper in there are tons of rocks and at the back of the canyon there is a turn. There are a dozen goblins back there and a sergeant ready to pull the rope and bury us in stone. Lucinda, can you climb up and cut the ropes that drop the rocks? Once you do, signal us with an owl hoot, and we will come storming in to take out the goblins.

Lucinda nodded and disappeared up the side of the canyon. The party talked quietly and rustled a little to keep the goblins on the hook. Soon, an owl hoot came clearly from the back of the canyon. The party burst out of the trees boldly and ran under what would have been a sudden death.

Shouts of dismay erupted from around the bend in the canyon when the goblins’ trap did not go as planned. When the party rounded the corner, the shouts turned to fear. Lance watched as Lucinda dropped silently from the back wall directly behind the goblin sergeant, who was stationed behind his troops and entirely focused on the charging party.

Caisin fired his gun from his hip as he ran, not needing to aim. The party tore through the goblins and Lucinda’s first blow caught the sergeant in the back of the head and stunned the larger goblin; without the chance to respond, he was already done for. In a moment, another dozen goblins lay on the ground, dead. The party looted the creatures and to their surprise, every single goblin had a Bible except their leader who had a Koran.

Examining the walls, they noticed a trap door that led them through a canyon so narrow they had to walk single file. Grog led and Caisin trailed behind as they quietly moved forward. In the end, the canyon opened up into a wider area, which still had nearly vertical walls. Lance and Lucinda moved forward with stealth and explored the new canyon before returning to give the party a better picture of where they were.

"To our left", Lance said, "is the main entrance to this goblin area. It has a twenty-foot-tall gate, manned by many goblins. We were very blessed to find this entrance instead of that one."

Lucinda nodded and added, "To our right is an absolute warren of canyons. It would be easy to go in circles here, but if we head in the direction of the goblin valley we have on our map, we should be fine. Clearly, we need to look out for patrols and traps, but we can hope for a fairly easy trip to their area."

*******************

As the party moved up the valley, Lance and Lucinda scouted ahead. For the first couple miles they found nothing, but then, coming around a wide bend, Lance found a guard tower and gate blocking further progress. Given the position of the goblin's valley on the map the dragon had given them, they had no choice but to pass it.

Lance headed back to the rest of the party and updated them.

"A frontal assault is out of the question," Caisin said. "If this is the valley where the goblins live, then there could be hundreds, if not thousands, in there."

"It makes the most sense that Lucinda and I finish this ourselves," Lance said.

Lucinda nodded, "Lance and I can easily sneak in and out of this valley. Our only objective is to kill one shaman and retrieve one item. Easy."

"You know these things are never easy, Lucinda," Caisin replied.

She nodded, "Okay then, what is your plan?"

"I don't have any other plan." After a moment he continued, "Okay, be wise and bold; inaction has killed as many as foolishness has."

"Hold our escape route if you can," Lance said, and the warrior nodded back.

Moments later, Lance and Lucinda used their stealth skills; Lucinda climbed the wall near the gate, and Lance commanded her rope to attach as high as possible. They easily bypassed the checkpoint, moving laterally across the ridge above the gate. Once beyond the gate, the valley continued much as it had before, winding through the mountains. Soon a wild mountain stream became a little tamer and joined the trail in the canyon, splashing and singing as it made its way downhill. It was only a few minutes later the goblin's valley came into view. It spread out wide below them, matching precisely to the location and description on the dragon's map.

At the back of the valley, maybe half a mile away, sat a squat hut, marked with a red dot on both their maps. They sat hidden in some brush next to the trail. "I think our best bet is to hug the edge of the valley, staying out of sight and resting when our stamina gets too low. Sneak and climb our way around until that hut is close."

Lucinda nodded, "I don't think that there is any other way."

The valley between them and the hut was filled with a variety of fields, small villages, and one large walled town sitting at its center. As they watched, the gates of the city opened, and troops began marching out. When the full complement, maybe 400 goblins in total, had cleared the portal, it was closed again. The well-ordered group of small, green, well-armed creatures marched up the main road directly at them.

Lucinda and Lance quickly hustled further up into the hills. When they had settled, Lucinda said, "Watch for a minute," and disappeared. About thirty minutes later, she popped back and nodded at Lance. "I found the party and warned them that an army is coming. They need to clear out, no way that group will be able to hide while those creatures march past."

When the army had passed, they started out with renewed energy. Lance found himself wishing it was night so he could have the natural cover of darkness to hide him, but despite this, they made good progress until they hit a large river that exited the valley directly across their path. The river was wild and deep in many places, but it looked possible to cross if one was willing to get wet. A stone bridge sat on the main road that ran along the valley’s edge; two guards sat on each end of the bridge, the four of them chatting and throwing insults back and forth as they passed the day away.

Lance motioned to Lucinda that they should hold for a moment as he took out his deplorably underused bow. He fired a shot that clattered among the rocks a hundred yards down. All four of the goblin guards turned to look toward the sound as Lance and Lucinda quietly waded across the river on the upstream side of the bridge. Soon they were beyond the bridge and making good progress sneaking and climbing around the valley again.