And I did not have to wait long to find out.

Within a minute, the pounding of feet announced the arrival of the vanguard of whatever was coming. And the reality was decidedly less scary than my imagination had made me believe - it was the comically overburdened goblins from the throne room that stormed like an undisciplined mob through the double doors into the grand chamber.

One of them had the presence of mind to have a crossbow at the ready and stayed slightly back. Not that it was going to help the creature in any way, because that made it a prime target to be taken out by a sneak attack from one of the two elves pressed flat against the wall.

But at least it showed some tactical understanding of correct positioning for combat, which the other four goblins completely lacked – instead of scouting the room, they just had blundered into it, which made them ready to be picked off by a prepared opponent. And rather than guarding each other’s side or back, they were running around, screaming in their guttural voices.

Based on those shouts, it was also quite clear that the dominating roar from earlier had not come from any of those goblins.

Which meant that something else was still about to come. My guess was that is was going to be the King of Lard. Of course, there was still the old geezer gob, and, honestly, I was more worried about that one, but it seemed unlikely that such a reverberating scream had come from a wizened little goblin.

And this was the second mistake the elves made. Rather than wait for the real threat to arrive, and I had no doubt that the elves could easily take apart those gobs, the elves chose to go for it.

The one I had termed Legolas seemed to almost glide into position behind the crossbow goblin and, with a smooth movement, slid his sword into its unprotected armpit. With a gurgling scream, the goblin reflexively shot the crossbow bolt into empty space across the room and then collapsed to the floor.

The other elf on the far side of the room, I decided to call him Elrond because of his dark hair, went right for the back of the two goblins in the middle, his attack perfectly synchronized with the strike by Legolas. Rather than go for a killing stroke, he attempted to cripple the opponents, a strategy that I whole-heartedly approved of, considering that the elves were outnumbered. His sword cut through the tendons at the back of the knee of one of the goblins, and, just as the others were turning around he stabbed the second one in the face with the dagger in his off-hand.

I guess stabbing in the face did not really qualify as an attempt to cripple.

But whatever. It worked.

The goblin dropped its weapons and clutched its face with its claws, whimpering in agony.

And just like that, a three-against-five situation had effectively turned into a fight of three against two. Without Glorfindel, the last of the three elves, having to even bend a finger.

Which was not to say that he stayed out of the fight.

Quite the opposite.

As the two remaining gobs raised their weapons to attack Elrond, who seemed slightly unbalanced and out of position, Glorfindel stepped away from his cover behind the column and raised his hands. Within split seconds, I saw sparks dancing along his arms and the buzzing of a powerful electrical charge was drowning out all other noise.

And before the goblins could react to this latest development, lightning zapped across the room into the two remaining out-of-their depth goblins, causing them to jerk spasmodically, while the stink of ozone and burned flesh filled the air.

Before the elves could finish the two injured goblins, the double doors to the grand chamber almost flew out of their frame as the gigantic mass of the goblin king forged through. And while the sight of the jiggling stomach, the humongous man boobs, and the quintuple chin almost made me giggle, the sudden pressure descending on the room made me instead shrink back further into the shadows.

And, truth be told, I had always been leery of fat guys. There was just something intimidating about them, because I knew that even though I could run circles around them, or at least used to be able to do so, one of their punches was going to take me out. They had to carry around all that body mass after all, so there had to be some serious muscle underneath that fat.

If they could walk, that is.

In the case of the goblin king, I would’ve bet anything that he’d be unable to even move. He reminded me very much of the type of person you see in the news, the kind that was stuck in their room because they were too big to get their ass out of bed any longer.

But I was dead wrong.

Fuck. Bad choice of words.

Either way, the Emperor of Blubber wasn’t even teetering. In fact, it was surprisingly agile from what I could tell. And it was swinging the gigantic Morningstar, that I had been ridiculing before, with such ease, that it made it almost look unreal. As if the fucking thing was made out of Styrofoam. Only that it clearly wasn’t.

Still, three against one, I liked the elves’ odds.

Until the fighting started.

When the humongous goblin had entered the chamber, the elves had split apart, forming a rough triangle around their lone opponent.

Glorfindel… fuck, I really should have called him something different. Why did I stick to Lord of the Rings anyway? That name sounded just lame to me. But whatever.

Anyway, Glorfindel was dancing around in front of the goblin king, trying to draw him into attacking. The plan was pretty obvious to me and not a bad one… but it hinged on the goblin boss falling for it.

Which it decidedly didn’t.

Even from a distance, I thought that I could make out the fierce cunning in its eyes, as it assessed the three elves, which it apparently had no trouble seeing, despite their eye-bending cloaks.

And rather than falling for the fake attacks by Glorfindel, it instead counter-feinted, by pretending to fall for one of Glorfindel’s tentative strikes. But instead of lunging forward to exploit the fake opening, as its body movement seemed to indicate, it pivoted on its heel, impossibly graceful and swift for someone of its bulk, and swept its massive Morningstar sideways toward Elrond. The heavy weapon was whistling through the air and I closed my eyes in anticipation of it splattering the body of Elrond into bloody pieces.

But somehow, someway, Elrond bent his body out of the path of the weapon.

Obviously, I missed the moment because I had my fucking eyes closed.

But when I opened them again, I saw an unharmed Elrond and Legolas jumping forward and, using the full force of his momentum and body weight, slide the whole length of his sword into the back of the massive gob.

Well, fuck. That had been easier than I had thought.

Perhaps those elves had done everything right after all, and it had been my hubris to “know” better. Either way, I was glad about the outcome, because no matter what, goblins were bad news and elves… well, might be good news.

They’d better be.

Fucking weirdos, though.

They stood silently around the goblin king that had fallen to its knees, waiting for it to… die? Not a sound between the three of them. No talking, not even grunting. It was as if they had been switched on mute.

And the goblin boss was not doing so hot. A red nimbus briefly flashed across its body, and it slowly sagged forward, basically resting on its prodigious stomach, rather than the trunk-like legs.

Quietly, Glorfindel turned toward the two still living goblin guards, presumably to finish them off. And that was when the goblin king made its move. With frightening speed, it launched itself at Glorfindel, managing to get a hand on his leg, despite the almost superhuman reflexes displayed by the elf.

And for the first time since the thunderous roar that started off the showdown with the goblin king, I saw the elves flustered.

After a moment of hesitation, Legolas grabbed the sword buried in the back of the goblin king and pulled it out of its flesh.

Instead of blood spilling out of the lethal wound, there was only a wet, sucking noise, audible all the way to my location, and a tiny trickle of half-congealed blood, staining the fabric around the wound.

And the goblin king hardly reacted at all. That had to hurt like a bitch, but the big mofo didn’t even flinch.

Suddenly another red light briefly covered the body of the goblin king, and when it disappeared, the wound was gone.

I licked my suddenly dry lips.

Fucking regeneration.

How do you beat something like that?

I am sure the elves had noticed the same thing, but I had to give them credit… rather than getting the hell out of there, they tried their best to get their comrade out of the clutches of the enormous goblin.

Legolas was going berserk, slashing and stabbing at the exposed back of the goblin king, leaving bloody gashes all over, with little or no reaction by the massive gob. Elrond focused his efforts on the arm that was holding the struggling Glorfindel, but it almost seemed as if his slashes were… weak? They barely managed to cut into the arm and elicited little to no reaction from the goblin king.

The only effect of all the attacks seemed to be that the goblin had to focus just enough attention on its balance and maintaining its grip, that Glorfindel had another few seconds longer to live.

At least that is what it looked like from my position.

But then Glorfindel raised his arms again, and lighting started to buzz along his wrists and hands. With a massive crack, the electricity discharged into the head of the goblin, frying the skin on its head and a good number of its brain cells, I was sure.

But even that did not seem to faze the gob overly much.

It merely shook its head, as if trying to get rid of some annoying buzz and then, with a grunt, pulled Glorfindel within reach and slammed its fist right into his head. With a sickening crack, the elf’s skull caved in like an eggshell hit by a hammer, and a pool of blood immediately spread around the corpse.

Fuck.

That was awful.

And I was standing in hiding like a coward, which did not make me feel any better.

But frankly, I was not sure what I could have contributed to that fight. The way the elves were hacking and slashing at the goblin to little effect, told me that another melee fighter would not have made much difference. Especially, because it was not only the case that wounds didn’t bother the goblin much, but, apparently, its skin was extremely tough and hard to penetrate even for these well-trained elven fighters.

Was that the result of high levels? Or perhaps high vitality and endurance? Or just natural armor of a goblin king?

I had experienced the same with the shadow cat, but this seemed on a different level.

Meanwhile, Elrond and Legolas did not react kindly to the death of their companion and continued to lay into the goblin with everything they had.

And still, they did not make any noise – no screams, shouts, curses… nothing.

And me? My brain told me to go and join them, to try and make a difference, demonstrate my helpfulness so that they could help me in turn, but my feet were frozen to the ground. And it was not just fear, even though there was plenty of that. No, I was mesmerized by the unfolding drama, the clash of elegance against brute force, and petrified by the sinking feeling that brute force would end up reigning supreme.

Just when I thought that the end of the fight was a foregone conclusion, a blood-red sphere of pulsating light surrounded Legolas, and his sword strokes increased in speed and power by a significant margin. His slashes left deep wounds in the body of the goblin lord, forcing it to back away, slowly but surely. And then Elrond rejoined the fray after having gone through a similar transformation.

And despite the astounding ability of the goblin to regenerate all its wounds, the injuries kept on coming more quickly than they could be healed.

And the goblin king seemed to… shrink?

I could not believe my eyes, but it felt as if the morbidly obese goblin had lost about a third of its body weight. And now that I had noticed, I could see the body shrinking with my naked eye in real-time.

Given the connection between healing and nutrition that I already had learned about, it seemed reasonable to assume that the fat in the body of the goblin lord provided the energy to heal, but that fat was ultimately finite.

Which meant that all the two elves had to do was to keep laying into the gob.

The goblin king was still a dangerous foe, though. When it was backing up, it had done so strategically, returning to the point where it had dropped its Morningstar. And as deadly as its hands had proven to be, the massive Morningstar was a completely different level of threat.

And the elves were wary of that as well. Whereas before they had attacked with almost reckless abandon, they were quite a bit more cautious now.

Despite all that, after a couple of more minutes, the end was neigh. The goblin king was visibly weakening and by then only a shadow of its former self. Its weapon had become almost useless as a result, because it had barely enough power to swing it properly, much less use it for effective attacks that might surprise the elves.

That said, the elves looked worse for wear as well, with the blood-red aura around them having disappeared a little while ago, making them look much more ordinary.

But the eventual victor was not in doubt.