The Goblin's Prisoner

“You can contact anyone around the world? At any time? Without casting a multitude of complicated spells and stabilizing circles to get a magical projection of oneself over that long of a distance?”

“Yeah, you just put a number into a thingy and press the green button.”

“Huh… interesting… why is it green? Does it have to be?”

“Eh? Hm… I guess not…”

“Your world is really interesting, dude! You can do all these unbelievable things with this power of electricity, which would take exceptional advanced magic for us here, if we could do it at all… On the other hand, nobody is able to do this in your world?”

Violet grabbed her staff, touched the big glowing amethyst and produced a flame in her hand. She formed it into a ball, let it swell a bit and swirled it around her arm. Violet then flicked her finger and the ball shot out into the sky, where it exploded in a rain of smaller flames.

“Yeah, nobody can do that. At least not exactly like that. There are weapons and ways to have a flaming explosion, but nobody can just magically produce a fireball in their hand.”, commented Alex the magical fire show.

“I like my fireballs…”, pouted Violet a bit.

“Me too… Oh, yeah! That reminds me… Remember our fight with the Woodplage?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did your fire not hurt me? Rather it was kinda nice and toasty…”

“Because I like you.”

“Oh… What?”

Violet turned slowly while grinning towards him. She produced a flame in her hand again and blew in it. The flames that spew forth engulfed Alex, who screamed in surprise. But the fire was not hot. It was warm. A few moments later the flames were gone. Alex looked confused.

“It’s a trick Grandpa Yaeon thought me. By channeling magic energy first through me and not just forming a flame in my hand, I can imbue the flames with certain conditions. That’s how I can make it, so it won’t hurt someone.”, explained Violet.

“Oh, you can just lob your fireball into a group of people and only hurt one person? That’s wild…”

“No, it doesn't work like that. The person I can make my flames harmless for, can’t just be anybody… I have to have a certain connection or bond with that person, or it wouldn’t work.”

“Oh… hm… thank you, I guess?”

“For what?”

“Well, your flames don’t hurt me… so there is a connection between us?”

Alex looked a bit flustered. Violet looked confused.

“Of course there is! We lived one year together under one roof and now we are traveling together… also, don’t forget those bracelet… so yeah… I would say there is a connection between us… a certain kind of bond you could even say…”

“Oh that’s… hm… nice… thank you…”

Alex face grew redder and he faced away. Violet’s right eyebrow went up. She produced a small flame again and flicked it right onto his forehead. This time it was hot and left a miniscule mark.

“I meant as a friend… a travel buddy, someone I can rely on, when there is danger on the road, and your wing woman… Don’t get some stupid ideas, dude!”, said Violet with a small smirk, while watching Alex rub his forehead.

“Understood! Very handy this trick…”

“Yeah, Grandpa Yaeon said that Grandpa Barrik was very happy when he finally could grow out his beard…”

“Oh, good that you already can do it, for the sake of mine…”

“Then continue to behave… as you saw I can still change it back to burn you!”

Alex hand snapped to his beard in a defensive gesture. He had fashioned it in the braided style of the dwarves.

“Can you only do that with fire?”, asked Alex to change the subject.

Violet touched the Amethyst again and then swung her arm horizontal in his direction.

“Slice”, she whispered.

Alex felt a breeze on his neck and then heard a branch falling behind him. He looked back and saw that it had been cut clean off the tree a few meters behind him.

“I can do it with wind too… my other elements need more practice still.”, explained Violet.

“Why do you sometimes say something when you cast spells and sometimes don’t?”

“’cause it sounds cool.”

“Ah… wait really?”

“Nah… It kinda helps with the channeling of magic. Especially with the elements I’m not yet used to… For fire magic I don’t really have to say something, but sometimes it’s just out of habit. Some advanced spells have complicated invocations you have to recite, though…”

“Soo… kinda like the moaning and grunting during tennis, gotcha…”

“What?”

“Oh, forget it… just some thing from my world.”

“Huh… oh yeah, what was this thing called you told me about? Where you can get all the answers, but not everything has to be true? The intaned?”

“The Internet, yeah.”

“How does that work?”

“I don’t know… kinda like a big library everybody has access to… But since everybody can put something in this library you have to be careful with which information to trust. Also, there are a lot of cat videos… and other things…”

“What other things?”

“Well… the thing the internet is for…”

“What was the internet for?”

Alex turned towards Violet with one of the biggest grins he had in a long time.

“The internet is for p-“

“GOOOBLINS!! HELP!!”

Both turned their heads in the direction of the scream that cut Alex off. A horse was racing down the path coming towards them. A man was hanging on the side of the horse, holding on for dear life while screaming for help. Without stopping he went past. Alex and Violet followed him with their gaze until the horse vanished behind a curve.

“I think there are goblins ahead.”, said Violet slowly turning back forwards.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”, asked Alex slowly grabbing his axe from the cart.

“Well, just call it a woman’s intuition…”

“Oh, so that’s how it works, you just predict things that you already know! That’s why there is the saying, to trust a woman’s intuition…”

“Nah, women are always right, that’s why!”

Their cart went around the next corner and a few meters along the path in the woods were a toppled cart with some small figures running around it. Someone was bound to a tree with a sack over his head, while the goblins rummaged through their loot.

“Yeah sure… and rain falls upwards…”, said Alex while jumping from their cart.

“How dare you! Well, for this affront to the women in the world, you can be a good boy and deal with those… chop chop!”

“As the lady wishes…”

Alex did an overly dramatic bow, whirled his axe around, and began to move towards the goblin. They noticed him and began grabbing for their weapons. There were four of them. Small and scrawny but fast and armed with jagged swords. The words of his master to never underestimate an opponent went through Alex head and he charged before the goblins could get into position and surround him. He jumped to the one closest and swung over his head. The goblin tried to block the axe but the weight and force behind Alex swing drove the edge deep into its shoulder. With a heavy tug and a simultaneous kick to the chest was the weapon free again one moment later. Alex did not hesitate, dropped a bit to his knees and swung again. This time horizontally against the next goblin left of him. The axe went into the open side and nearly cut the monster into two. It went down while grunting and spewing blood. The two last goblins jumped Alex from both sides. He dodged just in time back and blocked the following attack. With a quick body turn and a hit with handle of the axe to the face of one of the goblins Alex won enough distance to make a big swing. This time the blade of the axe cut the head of the first goblin clean off and got stuck in the chest of the next one. Alex yanked his weapon free and looked around. The bound person on the tree wiggled around and made a few incomprehensible sounds. He seemed to be gagged too.

“Watch out!”

The voice of Violet alerted Alex in the last second. He dropped to his knees as two arrows flew just above his head and struck the side of the toppled cart behind him. A fireball flew from Violet hands in the direction of the arrows. An explosion later, two burned gobbling corpses got flung out from a bush. Violet appeared grinning next to Alex.

“Thanks…”, he mumbled.

“Glad to be of service, Sir…”

Violet made an overly dramatic bow. Muffled sounds from the bound person let them both turn their head.

“Well, let’s see who the poor bastard is, that got caught by those goblins…”, said Violet.

They both went to the tree. Violet grabbed the linen sack on top of the prisoner’s head and pulled it off. Violet paused. Under the sack was a young man with half long brown hair. He had a fair and flawless face and intense blue shining eyes. A faint beard shadow gave him something masculine. His mouth was gagged with some cloth. The man was wiggling around until Violet had taken of the sack over his face. Now they two stared at each other in silence. Violet slowly put the sack back over his head, stood up and moved away.