“Dagnabbit,” Blademan said, “Why’d you go and do a thing like that?”

  Kip watched in horror as Blademan pulled out his bloodied blade.

  Jasssper slumped to the ground. The gaping wound in his lower half bled into the mud, mixing dark red with brown.

  “Sssorry I interfered, Sire.” Jasssper uttered. The top of his head rested in the mud and he sank into the swamp, the consciousness leaving his eyes.

  Kip stared at Jasssper’s body. Kip looked up at the waiting Blademan.

  “Hiya,” Blademan said, “Guess I gotta kill you all over again.

  Kip’s eyebrows furrowed. He gripped his fists in anger and bounced his gaze between his fallen subject, and the dirtbag that put him there.

  “That was a very dumb thing to do.”

  Blademan let out a deep breath, “Don’t bother channeling your anger. Channeling your own sense of superiority is much more effective.”

  Kip lurched. Blademan sighed as he stuck his blades up. Kip he stuck out his claws on his hands and his feet and closed them in on Blademan’s blades. He hung on like a kind of Kobold kabob. Kip burped. He burped up a spot of flame right at Blademan, and Blademan turned his head away.

  “disgusting!” Was all Blademan said.

  Kip scraped Blademan with all his might on his head.

  “Ahh!” Blademan yelled. He tossed his hands up, launching Kip into the air. Blademan coiled power into his arms and punched at Kip in the air four times.

  Kip pushed himself higher into the air, the pulse of his updraft helping him avoid blasts one and two, but getting downed by blasts three and four. As he fell to the ground, Blademan jumped up to stab him, he tilted his wings and glided past Blademan’s spear, raking the metal man’s head, chest, thigh and calf down with his clawed finger. It created a long sinuous pathway of a wound on Blademan’s body.

  As Blademan tried to kick Kip on his way down, Kip sank into the mud and disappeared again.

  “Oh come on!” Blademan yelled, “Don’t tell me that’s it! Another hide! Very clever! Look,” Blademan said as his feet collided into the earth, “This is getting ridiculous, don’t tell me you’ve only got wings that bounce you up a little, claws that only scratch into my body a little, and a fire blast that only sparks A LITTLE! I’m starting to think the big problems you have can’t be solved because you’re too darn little, Kippo!”

  Kip stuck up his snout, and bubbled air out of the mud, then inhaling. Blademan leapt toward him and stabbed, but Kip slipped back under. Blademan looked around,

  Bubbles ruptured through the surface of the mud and once again, Kip’s snout came up for air in a different patch of the swamp, one closer to the water. Blademan reached out and stabbed it to no avail. Blademan waded through the mud.

  “Let’s face it, Kip. You let the snake die. If you keep being Dark Lord, other people are going to die too. I mean… what a pathetic little fire blast you’ve got…” Blademan noticed some bubbles coming up out of the water. He walked up to it as slowly as possible, holding his blade right above it, dizzy from the feeling that he was about to win. He waited.

  “Maybe.” Kip said from behind Blademan, Blademan turned his head, his arm still positioned over the bubbles. Blademan looked back down, confused. Kip said, “But a little help from natural gasoline should do the trick.”

  Then Kip burped again, the sparks lit the natural gas that had surrounded blademan and he became enveloped by flames. Blademan raised his hands and screamed, “AAAHHHH!! AhhH! I’m on fire! I’m on fire! IIIii’’m made entirely of metal. Or did you forget, smart guy?”

  He let the fire continue consuming him as he stepped toward Kip. Now he was a great heap of blades, lit on fire, walking toward Kip, and Kip had nowhere to back out because of the lake to his back. Kip’s face looked terrified, but as Kip let Blademan close the gap, the kobold’s eyes furrowed again, and he smirked.

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  “No,” Kip said, “I didn’t forget, but I think you forget what happened to metal when it heats up.”

  Blademan sliced at Kip. Kip dipped to the right and grabbed Blademan’s arms, cutting into his palms as plunged into the water. Blademan was knocked off balance and fell into the cool murky water, the fires instantly quelling. Blademan attempted to move his arms to swim but he was stuck. His arms were sealed shut. He attempted to kick his legs but found that he could not. He was entirely immobilized. He could only watch as Kip breached the surface.

  Kip swam back to shore and waded through the mud as he went back to the spot Jasssper had collapsed. He approached the growing puddle of red and dug his hands into the mud as he yelled, “Jasssper! Jasper, oh lord, Jasper!” His hands felt the thick scaly body of the court advisor. He pulled him out. Jasssper’s lifeless eyes stared out to nowhere.

  “I’ll get you to safety. Please stay with me.” Kip said, “Please.”

  He slapped the snake’s face lightly. The snake did not respond. Jasssper’s mouth was open and his forked tongue was hanging out of it.

  “Azami! Azami! AZAMIII!” He saw the shack on stilts across the lake. He screamed again until his voice gave out. He breathed in and out, his own wounds mixing with Jasssper’s. Kip shook his head, “Action. Action. Action. Act, act, act.”

  He took the snake’s limp body and coiled it around his neck like a fleshy scarf. Kip made sure to hold Jasssper’s head in his hands. He began to walk around the embankment but then remembered. Blademan. He turned and saw the bubbles from Blademan’s lungs coming out from the lake.

  “Drat,” Kip said, “I’m so sorry, Jasssper. I have to quickly save him. Kip waded back into the water. He placed Jasssper down on a large leaf that was big enough to float over the mud and dove back in. He grabbed Blademan’s arm and pulled him out. Then propped hiss now petrified body up so that his torso was above the surface.

  “I’ll come back to deal with you later.” Kip said as he grabbed Jasssper and wrapped him around his neck and left.

  Azami had set a kettle of water on the fire and was reading a book called “All’s Fair In Love and Warts: A Witch X Goblin Romance” when a wrapping at her chamber door caught her attention. Azami said, “Swiff!” Her magic broom shot over to the window as Azami took out her wand. Swiff looked through the window and bounced on the floor two times.

  “Kip? And a snake?”

  Azami flicked her wand and her front door opened. Kip was standing there, gripping the snake in a large coil, breathing heavily. Both of them let blood from their wounds drip on the welcome mat right outside her place.

  “Good Lord, Kip!” Azami said, “What happened to you?”

  “Nevermind me, help Jasssper, please.”

  Azami stuck her wand out and sprayed them gently with water, cleansing them of excess mud and blood.

  “Lay him down on this table.”

  Kip walked in and laid Jasssper down. The court advisor was so long that both his head and tail were hanging off the table. Azami worked her magic. Using unguents to disinfect the wound and spells in her wand to close it up.

  Kip sat on the bench outside with his head in his hands, “Kip?” Azami called, “Kip, come in. Let’s have a look at you.”

  “Is Jasssper okay?”

  “He’ll be fine. The blade missed all the internal organs. Your snake friend is exceptionally good at getting stabbed. Now, let’s fix you up.”

  As Azami worked on Kip’s wounds, she asked for an explanation of the events. Kip recounted them as detached and unemotionally as he could, hoping that if he felt nothing at all he could evade the immense feelings of guilt and shame that swirled within him.

  “He told me not to,” Kip said, “He warned me. And he was correct. I should have trusted him.”

  “It was your call to make,” Azami said, “I’m sure he understood that.”

  “And it should have been me Blademan stabbed.” Kip shook his head as Azami waved her glowing wand over Kip’s wounds, “I feel like such an idiot.”

  “You will feel like an idiot at times,” Azami said gently.

  “Yeah, I was just hoping for a break, you know? As opposed to all the other times I feel like an idiot at this job.”

  Azami had finished healing Kip. Swiff came over with the hot kettle and poured Azami and Kip some tea, which Kip drank heartily.

  “I’m not sure how I can do this. People keep dropping at every turn. There isn’t enough… me to go around. And the challenges! I have to worry about threats from both outside this domain and within it! Good lord, Az… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

  “First thought, best thought,” Azami sat down next to Kip and looked out her window while she too sipped from her tea. She said, “What’s your greatest weakness?”

  “Strength. Strength, easily. I can not keep going up against these people and barely winning. I need to grow. I need to get stronger.”

  “You’re level four now, correct?”

  Kip opened up his scroll. He saw his normal stats. His strength stat had changed from 1 to 2.

  “It has gone up.” Kip whispered.

  “That’s good! You’ve been fighting a lot. Stronger enemies too. How do you feel?”

  “Weak.” Kip said, “Weaker than most.”

  He looked at his display, spending time looking through all the stats.

  “Wait… Azami… what’s this?”

  “Oh. That’s mighty interesting. Click on it.”

  Kip clicked on the tab with the big red 1 hovering over it. Normally it just meant for the Dark Lord to assign him to clean different traps. Since assuming the title, he hadn’t seen anything pop up. But there it was in bright bulky red letters

  “New Quest Available.”

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