Of Bone and Banner
~ Where arrows meet arguments ~
To the untrained eye, Goblin Village was chaos in wooden form.
Shabby shacks leaned at ridiculous angles, like they’d been built during an earthquake—or perhaps after one too many goblin brawls. Spear racks lay toppled over next to latrines that reeked of forgotten misadventure. Goblins in patchwork armor scurried about, yelling over one another about stolen boots, missing banners, and whose turnip had been pinched by the village prankster. Somewhere, a drum made of a hollowed log and a stretched pig’s bladder thudded wildly out of rhythm, setting a tribal beat that no one really followed.
Nyssarra stood at the edge of this chaos, arms crossed, watching the scene with the calm patience of someone who had seen far stranger things—but not many louder.
Two goblin guards shuffled into her path. They were short, squat, and each brandished a spear suspiciously resembling sharpened soup spoons lashed to sticks. Their expressions were stern, but with an unmistakable undercurrent of confusion and suspicion.
“Halt!” one barked, puffing his chest like a rooster. “No tallfolk allowed!”
Nyssarra raised a brow, lips twitching with the faintest hint of a smile. “I bring word from Doric the smith,” she said calmly, voice steady despite the goblins’ blatant hostility. “A message of concern. Strange sounds beneath the hills. Goblins disappearing near the dig sites.”
The other goblin squinted, eyeing her suspiciously. “You got ears like elf. We don’t trust elf!”
She sighed, a little weary but amused. “I’m only half elf,” she said patiently. “Which means I only half care what you trust.”
The two goblins blinked at each other, evidently trying to puzzle out what that meant.
“...Is that a threat?” one asked nervously.
“No,” Nyssarra replied dryly. “That was diplomacy.”
The guards exchanged a brief, silent conversation, then one shrugged and stepped aside, muttering, “Tall one talks funny.”
Nyssarra stepped past, catching a whiff of something burning—not quite smoke, not quite stew—as a goblin darted by, wielding a frying pan as a weapon and shouting something that sounded suspiciously like a recipe for disaster.
The center of Goblin Village was dominated by a modest war tent made of two roughly stitched pieces of leather, held up precariously by crooked sticks and festooned with a chaotic patchwork of goblin war banners. Inside, two goblins were locked in a shouting match that might have lasted decades.
“Green is stronger!” bellowed General Wartface, pounding his fist so hard on a crate that a few splinters fell.
“Brown is smarter!” retorted General Bentnose, brandishing a scroll so old and tattered it might have been a grocery list.
“They hear voices under the ground!”
“They see shadows in the fields!”
Nyssarra cleared her throat delicately, and both goblins immediately turned to glare at her.
“Who invited the forest-twig?” Wartface growled, his helmet sliding askew as he looked her up and down.
Bentnose sniffed. “Too many leaves in her hair. Definitely elf.”
“I’m here on behalf of Doric,” Nyssarra said firmly, stepping further into the tent despite the hostile glares. “He’s worried. Your dig teams are vanishing. Strange sounds come from beneath the hills. You’re in danger.”
Wartface flexed his biceps as if to prove that danger was no concern. “We ain’t scared. Goblins tough!”
Bentnose shook his head solemnly. “Except when they vanish screaming.”
From the back of the tent came a rasping voice.
“I dreamed of crystal and song,” it said, “And you came.”
A hunched figure emerged—Grubfoot, the goblin shaman. His ragged cloak was festooned with skulls, feathers, and faintly glowing charms. His eyes were sharp and strangely knowing.
Nyssarra met his gaze, finding a calm amidst the goblin chaos.
Outside the village, Nyssarra knelt beside a small burrow. The ground trembled faintly beneath her fingers.
“Something’s tunneling,” she murmured. “But not goblins. Too deep. Too precise.”
Grubfoot nodded. “They take goblins. Always at night. Leave holes. Leave whispers.”
Nyssarra frowned. “Zamorakians?”
“No,” Grubfoot hissed. “Older.”
She followed the tunnels into the hillside, crawling through narrow earthen passages with only her bow and a single crystal-tipped arrow strapped to her back. The air grew colder, damp. The walls smoothed into cold stone, etched with runes she didn’t recognize—symbols that pulsed faintly with forgotten magic.
Then she heard it.
Clicking.
Metal scraping on stone.
She slipped into a hidden alcove and watched.
Out of the shadows skittered a creature—half-golem, half-insect. Its limbs were bronze and spiked. Its head was a metal mask with no eyes, moving like a puppet on invisible strings.
Behind it—cages. Inside: goblins, alive but terrified.
Nyssarra struck without sound.
Two crystal-tipped arrows took out the legs of the construct before it could screech. It collapsed with a hiss of escaping steam. The goblins blinked at her, wide-eyed, as she picked the lock with the tip of her dagger.
“Tall one save us?” one whispered.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Now run.”
More constructs emerged—two, then three, then five. Nyssarra fought like the wind through the forest, flowing between stone and shadow, arrow and blade. The constructs were strong but not alive. Magic hummed in their joints. Chaos? No. This was ancient dwarven—or older.
As she felled the last, a strange sigil pulsed in the stone behind it. A rune of command. Of binding.
She reached out, touching it.
Pain flared in her palm. But so did knowledge.
Back in the village, chaos reigned again—only this time, it was cheering chaos. Goblins danced around the freed prisoners, their off-key war chants mixed with the smashing of dinner plates and uproarious laughter.
Wartface strutted proudly, chest puffed out like a wild beast. “We fight back now! Green banners everywhere!”
Bentnose scowled, puffing his chest too. “No! We dig smarter! Make traps! Brown is better!”
Nyssarra raised one hand, and they both immediately fell silent.
“They are not gone,” she said quietly. “The constructs. The tunnels. Whatever commands them still sleeps beneath your land. You need unity. Not banners.”
Grubfoot nodded solemnly. “She speak with mountain voice.”
Wartface scratched his head, looking sheepish. “So… what color we use now?”
Nyssarra sighed, a small smile playing at her lips.
“Try crystal.”
They blinked. And, for once, didn’t argue.
As the stars rose above Goblin Village, Nyssarra sat at the edge of the firelight, sharpening her blade. Around her, goblins debated fiercely whether to invent “goblin night vision” (a curious mixture of eye paint and darkness shouting). She listened with a bemused smile.
Grubfoot joined her, his staff clinking softly with bone charms.
“You saw the rune,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
“You touched it.”
“I had to.”
He nodded, grave. “Then you carry the mark. Something stirs under the earth, half-elf. Something that remembers metal and war and gods no one prays to anymore.”
Nyssarra looked at the quiet night.
“I’ve walked in fire and frost,” she said softly. “Let it come.”