“Oh no,” said Friedrich, climbing to his feet. The goblin king had most certainly noticed that it was raining humans and had drawn his bone-infused club, holding it menacingly. He clacked and clunked as he stomped towards Friedrich, unwilling to let anybody come between him and his precious treasure horde.

The goblin king swung his club with the ferocity of an enraged bull, narrowly missing Friedrich who had rolled out of the way with half a second to spare. He scurried away and raised his sword and shield, staring the undead goblin king down. The young treasure hunter beckoned the bony brute forward, clanging his sword against his shield as he did so.

The fearsome enemy let out an unexpected roar that echoed throughout the courtyard and then he charged forward, but the young adventurer was nimble enough to slip past him. The goblin collided with the wall, but unlike his feebler kin, he didn’t fall to pieces.

Friedrich stormed at him, thrusting his sword straight, but the goblin king weathered the attack without taking a scratch. The sword bounced off the bone and slipped aside. He was a sturdy one and Friedrich now realised just how much trouble he had gotten himself into. He stole a glance at the treasure, thinking it might be best to grab the mask and a few kupons before running for the forest, but that brief moment of contemplation was all his enemy needed to gain a greater advantage.

The goblin king lunged at him, grabbed the young adventurer and lifted him into the air. He threw him across the room with a rickety cackle, and Friedrich collided with a pillar. Dazed and disoriented, he rose clumsily to his feet, wobbling the whole way. He couldn’t focus on the goblin king, seeing three of him running all at once, with their clubs raised. Thinking he had better try to dodge all three simultaneously, he dropped to the ground as the clubs struck at the pillar, taking a large chunk out of the base, sending clusters of stone across the floor and a small puff of limestone dust through the air.

The young man crawled around the base of the pillar to escape the goblin’s watchful eye sockets. He leaned on the stone pillar to stand up, but it started to move as he did so. This was his chance. He gave it a forceful shove, then moved around to distract the goblin king. Having no reason to show his human foe mercy, the skeleton swung at him once more; he was unaware of the pillar that was on the verge of tipping over.

The stone at the bottom of the base crumbled and the pillar teetered for a second before it came tumbling down as Friedrich avoided yet another hit; what a delight it was to be so light-footed. The goblin king turned around just in time to see the pillar well on its way to crushing him, and crush him it did. It crushed him into bone dust against the grass and brick of the courtyard, sending his crown rolling away.

Friedrich walked over to the goblin and picked up a couple of the remaining bones. He tossed them over the wall, just in case there was a devious necromancy trick that would cause them to come back to reanimate, converge and then attack. You couldn’t be too careful these days with the prevalence of sinister magic.

The marvellous golden crown sat on its gem-encrusted side, the untarnished metal twinkling in the sun. Friedrich scooped it up and set it haphazardly on his head, then grinned widely. “I am Friedrich, king of the goblins!” he chuckled to himself. Oh, he was a funny one, even if it was only himself that was present to hear him joke.

He retrieved a small sack from his bag and loaded up on kupons from the pile in the centre of the yard, where the goblin king had once guarded. He started with the most valuable colour and, each time he ran out of one, he moved to the next most valuable. It was such a trek to reach this place, he wanted to ensure that he came away as rich as he possibly could. He had more than broken even on this quest when only a quarter of the sack had been filled, so he was very pleased with himself. It was an expensive job, this adventuring business, but it certainly gave him stories to tell.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Dad,” he muttered to himself gleefully as he stuffed what else he could into the sack.

He could not hope to carry much more, but saved room for just one more thing; the golden fox mask. It twinkled in the sunlight, but it was more than the incandescent sun that made it glow. Friedrich knelt beside it and stared at it. It was as though a swirling blue vapour was encircling it, perhaps a magical enchantment. Hoping that it was not cursed, Friedrich picked it up and held it up, almost expecting it to explode in his hand, but nothing happened.

The golden wood faded as it reached the inner ears and was replaced with black paint. There were green markings painted around the eyeholes and emerging from the nose ridge towards the forehead along with a couple of other wispy streaks on the cheeks. What Friedrich thought gave it its value, however, sat within the forehead. It was a glistening turquoise gem, but it was most certainly not a mere kupon. This gem was where the ethereal aura radiated from. There was something captivating about it, as though it was drawing him in and telling him that he could trust it, but Friedrich knew better than to put faith in unknown magic.

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“I wonder what you’re doing here?” he asked the mask before shrugging and stashing it in the sack.

Now came the escape from the castle, a task made much easier with most of the king’s minions broken into a dozen parts. Friedrich contemplated for a while, assessing his next move. The front door wasn’t an option, and the old grating in the cell would be tricky to reach if he couldn’t find a good length of rope; even then, what would he tie it to? He could always stack barrels and bricks to reach the hole that way, but that was going to be tedious.

“Leap from the window, it is then,” he said merrily. Still wearing the crown that was far too large for his head, and looking quite the imbecile because of it, he slung the sack over his shoulder and walked through the courtyard doors.

In the main courtyard, a goblin was waiting for him. It foolishly charged at Friedrich, but he broke it apart with a wide swing of his treasure sack. He climbed the nearby half-crumbled stone staircase and walked inside the castle once more. Upon locating a window suitably large enough for him to squeeze through, he dropped the sack onto the grass below, where the contents satisfyingly clinked within as it hit the ground.

Taking a second to admire the view, Friedrich breathed in the beautifully crisp air. As turbulent as the last year of his life had been, he knew that he was making good progress towards his goal, but he couldn’t stop. He needed to find more kupons and get that boat. That was the first major step of his grand plan.

Friedrich leapt from the window, falling fifteen feet and rolling forward to make sure he didn’t break his legs. What good would this treasure be if he was too injured to carry it away? No good at all, he thought to himself.

The boy with the sword and shield wandered back along the forest path with his newfound riches in tow. He walked towards the sun, which made every effort to escape him as it moved through the sky. Hours later it had outpaced him so much that it had almost sunk behind the mountains in the distance. Perhaps that was enough for today; time for dinner and a long rest until light returned.

Friedrich found a quiet clearing and stashed all his belongings except for his sword and shield, then crept quietly through the wood in search of something to eat. He paused every now and then, hoping to hear the smooth rustle of a bush or the soft pitapat of padded feed on the grass.

As dusk set in, he heard the call of a pheasant. Now was his chance. He swiftly moved towards the source of the crowing and waited patiently. And then it came wondering along, the sleek brown bird with the red and black head. It was not quite a tasty chicken, but it was close enough. The young man pounced from the shadows and captured the bird in his arms, bringing it back to his makeshift campsite, ready to satisfy his growling stomach. Rather than let the poor creature suffer as it waited to be devoured, he snapped its neck with a quick bend and twist.

He lit a fire with a small kit he had brought with him. The flint sparked as it hit the stone and set the straw alight. Friedrich set it amongst a pile of stacked sticks that he had gathered for kindling and blew softly, spreading the creeping flames from the straw to the wood. It was not long before the fire was roaring and burning the larger logs, and the plucked pheasant was cooking beautifully.

Friedrich was so tired after the events of the day that he lay back on the grass to relax and watched the stars, his hunger now satiated. He thought about how best to utilise this newfound wealth. Granted, it wouldn’t stretch beyond a couple of weeks if he wasn’t sensible, so he needed to get straight to the next adventure. If he had the freedom to simply do what he wanted, he would buy the boat solely for adventuring.

The flight of fancy occupied his thoughts as he imagined a dozen different places he would visit, all of them imaginary of course. All he knew of what lay across the endless blue was from maps, save for a single towering building upon a hidden island.

After finally coming back to reality, he sat back up and stared at his sack of treasure. The ethereal blue vapour from the mask was escaping from the top before dissipating into the ether. What an unusual find, but what could it be?

Friedrich stood up and walked over to the sack, opening the top and pulling out the fox mask. He held it in his hands and stared into its empty eyes before slowly turning it around as he thought about what to do with it for a while. He decided that bringing it to an appraiser of some kind or to a wise mage who could identify its magic were the two best options. As beautiful as it was, he knew that there was no point in keeping it. Before that, however, perhaps he ought to try it on just once. He didn’t really want to, but he felt a strangely warm compulsion rising within him.

He looked at the back of the mask and brought it up to his face, hoping that it had the power to let him see in the dark; what a fantastic boon to his treasure hunting that would be, but as soon as it settled upon his face, he began to feel funny.

Friedrich let out an unwilling gasp and his hands began to shake vigorously. He wanted to scream, but he was unable to utter as much as a single syllable. Suddenly, he was shrinking. Not only was he shrinking, his fingers were retracting and his skin felt incredibly itchy. Fur? Was that golden fur growing from his arms? Where had his clothes gone? He tried to look down, but his nose had obscured his vision, long as it now was. In no more than two seconds, everything was different.

The young man raised his hand to see what had become of him, but the limb he raised was not an arm; it was a leg. The leg of a fox, and he was standing on three of them. Friedrich tried to let out a yell, but all he could do was let out a yapping bark as he looked around in a panic. What was he supposed to do? Why did he put the mask on?

“That really was something,” came a curious feminine voice from the shadows.