by Sam Ferguson
“Kibly schmibly!” one of the goblins shouted.
“Wibble-de-gook!” the other yelled.
Lucas did the only thing he could think of. He growled at both of them and put up his fists. “You want to fight, come on then, fight me like men! Put up your dukes!”
The goblins stopped and looked at each other.
“Kibble-de-boon,” one of them said.
“Tibbly a dukes,” the other repeated.
They turned back to Lucas and threw down their spears.
“Right then, that’s more like it,” Lucas said. He reached down and took off his shirt, revealing a rippling six pack underneath a set of bulging pectoral muscles.
One of the goblins stepped forward, his belly bouncing with each movement. He reached into a pouch at his side and pulled out a cobalt glass bottle. The words “Roid-Pep” were emblazoned in red on the white paper label.
“What’s that, poison?” Lucas asked.
The goblin laughed and popped the cork. He tilted his head up and shook the bottle over his open mouth. A few gray, oblong pills went into his gaping maw and the creature gulped them down. He then tossed the bottle to the side of the cave, shattering it against the rock wall. The goblin roared as veins in his neck began to bulge. There was a gurgling sound coming from the monster’s belly, and then the gut flattened out. Bones cracked and popped as the goblin grew two feet taller. Its teeth elongated and its arms seemed to inflate right before Lucas’ eyes. Its legs became as thick as tree trunks, with clearly defined muscles flexing as it stepped forward.
“Put…up…dukes,” it said.
“Oh, now that’s just not fair,” Lucas replied.
The goblin lunged forward and punched at the epic farm boy. Lucas dodged to the side, shuddering as the goblin’s fist broke a hunk of stone off the wall.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Lucas shouted as the hulking goblin came at him again and swung his massive arm toward his face. Lucas barely managed to duck under the blow, and then came up with his hands making a T. “Hold on, time out!”
The goblin stopped and turned to its comrade. “Time…out?”
“Jobly-wobly-snobly!” the other said with a shrug.
“Just, wait one second!” Lucas said as he pointed to a pouch hanging from his belt. He opened the flap and then reached in. His hands grasped around something rectangular and hard. He pulled it, but the corners caught on the leather pouch. “One second!” he said while holding up a finger. He tugged at the opening and yanked the item out with a smile. “I was saving this for the right occasion,” he said as he kissed the object. “Ever hear of Beat It?” he asked.
“Beat It?” the huge goblin echoed.
“Dance battle,” Lucas said. He turned and put the small stereo on the ground and pressed the Play button. A booming, funky rhythm filled the cave. Lucas kept his back to the roid-head and started tapping his toes to the beat. Then his hips starting popping to the side and he started snapping his fingers. He turned and shot out a kick that was purposely short of the goblin, and then he shimmied to the side while throwing his arms up into the air and sliding his feet across the stone.
“Dance…battle!” the goblin shouted. The muscle-bound goblin tried to copy the moves, but it stumbled, unable to slide its feet across the stone nimbly, and fell to hit its head on the wall. It groaned and fell limp on the ground.
“That was easier than I thought,” Lucas said.
The other goblin leapt gracefully over the first and twirled on its tip-toes, kicking its leg out for momentum before flipping upside down and spinning on its head, then popping up once more and folding its arms across its chest as it snarled.
“Dance battle,” it said.
“All right, let’s do this then,” Lucas said. The two of them began circling each other, occasionally taking a swing at the other while trying to simultaneously spin around. Lucas led with a back hand, the goblin ducked and spun on the floor to send a foot-sweep. Lucas jumped and then pranced out to the side before thrusting his pelvis out and shouting as he grabbed the top of his belt with his right hand and snapping his fingers with his left hand.
The goblin turned its left side to Lucas and moonwalked across the stone until they were face to face again, and then it lashed out with a backward roundhouse up toward Lucas’ face. Lucas dipped backward and dropped to the ground, avoiding the kick and catching himself with one hand while still thrusting his hips up with the beat. He then flipped over and did the worm as the goblin tried to stomp on him, kicking down with each drum beat.
Lucas started breathing heavily, he hadn’t danced this hard in a long time, and the goblin was showing no signs of slowing. Lucas jumped up to his feet and played his leg like a guitar while hopping forward, but the goblin was ready, and dropped down into a windmill, spinning faster and faster until one of his flailing legs caught Lucas and dropped the farm boy to the ground. He slammed down onto the stone, knocking into the stereo and sending it skittering across the ground.
The cd began skipping terribly, and switched over to I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.
The goblin stopped the windmill and stared at the stereo.
“Wabbly-debbly-febbly?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Lucas said as he pushed up to his feet and ran over to the stereo. “Not the best song to have a dance battle to…” Lucas bent down and pressed the Pause button, and then an idea came into his head. He grabbed the stereo by the sides, turned, and threw it at the waiting goblin. Nimble on the dance floor it was, but quick enough to duck the flying stereo it was not.
THWACK!
The goblin fell backward with a shattered nose oozing green blood. The stereo landed off to the goblin’s left and the song continued.
“I just can’t stop lovin’ yooooouuuu!”
“Whatever,” Lucas said with a shrug. He turned and yanked his axe out from the first goblin’s corpse and continued down the hall as the love song continued crooning through the halls. He found a chamber off to the left where several goblins where hunched over wooden bowls at a table. Two of them had their heads up, tilting their ears toward the music and muttering back and forth to each other, the third, however, had his face buried in the bowl, chowing down on whatever the contents were.
Lucas wasted no time in running in, humming along with the ballad echoing through the halls as his axe came in swift and furious. The first goblin suffered a fatal chop of the neck, the second caught the blade in the sternum, its face scrunching up in a snarl before it fell backward to the floor.
The third goblin barely came up for air, its face covered in what looked like dirt and earthworm guts. It wrinkled its nose at Lucas, and then was sent to the everlasting sleep of death by the epic farm boy’s mighty weapon.
The room cleared, he turned and made his way further down the hall until he came to another opening, this one much larger than the first. This was a massive room, with stalactites hanging down from the ceiling, covered in guano. A large stone platform off to one side held a wooden totem pole of some sort, with foul, demonic faces carved under a pair of wooden wings that jutted out to either side.
“Help me!” a young woman cried.
Lucas turned the other way and saw a large kettle of boiling water set upon a massive fire billowing with thick smoke. A few yards away from that was a massively large goblin (likely another Roid-Pep user) with thick, black hair and bulging muscles carrying a golden-haired young woman over his shoulder. He was making his way toward the kettle, and Lucas understand instantly what was about to happen.
“What do I do?” Lucas asked himself aloud. He was too far away to throw his axe, and there was no possible way he could catch the giant goblin before it reached the kettle.
“Here,” Simplin said. “You left your bow outside.”
Lucas nearly jumped out of his skin, turning on Simplin and about to hack the wizard down.
“Well, go on lad, take the bow,” Simplin said. “I barely made it down here past all the bodies… and the blood…” S
implin’s face drained, and Lucas knew the wizard was not long for the conscious world. The epic farm boy snatched his bow just seconds before Simplin turned and had to lean on the wall to catch his breath.
“Aim true,” Lucas said. He pulled the arrow back, sighted down the shaft, and let the missile fly. The bowstring twanged into place and quivered as the arrow flew through the air, silently spinning until it hit its mark, diving deep into the goblin’s left eye and exploding out the back of its head in a spray of green and gray goo.
“Oh dear, I should not have looked… I should not have…” Simplin fell over.
Lucas didn’t bother turning to see if Simplin was all right. Instead, he moved in to pick off another three goblins with his bow, and then rushed to the young woman with his axe in hand, ready to fend off any other goblins that might threaten her.
“I’m coming!” he called out.
“My hands,” the young woman shouted. “Loose my hands!”
Lucas carefully slid his axe back and forth over the thick cords that bound her hands together. When she was free, she stretched her wrists and then turned to Lucas. She eyed the bow in his right hand and then took it from him.
“My turn,” she said.
She pulled one of the last three remaining arrows from the quiver and turned just as a goblin appeared from a side tunnel. She fired the arrow straight and true, dropping the goblin with an arrow to the throat. Another appeared in its place only a second later, but she slew it just as quickly. She then prepared the final arrow and waited. “There’s more of them,” she said.
Lucas was standing and staring, his jaw hanging open and axe hanging limp at his side. Never a fairer woman had he ever seen in his life. She was nearly as tall as him, slender, but not too skinny. Her limbs were fit and strong, and she had all the right curves in all the right places.
“What’s your name?” she asked as she turned to him.
“Um…” Lucas said dumbly as he fell into her bright green eyes.
“Um, that’s a funny name,” the woman said. “Where’s it from?”
“Err…” Lucas said.
She arched a brow and then reached up to remove a lock of hair from her face, pushing it up and back over her pointed ear.
“Elf…” Lucas commented.
She nodded. “Half-elf,” she said.
A third goblin emerged from the tunnel, this one wearing a wooden crown and carrying a strange scepter in its hands.
“And there you are,” the woman said as she sent the last arrow out. The missile flew straight, but the goblin raised its scepter and a strange blue shield formed in front of it, deflecting the arrow easily. The creature began laughing and pointing at the pair.
“Oh—” the woman said. “That’s not good.”
The goblin sent a streak of lightning toward them, but Lucas managed to push the half-elf beauty out of the way, which meant he took the full brunt of the electrifying force right in the chest. He flew back through the air, landing on the floor and skidding to a stop just three feet before the fire and boiling kettle. His hair stood on end, smoking and reeking of wet dog and burned skin while Lucas just stared motionless at the stalactites above and moaned.
A great rumble shook the cavern then, sending cracks through the rocks and breaking several larger stalactites free from the ceiling.
“Woo-hoo!” Simplin shouted as he hovered on a cloud, zipping around the falling rock and sending fireballs out at the goblin-warlock. Lucas sat up just in time to see Simplin dodge not one, not two, but three separate lightning attacks as he sailed around the chamber on his cloud. Simplin the Wise answered the attacks by aiming his hands at the ceiling above the warlock. Hunks of stone fell from above, but the goblin managed to raise his shield enough to hold them off. Simplin laughed again and sent in another volley of fireballs.
“Stuck between a rock and a hot place!” Simplin shouted. The fireballs soared in, slipping underneath the magical shield and pummeling the goblin. The goblin chief fell to the ground, his shield collapsing as he did so and allowing the broken rocks to fall down, crushing him in a pile that conveniently concealed all the blood, sparing Simplin another embarrassing moment.
“That was…” Lucas started.
“Amazing?” Simplin finished for him as he stepped off his cloud and down to pick Lucas up. “I know. I bet it was even better than Beven could do,” Simplin said with a self-gratified smirk.
“Who?” Lucas asked.
Simplin’s smile faded and the wizard waved his hand. “Oh, never mind. It’s not important.” He turned around and gestured to the young half-elf. “What is important is that the contract is fulfilled, so Glenda will be happy, and this young beauty is safe.”
The half-elf turned and threw a smile at Lucas. “Thanks for moving me out of the way,” she said with a glance to the black mark in the middle of Lucas’ chest.
“By the by, I found your shirt in the hallway. I also found a strange contraption blasting some kind of hypnotic spell – so I incinerated it with a fireball.” Simplin held out Lucas’ shirt.
Lucas nodded and glanced over his shoulder. “I was wondering why I couldn’t hear the music anymore.”
“Music?” Simplin scoffed. “I should think there is much better music than that noise.”
“Hey!”
The half-elf moved in and gave Lucas a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for rescuing me, but it really wasn’t necessary. Everything was under control.”
Lucas turned to her with a dumb, crooked grin, fumbling for what to say as his cheeks flushed.
“Young lady, I should say that you most definitely needed our help,” Simplin put in.
GREEE—GRRREEEEE! GREE-GRRREEEE!
“What in the devil is that?” Simplin called out.
“See, he came for me, he always does!” the half-elf said with a smile and a giddy clap of her hands.
A strange, red box came into view, fading in and out of reality as a light atop the box flashed bright, red light throughout the cave. When the large box stabilized, two swinging doors popped open and out jumped a tall, slender man wearing a strange suit, with hair that looked like he had just rolled out of bed.
“Hello! Did I miss all the fun?”
“Doctor!” the half-elf said as she ran into his arms.
“Sorry I’m late, the timing has been just a bit off lately with the TA—”
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” Simplin asked. He shot a glance up at the ceiling. “This better not be another trick, Jack!”
“My name isn’t Jack,” the doctor said as he stepped forward and thrusted a hand out to Simplin. “Call me doctor.”
“Doctor?” Simplin scoffed. “Doctor wh—”
“No no, that’s the other one. I’m Doctor What!” the man cut in sharply. “I’m the one that does all the real work, anyway. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get Liriel off on another adventure that will most likely put her in extreme mortal danger simply because I am too eccentric to care what happens to my traveling companion –which is on account of the fact that I am simply so cool that I know I can save them in time.”
“But, Lucas saved her,” Simplin said, thumbing toward the epic farm boy, who was still dumbstruck and rubbing the spot on his cheek where Liriel had kissed him.
“No no! I would have done it myself, and without all the smashy-washy rock banging you had to do, I might add,” Doctor What replied with a shrug. “Now, I hate long goodbyes, so – farewell!” Doctor What and Liriel turned to the big red box and stepped inside.
“Now hold on a minute!” Simplin said as he chased after them. He managed to keep the door open just long enough to slip inside, but then he stopped and stared around. “What manner of magic is this?” he asked.
“Oh here we go,” Doctor What said. “Now we have to wait for the obligatory, obvious comment from the new guy.” He sighed and moved to a center console where he began throwing switches and levers, all the while ignoring Simplin the Wise as the wizard popped i
n and out of the box.
“Did you know that it really is much larger on the…”
“Yep,” Doctor What said. “I see it every day. Believe me, I know.”
“Well, I must say, this is remarkable.”
“Sure sure. Now, if you’ll excuse us,” Doctor What said. “I’ll bring her back shortly, when she has had enough of running around various galaxies and times.”
“When she what?” Simplin asked.
Liriel gently pushed the wizard out the door and closed it, but not before blowing a kiss to Lucas. Then, the red box faded in and out of existence again, leaving the two men standing alone in a ruined underground chamber.
“Well, that was interesting,” Simplin said.
“She was wonderful,” Lucas exclaimed. “Did you see her green eyes?”
“Yes,” Simplin said. “Did you notice that she still has your bow?”
“Who cares?” Lucas shrugged. “I’m going to wait for her, right here.” The epic farm boy sat cross-legged on the floor and set his elbows atop his knees so as to rest his chin on his fists. “She was the one.”
Simplin glanced upward. “Really? Why not the mercenary lady? Why make Liriel the one?” The wizard shook his head and took three steps to stand directly in front of Lucas. He knelt down, waved his hand in front of the boy’s unbreaking stare, and then slapped him across the cheek. “Let’s go, Romeo.”
“OW!” Lucas shouted. “What was that for?”
“I’m tired, and this is supposed to be my story, so let’s go.” Simplin twirled his finger in the air and brought Lucas to a standing position. “We are not waiting here for anyone, we are leaving, now!”