Anastacia put her feet into the pool that was next to the simulacrum she had promised to fix. Even with somewhat extensive knowledge about patterns used for controlling material, a working simulacrum to use as a template and high-quality materials, she was having hard time making even a single part. She couldn’t take the forest king apart to have a better look at the inner workings of simulacra either. A little more light to work with wouldn’t hurt either, the glowing plants just didn’t quite cut it. She needed to make fire. It would also let her cook food and warm up. The problem was that she had no idea how, usually gilbert carried some flint with him on trips, but that didn’t help Anastacia now.

“You don’t happen to have a built-in flint and steel bits, do you?” She asked from the simulacrum that was sitting next to her. “Or know how to start a fire?”

The forest king picked up an arrow from the nearby pile of equipment and scraped it against his arm, creating sparks that flew into the pool in front of them.

“It’s like you’re built to solve all my problems. Be a dear and make a small fire, would you?” Anastacia told the king.

The king did as he was asked to, he gathered some dry moss and sticks into a pile. It took a few attempts but eventually the moss started to smoke, after realizing that the simulacrum couldn’t blow air into it, Anastacia went to help him. Together they managed to start a flame. Anastacia told the king to look for some firewood and was left to tend the small fire.

“Give flame?” A goblin that had appeared from somewhere asked.

Anastacia knew that giving these idiots fire would only end up in a burning forest.

“Sorry, but this is a holy flame that only the holder of the bread stick can use.” She lied.

The goblin stared at the fire for a few seconds before running off. Soon enough most of the tribe had gathered around the holy flame. They were weirdly silent and it made Anastacia nervous. Silent goblins are never a good thing.

“When queen go in fire?” Gobby asked.

“What?! I’m not going to touch it, that’d hurt. You guys think that’s what fire is for? I just need it to get some more light.” Anastacia explained.

The goblins didn’t understand why their queen wouldn’t light herself on fire. After all, that’s what fire was for. Using it for warmth or light was way beyond their level of tool usage.

“We give goblin to the flame?” One of them tried.

“No, no one is going to set themselves on fire. Why is this so hard to understand? You can get some sticks and logs if you want to give something to it.” The queen declared.

Suddenly the whole tribe ran into the woods, screaming and screeching like usual.

Having stoked the fire with the firewood the king had brought, Anastacia decided to gather some stones to put around the campfire. Finding them proved to be a bit harder than she had initially thought and she travelled further away from the area they lived in than what she had planned to. Every now and then she checked her surroundings for threats but found nothing aside from a few small animals and what was probably a moose. Realizing that she wasn’t quite sure where she was anymore, Anastacia gave up and started to backtrack.

“This isn’t where I came from… Am I lost?” She spoke to herself. “Yup, lost.”

She wandered around for a bit but saw nothing that looked even slightly familiar. This part of the forest seemed somehow even darker than what she had been used to. Anastacia started to get slightly nervous and considered just yelling for help. With any luck, there were a goblin or two nearby and they could take her to the camp.

“Heeeeeey! Anyone around?! Goblins?!” She yelled from the top of her lungs.

It didn’t take long for something to move towards her. Something far bigger than a goblin, and that something wasn’t alone. She quickly counted at least ten before running to the opposite direction as fast as she could.

“What’s wrong with this fucking forest?! Every time I try to go somewhere on my own, this happens!” She spoke to herself, trying to calm down.

She was still being followed, but whatever was following her, wasn’t as fast as her or wasn’t trying. Anastacia kept checking her surroundings, hoping to find a goblin. Suddenly she noticed a light in the distance, either the king had thrown in all the wood he had collected or the goblins had gotten to the campfire, because it had turned into a massive pyre. The likely culprits were dancing around it and throwing more branches in. The goblins noticed their queen as she ran past them to the equipment pile.

“Queen! We make flame bigger! Holier!” Gobby screeched.

“That’s great. Now everyone, get to this side of the fire!” Anastacia commanded her goblins, hoping that whatever was following her, would be afraid of the fire.

The forest king seemed to realize that something was up and ran to Anastacia, who handed him the greatsword the goblins had brought.

“There’s something out there. They followed me for way too long to not be hostile. I need you to stop any that try to approach us, I can finish them off as long as they stay still.” Anastacia instructed the king.

He looked at the sword, spun it around a couple times and positioned himself between the dark woods and Anastacia.

“Goblin fight too! Defend queen and king!” The goblins screeched, demanding Anastacia to let them run at whatever enemies they were facing.

“No! Let the royalty handle this one. I don’t want you going off on your own and getting killed.” She told the critters.

The creatures in the woods had stopped about thirty meters away from the fire and were now moving around, surrounding it. Anastacia could feel sixteen roughly human-sized beings, occasionally one got a bit closer but as soon as she tried to get a hold of it, they backed off. Slowly, they surrounded the camp.

Anastacia flung a sharp piece of troll bone at one of them. It hit its mark and the creature made a horrible sounding wail. But the provocation yielded no results, Anastacia threw a couple more pieces but the creatures were now alert and hitting them from far away was impossible.

Anastacia and her friends would be screwed if the creatures suddenly got brave and attacked all at once, or whenever the bonfire would die down. Best plan Anastacia was able to come up with was to cut through the line of enemies and make a run for the old battlefield with plenty of bones to use for material. She was confident in her ability to deal with this many at once, especially if the king could handle a couple or at least draw their attention. The problem would be getting there with the goblins, they were slower than Anastacia and the king, and probably wouldn’t be able to outrun their enemies.

While she was trying to figure out how to get her loyal subjects out alive, Gobby pulled on her sleeve.

“Give goblins holy flame. We stay safe. Queen and king fight for goblins.” Gobby insisted.