We were riding on the western road when the goblins attacked. The alcohol disappears quickly. Fear and despair soon take me as I madly controlled the carriage and try to not crash directly into the forest. Those little green devils with sharp teeth and pointy ears ride on their wolves, laughing as they close their distance.

The horses run wildly as the wood shouts in protest against the brutal barrage its suffering. I can hear them screaming, those goddamn animals. The greenskins shriek, the horses pant and the wood splinters. The bumps on the road make the carriage jump and bumble from one side to the other.

I am sweating, profusely. My hands are hanging to the rains tightly, and my knuckles are as white as snow. I keep looking at the road and insulting those disgusting beasts. Arrows rain as I evade them somehow. One of them is at my side, drooling and with a blade. He strikes at the surrounding air, but not quite reaching me.

I kick the damn thing and I feel flesh. He recoils and swings as I move to the side as my leg shoots back. We start a caricature dance with my leg and his sword as I shout at the lizard inside the carriage.

“Get out here, you scaly bastard! Do something!”

The goblin tries to lunge at me, and I have to back up. I cannot control the horses and kick the goblin in the face at the same time. As I swear once again for the drake, he appears from the inside of the cloth. His red scales glow on the sun and one cannot contemplate a being like that and not remember a dragon. Then again, I don’t know If a dragon has bloodshot eyes and foam coming out of his mouth.

His voice is rough and hoarse as he screams obscenities at the goblins and points at them with one of his claws. A flash of light emerges from his claw, and the goblin promptly explodes in a big fireball. I shout as it throws me to the side and I lose the reins. The horses go wild as the drake laughs and stands up in the front and starts shooting more fireballs at the goblins pursuing.

I try to get up and regain control as the carriage moves without guide and the horses are free. I can’t get ahold of the reins as the bastard at my side keeps firing. We move from side to side and a turn appears on the road, as to have been done by a trickster god to make us fail and laugh at our faces.

I almost jump to catch them. I fail as the horses run and we hit something. That’s not important right now. What is important is the fact that we are no longer seated on a bench, but flying through the air and quickly approaching a tree that will definitely not move.

I manage to see the magus fly with me before violently crashing into the tree and letting the sweet darkness take me…

-

Everything started this morning. The Grandmaster of the Venandrian Magic Research Center, lovingly called Concussion by his friends, asked for one of the teams on the field to send someone to the city of Sal-Sagev and write about the new research one of the mages there had revealed.

And I was chosen for that task. In the early hours of the morning I found myself on the office of some head of the official paper of the University. The office was small, cramped with papers with inane numbers and treaties of unreadable topics as well as maps of all kinds adorning a blue carpet. The man on the other side of the table was old, was tired and smelled like mint and berries.

“Write several pages and conduct some in situ research. We will rent an inn room and arrange transportation. Your stipend is 20 gold. Any questions?”

He explained to me impatiently, tapping his foot on the carpet. He looked almost conflicted, as If I wasn’t enough for the task.

“And for the love of everything that is magical send it in time. You have one week from today and the journey will take two days on carriage if you are quick. Take the documents at the reception.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond as he flickered his fingers. The chair I was sitting on started to levitate and threw me out of the room. This would upset or offend someone else. Me, with a throbbing headache from the night before, just silently suffered as I tried to maintain everything together. I took the papers from one very gifted secretary at the front, which made my morning suffering somewhat better.

As I stepped out on the cold morning and quickly left the building, I took my Message Crystal and activated it by pouring in some magicka. As it glowed bright blue, I sent one to Magus Resabio, a drake friend of mine and personal alchemist magnifique.

He always was up for these things and gods know I won’t do this alone. We agreed to join up some time later on the Red Shepherds Inn, a usual place for us. Eccentric joint, great for people who want to get drunk with the new drinks hailing from every corner of the continent. It has bright colors, dwarfs serving with frizzly costumes and women scantily dressed, a great combination for any weary traveler searching to spend coin and sniffing some kind of hallucinogen drug on the restrooms.

Before getting there, I pass through the bank, the root of all evil of the civilized world. Bunch of greedy assholes, the bigshots are almost like dragons. They won’t spend a coin even to save their lives. But alas, they must give me 20 gold by order of the University. The clerk remarks on not spending it all in one place, thing that will go straight into alcohol and fairy dust if I have to say anything about it.

As I arrive to the place, the big sign greets me. “Red Shepperd’s” with a fallen bottle on the side, painted with bright and lively colors that will destroy the intoxicated and untrained brain. The waiter at the front looks up and points me to a drake in a corner of the main hall, already a couple of drinks and some food on the table.

Red scales, dirty tunic and a shit attitude. That’s Magus Resabio for you. A drake that failed his magical studies due to the liberties he took with the alchemy ingredients. No wonder he became a spice dealer. Funnily enough, he isn’t a certified Magus, but he took some diploma from a professor and bamboozled him into signing it and making it official. Because of some blunder of bureaucracy, he is a Magus, much to the distaste of his peers. Not that I care, but he insists on being called that.

He is devouring a shrimp sandwich and going through his second drink as he looks up. His gaze focuses for a few seconds, as if he was trying to remember who I was. This is either because he is drugged or because the drugs have destroyed his lizard brain to no end. I’m not sure what is happening here. He breaks into a smile as he greets me with a huge grin as he messily leaves his sandwich on the table.

“Ah! Mayor Colonel! What was that about a journey to the coast?”

I was neither a mayor nor a colonel, but I was briefly in the army. He thought it was funny because I didn’t last a single year.

“The mages want me to write about some invention down on Sal-Sagev and gave me a room and a magical carriage. Hey waiter, a beer and a shrimp sandwich for me!”

“Well, you will need a friend, a confident and a lawyer. I am not, but I must accompany you either way. Its wild down there this time of the year.”

“Makes sense. We leave tomorrow morning. If we go fast, we will be there in a couple days.” The shrimps arrive and they disappear rather quickly. It’s a specialty here and honestly the only thing edible.

“Good. Gather your chattels and let’s meet up for dinner. Go to the Tails end and Ill find you.”

“What are you about to do?”

“Scavenge for materials in the forests. What do you think?” He resorts loudly.

“Sarcasm doesn’t fit you. Stop doing it.”

After that, we talk about other inane topics for a while until I leave and return to my home. It’s a small home in the basement of some distillery. Its cheap and it smells like barley, but the mages pay little.

Thankfully, its private and there is little to be found even if somebody wanted to steal. The place is not clear, my bed a mess and quite full of trash. Signs of a terrible party last night, one with only one guest. There are only bottles to greet me. But such is the life of a writer- full of misery and contradictions. How would you write anything of worth then?

Although I’m dying for a smoke, I decide the most sensible course of action is to take a shower and prepare myself for the journey. As I enter the bathroom, a man stands before me. Unkept and with tremendous eye bags, a three-day beard and an expression of unopposed pain and confusion. Ah, that’s me. Last night effects. Worse than I thought, no wonder the old man threw me and had that look.

I resigned to my fate and take a shower. I rid myself of the dirty clothes and turn the sink. It's my last recharge of water, and I will use it before I leave. Water is not that expensive, considering its magic. Goddam animals trying to squeeze money out of air.

After the quick shower, I shave my beard and regain some lost presence. Hours too late. I spend the next 40 minutes seated on my bed contemplating life and other interesting facts about whales and finally get on packing.

First, the most important thing. The tobacco. I left it all here this morning and haven’t smoked a single one. Opening the box and finding it empty surprisingly wasn’t the worse thing my day had in store.

“Ah shit.”

Not good, I’ll have to buy more later. Oh, well. I resorted to rounding up all the booze I can find and a bunch of clothes. The bag of holding, essential of any good wanderer, has enough space for everything. The only thing I must have is my most priced possession; my plume. Silver and magic infused, it writes at my will. Truly, one of the best things those pigs at the University have done.

After scavenging my gold reserves and taking my bag of holding, I left my apartment, reborn and with a new purpose. While closing the door, the plaque in the door spoke to me.

“Montres Duke – Wordsmith Extraordinaire. Inquiries in the mailbox”

He sounds like a good looking, sensible and efficient man. Nevermind the truth.

Before going to the inn, I restocked my tobacco. I spent 15 gold on the thing, enough to last me for weeks. One of the few things I love in this rotten world is my lighter, some kind of trinket that creates fire after you press it. I ignore the magic behind it, but I don’t care. The fire burns, and that’s quite enough.

I find the drake on the inn with his holding bag. There is no need to ask what’s inside, at least not for now. And certainly not in the middle of humanity.

“Okay, we have the dust and the alcohol, now we need the weapons and the fruit. Let’s go.” There Is no code here, only a mind too deep on the high of life. Its better to get on going now and get some time there. So, we go to the wagon renting and present the paper. We are given a nice piece of wood, aerodynamical and with the wheels reinforced. A shame about not having magic speed installed or thunder painted on the sides. It will do.

The horses are young and rested, strong and firm. Good beats. They will do for our ride. We took off in the evening with little fanfare and sped on to the horizon. We didn’t reach very far before the drugs started.

In his bag of holding we had a generous amount of fairy dust, a big bag of laughter weed, green slime and essence of morning. All fancy names for hallucinogen and extremely detrimental drugs. Don’t forget the alcohol, and tobacco, we are set for days. Do you expect we fight the terrible truth alone?

And so we went, with the rum in our hands and the dust in our heads. It is easy to lose perception of time between the deep conversations and watching the wagon go on. Some hours later, still deep into the drug frenzy, the “goblins” attacked…

-

When I wake up the substances are gone. My head is killing me, but I’m fine. The tree I hit was destroyed in half, like a twig. The cart was mostly intact, except for a wheel that had come off. The fat bastard probably used a barrier spell to prevent our impending death.

Still, I puked my stomach out and smoked a soothing fag while he used his magic to put the wheel back in place. In the distance, I saw the truth. Charred remains of the “goblins” and their “wolves”.

The remains of a sheep welcomed me. Some smoke filled the air around me with that smell of burned meat. I stare at it for some time, transfixed. As I look back, the other explosions killed a good number of sheep as well. I returned as the Resabio finished on the wagon.

He had the look of a madman and a prophet, all at the same time.

“They are on to our scent” I proclaimed, trying to be as convincing as a terrible headache let me, “we must flee quickly.”

“Yes Major, we need to. On to the sun!”

And so we fled, hoping that no angry farmer appeared and cut our heads with a sickle.

Our journey starts promisingly and not even a day has passed. I only wonder what will get us first. The authorities or the inevitable drug overdose…?