Life was pain, and Jonathan's head was experiencing life to its fullest. The midday morning sun had shone into the cave, rousing Jonathan from unconsciousness. He tried to stand up, but soon gave up on that idea as nausea set in. Instead he settled with rolling onto his side. It took him several slow methodical blinks to will his vision back into existence. The camp was a mess. The forrins were gone and the firepit had been extinguished. Several blue creatures' bodies laid motionless on the floor around him. After a quick pat-down of his own body, Jonathan determined that he was relatively unharmed, besides a lump on the back of his head and a bruised leg. It also seemed like nothing was taken off of his person. Guidebook, check. Dagger, check. Spear, check.
Jonathan looked around for his companions. Stew looked like he had once again slept through the whole ordeal. However, several pouches on his back were emptied of their contents. Saikhi and Talitha on the other hand, were nowhere to be found. The only things that remained of Saikhi's were her club and some shredded fabric from her dress. Meanwhile, Talitha seemed to have completely disappeared without a trace, if you don't count the number of blue bodies with deep hatchet wounds that lead outside of the cave. What were those blue creatures anyway?
Jonathan pulled himself to his feet and inspected one of them closely. It was short, stocky, had long pointed ears, small fangs, and a button nose. Jonathan thought that it was most likely a goblin. If it was, they were not as ugly as he expected. One could almost mistake them for tiny savage looking elves.
'Faen, got to remember they are called faen here.' Jonathan thought between pulsating head pains. No matter, he needed to find Talitha and Saikhi. If only he knew where to start. The trail of goblin bodies he had hoped to follow to Talitha's location ended a few feet from the cave. Either she had been captured, or she had run out of goblins to slay.
"Desperate times, call for desperate measures." Jonathan said to himself as he opened his guidebook, the little blue fairy materialised on it's pages.
"Wow you look like crap." Lily appeared legitimately worried.
"Thanks..." As if Jonathan's pain wasn't enough.
"Looks like you had one hell of a party last night. Oh, wait, are those goblins?" Lily surveyed the surrounding scene.
"Yeah, I think so. Got ambushed by the little bastards last night. I think they took Talitha and Saikhi."
"I kept telling them! This is what you get when you introduce a new species into an untested ecosystem. But nooo, 'You're just a guide Lily, You should leave the designing to the designers, Lily'." She spat.
"Wait, designers? There are designers? No never mind, not important." Jonathan would get to the bottom of that later, Lily only had a limited time. "What do you know about goblins? How do I find them?"
"Well, goblins were added to Adearath about 200 years ago. Honestly, their whole concept started as a joke. A guy… let's just call him: Jim from accounting, got rather drunk one day and pitched the whole 'adding horny small creatures that would try to fuck anything' idea to the rest of the staff. Unfortunately for Adearath, the rest of the staff were pretty drunk too. They thought it would be funny. A few changes later and voila, goblins everywhere. Needless to say, after that, alcohol consumption was banned on the premises." Lily seemed especially annoyed at that last part.
"There are so many things that you just said that disturb me on an existential level."
"Best try not to think about it too hard." Lily advised. "As far as finding them goes, your guess is as good as mine. You know, if you had just picked to play as a female, they would be coming to find you."
Jonathan was very glad that he didn't.
"Luckily for you, goblins keep prisoners." Lily smiled "So your friends are almost certainly alive."
That was a relief, Saikhi had mentioned that goblins didn't eat their prisoners but it was good to have that information confirmed by Lily. The unfortunate part is that, if your friends have been captured, they are most likely being pumped full of goblin cum. Like fantasy hentai levels of the stuff. But that's probably not a downside for your perverted mind now is it." Lily shuddered. Jonathan found that both offensive and accurate.
"Do they have any weaknesses?" This was all interesting but Jonathan needed something practical.
"Well, they are matriarchal. You seem to have a way with women, I am sure you will work something out." Lily said mockingly. "But in all seriousness, if you were able to capture their queen, getting your friends back would be easy. There isn't much male goblins wouldn't do to protect their females. It would be way easier than trying to cut your way through them all."
"Oh and I am guessing they will just let me walk up and take her then?" Jonathan said sarcastically. In theory it made sense to try and capture their queen, practically, it seemed like it would be near impossible, there is no way they would just leave their queen unprotected.
"You can always use yourself as bait. Goblin males are not the only rape-y ones. Lily shrugged. "As I said, I am sure you will work something-"
And she was gone. At least Lily had provided a bit of useful information this time around, which is more than can be said about some of Jonathan's other interactions with the fairy. Using himself as bait wasn't the worst idea, but it was risky. Then there was still the problem of actually finding the goblin's lair.
"Who was that little blue lady?" Talitha's voice came from right behind Jonathan and almost shocked him into catatonic state.
"Oh my god, Tali, you almost gave me a heart attack." Jonathan grasped his chest. After the initial shock wore off, Jonathan felt a great sense of relief. Talitha hadn't been taken by the goblins. He wasn't in this alone.
"I'm sorry daddy. I didn't mean to frighten you." Talitha apologised. She was covered in dirt and what was most likely goblin blood. "I think I saw you talking to her the day we met."
"Uh, yeah, you could say that she is like a sort of.. spirit." Jonathan wasn't sure how he was going to explain Lily's existence. Oh, hey, here is my tutorial fairy that brought me here from another world. What is a tutorial? Well, it is a thing that helps you learn a computer game. What's a computer? Well, it's this little box that does things. Jonathan was not looking forward to this. It was going to be confusing for both of them.
"A spirit of the forest?" Talitha asked excitedly. "I have never seen one in person before! My former chieftain talked to forest spirits all the time!. I can only imagine the wisdom that you learn from her!"
Jonathan couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud. Lily was about as wise as she was tall.
"Daddy?" Talitha looked confused.
"Sorry, I promise I will tell you about the spirit later." That was a problem for later Jonathan to deal with. "Do you know where Saikhi is?" He held out hope that she was fine and the situation had resolved itself.
"Captured by the goblins." Jonathan's hopes were dashed. "I did my best to save her but the goblins that tried to carry you away went crazy and attempted to violate me. By the time I'd dealt with them, Saikhi was gone." Talitha's face looked sullen.
"It's not your fault." Jonathan tried his best to reassure her. "You did the best you could have given the situation... If only we knew where they took her."
"We do." Talitha stated. "I found their lair about half a mile down the gorge. There are a lot of them. More than I think we can handle."
"I think I might have a plan."