As Tanyargh, Puff, and Delric walked on the road through the plains back towards the village, the three couldn’t help but feel a little nervous at how quiet things got. Tanyargh fidgeted with the haft of her axe as her eyes wandered over the surrounding landscape. “I don’t like this guys, we should have run into at least a few patrols. I haven’t even seen any local wildlife lately, much less a single goblin.”

Puff looked up from his work. He seemed much more relaxed than his two friends, busy crafting to his heart’s content. “I don’t see the problem. I’m sure we can find two more goblins to finish out the quest. They are always popping up, like weeds in a garden. It’s only a matter of time.”

Delric strode beside Tanyargh, having come back from yet another unsuccessful tour of the surrounding landscape. “I don’t know Puff, it’s like the goblins just up and vanished. I think they might be up to something.”

Tanyargh’s hands clenched tightly on her axe. “You think they are getting ready for a raid? I don’t remember seeing any caravans passing by or anything, why would they be getting ready?”

Puff, without even putting any thought to the response, casually said “Well, I don’t know about them, but if I was a bunch of savage goblins I would attack us.”

In unison, Tanyargh and Delric came to a stop. Surprised by the sudden lack of motion Puff lost his concentration and nearly spilled the latest concoction he had been working on. “Whoa! Careful there! This is probably some of the most potent mixture I’ve made so far. I don’t wanna waste any of it.”

Tanyargh stared down at Delric. “That would make a lot of sense. Do you think they might be preparing an ambush? How could they even learn about us so quickly? We killed off any goblins we came across.”

Delric shook his head. I don’t know if that might be what’s going on, but it wouldn’t hurt to prepare for such an eventuality. We might have missed a goblin patrol or two and they had run away and reported instead of straight up attacking us. It could also have been one of the two goblins that got away when we were on the attack. Either way, I would rather be safe than sorry, Let’s hurry up and find a place to set up a base to defend. We can take whatever time we have to prepare traps for them while we wait.”

Tanyargh resumed walking and Puff returned to his alchemy work. After a moment’s silence, Puff spoke up again. “Hey, why don’t we just book it for the village? It’s not like it is too far. We might make it if we were to run for it now.”

Tanyargh spoke up before Delric could reply, “We could, but that isn’t a guarantee. The area around us has been quiet for a long time now. For all we know, the goblins might already be watching us and have an ambush set up ahead of us. If we continued walking we might move right into an ambush they had set up ahead of time. Better to meet them in a place of our own choosing.”

Puff nodded in understanding “That makes sense I guess, So what did you have in mind? It’s not like there are a lot of places you can defend against a horde of monsters coming at you from all directions in these plains.”

Delric glances at Puff before returning his gaze to the surrounding landscape. “Well, I was kind of hoping you might know somewhere. You were scouting this place on our way out here, didn’t you ever see anything defensible? Any place that kind of stuck out in your mind?”

Puff shook his head. “Not really, it’s all pretty much as you see right now. The only thing that changes the monotony are herbs and the occasional blood thistle patches… Wait! That’s it!”

Tanyargh winces when Puff shouted. “How about you tell us instead of blowing out my eardrums, huh?”

Puff nods while blushing slightly at his sudden outburst. “Sorry, umm well as I was saying you can find a lot of herbs and shrubs out here but not much else. What I got excited about was I remembered there is a place not too far from here, probably another two or three miles? There is a rather steep hill that has a HUGE blood thistle patch covering almost the entire thing.”

Puff’s wings were twitching more and more as his excitement grew. “If we have enough time when we get there, Tanyargh can carry Delric through the stuff until we clean out enough for him to stand in. Then, we can all work together to set traps and prepare the area by clearing off the top of the hill and maybe make an area we can fight in.”

Delric looked a little skeptical at the idea. “How are a bunch of weeds enough to stop an attacking horde of goblins? What would stop them from just charging straight through it all?”

Puff’s smile grew even wider. “They very act of them charging is what will stop them. Blood thistle is a very devious plant. It isn’t so much a bush with branches, but more like a bundle of vines supporting each other.”

Puff rubbed his hands deviously. “They are covered in so many thorns that if one were to wade through a patch you would be sure to get more than just a few scratches. The vines stretch instead of simply resisting and the thorns work like the teeth on a saw’s blade. A horde of goblins charging unthinkingly into a mass of blood thistle wouldn’t feel good about continuing their charge after the first dozen feet. The patch I’m thinking of is about four times thicker than that at it’s thinnest point, and they have to run uphill through all that mess.”

Tanyargh shivered at the description. “Why does such a nasty plant need to grow like that?”

Puff shrugged nonchalantly. “The plants like blood. That’s where their name comes from. It cuts away at anything that wanders into it. The more blood it gets covered in, the more it can grow. It makes fruit that actually taste pretty good to tempt animals in. The outer edges of patches are usually picked clean until an animal would be forced to wade in deeper and deeper if it wanted more.”

Delric spoke up next. “I had heard stories of animal carcasses being found in the middle of blood thistle patches. I had assumed the plants grew around dead things but I guess it’s the other way around. Some animals find the fruit too tempting to resist and end up bleeding to death even as they ate their fill.”

Tanyargh started looked a little pale. “And you want me to walk through that shit?! While carrying Delric?!”

Puff rolled his eyes at her complaints. “Hey, I’m not the one with trollish regeneration. Just try not to drag your feet to much and you should be okay.”

Tanyargh simply gave a grunt of discontent. Sometimes she almost regretted becoming the troll tank of the party.

……

The trio soon arrived at their destination, moving up and over hills as the landscape stretched onwards in undulating waves of grassy hills. Unfortunately as they moved, their worst fears had been confirmed. Tanyargh’s tall form gave her a height advantage each time they had crested a hill and once or twice she had been able to spot a lone goblin in the distance, it was clearly able to see them. For some reason though, it never approached preferring to keep its distance as the goblin observed them.

Delric prevented Tanyargh from leaving when she had suggested they kill all of them. “That wouldn’t do us any good. Right now, the biggest advantage we could have is the time to prepare. Going after every goblin we see wouldn’t prevent the main force from finding us, the odds are high we might miss a few of them and all they would need is a single goblin scout to keep an eye on us.”

Puff flew back towards them from over a hill in front of them. “I found it! It’s just ahead, over this next hill. We need to hurry though I saw a few of the scouts pulling back. I think they went to report to their Chieftain. It won’t be much longer before they attack.”

“Whoa, that is a lot of blood thistle!” Tanyargh gaped. Indeed the hill before them was so overgrown with the vicious plant that it consistently grew as tall as Delric’s thighs. Tanyargh blanched as realization struck her. “Holy shit! I have to climb through THAT?!”

Puff nodded, not even the slightest bit concerned for Tanyargh. “Of course. I can just fly over it all, but Delric here will be pretty helpless.”

Delric hesitantly agreed with the sentiment. “Sorry Tanyargh, but Puff is right. You are the only one who can easily recover once we make it through. Also, you are the only person with a weapon that can clear the thistles at the top once we reach it. I only have this rapier which is a little bit light to easily cut through the vines.”

“Ahh damnit! Why do you guys have to be so fucking right all the time!” Tanyargh groaned. “Fine! Get the fuck on my back you little shit and hold on! If you fall off, I’m not coming back for you! This is gonna suuuuuuuuck!”

Tanyargh waded through the overgrowth. She high stepped with some success, managing to keep the vines from tripping her up, but she still came out bloodier than she wanted, even with her tougher troll hide.

Tanyargh made large and powerful swings of her great axe as she cleared the crest of the hill. Meanwhile Delric did his best to hold on to her back as he was flung around like a ragdoll every time Tanyargh’s heavy frame rocked from side to side with each movement she made.

Soon though, Enough of the hill had been cut back to allow them to stand on their own feet and not be in the way. The ground was littered with broken thorn-covered vines but thankfully thick soles were enough to prevent more pain. No sooner had they finished their task than they heard the goblinoid screeches of the horde they had been expecting.

“Shit!” Delric cursed. “We didn’t have time to try to set up traps.”

Puff shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now. I can pretty much do what I want up here since I’m able to fly, but you guys are kinda screwed without ranged weapons. All you can do is sit down and wait for the enemy to near you.”

Delric nodded while Tanyargh grimaced. “Nothing I can do about it.” She said, “If those goblins get close enough though, I’ll make damn sure they will regret it.”

Puff smiled widely. “This is where I get to show off than. My weapons aren’t really potent enough to kill people all the efficiently, but what I CAN do is piss them off enough to make them change their mind.

Delric absentmindedly rubs his chin in thought. “Actually Puff, I don’t know if that is such a good idea, you might wind up wasting ammo more than stopping them. How about this though. Let’s settle on what direction would be best to let goblins approach from and Puff, you do what ever you can to slow down or stop any goblins that approach from any other direction.”

Tanyargh smiled grimly. “I like that plan, as they approach, we limit the numbers of them that reach us at the same time and allow us to have the time to cut them down one by one.”

Delric eyed the massive horde of goblins as they neared the base of the hill. “I don’t know about one by one, maybe five by five or ten by ten? There are a lot of those things and they look pretty worked up.”

As the two enemies stared eachother down a goblin, bigger and beefier than any of the others, waded through the small army towards the front. “You! Give up now, and I promise you, death be long and painful!”

Puff floated upwards and called out to them. “Shouldn’t it be ‘surrender now and your death’s will be quick and painless’?”

The big goblin stomped the ground. “No! You call me pretty! This big insult! My tribe smash you to bits!”

Puff seemed to smile in such a way that his two companions knew that whatever Puff was about to say, the goblins would NOT like it. “Oh, but you’re more than just pretty! You have a beauty so dazzling it could capture the eyes of any guy you want! I bet you just love to let others boss you around at night!”

Puff wasn’t exactly happy with his insult, but he had to simplify everything enough for the dimwitted goblins to know what he meant. Judging by their reactions, Puff would have to say it was fairly effective.

“GAAAAAAHH! KILL! KILL THEM NOW! KILL THEM DEAD!” The large goblin threw a rage fueled tantrum right there on the spot as his horde charged past him straight into the blood thistle. Screams filled the air as every goblin was filled with instant regret about their hasty decision.

As the front runners slowed down the goblins running behind ran around them to get to their prey more quickly, only to be filled with regrets of their own as they too reached the blood thistle. Meanwhile, the big goblin now apparently the leader continued to urge his minions forward, blind to their suffering.

In less than a minute, half the hill was surrounded with goblins screeching in agony desperately trying to back out of the thorny embraces only to be trampled as the impatient goblin climbed over their fellow goblins in a rush to close in on the enemy that dared insult their chieftain.

The three friends might have found the absurd stupidity of the goblins humorous if it wasn’t for the fact that despite how much the goblins were screaming, they were still getting closer as they climbed over their fallen comrades to close the distance.

Tanyargh stood tall and readied her weapon as Delric did the same. “Puff, I think it’s about time you started doing your thing.”

Puff snapped out of his daze. “Right, I’ll do my best to slow down the left and right flanks. Don’t let a bunch of goblins do you in.” Puff flitted off to take care his task, leaving Tanyargh and Delric to wait for the enemy’s approach.

Delric marveled at how the goblins crawled over their howling comrades without a care. The small monsters were brilliant in their own stupidity using each other as a bridge to close the distance. He glanced at the blood thistle surrounding him. “Now matter how this fight plays out, the true winner is going to be this blood thistle patch. There won’t be any shortage of blood for a long time.”

Tanyargh tensed her muscles. “Yea, but there will be plenty of time to think about that shit later. We got goblins to slay.”

Tanyargh raised her axe as the first goblin approached her and brought it down on it’s head with a meaty thunk as she took the first life of the day.

Puff flitted frantically about the battlefield. Now was the first time he would get a chance to test his new toys he had been working on. With so many goblins, he would have no shortage of test subjects.

Puff didn’t realize, but he had a manic grin etched on his face as he readied his new wrist mounted hybridized slingshot/ballista launcher. He needed to come up with a better name for it, but there would be time for that later. Cranking back the cradle until it locked into place, he loaded the first of his many experimental ammo types. The first one he had made. It looked innocuous enough as a simple spherical seed pod the size of his palm. He had made it by carefully hollowing out a burst bean pod and filling it with leaves from pepperwind weeds he had grinded into a very fine powder.

He flexed his wrist and pinky and his arm kicked back slightly as it launched the projectile. The instant the object left the weapon and Puff’s own magical influence it expanded to its natural size of about three inches in diameter before impacting right in the face of a goblin in the thick of a wriggling horde. The pod exploded on impact dispersing its payload in a 3 meter radius.

While the nearby goblins coughed and wheezed their lungs out as the fiery irritant got in their eyes and were sucked into their lungs the original recipient of the impact wasn’t nearly as lucky. He violently thrashed on the ground clawing at his throat as his eyes dripped blood. He died within the next minute, but Puff never stuck around to watch the end results, he still had plenty of goblins and plenty of experiments to play… uh test.

Next, Puff pulled out a similar looking bean pod and loaded it into the cradle. He launched it at another group of goblins and the pod burst open, releasing a noxious cloud of green gas. The goblins caught in the blast radius immediately stopped what they were doing and instead started dry heaving. Oh wait, they aren’t dry heaving any more. Puff turned in disgust as the unfortunate goblins started vomiting blood before finally collapsing in their own mess.

Puff shivered. “I didn’t think these concoctions would be so effective.” Puff pushed the emotions to the side. As effective as his alchemical experiments are, they did little to slow the majority of the charging goblins. Puff watched as the first few goblins were just starting to reach Delric and Tanyargh. Tanyargh brought her great axe crashing down on the first goblin’s head and blood erupted into the air. “Come on then you worthless sacks of shit! Bring it on!!!” She shouted.

Puff brought out another burst bean filled with crushed smoky damson. He had to be careful while grinding this particular weed because it burned easily with any excess friction. The difference being this plant made ludicrous amounts of smoke for the amount of it that burned. He pretty much broke the pieces by hand instead of grinding it with mortar and pestle.

Puff aimed a little bit in front of his two friends and fired. The pod went sailing through the air and halfway through its destination, smoke started pouring from the tiny hole he had drilled into the pod having blown out the wax plug in the hole from the pressure the weed built up while burning up inside. Before it even reached the target, the pod finally exploded and scattered its contents over a dozen feet as everything continued burning and piling on the smoke.

Puff winced. It wasn’t supposed to explode in the air like that. He supposed a bean burst pod was too fragile to handle too much pressure like that. It ended up working out pretty well instead covering a larger area in smoke than he had intended, but he would have to work on the design a bit more if he wanted to make any long range shots with that ammo.

Puff had one more piece of ammo to test out and eyed the horde of goblins for a suitable target. His eyes landed on the obvious leader of the whole horde as he stomped and raved in anger, urging his dimwitted minions forward to their deaths. Puff smiled. “Perfect.” Currently he was flying directly over the center of the horde with impunity. None of them had bows, and none could use magic, what could they do to little old him.

Puff readied his last ammo type. He had only been able to make one of this last one. He had found a patch of spine grass about a few hours earlier. Those alone made excellent arrow shafts or similar, but he had also found a small number of flame spittle plants. This plant in particular made Puff very excited because of its unusual characteristics. The pod containing the seeds was filled with a special powder. While it was wet, the powder was completely inert, behaving more like a glue than its true purpose and holding all the seeds together.

Once the seeds were ready to be spread however, that all changed. The powder would dry out and gained the potential to combust in a burst of flames. The way the pods were designed focused the flames away from the plant along with the seeds contained in the pod, giving it the appearance it was spitting fire. The explosion was triggered when the powder was exposed to intense wind pressure. In other words the strong winds that were usually a precursor to powerful storms out on these plains. It was a rather beautiful sight to watch a patch of flame spittles right before a storm.

Puff had gathered as much powder as he could from the few plants he found and drilled holes into one of the blades of spike grass before filling it with the powder. It was barely enough to allow him to make this single shot. Puff had decided to call it a spike bomb. He took aim at the chieftain and fired.

The spike went sailing through the air as it left behind a fine powder trail. The wind blowing over the holes he had drilled made a screaming sound before the spike finally impacted into the chest of the large goblin. The goblin in question stared down at the spike sticking from the only piece of leather armor he wore before looking up and laughing into the air. “HA! Is that all you got?!”

Puff was disappointed for a split second before the powder trail that started right in front of him suddenly ignited. In the next instant, a trail of gravity defying explosions traveled through the air along the powder trail the little spike left behind it. Puff had enough time to watch as the goblin’s face morphed from triumph to dumbfounded shock as the explosions finally reached its target, the payload of powder still inside the spike grass. With a sudden Boom the goblin was sent flying back off his feet.

Puff’s heart sank as he watched the goblin slowly stand back up on shaky limbs, a little singed but none the worse for wear. “Guess it was to much too hope that the explosion could kill him. Still I guess it’s nice to know that the things got a hell of a kick.” Having tested everything he had Puff reached into his bag and started pulling out more of the ammo he had made. Whether it’s sneezing vomiting or blind, every goblin Puff incapacitated was one less goblin that would harass his friends on the ground.

……

Delric periodically glanced up as Puff flew around the hill throwing his little balls of chaos into the mix from time to time. Most of his attention however was focused on the fight before him. Tanyargh was constantly in motion, every swing sending a goblin or three sailing off to Hell’s gates. Delric mostly hung back, darting in every few seconds to spike a goblin in the throat with his rapier when they charged in between Tanyargh’s swings.

Periodically Tanyargh would have to Drop her axe and grab handfuls of goblin corpses and throw them over the edge into the goblin horde before her lest the corpses pile so high it starts to limit the amount of ground the two of them had to fight on.

Delric smiled wryly. “Hey, Tanyargh. You think we met our goblin slaying quota yet?”

“Ha! We better get a damn bonus for this shit! No one told us to wipe out the whole damned tribe!” Tanyargh grinned with gritted teeth. Her face and body was covered in more and more gore as the battle progressed. “I don’t know about you, but I would look forward to a hot bath after this mess!”

Delric grunted in acknowledgement. “How are you holding up? I could take over for a little while although you would still need to throw the corpses off. I could lift them but It would take me too long.”

Tanyargh roared as her axe cleaved through a group of four that had made the mistake of all cresting the hill at the same time. “I’m okay for a little bit. I still have about 45% of my stamina! I’d say I got another 7 minutes or so in me at this rate.”

Delric lunged forward and parried a goblin thrusting its dagger into Tanyargh’s calf before smoothly swinging his sword and giving the goblin a new mouth to smile with in it’s neck. “I think we should switch when you drop down to 20%. It would be bad if I were getting overwhelmed and you were too tired to intervene.”

Tanyargh brought her axe back and swung it around like a golf club and impacting a charging goblin with the flat of the blade. The goblin went sailing a good ten feet over the edge before dropping flopping down the hill like a broken doll. “Whoo! This is fun! Sure Delric, I can do that. I’ve already killed over 30 of the damn things. Would be a shame to take ‘em all from you, how many you get anyways?”

Delric frowned a bit. “I only killed 10 or 11. I’ve been saving my stamina, I’m still around 90% so I’ll be good for a while.”

The two companions continued to grind away at the charging horde until a chain of fire erupted through the air, heading towards the goblin leader that, until now, had been encouraging his little army from the back like a ‘true leader’ would. The line of fire reached the goblin leader and everyone present watched as the leader was blown off his feet.

A long moment of silence hung in the air before the leader stood up on his feet again, a little woozy, but still alive. As one, the horde turned to face the two still fighting on top of the hill. The mindless aggression that had been there before was gone. In its place the goblins had a look of pure hatred.

Tanyargh looked a bit nervous. “Umm, why does it look like they are blaming us?”

Delric answered, sounding just as nervous. “Because I think they are.”

As if the goblins had a perfect sense of dramatic timing, they all chose that moment to scream in unison and charged once more. In their rage, they ignored the thistles as the plant cut them to ribbons. Sadly for the goblins charging recklessly through a plant designed to hurt you as you struggled.

As the goblins reached Tanyargh and Delric, they were already half delirious with anger and weak from blood loss, making their deaths all but inevitable. The lead goblin was slowly regaining his senses from the explosion and it took him a minute to understand what he was seeing. He had brought a mighty army of scores of goblins and he could only watch as they threw their lives away.

“No! Stop it! Come back!” He cried out, but lost in their own world the goblins could not hear his words over their own screaming. The very act of ignoring his own orders sent the goblin chieftain into a frenzy and, just like any other goblin, the chieftain blamed all his problems on the enemies in front of him and charged headlong into the blood thistles towards the enemy.

Puff saw the charging chieftain and decided to get some shots of his own off first, shooting him first with a pepper bomb and then a bile bomb. Before he knew what hit him, the Chieftain started crying tears of blood and vomiting up his own breakfast after having taken both shots directly to the face.

“Yes! Bullseye! Take THAT ‘pretty boy’!” Puff taunted. He flew back towards his teammates and updated them on the situation as they almost casually slew the goblins crawling up in bloodied heaps. “Alright, the Chieftain is finally jumping into the fray. I stopped him momentarily with a couple shots but I imagine he is probably a bit tougher than the other goblins. He should be up here soon.”

Tanyargh was hanging back and recovering her stamina while Delric darted left and right as the goblins breached the thistle, like some twisted version of whack-a-mole. “Sounds good then.” She said. “I’m just taking a break while Delric has a little bit of fun. I’ll jump in when the little toad makes his appearance.”

Another few minutes of battling passed by and as the goblins were finally just starting to thin out, the leader finally made his appearance. He had shown up so suddenly as Puff was relaxing on Tanyargh’s shoulders that he had caught the trio off guard.

Delric jumped back as the large goblin swung his club in a mighty overhead strike, barely missing him as it impacted the ground with a solid thud. The goblin lifted his club and made a wide horizontal swing. “You filthy human-friends! I crush your bones and drink your marrow! I boil your brains into stew! I skin your hide and add it to my throne!”

With each insult the goblin swung his club wildly, forcing Delric back step by step, until finally Tanyargh stepped up and almost casually swung her axe. “Shut up!” She shouted as her axe hewed through the goblin’s neck and neatly decapitated him.

As the former chieftain’s body collapsed to the ground the remaining goblins seemed to snap out of their frenzy like someone had flipped a switch. The looks of shock and horror quickly changed to ones of fear. Tanyargh took one step forward and as one the remaining two dozen or so remaining goblins booked it for safety.

Tumbling down the hill was surprisingly much easier than climbing up since you weren’t dragging limbs through the undergrowth and instead rolled over it. A few goblins broke limbs on the way down but fellow goblins were surprisingly supportive, helping their fallen comrades as they checked behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed.

“Huh.” Tanyargh said, I guess that’s one way to control the goblin population.

Congratulations! Your party has performed a legendary action!

Tanyargh, Delric, and Puff stood their ground against an army containing 273 goblins and one Goblin Chieftain, slaying all but 27 goblins. Would you like to announce your achievement to the world?

The group looked at each other. Puff laughed “Sweet! I’m all in for this if you guys are!” Tanyargh and Delric both nodded as well.

Please name the battle you have fought in…

Puff immediately chimed in “The battle of bloody thistles!”

Tanyargh immediately got mad. “That is utter horse…” She hesitated a bit. “Actually that’s pretty good. Does that sound good Delric?” After another nod the system chimed again this time for the whole world to hear.

Attention! The players Tanyargh, Delric, and Puff have obtained victory against overwhelming odds! Due to their heroics the battle has been named in their honor. Visit your local library or lore specialist to learn the story behind ‘The Battle of Bloody Thistles!’

The three cheered after reading the announcement. None of them expected to ever be part of a world announcement, yet here they were.

As always, the one that was quickest to bring them back down to earth was Delric. “Alright guys let’s loot the bodies. Those goblin ears aren’t going to cut themselves.”

Tanyargh and Puff groaned in unison. This was going to be a long day.

……

The adventurers guild. A place where people of all sorts came to solve problems for gold. Most quests of common difficulty were posted on the quest board outside the building to avoid having too many people inside at once just ‘window shopping’ for quests. However, a clerk was still posted at a counter to handle the more difficult quests or quests with specific enough requirements that would prevent the average adventurer from meeting its criteria.

The biggest job a clerk performed was organizing quest rewards for completed quests. Whenever someone came to the guild with a request, the reward was left along with a small fee for the guild. Once the quest was completed, the reward was handed over to the adventurer and everyone left happy. Today the clerk that was on duty was having a bit of a slow day, so she took the time to alphabetize some of the quests, she liked organizing things.

Suddenly the door opened and three adventurers stepped into the building. A handsome looking man, a large intimidating troll carrying a sack big enough to carry a man in, and a tiny fairy perched on the troll’s shoulder. The clerk did a double take when she saw them. Clearly, they must have had a tough fight. Some of the other adventurers that had been drinking and relaxing at the bar and tables nearby stopped what they were doing to watch the group. What did they fight to make them look so messed up? Their clothes were torn, they were covered in blood, and the troll was wearing a couple pieces of steel armor that had some serious dents in them.

“Hello, how may I help you today?” The clerk said once the group reached the counter.

The average sized man stepped forward. “Yes mam, we wanted to turn in two quests today, one was to gather some pepperwind weeds and the other was for slaying a couple goblins.”

There were snickers sounding around the entire room, these wimps got beaten up by a couple goblins? How weak!

“Alright can you turn in the pepperwind weeds first?” The clerk said as she turned around to grab the appropriate paperwork.

“Sure thing, Puff you got the plants?”

“Sure I do!” Said the small fairy sitting on the troll’s shoulders. He made a few gestures and pulled out a fairy sized bundle of the requested items. He placed it on the counter and it grew to the appropriate proportions.

“Okay, Thank you! Here is your reward of ten silver bits.” The clerk said as she place ten pieces of silver onto the counter. “And I assume you have the goblin ears as proof that you finished the other quest?”

The man nodded and gestured at the large troll standing behind him. Wordlessly the troll swung the sack she had been carrying and dropped it on the counter.

One of the adventurers burst out laughing. “Ha! You didn’t need to pack up the entire corpse missy just cut off the ears!”

The troll stared coldly at the adventurer and without looking, untied the length of rope holding the sack together. The sides of the sack fell open revealing it to be filled to the brim with goblin ears. Everyone suddenly went silent, stunned at the massive number of goblin ears.

The clerk nervously broke through the tense atmosphere. “Umm, I’m sorry, but the quest only asked for you to kill about 20 of them.”

Tanyargh shrugged absently. “We did kill 20. Not my fault the entire tribe decided to take revenge.”

Puff rolled his eyes. “Yes it is, now let’s go. I got school in the morning.”