“Switch!”

Skrakch openly gaped at Winifred as the Pit Fighter rushed straight toward the Ghast, her legs a blur as she launched herself forward.

One second the Ratling had been trying to avoid being ripped apart by an Undead that was over three times his size, and the next he was watching as it slammed into the Arena’s walls with a sickening, very audible crunch. He hadn’t even -seen- Winifred until she’d stopped moving, and given a cocky command to-

Rolling over in place without a care for the bits of rubble that were poking into his hide, Skrakch focused all his attention on the Chosen Shade. Without Winifred to distract it, and the Ghast’s sudden appearance, it seemed that the massive beast was left wrong-footed, unsure of how to proceed as it stood completely still in the center of the Arena.

The damned Shade looked more like a lump of twisted and coiled snakes than the Demoness it had possessed at this point, little to no signs of Survix’ original form left. It was strange, but the Shade no longer seemed interested in chasing after Winifred to resume their battle.

What in the Nine Hells? Is it just going to sit there? Skrakch had to fight off the urge to let loose a chortle. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to stop once he started laughing in relief but it was clear he and his companions were in the clear, at least momentarily anyways.

There was a sudden meaty thump beside him, followed by a string of curses in a guttural Goblin tongue. The Iskrin half-turned to see Meekknuckle as he laid heaving on the stone floor beside him.

Without any Mana being directed toward it, his Gravity Rune had dissipated and dropped his companion unceremoniously onto the ground. It was an unexpected consequence of Skrakch’s wandering mind but the Goblin certainly had no business complaining as far the Ratling was concerned. Not after Skrakch's quick thinking had saved the buggers life.

“Meek not like this,” The Goblin moaned adamantly. “Meek go home now?” He asked as he writhed dramatically from his prone position. Skrakch rolled his eyes but couldn’t summon the energy to blame him.

Pulling his exhausted body upright, Skrakch laboriously regained his unsteady footing, all the while keeping the Chosen Shade in his eye line. “No, of course, you can’t go home yet,” He snapped as he felt his fur spike up, his tail lashing from side to side. “Get on your feet before the Shade decides to attack us you blithering idiot!”

“But scary Snake Lady not even looking at me!” Meekknuckle muttered. He still got to his feet anyhow, brushing the dust and debris off his front. His eyes suddenly widened and a panicked look crossed his features. “Wait! What happen to Ornn?” He demanded in a near shout, his head swiveling left and right. “Where Ornn?”

Lunging toward the diminutive Goblin, Skrakch smacked him upside the back of his head with one swift movement. “Shut your mouth Meek!” He hissed.

“I’m not getting ripped apart because you’re bloody blind!” The Iskrin continued, grabbing hold of Meek’s thin shoulders. He made sure to dig his claws in a little as he bodily turned the creature around.

“Ornn was thrown off by one of the Ghast’s attacks,” The Ratling explained. “But he’s still in one piece… kind of.” Skrakch finished lamely, releasing one of Meekknuckle’s shoulders and waving a paw to a pile of rubble a short distance away.

Sitting there, amongst a cluster of freshly shattered stone that used to be more Arena seating, lay a decently sized sphere that Skrakch was fairly confident usually resided in Ornn’s broad stone chest. Purple runes were etched deep into a metal Core and, if he had the time, the Ratling was sure that he could decipher the purpose of the Runeworks.

A choked noise rumbled out of Meekknuckle’s throat and the Goblin broke free from Skrakch’s grapes as he moved toward the remnants of his trusted friend. “Oh, Ornn! You down to just center again!” Meek said quietly. Skrakch watched as the Goblin ran one of his warty hands over the surface of the sphere. “Meek keep you safe, no worry. No worry at all.”

Skrakch slowly made his own way over to his two companions, making sure that the Shade was still rooted in the same spot. He snorted as Meek continued to run his hand over the sphere as though he were trying to comfort it.

“You’re not keeping anyone safe at the moment Meek, just… try not to move around too much. We don’t know what the Shade is going to do next. For now, it just seems to be standing there but we all know how quickly that can change.”

Ignoring the rather heated glare that the Goblin sent his way, Skrakch kept a wary eye on the Shade. He could hear the sounds of Winifred battling the Ghast behind him, but frankly, he didn’t have the confidence to dodge another attack from it, so what was the point in watching their scrap.

If the Ghast tried to kill him, he’d have no choice but to just accept it. Still, as he watched the tentacled Shade just stand there, motionless, Skrakch had to admit that he let himself get momentarily distracted as he noticed ‘Ornn’ slowly began to pull bits of rubble inward toward his Core.

“Huh. So this is what you meant by Ornn repairing his own arms?” Skrakch asked as he watched little pebbles rolling toward the Core, clustering together into a thin layer that surrounded the metal orb. It was an interesting use of Mana, the Golem seeming to naturally attract the bits of stone surrounding it towards itself.

“Ornn very smart,” Meek replied proudly as though he were building the Golem back up himself. He only removed his hand from his friend whenever a bit of rubble pushed it away, “He fix fast. He not normally use boring stone but he not picky. Right Ornn?” Meek continued to explain, gently patting the stone layer as it built up, pebble by pebble.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Skrakch silently watched, somewhat in awe, as the Golem slowly pieced itself back together. Though, he couldn’t help the small frown that crossed his face. “I suppose with Ornn currently out of commission, and Winifred busy with the Ghast, we should just… wait quietly?”

“I’m in no rush to piss the Shade off, though I imagine it’s not the best idea to let it go back to whatever it was doing with those corpses…” Skrakch continued to think aloud, one claw idly scratched at his furry chin in contemplation.

What he really want to do was cut his losses and get the Hells out of the place. But why give up when they were, in theory at least, so close to success?

Letting out a small huff of annoyance, Skrakch squatted down beside Ornn’s Core and watched its sluggish process of repairing itself. “Anything that we can do to speed this up? With Zacharias squashed, we’re down a man already,” He asked. “Not that the bloody prick was really much use in general. I know full well he was just trying to es-”

“Now, now. Come on Squeakers, that’s no way to speak of the dead,” An annoyingly familiar voice suddenly interrupted him. Skrakch sighed heavily.

As he glanced to his left, he wasn’t surprised to see Zacharias lounging in his own shadow, a cocky grin on his heavily scarred face. What he hadn't expected though, was to see just how worse for wear the Thief was looking despite his nonchalant attitude.

Leaning up against a large piece of carved rubble, a remnant of an ornate pillar if Skrakch had to guess, the Halfling had clearly seen better days. There was a small puddle of blood pooling by Zacharias’ body, a few jagged cuts crisscrossing the Halfling’s exposed bits of flesh, and his normally clean clothes were in tatters, the gaps revealing already purpling bruises.

The worst of it was a large rend that look like it had damn near taken the bastard’s arm off. It looked like the sole thing keeping it attached was a web of shadows that were spread tightly against the wound, no doubt a stop-measure to keep Zacharias from aggravating it with his movements.

“What, no heartfelt yelps of surprise? No triumphant cries at my amazing return from the brink of death? Zacharias grinned, showing off bloody teeth. “Squeakers, you wound me, you really do.”

“Looks like you’ve got enough wounds right now,” Skrakch replied shortly, trying to keep the sudden surge of anger from showing on his face.

“And here was me thinking that you’d be close to tears with worry for me by now!” Zacharias exclaimed in mock upset.

Turning his attention back to the Shade, Skrakch let out a bark of laughter as he fumbled with his bandolier. “Please, nothing goes that well for me,” The Ratling replied sarcastically. “You’re a bloody cockroach Zacharias, you’ll outlive us all,” The Iskrin finished bitterly as he pulled loose a vial of healing elixir. “Now cram this down your rotten throat.”

With a few quick steps and with an unbroken gaze levied towards the Chosen, Skrakch handed the cocky Halfling the flask. He almost jumped back in surprise when he felt just how cold the Thief’s hands were. They felt closer to the touch of the dead, then that of a mortal man.

“That’s the plan Squeakaroo, that’s the plan.” The Halfling laughed mirthlessly and downed the alchemical brew in one go before tossing the empty vial over his shoulder.

“Fuckin’ ‘ells those brews taste foul,” He grimaced, wiping his mouth with his ragged sleeve. “So, no questions? No words of concern?” Th Thief continued as he wrinkled his nose at the taste. The motion caused the scarring on his battered face to wrinkle and turn red. “No mention of how I heroically distracted that big Undead fuck from coming and making you its dinner?”

Skrakch felt his teeth begin to grind together as he tried his best to clamp down on the long-simmering anger that was growing in his furred chest. At the end of the day, when it came to Zacharias, there was just no point in haranguing the guy. "The bloody prick isn’t ever going to change. He’s happy enough to look out for number one and leave the rest of us to die. There was no way he’d feel guilt over leading the Ghast to them either."

"Not that I’m much better." Skrakch mused as he toned out Zacharias’ continued self-serving prattling. He watched Meekknuckle as he continued to lovingly tend to Ornn, helpfully pushing piles of small stones toward the regenerating Core.

"Just seconds after saving each other, I’m back to hitting the little idiot as I feel like." Clearing his throat, Skrakch ignored the sense of embarrassment and shame that was threatening to bubble over. Frankly, he was just happy his fur kept his cheeks from turning red as a human’s did.

“Hey Meek, and Ornn too I suppose,” Skrakch started to say awkwardly. “Thanks for saving me back there… I uh, I owe you one. Both of you, that is.” The Iskrin rubbed at his nose as he kept his gaze on the Shade.

Meekknuckle looked up in surprise at Skrakch’s admission, the Goblin letting a small smile cross his face as he rolled a small pebble across his palm. “Meek not worry. Me just help out friend. Same for Ornn. He always like Scary Punching Lady.”

For one peaceful moment, the Rogues allowed the silence to linger… before Zacharias let out a deep groan and mimed vomiting.

“Hells, that was worse than being chucked through a door! And what the fuck happened to my thanks, eh Squeakers?” The Halfling let out a theatrical sigh, before pulling himself to his feet.

“Listen fellas, the damned thing is clearly just going to sit on its arse for now. We don’t know how long Winnie’s gonna take to beat the shite out of the Ghast so I say let’s cut our losses and leave them to it. She’s a bloody Chosen, she’s got it.” Zacharias said, waving his uninjured hand toward the open entrance.

Skrakch opened his mouth to protest but the Halfling cut him off quickly.

“Hells, I’m feeling pretty fucking charitable at the moment. I’ll even help roll the giant rock to safety. All because we’re such good mates innit… uh, Goblin?” He continued, genuinely looking like he was struggling to recall Meekknuckle’s name.

“Idiot.” Skrakch said out loud as soon as the thought crossed his mind. “The only thing that you’re right about, is that the Shade currently isn’t moving. But just because it’s not moving doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doing nothing. Winifred called out ‘Switch’ so…maybe we need to soften it up for her?”

Rooting around in his trusty bandolier, Skrakch idly noted that his stocks of healing elixirs were running low. Eventually, he pulled a new flask loose and gave it a small swish as the mercurial liquid sloshed about in the fragile glass container.

It was time for them to go back to the original plan, the one that Skrakch had intended to carry out before Winifred had charged into the Arena with all the grace of a drunken Dwarf.

“Ten gold to the first one to hit the Shade!” The Ratling laughed as he pulled loose the cork of the Placating Brew’s vial.

Leaning backward, the Ratling ignored his companion’s varied reactions as he threw the flask directly toward the Shade, his whiskers vibrating with excitement.

Sure, Winifred couldn’t handle the damned Shade but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t take it!