The first thing I felt was pain. A deep, throbbing ache in my skull, like I’d been thrown into a vortex and spun until my body forgot which way was up. I tried to open my eyes—blinding light. My head pounded harder in protest. Maybe I should just go back to sleep… probably Tama’s fault anyway.

  My breath caught. The memories crashed into me like a tidal wave. I bolted upright, ignoring the stabbing pain as I reached for my head. My fingers brushed over something dry and caked onto my scalp. Blood? Dirt? Both?

  I forced my eyes open again, this time letting them adjust. Bars. Sturdy, wooden. A cage. My heart pounded. I had to find Tama. She had to be okay.

  I remembered the previous night—I had tried to run, to leave everyone behind. It was true that I wasn’t thinking clearly, but the shame still sat heavy in my chest.

  I hadn’t even considered Tama. On one hand, I knew she would have been fine. On the other hand, I had abandoned her without hesitation.

  I thought bitterly as I managed to climb to my feet.

  I took a step toward the edge of the cage and stepped on something soft. I looked down and saw Tera. She was lying on her back, her head tilted to the side. Caked blood and dirt clung to her temple.

  I leaned in and pressed my hand against her chest, holding my breath until I felt the steady rise and fall. Relief washed over me. She was alive. Battered, torn clothes, but alive.

  I scanned the rest of the cage. No Tama. No Rylan. My pulse quickened. Maybe they had escaped?

  “Nya! You’re awake! Tama is so happy Saki is alive!”

  The voice rang out, far too loud for my aching head, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I turned toward the sound, and there she was—Tama, standing just outside my cage. Next to her was a small goblin, one of the lesser ones.

  Tama looked down at the goblin, arms crossed impatiently. “Open the cage! Your chief said so too!”

  The goblin scowled. “Quit yer yapping, girly. I know what my chief said, and I’m working on it. Go be a pest somewhere else!”

  I stood frozen, my brain struggling to process what I was seeing. Tama… was talking to the goblins? Like it was nothing?

  The little goblin fumbled with a ring of keys, muttering under his breath as he tried each one. Finally, with a soft click, the door to our cell swung open.

  I gaped at Tama and the goblin, every instinct screaming at me to stay put. Was this a trap? A trick? Or had Tama truly found a way to talk to them?

  “Nya! Good Goblin, now go tell Grok for medical supplies, my friends are hurt!” Tama said in a lighthearted playful tone.

  There was a moment of silence as the goblin stared at her, and then, without another word, he turned and walked toward a large tent.

  The moment he was gone, Tama’s expression shifted. The cheerful energy melted away, replaced by fear and sorrow.

  “Saki, it’s terrible…” she began, her voice trembling. “The goblins have created a massive horde to fight the undead lich! Tama tried to warn them against this, but they wouldn’t listen! They say the lich must pay for his crimes against their people…”

  “Wait, wait, wait, hold up! How are you talking to goblins!?” I said, my voice incredulous, my headache forgotten in the insanity of what I was seeing.

  Tama tilted her head at me and her ears perked up as her tail wagged. “Tama is friends with this goblin tribe. They are from the Trelloark Forest, known as the Grub’tera Tribe. Their chief is a big softie, he talks all big, but Tama knows him well!”

  “Knows.. him… well…” I was struggling to get the words out. Of course Tama knew a tribe of goblins and was friends with them! why not! Hopefully her pet dragon can come save us next! and we can all fly to the lich and have an epic battle where friendship wins!

  The thought actually caused Saki to pause, “Tama, do you know any dragons?” The question felt stupid as soon as it left my lips and my cheeks flushed. But Tama’s response floored me.

  “Only the ones to the north of Trelloark, They sometimes visited, Mantheria is very friendly. She doesn’t like the goblin’s though!”

  I had no words, I just stared open mouth at Tama as she continued on about the lich and the goblins. As she spoke, I slowly gathered my wits. This was Tama, I had to remember she was far from normal. Though to be fair, that was coming from me, whose true form was a nine-feet tall white haired kitsune fox with nine massive tails.

  Then it hit me, was I part of Tama’s menagerie of mythical creatures?! Was all of this just her claiming me as part of her esoteric ‘mythical beast friendship’ collection? The thought actually caused me to chuckle.

  “Saki! it’s not funny! You have to help tama convince Grok That fighting the lich is suicide for him and his entire tribe!” Tama seemed urgent as she spoke, rolling on the balls of her feet, her ears perked up. She held her tail in her hands and was slowly rubbing it.

  I considered her words for a moment before asking “I mean, the goblin army is massive Tama, they might be able to overwhelm the lich with just pure numbers.”

  It was a falsehood, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the amount of goblins was irrelevant, they would just add to that thing’s armies.

  It seemed Tama understood that as well as she gave me a pleading look before saying “The undead already killed my sensei, I don’t want them to kill Grok too!”

  I froze, Tama had given many revelations in the last two weeks since I met her. Many of them were insane and fantastical. But what she had just said made my veins run cold and a shiver run down my spine.

  “What…” Was all I managed to get out before I felt my body going numb. I stumbled back, my breathing sped up as I began hyperventilating.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  There had to be some error, some mistake. Perhaps Tama was mistaken, maybe she had heard someone say it and believed it.

  Even as I thought these I knew they weren’t true. Tama would never make something up or just outright believe someone if they told her something like that. Still, I had to know.

  “Tama” I croaked out, my voice sounding distant “What do you mean, your sensei is dead” my voice sounded foreign to my own ears, like what I heard wasn’t reality.

  There was no answer, Tama just stood there, tears in her eyes as she looked at me with sincerity. After a moment she spoke “Please Saki, Tama doesn’t want Grok to die too,Tama is tired of her friends being hurt.”

  A memory flooded me, my siblings dead in front me. I swallowed and forced myself to calm down. I wouldn’t let them win, I would never let them win.

  “Of course Tama, let’s go find Grok, and talk to him. We can come up with a plan.” I said, my voice neutral and distant. I didn’t feel like making a plan, I didn’t even feel like breathing. But I would sooner let the void consume me then let everything I have worked for go to waste.

  Grok would not suddenly change his mind, But he might allow a tactician to help lead their army in battle. Tama forgive me, I would get my revenge for what that monster did to my family.

  “We can’t stop the goblin army Tama” I said quietly. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak but I held up a hand. “But, we can stay and help them with everything we have.”

  Tama looked into my eyes for a long moment before a look of determination crossed her face “Nya! We will kill the Lich Saki!” She said in a tone full of confidence I did not feel.

  “Indeed Tama, Indeed.” I said weakly. My head throbbed weakly as my headache came back to me. I sighed as I looked back at Tera. She was still passed out on the ground.

  Turning back to Tama I asked “By the way, where is Rylan?” I tilted my head slightly in curiosity.

  Tama paused for a moment before looking sheepish. “Well, Rylan said he wanted to see the arena” She put her hands behind her back as her cheeks flushed red. “Tama was watching him fight earlier.” Her tail swished back and forth as her eyes grew distant, clearly recalling a memory. “The way his belly bounces when he swings” She giggled and began rubbing her legs together.

  The thought of a shirtless Rylan fighting a bunch of goblins came to my mind and I instantly felt sick. Seriously, what was with Tama and her choice of men? Maybe Talia was right, she truly took after her sensei that was for sure!

  I looked over right as a few goblins came up carrying bandages and wrapping along with healing salves. I stared, impressed at the goblins ability to actually have healing items. Sure they didn’t have potions, but the mere fact they even had bandages amazed me.

  They were very skilled with them too, then again they probably had a lot of practice. So it didn’t seem insane with all the fighting they did. Just to be snarky, I told them Tera needed to be naked to heal.

  The goblins didn’t care either way and just undressed Tera. I was actually impressed she stayed asleep the whole time. I turned to Tama, only to see she was gone.

  I wondered where she went for a moment. Then the memory of Rylan shirtless returned and I had a feeling I knew exactly where she went as well as the sudden desire to empty my stomach.

  Once Tera was naked and bandaged, I told the goblins it was very important that when she woke up, no matter what she said, to NOT give her her clothes back and tell her I had them.

  With a mischievous grin I asked the nearest goblin where the Chieftain was and headed off in that direction. I found the large tent quickly and to my surprise, the guard just let me in.

  Grok was a large goblin, he looked more like a green muscular midget than a goblin. He stood in the tent next to a poorly made table, a piece of paper on the table looked like a map drawn with crayons.

  I idly remembered the one traveller that brought crayons to the world. She was apparently so upset that we all used quills to write and invented pens, pencils, and crayons. I never understood why.

  But I had learned early on it was best not to question travellers. Especially the ones who said things like “Isekai” and “Yes, I can live my fantasy life now”.

  The latter usually died early on as an adventurer repeatedly before giving up and becoming a farm or something.

  The former usually wanted to do anything but adventuring, claiming they weren’t that stupid. Only to end up stuck in a party of attractive men and women, many of whom they slept with!

  “Immortality truly is lost on the ignorant and stupid. Still, I'd rather be ignorant and immortal than smart and dead.” I said under my breath before considering my words. “Actually no, Dying more than once sounds like something I would never want.”

  Grok looked up at me and called out “ Who is you!” He pointed a half used crayon at my face.

  Great… I thought, another dumb goblin. I considered my words before responding. “I am Tama's friend, Saki. I believe she might have mentioned me?”

  Knowing Tama, she definitely would have mentioned me. So I went the obvious route.

  “Oiy! Yer the smartest person she knows! I remember ya. She said yer da bestest smart lady who can do smart things wit your mind.” Grim smiled, showing multiple missing teeth and waved for me to come closer.

  I really didn't want to, but it was better to play nice with this thing. I walked over and he wrapped me in a hug before pointing at the map. “Dis here our battle map! It tell us where enemies is so we can kills them!”

  I was still recovering from the smell coming off the goblin. He smelled like old sweat socks (Another lovely isekai invention).

  I made a point to smile at Grok before looking more closely at the map. Despite it being in crayon, it was actually quite impressive. They seemed to have the entire surrounding region mapped out. Though most of the areas were misspelled such as ‘da Kingsdum of Trissle’. I inwardly rolled my eyes.

  It reminded me of when I first met Tama. She had called it the ‘Kingdom of Arissaile”. I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but she was a bit of an airhead. both figuratively and literally.

  I leaned in to study the map when I suddenly heard a loud squeal. It was so loud, my ears instinctively flattened to the sides of my head, and I winced in pain. If that wasn’t bad enough, the sound that came after it, I was like ninety-nine percent sure caused my ears to bleed.

  “Jiggles!!!” Tama’s voice rang through the entire area like someone had put an amplification spell on her and maxed it all the way up. But I knew better, This was just Tama.

  I looked at the goblins, but none of them seemed bothered or surprised by this. One even just picked his nose and ate it, causing me to throw up in my mouth a little.

  I stood from leaning over the table, I was pretty sure it was going to fall apart any second if I didn’t anyways.

  Then I walked over to the tent flap and opened it, just in time for a large boar almost as big as me rammed into me full force, sending me flying back out the back of the tent, and through another one! The force of that one hit was enough to make my vision swim and my eyes water.

  I was lucky its tusks hadn’t hit me, if they had I would have been dead for sure. I managed to weakly climb to my feet, grabbing a stick, I managed to use it as a walking stick to the nearest goblin. “You, go get me medical gauze, I think I have internal bleeding” I said weakly.

  He just stared at me and I sighed “Medicine, now dumb goblin!” I said louder and with more authority, causing my chest to hurt. The goblin quickly scrambled away from me towards the medical tent.

  The boar appeared in the hole I had made when I tore through the back of the goblin chiefs tent. I readied myself for its charge, Bracing and creating a small earth wall and some earth armor. Both drained me pretty badly, but I should be able to regenerate quickly enough.

  The boar charged at me, it slammed right through my earth stone wall like it was freaking paper. I panicked, but before it could reach me, the boar suddenly jumped to the side. I didn’t understand why for a moment before a familiar voice spoke. “Bad Jiggle! Don’t attack Tama’s friends!”

  I looked to see that he had not jumped to the side, rather. Tama had tackled the damn boar to the ground and was wrestling him. That's when a haunting memory returned. Tama had mentioned this particular boar before. She had called him Jiggle and mentioned wrestling with him a few times.

  I watched as Tama, only in a bra and underwear again. I am not even going to question where her clothes went, proceeded to wrestle a boar into submission using nothing but spurts of water and her blink.

  A boar I might add, that was bigger than either of us and was quite possibly the largest boar I had ever seen in my entire life.

  I sighed as I watched Tama climb to her feet, Jiggle now on the floor panting. Ignoring them both, I made my way back to the goblin chief’s hut. Today was going to be a long day.