Henri Masson

  Oh. Dear. Oh dear, oh dear. What a pickle I'm in. A fine mess I got myself into, and of course the wife isn't happy about it one bit. The children seem to be taking things in their stride, they don't know what I saw. They were busy wrestling and bouncing on the bed making a lot of noise as boys often do. I was glad they hadn't seen what I'd seen, I couldn't bear the thought of them witnessing such horror first hand. Neither of my boys had seen ten summers as of yet and, well, while they did occasionally play with sticks as though they were swords, they weren't warriors.

  Certainly the carriage did make a sudden turn back then, and the horses were spurred into a gallop, but they actually seemed to enjoy the sudden thrill ride. The boys are still at that age where the mere act of going fast can send them into a whirling frenzy of laughter and exuberant cheer, ah to be that innocent again. As for me though my poor heart was racing, oh my word, I couldn't breathe.

  My wife tried to ask me what was going on but I couldn't hear her over the ringing of my ears and the din of battle that raged beneath the ribs. The coachman was pale as a sheet, too, for he had seen exactly what I had just seen; oh heavens-to-betsy. The horses whinnied in pain, but they kept going - whether out of sheer survival instinct due to the clear and present danger or the spurring of the driver, they went at a full gallop for far longer than any horse should.

  B-but where are my manners? I'm Henri Masson, the owner and p-proprietor of the Masson vineyards in the Kingdom of Cara; it may not be the biggest winery in the Capital region, but I still make a fairly decent living and I had even heard that my wine was being sold as far away as Tor Anaura - yes, in a glitzy wine bar no less! Rumor has it that even the First Prince of Anaura was fond of it, and if that turned out to be true it meant that a future king was sipping my very own product, oh boy!

  Well I'm not completely in the know about the finer business details, that's more the wheelhouse of the distribution company that buys my wine. All I know is that they treat me fairly and the booming wine trade has allowed me to lead a nice and comfortable lifestyle with my family. Of course not all of my wine is drunk as is, some of it goes to a distillery where it is made into a most delicious brandy that we allow to age in oak barrels.

  This was supposed to be a nice vacation, and a normal return trip home! Oh but of course it was a lovely trip; we went across the narrow sea to the southlands. It isn't a terribly long voyage, mind you, and it is certainly better than trying to traverse the southern cross mountain range; that place is full of big beasties and burly b-barbarians; no place for children, no siree, and no place for me either! I was almost certain I'd get eaten by a bear if we went that way, or worse, a dragon!

  Once we disembarked from the ship we travelled on land for a while and tried so many different delicious things to eat. The peninsula west of the Cagna River is largely inhabited by folk who dwell in large family units, they call themselves the alfino. I'd met one alfino before, a travelling merchant, and he had been the one to tell me all about the food and inspired the vacation to begin with. He was a short and stout feller with curly black hair that dangled to his shoulders, olive-colored skin, and a little mustache that came to a curl that extended beyond his cheeks.

  Oh, boy! The alfino people really can cook, and they make very big hearty meals even for someone of my size. We tried something called pasta for the first time, little pockets full of meat and a sort of multiple layered savory cake they referred to as "lasagna." My goodness that was tasty, and p-please don't allow me to go off on a tangent about the wine - it has a certain spicy quality to it that I think comes from growing it in volcanic soil; I'll admit, it was even tastier than the wine grown on my estate. In addition to wine grapes they also grow olives and tomatoes - oh those are quite tasty I assure you, and they form the basis of most of their sauces. Although I wondered what pasta would taste like with some Caran veloute - gah, I am such a glutton, p-please don't tell my wife she's got enough to worry about and she's always going on and on about how much salt I eat!

  As we made our way further inland we saw some beautiful natural landscape; my wife, Stella, is a painter, and she insisted that we stop so that she could do a sketch for a later piece. I believe they called that landform a mesa, yes, it had many layers of different shades of red and brown making it remind me of that lasagne dish we tried earlier. Oh but how the time flew, it turned out we'd overestimated how much time to dilly-dally we really had. So we turned back after visiting one more town where they sold some delightful trinkets. I'd picked up a lovely scarf for Pierre, the butler, and a big wide straw hat for Marcel, the gardener. Naturally, we took some grilled maize for the road - those rabbit-ears beastfolk are great cooks, too, oh boy!

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  The return trip was also uneventful, well, except that we did see a primal beast herd pass by and the children went positively gaga. The voyage across the narrow sea back to Port d'Azune was also nice and smooth. The five of us - that is, Stella, our two adorable boys Francis and Ernest, our maidservant Madeline, and myself, boarded a carriage from the port and rode along the west road, crossed the river, and turned north. Our travel up the west bank was a fair weather ride, but that was the end of our good fortune. When we arrived at my estate, I noticed that something was wrong. There was smoke coming from the courtyard of my manor house.

  Well, I felt it was my duty to check, so I headed up to the front gate to have a look - and what I saw filled me with horror. Goblins! Goblins, everywhere! The whole courtyard was trashed, covered in blood and nastier things. They were chewing on my food, drinking my wine, oh dear, they'd even butchered one of my horses and were clearly chewing on one of its mighty forelegs! Naturally I bolted and prayed that the nasty little buggers hadn't seen me.

  I didn't look back to check, I just hurried back to the carriage and shouted at the driver to "go, go, go, go!" Oh, and he went; I found out later that I was indeed pursued, and that he had seen me running, and I had just narrowly avoided being left behind. I…well I wouldn't have minded if he had, safety of my wife and children before my own of course.

  Naturally I offered the coachman bonus pay for the hazard, and as a thanks for getting us out of there safely. When I exited the carriage I saw that it had several black-feathered arrows sticking out of it and I nearly fainted, and without my fainting couch to catch me either! Oh pooh, how did this happen? What exactly am I paying taxes for if the local knights can't even prevent goblins from overrunning my home? Is this kingdom run by bumbling blockheaded baboons?

  Well there we were, sitting in an inn room together; one night had passed since we hightailed it from my home and we'd just taken breakfast. The Silver Crane was always a nice place to stay whenever I had business in town, always so cozy and welcoming. The little ones didn't seem to realize that aught was amiss, but I'd already told Stella and Madeline what was going on; both of their faces were wrought with worry. Of course the wife was cross with me, as if it were my fault, well, it very well led to a protracted argument but I put an end to it - I always get the last two words in with my wife:

  "Yes, dear."

  I thought long and hard about what to do, no amount of brandy was going to help here no siree - I had to keep a clear head for them. Well, filing a suit against the crown for negligence sounded like a good idea, but that was a long and arduous process that almost never got results. I did have money, I'd brought a fair amount with me on the trip and I had kept a reserve at the local counting house.

  Yes, that was the ticket - I could hire adventurers to clear out the goblins! That settled, I pulled up my pants high, tightened my belt, and marched down to the adventurer's guild. The receptionist was a nice young lady, about my sister-in-law's age, with blonde hair, her name was Louisa - she set me up nicely and told me to wait patiently back at the Inn.

  Much to my surprise, just over two hours later there came a knock at my inn room door; I didn't think they'd had time to let the ink dry, let alone find someone to take the job! When I opened the door, there were two people standing there with big smiles on their faces. A human lad wearing a long brown coat, and an elf maiden - my word, I'd never seen an elf before! Oh I'm sure there was one or two at the guild hall, but I was in such a hurry that I didn't bother looking.

  The gentleman bowed and greeted me with the grace befitting one of my station, such a polite young man, I thought, and the young lady gave a curtsy. They called themselves "Red Lightning", and they asked if we could provide additional details; and I did as much as I could, retelling my entire story about what happened when I had returned home. The more I thought about it the sicker I felt to my stomach.

  Oh, the lady asked a question, "tell me, Lord Masson, were they shorties or lankies?"

  The young man looked quizzically at the girl, "huh?" I gathered she must be the party leader.

  "The usual sizes of goblins," she explained, and used her hands to measure against the man's belt, and then against around the middle of his sternum, he seemed to understand plainly.

  "I'm afraid I didn't get a terribly good look at them, miss," I said, ruefully. Naturally I'd been too busy nearly soiling myself to bring out a yardstick to take their measure.

  "Were they all the same size or was there a mixture of short ones, and slightly taller ones?"

  Ah, that I could tell them, "yes, there were goblins of both sizes. Indeed, yes. I had noticed that when we were riding away from the place. They weren't, um, of uniform height."

  The elf nodded, "and what color were they?"

  "Sort of green, not deep green but um. Well like a really nasty bruise, yes. purple and yellow mixed with green, actually."

  "Common hill goblins," she said, "all right. That's all we need."

  All right, I think now all I needed to do was touch their chips and finalize the quest, if I recalled the nice receptionist's instructions. What's this? Wood chips? Are they sure? I thought that was the lowest rank of adventurer. Well, the young man seemed pretty confident, especially with that pose; turned three-quarters towards me, with a thumb sticking up. Is he from foreign parts? There was something in his eyes, those clear blue eyes with flecks of gold, that made me believe in that moment that he could do it. Well I suppose I felt relieved. Once the two of them had been gone for about a quarter of an hour, I stood up and beckoned to the family:

  We were going to the park.