The Good Goblin

The nuckelavees kept smashing into the door. Again, and again. The wood was starting to crack. We had pushed literally all of the movable furniture against the door and it still looked like it wouldn’t be enough.

Going to be honest… I know that I have talked a lot about the new confident me recently… but I would be lying if I said that I’m not starting to panic a bit here

Knight 3: “What do we do now?”

Dwynfel: “Kiyui, can you teleport us north?”

Knight 3: “You can do that?”

Kiyui: “They’ll break down the door before I amass enough power to get us off this property. Best I could do is teleport us into the garden. But… without some kind of power boost, I can only teleport two people at a time. So, one of us would still be trapped here.”

Knight 3: “In which case, I reiterate. What do we do now?!”

Dwynfel: “I don’t know!”

Kiyui: “What about the balcony?”

Dwynfel: “Huh?”

Kiyui: “We can jump off the balcony into the garden.”

The Hammer Guy and I looked at each other… then at the door.

Knight 3: “Won’t work.”

Kiyui: “Why?”

Dwynfel: “Because the second these things break through this door they’ll just dive out after us. And fighting nuckelavees in a wide-open garden will be a lot harder than funnelling them through a doorway and into a kill zone.”

Kiyui: “We are hardly a kill zone. At best that will work for the first few. But once they flood in properly, they’ll overrun us.”

Knight 3: “Still better in a confined space where they can’t get a run up.”

Kiyui: “Fuck that.”

Kiyui walked over to me and ripped my dagger from its scabbard.

Dwynfel: “What are you doing?”

Kiyui sliced his right arm open. He then placed the dagger back in its scabbard as I stared at him in disbelief.

Kiyui: “You two jump off the balcony and go.”

Dwynfel: “Absolutely not. No way am I leaving you here.”

Kiyui: “Do you trust me?”

Knight 3: “No!”

Dwynfel: “Of course I do. But I can’t risk leaving you.”

Knight 3: “You won’t even slow them down. And why the fuck did you cut your arm open?”

He stroked my face with his left hand and Feiffer licked the blood from his right.

Kiyui: “You believe that your destiny is to kill the demon with your sword. Well maybe my destiny is to make sure that you make it there. You know this is the only way.”

Dwynfel: “But…”

Kiyui: “Don’t argue… I’ll be fine… just go.”

Knight 3: “Why are you even considering this? He’s a tiny little waif. They’ll just trample him and come after us anyway.”

Dwynfel: “Just do as he says.”

Knight 3: “You cannot be serious.”

Dwynfel: “Just do it.”

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to leave him. I hate this… I hate this… I hate this.

I can’t leave him without telling him how I feel first. I just can’t.

I knelt down on one knee and pulled the ring box out of my pocket. I’ve been carrying this around for so long… waiting for the right moment. I need to ask him. I need to know.

Dwynfel: “Kiyui… would you…”

Kiyui grabbed me and stood me up. He stuffed the ring box back in my pocket.

Kiyui: “Don’t you dare.”

Dwynfel: “Huh?”

Kiyui: “Don’t you dare ask me that just because you think we’re about to die. Leave. Follow your destiny and you can ask me once that demon is dead. Understood?”

Dwynfel: “But…”

A massive thud was heard against the door. It was way harder than the any of the previous ones. The wood of the door fully split.

Knight 3: “Shit, the yetis are here.”

The hammer guy grabbed me and flung me over his shoulder. Kiyui’s voice distorted horribly.

Kiyui: “Gevaudan.”

Knight 3: “For fuck’s sake. If we are going, then we need to go now. I’m sick of telling you. We don’t have time for this shit. And what the fuck is wrong with that fox?”

Oh shit… the transformation has started. We need to be out of this room… like now.

Dwynfel: “We need to hurry.”

Knight 3: “No shit.”

We reached the balcony and he flung me down into a large bush. He proceeded to jump down after me. And I’m just going to say this… any story that suggests that a bush is a nice comfy thing to land on is delusional. Because fucking hell… it is so spikey… I have a branch digging into my spine… gods… the pain.

The hammer guy lifted me out of the bush. As he did, we heard the door collapse and there was a fierce hiss that I recognised all too well. There was a lot of unpleasant sounds coming from up there. A nuckelavee leg came flying over the balcony and landed on the ground next to us.

Knight 3: “Talk and walk…”

He grabbed my hand and we started walking east along the northern side of the house.

Knight 3: “What the fuck is he doing up there?”

Dwynfel: “He has this… kind of… last resort… spell… thing. It boosts his abilities… but he goes berserk and attacks anything near him.”

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Knight 3: Sounds dangerous.”

Dwynfel: “Hence it being a last resort. It’s also a secret… so please don’t tell anyone.”

Knight 3: “We survive this, you buy me drink, we never speak of it again.”

Dwynfel: “Deal.”

As we reached the edge of the northern wall of the mansion, we looked out at the eastern side of the property. There were no yetis or nuckelavees in sight. They must have all entered the mansion.

The kiwakwas however were just kind of roaming about the area around the hole. We needed to think about how we were going to get past the kiwakwas. They don’t exactly run… but their strides are so large that they don’t really need to. We decided that the best strategy would be to just be as quiet as possible and not draw their attention. With all of the noise coming from inside the house, they shouldn’t hear us easily and we should be able to just walk right past them out of the north-east gate.

Of course… our plans never go that smoothly. We almost managed to make it from the side of the building to a series of trees, which we intended to use as cover, when a yeti landed on the hammer guy. It came from nowhere and just smashed him into the ground. I mean… it must have been on the roof… that’s the only logical place that it could have come from. Shit, I should have checked the roof before we set out. It raised its fists in the air and was about to pound them down onto his head. I jumped on its back and started stabbing my dagger into it repeatedly.

It grabbed me and threw me against a tree. The impact took the wind out of me and I collapsed to the ground, struggling to catch my breath. I looked up and saw the kiwakwas heading towards us. The hammer guy had managed to turn himself around and smashed the yeti in the knee with his hammer. This clearly hurt it… but not enough for it to leave him alone. It started trying to slam its fists down on him. He kept using his hammer to redirect the blows into the ground. It was pounding so hard that it was leaving holes in the earth.

This is it… we’re fucked. This is karma for leaving Kiyui like that. We should have stayed together… at least then I would have died with the man that I love.

No! No! No! I will not let it end this way. He said I could ask him when this is over… when we have both survived this. That crazy lamia said that death was cold and unfeeling. Well, I want to feel his heat again. We just need to go a little bit further. We are so close.

I pushed my hands against the ground and managed to stand myself up. I may not have any arrows… but I can still fight. I picked up the dagger that I had dropped and I drew the other one. Bring it on.

I charged towards the yeti as it continued to pound its fists. But something hit it in the side of the face. Then another two things hit into its side… ripping deep into its flesh and really pissing it off.

I didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. It turned and raised its arms in the air in a pure rage. I darted forward and stabbed my dagger right in between its ribs. My aim must have been dead on, I’m sure I got its heart because when I pulled the dagger out, the wound was absolutely streaming with blood. The yeti’s arms fell by its side. It tried to take one final swing at us… but it lacked the strength and collapsed onto the hammer guy.

He tried to lift the yeti off, but yetis are certainly heavier than goblins, so it ended up being more of a very difficult shuffle to try and manoeuvre out from under it. I tried to assist by lifting its arm… but in all honesty I don’t think that did much.

Then I remembered the things that hit the yeti before I stabbed it. And why hadn’t the kiwakwas made it over here yet.

I looked over the yeti’s corpse and saw the Mouseketeers… well, three of them. They were stood on the other side of the hole taking shots at the kiwakwas. I then noticed Wynrun in his mech. He had a great sword in each hand and was desperately fighting all four of them. He had cut chunk after chunk of flesh away from the things but they just were not going down.

How the hell did he survive that blue explosion thing? That thing must have a shield or something like Charlie’s arm. That being said… the mech does look damaged. One of the things on its back seems to be emitting sparks. I don’t think it is supposed to be emitting sparks.

He saw that we were struggling to get the hammer guy out from underneath the yeti. So, he disengaged from the fight and rushed over to us. He lifted the yeti in one swift motion and flung it to the side. He then turned and adopted a defensive position.

Wynrun: “No time for pleasantries. How do I kill these things?”

Dwynfel: “You need to set fire to their hearts.”

He rolled his eyes in an exasperated manner.

Wynrun: “Bloody typical.”

He looked at us and then gestured towards the gate.

Wynrun: “I suggest you run now.”

He turned back to the approaching kiwakwas and charged at them. As he did, the hammer grabbed my hand and started running for the north gate. I ran as fast as I could, but I was relying on the hammer guy for direction because I was staring at Wynrun fighting those things.

That mech suit is amazing. It is so strong and yet surprisingly nimble. He was darting around them. He managed to cut the legs of one of them clean off. He took an arm from another. I see what he’s doing. He has nothing to set fire to their hearts with. So, he is removing their limbs so that they don’t pose a threat… even if they aren’t dead.

He used the legless one as a step and jumped off it in order to decapitate one of the other ones. The decapitation was successful. But decapitation does not kill these things and the headless body was able to grab the mech suit. A second kiwakwas grabbed the back of the suit and they both attempted to crush it. I saw Wynrun undo the straps that were holding him in the suit and attempt to climb out of the top of it… but then we passed the gates and I lost sight of what was going on.

Too many people have sacrificed themselves to allow me to get to this point. I am so close. We just need to get to the end of this street and the north gate is just around the corner. Incidentally… mother of mercy is it cold. The demon must be getting closer to the city. I can see my breath in front of me.

Knight 3: “Look, some adventurers.”

He pointed to the end of the street ahead of us. Three adventurers were crossing the street in front of us. Maybe they were going to provide reinforcements for the fight at the northern wall.

Knights 3: “Hey! You three! Tell sir Chloe that we have the sword! We will be there imminently!”

The three adventurers turned to face us and… oh for fuck’s sake.