Opening my eyes, I could see sunlight coming through cracks in the shelter that they had built for me. The lean-to looked impressive from the part I was able to see. Pushing the blanket they had put over me, I yawned and smelled my breath. Was losing teeth due to inadequate hygiene something goblins suffered from?

Ducking my head to avoid hitting it, I made my way out of the shelter towards the one partially open side. I could hear two people talking, and something smelled amazing.

“You two making anything worth eating?” I asked as I stepped out into the sun.

Dirk and Vreek turned around and looked at me; neither one looked happy.

“Everything ok with you two?” I asked. “You look upset.”

“No, Dad,” complained Dirk. “We lost a bet because of you.”

“Because of me? I have been asleep. How did I cause you to lose a bet?”

“Turk bet you would wake up this morning. I picked tomorrow, and Vreek said the day after that.”

Chucking, I walked over and sat down by the fire and saw six large lizards on sticks that appeared to be almost done cooking on the fire.

“How long have I been out?”

“Just one day,” lamented Vreek. “I had thought you would be out at least a few more days since you ate the heart of one like yourself. Now Dirk and I are stuck carrying stuff again for three days.”

My stomach rumbled as I smelled the cooking lizards, and Dirk and Vreek looked at me.

“I guess I am a little hungry after sleeping. How long till these are ready?”

Vreek reached over and pinched one of them.

“Not much longer. If you eat one right now, it will be like mush in your mouth.”

Figuring I could wait, I stood up and walked off to find some privacy while I drained the old green snake. It was still a few hours before noon, judging from where the sun was in the sky. I found a nice tree to leave my mark on and let a moan escape. Part of me was thankful I had not pissed myself again. It happens when one sleeps for days. While writing my name in cursive on the bark, I found my mind wandering to what Bob had said. If we were not strong enough to fight all the heroes in the city, why not see if we could find other creatures to fight and get stronger from them? I knew I needed to remember to ask Bob where I might find a labyrinth the next time I got to see him. A labyrinth sounded like just the place to help us get stronger.

I had almost finished emptying my bladder when the sound of a stick snapping somewhere off behind me caught my attention. Whipping around, I saw Turk attempting to sneak up on me. When he saw me facing him, he suddenly hid his eyes with his hands.

“Put it away!” he shouted at me.

Laughing, I finished up answering the call of nature and stuffed my goblinhood back into my pants.

“It is not my fault you got caught sneaking up on me.”

“Gah!” exclaimed Turk. “If that keeps happening, I am going to need to find counseling from someone.” He let out a small laugh as he shook his head. “All I wanted to do was practice how Dirk sneaks around, but this stupid forest is filled with all these little dead branches. I guess I should be content that I got this close.”

“How will you and your brother ever survive if a naked human or dwarf attacks you? Are you going to cover your eyes then?”

“It’s not the same, Dad. It’s you.” Turk protested. “No one wants to see their dad naked. Forget that topic, though, did the other two complain about you waking up today?”

I nodded, and he smiled.

“I will try to not rub it in too much. Both of them really wanted to pick tomorrow, but Dirk claimed it first and Vreek took the day after. So I got stuck with today, but it looks like it worked out.” Turk paused for a moment and then chuckled for a few seconds. “It really is not that big of a win other than bragging rights since we are out here, and there is not much left in our packs.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Turk started walking back towards camp and I just watched him walk away. The armor that he had on covered his chest, back, forearms, and quads. Everything else was just a thin piece of cloth, barely holding in those muscles of his that seemed to be bursting underneath everything. I had not paid much attention to how much he had grown in the last week. I swore that must be almost as big as Vreek now. If he or Dirk manage to get a heart like Mays, I wondered if they could also evolve into something else.

Jogging, I caught up to him and we walked back to camp together, laughing at the misfortune of Dirk and Vreek.

“So I found a cave while you were sleeping,” Turk said between bites of the lizard he was eating. “Walking will take us three or four hours to get there. There were a few game trails but with all the trees here being so big and the vegetation being sparse, it does not appear that most have been used in a while.”

“Vreek, what do you think?” I asked. I was working on my second lizard and wanted to eat more than talk at the moment.

“Who cares what I think, you are in charge,” scoffed Vreek. “Do you want to scout out the cave and see what might be in it or keep walking through the woods, hoping to find what is obviously not out here?”

I snorted and knew Vreek was right. There was no game to hunt, and with there being no people around, the group of orcs and goblins we were trying to find would not be here.

“Well, then put out the fire and let’s eat while we walk. I don’t want to waste time sitting around for no reason.”

As we climbed the mountainside, something troubled me. The forest seemed almost on the verge of being dead. The occasional bush had some growth to it but not much. Lots of trees had fallen over, dead from some rot or infestation on the inside. The higher we went up the more sparse it seemed the tree density became.

We had hiked lots of mountains back home. None of them had ever been this sparse with trees. Often the deep roots of trees would allow them to withstand the bad years of no rain and even sometimes make it through fires. Here something just felt wrong.

“Look out there,” I said to everyone as I pointed to the east. This high up, we could see above the trees and into the valley and land below.

“It is like there is a wavy line that runs from down there to up past that spot in the north. Everything to the east of it looks alive and flourishing. Everything to the west of it looks like it is dying or dead.”

The other three started to nod in agreement as I pointed it out.

“What would cause something like this, Vreek,” asked Turk.

Vreek held up his hands in frustration and looked at Turk with a blank stare.

“Why do you all seem to think I know everything? We did not travel a lot; all I know is only what was shared with me by Brar and a few other captains.”

I could see the frustration on Vreek’s face and realized that we had been asking a lot from him about everything. Part of me was surprised he had waited this long to let it out.

“Sorry, Vreek,” apologized Turk. “I guess I had just assumed you knew everything. I was just wondering if magic could do this.”

Vreek shrugged his shoulders and just walked ahead a little bit.

“He seems touchy.”

I nodded at Dirk and thought about what Turk had said.

“Son, is there any kind of magic you learned from the book Brar had that could do something like this?”

“Nothing that I saw. Everything was a spell focused on something like a fireball or poisoning someone or something.” Turk’s eyes widened when he realized what he just said. “I guess someone could maybe poison or disease something with magic, but for it to be this far spread seems impossible. I can do some cool stuff but nothing like this.”

“What about if it was something leaking out or causing the ground and earth to become corrupt? Like in those games we played,” pointed out Dirk. “I cannot remember that one game but basically, something bad was draining the life from the area to grow stronger. Any chance it could be like that?”

I realized both boys were waiting on me to answer, and I had no honest answer to give. I knew what Dirk was thinking of and if there was indeed something powerful enough to do this kind of damage, I did not see how we could possibly deal with it.

“Right now, I feel like Vreek, you two. I have no clue what could be causing this. If it is a creature of some kind, do you two really believe we could defeat it?”

“Maybe,” Turk replied with a grin. “We have gotten lucky before.”

Walking past the two of them, I followed Vreek, who had stopped to see if we were coming.

“Be glad you do not have children, Vreek. You might find them wanting you to attempt the impossible.”

“You mean like everything you have ever asked of me?”

I laughed and nodded. “Just like that.”

“Does this mean we are not going to explore that cave after all?”

“No, we are still going to check it out. Even though it seems like a bad idea, I want to try and see if we can locate the camp Brar talked about. If we find nothing, we will need to head back towards the city and raid some. Our food is running low and I do not like being hungry.”

Vreek nodded and motioned to Turk and Dirk who were almost caught up with us.

“They get tired of drinking blood when there is no water. Perhaps I should have told you to find something to piss in. That way, they would have something to drink.”

Suddenly the lizard I had eaten seemed ready to climb back up my throat. Hearing that we might have to drink our own or each other's urine was not something I was quite ready to attempt.

“We better hurry up our search then. I am not sure the three of us could handle that.”

“Handle what, Dad?”

Vreek reached down like he was going to unlace his pants.

“I was just tellin your dad that sometimes goblins drink piss when there is no blood or water to drink. Are either of you two thirsty?”

“Ugghhh,” Dirk said with a look of disgust, “I don’t think I would ever be that thirsty.”

Vreek laughed and let go of his pants.

“You never know,” he replied with a smile.