Duncan McDuncan had been a guard all his life. His father, another Duncan in a long line of Duncans, had been a guard before him. His grandfather had been a farmer who went to war and never looked back from a warrior’s lifestyle. A village the size of Lowland barely warranted a full time guard, but there was always a risk of goblins and bandits out in the wilder lands between kingdoms. A coat of chain over a blue padded gambeson kept him warm as he stood outside the wide mouth of a mountain cave. A boy of about 16, his eldest son and also a Duncan in the family tradition, untied a metal reinforced wooden buckler from his father’s pack and handed it to the older man. He had brought the boy along because it was time the younger Duncan got the kind of manly experiences a third generation guardsman should have. A third man in leathers carrying a yew bow in hand kneeled by the corpse of a dead goblin, his fingertips dipping into the small amount of blood coagulating in a wound on the monster’s chest.

“Looks like it’s been dead ‘bout three, four hours,” the man, Stewart, said. Stewart was Lowland’s best hunter and a former archer in the King’s army. Without him, the three men would never have tracked the goblin menaces down after they had fled their failed raid the day before. Fifteen goblins, five good men, two women, and a little boy had died before the militia had routed the beasts. Five more goblins had escaped, one dying as they fled. Duncan, his son, and Stewart had followed the careless trail the vermin had left behind as soon as dawn broke, and after six hours hard marching, they had finally caught up.

“Good,” Duncan grunted. “One less we ‘ave to kill.”

The guardsman failed to notice a slight spectral figure watching them from behind a stalagmite just within the entrance to the cave. Puck smirked from his hiding place as he eavesdropped on the threesome, appreciating the dramatic irony. The metal clad human was in for a surprise, though if he wanted goblins, Puck was happy to give him goblins.

The steel-clad hunter sees the prey he wants to see,

Hidden betwixt stone teeth, prepared to flee.

Nothing happened. Puck sighed dramatically. The man was still outside his influence and while the dungeon sprite could cast spells, apparently they still only worked within those confines. His plan would just have to wait until they came in. He leaned forward against the stone and continued to watch.

“Looks like some kind o’ mace killed it,” Stewart continued. He knew his job, and he liked doing it. He wasn’t the brightest person he knew, but he was good at tracking and hunting and was content to spend the rest of his days doing so. “Probably one o’ the other gobbies hit him down in that cave there. He tripped about there and rolled to this spot.”

Stewart pointed and gestured along with his words.

Duncan looked over the corpse and nodded. “Probably for its weapon. This one doesn’t have one, but it looks like the leader that skewered Martha’s boy.” He gave the dead goblin a good kick and spat on it. “Fucking goblins.”

The small body tumbled a couple feet toward the mouth of cave. Puck, still unseen inside the cave, nodded gratefully as the corpse came under his influence. If the sprite played things right, these humans were going to be beneficial in many ways. He just needed to make sure they came inside. While he generally preferred warping the perceptions of the mortals he toyed with, perhaps there was another way.

Grant me the gift of goblin guise

With which to fool these mortal’s eyes.

A goblin grinned in Puck’s place as a tiny bit of mana drained from his metawell. He peeked out from where he hid, making his observation of the humans just outside the cave a little more obvious. He hoped it wouldn’t take too long for one of them to notice. They were discussing whether or not to enter the cave, theorizing whether the tunnel was goblin infested or not. The boy was lighting a torch at the order of his father when the hunter finally caught sight of his quarry. Puck was impressed at how subtly the man brought his presence to the attention of the others. The archer squatted down as if to check another track and coughed quietly into his hand, raising his eyes to peer into the dark, looking at every part of the entrance but the disguised dungeon spirit.

The guardsman brought his shield and sword into a casual ready position with a shrug of his shoulders. It too was surprisingly subtle. The caution of the two adults was ruined when the boy noticed their observer and pointed.

“Look! Gob. . .” he began to remark excitedly.

Puck played his part perfectly. He squeaked in surprise, as if he had just noticed being noticed, and fled into the darkness of the cave. The older man cursed behind him as he disappeared into the tunnel. When the sprite had gone deep enough he dodged out of sight behind another stalagmite, willed the glamour away and floated himself up to the ceiling to watch the humans from above. The light from the torch flickered from the entrance as they moved into the cave cautiously. Once they had moved deep enough Puck transported himself to a spot among the stalactites above and behind them. When they had passed beyond line of sight of the entrance, he quickly absorbed the goblin’s body.

“Slowly, now,” Duncan reminded his boy, who was pushing ahead eagerly with a shortsword in one hand and the torch. “There might be a goblin lyin’ in wait behind any o’ these stones. Could be a warren for all we know.”

Stewart chimed in, an arrow nocked to the string of his bow. “I donnae think so. There weren’t more than tracks for the four we were chasin’, and we know one o’ them is dead.”

“We know at least one is alive, so let’s be cautious all the same,” Duncan advised. He hadn’t grown into an venerable middle aged guardsman and war veteran by being foolhardy.

“Aye. Though this be a strange cave,” Stewart pointed out. “More a tunnel, and do you see these mushrooms? I ain’t never seen so many, and all those circles make me jittery. We ain’t prepared to deal with fairies.”

Puck frowned where he floated above and behind them. He did not like that word. It evoked old, dark emotions. “Eh. You’re just superstitious. Plenty of bad things out there, but no one’s ever seen a fairy,” Duncan replied. “That’s because they’re called fae,” Puck muttered to himself.

“Then why do they call them fairy circles?” Stewart asked his leader, his head on a swivel as his imagination ran wild.

“You think maybe we can focus on huntin’ goblins? Besides, you think fairies would let the vermin live if they intruded on their home? No, not likely?”

Puck nodded. The man was more right than he knew. But there was that word again. All of these humans deserved a lesson. But first he needed them deep enough they couldn’t escape. Maybe deep enough that Mab could test her powers.

“Right-o, Duncan,” Stewart acknowledged. He paused and sniffed the air. His tongue darted out and wet his lips a couple of times as if he could taste it. “Does the air seem weird to you? Something’s off. It’s thick, like summer by a lake, but not quite wet.”

“It’s probably just that we’re in a cave, Stewart. Focus on trackin’ the gobs, will you?” Duncan sounded annoyed. “Yes, sir,” was Stewart’s only response this time. He bent to the floor, picking up some of the dirt and rubbing it between his fingers thoughtfully. “You know,” he said, “That goblin that ran in here doesn’t seem to have. . .”

The younger Duncan interrupted, “Hey, is there light comin’ from down there?”

The two men peered into the darkness, straining their eyes to pick up what the boy had seen. Sure enough, far enough down the tunnel that they couldn’t make out any details, a soft glow broke the pitch black beyond the shallow, flickering ring of torchlight. Around them, mushrooms larger than any they had ever seen grew in shadowy corners. As they slowly made their way down toward the light, Puck decided to try something new.

No pit darker than the ignorance of mortal ken,

No trap harder to escape than the perceptions of foolish men.

Gape wide, shadows and solid stone,

Let would be hunters lose a friend to gravity and broken bones.

To Puck’s sight the youngest member of the goblin hunters suddenly collapsed to the ground, knees first. The torch and shortsword clattered to the floor as he wailed and flung his arms as he fell. After a couple seconds, the boy’s body jolted like it had made an impact and he screamed in pain and grabbed his perfectly healthy leg, rocking back and forth. Puck didn’t think his illusions were quite up to causing genuine pain yet, but like the couplet in his spell suggested, the human mind was fully capable of its own traps.

To the humans, it appeared that the youth had fallen into a pit trap and broken his leg. Bone stuck out from the muscle and cloth of his pants. Blood soaked his calf. His eyes were wide with shock and he mewed pitifully. The hunter leaned over the pit. He was suspicious, as he and Duncan had just walked over the very same spot moments before. The older man got down on his hands and knees.

“You’ll be alright, my boy. We’ll get you out of there,” he assured his son.

The watching sprite wasn’t sure the illusion would be convincing if the man tried reaching into the hole he perceived, so before he could Puck absorbed the torch and shortsword. The flame guttered and went out, leaving them in a pitch blackness darker than midnight. A scroll appeared at the edges of Puck’s consciousness.

“What the hell was that?”

“Duncan!”

“Father!”

“Careful, now! You don’t want to fall in, Stewart!”

The confusion only lasted a few moments before they fell quiet. The older man’s voice broke through the darkness and silence.

“Son, I know you’re in pain, but can you find and relight the torch?”

The boy whimpered, and there were scuffling sounds in the dark. “I can’t find it,” he moaned pitifully.

“Do we have another?” the elder Duncan’s voice asked.

“Nae. We weren’t planning on explorin’ any caves, you know,” came the response in Stewart’s voice.

There was quiet while the guardsman decided what to do next. “We need light. Entrance is on the other side o’ that pit and we don’t want to fall in with Duncan. There’s light down at the bottom o’ the tunnel, so we go there. We can still kill some goblins, take their light and go home. Son, you stay down there. I think you’ll be safe for now.”

The boy made a strangled sob of affirmation.

Stewart whisper-shouted toward the spot he remember the boy being. “Tear up your shirt and tie off your leg above the break so you don’t bleed out.” He was a matter of fact kind of person without much use for social niceties. The boy whimpered again.

“Come on, then, and watch for goblins as best you can,” the guardsman said to the hunter. Stumbling along together in the darkness, they headed down toward the distant light.