Kevin reverse-hogtied the last goblin. It looked painful.

“How many of you were there?” asked Topher.

The goblin, through the discomfort of being bent over backwards, managed to grin. “We were enough, halfbreed.”

Topher reached out and grabbed its torso with one hand, slowly lifting it to eye level. “Oh dear, you don’t know how to count in Common, do you? Let me help.” He slammed it into the ground, bound appendages first. “That was ‘one’, like the number of times you disappointed your daddy before he left.” He rose it up and smashed it down again, possibly dislocating one of its knees. “That was ‘two’. You know ‘two’, right? It’s the number of dicks you sucked this morning. Next is—”

“Thirteen!” it screamed.

“No,” chided Topher, “next is ‘three’, but I’m glad you’re taking an active role in your education.”

“We were thirteen! Thirteen of us!”

Topher frowned. “Are you sure you remember your numbers correctly? Let me show you how many thirteen is….”

“I am sure! Yes! Thirteen!”

Topher set it back down. He looked at us. “Just checking,” he said, “but this guy made number twelve, right?”

“Right,” said Kevin, suddenly on watch. A breeze began to blow.

“So where’s your last friend?” Topher leaned back into the goblin. “We’d love to meet him. Or did he run off when he found out your mom was giving an ‘all dignity must go’ sale?”

It huffed through gritted teeth. “Dead. Last night from the female in the road.”

“Good that they fought back,” I muttered. I caught Jenn with a sad look in her face. “Something wrong?”

“Do we have to torture him?” she whispered. At least she knew enough to not let the goblin overhear her.

“We don’t,” I said. “But whether or not he gets hurt depends on if he answers our questions.”

“So it’s the goblin’s fault if we torture him? Are you being serious?”

I winced. “Let’s not go down that road, okay?” Her gaze lingered on me before looking back at the interrogation. “I’m going to search the bodies. Would you like to join me?” I asked.

Kevin was staring off into the distance. “Last night…” he thought out loud. “Did one of your victims cast some spell last night?”

“Yes,” said the goblin. “It was how the female killed.”

“Bright columns of light, right?”

It looked at him, confused. “No, no light. A cloud. He choked on a cloud.” His confusion became trumped by fear when Kevin cocked an eyebrow up. “Or… Yes! Light! Bright… call’ems of light!”

Jenn shook her head. “Yeah, I’ll search the bodies with you.”

We crossed the ditch, coming out onto the road. I looked at the five bodies. “Think they were adventurers?” I asked, making it a choice to not be creeped out.

“Not sure what adventurers look like,” she shrugged.

“Right. Well, if we assume they were…” I gave them an examination. Then I had a thought. “Hey, Topher!” I called.

He looked up from his work. “Yeah?”

“Ask where they stashed these guys’ weapons and loot.”

“Good question.” He grinned back to the goblin. “I bet you hid it all in your rectal cavity, didn’t you, little guy? Let’s get a spiked club and find out.”

I went back to the bodies, but Jenn kept watching the screaming goblin. “Was Topher a bully in high school?” she asked.

“No. Not at all. He was usually quiet around people he didn’t know well, but a lot of fun to work with - always had a funny insight that helped everyone get interested in whatever project they were working on. Great lab partner.”

Jenn responded with a hum of consideration.

“As I was saying, assuming these were all adventurers,” I pointed to the man in rags. “This guy doesn’t have any armor, so maybe monk? Could be sorcerer or wizard, I suppose.”

“Can… we skip these ones and try searching the goblins’ bodies?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. We’ll look for valuables, okay?”

The first goblin we came across was face down, its head off-kilter from a blow by Jenn’s mace. “I never thanked you for saving me, did I?” I asked, knowing the answer.

She shook her head, short hair ruffled by a change in the wind. “You didn’t have to. You were in pain, things were hectic - I wasn’t about to stop fighting just to get some appreciation. By the way, I should heal that cut in your side. Or at least bind it.”

“Don’t bother - there aren’t rules for infection, and binding doesn’t cure any hit points. Also, you should save those spells for when we really need them.” She furled her brow, but then gave me a small nod. “You took the Mending cantrip, though, right? When we’re done searching, would you mind patching up my armor?” I twisted to show where the goblin had cut through it. “Topher’s armor could probably use it, too.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“And thank you for saving me,” I smiled. “Now, if you were a goblin, where on your person would you keep your valuables?” I knelt down and began rummaging, not thinking about how I was handling a dead thing. Jenn went and found another one, and before long we’d gathered a few coins.

“I think that does it for this side,” I said. “Try the other?”

She was double checking her last one. “Sure, sounds—wait, what’s this?” She removed the… I guess “leg warmer” or “shinguard” was the closest word I could think of from the corpse, causing a small pouch to tumble out of it. She picked it up. “Feels like powder,” she said.

“We didn’t find anything from the adventurers’ bodies,” I said. “If one of them was a magic user, they might have taken a spell component pouch. What’s inside it?”

She sprinkled a tiny bit of its contents onto her fingertips. “Black powder?”

“What, as in gunpowder?” I said, louder than I needed to as the wind picked that moment to die down.

“No-no,” she said. “Just powder that’s black.” She rubbed her fingertips together and leaned in for a closer look. “It’s pretty fine, whatever it…it…—!” Her head started twitching, her face in a surprised sneer. “—Whachoo!” she sneezed. Then she sneezed again. And again. And then a few more, each time more violently. Before long, her whole body was convulsing, completely at the mercy of her sneezes. She was still holding onto the bag, which was spewing its contents in a dark cloud around her, making her sneeze more.

“Geez, Farkas, drop the bag!” I ordered. The bag flew out of the cloud, landing in the grass. I held my nose with one hand and ran toward her, grabbing her by the shield strap and pulling her out of the powder. She kept sneezing. “Breathe, girl! Damn!” I said, trying not to laugh.

We got a decent ways away before I dropped her. It took a surprising amount of time before she stopped sneezing. She just laid there, out of breath. “Ugh, kill me now,” she groaned, exhausted. Her nose was red and running.

I stepped onto the road and cut out a corner of fabric from a dead girl’s robes. Finding my way back to Jenn, I gave her the makeshift handkerchief. “Hope this helps,” I said. She took it and thanked me. “So, probably sneezing powder, huh? Potent stuff.”

“It’s death in a bag,” she said, not quite harshly enough to cover her embarrassment.

“There’s a thought,” I said. “Do you think this was what the girl used to kill that goblin? He did say it was a cloud.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it." She clutched her stomach with a groan. “God, my abs hurt,” she said, wincing and covering her eyes with her other hand.

“I bet. Maybe we should take that powder with us and sell it as a workout supplement - sneeze your way to a flatter stomach.”

She smiled. “It would work. I thought my abs were in great shape - this got them sore in less than a minute.”

“Do you train your abs? Are you an athlete?”

“Yeah. Swimming.”

“Huh. And I thought you chose short hair because it looked good.” I sat down next to where she was lying. “You know, I think that’s the first thing you’ve said about yourself since we came to Dungeonia. The last thing was in the black rooms, when you told us you’re from Cincinnati.”

She gave a slow sigh. “That powder almost killed me - I guess I don’t want to die without someone in this world knowing who I was.”

“Well, you’ve had every opportunity to talk about yourself. Why wait until after the most hilarious near-death experience?” She lay there, motionless with eyes covered, for a while. “…Jenn?”

“Can we not talk about this?” she asked, quietly.

Was it that difficult a subject? “…Fine,” I shrugged. “But feel free to talk about yourself whenever. I’ll check the others for more of that powder, just in case I ever feel you’re getting uppity. Can you stand? Want some water?”

One of the other goblins had a bag of powder, stuffed in the same place. We crossed the ditch again to check the other corpses. I waved at Topher and Kevin, who were still hard at work.

“Anything good?” I asked.

“We know where they stashed their loot,” said Kevin. “We’re trying to figure out if they have a main base.”

“Well, have fun,” I said, earning a glare from Jenn.

I overheard Topher talking to the goblin. “Did you hear that? He said I get to have fun with this! And here I was, trying to keep this professional….”

I found the nearest body, which happened to be the one who’d smiled at us before the attack. It definitely wasn’t smiling now. While searching, I came across a folded piece of parchment. I gripped it tight as the wind started up again, shifting directions. After the gusts calmed, I opened it.

It was a map. I had to spend a second studying, as all the writing was in Goblin. I could’ve cast Comprehend Languages, but I didn’t want to spend my last spell for the day on something not urgent. The center showed what I guessed to be a city, with four roads snaking out of it in the four cardinal directions. What looked like a depiction of a large forest consumed an entire edge - I assumed that was North, as it was most likely the forest we’d ventured into the day before. If so, then the squarish mark along its edge was Woodsedge, the line leading from it was the road we were on, and… the “X” along the road was where they had set up their ambush. I stood up and checked the horizon all around, then referred to the map. The only real landmarks were the copses of trees, but they seemed to match reasonably enough. On the map, the nearest copse had a circle drawn in it with some writing. I looked at the other roads. Distressingly, there was an “X” on each of them - other ambush sites, no doubt. Each had a circle nearby in a copse of trees.

My concentration was broken from the goblin’s screams, which were becoming more pained and terrified.

“I’m going to stop this,” Jenn resolved, marching off towards them. I debated stopping her, but found myself unsure as to whether or not I felt the torture should continue, myself.

I focused back on the map. Were the circles camps? It would make sense to camp away from where they were ambushing, and in the trees was probably the best place. If the map had the locations for other guerrilla attacks, then the goblins were organized, so there was probably a large base they reported to. I began searching for any odd markings.

Jenn had reached the others and began arguing. I tried to ignore them, at least until I heard Kevin, in a startled voice, say, “Hey, wait - his bindings are—“

A cloud of black powder enveloped them. In seconds, they were doubled over, sneezing uncontrollably. My eyes went wide as the goblin ran off. I drew my longsword and took off after it, cursing myself for not telling them to search it for powder.

The little bastard was shorter than the grass, which made following it tricky. I managed, though, and knew I’d catch up to it soon - it wasn’t moving at full speed, probably because its legs were damaged by Topher.

I was about thirty feet away when the wind shifted, and suddenly I lost sight of it. It had changed direction just as the tops of the grass bent the other way, making it hard to tell if the disturbances in the grass were because of it or the wind. Clever bastard.

I remembered the map. If the circle was a camp, chances are it would run there once it felt it had shaken me. The closest group of trees was in the general direction it’d been running - I decided to head directly for it, and keep an eye out for when the wind shifted again.

I didn’t need to, however. I heard a pained yell, quickly stifled. I zeroed in on its direction, and found the goblin digging its leg out of a hole in the ground. It saw me and quickly started crawling.

I dug my heel into its ankle. It wasn’t getting away.

“Bree-Ark! P-please!” It begged, black eyes wide. I made sure it didn’t have a bag of powder in its hands.

I stared at it. It looked pitiful - like a frightened child. An ugly, ugly frightened child, but still. I found myself faced with three options: kill it, capture it, or set it free. Wait, why capture it? After hearing its screams, I didn’t want to be party to any more torture, so wasn’t capturing it just a delay of deciding if it should live or die? I was on the run - it wasn’t like I could bring it in to the authorities. And wouldn’t they just kill it? Probably. And better if I decided this than put it to party discussion; easier for them to just blame me for the consequences. So only two choices, then. Life or death. It was at my mercy, though mercy was the last thing it deserved. The leather grip of my longsword was warm in my hand. I could feel my pulse pound against it. I felt powerful, standing over this monstrous thing, debating if it should live or die. My mind went to the five dead bodies on the road, each with garish wounds. This one had been a part of that. Heck, this one had attacked us. Were one of its arrows lodged in Topher’s back? Or had grazed Kevin’s arm? And if our places were reversed, would it show me mercy? No, if it was willing to kill, it had better be willing to die - anything less would be insulting to the lives it helped to end, right? And if I let it go, wasn’t I letting it get away with murder?

And then again, shouldn’t I be better than the monsters? Or was that only when dealing with other “civil” races? Its face was stretched with fear. The face of another goblin, cemented in singular purpose as it stabbed me in the gut, suddenly superimposed itself onto this one - but I couldn’t assume all goblins were interchangeable, could I? Was it wrong to damn this one to vent my wrath on another?

In the end, I could forgive everything it may have done - probably an indication of the culture I was raised in. I could let it go if I had the assurance it wouldn’t harm anyone again.

But I couldn’t get that assurance. If I asked, it would say anything to stay alive. Once free, I had no way to make sure it wouldn’t hurt anyone. I couldn’t cart it around with me, keeping it on the straight and narrow until it died of old age. It would probably hold a grudge against us, as well - we did kill its friends. What if it came and attacked us when we were vulnerable? Could I take that chance? Anything it does from here would be on me if I let it go, right?

It lay there, covering its eyes, spewing, blubbering, sniveling. I raised my sword with both hands - I could at least try to make it quick. I couldn’t let what it might do be on my conscience. It had to die. I knew I could say it was for safety, or because the powerful destroy the weak, or because it’s just what adventurers do, but a small corner of my heart knew the reason I had to kill it was fear.

I was a coward.