The Rise of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  “I mean, it will be the Council’s ultimate decision,” Ari said. “But what do you guys think we should do with it?”

  “I—well—” I stammered. “Ummm . . .”

  The truth was—and this was so obvious by now I didn’t even need to say it aloud—I had no clue what would come next. I still didn’t even quite understand what the amulet was, let alone the limits of its powers. Nobody did. Our understanding was that it could harness and control the very essence of all magic. But what exactly did that mean?

  I didn’t think there was a way to know until we found it.

  “I guess,” I said slowly, “I hope we find a way to use it to prevent the war with the Elves from fully resuming. After we use it to stop the Verumque Genus Elves from unleashing total destruction on the world, of course. But I think we should ultimately find a way to use it to bring about peace. Then again, I still have no idea how exactly to do those things, even with a special, all-powerful amulet.”

  “So basically, we’re on a dangerous mission to do who-knows-what, with something superpowerful in a way nobody gets, and we don’t know how or what or why?” Ari summarized.

  There was a long pause, and then the three of us laughed, because there was really nothing else to do but laugh. Something about the way she’d so succinctly and casually pointed out the billions of flaws in our world-saving mission just felt so utterly . . . well, Dwarven.

  “You want to hear something really scary?” I asked, after our laughter died down.

  “Not really!” they both said in almost perfect unison.

  “Okay, then, never mind . . .”

  “Fine, tell us,” Ari said. “It’s not like things are safe as they stand now!”

  I finally told them about the old Elven man who had welcomed me into his house in Chumikan that first night, after I’d washed ashore all alone.

  “What’s so scary about a cranky old Elf?” Glam asked.

  “It’s not him, but what he said,” I clarified. “I mean, what happens if we find the supposed hiding place of the amulet, but then discover that there is no amulet?”

  “What makes you say that?” Ari asked.

  I told them about how certain the old man was that the amulet was a myth. About how he’d said all the locals considered the story total hogwash.

  “He was sure the amulet isn’t here,” I said.

  “And we’re just supposed to trust the word of some Elf?” Glam said dismissively. “Elves lie. Even when they’re not trying to!”

  Ari considered everything further before responding, not instantly assuming the old man’s claims to be false. But even after her long, thoughtful pause, she seemed unconcerned.

  “We always knew that was a possibility,” she said finally. “I mean, nearly half the Dwarven Council still thinks this mission is a total waste of time and resources. The vote to send us here was pretty narrowly passed. I mean, to be totally honest, I’m not even convinced we’re going to find the amulet. Just like the old Elf in Chumikan, a lot of Dwarven historians think the story is a myth. It might even be a story purposely concocted by the Fairies to throw everyone off the real trail of the amulet. If it exists at all.”

  “If you don’t think it exists either, then what are we even doing out here?” Glam asked. “This is a dangerous mission. Why bother if it’s all for nothing?”

  “We have to try, in case it is real,” Ari said. “Besides, I didn’t say I don’t believe it’s real, just that I have my doubts. The main reason I still have hope is him.”

  She pointed at Stoney, who was several paces in front of us, leading the way confidently, as if he knew precisely where we were going, eyesight or no eyesight.

  “I trust Stoney,” Ari continued. “If he says the rock at the heart of the amulet is real, then I have to believe it until he’s proven wrong.”

  Glam and I both nodded.

  Ari was right: Stoney was the main reason we had all risked so much to be here. Well, that, and also my former best friend, Edwin. He was among the smartest people I’d ever met, and if he thought the amulet was real, then so would I. Plus, like Ari said, we had to at least try. Because if it was real, we couldn’t just sit back and let Edwin find it first.

  The rest of the hike that day was relatively uneventful.

  I would have said peaceful, were it not for Blob’s never-ending stories about stuff like:

  The things he ate for breakfast once, thousands of years ago (he mostly ate plants, twigs, and dirt, which made most of my Dwarven traveling companions hate him even more)

  The one time he helped his old master play a joke on someone by convincing them his master’s poop could talk (I’ll let your imagination figure out how they achieved that one)

  The time he thought the sun was a god named Bright Shiny Hot Round Shape, and spent the better part of three decades worshipping it, until finally his master set him straight and told him the sun was really a giant firefly that got stuck up in the sky when it flew too high

  But all in all, I’d take Blob’s inane stories over more skirmishes with Rocnars or other such monsters any day.

  That evening, we set up camp near a stream that ran through a narrow ravine winding around a rocky slope. I wish I could tell you if the slope eventually became a mountain, but I can’t. Starting around late afternoon, a heavy fog settled on the tops of the trees above us, blocking our view of anything beyond the immediate forest and branches overhead.

  As we worked to set up camp, I saw Blob rolling away down a narrow path between a few bushes that looked like Siberian cypress, but definitely were not (due to the slightly glowing leaves).*

  “I better go see what he’s up to,” I said to Lake and Froggy as we were setting up the tent.

  They both nodded, and I hopped to my feet and followed Blob into the forest. He was already a good way ahead of me. That rolling mass of goo could move pretty fast when he wanted to. But it wasn’t difficult to stay on his trail due to the awful stench left in his wake.

  It wasn’t long before I heard his loud voice speaking to someone.

  “Yeah, we’re on a mission!” he said loudly. “Hunting for some rare mineral, as best I can gather . . .”

  Instantly I had visions of him being a spy for the Elves, or worse. And if this had been a trap all along, it was my fault we were in it since I had allowed him to join us against the protests of the others. I supposed I should’ve expected no better from myself by that point.

  I didn’t want to ruin my chance to see who Blob might be working for, so I crouched down among some bushes, and then slowly crept forward with the softest steps I could manage.

  “They’re all pretty determined, as I was saying,” Blob continued. “And I got a good feeling they’re going to find it. There’s this one—Froggy is his name—he reminds me of Master in a lot of ways, but a lot quieter. Which is saying something! Anyway, the party is led by an especially short and stout one named Greggdroule. He’s pretty nice, I guess . . .”

  I slowly peeked around a massive tree trunk until Blob finally came into view.

  And then I breathed out a long sigh of relief.

  Blob was lumped up near another tree, speaking to one of the Giant Squirrels. The large animal cocked its head at the smelly blob, trying to figure out whether it was a threat or food or neither. It definitely didn’t look like it had any clue what Blob was actually saying.

  “There you are,” I said, stepping into the clearing. “I thought you’d run off on us!”

  The Giant Squirrel looked startled when it saw me and darted off into the forest.

  “Ah, Greg!” Blob cried out. “It seems as if you’ve chased off my new friend. I didn’t even catch his name . . . quiet one, that fellow!”

  “You know, Blob, you should be more careful telling strangers about our mission,” I said.

  �
�Ah, is it a secret mission, then?” Blob asked, rippling with excitement, which unfortunately only made him more pungent. “I never was privy to many of Master’s secrets. He always said I was terrible at keeping them. But how would he know if he never let me try!” Blob was in full-on rambling mode now as he began rolling slowly forward, continuing along the creek, away from the campsite. “I mean, of course there was that one time he told me about his secret Fairy mission, and I accidentally gave it away to this innkeeper. . . . Oh, yeah! And then there was the time he entrusted me with a special coin that glows when it gets near a vampire, and I lost it at the Westordom Market . . .”

  “Blob, hang on!” I said, trotting after him, struggling to keep up. “Wait just a second! Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  Blob finally rolled to a stop and, well, he didn’t exactly turn to face me since, you know, he was a Blob with no front or back or eyes or face, but he shimmered as if he was indeed now looking at me.

  “When you started setting up your tents, I realized I’d been here before,” Blob said. “And I seem to remember that there’s a Forest Troll den around here somewhere.”

  “A Forest Troll den!?”

  “Yes, it’s pretty close if memory serves me right,” Blob said casually as if he were talking about trying to find a mediocre restaurant he ate at once. “I even met one of the Trolls that lived there. A fellow named Zunabar. Real cranky guy, too, let me tell you. Ha-ha! He smashed me with his fist once! Good thing I’ve got no bones or organs, or I would have surely perished the way that poor knight, Sir Wylymot the Agile, did when the Troll smashed him. Ugh, an awful mess that made . . .”

  “What?” I asked, my voice almost squeaking. “Why . . . I mean, why on earth would you want to find this violent Troll?”

  But I had to admit I was curious myself now. I mean, we should know if we were setting up camp near a Forest Troll den, right? It might save us from a surprise attack in the night.

  “Hmm,” Blob said, as if he’d never even considered why he’d set off to find this Troll on a whim. “Guess I just wanted to see a familiar face. Is that weird? That’s weird, isn’t it? Master always said I was strange. Should we not go? We don’t have to keep going . . .”

  Of course I should have agreed right then and there and said: “Yeah, that’s weird, let’s not go.”

  But my curiosity was like an uncontrollable demon now. And my brain even rationalized it by telling me: Greg, you NEED to know if there’s a den of monsters nearby. It’d be irresponsible to let this potential threat go uninvestigated.

  Yeah, but we could go back and get a proper search party, I reasoned with my own curiosity.

  No, it would take too long, my curiosity argued. It will be dark soon. You shouldn’t be wandering around these woods alone at night. Let’s just go check it out real fast while we can still see by the foggy daylight. We’ll go, we’ll see, disturb nothing, then hurry back to camp to report what we saw. Harmless.

  Yeah, good point, I foolishly agreed.

  “How much farther is it?” I asked Blob.

  “Oh, not far now,” he said. “Shall we continue?”

  “Yeah, let’s go!” I said.

  Now I will admit this: I’d made a lot of mistakes in my life up to that point. The time I drank my dad’s tea, setting off all the terrible things that came after, the time I set my own pants on fire trying to battle a Gargoyle, and the time I capsized our boat because I went fishing, all came to mind just off the top of my head. Which means you can only imagine how bad things were about to go for me, since I now must admit that this ended up being one of the worst decisions I ever made in my whole life.

  As in, this one colossal mistake (or series of mistakes, really) was about to get more people killed.

  CHAPTER 20

  Never Wake a Sleeping Troll

  The entrance to the cave wouldn’t have been visible without two things:

  Blob knowing it was there

  The unmistakable flickering orange glow of a fire

  And the cave was close to where my friends were setting up our camp. Blob and I had trekked maybe just half a mile along the creek when we finally spotted the sliver of an opening in the rocky slope on the other side.

  “How do we get up there?” I asked.

  “I can just slide up the mountainside,” Blob said. “You can’t?”

  We both knew I couldn’t, and it was sort of annoying that he was playing dumb like a passive-aggressive pile of boogers.

  I gave him a look.

  “Oh, right.” Blob pretended to just figure it out. “Arms and legs and such. Well, luckily there’s a path over there behind that row of trees.”

  Of course he had no fingers, so I couldn’t see where he was “pointing.” But there were only a few trees along the opposite bank of the small stream. We splashed across and began a steep hike up the rocky trail. As we neared the mouth of the cave, a thought struck me (one that probably should have struck me well before this point): What on earth was I doing?

  Was I really about to approach a possible Forest Troll den with only a smelly ball of goo for backup?

  Yes. Yes, I was. Like a Dwarf.

  The cave’s entrance was a fang-shaped opening in the side of the mountain, twenty feet across at the base, with the point reaching up about forty feet above my head. It had looked a lot smaller from the other side of the creek.

  The area around the cave was littered with gore-covered bones and skulls from a variety of animals. Some looked familiar, but others looked like they could have been alien. Heaps of bloodied armor and rusted weapons lay strewn about in the bushes, littering the side of the mountain like urban garbage dotting a highway ditch.

  Whatever lived in this cave was clearly violent and savage.

  “Come on, let’s go check it out,” I whispered to Blob.

  “Yeah, I’m hoping Zunabar still lives here,” he said. “I sort of liked it when his knobby fist splattered me all over the place. Ha-ha, took me three hours to collect all my parts back up! In fact, some of me might still be stuck to the walls of the cave. I mean, it was pretty—”

  “SSSHHHHHH!” I hushed him.

  Blob fell silent and rolled alongside me toward the cave. I knew this was a terrible idea. But I’d already come this far. Going back to camp without any real knowledge of what was up here would defeat the whole purpose.

  We slowly crept toward the entrance of the cave.

  There were no sounds but the crackling of a fire inside. We neared the wall, and I had to step over a pile of bleached skulls that were unmistakably from several of the Giant Squirrels that plagued the forest below.

  I carefully poked my head around the corner.

  An elongated chunk of Blob, like a periscope, stretched around the corner below me, near my knees.

  From there, we couldn’t see anything but more bones and armor and the intense orange flickering of firelight on the dripping cave walls. We would have to actually enter the cave to see what was inside.

  I drew my new sword from my belt. It was heavy and uncomfortable in my hand. My temporary fix for the hilt had been to wrap some thin shreds of cloth around the metal handle.

  “Come on,” I whispered as I tiptoed into the cave.

  Blob rolled after me.

  We rounded a slight bend near the entrance and finally entered the main cavern.

  It didn’t take long to spot the mammoth shapes of four Forest Trolls sleeping around a smoldering fire. Chunks of bones and flesh from some unfortunate animals were scattered about the cavern, as if the trolls had just finished a feast, then passed out where they sat with their bellies full of meat.

  Two of them were, in fact, slumped over in a sitting position, snoring loudly. The other two were curled up like cats on the stone floor. Except, cats with heads bigger than a car. Forest Trolls were by far the uglies
t and nastiest-looking type of Troll I’d seen yet.

  The Forest Trolls were larger than Stoney, but smaller than the Mountain Trolls who had attacked the Underground. And unlike Mountain Trolls, who almost looked like giant Humans with a skin condition, Forest Trolls barely had any Human features aside from the whole two legs, two arms, and one head thing. Their skin was craggy and lined with small spikes and horns. Their faces were elongated. Massive fangs on their lower jaws jutted up and over dry, blood-caked lips, all the way up past their nostrils. Speaking of noses, the Forest Troll schnoz was more like a heaping, misshapen mound of green warts than anything recognizably used for smelling. A gold hoop hung from at least one of the Trolls’ noses. They had stout, muscular arms and legs, and hunched bodies, and wore only rough, rotting loincloths for clothes, all of which appeared to have been stitched together from a variety of different animal hides.

  All in all, they looked like savage monsters.

  And their odor was so unbearably wretched, they made Blob smell like freshly baked cookies.

  “Welp!” Blob suddenly said loudly. “Zunabar doesn’t seem to live here anymore. I don’t recognize any of this lot. Which I suppose makes sense, being that I was trapped in that stone for probably many generations of Forest Troll. But either way, I guess we can probably go, then, huh?”

  All I could do was glare at him, stunned by the loud outburst that was surely about to get us both killed.

  “What?” Blob asked. “Did I fart or something?”

  I pressed a finger to my lips and quickly glanced back at the sleeping Trolls. Amazingly, aside from one of them flipping onto his back, none stirred.

  “Oh, right,” Blob said, a little quieter. “Better to not wake the Trolls, huh?”

  “Come on, let’s just get out of here,” I whispered.

  I can only assume Blob did his blobby version of a nod, because he followed me as I quickly scooted back toward the cave’s exit. But I was so panicked to get out of there, by now realizing what a huge mistake coming this far had been, that I didn’t see the top half of a skeleton lying in my path. The skull’s jaw gaped open still in the screaming-in-terror position it had been in when the poor soul had perished.