The first things that were healed were the cuts and splits around my eye. The priest then cleaned the blood away from my face and I could once again see properly.

  Clive: “I need to reset your nose.”

  Dwynfel: “What?”

  Clive: “Your nose is broken… bent out of shape… for me to heal it, I need to put it back into position.”

  Dwynfel: “We don’t have time… there are undead up there.”

  Clive: “They are dead once more, you need not panic.”

  Oh, thank the gods… that means Kiyui must be safe.

  Carter: “Weird, the way they were just standing there when we came in.”

  Dwynfel: “What?”

  Carter: “They were just stood, looking at a broken door. Not moving or doing anything. Clive cast divine light on them, they collapsed. Then we heard you getting your face smashed in.

  Dwynfel: “Kiyui… Kiyui was up there.”

  Clive: “There is nothing else up there that can cause him harm. Let me heal you as best I can, then we will return together.

  The immediate physical threat may be gone. But he still needs help.

  Dwynfel: “You don’t understand… we were attacked… and he just froze… he didn’t move… something’s wrong… I need to get to him.”

  Clive: “Right now, you are my priority. You will be able to get to him much faster if you let me heal you quickly… you will also be a much less upsetting sight when he does see you. So, stay still and let me fix your nose.”

  Dwynfel: “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  Clive: “Probably.”

  He grabbed my nose and snapped it back into place and…

  Dwynfel: “Fuck! Ow… ahh!”

  Clive hovered his hand over my nose and the warm white light returned… the pain started to leave my nose and seriously… that really hurt… I felt that more than when it broke in the first place… fuck.

  Clive: “I am afraid that I am unable to heal you further. I did not have a chance to fully rest, so my mana reserves are still low.”

  Dwynfel: “That’s fine… my face feels much better… he didn’t really hurt me anywhere else… he just clipped my ankle.”

  Carter: “Good, then we can make our way out of here.”

  Clive: “Do you need assistance to walk?”

  Dwynfel: “I should be fine.”

  I went to stand up and…

  Dwynfel: “Ahh! Fuck… nope… nope…”

  Clive: “Worse than you thought?”

  Dwynfel: “I don’t get it… I was fighting him perfectly fine before… why is it so bad now?”

  Clive: “During moments of extreme stress the body ignores pain in order to survive. The threat is gone, so now your body is letting you know where your injuries are… so that you can deal with them.”

  I took off my boot and looked at my ankle… it was swollen and bruised. Goblin skin is not pleasant at the best of times… but when it is bruised it turns a truly horrible shade of purply-green… which are not two colours that I believe go together.

  Clive lifted my foot to inspect my ankle.

  Clive: “As the swelling increases, the strap from your knife will dig into it. I’m going to remove the knife for now.”

  Dwynfel: “Go for it. I don’t even know why I bother carrying the thing. I’ve never had cause to use it.”

  Clive: “I would keep it around if I were you.”

  Dwynfel: “Why bother if I never use it?”

  Clive: “Because life likes to mock us. I can guarantee that the second you decide to stop carrying it around… you will end up in a situation where you need it… and you will kick yourself for not wearing it anymore.”

  Dwynfel: “Fair point.”

  He removed the knife strap and handed it to me. He then placed my foot back down on the ground and smiled at me with a rather toothless grin.

  Clive: “I can heal that in the morning. For now, Carter can carry you.”

  Dwynfel: “Can he not just help me walk?”

  Clive: “The height differential would put his body in an awkward position, likely causing him back trouble. Also, if either of you slip and you end up putting your weight through that ankle it will make it significantly worse. I am aware that being carried may harm your pride… but your physical health is the priority.”

  Dwynfel: “Urgh… fine.”

  Yup… once again… being carried like a child. Initially he picked me up and held me on his hip like you would a toddler. But Clive suggested that a piggy back would be more practical. Carter seems to be well meaning, but he clearly isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Clive however… I’m not sure what to make of him. I don’t know if they know I heard them talking when they first dropped down. They said some weird stuff.

  Now that I actually have a quiet moment with them… they are an odd pair. The priest is short… but I now see that his lack of height is due to being hunched over rather than just being outright tiny. He seems old… like… very old… older than anyone that I know. I had guessed he was old from his voice… but actually seeing him properly… up close… his face sags and his eyebrows are really overgrown. And why on earth does the guy smell so strongly of hoisin sauce? His robe seems to engulf him… I am not sure whether that is intentional on his part or not, but it makes him hard to get a clear view off.

  Carter however, is a relatively clean cut and appealing young man… he looks to be somewhere in his twenties. His leather armour fits him perfectly, his dark hair is trimmed and neat, the items on his belt arranged neatly and his axe looks sharp and polished. Smells of musk… so he must be doing reasonably well off if he can afford cologne.

  Dwynfel: “Which way is it out of here?”

  Clive: “This way.”

  He led us to the door at the far end of the room, which opened out into a large hallway with marble staircase leading up the centre.

  Dwynfel: “Were you part of the team that cleared the ruins before?”

  Clive: “No, we arrived here later… with Asmodeus.”

  He advanced up the staircase, using his old wooden staff as a walking stick.

  Dwynfel: “Have you two been in these ruins before?”

  Carter: “I haven’t.”

  Clive: “Nor I. But I know where I am going.”

  Dwynfel: “Have you seen a map?”

  Clive: “No.”

  Dwynfel: “Then how?”

  Clive: “Because I have seen this place before.”

  Dwynfel: “But you said you haven’t been here before.”

  Clive: “I haven’t… not physically anyway.”

  Dwynfel: “What the hell are you talking about?”

  The little priest stopped halfway up the steps to catch his breath. He turned to me and gave a strange little smirk.

  Clive: “I saw it… in a vision.”

  Oh, great… I am being rescued by the local nutter.

  Dwynfel: “I don’t believe in visions and premonitions. Agaroth said they are nothing more than educated guesswork.”

  Clive: “To most… yes… that would be true. But what if I were to tell you… that I am a disciple of the watcher.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Dwynfel: “Bullshit… the last one of those died when I was little.”

  Clive: “Died… or simply disappeared?”

  Dwynfel: “Either way… if that is true… then what have you been doing for the last decade?”

  Clive: “Biding my time.”

  Dwynfel: “Until what?”

  Clive: “Until I was needed.”

  Okay… this guy is annoying me now. If he thinks he saw this place in a vision, then his directions could be taking us in the complete wrong direction… shit… I just want out of these ruins… I need to check on Kiyui.

  Dwynfel: “Look… Clive… this is a lovely story and all… but can we focus on getting out of here.”

  Clive: “In due time… I am not great with stairs.”

  Dwynfel: “Then why are you an adventurer at all? Being able to deal with the physicality of the job is important… even for a healer.”

  Clive: “I told you… I was needed.”

  Again with the vague answers.

  Dwynfel: “Okay, I’ll bite… why were you needed?”

  Clive: “To ensure that the prophecy comes to pass.”

  Dwynfel: “Not that prophecy again. It’s just a magic sword. Everybody is reading way too much into it.”

  Clive: “You know little of the prophecy. You simply know what the duke knows. The prophecy has been altered over the years… its impact reduced to mere novelty.”

  Dwynfel: “Care to enlighten me then?”

  Clive: “My ancestor was the one who first penned the prophecy when the town was founded. He passed it on to the duke at the time… who build his home around the sword that they had found. He advised against making the sword public knowledge, but the duke could not resist showing it off to his friends. He devised that silly ceremony that he made all of his rich friends take part in. The whole thing became a game. My family always knew who the sword would end up with… we knew the path that it would take. There was no need to search… but the rich love their drama.”

  Oh great… so he’s from a long line of delusional nutters.

  Dwynfel: “If you always knew that I was going to remove the sword… then why not just tell the duke that.”

  Clive: “To do that would be unthinkable at the time. To say that a goblin would be the one to remove the sword would have caused us to be expelled… and we could not risk that… we had things to put in place.”

  Dwynfel: “But you were expelled… weren’t you… Agaroth said that the duke got tired of being given inaccurate predictions and removed his advisor as a result.”

  Clive: “That’s the thing about looking into the future… people always want to know what will happen… but they don’t realise that that knowledge alone will change things.”

  I’m sorry… what?

  Dwynfel: “Now you’ve lost me.”

  Clive: “Let us say that you want something to happen. So, you look into the future and you see that it will happen. Then what do you do? You relax… you know that it will happen… so you don’t try as hard to make it happen… because you sleep every night, safe in the knowledge that it will happen… then because your attitude changed and you assumed it would happen regardless… it never happens… and who do you blame? The person who showed you that future. It is the same with futures that you don’t want. You find out that you will be stabbed in a side alley three days from now… so you don’t go down any side alleys on that day… you don’t get stabbed. You would think that people would be grateful of that… but no… they then think that maybe they would not have been stabbed anyway… and that you are just saying things for the coin… either way… as a true fortune teller you cannot win.”

  Okay… I understand his point… but surely that makes his prophecy null and void… if his ancestor saw it and multiple generations of his have seen it… then that is a lot of people who could have altered it by now.

  Clive: “If you genuinely wish to make it as a fortune teller… you cannot speak the truth… you cannot give people a glimpse of their genuine future… you must instead be general and vague… speak in riddles… and give them no actual help whatsoever. The believers will desperately look for the answers to your riddles… they will find your vague words in pretty much anything and think you marvellous… they will flood you with money for this nonsense but will shun you for anything genuine.”

  Dwynfel: “Difficult career path then.”

  Clive: “It can be a very lucrative one… for those with no moral standing, who are comfortable exploiting the gullible.”

  Carter: “Mr Beaumont does not engage in such theatrics anymore.”

  Dwynfel: “So you used to.”

  Clive: “I needed to maintain my position. Once my position was no longer needed… I left all that behind.”

  So not only is he the local nutter, he is also a former con-man… excellent.

  Dwynfel: “And yet here you are… maintaining a prophecy… that by your own logic should have changed multiple times by now.”

  Clive: “This prophecy is different. Every time any of my predecessors looked into the future it was the same. No matter how many times any of them looked forward the same events always happened.”

  Dwynfel: “Which would be?”

  Clive: “Averting the destruction of not only Kataravonia… not even the surrounding land of Vardan… not even the Equine Kingdom or the Anubis empire. I talk of averting the destruction of life as we know it on this planet.”

  Dwynfel: “Quite high stakes then?”

  Clive: “Do not jest with me, boy. I get enough of that from him.”

  And now I’m being chastised… can we just hurry up and get the hell out of here?

  Carter: “Lighten up… you can be way too serious, Mr. Beaumont.”

  Clive: “And you fail to take things seriously enough, Carter. Maybe I should have taken a different child under my wing all those years ago.”

  Carter: “That would go against your big prophecy though, wouldn’t it?”

  Clive: “Not at all. You were never in my visions… I simply needed somebody to carry the bags.”

  Carter: “See, there you go. You do have a sense of humour.”

  Clive: “Unfortunately for you, I am not joking.”

  Carter: “Love you too.”

  These two are really fucking weird.

  Dwynfel: “Can we get back to the point?”

  Clive: “My visions however… were different. I saw nothing but destruction. I came to realise that this was because I was the one who was in the right place and time to ensure the correct outcome. No matter what my predecessors did… it would have still been me that needed to ensure things went according to the prophecy. So, I altered the way I used my magic. I focussed on key events that would alter the paths of those involved… pushing them in the right direction. Because in order for the correct outcome to be achieved, certain specific events must unfold.”

  Dwynfel: “And they would be?”

  Clive: “I am unable to tell you that. As I stated earlier, telling people invariably leads to the events being altered. I am simply here to right the course at points in time when the ship may steer in the wrong direction.”

  Then what is the point of this whole conversation? Urgh… now I’m more confused than before.

  Carter: “Yeah, annoying isn’t it. He won’t tell me either.”

  Clive: “You are the last person who needs to know. You are far too impulsive. You would likely knock events way off course… and probably get yourself killed in the process.”

  Carter: “Sometimes action is required.”

  Clive: “Of that, I am well aware. I have calculated the exact points where I need to take action and what those actions are. So do as you are told, please.”

  Dwynfel: “So, is this one of those actions right now?”

  Clive: “For events to play out as I have seen… my life must intersect with yours on four occasions.”

  Dwynfel: “And this is the first?”

  Clive: “No… this is the third.”

  Dwynfel: “What?”

  Clive: “The cave and these ruins are separate events.”

  Dwynfel: “That still only makes this the second.”

  Clive: “I am not surprised that you do not remember our previous encounter. It is probably for the best.”

  Dwynfel: “When was this previous encounter?”

  Clive: “We should get moving. I can make it the rest of the way now. Tell no one of this conversation.”

  Again... Dwynfel should have gloves on. I don't know why the AI keeps removing them.