The tension in the study room was so thick that you could almost cut it with a knife.

At the center of the chamber, Gorren paced back and forth like a caged lion. Tiny discharges of black energy rippled and ran across his skin, before dispersing with short fizzles. His unkempt beard bristled out like the mane of a hedgehog, a thin trail of smoke emerging from the pointed tip of it. His eyes were two veritable black holes, angry coals burning at the bottom of both. Coming from his figure, a pressure extended into the air, just like what it felt moments before a lightning bolt.

Very understandably, none of the Acolytes, assembled beside the makeshift table that had been pushed in the room to replace its unfortunate predecessor, was very keen to be noticed by the Master. Right now, they were all doing their best to meld with the scant furniture.

None of them knew exactly what happened. They were herded away by the golems as soon as the explosions started, and after that, it was just commotion in the distance and a lot of fear and huddling together.

The only certain things were that whatever, or whoever, happened, it had done a lot of damage to the place, and that the Master wasn’t happy about it, like, at all.

Suddenly, he stopped and whirled to face them, making them freeze and then almost jump out of their skin. The Master’s eyes smoldered.

“Trich! Krik!” He barked, and the not-called trio immediately scrambled out of the way, leaving the two alone under the fiery scrutiny.

“Take some parchment and some coal and go out there. Scout around and jot down everything you find. But don’t go too far and return as soon as possible, understand?”

The two nodded eagerly, not trusting their voices to sound obedient enough. The Master looked ready for murder, and Morglum’s sudden end was too fresh of memory to take chances.

Pausing only enough to recover some writing supplies, the duo scampered out of the chamber and the hole, leaving the Master to bark instructions to the other Acolytes.

Trich wasn’t exactly pleased to be back under the sun and into a stupid wood. She loved sheltered and cool places even when she still was a goblin, and hated woods with a passion. She loved how sheltered and cool and not-a-stupid-wood the Master‘s lair was. She felt she could be understood about that. She passed her whole life in a stupid wood, much of the time running from something, and she didn’t relish the memories very much.

Shielding her eyes from the glare, she stared at the offending light until her vision started to become spotty. Just to show it that she didn’t fear it, like she didn’t fear and liked much of the things she did as a goblin. Really, just thinking about that time was enough to make her cheeks burn with shame. What the heck was wrong with her, with them all?

“Where? Where?”

The question took her from her thoughts, making her turn to her comrade.

In her opinion, the evolution hadn’t changed Krik of a smidge. The goblin turned gremlin was just as reckless and noisy as he was in his previous life. If anything, he got worse, with that bad habit of trying to steal her accomplishments.

Even now, he wore that stupid, enthusiastic grin he always paraded around like a trophy, looking around like he was trying to take everything in at once.

If i didn’t hound him all the time, he’d throw himself into a well with that smile on.

She mentally sighed, resignation coming easy by force of habit. Well, at least as a gremlin, she could do the job better. Another reason she was grateful for the evolution.

Not the time for that, though. They had a job to do.

Ignoring Krik’s chattering, she scanned the area.

The hole faced a small, grassy plateau dotted with bushes and bordered by trees. Surprisingly, there were holes in the ground there and then, the dirt accumulated beside them attesting to digging efforts. Trich inspected one with curiosity, noting its depth.

A burrow? Looks a bit different from those of rabbits, though. Smaller.

Putting aside the discovery, she walked at the end of the plateau. The slopes degraded gently, disappearing into a riot of undergrowth shadowed by trees. It was the same for all sides, but she could hear the sounds of water coming from the one ahead.

“Here?” She asked, launching a questioning look at her comrade.

Krik stopped sniffing around to squint where she was pointing at, ears wriggling. He nodded, grinning wildly.

Trich just rolled her eyes.

Carefully, the duo made their way down the slope, ears perked for the sounds of water.

The moment she stepped under the canopy, Trich felt uneasy. The rustling branches, the crackles the ferns made when she moved them to pass, the chirping, coming from every direction, the vegetation blocking her sight and hindering her progress, the shadows. Everything spoke to her of pressing danger. Almost without thinking, she scooted closer to Krik. To make sure he didn’t wander off, of course.

The male Gremlin was her exact opposite. Immediately taking the lead, he made his way through the wood with the enthusiasm of an explorer and the grace of a charging bull, ogling everything like it was the first time and going oooh and aaah over every stupid thing that caught his sight, and that meant almost everything, from a stupid mushroom to a stupid little snake peaking from between the ferns.

Trich was just starting to lose her patience when they finally reached the source of the sounds.

The wood suddenly opened up, and they found themselves on a rocky beach. It sloped down to a shore made of broken rocks lapped by waters. And what waters. Hearing the sounds, Trich thought about a stream, a river at best. She hadn’t ever imagined that so much water existed in the world, and all in the same place.

The waters went straight to the horizon, where she could make out the outlines of a shore and mountains. The sun made them glint with a golden luster that shifted and danced with the gentle rhythm of the waves.

“It’s beautiful!” Krik squeaked, enthusiast, and Trich couldn’t contradict him there. She was awed as well, almost breathless; at least until Krik scampered on the beach, leaving the branch he was keeping out of the way free to smack straight against her face.

Krik turned at her squeak, giving her a puzzled look.

Grumbling and rubbing her nose, Trich elbowed past him. The first instinct was to strangle him, but that was Goblin instinct. She wasn’t Goblin anymore. She was Gremlin, and to a Gremlin duty and work came first.

“How much it was from the lair?” She asked, more to herself than anything else, while scribbling over the parchment.

Very predictably, no helpful input came from Krik, apart from some excited tittering. Trich shook her head. Sticking out her tongue, she focused to recall the distance, more or less, and scribbled it down, alongside a rough map of the route they had followed.

The map came out kinda wonky, and the words kinda scratchy, but she felt a surge of pride all the same once finished.

A Goblin wouldn’t ever be able to do this, she thought, admiring her work. She liked it. It made her feel less Goblin-y, and more Gremlin-y.

“Hey, Krik, what about…” She began, turning to her comrade with a smile.

Just in time to see him slipping from the rocks and down into the waters.

She screamed in fright and, dropping everything, ran to the rescue.

A lot of panicked shrieking, desperate hauling and frantic bickering later, the thoroughly drenched duo sat on the rocks. Arms stubbornly crossed, Trich’s pout was deep enough that someone could have mistaken her face for an impromptu canyon. Krik hummed and kicked his legs, shooting hesitant glances to his sulking comrade from time to time.

The female Gremlin pouted at the parchment she had thrown on the rocks. She wanted to pick it up, but wet as she was, she was only going to ruin it, and she knew it.

She shot an irritated look to Krik, that suddenly found very interesting the veins of the rock he was sitting over.

Can’t he ever take anything seriously?

It had been like that from as far as she could remember: Krik, being the airhead that he was, launching himself into some stupid danger, while she had to be the one to drag him out of it. Always like that. Always!

It already was stupid when they were goblins, but now? Now it just was inconsiderate. They were Gremlins, for goodness’ sake, civilized creatures, not stupid green man-babies. They had a home, a Master and duties to both, doubly so now, just after that incident.

It’s too much to ask for some consideration?

She grumbled, made restless and irritated from those thoughts and the forced stop.

She was just about to start complaining when Krik cut her off.

“It felt like a lifetime ago.”

Trich frowned, forgetting for a moment what she was about to say. “What?”

“Remember?” Krik turned to her, his expression a mixture of awe and pleased surprise. “When we went to the river to try and fish? And the Master came?”

Trich thought about it for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Another life. We’re not the same.”

“Are we not?” Krik looked uncertain.

Trich felt a stab of irritation at the question. “We aren’t.” She insisted. “We’re Gremlins now. Goblins are gone.”

Krik hummed, drumming his fingers over the rock. “I don’t feel much different.”

Trich ignored him, suddenly unwilling to face the topic. There was nothing to talk about anyway. Their goblin life was a thing of the past. Period.

Despite her decision, she found herself reliving her memories as a Goblin. She saw the images of a brutish, primitive life, uncaring of the past and the future, too stupid to even think that something could exist apart from cutting and eating and sleeping, something better, something greater.

They didn’t feel like his memories. They felt like she was watching through the eyes of someone else, someone that enjoyed stuffing her mouth with dirt crawling with worms, torture to death tiny birds and being malicious for malice’s sake. It was ghastly.

Unwilling to dwell over it any further, she jumped at her feet, startling Krik. Ignoring her comrade, she stomped to the parchment and picked it up. Thankfully, her fingers were dried enough for the paper not to be spoiled.

“Master saved us.” She found herself saying. “He saved us from ourselves.”

He turned to a puzzled-looking Krik. She grimaced when the male Gremlin’s expression lit with understanding.

“You’re thinking about the little human!” He said with surprise.

Trich averted her gaze, grimace deepening. For being a moron, sometimes Krik was way too perceptive.

Still, she knew him, and knew that spark in his eyes. Once he got hold of something he thought juicy, he wasn’t going to let it go until his curiosity got satisfied. And since he always did it with the grace of a minotaur, might as well just giving up right away, for both‘s sake.

“It was wrong.” She said.

That was an understatement. She just had to think about the… enthusiasm she and Krik had while talking about snatching a kid and… and…

Suddenly feeling sick, she sat on the rocks. They prickled and were uncomfortable, but she ignored it, clutching the parchment to her chest.

“Not me.” She just said, and shook her head. “Not me.”

She really wanted to believe it, but the words felt empty against the vividness of the memories. She shouldn’t have felt like that, it didn’t make sense. Nothing told her that killing and… and torturing a kid for fun was wrong. And still, the thought alone was enough to make her stomach churn.

She gathered her knees to her chest, feeling small and weak and pathetic. Her eyes started to prickle.

“Hey now!”

She turned up to look at Krik, and for some reason, his concerned expression made feel her a tiny bit better. She sniffled, words clogging in her throat.

“It’s okay!” He suddenly said, earnestly trying to sound cheerful. “We aren’t goblins anymore if you don’t want! We’re Gremlins! We don’t touch little humans!”

He sounded so sincere, so earnest in his clumsy attempt to make her feel better, that Trich felt all fuzzy inside. Sniffling, she rubbed her eyes.

“Yes.” She stammered. “Yes, we are.” She smiled a bit, and Krik chuckled, relieved. She looked so happy that she found herself swept in it, and couldn’t contain tiny laughter of her own. All the bad feelings drained away like a bad dream.

Helped by the male Gremlin, she got up and dusted herself and the parchment. Thankfully, the paper hadn‘t been damaged. Too bad she couldn’t say the same about her pride.

“Sorry.” She squeaked, cheeks burning with shame.

In all answers, Krik laughed and clapped her on the back. She stumbled and threw him an offended glare, that made him only laugh harder.

She’d have wanted to push him back, but just then he noticed that they were still holding hands.

For some reason she couldn‘t understand, that realization made her ears feel warm. Trying not to show it, she drew back her hand. Krik’s hilarity wavered for a moment, but then he let go without saying nothing, leaving her to wonder if she just imagined it.

She shook her head. Not the time for that. They still had a mission to complete.

She took a deep breath. “Master saved us.” She said. “He saved us from being a monster that kills little kids and laughs while they do it.” The glare she gave him was determined, enough to surprise him. “For that, i will serve him as long as i live.” Those words seemed to imprint themselves into her heart as she spoke them. No Goblin would have ever able to feel something like that, she was sure of it.

Krik nodded slowly. He was a bit out-put by all that things happening one after the other, and also serving the Master was just obvious, but, hey, she didn’t sniffle anymore and that was what it mattered.

He smiled widely. “You’re always so strange, Trich, you know that?” He said and, laughing, hugged her and bumped her over the head a bit.

Trich grumbled and grimaced, but didn’t try to push him away.

Eventually, feeling better and, at least for half of the duo, with a new determination, they resumed their exploratory run.

After a brief discussion, they decided that, instead of moving around headlessly, the best way to fulfill the task given them by the Master was to search for some tall place and look around from there.

Funnily enough, the tallest place as far as they could see was the same hill they had been descending from until then.

Trich grumbled a bit at the discovery, but neither of the duo argued with the need to trudge back up. You just didn’t argue with Master’s orders.

They made their way through the wood and up the slope. The canopy was thick enough that it wasn’t easy to pick the right path, and as far as they could see, there was nothing that could be called a path at all, apart from game trails.

They had to open their ways through the undergrowth and, more often than not, scramble across steep slopes and scamper atop or around rocky formations. It wasn’t long that they were soaked in sweat - it turned out that they had been enjoying the comfy life in the compound a little too much -.

Thankfully, the terrain never became truly unpassable, and eventually, they managed to reach the top of the hill, a somewhat rocky peak, bare apart from grass and weeds, and more of those little burrows Trich had already noticed.

Up there, they finally understood what the place they had ended in was.

Water surrounded them from all sides, with distant shores visible on the horizon. They were in an island at the center of a lake, the most massive the two Gremlins had ever seen, not as they had ever seen one, but the point remained.

At that sight, the agitation that the Master’s tension had put into them slackened. Surely they were protected from any danger that could come from that world?

At least, that’s what they liked to think. Both remembered all too well the creatures that stalked the woods around their old lair. After all, it was the main reason why it was at the feet of the hills.

Easier to conceal.

The thought sent shudders through both. Agitated, they hastily drew a sketch of the surroundings, jotted down some points that seemed worthy of further investigations or that were straight-up important, and then hurried back.

Thankfully, the return was a lot faster than the going, if a lot more nerve-wracking - once awoken, certain thoughts couldn’t be banished so easily -. Eventually, after a hurried journey of constantly glancing at their shoulders, they stumbled into the small, grassy plateau they had started from.

Only, it wasn’t empty anymore.

A group of Golems stood sentinels over the hole and over any approach. They stood still, enough that somebody could have mistaken them for strange statues, and didn’t react at their approaching, allowing them to pass unhindered.

Trich shared only in part Krik’s relief of being back under the protection of those big stone men. Those things scared her. They felt so… cold. Even now, while they passed under their unmoving gazes, she felt their attention upon her like fingers of ice gliding over her skin. The mauled corpse of something that could have been some kind of furry creature stood at the feet of a Magician, the golem poised like it was ready to start dancing gracefully or mauling something else at a moment’s notice.

Trich could easily imagine the moment of violence, the cold detachment with which it was done.

She shuddered and hurried after Krik.

The Master waited for them by the hole.

The duo stopped at some feet of distance, instantly perceiving that something was wrong. The Master held a hand raised at shoulder height like he was hesitating about touching something before him or not. He wore a strange expression, a mix between surprised and puzzled.

Suddenly, he pushed his hand forward. The two Gremlins almost had a heart-attack when his palm impacted against something invisible. Ripples ran from where he was touching like there was a horizontal pond before him.

He stood like this for a moment, then grimaced.

They had seen him making bad faces, like the “bad eye“ kind of bad faces. That was one of them.

“You deny me?!?” Gorren screamed, sending both Gremlins backpedaling and clutching each other.

The Master stomped, furious, livid. “You reject me?!?” He screamed again. “Fine! I don’t need you! I will do by myself! Like always!”

And like he wanted to emphasize his words, he savagely punched the invisible barrier, sending a storm of ripples surging out.

He remained to pant for a moment, then his head snapped in their direction, bloodshot eyes fixing upon them. Krik squeaked in fright. Trich only barely managed not to do the same.

Gorren didn’t ask why they were late, or if they met with danger. He just asked a simple question, but the tone felt to the duo like someone had just punched them in the gut.

“Well?”

For once, they didn’t interrupt each other. In fact, they more than anything supplemented each other’s words.

When they finished, the Master, that thankfully seemed to have calmed down, stood musing.

“An island, mh?” He said. Trich knew he wasn’t really asking, but Krik felt the need to nod all the same.

The Master thumped a hand in his palm, making them jump a bit.

“That settles it then.” He said, grimly. He turned to the golems and pointed. “Start building. I want a fort.”

The golems didn’t answer but started immediately to move. In the blink of an eye, the sound of cracked wood and revolted dirt filled the plateau.

The Master oversaw the operations, probably via some kind of mental impulse, but strangely he didn’t step very far from the hole. He remained at always ten paces of distance from the entrance, barely a palm away from where the strange phenomenon happened.

Trich was trying, and failing, to stop Krik from trying to replicate the same thing - the Gremlin’s hand found only empty air, but that didn’t stop him from keeping on trying - when Gorren turned back to them. He frowned like he was noticing only at that moment they were there.

He glanced first to Krik, then to Trich, then to the way their fingers brushed against each other.

He shook his head, grumbling in his beard.

“Youngsters…”

Thankfully, neither of the duo heard him.