The next day, my Grandmother visited me at my house. She sat by my bed as I hid under the sheets, trying to bury all of myself from the world’s harsh view. I didn’t want a single inch of my skin to be visible.

“Quick,” she said, trying to coax me out from under the covers. “Come on Quick, you’re a grown woman. This can’t have been too much of a surprise.”

I made some discordant yelping sounds in response. My Grandmother sighed. In truth, I’d had my suspicions when I was younger, but the repeated assurances from everyone in my life that I was, indeed, a goblin had doused them. Unfortunately, knowing that I wasn’t a goblin, there was a lot more about my life that made sense.

“Is this why those halfling merchants that came through when I was five thought I was one of them?” I asked.

Grandma nodded. I squeaked again.

“We’re pretty sure you’re a halfling,” she explained. “We’re not sure, of course, because we found you in the forest, but…we’re pretty sure.”

“I was just left in the forest? Abandoned?” I asked.

“It happens from time to time,” my Grandmother explained softly. “Usually, we give the babies to their people, but there aren’t any halflings communities nearby. And by the time the halfling caravans came through, everyone had grown quite attached to you.”

There weren’t any permanent halfling communities on the entire continent, but I was trying hard not to think of that.

“Great, yeah, I know,” I muttered.

“Quick, there’s another reason we told you. A more…imminent reason. The Oracles have come back with a prophecy. You are to lead a quest.”

I immediately sat up straight, snapping to attention. It was an instinct drilled into me since I was born.

“A q..que—quest?” I stammered.

Grandma Carter nodded solemnly. “Yes, child.”

My head began to whirl. Every goblin worth their salt knew about quests. Everyone in the world worth their salt knew about quests. Every culture had its own version of quests. In general, they were tasks of great importance to one’s community. Basically community service cranked up to a million. The dwarves pulled ancient stone tablets from the ground that had quests on them. The humans did some stupid thing with bones, graveyards, and corpses. I’m not sure. The point is that goblins, being more sensible than other races, determine when a quest will be issued using the Oracles. We aren’t led by ancient predictions made by our ancestors, or by fortune tellers mucking about with some poor sap’s remains.

No, the Oracles are two one-hundred-sided dice that are rolled by the Elders every night at sunset. When they both come up with 37s, the holiest of holy numbers, it’s quest time. Then, the Elders spend the night deliberating about what the quest ought to be and who they want picked for it. When they come to a unanimous agreement, a quest is issued. It’s a very sensible method, really.

“But why me?” I asked. I didn’t want to go on a quest! They were dangerous and I’d never even been further than the river!

“Well,” Grandma said slowly, “this particular quest requires you to go into non-goblin lands.”

Great. Not only did I have to leave the city, but I also had to leave goblin lands entirely. This day couldn’t get any better.

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“And you’re leaving tomorrow morning,” my Grandmother added. I squeaked and buried myself in my blankets once again. “And before you ask,” Grandma Carter said, “you don’t have the option of refusing.”

I groaned and pulled my quilt over myself even tighter. Never one for overt displays of emotions like love or affection, my Grandma patted the pile of sheets I was hiding under sympathetically and then left the room, gently closing the door behind her.

I unwrapped myself, got out of bed, and tip-toed over to the door. I pressed my ear to the lock and listened. My mothers were excitedly talking about the quest with my grandmother, who was clearly a bit annoyed with how many questions they were asking.

“No, you can’t pack her lunches for the whole journey,” my Grandmother explained. “She’s going to be gone for a while, you can’t pack that many lunches. How would she carry them?”

There was a flurry of complaints from Mother Coffin, who was the one insisting on the lunches. Then, Mother Steadfast suggested maybe just packing me breakfasts. That brilliant idea was also shot down. I leaned away from the door and sighed. Feeling a bit dejected, I crawled over to my closet and began to pack a bag.

Then, I realized I didn’t even know what to pack. How long was I going to be gone? What was I doing? I didn’t know. No one had told me. I sighed again, stood up, and went out to the kitchen. As soon as my door cracked open, silence fell over the room.

“What’s the quest? What am I doing?” I asked.

That was when Ripper burst through the front door. With the sun behind her, she cast a heroic silhouette, like a character in the storybooks we used to read. She was wearing clean, well-maintained wolfhide armor, which complimented her crimson skin perfectly. Her long, orangish blonde hair was tied into a bun. She was carrying a huge bag on her shoulders, which was, as far as I could tell, entirely filled with food and weaponry. In each of her hands, she was carrying another bag, each packed nearly to the point of exploding.

“I’m ready to go!” she exclaimed.

“We’re leaving tomorrow, Ripper,” I said, rubbing my forehead. Ripper tended to get a bit, well, overexcited about everything. Once, when we were fooling around behind a barn, she got so…elevated…that she passed out right on top of me. It scared the living daylights out of me at the time, but now we laughed about it.

Ripper set down her bags and said, “Oh.” Then, she glanced around the room, picked her bags up again, and slowly backed out of the house, swinging the door shut behind her. We all watched her go.

“Anyway,” I said, clearing my throat, “what am I supposed to do? A quest isn’t a quest without a goal, right?”

“Yes, yes,” Grandma Carter said, “of course. It’s rather simple, but it’s a matter of…some sensitivity.” She coughed politely and gestured for my mothers to leave. None of them moved or even gave any indication of hearing her. Grandma Carter sighed and shook her head.

“They would’ve just listened in anyhow,” I said.

“I suppose, I suppose,” Grandma Carter muttered, “though I don’t know if that makes it better or worse…” Then she stood up a bit straighter and said, “I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s a slight demographic problem in the city and in goblin society as a whole.”

Ah. I knew exactly what she was talking about. It had been all over the news for as long as I could remember. An impending demographic apocalypse: declining birth rates, extreme gender imbalance, and the curse of an Archmage. In short, goblin society now had five women for every man. And the trend was accelerating. In my mother’s time, it had been three every man. In my fifth grade class, Pen, the boy who’d bullied me, had been one of four boys. It was a class of thirty.

It all stemmed from a curse, put on the goblin people by a spiteful Archmage over three hundred years ago. He was a human, so it nearly sparked a war between the goblins and the humans. But the humans immediately apologized, charged him with genocidal intent, and imprisoned him. Then, they set their mages to work with breaking the curse. But no one has been successful as of yet.

“You wish for me to break the curse?” I asked, my eyes wide with terror. My heart began to pound in my chest. I wasn’t a warrior or a hero. I was just an apprentice locksmith. I wasn’t even done with my apprenticeship yet! How could I break a curse that had befuddled the curse-breaking experts for hundreds of years?

“No, no, of course not,” my Grandmother said quickly. I heard a collective sigh of relief come from my mothers. I may have given one of my own. “We just need you to go and meet a contact in the human settlement of Wolfwood. All the information you need is in this.” She handed me a bundle of papers as thick as a plank of wood.

“I guess I have some homework…” I muttered. My Grandma chuckled.

“I have full faith in you,” she said, before walking out the door. It swung closed behind her and I glanced down at the bundle of papers in my hands. I sighed. I had a lot of reading to do.