“Hey, Gary,” I began, “what’s happen-”
“You stole my watch!” he screamed.
I looked at my wrist.
I was still wearing the watch.
“Now you’ve forced me to do something drastic…” he said slowly.
A crowd began to form around us, closing us in.
Grungleby swallowed.
“...something I rarely do…”
The crowd grew tighter, people straining to see in.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Gary looked at me with pity.
“I’m going to use…” he crescendoed.
I swallowed.
The crowd shifted nervously.
“...my strange and powerful Goblin Magic!” he announced loudly.
Grungleby audibly gulped.
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd.
Gary chuckled to himself and savored the moment.
“Your strange and powerful Goblin Magic?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, annoyed.
“What’s that?”
The crowd gasped.
Gary looked offended, and almost speechless.
“Wh- It’s this!” he raised his arms, “I cast…”
Grungleby shifted anxiously.
The crowd held its collective breath.
“...my strange and powerful Goblin Magic!” he yelled, and thrust his hands in my direction.
There was no crackling thunderpeal, nor any smiting bolt of lightning. In fact, it was very underwhelming.
But that didn’t stop Grungleby from jumping in front of me.
“AARRGGHH!!” Grungleby screamed as it writhed and rolled on the ground.
“Grungleby!” I yelled.
Gary chuckled, and again savored the moment. He drank in my tears as I fawned over Grungleby, and tasted the succulent nature of Grungleby’s writhing and wriggling.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he said dryly, and parted a path through the crowd.
Grungleby continued to scream and squirm for some time, but eventually stopped, and lay there limp.
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“Grungleby?” I asked.
It opened one of its eyes and looked around.
“Is he gone?” it whispered.
“Who? Gary?”
It nodded imperceptibly.
“Oh. Yeah, he left a while ago.”
Grungleby popped up and dusted itself off.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” it said cheerfully, “I feel like a million gorblucks, actually!”
I was relieved.
It patted me on the shoulder.
“Sorry to take that from you…”
“Hm?”
“...but it doesn’t happen every day, you know.”
“What’s that?”
Grungleby stopped.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
I looked at Grungleby suspiciously.
“Thanks,” I said warily.
“My pleasure,” it said.
I maintained my gaze of suspicion.
“Hmm,” I said.
Grungleby said nothing sheepishly.
“Listen, Grungleby…” I began.
“Hm?”
“...there’s something I need to ask you.”
“Yes?” Grungleby asked expectantly.
I opened my mouth, but not unsurprisingly, I was cut off from another voice from the crowd.
“You!” it boomed.
I froze.
I turned.
----------------------------------------
"I see you!” a man yelled, “You can’t get away this time!”
I looked at who he was pointing at.
It was another man, on the other side of the crowd.
“Come on!” the first man said, “You know I’ll get you!”
The man he was pointing at turned and ran.
The first man pursued him.
Grungleby watched them go, and then turned to me.
“You were saying?”
“Hm?” I said, still frozen.
“You were saying something? About asking me something?”
I looked at Grungleby in a stupor.
“Oh- yes, sorry. I was going to ask you…”
“Mm-hmm?”
“...am I turning into a gremlin?”
It looked at me in a strange way.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, my flagellator said…”
It rolled its eyes.
“...I’m looking kind of small. And green. And not confidently human.”
Grungleby was quiet for a moment.
Then it snapped,
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
I was taken aback.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying…”
Grungleby looked around, and then in the direction the men had run.
"...it's just-"
“We need to go.”
“Well, hang on…”
“We need to go, now.” it said forcefully.
I was no one to argue.
I followed Grungleby as it weaved through the dying crowd and empty stalls.
The festival was dying down. The screams had lost their frivolity, the hierarchy between torturer and torturee had been reinstated, and the fried Glorbo Nests were all sold out.
As a torturee and a gremlin, we weren’t safe, and although we didn’t have to resort to pure skulking, we did slink and scamper through the shadows.
We turned a corner.
In front of us was the largest man I have ever seen.
He was built like a literal mountain, was completely hairless, and had hands the size of dinner plates.
He lunged, reaching out his tremendous hands and grabbing at us.
“COME HERE, YOU!” he boomed.
Grungleby and I screamed and ran.
We did away with our previous practice of slinking and scampering, and ran purely for our lives, pushing and screaming through the crowd.
We didn’t stop until we were absolutely positive we were safe, and found ourselves behind the back of the now empty Torture Fest Welcome Tent.
“Who was that?” I asked breathlessly.
“Who? The guy that just lunged at us?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” Grungleby panted, “that was Gormald.”
“Gormald?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s that?”
Grungleby looked at me strangely.
“Oh, I-”
“He’s the guy that just lunged at us,” it said.
“I mean, why did he lunge at us? Was he going to torture us?”
“Who?” it asked incredulously, “Gormald?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Grungleby shook its head, “he just likes doing that.”
“Oh,” I pondered this, “I see.”
Grungleby peeked around the corner of the tent.
“I think that’s the exit,” it said.
“What is?”
“Look,” it pointed.
I looked.
There was an open doorway in the wall across the now empty path, with a small glowing sign above it that read, “EXIT”.
“Yes,” I mused, “I suppose it is.”
Grungleby said nothing.
“Shall we run for it?”
Grungleby seemed to grapple with a difficult decision.
“Yes,” it said finally.
We ran for it.
I reached the exit, and looked behind me.
Grungleby was being dragged away by two muscular men.
“Grungleby!” I screamed, and reached out my hand.
“Run!” it yelled, “Talk to-”
One of the men clamped his hand over its mouth.
“Ow!” he cried.
“Talk to who?”
“Just run! There’s no time!”
I watched as the men struggled to drag Grungleby away into the mass of deserted tents.
“Okay, maybe there is time!” I heard it yell, “Talk to…”
Its voice faded into the distance.
I ran.
----------------------------------------
End Part I