Chapter Three: The Drift
When the storm finally loosened its grip and the clouds parted, the sky opened to a vast, blue emptiness. Sunlight poured down on the four goblins as they clung to their battered raft, drifting, the waves rocking them in a relentless, lulling rhythm. At first, the warmth was a blessing, drying their drenched skin and warming their bones. But as the hours stretched, that warmth turned brutal. The sun bit into them, searing their dark green skin, leaving it blistered and cracked. Salt crusted on their lips and stung in their eyes, and thirst began to gnaw at their throats. Their bellies grumbled with a hunger they hadn’t felt since the hold of The Drowned Gale.
Time twisted into an elusive, feverish blur, with each day indistinguishable from the last, marked only by the movement of the sun and stars. They had no idea if it had been five days or ten since they had escaped the sinking ship, only that the ocean sprawled out endlessly, with no sign of land.
Guckle, the wiry one with a cunning that bordered on feral, took to fishing with his bare hands, driven by a primal need for survival. He’d crouch on the raft’s edge, eyes narrowed, waiting for the glimmer of a fish below. Then, like a coiled spring, his hand would shoot down, fingers digging into the slippery flesh of a passing fish. With a savage grin, he’d drag the writhing creature to the surface, raise his falchion—a brutal, machete-like blade glinting in the harsh sun—and slash the fish in two. His comrades watched, ravenous, until hunger overtook them too. The taste was sharp, the meat stringy and cold, but it staved off their hollow ache. It wasn’t long before they all followed Guckle’s lead, each goblin becoming a silent, grim hunter of the sea.
Their spirits buoyed as their hunger subsided. Between bouts of restless sleep, the goblins mocked one another in a coarse attempt to keep morale up. Shookle, sharp-tongued and a deadly shot with his bow, recounted their most violent victories, boasting of the wizards he’d skewered, painting the air with tales of splattered robes and desperate cries for mercy. Garloff, a bear of a goblin with a scarred, leathery hide, laughed with a deep, thunderous roar that echoed across the water. He argued that it was he who had dropped the most bodies, that none of them could match his blue short sword when it came to cleaving through wizard and guard alike. Giblet, their chieftain and the quietest of them, allowed himself a smirk, though his eyes were hollowed with fatigue. He let his crew boast and bluster, knowing that words were all they had left to anchor their minds in this endless blue prison.
The nights were the worst. The chill crept into their bones, and exhaustion weighed heavy on their limbs, yet none dared to sleep too deeply, lest they slip from the raft and be claimed by the ocean’s cold embrace. They gripped the wood with calloused fingers, fingernails split and bleeding, each knowing that their life hung by the strength of that grip. More than once, Shookle jolted awake to find Guckle’s arm slipping from the raft’s edge, only to wrench him back with a muttered curse. Each morning felt like a small victory, another day to be endured, another day they had cheated death.
Unbeknownst to them, the storm had driven them far from the familiar coasts of Kelpie Bay. They had drifted into the open ocean, swept northward by a hidden current that pulled them deeper into unknown waters. Delirium set in, blurring the lines between dream and reality. Shookle thought he saw the distant silhouette of a ship, only to blink and find it gone. Guckle muttered to himself, cursing the wizards, hurling insults into the empty air. Giblet’s thoughts turned inward, to the lands they had left behind, to the kin they might never see again.
Days bled together in a feverish haze until, one afternoon, they were awakened by the strangest sound—a sharp, high-pitched cry. The cry of a seabird.
Giblet’s eyes shot open first, crusted with salt, but keen. Above them, wheeling in lazy arcs, was a lone gull. He nudged the others awake, pointing with a shaky, scabbed finger. The gull’s presence stirred something primal within them—a distant, unspoken hope. If there were birds, there was land.
Through salt-blurred eyes and parched throats, they searched the horizon, and there it was. A dark line on the edge of the endless blue, a strip of land like the faintest shadow.
They watched as the shore crept closer, barely daring to believe their own eyes. The sea, in one final surge, bore their raft toward the coastline, the waves pulling them forward with a relentless force. Guckle, half-delirious, cackled in hoarse laughter as he clutched his falchion. Shookle clung to his bow, whispering half-baked promises to every goblin god he could think of. Garloff's hand gripped the hilt of his blue short sword with a fierce grin, ready for whatever came next. Giblet’s face remained stone, but his hand tightened around the hilt of his short blade.
With a sudden, bone-rattling crunch, the raft struck something solid. The impact jolted them from their daze, sending them sprawling across the sand. They were too weak to cheer, too battered to shout in triumph. All they could do was lie on the cool, damp sand, feeling it beneath them—a sensation they had thought they would never feel again.
The sky above was cloudless, and the land stretched out in vast, open plains bordered by distant mountains. They didn’t know where they were—only that it was somewhere between the Buffkin Plains and the far-off Highlands. They lay there, chests heaving, each too exhausted to speak, their bodies ravaged by sun and salt, their eyes half-lidded as they took in the strange new land.
In the silence, they understood a quiet truth: they were far from home, beyond any goblin lands they had ever known, with no map or compass to guide them. But as they gripped their reclaimed weapons, fingers rough and blistered, a fierce determination glimmered in their eyes. They had survived the wizards, the storm, and the wrath of the sea.
Here, on this foreign shore, the goblins were reborn—adrift no more, but free, warriors once again.
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Chapter Four: The Feast and the Fire
The goblins dragged themselves farther up the beach, their limbs weak but driven by a primal need for shelter. Before them rose the jagged cliffs, towering like the teeth of a great beast. The sun, now low on the horizon, cast long shadows across the sand, and the breeze that swept in from the ocean carried the salty tang of kelp and brine. Underneath a rocky outcrop, they found a small hollow, just deep enough to shield them from the wind and prying eyes. It wasn’t much, but after days of drifting on the endless blue, it felt like a fortress.
Their survival instincts kicked in as they gathered what they could. Shookle, ever the sharp-eyed marksman, ventured toward the open air, bow in hand, his eyes scanning the skies for any movement. Soon, he saw them—gulls and sea birds, their wings stretched wide as they rode the breeze. With a swift motion, he nocked an arrow and let it fly. The birds fell one by one, their soft bodies hitting the sand. Each thud was a victory, each arrow a reminder of his skill. Guckle and Garloff climbed up the cliffside, fingers digging into the stone as they scoured the nests hidden in the rocky crevices, plucking large, speckled eggs with the care of a thief handling stolen treasure. Giblet, silent as always, foraged along the shore, collecting fronds of kelp that had washed up in tangled heaps, their briny smell sharp in his nose.
By the time the last light of day faded, they had a fire crackling. Driftwood, dry and splintered from days in the sun, snapped and popped in the flames. The scent of roasting birds filled the air, and the eggs, nestled among the stones, cooked in their shells. For the first time in what felt like years, the goblins ate like kings. They tore into the birds with their teeth, greasy fingers pulling apart the tender meat. They cracked eggs on rocks, sucking down the rich yolk as it oozed from the shell, their stomachs filling with warmth they hadn't known since before their capture. Every bite was savored, every scrap of food devoured like a feast fit for warriors.
They drank fresh water from shallow pools trapped in the rocks, the cold liquid soothing their parched throats, washing away the salt that had crusted their mouths. The water tasted of life, of hope.
Around the fire, they sat in silence for a time, their bellies full, their bodies warmed. Their blisters had begun to heal, their wounds closing with each passing day. But as their physical strength returned, something darker stirred within them. The rage they had carried with them since the storm—since the prison hold of The Drowned Gale—had not lessened. If anything, it had grown fiercer, fed by the firelight and the taste of freedom. Their eyes glowed with a hunger not for food, but for vengeance.
“They think we’re dead,” Guckle growled, his falchion lying across his knees as he stared into the flames. “Those wizards. They’ll pay for it. I’ll make them scream.”
“They’ll pay with their blood,” Garloff rumbled, his hand gripping the hilt of his blue short sword. His voice was low, like the rumble of distant thunder. “For every goblin that drowned, I’ll spill a wizard’s guts.”
The firelight flickered in Shookle’s eyes as he sat apart from the others, sharpening an arrowhead on a stone. He listened to their words, to the promises of blood and revenge, but his mind was elsewhere. He wanted vengeance, yes, but more than that, he wanted something simpler, something that gnawed at his heart more than the rage did.
He wanted home.
Shookle looked out toward the cliffs, their dark shadows looming high above. He pictured himself there, standing at the top, looking out over the land beyond. Maybe, just maybe, in the distance, he would see the rolling hills of their homeland. The thought of those familiar hills, the smell of the earth after a rain, the sound of goblin children playing in the streets of their village—it tugged at him, a quiet longing. He was tired. Tired of fighting, of killing, of bloodshed. The battles, the raids, the endless skirmishes with wizards and their armies—it was all starting to feel like a dream, a distant memory blurred by exhaustion and grief. All he wanted now was to see his home again, to walk its paths and know peace.
But even as that thought warmed his heart, he knew peace would not come until they had fought their way back. The struggle wasn’t over. His friends, his brothers in arms, needed him. And so, Shookle swallowed that quiet dream, pressing it deep down where it wouldn’t distract him. For now, the only way home was through the enemy’s blood. He could rest once the wizards were dead.
As the night deepened, the goblins spoke of their plan. It was simple, direct—goblin-like. They would scale the cliffs at first light, climb until they reached the top, then look for signs of where they were. From there, they would make their way south, back to goblin lands, back to the safety of their villages, where no wizard dared set foot.
But this time, they would not sneak. They would not hide. They would carve a path with steel and blood, cutting down any who stood in their way.
“No one, and no thing, stops us now,” Giblet finally spoke, his voice steady and cold. His dark eyes gleamed in the firelight, and the others nodded.
Their bodies might have healed, but their hearts still burned with the fire of vengeance.
As the last embers of the fire crackled and faded, the goblins lay beneath the rocky outcrop, their weapons close by. Above them, the cliffs rose steep and unforgiving, but none of them hesitated.
Tomorrow, they would climb.
And from there, the journey home would begin.
Entered by: 0x712b…E85C
