The long defensive walls were made of wood.

The lengthy slabs that encircled the village and formed the wall were positioned side by side and had been firmly stuck deep in the ground. They towered over Sir Teddy.

This wasn´t a particularly great achievement, to be honest: Sir Teddy is a stuffed toy, after all. He is very small, and has short arms and legs.

The little bear kept observing the walls, searching for any weaknesses. Unfortunately, he didn´t find any. The slabs of wood were pointy at the edges, and seemed sharp enough to easily tear through meat and bone. Not that Sir Teddy cared about meat or bones. His body had neither.

Even so, climbing the walls and trying to jump over them sounded like something he should only try as a last resort.

So he decided to storm the main gate.

How hard could it be?

This was a Goblin Village, and goblins were not known for their bravery or fighting skills. Sir Teddy had already encountered some of them in the Human World, trying to steal some of Layla´s toys and sandals.

Goblins loved stuff created by humans. That had always been the case. It was very common for a human to “lose” something inside their own house and never be able to find it, even though they could swear they had just dropped it behind the sofa or other random place. The truth was, goblins liked to search for “lost” objects while humans slept, and then bring it home to the Realm Under the Bed.

Sometimes, they would get bored with their newest treasure and give it back after a few days. But if the stolen item was interesting enough for the goblins, then the original owner would never find those socks or shirts that had been forgotten on the bathroom´s floor.

The only protection against the goblins´ exploits, as any good human mother would always say, was to keep your stuff properly stashed in your wardrobe or desk. Goblins despised things that were safely locked away. Their true passion was picking up objects they found on the floor. Or perhaps forgotten behind some piece of furniture. You could say that they were always looking for diamonds in the rough, so to speak.

To Sir Teddy´s surprise, entering the village was even easier than he was expecting: the only guard was an old goblin that was sleeping on the job, hugging his own weapon, an old frying pan he had probably stolen from a human´s kitchen.

This is not reassuring at all, Sir Teddy thought, feeling a bit of pity towards the other villagers.

Were they really going to be okay like this?

He was like the other goblins Sir Teddy remembered: short stature (although still taller than a stuffed toy), while pale skin, forked tongues like those of snakes, and big ears that resembled a bat. His arms and legs were scrawny, and he was dressed with a colourful human shirt that was too big for him. The size difference made it look like he was wearing a long dress.

The goblin´s eyes were closed, as he snored loudly, perhaps having some nice dream about picking up coins under a sofa.

Sir Teddy didn´t waste anytime and passed him by, entering the village without announcing himself.

He wasn´t here for tourism.

He had a human girl to find.

A village was the perfect place to collect some information and resources. Perhaps he could learn a little more about this awful place and find out where the Princess was being kept.

For a place built by goblins, it was surprisingly clean and welcoming. The small houses were made of wood and straw fibers, with colored roofs that were decorated with human socks. Goblins, for some unknown reason, really liked to collect socks and pencils. Perhaps those were the objects humans paid the least amount of attention to? Were they easier to steal?

It looked like the amount of socks you were able to decorate your roof with said something about your status in this village. Some houses had so many bright kneesocks and thigh-highs waving and flapping because of the wind that, for a moment, Sir Teddy though they were flags.

There was not much distance between the small houses, but enough space for the villagers to walk freely, without running into each other. The ground was dirty, but had been properly terraced to allow for walking barefoot without losing your step.

He walked through the streets of the village under the curious stares of the local populace: the pale goblins, with their big red eyes, strutted around, proud of their pieces of human clothing. The colorful and bubbly boogeymen slimed slowly, almost bouncing as they walked, and the tiny talking animals, like squirrels and rats, moved at their own pace, with creepy smiles that reminded Sir Teddy of the crow he had met some hours ago.

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All in all, the place seemed relatively organized, and with a clear hierarchy that put Goblins on top.

After several minutes of walking around, he had noticed no hostility from the locals, only slight curiosity.

They probably felt a small teddy bear walking by himself was no threat to the citizens of this place. Sir Teddy understood the reason behind their confidence when he arrived at the largest street in the village, where one could find the central market.

Not only there were a lot of villagers reunited in a single crowded place, buying and selling all kinds of things, but the market was being patrolled by goblin soldiers mounted on gigantic spiders that moved their large and long legs slowly, while observing their surroundings in a sinister way.

These enormous spiders were completely black, but their many eyes shone in a dark-blue color. There were also several painting marks drawn on their large bodies. White and red symbols that Sir Teddy did not recognize. It was some kind of tribal art probably produced by the same goblin riders that had trained these monstrous arachnids.

Now I get it.

That´s the reason they don´t worry about the main gate.

With a patrolling force such as this, they don´t need to bother.

Sir Teddy had underestimated the resources of this village.

He strolled through the central market area, trying to disappear into the crowd as to not bring too much attention upon himself.

It was useless.

He was a stuffed toy from the Human Realm, and his body was covered in gruesome stitches. Whoever saw him was unable to look away for a few seconds.

Sighing loudly to show his disappointment, Sir Teddy approached a street performer who was seating in front of a small wooden table. This particular performer had attracted quite the crowd, perhaps because of his odd appearance. He was about Sir Teddy´s size, but was covered from head to toe with a ragged white blanket that hid his body. The only uncovered part were his big green eyes that stared at others from inside the mysterious blanket.

There was also something moving anxiously in his lower back. Maybe it was a tail? Goblins and boogeymen did not have tails, so this performer probably belonged to another tribe.

“Whoever can find this grape!”, the performer announced as more people joined the crowd, showing them a small grape that had been put on the table, “Shall take all of my buttons away.”

He showed them an assortment of old plastic buttons, like those the Princess had in several of her clothes, and the crowd gasped in awe.

Huh? Why would anyone care about these?

At first, Sir Teddy could not understand why everyone was so interested in that prize.

But he kept quiet and observed those around him.

All over the market, plastic buttons like those were being used to acquire items and food.

So that´s their currency.

As expected of a Goblin Village.

“Two buttons to participate. Does anyone dare to take my challenge?”, the performer covered in a blanket asked with a cheerful voice, and it didn´t take long for a line to form in front of his small table.

Once more, Sir Teddy did not hurry.

He watched and learned.

His only remaining eye paid a lot of attention to what was happening in front of him, the same way he used to pay attention to the Shiny Magic Box in the living room to learn all kinds of things.

It was a simple game.

There were 3 identical cups on the table.

They were red and made of plastic.

One of them was used to cover the grape, hiding it from everyone´s view. Then the 3 cups were quickly shuffled around by the mysterious performer, right in front of the challenger´s face.

The cups exchanged places several times before being left alone, in an entertaining show that made some observers clap and whistle. After that, the challenger had to pick the correct cup, the one containing the grape.

If he could do it, all of the buttons left on the table would be his. It sounded like a tempting offer, but winning the game was harder than it seemed at first: even after 10 goblins tried their luck, one after the other, they could never pick the correct cup.

The performer´s hands were very skilled, and the goblins did not have the patience to keep their full attention during the shuffling of the 3 cups. They kept leaving everything to random chance, and were punished for it with consecutive failures.

“Too bad! Best luck next time!”, the performer would say, while another goblin complained that this game was stupid and he wasn´t trying to win anyway. The next goblin would declare that as a lame excuse, then proceed to fail miserably, and then complain that this game was stupid and that he actually had lost on purpose.

As Sir Teddy watched this situation, he became impressed with how much goblins hated winning.

After a while, the crowd seemed to lose interest in the game, as many of the goblins decided that the chance of winning was too low. Their buttons would be better spent by buying some food or socks!

The street performer who hid his body under a ragged white blanket noticed that he had lost the attention of the crowd, but didn´t look particularly sad about it. Instead, he rubbed his hands together.

“Looks like that will be all for today, huh? Thank you for your patronage, it was my pleasure.”, he said in a cheerful voice, almost like he was mocking those who had lost their buttons to him.

“Wait.”

That cold voice took the performer by surprise.

The big green eyes inside the safety of the blanket slowly slid to the side, looking for the one that had uttered that word.

It was Sir Teddy.

The small bear approached the table with a sullen expression in his face.

The street performer looked at the stuffed toy with evident curiosity.

“A teddy bear…?”, he murmured, “Shouldn´t you be guarding some sleeping human kid, Cotton Slave?”

“Yes. I intend to do so.”, Sir Teddy answered.

“Then why are you here?”, the performer stared at this suspicious stuffed toy.

The crowd, that just a few moments ago had almost dispersed completely, had been stopped on its tracks by this sudden development. They were paying attention to this unexpected interaction.

“He´s right, you know?”, one of the goblins laughed out loud. “You´re very far from home, buddy. You´re Under the Bed.”

“I want some information.”, the teddy bear said with the same cold voice, still looking at the performer who hid under a blanket.

“I can´t help you with that.”, the performer sighed. “But this is a market. A place where you can buy and sell things. I´m sure you can find any information you want, for the right price.”

“Yes. That´s why I came to you.”

“Huh? Are your ears not working, Cotton Slave? I just told you I´m not in the information business!”, the performer´s voice became louder as he showed his irritation.

Sir Teddy leaned towards the small table in front of him.

“As you said, this is a market. If I want useful information, I need to be able to pay for it. So let´s play this game of yours.”

The big green eyes of the performer blinked several times. He finally understood the situation.

While the whole crowd of goblins watched him, Sir Teddy flicked the grape that had been left on the table, making the small sweet fruit roll towards the nearest cup, and then said:

“Your buttons. I will be taking all of them.”