Anastacia decided to follow the goblin, what was there to lose anyway? She had no idea where she was, she had no water or food, so even if this forest king was just another idiotic goblin with a fancy hat, they would probably be able to help Anastacia survive.

“Come! Come! Forest king waits” The goblin shrieked and fell over, as talking while walking was just a bit too much for the critters limited abilities.

“Who is this forest king? Is he a goblin? Or maybe another dead guy?” Anastacia asked, fearing that her history with goblins would keep repeating itself. ”It’s going to be like three goblins on top of each other in a long coat, isn’t it?”

“Forest king no goblin, no human. Forest king king of forest. Big too.” The goblin continued to shriek.

“I bet it’s like five goblins then.” Anastacia remarked.

The deeper into the forest they walked, the weirder everything got. Mushrooms were as tall as a goblin, some taller, trees grew at least fifty meters tall and thicker than Anastacia had ever seen before. Insects became far more common too, beetles and caterpillars crawled everywhere in the undergrowth.

As the sunlight started reach the forest floor less and less, glowing mushrooms and moss started to grow everywhere. Anastacia starter to suspect that she might be slightly drugged and looked at the wound made by the poisoned bone needle. It was a bit larger than she had though, only then she realized that the ruby ring was still on her thumb. That’s why she hadn’t even noticed her bruised knees.

Between the trees, Anastacia could see deer, many different kinds of birds, a badger and a whole lot of other animals and more goblins.

“So is it a spriggan then? I thought they didn’t like you goblins.” She asked.

“Spriggan? People of trees mean. Forest king kind! Give goblin many stones!” The creature answered while proudly holding five small pebbles in front of Anastacia.

Anastacia nodded out of pity. This particular one somehow grew on her.

“I’ll call you Gobby, Gobby the goblin.” She joked.

The goblin stopped dead on his tracks and turned to Anastacia.

“Me Gobby? Goblin Gobby!”

It gave Anastacia one of its stones and continued walking and repeating its new name. At some point it turned into a song, by goblin standards at least.

The path circled around a small pool of clear water. The bottom was easily visible, even in the dim lighting from the mushrooms and moss. Anastacia was tempted to just jump in as she wasn’t feeling too fresh after all the running.

“Gobby, is this water safe?” She asked.

“Water never safe, always wet.” Gobby stated and peered into the pool. “But sometimes frogs.”

The poor creature flew too close to the sun while searching for frogs and fell into the pool. Anastacia watched it flail around and screech whenever it got to the surface. At first she thought that Gobby had seen something in the pool and tried to catch it, but the longer it went on the clearer it got that something was not right.

“Oh shit, you can’t swim, can you?” Anastacia said and dropped into the pool. The water was barely deep enough to reach her bellybutton. She grabbed the flailing creature and lifted its head above the surface.

“Are you okay?” She asked as the goblin coughed up water. “Drowning isn’t fun, trust me, I know.”

She put the goblin back onto the edge of the pool.

“Could you like… go behind that tree for a while. I’m going to take a bath now that I’m wet anyway and it’d be kind of weird to have you there.” Anastacia said and pointed at a nearby tree.

“Bath?” Gobby stated.

The creature’s vacant stare into the abyss convinced Anastacia that it really didn’t matter if the goblin was there or not, and she took her bath. During it, four more goblins appeared and asked Gobby whether the human was drowning or not.

Anastacia had nothing to dry herself with and was forced to put the wet clothes back on. As the sun wasn’t even visible anymore and the forest air was somewhat humid, it would forever for her to dry.

Gobby’s four friends joined them on their journey to meet the forest king. Anastacia jokingly named them Gabby, Gubby, Gibby and Gunnar the valiant. She didn’t actually pay attention to which goblin was which, all she knew was that Gobby was the wet one.

“So are we close to this forest king yet?” She wondered. “We’ve been walking for a while now.”

“Forest king here.” Gobby answered and looked around.

Anastacia didn’t see or feel anyone. So maybe it was a spriggan after all, and Gobby just didn’t know what a spriggan is.

“FOREST KING! Brought bride to forest king” Gobby screeched.

“Wait, what? That isn’t what you said. I’m not…” Anastacia said before getting interrupted by someone grabbing her hand from behind.

Behind her stood a humanoid that was made out of metal and stone. Some of its parts had moss growing on them, as if it had been staying still for a long time.

“A simulacrum? This is the forest king?” Anastacia asked and pulled her hand from the simulacrum’s grasp.

Gobby didn’t even notice her and ran to greet the simulacra.

“Me bring queen!” The goblin screeched. “Queen to finish prince!”

The king kneeled to match Gobby’s height and handed it a small round pebble.

No one knew much about the simulacra. All that had been found out was that they came out of machine fortresses and usually guarded them fiercely. Sometimes they would wander into the wilderness for no apparent reason and end up in a cave or an abandoned house or something. Most simulacra looked like humans but there were other kinds around the world, ranging from small crab like ones to huge centipede- like simulacra that dwelled on deserts. Due to their tendency to explode on death, no one really knew what made them work, but most scholars guessed it was a magical core of some kind.

Anastacia tried backing off from the king. But they had been surrounded by thirty or so goblins, all screeching and dancing.

“Look, mister king, I didn’t know anything about this before and would like to back out gracefully.” She tried, but the king kept approaching her.

The simulacrum took a firm grasp of her hand and started dragging her.

They finally stopped in front of a nest like structure, that was made out of twigs and was covered with a fur of some kind. The king pointed at the nest.

“I… Is that supposed to be a bed? You know I’m not really happy with how this is going. I mean you’re certainly one of the more attractive living statues but that’s not really my thing…” She said and tried to pull her hand free.

The king pushed Anastacia into the nest and grasped her wet dress.

“Oh nonononono, this is not happening! Gobby, you goblinoid piece of shit! Come here and help me!” She screamed, but the goblins were too busy being goblins and didn’t hear her.

Suddenly the king let go of the dress and ran off.

Anastacia considered running, but the king was clearly faster than her, even if she slowed him down by throwing goblins. She needed to find another way to escape.

As the king returned, he kneeled next to Anastacia and started soaking the water from her clothes to what was clearly a salvaged piece of cloth.

“O… okay, so you have some manners. I can do this by myself, but thank you for the cloth.” She uttered in surprise. “H… how about some food? Can you get me some of that? Like berries or something.”

The king ran off again, only to return a couple of minutes later with a jar of what appeared to be honey and some blueberries on a plate made by folding a big leaf. Anastacia was kind of amazed by the hospitality. and started eating the berries.

“Where’d you get the honey anyway? It seems kind of old, not that it goes bad though.” She tried to make conversation.

The simulacrum could not and thus did not answer. It only kept staring Anastacia with that she assumed to be its eyes, but in truth they may have been just some random slits in the king’s face plate.

The king sat down cross-legged in front of the nest and waited as Anastacia ate. To keep herself distracted from thinking too much, Anastacia looked at some of the patterns carved into the metal parts of the Simulacrum. While not exactly alike, they weren’t that far off from the control patterns used by necromancers.

Having eaten well, Anastacia started to feel tired and settled down in the nest.

“I’m kind of tired from… stuff, alright? Please don’t do anything weird while I sleep. Oh and could you ask the goblins to keep it down? It’s nice that they’re having fun, but this is like the hundredth time I’m hearing this series of screeches.” Anastacia muttered before falling asleep.