It was another day's end at Boulder's Point, but Balthazar's Bazaar no longer felt the same. The sun sank toward the horizon, the last stubborn patches of snow melted into the earth, and fresh blades of green pushed through in the wake of spring's arrival.
The pond should have felt lively again, and yet a quiet gloom hung in the air.
Some of it came from the giant crab who had vanished to parts unknown after being launched into the sky by an angry chocolate volcano. The rest came from Rye’s condition.
The adventurer had returned to the pond just as Balthazar disappeared, clutching a wound on his chest that refused to heal. Ever since then, he had remained in bed, being tended to by a worried Madeleine, while constantly going in and out of consciousness. One moment he’d seem fine and like he was recovering, the next the wound would fester again and leave the archer shivering with fever.
Druma sighed.
He missed his boss. He was worried about what might have happened to him.
He was also worried about Rye. Usually this would be odd, for the goblin to care about an adventurer, but this one was a special case.
Balthazar meant everything to Druma. Balthazar cared a lot about Madeleine, and Rye meant everything to Madeleine. Thus, in the goblin’s own logic, that meant he should care about Rye too.
Plus, Rye was always nice to him and Druma considered him a friend too, so that probably mattered as well.
Druma sighed again, head resting on his palms as he sat on a rock by the water’s edge, his elbows resting on his knees while he watched the last chunks of ice melt and drift across the pond.
“Druma want to do something, but Druma don’t know what Druma can do,” he lamented to himself.
“Friend?” said the stone giant sitting next to him by the shore of the pond.
The goblin shrugged.
A quiet growl came from behind him and he glanced back at the drake curled up on the ground, her piercing golden eyes fixed on him.
Druma placed his chin on his palms again and returned his gaze to the water.
What could he do? He was just a goblin assistant.
Sure, a novice wizard goblin assistant, but that didn’t help much with the current situation.
He knew no spell that could help him find his boss, nor one that could cure his archer friend.
“If only boss were here,” Druma whispered. “Boss would know what to do.”
The crab’s friend recalled the time he himself had fallen ill after a wolf attack, and how Balthazar did not stop until he found a way to make him better again. Even going as far as risking his limbs with an evil witch.
But Druma knew he was not half the crab his boss was.
In part because he was a goblin, not a crustacean, but also because he felt he lacked the smarts, the cunning, the courage, and the general awesomeness that the merchant possessed.
At the same time, Druma knew that if his boss were there, he would not let the goblin think so lowly of himself.
“What would boss do?” the assistant asked himself.
He would probably figure out how to find a cure for Rye’s ailment, that much Druma was sure of.
But if everyone else who had been there already couldn’t fix him, what could the poor goblin do better?
The first to check on Rye after he arrived at the pond and collapsed into Madeleine’s arms was the young alchemist, Amber, since she was nearby.
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“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the former birdwatcher said after checking the archer’s chest. “I don’t know of any poison or toxin that causes a wound that refuses to close.”
She looked terrified for the other adventurer, but genuinely clueless about what to do to help since conventional healing potions had no lasting effect on the young man.
Then Tristan came down from town the next morning with Mr. Ambrose in tow.
The master of Ardville’s alchemists examined the boy carefully, eyebrows furrowed and several “hmms” and “ahs” escaping his lips as he took samples from the wound and tested them in tubes filled with colorful reagent liquids.
“It’s as I thought,” the small man in robes finally said after nearly an hour. “This is no ordinary wound, nor is it caused by any ordinary poison. This is a cursed wound, caused by a cursed weapon, most likely.”
After his explanation, Madeleine grew even more worried at first, before allowing herself a glimmer of hope.
But those hopes were short-lived.
“I’m afraid I cannot do much, my dear,” the potionmaker said with a somber expression. “I am a master of my craft, but I am an alchemist, and this is more of a magical curse, not an alchemical poisoning. With more proper knowledge of the elements of this curse and the right ingredients, it’s possible that I could synthesize a cure to cleanse him, but as it stands, the best I can provide you with are some elixirs that will ease his pain and keep the festering corruption from spreading much further until a permanent solution can be found.”
As the hours passed and hope steadily faded, more help arrived from the orcs.
Called by Henrietta, Khargol arrived near nightfall with his two warrior-brothers and their wise woman, Shagas… Shagazud… Shag… The old shaman lady that Druma could never pronounce the name of.
The blind seer approached the archer slowly, leaning on her walking staff as her hand felt her way to his chest.
“Do you think you can help him, Madame Shagazurglamdushell?” the worried baker asked meekly.
“Hmm, it is true,” the wrinkly orc said. “The boy has been cursed by something foul and terrible. If the curse is not removed, he will never recover.”
“Oh no,” Madeleine exclaimed, placing her hand over her mouth. “There has to be a way to remove the curse!”
“Of course there is, girl,” said the shaman.
“So you can cure him?!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you can’t help?”
“That’s not what I said either.”
The young woman's lips tightened as she looked about ready to throttle the old blind lady.
Apparently sensing the baker’s scorching glare, the orc shaman spoke up.
“The only way to remove this boy’s curse is with a potion brewed from a basilisk’s tear. Unfortunately, not even I have the skills to concoct such a difficult and delicate elixir. You’d need an alchemist of exceptional skill for that.”
“We have one of those!” Tristan exclaimed with a finger pointed up.
“Good for you,” said the shaman, “but you’d still need the tear from a basilisk, and good luck finding one. I don’t remember ever even hearing about one being sighted, and I’m old as moss.”
Madeleine narrowed her eyes at the old orc shaman.
“Your bedside manners could do with some work, lady.”
Druma kicked a twig into the water as he exhaled sharply.
All day, everyone talked and talked, yet nothing changed.
His boss was still missing, and their archer friend was still in bed fighting for his life.
When would someone actually do something? That was the question that kept bothering the goblin.
Someone brave. Someone powerful. Someone willing to get things done.
Someone like Balthazar.
Druma frowned.
“Boss wouldn’t sit on rock crying over spilled cream,” the green wizard said.
Turning his gaze to the moon, the goblin thought long and hard.
When it was Druma who fell ill, the crab found a cure for him.
When Madeleine disappeared with the dragon, the merchant went to find her.
Who would step up now?
Druma looked down to his waist, where a small but fat pouch was tied to the belt of his burlap pants—Balthazar’s coin bag that the merchant had left under his care before heading inside the dungeon to look for the core.
“What if boss need his coin?” the little assistant muttered.
Druma paused for a moment, pondering quietly, and then he looked up at Bouldy.
“Friend,” the golem said with a smile and an affirmative nod.
The goblin looked back at Blue.
The azure creature raised her head from the ground, golden gaze narrowing on him with fierce determination as she too gave him a nod and a low growl.
With a hop, the caped goblin with a wizard hat too big for his head got off his thinking rock and scampered toward the baking kitchen, where Rye was being kept, near the baker’s warm hearths.
Druma opened the door to find Madeleine tending to the archer, changing the damp cloth over his forehead, while Henrietta and Tristan were a few paces away, quietly discussing something with Amber over a table full of potion vials.
“Druma make decision,” the goblin announced to the room.
Everyone, including Rye, who was having another moment of brief consciousness, turned their surprised gazes to the crab’s assistant.
“Druma is going on quest to find boss and find cure for friend!”
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