“Who..” I started to reply to Adrik, but was quickly drowned out by the booming battle cry of the approaching stranger

“…IIMPLE MAATTTTT”

Trying again “ Wh..“

“SIIIMPLEE MAATTTTT”

“W..”

“SIIIMPLEEE MAATTTTTTT”

“Oh for fuc…” Gondar and Maisee both muttered, both reaching for their weapons

“SIIIIIMPLEEEEE MAAAAAATTTTTTTT”

The stranger was now no more than 30 feet from us now and despite being incredibly annoying he stood as tall, if not taller than myself and was clad in chain mail. I squeezed my fists readying myself for whatever this oddity was about to do next. Adrik must have noticed the three of us readying up for ruckus and quickly got in between the stranger and us holding his hands up at both him and us.

“Matthew, so glad you have finally joined us” Adrick said loudly and though a somewhat forced smile.

Seemingly noticing Adrik for the first time Matt came to an immediate stop still keeping his war hammer held high above his head. With a giant smile bursting across his face he replied in a surprising gentle tone “Oh, hi Adrik. What are you doing here?”

Adrick lowered his head while rubbing his temples with his thumb and index finger and letting out a short sigh. Matt continued on before he could reply, “Oh right, yeah I was sent to catch up with you but I sensed…EVIL and came running, am I too late ?”

“Not at all my friend” Gondar started,

“You want evil you say?, well if you go take a look in the bushes over there you’ll find plenty of evil things laying on the floor, full of tiny little holes, oh and look!”

Gondar mocked surprise and shock at his blood stained breeches and hands,

“there’s some evil, oh and there’s some evil…”

He continued on while Matt still with a wide smile on his face, looked genuinely interested in what Gondar was trying to show him, nodding every time Gondar pointed out a new smear of blood on his clothing.

Maisee turned towards Adrik and thumbed over her shoulder back at Matt

“Do we really have to split the pay with this guy” She said in a flat and disapproving tone

“I know what it looks like but I promise he’s more than… ”

Maisee turned and walked off to start collecting her arrows before Adrick could finish his sentence. Arick turned towards me and just offered his upturned palms, an awkward grin and a shrug before walking off towards the wagon.

I hadn’t noticed before but Adrik had been standing between me and Matt, totally obscuring the goblin I now tightly in a headlock, in fact it seemed everyone had forgotten about the goblin. Even the goblin had gone deathly still in my grasp, probably hoping I was going to forget about him too.

“Ahem” I cleared my throat loudly

In an unsettling maneuver Gondar eyes turned towards the goblin first, followed by a grin that almost exploded out from the top of his face, and finally followed by his head turning away from Matt towards the goblin in my arms. Matt followed Gondars lead, turning his head towards me, and almost in slow motion I watched his smiling face track down my body inch by inch, and with each inch his smile shrinking and his war-hammer rising higher and higher into the air until he sported a deep frown,

“Evil” he whispered, almost as if not to scare it away

“Oh no no sweet Matthew, this is our new friend!” Gondar said whilst casually pointing the tip of his dagger towards the goblin “And friends tell each other everything”,

As the word everything came out of Gondars mouth, the smile and the kind eyes vanished, replaced by a neutral facial expression, with his eyes seemingly looking through the goblin. The goblin immediately tensed up being at the receiving end of this stare and resumed its wiggling trying to get free.

From a blind spot in my peripheral vision, Maisee stepped in front of the goblin and looked at me

“It should be bound, they can be tricky when you keep them alive”

I wasn’t in any position to argue with our ranger so I nodded back and reached into my pack for my rope and together we restrained the grunting and snarling goblin. Once restrained the party took turns interrogating the goblin, after we assured it that we didn’t plan to kill it straight away it gave up the location of its lair almost immediately and pointed us to a small trail to the north west that would lead us there. We led the oxen together with the cart off the main trail into the treeline and hitched them to a tree that was far enough back that they were obscured from the main road.

I had the goblin on a leash and I was about to set off down the trail when Matt hurried over to me. Without asking he plucked a bell from the sleeve of my costume and fastened it to the goblins bindings, resulting in the bell ringing whenever the goblin squirmed or moved. I was too impressed by Matts actions to be upset, “Good thinking Matt” I said, to which Matt just beamed back a toothy smile. Maybe I had underestimated this curious man.

“Since my armour is the heaviest, maybe I should take point” Matt suggested, Another good point, I looked over two the other three, no one seemed to object so Matt took the lead from me and immediately marched off, with all of us following. After an hour or so of walking the goblin turned its head and started speaking to Matt, and nodding towards spot on the ground ahead of it. Before any of us could object, Matt and the goblin had wandered over to the spot the goblin pointed out and the goblin was pointing to a spot on the ground and nodding and making placating gesticulations. Gondar and myself came to a stop, but Maisee kept walking until she was right behind Matt and whispered something into his ear. Before Matt could turn his head to respond, Maisee gave him a gentle push in the lower back that caused him to stagger forward triggering the trap and being lynched into the air by his ankle and gently swaying before us.

“Why did you do that, I know it was a snare trap, my goblin friend told me” Matt said staring at Maisee.

Maisee was now laughing, or at least I think the noise she was making was laughter. I have to admit even I thought it was quite funny, Matt had managed to hold onto the goblins leash and the goblin was dancing around on its tiptoes as Matt swung around like a pendulum. What I didn’t find funny was when Maisee cut the release rope of the trap without warning, causing Matt to fall awkwardly onto the ground with a sick thud.

He stood up and looked at Maisee the way a puppy looks at its master that just kicked it in the ribs without warning. I felt a pang of guilt for the way our new addition was being treated, but perhaps this violent hazing was commonplace, I had no idea.

We walked on in silence for another hour or so, Matt’s head hung low, he was clearly hurt and embarrassed. Maisee was walking at the back of the marching order and didn’t seem particularly fazed by the events that occurred at the snare trap. Once again Matt and the goblin started chatting, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I wondered if the goblin was trying to cheer poor Matt up.  But after a moment’s observation it was very clear from the goblin’s body language that he was trying to distract Matt from something up ahead. In fact It was so obvious that rather than warn Matt I just waited for him to belt the goblin across the head for such an obvious ruse.

And I waited…

And waited…

And just before I could warn Matt who clearly hadn’t noticed the goblin’s plan, it was too late. Matt disappeared into thin air. Or I should say disappeared into the earth, shortly followed by the leash he still had a firm grasp on and a terrified looking goblin who just realised the one flaw in his grand plan.

The rest of us quickly rushed to the edge of what we could clearly see now as a simple pit trap. Looking down I could see the goblin frantically trying to break free from the restraints and Matt scaling the wall of the pit to escape.

As Matt pulled himself over the edge a madness seemed to overcome the party.

As Matt, Maisee and my myself repeatedly flung ourselves in and out of the pit ineffectually trying to kill the goblin Gondar perched by the edge of the pit grinning and clapping like a deranged man, at least that was my perception of him during the brief seconds I was out of the pit. In the end I’m not sure what overcame the others, I think personally I had had enough of Matt being abused, not only by the goblin but members of the party and decided to take out my frustration of the little green shit stain.

After what felt like hours but was probably only seconds, all non goblins were safely out of the pit and we were left deciding what to do next.