Scrumble was not happy to be woken up by his nasty human neighbor, but the kobolds were back. Equipped with a pair of axes he rushed into battle.

He was disappointed that the human had given up. But he didn’t need the guy. Scumble rushed through the forest to get revenge on the creatures that tried to kidnap him. He was not prepared when they came at him before. He had been drinking at the time. True he wasn’t perfectly sober now, but he wasn’t going to pass the opportunity to fight some blue rascals.

The goblin had sprinted a good way into the forest before realizing that he didn’t know where he was going. He remembered the kobolds taking him vaguely in this direction, but didn’t know where to go from here. As he looked from tree to tree he realized that he couldn’t recognize this part of the forest, especially at night. He scratched his head and muttered to himself.

He was about ready to turn around and go back to sleep when a giant blue toad hopped into sight. Toads, along with goblins, are one of the greatest enemies of the kobold.

Scrumble skittered along the forest floor right up close to the amphibian. “Do you know where those kobolds went?”

The toad gave away nothing. A completely blank expression was on its face, the same expression you can find on the face of any toad you may come across. But Scrumble seemed to get something out of it.

“Which way did they go?”

The toad did not move at all. Its eyes didn’t even indicate a direction. There was no way to tell if the creature had understood the goblin’s language. But once again, Scrumble took it in stride and ran deeper into the woods, “Thanks friend.”

Eventually the goblin came across a tall cobblestone wall. It stretched around as far as he could see. Trees grew right up against it, but did not reach high enough to outscale the fortress wall. Scrumble had come to the fortress at Gleenix.

He tapped along the stones looking for weak points. No luck. This fortress was built by goblins, who are experts at finding weaknesses in stone. Anything Scrumble could find would have already been sealed up.

Scrumble saw a nightingale flying by. “Hey you, get over here.” The nightingale paid him no mind. It kept flying around. By happenstance it happened to fly closer to him after about a minute. Scrumble launched an interrogation, “What kind of troops are in there? How many are there, what weapons do they have, where are they keeping their prisoners?”

The bird fluttered about and then happened to fly over the wall. The goblin waited patiently for its return.

**

Scrumble almost dozed off. He heard the marching of kobolds around the corner. He went over while keeping his distance, hiding in the trees. He caught sight of the nightingale again. Or a nightingale. There was not an easy way to tell, and the woods were occupied by a large population of birds.

“So whatcha got for me?” Scrumble asked, climbing a tree in an attempt to get closer to the creature, but it flew off paying him no mind. Scrumble seemed to get some info out of the exchange, but he took on a serious contemplative tone. He nodded, processing information.

The goblin climbed through the trees, jumping from treetop to treetop, trying to find one tall enough to hop over the wall. And he closed in on the kobolds he heard.

A wagon of four kobolds rolled in carrying a elderly goblin prisoner. Then a metal gate closed behind them. Scrumble wasn’t interested in the front door, and continued to look for opportunities on the wall.

Another creature attracted Scrumble’s attention. The goblin now became enthralled by a little squirrel that skittered out the tree he had just hopped to.

Scrumble again tried to have a conversation with the creature, but the little squirrel just ran around like a normal woodland beast. Then it started scaling the cobblestone wall of the fortress.

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“Excellent idea!” whispered Scrumble, who then dropped from the tree and clawed at the wall in the exact same place the squirrel started its climb. “You lead the way!” he called quietly to the squirrel that was already out of sight. He used the axes he brought as climbing tools, and slowly climbed his way up.

He fell asleep for a nap about half way up. It was an odd sight to see a goblin stuck to the wall, only held up by the very specific placement of his axes that prevented him from falling. Fortunately no kobolds came around to see this. After a while he shook himself awake and kept climbing.

Inside the fort was a huge furnace where kobolds, goblins and a dwarf were forging metal into armor, weapons, and tools. Several armored kobolds stood around cross-eyed, vaguely guarding their prisoners. The wagon was past the furnace and the newest prisoner had been placed into a jail cell tucked into the opposite wall.

Scrumble viewed this from the top of the wall where he hoped the kobolds were too clueless to look. He was disheartened at this sight, but still felt confident he knew what he had to do. He was going to jump down and take them all out single handedly.

He was about to make his descent when he saw a familiar face that had apparently followed him all this way.

“You? How did you get here?”

The blue toad stayed completely still and gave no answer. It is hard to say what possible explanation the toad could have given. When a creature spends so much time completely still, it becomes difficult to imagine them moving at all, let alone span a cobblestone wall. Scrumble tried to shoo the creature away.

“Get out of here, it’s dangerous. This is no place for you.”

The toad stayed its usual stoic self.

“I’m serious. This is no time to be brave. You’re gonna get squished by those kobolds. Now just turn around and go home.”

After another non reaction Scrumble shouted, “I’m serious! You’re gonna get us both killed here. You’ll only slow me down. Now get out of here. I never liked you anyway! Now just get!”

All this shouting was overheard by some kobolds, who shoved their neighbors and pointed until the entire fortress was away of their invader.

Scrumble didn’t realize his position was given away. He just kept talking to that solid toad, “Alight. You’ve convinced me. But try to keep quiet.”

Arrows started whizzing past the goblin, who turned to see that some of the kobolds had bows and arrows while others waited in anticipation with short range weapons like swords and spears. Scrumble threw caution to the wall and leaped down.

It was too high a distance for the goblin to survive a fall, but fortunately a group of nightingales caught his fall. He stepped gracefully to the floor and swung his axes madly. He didn’t hit any kobolds, but at least the enemies were too confused to know how to proceed.

Scrumble ran around the fortress knocking over torches and armor stands. He’d completely forgotten why he was here and was just rushing around with adrenaline.

The kobolds chased the little goblin in circles for what must have been hours. Almost out of breath Scrumble exited the fortress. The blue toad was outside waiting for him.

“My old friend, we’ve got to get out of here.”

The toad sat there. Completely unmoved by the wave of wild kobolds approaching. A sea of swords, spears, pikes, clubs, maces, flails, shields, whips, chains, bows, pikes, axes and hammers didn’t flap the little toad.

“Quick, they’re gonna slaughter us!”

The toad did nothing at all, but Scrumble seemed to take it as a very specific indication.

“Oh, if you insist.”

Scrumble mounted the toad. Because the toad was quite large as toads go and the goblin was quite small as goblins go, they were a perfect match. The moment that Scrumble sat down the creature’s eye dilated. Although it had been completely still up to this point, it sprung into action.

The toad bounced forward an incredible distance. Scrumble tucked his legs around to stay on as a sudden wind whipped his face. The toad landed several yards from where it started. No sooner did it touch the ground that it lept again, launching the pair another great distance. The army of kobolds couldn’t possibly catch up.

Once they made a sizable gap between them and their enemies, Scrumble dismounted the toad and felt a little queasy. He looked up at the sky. It was daytime already. He had a couple naps that night, but mostly he was running through the forest and the fortress and spent the entire night messing with kobolds.

He thought back over his experience, trying to remember why he embarked on this little adventure in the first place. Right, revenge. He didn’t really accomplish that. But at least he’d made a strong impression on his foes. He wouldn’t be seeing them again.

Unfortunately, there were kobolds in the woods besides those at Gleenix fortress. A kobold soldier snatched up the little goblin and tossed him in a wagon.

Scrumble screamed and jumped back out again, “Let’s run my friend!” But the blue toad was nowhere to be seen. Scrumble shrieked and ran through the forest, trying desperately to escape the kobolds. Why did this keep happening?