The morning sky above the Bowl of Fur and Teeth couldn’t brighten soon enough. And the warmth… When was it coming?! And when would that terrible stench end? Adria’s bones rattled as she embraced herself -- a concoction of dried blood, bandages and dirt. With tears in her eyes, she looked around her to-be burial ground.

A thousand crows feasted upon the corpses of the Winterwolves and covered the plain in black. Atop the surrounding boulders, antlers and fur patterns shone. The bright eyes of Verti deer observed.

How long was she out for? Where had the others gone? Was La’Var alive? Would anyone come for her? Fear shook her as much as the cold breeze. She was alone and too injured to move a hand more than a few centimeters, and… What would happen when the crows finished with the wolves? Some would still be hungry. And Adria was paces away.

I deserve it, Adria thought. She’d gotten the party into the den of wolves, forgotten to hide her trail setting up the traps, and didn’t finish off the wyrm when the opportunity came.

It was like she tried to sabotage the hunt.

If not for her, it would already be finished.

Adria wasn’t meant for woods and bushes. The inn’s dining hall was her home. And she could bring meals and do dishes, not prey on beasts and slice necks.

It was all a mistake… I shouldn’t be here! I will die for it!

A swarm of flies buzzed above the Winterwolf corpses. Few whizzed away from the swarm and landed beside Adria, on a plate of stale sandwiches and a mug of water.

Adria’s eyes widened. Maybe I wasn’t left alone.

Groaning, she dragged herself over to the meal and dug in. She couldn’t tell if the sandwiches were good or bland, or if they had any flavor at all. Overwhelming hunger and pain made her devour the food and not think a single thought.

One remained. She raised her head. The crows looked at Adria questioningly. She grinned at them, sipped on the water, and took her time with the last sandwich.

One of the crows was… wrong? The bird didn’t partake in typical crow matters of hopping around, picking at the Winterwolf’s corpse, and tilting its head at Adria. No, this crow--whose feathers had been stained gray and released a slight mist--simply stood staring at other crows, releasing a strange squeak every once in a while. The crows it faced backed off and flew away.

Its squeaks sound a little familiar… like… angry Sandgeu men.

After a minute of this behavior, the oddball crow dropped its head and turned in Adria’s direction.

Their gazes met.

“Martin?” Adria choked on the sandwich.

The crow vanished into a ball of smoke. As the smoke cleared, the slender spirit emerged. He threw his claws up.

“Adria! You’re alive! You’re awake!” Martin exclaimed. “I won’t have to die tonight!”

The spirit dropped to his knees and embraced Adria. Then, he backed away.

“What?”

She was looking at him with furrowed brows.

“Why, in the name of the Twenty Gods, were you a crow?”

“Why shouldn’t I turn myself into a crow? Now that’s a better question,” Martin said and after a pause, during which he realized that he had answered none of Adria’s questions, he continued, “First of all, I was sure, absolutely certain, you’d die here. Before you say anything -- I took care of you! Really! I tried my hardest, but… I’m not a doctor. My specialty is killing people, not keeping them alive.”

“And? How does that explain the crow thing?”

“You die and I do too. That scared me a bit. I needed amends. I needed to repent for the sins I’ve committed in my life and then afterward. And someone to listen to me rant. The deer seemed ominous and not good listeners, so I settled for crows.”

“You could’ve done that without all the shapeshifting.”

“If I got the crows’ trust, they could spill secrets about the wyrm.” Martin’s tone changed. Sly little spirit. When the halfwit part of him went to sleep, he could come up with some impressive ideas.

A grin came to Adria’s face.

“How did infiltrating the crows go? Learn any birdy secrets?”

“Well, I spilled my heart out and learned that birds are, in fact, not good listeners. Whenever I spoke up, they looked at me weird and flew away. I think that was kind of my fault, though.” Martin scratched the back of his head. “See, I don’t speak crow. And I just released strange sounds hoping they’d understand me.”

“Twenty gods,” Adria cursed under her breath and struggled up. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier? Did you see where that wyrm took La’Var?”

“I know where they are. But getting you up and dragging you there would’ve been suicide. You were so beat up that war cripples would be scared to end up in your shoes.”

“I’m fine. I’m completely fine!” Adria whimpered, pain bursting out of her bones with every step she limped towards the trail of upturned dirt and ashes--the way the wyrm had gone. “You lead the way. We’re saving him right now.”

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“Sure, sure…” Martin sighed and floated ahead.“You’re in immense pain, right? So injured that you can barely walk?”

“I’m fine!” Adria snapped.

“But when your heart shines, it's bright and silences naysayers’ talk. You face death in the eye, and you play it for a fool until you drop,” the spirit continued his strange speech, and Adria stopped in her tracks. A poem?

“That is your kind. One that I thought was lost,” Martin finished.

Adria’s jaw came ajar, and she was at a loss for words, and… in her head, no thoughts formed either. The poem’s lines seemed to stop the world. Like a spell, they too healed all aches.

“In the heart of battle, we said this to the men who swayed the tide but didn’t realize how strong they really were. They couldn’t see how much they were doing. They fought. I don’t know why. No matter how injured they got, no matter how close the enemies came, they kept fighting,” Martin said solemnly. “I thought that type of fighter went extinct when I died. But now I guess one’s left.”

Devouring little critters and making my existence miserable isn’t all that’s going in your shadowy head… Maybe a few hundred years do teach one some wisdom, after all, Adria thought, wiping tears from under her eyes.

“I knew one of those fighters, too. She led me to become who I am today… At the cost of her life.”

The aches and exhaustion didn’t return. As she hiked along the wyrm’s trail, once in a while, a few bruises flared up and her ankles stung. Still, she moved with the vigor and speed she had at the start of the hunt.

Atop a hill free from the cover of trees, a view of the entire Bowl of Fur and Teeth opened up. Treetops smoldered. Embers glimmered in the darkness. Smoke and flames formed a trail, leading into the far corners of the Bowl, where they wound up the tallest tree.

“Aren’t wyrms supposed to live in dungeons they dig out for themselves?”

“They are. At the same time, spirits aren’t supposed to cooperate with humans, but here we are…”

Right. Adria nodded. And I must be the first human ever trying to save a goblin. Thing’s stopped making sense and following rules long ago.

A dozen minutes of intense hiking killed the physical effects of the ghost’s poem: Adria's feet throbbed again, branches and tree stumps kept bruising her and the smell of her own blood nauseated her. But the words stayed in her head and she carried on without slowing.

Visions of the inn crumbling at the Liar’s hands passed Adria by. Sights of La’Var in the wyrm’s deadly throes stung. Indeed, the hunter had ripped the comfort of a waitress's life away from her and made her face the eyes of death, yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t say a single bad thing about him. He didn’t ask needless questions. He believed in her. And he taught her so much.

You’re a strong little goblin, she thought and sped up. Don’t you dare die!

Adria arrived at a field of red with ropes of darkness cast upon it from above. The wyrm’s tree. It was tall, massive… enormous! The shadow from one of its branches could swallow Adria whole!

A sense of smallness and insignificance took over her.

What was a human doing trying to fight the might of nature?

Adria took a deep breath and ran forth, bracing for the roses’ thorns to sting. But the flowers only brushed against her, some even tickled her legs.

These are the same roses growing in La’Var’s hunting camp.

In the corner of her, a figure moved. A vagabond child--dressed in torn clothes of faded greens and browns, head wrapped in a scarf, a heavy bag on his bag--wandered through the field of roses, weeping.

“You keep going,” she told Martin. “Make sure it’s safe, find a path to the top!”

With claws, Martin saluted and flew up, while Adria ran off towards the lost vagabond child. The kid didn’t hear Adria and continued his quiet stroll, sniffling, wiping at his face. Adria reached out to tap the kid’s shoulder, but then he stopped in place.

“Who are you?”

“Hey, I’m Adria,” she introduced herself. “I’m on a hunt, you know, and I happened to be passing through. Saw you. Let me guess: you’re not having a good time and need some help, right?”

“No, I don’t need anything!”

Adria sighed and stepped in front of the kid. As he saw her approaching, he turned, hiding his face, and crossed his arms. Adria petted the kid’s oily hair, then looked around and pointed in the direction which led to Gothsin.

“Listen, if you’re lost, you can go there. You’ll end up in a nice little town -- the people will surely help you out. If you find your way to the end of Worship street, I’ll be there too, eventually, and I’ll show you around a cool tavern run by goblins!”

The kid took a quick glimpse of Adria’s hand without revealing his face and shook his head.

“I don’t trust you.”

“Then you can stay here, alright? Can you do that?”

The vagabond child nodded.

“Good. I’ll be done with my hunt quickly and then I’ll come back, and we’ll talk more, and I’ll give you food.” Adria tapped the kid’s shoulder and threw up a thumb in front of his hidden face. “Before I go: what’s your name?”

“Xaufia El Decabro.”

“I promise I’ll be back, Xaufia.”

Repeating the name in her head, Adria ran off towards the feet of the wooden giant.

What is a southern port kid doing in Sparkling Valley?

Up the ancient trunk, in places rotting and infested by moss, scratch marks. Claws had made them. To Adria’s left, Martin appeared.

“Good news: La’Var’s alive. Bad news: the wyrm tied him up and dropped him to its children to feast on when they wake up. And they just stopped dreaming.”

Her eyes gleamed with relief. La’Var lived -- that, alone, was a gift. But for how long? In her head, a clock ticked whose midnight meant the hunter’s death. Of course, Adria had no clue how long remained until that fateful hour. So she couldn’t stop or think. She had to climb.

Gripping the bone dagger, Adria stabbed into the tree.

This would be the first time she’d climb a tree in her life. She’d scaled castle walls and the sides of mountains, but never trees. This was a common element of Adria’s life as she tended to always begin things the wrong way around.

Go after rabbits on a first hunt? No, it’s wyrms and Verti deer! Learn a simple telekinesis spell during the first lesson in the Auditorium of Sorcery? No! Here’s magic that could kill a battalion in a snap!

She put a foot on the trunk.

“Hold on,” Martin said. “Not to doubt your tree climbing abilities, but it’s a harsh way up… You won’t make it with just your arms and a dagger. You’re going to need a helping hand.”

Adria closed her eyes for a moment and growled.

Words and images buzzed in her head: all the violence she’d faced over the past few days and Saint Goblin’s wisdom.

Kill or be killed, she remembered. Those who do not notice the rodent nibbling away at the stock of a poor merchant will not see the giant coming to crush them.

I have to feed the ghost. And notice the little details, too.

It clicked.

Adria fell to her knees and dug around the dirt. She found worms and tossed them at the ghost, then she found ants and all sorts of little bugs, all of which he devoured. The aura of mist around Martin turned red, and his claws grew as if longswords had emerged from his hands. The shadows swallowing his head danced and twisted. He cackled.

“Let us climb!” the spirit roared, as alive as a dead thing could be.