After we were all measured, we were told we could pick up our altered suits at the end of the day. Agaroth went off to do… whatever Agaroth does with himself… probably whores or drinking… or both… possibly see his son… who knows.

  Meanwhile, Chloe showed us to the graveyard. Similar to the tailor, I’ve never been to the graveyard before. It’s quite a serene and peaceful place. Rather depressing to see the sheer number of gravestones… particularly the number of unmarked ones. Chloe said they are either unidentified bodies or from families that simply couldn’t afford a tombstone… or people who had no family and thus nobody to pay at all. The amount of death that exists in this world is truly awful.

  Tadwick: “What’s wif all the stones?”

  Dwynfel: “They’re called gravestones. They show you where somebody’s body is buried after they died.”

  Tadwick: “Oh, so this place is full of dead people?”

  Dwynfel: “Yes.”

  Tadwick: “Are the people from my home here?”

  Maybe we shouldn’t have brought him here. I wonder if he is still wondering about death and what exactly death means. I did try talking to Damecus and Kiyui about it, but that just left me questioning things… I certainly didn’t come up with anything conclusive at all. I never did manage to give him the answer to his questions.

  Chloe: “Yeah… they were brought back here and placed in a crypt at the far end over there. Why don’t you pop over there and see if you can find it. I’ll come help in a minute.”

  Tadwick: “What’s a crypt?”

  Chloe: “Little stone building, looks a bit like a grey shed. It will have the V’Rel sigil on the front.”

  Tadwick: “Kay…”

  Tadwick toddled off to towards the other side of the gravestones to try to find the crypt whilst Chloe walked me towards Tilda’s grave.

  Dwynfel: “I didn’t think anybody would actually retrieve the bodies and bring them back here. Normally, in these situations only those of noble birth are retrieved.”

  Chloe: “It was Prince V’Rel. He paid for all the bodies to brought back here. Paid for a crypt too. Couldn’t find the bodies of any of the boys though. He paid for all their names to be carved into a plaque inside the crypt. He was really cut up about what happened. He’s a good’n really, not like a lot of the nobles I’ve had to deal with since taking this job.”

  This Prince V’Rel does sound like he rather breaks the mould when it comes to nobles. I haven’t exactly had a lot of contact with the nobles of this city, but from what people say, most of them have absolutely no regard for those less fortunate than them. So, for him to fund an orphanage in the first place… as well as paying for them to have a full crypt for all of the… hang on…

  Dwynfel: “Tadwick isn’t going to see his name on that plaque, is he?”

  Chloe: “Nah. Kathryn couldn’t remember his name, but we checked the orphanage records… easy to work out which name was his… he was the only ginger that they had.”

  His hair is quite distinctive… especially when it gets wet. I do worry about him. Everything that he knew here is gone… not to mention… well…

  Dwynfel: “What are we going to do with him Chloe? That thing will find him eventually.”

  Chloe: “Won’t it just find some other kid to pass into?”

  Dwynfel: “It can’t. Once its mark is on the 10 children… then they are the only ones that will suffice. It will always know where he is… no matter where he goes, it will find him.”

  Chloe: “Then I guess we best find a way to kill the fucking thing then. Until then, you better get used to being a daddy.”

  Dwynfel: “Don’t take the piss. He’s almost as tall as me. He’s not even five.”

  Chloe: “Try tellin’ him that. He clearly likes having you around… we’re here.”

  I looked at the gravestone in front of me. Agaroth was right… this gravestone must have cost a fortune… it’s bigger than me… and made of pure marble… and that shit is expensive.

  Chloe: “Tilda Swan. Born Feb 14th of the year 768. Died protecting the innocent at the tender age of 19.”

  She was far too young. She shouldn’t be dead. All she ever wanted was to help people.

  Dwynfel: “It should have been me that died at that cave.”

  Chloe: “Shut up, Dwyn.”

  Dwynfel: “Excuse me?”

  Chloe: “Don’t even think about starting that shit. You think I brought you here so I could witness some self-pitying guilt trip. You think I want you to take the blame for this? Don’t be a prick. What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”

  She can deny it all she wants… but we both know that this entire situation is entirely my fault.

  Dwynfel: “If I hadn’t lied, then the party never would have split up, you guys would never have been on that job. If I hadn’t messed up and got injured, then we’d still be partying like we used to. If I hadn’t gone in that cave and stolen Tadwick from that thing, it never would have come outside and she never would have been killed.”

  Chloe: “How fucking self-obsessed are you?”

  Excuse me?

  Chloe: “If you hadn’t lied, then the party would never have existed in the first place. If you had put keeping your secret first, then Kiyui and that girl would have died in that alley. If you hadn’t rescued Tadwick when you did, then he would have been raped to death and that thing would be roaming about somewhere in a little ginger skin suit completely unnoticed, waiting to get older to go on a fucking killing spree again!”

  Her face has gone red… she’s really angry.

  Chloe: “We became adventurers knowing the risks. We took that job knowing the risks. So don’t you dare start trying to take the blame for that. Every decision you made was with the best intentions. Every choice you made was the right thing to do, and you still lost. It happens, and it fucking sucks. But don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened to her.”

  Dwynfel: “Sorry.”

  Chloe: “Don’t apologise, fuck’s sake.”

  She rested her head in her hand and took a deep breath. The redness left her face and spoke in a much calmer tone.

  Chloe: “Look, I brought you here for two reasons. Firstly, to explain to you that she felt awful about running from you that day. She regretted it within minutes. By the time she ran back, you were gone. She didn’t hate you; she didn’t dislike you, she was just panicked and confused. Once we got back, she wanted to go to your house. She wanted to see you and say sorry. But she didn’t know how. And Asmodeus kept banging on about what a terrible creature you were and how it was just a matter of time before you tried to kill us all. I should have dragged her along to see you, but Asmodeus had me convinced that seeing you would destroy our careers. We’d dreamed of being adventurers since we were little kids. I didn’t want us to lose what we had built, so we just followed Asmodeus. I put our careers above our friend. I put our careers over her happiness. If anybody should be apologising it’s me. So just… don’t… ok.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I have to admit… Chloe knows me better than I thought she did. She knew I would be blaming myself… I know she wants me to stop… but I don’t think I can. I lied to her… for almost four years. I lied to her so much. Even if I wasn’t directly responsible for her death… I still owe her an apology for the lies.

  Dwynfel: “What was the second reason?”

  Chloe: “What?”

  Dwynfel: “You said there were two reasons.”

  Chloe took a very long and deep breath.

  Chloe: “To say goodbye, Dwyn. I know you loved her. Any idiot could see that. We always just thought you were shy because of your skin issues, and your height, and your voice. Ya know how some blokes get. Think the entire world is against them cause they’re short, or have a silly voice, or a tiny dick, or whatever… no offence.”

  Well, that makes me feel so secure… thanks for that.

  Chloe: “Obviously, now I know it wasn’t just those things.”

  Seriously… she’s doing this on purpose.

  Chloe: “You still loved her, Dwyn. You loved her, she ran from you, and when you finally reunited, you watched her die. I… I did not handle her death well. I came here for the funeral and never came back for over a month. When I did, I found that talking to her helped. I know she’s just a body in the ground… but just talking… speaking to her… out loud… it helped me. That’s why I brought you here. So, talk to her, Dwyn. Say goodbye. And after this, I will be going right back to taking the piss out of you, so don’t you dare go thinking this sympathy will last forever. I’m off to help Tadwick find that crypt. So just, talk to her.”

  Chloe walked off to join Tadwick and I was left on my own… stood in front of Tilda’s grave. I’m really not sure what to do here… do I just start talking? What do I say? I suppose I should just be honest.

  Dwynfel: “Tilda… umm… not really sure what to say here… I’m not even sure if you can hear me… I’m not even sure if there is an afterlife or anything. Chloe can’t hear me now, so I can at least say this… I’m sorry. I am so… so sorry. I never intended for us to become friends. I just wanted to be an adventurer. I didn’t expect to find people like you… people that I cared about… people that cared about me. I admired you so much… you were so nice to me… you were so trusting of me… and I lied to you the entire time that I knew you. You shouldn’t have felt bad for running from me… it was my fault for not telling you the truth. You were so sweet… I’m sure that if I had been honest with you… if I had trusted you, then I could have told you… I’m sure that if I had done that, then you wouldn’t have panicked. You would have said something calm… and collected… and beautiful… like you always did…”

  Fuck… I’m starting to cry now.

  Dwyfel: “…I cry way too much these days. You know… when I grew up in that nest… I never once saw another goblin cry? I’m sure the little ones probably did when the adventurers cornered them and they knew they were going to die. That was the first time that I cried… when I thought I was going to die. But since that nest I’ve cried so much… I used to cry when I fell over and hurt myself on the farm… that’s not what goblins do. I cried when I left to become an adventurer. I cried so many nights because I felt horrible about lying to you… I cry when I think about all this shit with Kiyui… I cry when I think about what will happen to Tadwick. Damecus says that displaying emotion is healthy… but he’s one of the most stoic people that I know… and my mum always told me to cry to let the pain out when I was little. But deep down I still feel like it makes me weak. I was only in that nest for two years and still those things are engrained in me. Being sad is weakness… crying is weakness… the only emotion worth anything is anger. And yet here I am… crying at your grave… and feeling weak for doing so… and feeling angry with myself for not stopping it.”

  I began to wipe the tears from my eyes and tried to make myself look slightly more respectable.

  Dwynfel: “I’m going to use this as an opportunity to say something that I aways wanted to say to you Tilda. I… Dwynfel Vesidia… am a goblin. I know… it is fairly obvious now that I’m stood here with my head in full view, talking about being raised in a goblin nest… but saying it plainly just feels so freeing. I’m a goblin, Tilda. I always have been… when we first met, the first thing that I noticed about you was that you smelled of lemon… I could smell you from across the room… because I’m a goblin. It still feels weird saying it out loud… I’m a goblin. And perhaps more importantly than any of that, Tilda… is that I always thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world. I loved you Tilda… I loved you…”

  Gods, I’ve been wanting to say that for so long. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my chest.

  Dwynfel: “I loved you… I obsessed over you… and that terrified me. I was so afraid that my feelings would make me do something stupid and destroy our friendship. Even after I lied to you all that time… in the end you still ran to me… you trusted me and died protecting me, so that I could save a boy you didn’t even know. I still love you Tilda… and I think… I always will. I think I need to accept that… that love isn’t going to go away… the pain of losing you is never going to go away. If it was just me on my own, I don’t know how I would get through this. But you’ll be pleased to know that I’m not as alone as I thought I would be. I have people who care about me… I have people who support me… I have people that rely on me. I don’t need to wear my cowl around them… they know the real me… and they stay with me anyway. I’m still looking after that boy that we saved. He never even thought twice about what I was… he just sees me as the person who saved him. I’ve even made friends with lizardmen… lizardmen of all things… how insane is that?”

  Why does saying all of this out loud make me feel better? She isn’t even here. I’m talking to a lump of marble. This makes no sense. Why is this helping?

  Dwynfel: “I have felt genuinely happy at times over the past two months… and painfully depressed at others. I think I’m finally starting to experience real life… it has the most amazing beauty and wonder… but with that beauty comes the absolute crushing despair of loss. If you want to experience the happiness you also have to deal with the sadness. I guess that is what Damecus and my mum meant… and also why Chloe told me to talk to you. Even though it makes me feel weak… feeling sad isn’t a bad thing. Because there are still things in this life that make me happy. I think… I think I’m ready to say it now. Tilda… no matter what happens… you will always be in my heart. Goodbye, Tilda.”