by Robert Bevan
“You guys okay down there?” asked Cooper.
“I’ve got a few scraps of fabric if you need them,” said Tim.
“Just keep where you are and mind your – Gods be damned! What is tha—“
”Chester?” said Tim. There was no answer.
“Tim!” said Julian. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Tim. “My eyes are closed.”
“Come back up.”
There was a small cracking sound, followed by a crunch. “Shit!” said Tim. “I just ran into Chester. I think I broke part of him off.”
“Grab the rope!”
“Okay, I’ve got it. Pull me up!”
Julian, Dave, and Cooper pulled on the rope. It was heavy lifting, meaning Chester had never let go, but it was still a lot easier than pulling up Dave had been.
Tim emerged first, and helped finesse the squatting statue of Chester through the square hole.
“Check out the size of the deuce he was dropping,” said Cooper. It poked out of Chester’s backside like a straightened squirrel tail.
“He probably eats a lot of corn,” said Julian. “It’s weird that his poop also turned to stone.”
“It hadn’t dropped yet,” said Dave. “Technically he was still in possession of it.”
“That’s all really interesting,” said Tim. “But what the fuck happened to all the gold?”
The answer came from the surface, as the cornfield above exploded in goblin laughter and cheer. Either that, or someone had set a badger loose in a cage full of cats.
“What are they so excited about?” asked Dave.
“They’ve got a bunch of gold?” suggested Julian.
“But what can they hope to do with it?” said Tim. “They’re still stuck here on the farm so long as Chester has – Oh shit.” He looked at Chester’s chest. The medallion was missing. Two fractured ends of petrified string hung down from the statue’s neck. “Go! Go! Go!”
Julian scrambled up the ankheg tunnel as fast as his hands and feet would allow. When he surfaced, the cornfield was in chaos. Thin plumes of white smoke billowed out from several random locations. The goblins had made a halfhearted effort of trying to torch the crop, but the stalks were all green, so the fire wasn’t spreading.
“Where’s the carpet?” cried Tim as he popped up out of the hole.
“Huh?” said Julian. He had forgotten about the carpet. He looked down. Sure enough, it wasn’t where they had left it.
Just as Tim looked skyward, a white bundle of fabric hit him in the face.
“Ah! My fucking nose!”
Julian looked up. A black rectangle barely interrupted the already very dark sky. A silhouetted hand waved down to him. “That’s for helpin’ us out,” Nutcracker called down to them. “We’s mighty grateful for what you done!”
Julian picked the bundle up off the ground. It was a hastily knotted goblin shirt. He untied it and looked inside. “There’s like ten gold coins in here.”
“You sons of bitches!” Tim shouted up at Nutcrracker, shaking his tiny halfling fist. “Come back here with the rest of our gold!”
“Sorry folks,” said Nutcracker. “We gots to make a new life for ourselves now. That takes coin. Y’all take care!”
“Fuck you!” Tim shouted as the carpet grew smaller against the night sky.
Julian waved goodbye until the carpet finally flew out of view. “Cheer up,” he said to Tim. “We did a good thing today, and ten gold pieces isn’t such a bad haul.”
“Fuck you, too,” said Tim. He folded his arms and sat on the ground. It was kind of adorable.
“What’s going on?” asked Dave. He and Cooper were hauling the Chester statue up out of the ankheg hole.
“The goblins made off with all the gold,” said Tim. “And the carpet!”
“Ah well,” said Cooper. “Good for them. Easy come, easy go.”
Tim sulked even harder. “I hate all of you.”
“What do we do with him?” asked Dave, his hand on Chester’s stone head.
“I guess we’ll take it back up to the farmhouse,” said Julian. “Let his wife decide what she wants to do with him. She might have to barter off a few acres of the farm to Old Man Belmont. That is, if she even wants him back at – Cooper, what are you doing?”
Cooper was on his knees behind the statue. “Just leaving something for him to remember us by.” He broke the end off of Chester’s stone turd and shoved it deep into the statue’s wide open mouth. “If I had the money, I’d pay to see him get restored myself.”
Julian felt movement under his serape. He pulled out Ravenus and set him on the ground. “Hey, buddy! How are you feeling?”
Ravenus shook his head and stretched out his wings. “A bit groggy, to be honest. What happened?”
“We’ve got a long walk back to the Whore’s Head,” said Julian. “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
The End.
If this was your first time in the world of Caverns and Creatures, please do not be alarmed. You can get some answers to your questions by reading the novels…
Critical Failures
Critical Failures II: Fail Harder
Critical Failures III: A Storm of S-Words
If you enjoyed these stories, please leave a review. It would mean so much to me.
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