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Ghast sat by a table in the middle of town, it had been a long week, at least he thought it was a week. He’d been through a lot; stuck in a few pocket universes and lost his magic for a short while, it happens. It really wasn’t the year he’d planned, yet he wasn’t bothered by it. He’d made some interesting friends along the way, well, if you want to call them friends.
Ghast looked around the town square, there, he saw one of his party members sloped against the wall. Quanda hadn’t really grown accustomed to town life, she just stood there smoking her healing herbs. She was so high, Ghast wondered if she even knew he was around. Ghast feared the grey Tiefling, her kill count was four times the size of his, yet strangely enough most of those kills were accidental, that was what worried Ghast the most.
Ghast sighed, slamming his head into the table. He was bored. Suddenly, he felt a rub at his leg, Ghast looked down to see his wolf Prime-two resting against him. He stroked her, distracting himself from his boredom.
Abruptly, Ghast heard footsteps and turned to see a small human sit on the other side of the table.
It was Illa, fucking Illa. Ghast hated her. From the moment they met, she’d whined and criticised his every action. However, in all the ventures they’d had, he’d grown some respect for her. He’d wasted a few healing spells on her, and she’d done so on him in return and in the end she had uses. The small human had bar-tending history so she could make him free booze, that and she seemed to be only one okay with mercilessly killing those that got in their way. Ghast still hated her, and he assumed she hated him back, but he couldn’t deny she’d been an important part in getting him where he was.
Ghast looked back down at Prime-two, she was his best friend in all this, if only more people acted like that wolf.
“Are you going to spend all day sat here?” he heard.
Ghast looked back up, Illa was staring at him, looking cross as always.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Ghast retorted.
“I don’t know! Just… something.”
“…bitch.”
Ghast got up, he wasn’t going to put up with this today. Prime-two followed. The two made their way through town, Ghast wasn’t in the mood to buy anything, that was until he saw a small jewellery shack. He didn’t know why, he supposed that he just wanted to see what this culture had lying about. Ghast approached it, there, a human looked back at him.
“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“I don’t know, I’m just looking.” Ghast replied.
He analysed the shelves, each necklace and bracelet looked nice by his standards, though Ghast was more in the mood for a choker, though only because he thought the name was funny. Ghast looked through but nothing was really that satisfying, but then, Ghast’s eyes darted towards a necklace hung up, hanging from the rafters. It was real silver, with a red crystal encased inside, it was nothing like Ghast had ever seen.
“Where’d you get that from?” Ghast asked.
“Found it in some old elven ruins, it was in some old chest.” The man replied.
“Looks… nice.”
“You want it?”
Ghast pondered for a moment. He’d never look good in a necklace, it was not his thing, not that he could not hang it from his hammer, that might look nice. Suddenly, a thought came to Ghast’s head, he knew exactly what use he had for this item.
“How much?” he asked, reaching into his bag.
“About ten gold.”
“What about this?”
Ghast pulled his hand out of his bag and revealed thirty goblin coins.
“Sure, I don’t see why not.”
Ghast dropped the coins into the man’s hand, he then caught the necklace after the man released it from the rafter.
“Thank you.” Ghast let out.
“No problem. I didn’t know your kind were so charitable… and friendly.”
“Yeah… me neither.”
Ghast walked back through town, passing each wondering civilian cautiously; he was not going to let himself get robbed. From afar, he saw her. The one member of the group he valued, Olen. Ghast was going to give the necklace to her.
It was strange, when they first met, Ghast did his usual interaction with those he thought looked nice, an occasional compliment here and there. But Olen didn’t take that shit, she shot a fireball directly at him and burned him to a cinder, but Ghast wasn’t taken back by it, it made him rethink himself. Sure, other women had greatly wounded him for compliments, but the way she just looked at him and shot that ball of fire, hitting him was not her intent, she aimed for the wall next to him and missed, hitting him instead. Ghast found it funny, in fact, he found it charming, he related to her, he couldn’t count how many times he had failed so critically.
As the days had gone by, they’d gone through some fights together, though thankfully not with each other; she’d showed her worth, she had such powerful spells and Ghast could not help but be impressed by them. That was not all, they’d had a run in with these knights, but the knights were not too kindly to her, but she dropped these spells on them and blown those fuckers away, Ghast could only watch in awe as it happened.
However, after that, it hadn’t really been the same, Olen probably got ill or something because she fell asleep soon after that and refused to wake up. Ghast carried her in his bag through numerous different encounters, from soul hunting Tieflings to some evil hobgoblin who greatly resembled him. She didn’t wake up until they reached the town and when she did, she didn’t take much notice of him. Ghast understood though, he hadn’t been the most pleasant person.
Ghast approached the elf, she noticed him before rolling her eyes and turning away.
“Not now, Ghast.” She muttered.
Ghast lowered his head.
“Sorry, I’m not trying to be an arse.”
“Well, I have spells to practice, and I don’t want to be distracted right now.”
“Sorry… wait, spells? I could practice with you!”
“No, thank you. I want to practice on my own, besides, our spells are entirely different, training together wouldn’t make sense.”
“But- we both do fire spells.”
“I have like two fire spells and then it’s all plants and weather, what do you have? Right, raising the dead.”
“I mean… I could maybe raise a dead plant… maybe?”
“Go away, Ghast”
Olen turned and began to craft a cloud of fog. Ghast sighed and turned to leave, then, he turned back with one more card to play.
“Do you even know what happened while you were sleeping? That bloody pin, great stuff.”
During the party’s trek, they had met many people along the way, one was a dwarfen soldier, he was given a pin by the Knights that had attacked them, the kingdom was using it to track the party’s movement. Seemed simple at first, just remove the pin, right? However, another group of knights had forced a cursed necklace onto Illa, if they removed the pin, she would feel immense pain from all around. Sometime later, the dwarf left but gave the pin to Ghast to wear. Occasionally, Ghast would ““accidentally”” drop the pin from his clothes.
“You should have seen her face when I offered to sell it to this Tief-”
“Ghast, enough!” Olen snapped.
Ghast hung his head low, clenching the necklace in his fist. Suddenly, he heard a loud boisterous voice.
“Excuse me ma’am, is this goblin fiend bothering you?”
A human male with biceps the size of the king’s throne was now standing between the two.
“Wha?” Olen said, confused.
“I must say, this is unexpected, a foul goblin shows its hideous face in our beautiful town?!”
“I- I’m going.” Ghast replied, giving the man look of dread.
“Yes, go!” the man yelled before turning to Olen. “I’m sorry that a helpless woman like yourself had to go through that, it’s not safe out here when those creatures are allowed to roam! Perhaps I could show you around, give you a more personal tour.”
Ghast was disgusted. It was one thing to tell him to get lost, he’d heard that a billion times. The man’s intentions didn’t bother him either, he could hit on her all he wanted, Ghast would be more surprised if someone didn’t. But no one calls Olen ‘helpless’, no one.
Ghast turned and patted the bastard on the shoulder.
“Listen, I don’t think she appreciates you distracting her, let her practice her spells in peace.”
The man looked down at the hobgoblin, Ghast looked back up with a dead eyed expression, despite the man looking seven feet tall, Ghast was not going to put up with such disrespect.
“Back off, fiend! This beautiful woman is under clear distress from your intrusion and it is my duty to protect her from villains like you.”
Ghast looked over to see Olen looking really annoyed by the two of them. Ghast understood and gave her a nod.
“Then protect her; defeat me, here and now.”
“Are you challenging me, creature?”
“I am actually. What’s your name?”
“I am Zenon, I am the protector of this great town!” he bellowed.
“Alright, Zenon. Follow me behind this building if you think you’re manly enough to defend her honour.” Ghast replied.
Zenon looked back at Olen, he saw her looking mildly irritated back at him, yet he ignored her face and preferred to examine the rest of her body.
“Very well, lead me to your battleground!” Zenon roared.
Ghast left Prime-two with Olen and led Zenon behind the building they once stood, around them was nothing but hay cylinders with no people insight.
“Now, demon. How do you wish to spar? Shall I let you throw the first hit? Only fair since I will destroy you afterwards.”
“Alright. Thank you.”
Ghast approached Zenon and tapped his forehead. The hobgoblin then stepped back.
“Was that it?” Zenon asked with a narcissistic smile.
Suddenly, Zenon’s body began to swell from all around, black marks and red spots appeared all over him, and he began to spew black goop from his mouth.
“What- what is this?” Zenon screamed.
“According to the book I was given, it’s called Inflict wounds.” Ghast explained.
Ghast watched as Zenon fell to the ground, then casually, the hobgoblin stomped on the human’s neck, snapping it. With a small sigh, Ghast slumped against the wall and took another look at the necklace he had bought.
“Another time.” He whispered before dropping it into his bag.
“Need a hand?” Ghast heard.
He looked up to see Illa staring back at him, unamused.
“What do you want?!” Ghast snapped.
“I was going to help you hide the body.” Illa replied.
Ghast looked back down on Zenon’s corpse, remembering what he had said. If he really did defend the town as he said, he was probably well known. Ghast huffed.
“Alright then, barmaid. Grab a leg.”