Nargi was staring at the little creature on the side of the road. It looked like a goblin. A lonely blue goblin. Which was strange, you never saw goblins by themselves. They were always in bands of at least 20 or so, but this was just the one. And he was blue, which Nargi had never seen either. The creature’s large ears were pierced at least tenfold, various small items hanging from the rings that protruded the cartilage, one of which a hummingbird skull. Nargi checked if his blue assailant was dead. It was not.

He sat down next to the unconscious creature and checked his own wounds. Two knives were sticking out of his shoulder, one from the back of his ankle. That one hurt the most, so he took it out and used a spell to heal the tendon. When that worked, he did the same thing to his shoulder. Nargi sighed. How could such a little creature do so much damage? Had he become slow in the past two years? It surely felt like he had been slow, but maybe the creature just had been really fast. Nargi kind of hoped that it was the latter. He knew he wasn’t really an orc anymore after being kicked out of the tribe, but being almost beaten by a single eccentric-looking goblin… he couldn’t deny that hurt his pride.

He checked the creature again. Still breathing. Man, the little guy was tough. Cracked skull, broken back and still just breathing normally like nothing had happened. It was like he was plainly refusing to die.

Any other orc would have smashed its skull at this point. Any other being would’ve probably just walked away, but Nargi just couldn’t. He was curious of the creature and though it was heroic enough to be spared a sucker death like that. He picked the creature up in his arms, concentrated hard and allowed his energy to seep into the small body, healing it. Slowly it’s spine started straightening, the crack in it’s head grew thinner and suddenly two large yellow eyes opened and stared him right in the face.

Before Nargi could react the creature yelled out: “Where were we? Oh yes, your gold and thingies and stuff! Give it!”

Nargi held the creature in his arms, easily holding it in place as he, once again, raised his eyebrows.

“Are you still robbing me?”

“YES!” the creature yelled out enthusiastically, still in a horizontal position and clutched in Nargi’s strong arms. There was nowhere he could go. The idea of him robbing anyone at this point was utterly insane.

“Well, you are very valiant and all, but I think you should concede you lost this one. I just healed you, but you are in no condition to assault me right now.”

“I am a one-man raiding party!”

Nargi found the lack of fear in this creature a little disturbing, but admired it all the same. He decided once again not to kill it.

“Yes, I believe you are, but um… under the current circumstances I think it would be best if you stopped raiding for a second and check if you’re back in one piece again. I’m still kind of new to this kind of magic. Also, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t stick any more knives in me, I won’t heal you again if you do.”

“You healed me? Was I sick?” The guy was clearly insane.

“I swatted you with my bag and you broke your head and your back. I fixed you, now please take into consideration that, even though you are a one-man raiding party, you might want to choose to refrain from robbing orcs in the future. You’re quite small you know…”

“I am a one-man raiding party! Do not mock my capabilities! I shall raid the world!”

Nargi sighed and let the creature out of his iron grip. “Well good luck with that,” he muttered. If this idiot was so adamant on getting itself killed, it was it’s own choice. Nargi got up, slung the bag over his shoulder and resumed walking.

“You are still mocking me!” the creature sprang into view right before he almost stepped on it. It was waving another knife. Damn it was fast. Nargi decided to ignore it. If it stuck another knife in him, then he’d deal with it. For now, it was just being annoying and no one deserves to die just for being annoying.

Nargi considered his own train of thought and realised he really wasn’t thinking like an orc anymore.

“Hey! Big man!”

Nargi sighed and walked on, the little brat surely had an urgent death wish. But no, he wasn’t going to kill it… Just ignore it and it will go away…

“I had sex with your mother!”

Nargi looked down, a little surprised. The creature was still in front of him making obscene gestures, darting backwards. Nargi couldn’t help but chuckle. This was starting to get ridiculous.

“Yes, yes! I ate her pussy and took her up the ass with my enormous cock!”

What? Eating someone’s genitals while they were still alive was a disturbing idea. Or was the little guy referring to sexually assaulting the corpse of his mother? Oh well… Once again Nargi ignored the creature in the hope that it would go away.

“And your sister too! I fucked her in the face whilst sucking her titties!”

“Dude!” Nargi exclaimed. Aw hell, he screwed-up his silent treatment.

“Ha! Got your attention now, don’t I big guy? You like my stories about me ravaging your family members until they scream in pleasure?”

“Not really, please cut it out.”

“Nah, talking about it has gotten me all excited. Is your family close? I’d really like to do them again.”

“You really want me to kill you, don’t you?”

“No, of course not. First I wanted to raid you but I’ve just changed my mind. Now I want to have sex with large burly orc ladies. Take me to your tribe!”

“I don’t have a tribe.” Nargi said solemnly.

“Ah shit dude, me neither! Well I had a tribe, but I left because they were stupid and now I’m a one-man raiding party. Is that the same with you?”

“Not really, but yeah sure. I’m a one-man raiding party too.”

“Can you count?”

“Of course I can count, are you stupid?” Nargi was getting more confused by this conversation by the second.

“No but YOU are. Look. One Grishar and one orc. That makes a two-man raiding party!”

“We’re not together. Besides, YOU were the one saying you were a one-man raiding party.”

“Stupid again big orc. For such a large head there are so little brainies in it! I was a one-man raiding party. Now I’ve found myself a big strong albeit a little dumb orc and now we are a two-man raiding party. It’s only logical.”

“You don’t want to be alone…”

“No it gets boring”, the creature said. “I’ve been a one-man raiding party for way too long, now I have found myself a somewhat worthy companion and we will raid the world together!”

“How long have you been a one-man raiding party?”

The creature that had called himself Grishar started counting his fingers. Then said “5!”, triumphantly waving his hand in the air.

“Five years?” That was kind of impressive.

“Five hours!” Grishar yelled out proudly. Oh lord in the sky…

Nargi sighed and decided that this was enough crazy for one day. He’d send the little guy off and get back on track. “Well little guy, I think it would be best to go back to your tribe. Safety in numbers, besides it’s nice to have a tribe, you won’t get lonely.”

“YOU are lonely.” The creature said accusingly, even pointing his finger. He was right, of course. Orcs don’t do well by themselves.

“That’s besides the point. Please go back to your goblin tribe and have a good life. You have been very valiant, but…”

“I AM NO STINKY GOBLIN!!!” the creature interrupted. It was staring menacingly at Nargi and was now almost magically holding two knives in each hand. Where had he gotten them so fast?

“Ok, then what are you?”

“I am a kobold!”

“Oh…” Nargi thought about this. “Aren’t kobolds scaly like a lizard?”

“No, see, they are smooth like me!” Grishar trailed his hand over his body in a way that Nargi really hoped was purely accidentally almost the same way that the orc women would do to get his attention. Realising that with this guy’s mouth, it probably wasn’t accidental, Nargi’s face winced with disgust and he quickly thought about kobolds again. He was quite sure they were a type of very shy, blue rock-dwelling lizardfolk. This guy was just blue, nothing lizardy or shy about him.

“Are you sure you are not a blue goblin?” Nargi had expected the knife and dodged, but it was sticking out of his chest before he had finished his move. Damn, the speed on this little bugger!

“HEY!” Nargi screamed, pulling the knife out of his chest.

“I AM NO STINKY GOBLIN!!!” Grishar yelled again.

“Tsk, fine. You are a kobold, yes, very nice. Now go home before I kill you.”

“You can’t kill me, I am invincible!” The ‘kobold’ posed showing off his non-existent biceps. “Besides, we are friends now. You wouldn’t kill a friend, now would you?”

“Friends?” Nargi stared at the little guy in disbelief.

“Yeah sure, because you asked nicely.” The goblin jumped up, shook Nargi’s hand and before he could react was hopping around on the dirt path again.

“Since we’re friends now, can you give me something to eat?”

Unbelievable. The guy was truly unbelievable. “I’m never going to get rid of you, am I?” Nargi asked.

“Of course not, you can put your faith in me. I will protect you! Now give me food.”

Nargi sighed again, dropped the bag and after rummaging around in it for a while, took out a bowl of stew and handed it to the little guy. “Grishar is your name, right?”

The ‘kobold’ had snatched the bowl out of Nargi’s hand before he could blink, finished it in mere seconds and answered “yes” handing the empty bowl back to Nargi. “And you?”

“Nargi.” Nargi said.

“Huh? But that’s a girl’s name!”

What? Nargi was a very respectable and manly Orcish name, he wasn’t expecting this.

“Nargi is a man’s name, obviously. It means keeper of the holy spear, you speak Orcish, you should know this!”

“Oh yes, but I always let girls keep my holy spear.” He laughed.

Nargi laughed too. Not because he thought the little guy’s dirty jokes were the least bit funny but because, well... It was nice to have a conversation. And, Nargi admitted to himself, it was nice not to be alone.