Seraphina took a step back away from the goblin and started singing. She pitched it low, and it reverberated against the stone walls, filling the canyon with its echoes. A moment later, a towering figure easily three times her own height stood next to her. Every inch of its body was covered in spiked metal plates. The armor was unrelieved black, and in its hands it held a wickedly ridged two handed mace.
The goblins took one look at it, then bolted in the other direction. The figure stood there menacingly, but didn't chase after them. Seraphina turned towards the goblins facing Raifex, and the armored giant glided that way. Its feet left the ground and it ghosted towards the monsters. Raifex himself caught sight out of it out of the corner of his eye. With a yelp, he dove to the side.
The goblins turned and scattered, heedless of anything else around them. Seraphina managed to pick off one of the fleeing creatures as it darted by, and Larsik's next spell caught another. The rest turned the corner and ran as fast as their feet could carry them.
Raifex picked himself up off the ground and examined the armored giant carefully. He reached out with one hand and dipped his fingers through it. "An illusion," he remarked thoughtfully. "Very detailed. I'm glad someone's magic in this group was useful."
"Shove it," Larsik snapped.
"Don't start bickering," the gnome interjected tiredly as she let the illusion fade away. "Unless this canyon opens up, we're still going to have to deal with the ones that ran off."
"We should go after them while they're still scared stupid. I don't want them coming back on us in the night and setting us up for an ambush," Raifex said.
Seraphina looked around the corner. The canyon ran more or less straight for a few hundred feet before bending again, but already the goblins had disappeared. They'd either found a hiding spot somewhere, or they'd ran out of sight. "I don't think we're going to catch them," she reported, shaking her head.
"We'll just have to be extra careful," Larsik commented.
Raifex's lips tightened, but he didn't say anything. It was the look of a man who knew he was right, but was equally certain he'd be unable to convince his companions of that fact. Even if nothing came of it, and they reached Narrow Dale without incident, the thief still wouldn't be pleased with the situation.
They continued on, Raifex walking farther ahead. He was on edge, waiting for an ambush. Larsik and Seraphina walked much more calmly behind him, still chatting. Their discussion had turned to magic, and Seraphina confessed to having some slight abilities in the art.
"But how did you craft such a detailed illusion so quickly?" the sorcerer asked.
"I don't know," she shrugged. "It just came to me."
"Was it modeled after someone you knew?" he pressed.
The gnome frowned as she considered the question. "Maybe," she replied.
"You are a very mysterious person," Larsik commented. "A gnome, you said. Gnomes are fairy tales, not real. So what are you really?"
She scowled up at him, slightly offended. "If I say that I am a gnome, then that's what I am," she snapped at him.
Larsik held his hands out apologetically. "Sorry," he mumbled. "It's just… gnomes aren't real, Seraphina."
She prodded him with her finger. "Does that feel real to you?" she said. "Can you hear my voice? Or are you just going crazy?"
"Already is," Raifex muttered to himself from up ahead. "And he's got about as interesting a past as you do."
They traveled in silence after that, with Raifex taking the lead and keeping a sharp eye out for goblin ambushes. Seraphina stomped along, a scowl painted across her face, and Larsik looked alternately bemused, annoyed, and apologetic. An uneasy tension was settling in between the three of them, and there was little trust lost.
As they settled in for the night, Larsik spoke the first words he'd said since the encounter with the goblins in the canyon. "I'm sorry if I insulted you earlier," he told Seraphina.
She crossed her arms and regarded him. "Well, you did. Gnomes are very real. Is this part of the world really that backwater?"
Larsik's brow furrowed, but before he could answer, Raifex's laugh caught their attention. The thief stood there, shaking his head and laughing. "You're an idiot," he told Seraphina.
She bristled, but before she could retort, he continued. "You claim to have traveled for years now. Have you ever seen another gnome? I'm not saying that you're not one. Honestly, I have no idea what you are. I've never seen anything like you. But I'm betting you haven't either."
"That's ridiculous," Seraphina blustered. "Of course I've…"
She trailed off thoughtfully as she considered the sentence she'd been about to finish. "I mean, we're not common or anything, but I had to have seen one at some point in time. I'm sure of it."
"You think on that a bit more," Raifex told her. "Let me know what you come up with."
Larsik shot him a glare. "You're a prick."
"I'm not arguing. But the simple fact is that gnomes, if they were ever real, have been extinct as a race for a long, long time. I don't know what delusions she's under, and honestly, I don't care. She can call herself whatever she wants, as long as she understands that walking around claiming to be a gnome is going to get her disbelieving looks and attitudes."
Seraphina sat down heavily on a log that they'd dragged into their campsite. She'd been traveling, supporting herself with her music, for years, as long as she could remember. What she'd done before that was very hazy and indistinct, but she remembered she'd come from an entire city of gnomes. She couldn't even begin to guess what had happened in the intervening years, but it didn't seem possible to her that her entire race had died out.
Even if some catastrophe had befallen the city, surely people would still remember it. From the way her new companions talked though, gnomes had been regulated to myth and fairy tales. Maybe it was just too far away for them to know about it. Strange though, she couldn't even remember its name.
Larsik sat down next to her. "Don't worry about it," he told the gnome. "I'm sure it'll come to you, and if not, well, living with no memory isn't terrible. Everything's new and exciting again, right?"
"Don't you wonder who you used to be, if you have friends and family somewhere? You could be married, for all you know," Seraphina pointed out.
Larsik shrugged. "I suppose it's possible. I just don't know. Maybe I'll find out someday, and I guess I'd like those memories back, but living in the present isn't the worst way to go through life."
"I've been doing that for too long already," she muttered to herself. "How many years have I just been wandering, not thinking about anything at all?"
The sorcerer turned to the fire pit stacked in the center of the camp and chanted for several seconds. Fire burst from his finger tips and lit the pile of wood ablaze. With a relaxed stretch, he settled down into place on the ground, using the log as a back rest. "Like I said, we'll figure it out. And if not, it's still not the worst thing in the world."
Seraphina just shook her head and stared moodily at the flames. For some reason she couldn't quite explain, she suddenly felt as if she'd forgotten something important.
Raifex stood at the edge of the camp, staring out into the night. Absently, he grasped the hilt of a dagger sheathed on a leg strap. He silently considered his options as he stood watch. Larsik was almost too dangerous to be left alive, but the risks of killing him outweighed the risks of leaving him alone. The safest thing to do would be to abandon the whole mission, take what money he had already gotten, and hope to the gods of darkness that he'd never run across the cursed man again.
Not that he was much of a worshipper. He relied on himself, first, only, and always. But a little God-inspired luck couldn't hurt. For some reason, he felt that leaving would be the wrong choice. It wasn't the money, he knew. That was a decent amount, but not enough to entice him into the risks he was taking.
He could end a lot of problems with a bare three long strides and a quick stab into the sorcerer's throat. He gripped the dagger's hilt tighter, even started to take the first step. With a snarl, he spun away and hurled the blade into a nearby tree.
"Stupid," he spat out. "I'm losing control."
With a glance over his shoulder to make sure both of his companions were still sleeping, he jerked the dagger back out of the tree and sheathed it. "I shouldn't even be here," he muttered under his breath.