The night passed uneventfully as Heather lay in bed, the rain gently soothing her to sleep. She was woken twice when Breanne used the door to come and go instead of passing through the wall, but for the most part, got a good night's sleep. When morning came, she sat up with a yawn to see Breanne talking to Frank about the trail ahead. She overheard something about shadows and splashing but didn't catch much more. She reached for her pack and dug out the crown, sitting on the bed so she could fish out the food underneath. Dry rations again, but it was better than nothing and chewed a crunchy biscuit.
She looked about the room and glanced at the fireplace to see the logs from last night long gone along with the ash. She pondered that a moment feeling something was out of place when she realized the log pile was full again.
“Who went out and chopped wood?” she asked, feeling somewhat confused.
“Nobody has left the perimeter of the cabin,” Breanne answered.
Heather sat on the edge of the bed and shook her head. “Well, somebody went out and got more wood, because the logs I burned are replaced.”
Frank took an interest in her comments and approached with Breanne in tow. Heather explained that she used four logs from the woodpile leaving only six, yet there were ten again. He scratched his head and suggested she miscounted, but she was certain there had been only six left. She then went on to point out that the fireplace had been cleaned as well.
“None of us touched the fireplace,” Frank replied. “It didn't give off much heat anyway. It must have all gone up the chimney.”
She stood up and walked to the fireplace, inspecting the inside before turning about in anger. “That's not funny to play a trick like that on me. You saw me light a fire and then reminded me I could use my cantrip to heat the space myself. You and I both know I used that wood, it should still be missing.”
Frank scratched at his head, looking confused. “I know you lit a fire. I am just saying that none of us cleaned up after it or refilled the wood. Breanne and Quinny are the only two who have been outside until an hour ago when Legeis went out.”
Heather glowered at him and then looked at Breanne. “Speaking of that, why were you using the door all night?”
Breanne shook her spectral head as if unsure her answer would make sense. “Something about passing through the walls of this place is disturbing. It feels sticky and wet to go through them. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“The walls feel sticky and wet?” Heather asked.
Breanne could only shrug and toss out her hands. “It is a very disturbing feeling like I am passing through a living thing.”
Heather shook her head and sighed. “And you didn’t bring any more wood in?”
“I didn't do anything but sneak around the camp invisibly,” Breanne said. “I scouted the road ahead, and we may have to do a fair bit of fighting. It looks like there are alligators and some kind of swamp troll ahead.”
“Great,” Heather replied and looked back to the woodpile. “Could this be a part of a player home? The woodpile restocks at night?”
“I guess so,” Frank said. “Kind of like how your pantry restocks.”
“That must be it,” Heather said and looked back to the bed to see Webster starting to stir. She looked over to the side and frowned upon seeing the bed was empty.
“Where is the crown?” she asked with sudden alarm.
“In your backpack,” Breanne said.
Heather shook her head and went to the bed. “No, I took it out to get some food and set it on the bed. I haven't touched it since.” She searched the edges, throwing the blanket aside. “It was right here.” Umtha sat up from her nest of Pillows with a groggy yawn as Heather tossed the bed in frustration. “I set it right here while I ate!”
Umtha looked up from her position and pointed to the floor near the wall. “Crown there.”
Heather turned to look and saw the crown laying a good five meters from where she left it. It was just sitting on the floor next to the wall. “That’s not where I put It.” She picked the crown up with careful hands and turned it over to consider how it got there. “Could this place be haunted?”
Frank scratched at his head as he and Breanne considered the thought. “I suppose it could be, that would explain why it’s here.”
“This place is too clean and orderly for a haunting,” Breanne said. “If I haunted it, the building would slowly start to look old and abandoned. I would have to take my elven form daily and clean it to slow the process. This place looks like it was built a week ago, and somebody cleans it every day.”
“Could there be another gremlin?” Heather considered as the crown reminded her of the little pest that invaded her tower.
“There is no place for it to hide,” Frank said. “One of us would have seen it by now.”
Heather looked around the sparse room and had to agree aside from one bed, a cabinet, a table, and four chairs; the space was empty. Oh, there were misc items like a broom and the pile of wood, but hardly enough to hide a gremlin.
“Let's pack up and get moving,” she said, giving up on the thought. “We need to reach the goblins and learn what they can tell us, then move on to the wizard.”
Frank nodded his agreement, and Heather rolled up a sleeve to rub her tattoo. She brought up the panel and clicked through some options. She bought a new skill last level to add to the list, one she hoped would solve a problem she was having. With one last look to the room, she packed the crown away, picked up Webster, and went outside.
Umtha was tossing the pillows into the palanquin as Quinny and Legeis talked in the road. The sky was still gray, but the rain had long since passed, and the path was less muddy. Around her, the swamp was alive with frogs' croaking and the sounds of something splashing way off in the distance. The ever-present mist obscured anything past thirty meters, turning it into gray shadows. There was a cold moisture in the air that felt soothing on her skin as Heather climbed into the palanquin. She set her pack aside and ordered her skeletons to pick it up. They hoisted the four poles and lifted her high, like a princess on parade. She reclined with her spider as they set the poles in place on their shoulders and began to march.
A motion caught her eye, and she glanced at the cabin, searching but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Umtha urged the skeletons forward from her little seat in front, and into the mist, they vanished as a strange creaking noise echoed from someplace behind them.
She spent the first hour studying her spells to make sure she understood them. Too many of the flower singers' spells were situational. They required her to prepare the battlefield and set plants and traps in place. There was also an overabundance of poison needles and darts, almost overlapping in effect. True, she could use the skeletons to more or less break the rules and carry the plants, but it was tiring to keep thinking of ways to make the spells more useful. What she really wanted was a good direct damage attack like Breanne had with her shadow spell.
Early in the second hour of the march, five of the bird legged tree things attacked. They ran at them from all sides but were no match for the group. Frank brought one down alone, while Legeis tripped one up with a cannon that wrapped a cord around its legs. Quinny and Breanne took one down while ghoul knight savagely tore one apart while she helped it. The last one was a team effort and lasted all of ten seconds, as they converged on it and ended its threat.
Twenty minutes a dragonfly the size of a pony buzzed overhead and tried to pick up Quinny. She cut it open while it lashed at her with six legs. As they fought, Legeis cried out a warning that they were a lot like dragons. It proved his point when it danced into the air and glowed with a red light before belching a small line of fire right into Quinny's raised shield. She was so shocked she ran for the water and dived in to put out the burning shield.
Heather and Breanne pelted it with spells as it darted about, and Legeis fired at it with his six barreled pole. The beast tried to fly off but began to flounder, falling into the swamp just off the trail.
The next threat was an alligator that jumped out of the tall grass and grabbed a skeleton marching near the rear. The others piled on it as it tried to drag the hapless skeleton back into the water. A dozen rusty swords quickly punctured it, and Heather decided not to let it go to waste and added a zombie alligator to her retinue. They moved on and marched till noon as something big formed in the shadows of the mist.
“What are those dark shapes I see ahead?” Heather asked as the sun moved to the noon high, and the mist of the swamp abated a little.
“The mountains,” Legeis replied. “We're nearly to the edge of the swamp and the goblin village. I am surprised we haven't seen any of them yet, they usually patrol the water.”
“Oh, they use boats?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “I think you and the black goblins will get along just fine.”
Heather just assumed he was making a joke when three shapes appeared in the mist. The came out of the shadows racing across the surface of the water with spears held high. All three were goblins in light armor made of animal skins, and shields made of wood. It was the unique way they moved across the water that made Heather smile as they rode in on giant long-legged spiders.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The spiders seemed to be walking on the water's surface, skittering across it with ease as they bore down on the trail with hooting cries.
Umtha stood up in the palanquin and shouted back just as Frank and the ghoul knight readied to meet them.
The three goblins pulled to a halt and floated just ten meters out, barking at Umtha in a scratchy language that sounded like dogs arguing.
“I wonder what they are saying,” Quinny said.
“The goblins want to know why Umtha is leading you to their home,” Legeis said.
“How do you know that?” Heather asked.
Legeis shook his head and pulled his face scarf down to remind her he was a goblin. “I can speak goblin, hobgoblin, and gorblin.”
“You can speak their language?” Heather asked in amazement.
“If you pick a monster race that comes with a unique language, you get it for free. You can pick skills later that add more if you want,” Legeis pointed out. “I am thinking of adding ogre or orc to my list.”
Heather nodded and listened to the strange argument going on and moved to stand behind Umtha, holding Webster in her hands. The three spider riders looked up, and one of them pointed, barking at the others as they nodded their heads.
“What did he say?” Heather asked.
“He said you have been here before, and they need to take you to Oblomo. You have come back for the egg,” Legeis answered.
“What egg?” Heather asked as the three goblins turned their spiders around and headed back into the mist. Umtha set the palanquin to moving as Heather asked the question again. “What egg?”
“I don’t know. I just know what they said.” Legeis answered. “They don’t usually give me a second glance. They see I am a goblin, wave, and go about their business.”
“Hathlisora bring egg,” Umtha said. “She hide from hunters. Black goblins know where.”
Heather sighed and sat back down, shaking her head in annoyance. “Then, let's go find the egg and figure out why I supposedly hid it.”
“You’re not buying into this Hathlisora business I take it,” Legeis asked.
“This person did all these things and vanished before I was chosen,” Heather said. “But apparently I look like her and have accidentally done what the goblins were waiting for me to do, so.”
“They think you’re her,” Legeis finished. “What if you are?”
“I am starting to wonder the same thing,” Breanne said.
“How can I be her when I just got here?” Heather asked. “Not to mention I am chosen, I could have been an orc, or an elf, or a golden sprite. What if I had picked another race and looked nothing like I do now?”
Legeis chewed on that thought for a moment and then shrugged. “It makes sense, but then you said things kept happening that more or less forced you to pick this. Maybe that was all done to make sure you did.”
“Maybe,” Heather admitted. “But I know who I am, and my name isn’t Hathlisora, and I have never hidden an egg in a swamp where only the goblins know.”
“Your name is Heather, that's kinda close,” he suggested.
“Let’s just get to the village so I can be told more about who I am supposed to be,” she grumbled as they marched on.
Minutes later, the marsh began to clear, and ahead of them were a dozen goblins in piecemeal armor. Umtha spoke, and they waved them on, leading the way to a stony trail that rose above the swamps.
“We’re climbing onto the foot of the mountain,” Legeis said. “The village is just ahead at the water’s edge.”
The mists cleared, and Heather was finally able to see the gray mountains as they rose into the dark sky. The peaks were lost in the clouds above, but the snow and ice was obvious from here. The land was relatively flat nearly to the base of the mountains, rolling in gentle hills with sparse trees for about a hundred meters. The swamp ended in a rocky shore on the right and built on that shore was a village of round huts on raised stone foundations.
Dozens of goblins were gathering at walls made of piled stones as the palanquin approached, and they parted to make way for the strange party to enter the gate.
“They don’t seem threatening,” Heather said to Frank.
“I think they were told you were coming by the spider riders,” he replied. “So long as Umtha or Legeis is here to speak for us, we should be fine.”
“I come here a lot, but they aren't much for talking,” Legeis added. “All they ever talk about is hunting for food, or driving away monsters.”
“No goblin girlfriends?” Quinny teased.
“Eh, I prefer the elves or those pixie girls.”
Quinny looked at Breanne and giggled as Breanne shook her head and floated on.
The palanquin was taken to the largest hut in the village. A great structure of wood logs and marsh thatch, build so soundly it had a second story with a balcony. A towering goblin in metal plates stepped out of the door and looked at the group as Umtha stood up and bowed.
“Umtha bring Hathlisora,” she said.
The goblin looked up in alarm and glared at Heather as she stood in the palanquin, still holding Webster.
“No horns,” the big goblin said as he pointed at Heather. “Skin, not right color.”
Umtha nodded and pointed to the backpack behind Heather. “She not wear crown.”
The goblin leader rubbed at his chin as he looked passed Heather to the bag.
“Show him,” Umtha pleaded.
Heather set Webster down and reached for the bag, tossing the flap open and pulled out the golden crown holding it high. Goblins cried and hooted around her, pointing to the crown as if a god had arrived from the heavens. Many of them stepped back as if about to be struck down, but the big goblin didn't budge.
“Why not wear?” he asked. “Must claim power.”
“She hear voice of other, not want to hear.”
The goblin chief rubbed at his chin again and stepped closer to Heather to study her more thoroughly. “She look like Hathlisora, but not look like her. How she get crown?”
Umtha relayed the story of the dragon knight attack and the subsequent rescue by Heather and her friends. She told him how Heather had the key to the door and opened it to get the crown from inside. The goblin chief listened intently and nodded in places as he seemed to be working on a thought while Umtha spoke.
“She open door and take crown, she Hathlisora,” he said at last. Goblins exploded into cheers and cries all around as Heather looked on stunned. She went to argue against his declaration, but Umtha caught her gaze. The goblin woman was shedding tears while smiling up at her. “Come,” the chief said, waiving with a muscular arm. “Come, we talk.”
She parked her minions outside and carried Webster in as they made their way into the large hut. Like Umtha's hut, it was filled with random items taken as loot from adventurers or other places. The chief went to a high wooden chair and sat down as benches were provided for the others and bowls of berries and fruits set out.
“You come for egg,” he said once they were settled. “We hide just as you say. Goblins protect egg from hunters, they never find, but wizard now in the way.”
Heather set Webster down to crawl about and stood up, dusting off her sunny yellow dress. “What egg?” she asked.
The chief looked confused, and Umtha stood up to whisper in his ear as she pointed at Heather. The big goblin rubbed his chin again and eyed her as the two had a private conversation.
“I don’t like this,” Heather mumbled.
“You just need to pretend to be her to find out what we need to know,” Frank said.
“I don’ t like pretending to be somebody I’m not,” Heather replied. “I need to ask questions that she would know the answer to. How do I dance around that?”
“Let's see what he tells you, and then go from there,” Frank suggested as Umtha and the chief turned to look at Heather.
“You must see,” the chief said. “You will remember.”
Heather glanced at Frank, and he shrugged. “She must have told him you don't remember.” The chief barked some kind of order to a goblin who stood along the wall, and she ran off only to return with a large roll of cloth. She and two other goblins unrolled the cloth and held it up so they could all see what it contained.
There was a picture painted on the cloth. It featured a woman in the foreground with horns like Heather had, and a pair of bat-like wings. She had a scythe in her right hand, and her left arm and hand looked like they were covered in black metal. Fire burned from the seams of that metal, and the hand ended in sharp claws.
Before her was a scene of five goblins fleeing, one carryed an egg the size of a large watermelon. They were fleeing three dark shapes that flew in the sky above them. Heather studied the image to see they were three dragons, and one each's back was a man with a burning sword in hand. The sky above their heads was like black smoke and lightning, framing an impending battle. Something about the scene made her study it more as if it was trying to tell her a secret.
“Does this mean anything to you?” Frank asked as he looked it over from her side.
“No, but it feels like it should,” she replied. She dared to step closer to the image and look it over. The painting was crude, and seeing it up close only made it harder to appreciate in its whole. Still, there was something about the scene that made her wonder, then Umtha and several other goblin women began to sing.
The image began to waver and move, dancing like the flowers on Umtha's dress. Heather stepped back to see it more clearly as the image changed before her eyes. The goblins fled the scene as the woman in the foreground stood defiantly against the dragons. The beasts advanced in still frames like somebody flipping pages of a book. She saw a dragon breath its fire to no avail, the woman only laughing at the attempt. There was an image of a green cloud, and then the woman was on the dragons back, her scythe cutting a rider down.
“Why does that look so much like Heather?” Quinny whispered to Breanne, who sat mesmerized by the display.
“I don’t know, but I see why the goblins believe she is Hathlisora returned,” Breanne replied.
The last few images showed her leaping from back to back in flashes of green, but the last rider managed to impale her with his sword before she cut him down. The final scene showed a single goblin attempting to help the wounded woman walk away, leaving three dead riders behind her.
“Is that Umtha?” Quinny asked in another whisper.
“It sure looks like her,” Breanne agreed. “I can’t believe this is all coincidence.”
The song ended, and the image was just as it was when they unrolled it. The goblin women carefully took it away as Heather stood speechless. The chief pointed at her and called her friend and then barked another order. This brought a goblin in armor forward, and he presented a small metal box that the chief took up and held out to Heather.
Heather was deeply disturbed by what she had just witnessed and carefully reached for the box.
“Take, is yours,” the chief said as she took it from his hands. Slowly she opened the box to find a silver bracelet ringed with green stones. She took up the band enthralled by its beauty and held it up to look closer. “Hathlisora lose in battle. We goblins find and keep for her.”
“This is supposed to be mine?” Heather asked, looking away from the bracelet.
Umtha nodded and pointed to the bracelet. “Only you wear. Must wear if Hathlisora reach through glass, and touch truth.”
“Hathlisora makes as key,” the chief added. “Protect what she left behind.”
“What did I leave behind?” Heather asked.
The chief rubbed his chin and growled in frustration. “Not know. She say was key to protect what was left. She only tell Umtha her secret.”
Heather looked to the goblin woman and waited for her answer.
Umtha walked up and took the bracelet from Heather's hand. She put it around Heather's wrist, closing it and holding it tight to her skin. “You tell me you protect truth inside glass.”
“What?” Heather begged. “Umtha, what truth? What is inside the glass?”
Umtha looked up with a big smile and poked Heather in the shoulder. “You are.”
Heather nodded and looked down at the bracelet as a thousand thoughts flooded her mind. Something about all this stirred in the back of her head as she turned the bracelet to catch the light. A dozen green stones equally spaced apart and held in a silver frame. It was beautiful, but something about it made her shake. There was some truth behind this, and it tickled at her mind as the chief stood and began to speak.
“It time for Hathlisora have egg back,” the chief declared. “It time see goblins keep bargain for friend.”
With that, he led the way back out as Heather watched in shock. She went back to the bracelet and turned it before her face as if trying to remember.
“Are you alright?” Frank asked.
“No,” Heather replied. “Frank, I remember this bracelet. I don’t know where or why, but I know it’s mine.”
He stepped up to stand at her side and stare at the stones with her. “Maybe you had one like it in the real world.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I never owned a bracelet like this. I hardly had enough money to eat. I was just starting to get my life together and work my first real job.”
“Well, you said so yourself, you just got here. You can't possibly be Hathlisora,” he reminded her.
Heather looked up and met his gaze, her face a fragile facade. “I don't know that I believe that anymore.”
He took her by the shoulders and held her firmly. “You are Heather, the girl who ran from a carrion worm and fell down the stairs into my tunnels. I helped you get your panel back, and you gave me hope to try and keep building my dreams. The goblins are your friends because you can make friends with anyone. You approach everybody as if they should be friends, even if they look like me.”
She dropped her wrist and let out a deep sigh. “I am so confused.”
“We came here to learn more,” he said. “Let’s go see what this egg is supposed to be.”
She smiled and nodded her agreement as the goblin chief led the way. She wasn't sure she wanted to know anymore, fearful it would only erode her sense of self. All she knew was that her mind was starting to doubt, as a memory of a frosted glass dome with a rose petal beside it appeared in her mind.