Being summoned is like having your insides pulled out through your brain. I hit the ground on my hands and knees and tried to empty out the contents of my stomach. The fact that there was nothing to be emptied did not bother nor slow my reaction at all. I had only a moment to wonder why I was facing cobblestone before my hair was grabbed by two cold, ironclad hands that yanked my head up to meet the gaze of an older-looking man in robes. “Oh look, a wizard!” said my reeling brain, but what came out of my mouth was closer to “erp.”


    The wizard really wasn’t that much older as I stared at him. I’m not really a spring chicken myself, more on the other side of the hill and heading down, if you know what I mean. He gave a small grunt of either disgust or disappointment and gave a dismissive wave. I was then unceremoniously dragged out of the building and dumped into the back of a cart on top of several other bodies. To my horror, they didn’t seem to be as alive as I was—which wasn’t very alive to begin with.


    Shortly thereafter, the cart gave a lurch and began clacking down the cobblestone road between old-world buildings. The best I could do was watch as the dark stone buildings slowly passed by, accompanied by the smell of feces and wood smoke. My body didn’t start responding until we had left the small city, out of a gate, and had traveled well into the patchwork farms that surrounded it.


    At some point, my mind stopped playing tilt-a-whirl inside my skull and began to calculate that things were not adding up. The first was that the armored guards were actually armored. From head to toe, they were covered in some form of medieval chainmail. The second oddity was the horse-drawn cart. How did I get into the middle of a bad renaissance festival? The third, and most troublesome, was that I had no idea who or where I was.


    I sat up slowly and asked, “Where are we going?” to which one of the soldiers, sitting on the back of the cart, replied, “Out with the trash,” followed by a blow to the back of the head.


    I awoke sometime later, with a splitting headache, on top of the pile of bodies again. However, instead of being in the cart, we were now on a forest floor with no one else in sight. I crawled off the pile and took stock as best as I could. I’m lost, I have no idea where I am, no idea what happened, and my memory was very foggy. That there was a pile of dead bodies behind me did little to help keep my calm. Visions of memories swam in my head from before, but they seemed distant and far away.


    The forest didn’t help much either. It was an old-growth forest with tall oaks and maples among others. Thick undergrowth grew in rows and islands beneath the trees, broken up by large mossy rocks. I wasn’t sure if this area had any wildlife, but I really didn’t want to meet with anything dangerous empty-handed.


    Rubbing the back of my head, I decided to at least get a club to help defend myself. After a little searching, I settled on a small dead tree that had the density of a baseball bat. With a little back-and-forth work, I managed to snap the old roots and pull it out of the ground. I placed the top part between two trees and, with a little effort, broke it into a useful size just a little shorter than myself. One end was the root ball, blunt and heavy, the other sharpish and pointed. It was the best I was going to do. With my new weapon in hand, I started to take a closer look at the surrounding area for anything useful.


    I heard a bush rustling as if something was in it. It seemed to just be a large bush, but it gave out a yelp… which I involuntarily echoed as I flailed backward. From the bush erupted three small, greenish humanoids, two male and one obviously female. Each held a small club and the tallest only came up barely past my belt. At first, I thought that they were going to attack me, but instead, they whirled around to face back the way they had come.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    “Help us, hero!” the tallest one said, his club pointed back at the bush.


    From the bush erupted a giant rabbit, white with red eyes and a large horn on its head! It charged at the female who had run next to me. It was fast—faster than she could dodge—and it skewered her in the left leg. She howled in pain, but before she dropped, the rabbit pulled its horn out and tried to turn for another run. I was not going to let that happen. With a strong jab, I pinned the huge rabbit to the ground, driving the broken end of my tree between its ribs. It thrashed and struggled, trying to either spear me or free itself, and I held it in place, driving the sharp end through the beast and into the ground. The other two goblins leapt on the little beast, finishing the job with their clubs.


    I stood there, dumbfounded, trying to figure out what was more unbelievable—an aggressive stab-happy rabbit with a unicorn horn, or that I just saved what appeared to be three goblins.


    I released the pulverized rabbit and one of the goblins snatched it up. The other goblin tried to help up the wounded female.


    “We don’t have time, it''s almost nightfall! We need to be back. It’s not safe here,” said the shorter of the two males.


    “I know, and we need to get the hero back as well,” said the taller goblin.


    “Please don’t leave me,” she pleaded with the taller goblin. Her hand was wrapped around the bleeding wound in her leg.


    “You are too heavy and hurt. We can’t. I’m sorry, Uru.”


    I stood there, with my mouth open, staring at the sight. My mind was not quite willing to accept what my eyes were telling it.


    "I think we got a stupid one," said one of the goblins while giving me a disappointed look. At the comment, my mouth finally snapped shut.


    “I could just carry her on my back,” I said.


    Both goblins turned to look at me, surprised.


    “She’s tiny. I can carry her on my back. Wrap her wound and let''s move before another… whatever that is finds us.” I knelt down and ripped off part of my shirt and used it as a bandage.


    “Help her up. If we have no time to waste, then don’t waste it,” I said, motioning to my back.


    At first, it seemed as though they would argue, but after sizing me up, they helped the female up to a piggyback position. I quickly figured out that under their simple loincloths, they wore nothing, but chose to say nothing for any number of awkward reasons. With that, the goblins led me on through the underbrush. Several times they tried to make me go faster, but between the added weight and my old knees, I could only move so fast.


    The forest stretched on for a few hours. It was a simple temperate forest, filled with large broad trees with familiar leaves. I could identify the occasional oak, maple, or black cherry, but many of them I had never seen before. The underbrush was like a young man''s first beard—sporadic but thick in patches. The terrain was mostly level, but I could tell we were heading higher slowly.


    The trees finally gave way and we made it to the goblin village just as the sun was going down. Long shadows stretched across the wide meadow and up the hill in the center. The village was located on the top of the hill, surrounded by a flimsy wooden palisade. Behind us, the sounds of the creatures of the night helped quicken our pace up the dirt path to the sole gate in the stick palisade. I was happy to see tall grass, goldenrod, and little purple asters as we walked the sandy dirt path up to the rickety stick fence. As we approached, I could make out a figure on the sole watchtower who gave a sign to the gate guard to open the gate.


    We were ushered through the gates and into a circle of waiting goblins of all ages. The gates were barred behind us and I felt slightly safer even though I was literally head and shoulders above their defensive wall. I let the wounded goblin down as gracefully as I could, and she was escorted off to the left toward a low building made of sticks with a thatched roof. The crowd parted, allowing an old-looking goblin with a long white beard and a staff decorated with colored rocks, little skulls, and feathers to approach us.