The North Road wound its way through the great forests of northern Almenor like a pale ribbon cut through an endless sea of green. Towering oaks and pines crowded close to the track, their branches weaving together high overhead until only shafts of golden afternoon sunlight reached the road below. Moss covered the stones beside the path, and a cool breeze carried the smell of damp leaves and pine needles.

It was, Thorn Axehand decided, a very good place for an ambush.

He did not say so aloud. Only a few days had passed since he’d left home, yet travelling already felt strangely natural — always another bend in the road, another mystery waiting somewhere ahead.

Beside him padded Loki, nose close to the ground, sniffing every scent the forest had to offer. Every so often he vanished into the undergrowth before trotting happily back to Thorn’s side.

Behind them came Derek, steady as a walking barrel with boots, patient with the sort of trouble he expected but saw no reason to hurry towards. His shield hung across his back, his warhammer resting on one shoulder.

Dave followed next, clutching his spellbook as if it might run away — a copper dragonborn, still young by his people’s standards, yet six foot seven, tall enough that Thorn could always spot his scaled head above the ferns. Something small stirred beneath his cloak now and then, a familiar resting in the pocket between worlds, Dave said, though he rarely explained further. He kept glancing at the trees, muttering and wiggling his fingers through the motions of a spell.

Nibbles McPicklepants brought up the rear, having seen something shiny in the mud ten minutes earlier and still hoping there might be more.

“You know,” Dave said eventually, “I always imagined adventures would involve more dragons.”

Thorn glanced over his shoulder. “We’ve only been travelling three days.”

“I know, but dragons seem like the sort of thing that should happen quite early.”

“They’re probably saving themselves,” Derek said.

Before Dave could answer, a triumphant voice drifted from somewhere further behind.

“I’ve found treasure!”

Nobody stopped walking. Thorn sighed. “What is it this time, Nibbles?”

The dragonborn rogue emerged from the bushes holding something between two fingers. “A button.”

“It might have belonged to somebody important,” Nibbles said.

“It might have belonged to somebody with a hole in their shirt,” Derek replied.

Nibbles slipped the button into one of his belt pouches anyway. “You never know.”

That, Thorn thought, was true enough. The four had only known one another a short time, but each was already wonderfully predictable: Dave asking endless questions, Derek noticing things others missed, Nibbles unable to leave any object uninvestigated, and Loki assuming everyone they met would either become a friend or need barking at.

The road ahead dipped into a shallow hollow where an old fallen log lay half across the track, moss-covered and slowly claimed by the forest. Scattered in the dust beside it lay a small heap of glittering coins — far too conveniently placed to be anything but a lure.

Loki stopped walking. His ears stood upright and the cheerful wagging of his tail disappeared.

Thorn froze immediately and raised a hand for the others to halt. The forest fell silent — no birds, no insects, even the wind seemed to pause.

“Don’t touch that,” Thorn said quietly.

Nibbles had already taken two careful steps forward. He stopped, sighed, and crouched to study the coins from a safer distance. “It’s not even good fake gold.”

He picked up the nearest coin with the tip of his dagger, bent it between his fingers, and made a face. “Thin as cheese.”

“So it’s a trap,” Dave whispered.

“Obviously,” Derek murmured.

They spread out and moved forward with more caution, weapons ready, eyes on the trees. Even Nibbles had the sense to stay low.

It was not cautious enough.

A twig snapped. Then another. Half a dozen small green figures burst from the undergrowth, waving rusty swords and crude spears, armour patched with bits of string.

Goblins.

The largest of them scrambled onto the fallen log and spread his arms dramatically. “No fighting!” he squeaked. “We make bargain!”

Thorn did not lower his hand from his axe. “We’ve seen your bargain.”

The goblin grinned, revealing unpleasantly sharp teeth, and the archers among them had already drawn their bows. Arrows hissed from the trees — one thudded into the road beside Dave’s foot, another cracked off Derek’s shield, a third buried itself in the fallen log by Nibbles’ ear.

“Cheats!” Nibbles shouted.

The goblins howled with laughter. “Fake gold!” one cried. “Stupid travellers!”

Dave squeaked, raised both hands, and shouted the first spell that came into his head. A potato shot from his fingertips with surprising speed and struck the nearest goblin squarely between the eyes. The goblin on the log dropped backwards into the weeds.

Everyone stared. Even the other goblins stared.

Dave blinked. “That worked.”

Thorn did not waste the moment. With a roar, he charged, Loki barking furiously at his side. Derek lifted his shield and followed. Nibbles tossed the bent coin aside, drew his blade, and slipped through the trees to flank the goblins.

The fight was short, loud and extremely confusing. Thorn drove the goblins back with heavy axe swings, Derek’s shield rang with glancing blows, and Nibbles jabbed one from behind before vanishing again.

Dave fired another potato. This one hit a tree. The tree did not seem badly hurt.

Soon the goblins’ laughter turned to panic. One threw down its sword and bolted into the forest. Another followed. A third, seeing Thorn and Loki bearing down on him, made a noise like a kettle and fled north.

“They’re running!” cried Nibbles.

“After them!” said Thorn.

“Is that sensible?” asked Derek.

“No,” said Nibbles.

They chased them anyway.

The goblin trail led away from the road through brambles and up a muddy slope. Loki found a better path than the scattered footprints. Thorn crouched by a splintered branch and noticed dark spots on the moss.

“Blood,” Derek said quietly.

“Not much,” Thorn replied. “But enough.”

Whoever the goblins had dragged away had not gone quietly. The trail grew clearer as they climbed: torn cloth on a thorn bush, a discarded arrow, a battered wooden shield half-hidden in the ferns. Derek recognised the painted emblem at once — a soaring falcon above a stone tower.

“Fallcrest,” he said. “This belonged to one of the town guard.”

The cheerful mood faded. “Then the goblins have been busy,” Thorn said.

Loki sniffed the shield, then barked towards the slope. Beyond the trees, half-hidden by ivy and grey stone, yawned the mouth of a cave, smoke drifting from within.

The goblins had gone inside.

For a moment the companions stood at the foot of the slope and listened. From within came faint echoes — scurrying feet, goblin voices, something that might have been crying.

Perched on a wooden platform above the entrance sat a single goblin guard with a shortbow across its knees. It did not look alert, or fierce — it looked fed up, yawning and kicking a pebble down the slope, glancing more often into the darkness behind it than out into the forest.

An angry voice echoed from underground. “Oi! Lookout!”

The guard sighed dramatically. “What?”

“Are you actually watching?”

“I am watching.”

“You’re useless!”

Another shout came from deeper in the hill. “Ratbag’s nicked my dinner again!”

“Oh, for…” the lookout groaned. It stood up, slung its bow over one shoulder, and climbed down from the platform without giving the forest so much as a glance. “You lot sort it out yourselves,” it grumbled. “I’m not going near Ratbag again.”

The goblin disappeared into the cave.

The companions stared at the now unguarded entrance.

Before anyone stepped through, Dave murmured two careful words and held out one hand. A small shape unfolded from the air beside his wrist — a pseudodragon no larger than a house cat, bright-eyed, wings folded tight against coppery scales.

“Peggy,” Dave said softly. Everyone called her Peggy. Dave called her Pegs, for reasons he had never explained and nobody had thought to ask about twice.

“Go look,” he told her. “Quietly.”

The little familiar slipped into the cave mouth and was gone. Dave’s eyes went distant, one hand half-raised, as though he had gone somewhere else entirely.

“He’s in a trance,” Derek said quietly. “He sees through her eyes.”

Nobody spoke. For the companions it was only a long minute of waiting. For Dave it was torchlit stone, dripping water, and the sharp green world as Peggy glided through the dark — two goblin warriors arguing over bone dice to the west, more voices to the east.

Peggy returned on silent wings and landed on his shoulder. He shuddered, drew a sharp breath, and came back to himself.

“Fighters,” he said. “At least two goblin warriors deeper in — west side. More voices to the east.”

Dave looked at the dark opening and swallowed. “I’ll keep watch out here,” he said. “Caves are dangerous. Someone sensible ought to stay where it’s safe.”

Nobody answered. Loki trotted confidently into the darkness, Thorn close behind, Derek after him, Nibbles slipping in fast, already scanning for hidden doors and stolen coin.

Dave remained where he was — for about as long as it took to notice how close the trees now seemed. A branch creaked above.

”…Actually,” he said to no one in particular, “keeping watch is also dangerous when there might be goblins behind you.”

He hurried after the others. “Wait for me!” His voice echoed down the tunnel as the daylight disappeared behind him.

The cave was cooler than the forest outside. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the floor sloped downward through twisting passages lit by smoky torches wedged into the stone.

The passage soon divided.

To the left, a tunnel bent west through narrower stone. To the right, a longer corridor wound east and north, the freshest goblin tracks pressed deep into the dust. Somewhere deeper underground came the sound of someone crying — faint, but definitely human.

“We stay together,” Derek said firmly, then looked at the two tunnels again.

“We’ll never find whoever they’re holding if we search one passage at a time,” Thorn said quietly.

Derek didn’t like it — it showed on his face. “I know. I still think it’s a terrible idea.”

“So do I,” Thorn admitted. “But it’s the only one.”

They divided up.

Thorn, Derek and Loki took the eastern corridor with the freshest tracks — wherever the boss and prisoner were, that was the way. Dave and Nibbles went west, where angry voices echoed ahead, far too interested in dice to sound like proper guard duty.

“Treasure never argues this loudly,” Nibbles whispered.

“Neither do sensible people,” Dave whispered back.

They crept forward together.

Thorn, Derek and Loki moved carefully along the eastern route until the tunnel opened into a stretch of floor that looked altogether too smooth. Derek stopped at once and held up a hand.

“Wait.”

Loki froze mid-step. Thorn saw it too — dust lying undisturbed in a perfect rectangle ahead, goblin tracks veering sharply around it. Someone had dug a pit and covered it with branches and earth, not deep, but enough to break an ankle or leave someone stuck while goblins laughed from the shadows.

“Trap,” Derek murmured.

He led them the long way round, keeping to the solid stone at the edge. Loki gave the pit a deeply offended look as he passed. Thorn brought up the rear, axe ready in case a goblin had waited to see who fell in.

The great cavern opened before them not long after — the largest chamber in the cave, cluttered with stolen goods. Crude torches threw jumping light across broken crates and a rough wooden cage against the far wall, where a young woman sat with dirt on her face and a fierce expression that suggested she’d been furious long before the goblins laid hands on her.

She looked up as Thorn stepped into the light, with Derek and Loki close behind him. “You’re not goblins,” she said.

“No,” Thorn replied. “Are you hurt?”

“I’ll live.” She studied him for a moment. “My name is Mara. I was carrying a message to Fallcrest when those little monsters ambushed me on the road.”

“Was the message important?” Thorn asked.

Before Mara could answer, a furious voice screeched from the shadows.

“Mine! Prisoner mine! Shiny bag mine!”

The goblin boss burst from behind a pile of crates with two warriors scrambling out behind him — taller than the others, in a ragged red cloak that had clearly once been a curtain, a rusty sword in one hand. Padding at his side came his pet: a giant rat the size of a large dog, patchy grey fur and a tail like a wet rope.

“My cave!” shrieked the boss. “My prisoner! My Ratbag!”

Ratbag squealed.

The two goblins fanned out to guard the cage, spears raised.

Elsewhere in the cave, Dave and Nibbles had found the two goblin warriors, crouched in a side passage with a pair of bone dice between them, shouting at each other with real venom.

“You cheated!”

“I did not cheat! You just cannot count!”

“Five plus three is seven in your stupid head, maybe!”

“I don’t think we need to be quiet anymore,” Nibbles said.

The goblins looked up. For a heartbeat all four of them simply stared at one another. Then the warriors snatched up their blades and charged.

It was not an elegant fight. Dave hurled potatoes with more enthusiasm than accuracy while Nibbles darted in, stabbing at knees and elbows. One goblin tripped over its dice bag; the other took a potato to the chin and sat down hard.

When the dust settled, both goblins were groaning on the floor and Nibbles was bleeding slightly from a shallow cut along one arm.

The western tunnel — where an argument over bone dice became considerably less important.

“Are you all right?” Dave asked.

“I’ve had worse from a bread knife,” Nibbles said, though he did not sound entirely convinced.

They could hear the boss shrieking somewhere to the east. That seemed more urgent than bandages.

Back in the great cavern, the fight had already begun. The goblin boss saw Loki at almost the same moment Loki saw Ratbag.

“No,” said the boss.

Loki barked.

Ratbag panicked, wheeling round with a shriek and lumbering across the chamber, surprisingly fast for something the size of a large dog. Loki went after him without hesitation.

“Not Ratbag!” howled the goblin boss.

The chamber erupted. Thorn charged the boss, axe raised, while Derek threw himself at the two goblins guarding the cage. The boss ducked Thorn’s first swing, slashed wildly with the rusty sword, and shrieked for his warriors to help.

For a few frantic moments Thorn had all he could do to keep the boss from reaching Mara — the goblin fought with the fury of someone who’d just seen his favourite monster loosed on an enthusiastic dog. Thorn gave ground once, twice, then planted his boots and met the next blow on the haft of his axe.

Derek fought with the steady, unshowy competence of someone who’d done this before. One goblin hurled a spear that rang off his shield; the other was knocked flat before it could complain. The first tried again, got caught by the hammer, and decided loyalty to the boss had limits. Mara shouted encouragement from the cage, which helped more than anyone expected.

Meanwhile Ratbag had tried to squeeze beneath a broken table and failed halfway. Loki seized his chance. There was a furious scuffle, one enormous squeal, one triumphant bark, and the goblin boss turned just in time to see his beloved pet meet a heroic but unfortunate end.

The great cavern — Thorn, Derek, Mara, Loki, and a goblin chief who had just lost an argument with a dog.

“Ratbag!” he wailed.

That was the last mistake he made.

Thorn knocked the sword from his hand and drove him to his knees with the flat of his axe. Derek smashed the cage lock with his hammer, and Mara stumbled free. The two remaining goblins took one look at Thorn, one look at Loki, and fled shrieking into the tunnels.

Loki trotted back to Thorn and sat, tail thumping once against the stone. Thorn rested a hand on the dog’s head. He did not say anything aloud. He did not need to.

He was, however, interrupted by a crash from the entrance passage, followed by Dave’s voice shouting, “I can’t see anything!” and Nibbles replying, “Stop standing on me!”

Derek closed his eyes briefly. “Tell me you did not.”

“We were hurrying,” Dave called up from somewhere below floor level.

Thorn crossed to a second hidden pit, dug near the mouth of the cavern to catch anyone rushing in to help. Dave and Nibbles looked up from the bottom, covered in dust and dignity in roughly equal measure.

“You missed the signs,” Derek said, pointing to the goblin tracks that went around rather than across the suspicious patch of earth.

“We were in a hurry,” Nibbles said.

“So was the pit,” Derek replied.

It took several minutes, a rope made from stolen sacking, and a great deal of muttering before everyone stood on solid ground again.

By then the cave had fallen quiet except for Mara’s breathing and the distant drip of water. Derek checked everyone’s injuries with the calm efficiency of a cleric who’d learned long ago not to ask too many questions.

“Thank you,” Mara said when he had finished with her. “All of you.”

She retrieved a leather satchel from beneath a pile of stolen cloaks and clutched it to her chest. Near the cage lay another piece of equipment — a round shield painted with the same falcon-and-tower emblem, scorched and dented, though the magic woven into the wood still hummed faintly when Thorn’s fingers brushed the rim.

“That belonged to my escort,” Mara said quietly. “He didn’t make it.”

She looked at Thorn for a long moment, then held the shield out to him. “You’re the one they couldn’t knock down. Take it. I think he’d want it used by someone who actually needs it.”

Thorn accepted it carefully. It was heavier than his own, balanced for a human soldier rather than a half-orc, but the enchantment settled into his grip as though it had been waiting. Once each day, Mara explained, it could flare with old protective magic — a brief ward turning aside a blow meant to find flesh and bone.

“That’s what they wanted?” Thorn asked, nodding towards the satchel.

“I don’t think they knew what it was,” Mara said. “But someone did.”

She opened the satchel just enough for them to glimpse old parchment inside, covered in strange marks — lines, symbols and shapes far older than any ordinary map.

“I was taking this to Fallcrest,” she said. “To the wizard Nimozaran.”

Derek’s eyebrows rose. “The wizard?”

Mara nodded. “Or at least to his apprentice. It has to reach him.”

“Then we’ll get you there,” Thorn said.

Mara studied him for a moment, then smiled. “I believe you.”

Thorn searched the boss and the scattered crates while Nibbles prowled the rest of the chamber, certain every goblin in the world had stolen something personally from him. The goblin chief had collected a few worthwhile prizes: a silver dagger tucked into his belt, faintly warm to the touch, its edge sharper than ordinary steel. Nibbles counted real coins from a locked box that gave up its secrets in under a minute, and Derek found a stoppered glass vial in a crate of stolen gear — a potion of healing, clear and faintly glowing.

“Real treasure,” Nibbles said, considerably cheered. “Not buttons. Not fake gold. Actual money.”

“And actual magic,” Dave added, peering at the dagger over Thorn’s shoulder. “That is definitely not normal.”

“Neither is your cooking,” Nibbles replied.

They agreed to divide the coin and let Derek keep the potion. The silver dagger went to Nibbles, who spent the next five minutes just admiring it.

Leaving the cave took longer than entering it, mostly because Nibbles insisted on checking every remaining box and crack in the wall. Most of what he found was useless — turnips, socks, and one sack containing something that moved, which he wisely left alone.

At last they emerged into daylight. The forest seemed brighter than before, the danger passed, at least for now. Behind them, the goblin cave lay quiet; ahead waited Fallcrest.

Mara walked with purpose at Thorn’s side despite her tiredness. Dave nursed his shoulder, insisting caves were statistically more dangerous than forests — which Nibbles said was only true if you counted treasure. Loki walked with his head high, still pleased with himself, and Derek carried his hammer as though nothing remarkable had happened at all, which was how Derek preferred things.

“When we reach town,” Mara said, “come to the Blue Moon Alehouse. I owe you a proper reward. Food, drink, coin if I can arrange it.”

“Food?” said Dave.

“Drink?” said Derek.

“Coin?” said Nibbles.

“Loki likes sausages,” said Thorn.

Mara laughed for the first time since they had found her. “I’ll see what I can do.”

So the companions returned to the North Road: Thorn Axehand with a new shield across his back, Derek the cleric, Dave the potato wizard, Nibbles McPicklepants and Loki, slayer of Ratbag.

They had left that road as wandering adventurers. They returned as heroes of the North Road.

And far away, though none of them knew it yet, old magic stirred beneath ancient stone.