The trio made their way to the rebuilt platform, passing through the improvised tents and propped up tarps that shielded the goblins before their quarters could be finished.
In the northeastern section of the park, the foundation for the goblin quarters was under construction. In the first layer was an octagonal wall of both brick and wood. Inside it, a few goblins covered three wooden logs in a shining metal plate. The workers tirelessly hammered and propped them up to serve as the support pillars and spine of the building.
The trio walked past the great goblin mob that had crowded the middle of the platform.
“Make way for the magicman!” Lemin yelled out as the union workers broke ranks to let the wizard, the princess, and their leader pass.
Figwit looked into the shifting eyes of the goblins. His body shook as his soul sank at the possibility of what would happen were he to fail.
“You got this, my star champion,” Ivy reassured Figwit, holding tight to his hand and noticing as the beating of her love's heart calmed.
It would not last long, however. As the last of the union's cohorts broke, Figwit's heart raced again as he saw what the gnome brothers had done.
In front of him, at the center of the crowd and the platform, a spire of garbage jutted out from the floor. Around it lay a circular barricade of rotten wood, broken furniture, wood chippings, and broken logs and planks.
The spire was not much taller than Figwit, extending only a few feet above his hat, but the length and distance from the outwards wall of garbage to the center of the little tower was substantial enough and pointy enough that no goblin had successfully made it inside.
“They did this in two days?” Figwit said.
“To be fair, it's mostly junk,” Axel responded. He left the goblin crowd to meet the wizard, still pulling out various wooden splinters from his arms and legs.
“Effective junk by the looks of it,” Figwit declared with a disapproving nod.
From the little tower, two small silhouettes sprouted.
“They're back! Get down!” Lemin ordered. Suddenly, the entire goblin guard fell to the floor, covering their heads and eyes.
This left only the wizard and the princess standing up on the platform. The princess sighed, shaking her head.
The wizard looked attentively at the structure. Eventually he noticed a circular hole in the log serving as the central pillar of the little spire. In it, Ono and Ini peered from inside, both armed with two egg-loaded slingshots.
“Stay back! We're warning you. These aren't quail eggs anymore, they're turkeys!”
“Yeah, don't make us shoot these! Cause then we are gonna have to move to ostrich, and we would rather eat it than fire it!”
The wizard heard the cords of the gnomes’ slingshots being stretched and moved to the outer edge of the barricade. “Ini? Ono? It's me. Figwit.”
The slingshots retreated inside the log. From inside, the brothers called out. “Figwit? Are you ok?”
“Did the workers hurt you again?”
“No, no, no. I'm fine. Wha—-” The wizard stammered for a bit. He held on to his staff for support and tried to focus himself. “What are you doing in there?”
Silence befell the platform. The wind whispered through the holes and fissures in the barricade before the voice of the brothers overtook it and echoed out from the wooden fort.
“Figwit, they want to take away our hats!”
“Yeah, so we're hiding. We won't give them our hats. That wasn't part of the deal!”
Axel suddenly broke from his cover, screaming out, “Yes it was. But you refused to see it! It was there when you signed it!”
“Shush!” The princess called out, grabbing her own mallet and hitting Axel on the back of his head, knocking him to the floor. “Let Figwit talk.”
Figwit sighed, pondering his words carefully. “Well, I don't know about any of that. I was unconscious for these last few days.”
“Are you hurt?” Ini peered out from the hole in the log.
“No, I'm fine. Ivy and Lemin saw to it.” He smiled at the gnome.
“Good. We were worried about you ...”
“Yeah, I know.” Figwit tipped his own pointy hat to the brothers. “They told me after I went down. You two saved everyone. Is that right?”
“Yeah, it is.” Ono pushed his brother and they fought for space in the log’s hole, pushing and shoving each other to get a better view of their friend.
“We just – Ono, stop it!” Ini cried out as he finally gave up and exited the log. He now stood on a small ledge that was nailed to the central pillar. “I mean, we had to. We didn't want anyone to die.”
“We don't want to hurt anyone either.” Ono said, sticking out his body from the hole and scanning the crowd for any hostile workers.
“You did well.” Figwit raised his hat upward and looked at the brothers. “I am very impressed. And proud too.”
“You are?”
“Huh?” Ini said.
“Yes. I mean, saving all of these goblins, especially when just a few moments before they were getting ready for a brawl, is very noble and selfless of you.”
“I mean ... it was just what we had to do. It's what grandpa would have done,” Ini said as Ono simply nodded in silence.
“I remember you telling me about him. About how, despite all the tricks and pranks, your grandfather would always fix things in the end.” Figwit closed his eyes and recalled back to when his guardianship had just begun.
“It's how it has to be. We need to fix things.” Ono left the pillar and joined his brother.
Behind the wizard, the goblins were beginning to growl and grow restless. Some of them slowly stood up, but Ivy moved from goblin to goblin and pushed them to be quiet and sit down.
Lemin assisted her by signaling with his hands for all the goblins to be silent and wait.
“You did,” said Figwit. “The fact you got along with the workers here so quickly too is very impressive. I don't think the gnomes I first met in Amberlight would have done that.”
The gnomes avoided the wizard’s look, staring at the ground and their feet as the implication of the molasses disaster was brought back.
“W-Well that wasn't our fault! That was the Golden Beard Bank’s fault for not giving us enough money!” Ini cried in a wavering tone.
His brother looked at him and, with a rather defeated tone, corrected him. “Ini ... no. The judge was right. We could have warned somebody. We didn't, ‘cause we didn't think anyone would get hurt by it.”
There was a faint cry and sniffling from Ini. Ono tried to reach for his brother, only for his hand to be pushed away as Ini turned his back on the crowd and his twin.
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He cried out in a harsh tone, “Wh-Who cares what happened to some, some stinky dwarves. We should have just ... we should have just left when we had the chance.”
Below, on the platforms floor, the wizard stayed silent. Even with Ini's back turned toward him, he could tell that his words were interspersed with crying and labored breathing.
The goblin crowd listened silently as the gnome cried. They were both shocked embarrassed by the gnome’s feelings.
Ono got close to his brother and hugged him. Within a flood of tears and sniffles, in that barrage of guilt and emotions, the two brothers tried to comfort each other.
“H-How many people have we hurt that we don't know about?” Ini cried out. His mind raced with all the inventions and projects that they had abandoned with payment, never staying too long to see if it worked properly or not.
“I, I don't know, Ini.” Ono answered. He too cried and sniffled, albeit in a much more calm and collected manner. His breathing remained steady.
“What if instead you asked, ‘How many people have you helped?’” Figwit said in a reassuring and confident voice.
The brothers looked at him, curious but still crying.
“You know, when I first met you two in Amberlight I thought you were just two con artists. I thought from the start that molasses pipping was a bad idea. But you know what?”
The gnomes and goblins all watched the wizard. “I was wrong. Well, I wasn't wrong about the pipping. But I was wrong about you two. I know that we didn't start on the best terms, but after all this time I know you aren't con artists or bad people. I know that you put all of your heart and soul into everything you do. And sure, sometimes you may go a little overboard. Might get a little too obsessed with something and lose track of the bigger picture. But in the end, you come through.”
The brothers wiped their tears as Figwit’s words filling their souls with a newfound cheer and optimism. Through the final sniffling and the haze of their waterworks, Ini said, “Oh, you are just saying that, Figwit.”
“No. I mean it!” the wizard emphasized and bashed his staff against the ground. “Here in the swamp, in the goblin joust and during the fire ... a blind fool would think you nothing but childish tricksters and pranksters. But whenever it mattered, whenever there was real danger, even if a bit silly, you came through and saved me. You led me to my love. You saved my life and hers in the joust and then saved everyone else in the fire.” The wizard smiled and his words radiated a bright light of optimism. Even the clouds above parted and the sun began to shine upon the platform.
“What about the flooding? So many people got hurt because of us,” Ono said. A final weight of guilt still hovered above him.
“They did, yes.” Figwit sighed as he remembered the sugary horror. “But you are here. There were plenty of times, plenty of opportunities you could have escaped from me ... but you didn't. You stayed. You worked hard and reared everything in to make it up to the people of Amberlight. In fact," the wizard said as he opened his arms and gestured to the entire park around him, “you are still working on it. No, my dear Pump brothers. I know you now. I know you are good, honorable people. I mean, even after they threatened to fight you, you listened to the goblins and worked to fix and address their issues. I know now you are good, if perhaps just a little strange, and I'm proud to call you my friends.”
The wizard smiled at the brothers, and they replied with an equal thankful, beaming cheer.
“Thank you, Figwit,” the brothers both said at the same time, nodding in agreement. Finally, to the surprise of the goblins, the gnomes jumped through the barricade of garbage to land outside their little fort, in front of Figwit. The wizard dropped his staff and knelled down, opening his arms and hugging the two brothers.
“Thank you. Ini, Ono ... no matter what happens, you are my friends. And whether this park works or not, I will stay by your side.”
“You would go to jail with us?” Ini asked as he hugged back his best friend.
“I would. Even to the darkest, deepest dwarven pit.”
“Wow,” Ono let out with awe and respect. “You know that means a lot, especially considering you are a seer and wouldn't be able to see the stars again.”
Figwit nodded, letting out a nervous chuckle as he realized the implications of being thrown for the rest of his life in a pit with the gnome brothers. “Ha, y-yeah. Yeah. But you know what? I don't think it would matter ‘cause I think you two would find a way to show me the stars again.”
“Well...” Ini let out with a mischievous smirk, “We might have a little something something to make the stars appear.”
#
The trio chuckled and moved in for another hug. Behind them the goblin workers continued to grow restless. They ignored the orders from both Ivy and Lemin and stood up. For now they watched the brothers and the wizard, wondering if their last term would finally be fulfilled.
“My star champion,” Ivy coughed out as she tried to draw Figwit’s attention to the worker problem.
“Right.” Figwit sighed. He turned to brothers and with an honest and pleading tone, he asked, “Ini, Ono ... is it true that you promised your hats to the goblins until the park is done?”
The brothers’s spirits suddenly dropped again. Within the safety of Figwit’s arms, Ono let out a faint “Yes ...”
“But they don't understand!” Ini added’. “Figwit, you know what the hats mean to us. I mean, what is a gnome without their hat? They are just a short person. We can't give our hats away in the same way you can't give your staff and ability to do magic away. It's ... it's everything to us.”
Figwit sighed and nodded his head. He let go of the brothers and stood up as he leaned onto his staff, saying, “Yes. You are right. It is everything to me ... the stars, the planets, the moons, and the magic. To be without them, its unthinkable. And yet.” The wizard took one good look at his wooden staff, at the gem and the mooncrystal that were embedded into it.
He passed his hands over it, feeling the power, the rarity, the responsibility, and the comfort of the celestial bodies that had kept him company through the darkest and loneliest moments of his life. Then, to the shock of the brothers, of the goblins and of everyone on the platform including the wizard himself, Figwit brought the staff upwards and, with a single swing and motion, he broke the staff in two.
He splintered it against his knee. In a swift motion, he threw the broken twigs on the ground and crushed the mooncrystal with his foot. The precious moondust inside shattered and flew away in the wind, leaving various star-like sparkles as it made its way back into the sky.
“Figwit!” Ini screamed.
“What have you done?”
The gnome brothers yelled in shock and even the goblin workers looked astonished by the wizard's severing of his magic.
“I did what I had to do,” Figwit said with a warm tone and a pained smile. “Sometimes what needs to be done hurts. But if it’s the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do. Besides,” Figwit said as he crouched to meet the gnomes, “I don't need the stars to witness magic. You two— --your ways and your friendship— -- it's already magic enough for me.”
“Oh you silly seer,” Ono let out as he and his brother once more reached to hug their best friend.
Behind them, the goblins remained silent, still taken aback by the former wizard’s action. This silence was broken when the gnomes let go of the human. They took a few steps past him and turned to face Ivy and Lemin.
Ono sighed. His hands reached for his hat and, carefully, he took it off. He held it in his hands and wondered about the magic he too would need to let go of. He felt the cool breeze against his head, closed his eyes, and gifted his hat to Lemin. “Quickly, before my head gets too cold.”
The goblin silently nodded as he grabbed the hat. When he held it he was disappointed. Instead of feeling a massive surge of power or magic, he felt as if the red cloth pointy hat was merely ... well, a red cloth pointy hat. The only discernible change in it being that the signature pointedness of the hat suddenly vanished. When it left the hands of the gnome, it became instead floppy and formless. Lemin placed it around his tool belt.
“Ah! I hate being good! Take it!” Ini screamed out as he took of his hat and, unlike his brother, threw it in the air toward the crowd of goblin workers.
All eyes watched it majestically fly in the air, rotating and dancing through the open sunrays that peered through the clouds.
“I got it! I got it!” the goblin with a large protruding chin yelled as he broke through his gomrades ranks to chase the object of his desire. He even jumped and leaped atop their heads to be the first one to catch a glimpse of its magic.
“Finally! It's mine!” he yelled out as the hat quickly made its descent. He opened his arms to grab it and then, to his and all the goblins’s shock, the hat engulfed him. In the blink of an eye, the goblin with the protruding chin vanished into the hat. Its pointedness too vanished, and the hat flopped over on the floor. Around it, every goblin worker slowly began to step away, afraid of what it could still do.
“Well, I guess Gray got what he wanted,” Lemin sighed as he reached for the hat and placed it around his tool belt with the other.
“Maybe he'll find Rom,” Ivy added. The goblins looked incredulously to the two flabby gnome hats on Lemin's belt.
“Maybe.” Lemin pulled the belt upwards and clapped his hands proclaiming, “Alright everyone. Show's over, we all have what we wanted. Back to work! I want those quarters finished before it rains.”
The goblins dispersed, finally happy that all of their demands had been fulfilled.
“Come to me if you need me,” Ivy said as she jumped to kiss the human on his cheek. She left him with a deep blush as she too prepared to contribute to the work effort.
The wizard was left alone on the platform with the gnomes. The brothers looked shocked, defeated, and confused. They passed their hands through their heads, still in disbelief that they had actually done it.
As they felt the cold breeze pass through the top of their scalps, they said, “Is this what hatless people feel like all the time?”
“It sucks.” Ini said.
The human chuckled as he took off his own pointy hat and covered both of their heads with it.
“Figwit ...”
“You don't have to do this ... it's yours.” Ono said.
The former wizard crouched and, with a rather warm and gentle tone, he said to his best friends, “Don't worry. You can hold on to it just until you get your own hats back.”
The brothers almost began to cry again as they felt the warmth of their friend’s kindness. They hugged him again, saying as their voice wavered, “Thank you Figwit ...”
“We don't deserve you.”
The wizard smiled back. “Well, I deserve you. C'mon. You guys want to show me where a simple human worker can help build this park?” Figwit rose with a smile and the brothers took initiative and guided him.
They each took turns holding on to the hat and pushing it more and more to their side. “Sure. This way, humble human.”
“You can help us work on the kitchen. A human and two short people!”
“Sounds wonderful. Let's get this done!” the human said as he rolled up his sleeves.
The sky had finally cleared and the sun shone above. Under the hope, and the shade of their friendship, the human and the two short people moved to make their hopes and dreams a reality.