Ashes Over the Swamp, Gold Beneath the Bark

The swamp still steamed after the victory, but triumph quickly turned to a chill in the gut: with the sorceress’s death, the haze that hid the marshland from human eyes had dissipated. Now their home was visible, and footprints in the soft earth were like arrows pointing straight to the goblin settlement. The tribe gathered on the water, on a pile of branches, and Pex, gripping a torch as though it weighed more than he did, spoke over Grandma’s body: “We will never forget her fried frogs, her soups, and how she took care of us. This tribe will flourish in her honor.” He lit the pyre — flames licked the branches, smoke drifted low over the water, and after a while only ash and silence remained, a rare unity among goblins. Into that silence rushed Sersi — she hugged Scribs, cried, and then, as if clinging to the last thread of Grandma’s will, handed Pex a handkerchief with an embroidered message and a golden earring. Pex put it on the ear that heard poorly — and the world suddenly “switched on” again. He rubbed the earring, sound cut off mid-word, and Pex, blinking in astonishment, exhaled: “Well, that’s OP,” already imagining how he’d “mute random people.” Meanwhile Scribs, a true collector of clues and evidence, sorted through the witch’s trophies: a cracked monocle-lens and seemingly empty journals. She squinted, raised the lens — and ink appeared as if from beneath water. “We’re reading a little fairy tale,” she tossed to Sersi, but the fairy tale turned out to be poisonous truth: the witch had once befriended “wonderful little green creatures,” learned their language, then deceived them into the swamp and held them under a spell, knowing that after her death the goblins would become visible. Sersi, bargaining for a translation, demanded: “I want frog meat,” and to confirm the deal grumbled her shameless “In the pink butts” — and right in this comedic bartering scene was born the most serious plan: strike first and take the elder’s gold, so the humans couldn’t hire hunters. Pex spent half the night setting traps around the camp so skillfully that even adult goblins swallowed hard and nodded; the children, however, giggled at his intimidation attempts and fell asleep snoring, as if it were a bedtime scary story. Scribs, learning that Sersi was fragile as a dry twig (and just as easily broken), left her at home — and she and Pex went on the raid as a pair, leaving behind only partially covered tracks.

The night path to the mill was like a thread over an abyss: Pex diligently “swept” their tracks, but the swamp treacherously remembered their feet anyway. Scribs, by contrast, was pure hearing and shadow: near the mill she caught voices early and saw several people with torches emerge and head toward the settlement. Instead of fighting — they became their echo: Scribs glided “footstep in footstep” along the stone road so quietly it seemed the night itself was covering for her, and Pex, hunched over, mimicked her movements like a student behind a master. By the river and the fortified bridge, they saw light, guards on both sides, and understood: the bridge was a trap for those who think straight. Scribs quickly assessed the narrow but deep water, the stepping stones and rapids — and then Pex, with a gleam in his eye, suggested: “Can we cosplay that scene from Pirates of the Caribbean... just with a big cauldron?” And so it happened: Scribs, teeth clenched against the icy water, scrambled across grabbing at rocks, while Pex walked underwater with the cauldron on his head like a helmet, seeing only his own feet and slippery stones. From the side it looked as though first a cauldron surfaced from the dark river, then shoulders, and only then — Pex himself, breathless but happy. Inside the settlement, “human beauty” hit their eyes: stone, paint, patterns, lanterns — and simultaneously a feeling that everything here was too even, too proper, too foreign. Scribs led through the darkest alleys, passing windows with candles, as night melted away. By the manor, a trimmed hedge greeted them — square, like an insult; Pex nearly stopped to stomp it flat, and Scribs hissed because “you can’t even hide properly in bushes like that.” She did, however, find a dog hole in this “fence” — and warned about dogs. When two armed men in hats similar to the killed hunter’s approached the gate, the goblins froze in the shadows: the hunters rang the bell, a pot-bellied watchman in a funny hat let them in and quickly closed up — and Scribs and Pex, not risking unnecessary movement, simply waited for the danger to pass by on its own.

They slipped into the yard through the dog hole so quietly that even an imaginary bark didn’t have time to form. Scribs found an exterior hatch to the cellar and picked the lock almost without sound — metal yielded to her fingers like wet bark. Below, storerooms opened up that made Pex drool: cheeses, meat, dried chickens, vegetables, bottles... He behaved as if at a feast, stuffing pockets, gnawing bread, and having sniffed out a particularly strong liquor, practically jumped: “Ooh, magnificent!” But Scribs didn’t let the raid become a banquet: the map led deeper, and she sensed falseness in the “too perfect” stone. Her palm passed through the wall — an illusion. Scribs simply stepped forward and “vanished,” while Pex froze for half a minute, not believing his eyes, then cautiously poked with his hand and also fell through the “stone,” muttering something piratical under his breath. In the secret room stood a chest with a complex lock; Scribs worked the picks like a surgeon, and when the mechanism finally clicked, her tools snapped and jammed inside — the price of success. The lid rose, and gold struck them with a gleam as if someone had ignited the sun in a basement. They stuffed bags and the cauldron with coins, and Pex had to painfully discard some food: fullness — now, the tribe’s survival — later. At dawn they climbed back out, barely dragging the weight, and Pex, feeling luck holding them by the collar, whispered: “We’re really lucky this session.” They didn’t risk dragging the treasure through the town in daylight: they fled to the forest and hid the gold in a natural niche between trees so masterfully as if the marshland itself had taught them to hide tracks. The exhaustion of two sleepless days hit instantly — and they fell asleep right on top of their spoils, sifting coins through their fingers like children with sand, and Pex, already through drowsiness, chuckled: “Read some pirate stories, and here we are...”