Five

Vulug. That was a name that I’d tried to erase from my memory. But the harder I tried, the more it fought to stay in my memory.

Ya see, I was once a boxer. Not the best one out there, but far from being the worst. Quite a few people made a lot of money off me. I’d enjoyed a life where I was well known. I was taken to fancy clubs for meals, where bigwigs would talk about boxing and ask my opinion.

People wanted to get to know me, and some, I think, even wanted to be me. Some of the fancy people would beg to go against me in a fight, if they’d been drinking enough. But I could never let them do it. It was never fair to go up against someone that wasn’t a proper fighter.

Right toward the peak of my career, this ruddy Fantasy Park just appeared. That was around twelve years ago now.

One day it wasn’t there, and then, overnight, it was. There was crazy hullaballoo all over Edge City. People had gone missing, the ones that were in the area when the park appeared.

All of a sudden, all these fairyfolk were here, with their magic and strange ways. Tensions were high on both sides. We had guns, but they had magic, it was a stalemate.

The fairyfolk claimed they was running away from their home world. That some great entity had come from between the fabric of reality and was threatening their entire existence.

Anyways, a shaky truce was ruled, and they started getting interested in things with our world.

A series of fights was organised. They couldn’t use their magic though, as that would be unfair, and all of their fighters underwent a year of training.

I was brought it for Edge City, and my opponent was Vulug. Now we was meant to be in the same weight division, but that would only be possible if I was wearing lead boots and concrete pants.

For an orc, Vulug was on the smaller side, but he measured taller and broader than me.

Vulug was a downright slugger. His hits were big and mean and messed me up bad real fast. I used all my experience I had gained from the ring, but I was just no match.

The sight of my nose was a permanent reminder of what that orc had done to me. That and the top half of my left ear had come clean off too.

I was thrown out of my special high life quick smart. Nobody wanted me anymore. They all wanted this Vulug character and were more interested in fairyfolk now.

Needless to say, I was a has been and that was that.

“What you thinking about, there Vince?” Grob asked.

“I need to go see this body real quick and then I think I need to pay a certain orc a visit.” I slammed another coin down, I needed another drink.

“Now don’t go making too much trouble, Vince. You’re in our land now, it’ll be hard getting too many of us to cooperate. You’re a detective, that’ll get you some places, but not everywhere. Be careful.” Grob gave me another glass.

“You know I always am. But just to be sure, you wouldn’t happen to have any trinkets I can get, you know, that can help a fella like me out?” My voice had dropped to almost a whisper.

Grob took a quick glance at the patrons of his pub, none of them were looking. He flicked his finger, a signal for me to round the bar.

He flicked a lever and a small doorway revealed itself, under the bar. I took a look as well and crawled down into the door. Grob made a grunt for another worker to take over and followed after me down into the secret room.

The dimly lit room was a treasure trove of many things. Some were shiny and looked appealing. In the shape of rings and bangles. Others were hideous looking; in no way would they serve as a piece of fashion.

The goblin looked around the room, to him, it all seemed to be in some kind of chaotic order. To me, it was an absolute mess. But, I was aware of some of the good things that Grob found. They’d proved useful on more than one occasion.

This little world of Grob’s treasure, it was filled with stuff that he would find left behind from patrons of his pub. He’d not do his best to find out who it belonged to, and quickly squirrel it away down here where he’d re-sell it. To his luck, he’d never been caught by any of the previous owners of the goods.

“Do you even know what you might be after on a job like this?” Grob asked. He fixed a multi-layered monocle onto his right eye and fanned out his hands. Candles scattered about the room grew brighter. The light danced and reflected throughout the jam-packed room.

“Not a clue, no. I’m gonna need something that will help me see in the dark. A lot of you fairyfolk seem to be able to do it with almost no problems.”

“Ah, yep. Gimme a sec.” Grob scurried off around some of the mounds of stuff. There was a noise of clashing glass and metal scattering about. Some grumbling from Grob and then he quickly returned. He held out an incredibly thin pair of green-tinted glasses.

“That’ll let you see in the dark. Remember though, you won’t see colour. Everything will have a faint green tint, but that’s about it.”

“Thank you. I was also thinking something that could help me slip away unnoticed if I was being attacked.”

“Hmmm. I wish you were more specific with your requests. That could really mean almost anything.” Grob scratched his chin for a moment, and before I had a chance to respond, he scurried off again.

“You’re just so good at figuring out what I need, Grob. I rely on you.” Sarcasm dripped through my voice.

“Here, this should do it.” Grob startled me, I hadn’t expected him to show up behind me.

I held out my hand and Grob dropped a small, brass ring into my palm. It didn’t shine and looked as though it could barely fit my pinky finger.

“What’s it do?” I asked.

“It can create an image of you. You mentally tell it what to do, and it’ll try and do it. The thing is, its not solid and it can’t actually hold anything. Only give it simple things.”

“Oh, that’s neat. And probably one last thing,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Gimme a sec.” Grob hurried off one last time. He was gone longer than the last two times. He finally returned, holding a small pendant.

“What’s that do?” I asked.

“You’ll have to find out for yourself,” said Grob.

“You can’t tell me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope. Coz I don’t know what it does. So that one’s free. Four hundred gold pieces for the other two.” Grob held out his hand.

“You’re bleeding me dry, Grob.” I counted out the coins and made my way back out of the Cracked Cauldron. It was still raining. I should’ve asked for something that could keep me dry.