A pile of boxes had been stacked in the rear of the wagon, each with pictures of scrumptious cookies on the outside. Bert could scarcely believe it. The elves had given them enough food to last the whole trip! Maybe even longer.
“Wake up, boy!” Bert landed on the wagon, which had been left open to the night. Dew covered everything, but it would dry out as they traveled. Not even wet pillows could dampen his mood.
Boberton twitched. Righty’s right eye fluttered open, then closed again. The dog’s paw rose, and took an experimental step, and then the dog surged to his feet. All four eyes fluttered open, and the dog’s tail began to wag.
“Okay, boy. Take Bert into forest!” Bert pointed deeper into the forest, in the direction the nice elf lady had indicated.
Boberton’s tail wagged more fiercely, and he picked up the harness with his mouth, and dropped it over his shoulder. The dog trotted up the forest floor, which evened out as they approached the stream passing by the elves’ mighty redwood.
Bert reached for a box of cookies, but hesitated. He glanced down at his tummy, which was rounder and larger than usual. He didn’t feel particularly hungry, and had the impression that he might have eaten a great number of cookies.
Now that he thought about it Boberton hadn’t asked for breakfast either. Maybe they were special cookies.
The day passed rather pleasantly, with Boberton keeping an easy pace along the shore of the stream. Again they passed no one, but as the shadows grew longer, and the sun surrendered to the night Bert began to hear cries in the distance.
Cries of anger, and pain. Bert had heard enough combat to know when people were fighting, and clutched his hands to his breast as Boberton brought them closer. He might have to defend them both, and quite soon from the sound of it.
Bert could do that. He could stop bad people. He could even kill them, if he had to, but the responsibility was really quite scary, and he didn’t like it at all.
Boberton slowed as the dog became more conscious of the cries, and Lefty gave Bert a questioning look.
“It’s okay, boy.” Bert patted the wagon, since he couldn’t reach his dog. “Bert will protect you.”
Boberton’s tail began to wag, and he surged back into motion. They rumbled along the shore, until the stream joined a mighty lake. All along the shore of that lake lay high elf trees, and colorful high elf tents, and a banner that proclaimed something about a summer of love.
The shouts came from the village of tents ahead, where madness had seized hold of dozens of elves. Most wore colorful clothing like the nice elf lady, but their behavior couldn’t have been more different.
They screamed and yelled at each other, and was…was that woman punching another woman? Bert craned his neck as Boberton brought them closer, and realized, to his horror, that many of the high elves were not getting up.
A battle had been fought here. Was still being fought. Every elf seemed angry at all the other elves, with no clear side, or reason behind the fighting. As he watched, a baker clubbed another elf over the head with a rolling pin, while another dumped a vat of boiling chocolate onto a fleeting elf running beneath the tree where the assassin had been waiting.
And then Bert saw it.
Beyond the elves, on the far side of their village, just within the tree line of the mighty forest, lay the flaming rock. Only the flames had gone out. Now the rock had glowing numbers on the sides, which had been cleverly shaped.
The dark lord trope supplied the name. An icosahedron. A twenty sided polyhedron, which made sense since one of the numbers was twenty, and none of the other numbers were higher than that.
The elves were all battling each other to reach the strange rock, though most were cut down before they got there. Finally, as Bert watched, a rather plump elf darted up the grassy field, and dodged a thrown stick of frozen butter honed to a deadly point.
Bert found himself rooting for the elf, and cheered when the little man dove for the strange rock. His entire body slammed into one of the sides, the one that had the number 12 emblazoned on it, and his body vanished in a flash.
Bert’s jaw fell open as he tried to understand what he was seeing. Another elf made it, and it too disappeared. Eventually a third elf made it, then a fourth. Every one met the same fate.
The awareness from his trope told him that the object was reclaiming the elves somehow. That meant it had created them in the first place, didn’t it?
Whatever the meaning it left Bert, a very small goblin, with a very large problem. How was he going to get the rock away from here? It had clearly driven the elves mad with greed.
Bert had to do something.
12
White's Wight Factory
Kit hadn’t bothered unpacking her adventurer’s gear, though she did enjoy the four-poster featherbed in the quarters she’d procured for herself. There were still bloodstains from where they’d murdered Brakestuff a few weeks ago, but she’d been too tired to summon the effort for a clean spell.
Upon rising from the soiled mattress she faced a dilemma. Should she simply leave, or go and see what White had gotten up to? There was no question it would be nefarius, and that it would involve subjugation, murder, and possibly worse.
In the end Kit left her pack next to the bed, and headed for the throne room. She’d poke her head in and get some sense of what White was up to. That way she’d be able to tell Bert if she was actually able to locate him.
She didn’t have much to go on as they’d turned Bumbledork into goo before he could do much more than tell them that Bert had
