Devil's tale

Devil's tale, Chapter 2

Roland sat in a rather comfortable cell with white, stone walls, a carpeted floor, a large bed and even a desk from which he could still work. Disbanding the Song-String college would take a lot of paperwork, after all. Next to all the paperwork on his desk, there were the projects of students who would have graduated. Roland now had the still sealed project of Avarice in his hands. He sighed, it had been hours and he still hadn't been able to bring himself to look at it. Roland slapped himself across the face and opened the rolled up project. He saw the title and his heart sank. "Ode to Roland, to those who got me this far." When the former headmaster read through the rest of the prose, he saw clear as day that the work had been dedicated to everyone whom Avarice felt had helped him along on his path to graduation. The piece mentioned Roland, Robert, Avarice's friends from school, and even an old woman named Greta whom Roland had never met. He let his head rest on his dest with a massive sigh. "Avarice you naïve child..." He murmured.

The sun was low on the horizon when Avarice finally spotted a village in the distance. He had been traveling for two days and two nights with almost no rest and entirely without food. The road he'd been walking down had gone mainly through green hills and lush forests, which had provided him plenty of places to hide from guards pursuing him. Seeing the houses ahead of him made his stomach growl loudly. The young devil walked onward, limping and tripping over himself thanks to his blurry vision and aching stomach. Every single muscle in his body seemed to be screaming at him to stop and rest, to just lie down in the dirt and let sleep take him. Avarice slapped himself in the face, just a few more minutes, he told himself.

After about ten more minutes of walking, a loud battle-cry suddenly cut through the evening air. Several small, green figures burst out of the trees around Avarice. The robbers all carried weapons, mostly long daggers or short swords, with a crossbow here and there as well. Their equipment had clearly seen better days and was a far cry from the pristine armour and arms Avarice was used to seeing back at the capital. The robbers were short, green, had long noses and ears, large heads, nearly no hair, and yellow eyes not dissimilar to Avarice's. These were goblins.

"Alright kid! Everything you got, on the ground, now! Yer fancy coat, yer money, all of it!" Said the oldest-looking Goblin, he looked about forty or so, with an extremely grumpy face. He was shorter than the rest of his party and brandished two daggers, one in each hand.

"Really? Goblin highwaymen? Here I am trying to avoid prejudice and I get attacked by walking stereotypes." Avarice sighed. He looked up towards the sky and asked. "Is this your way of punishing me? Because honestly, it's amusing, I won't lie."

"Um... kid? The people with the sharp-objects are here, not up there." Said the older goblin.

"What's a stereotype?" Asked one of the goblins.

"Doesn't matter what it is, as long as this kid-!" The older goblin slowly pressed his dagger against Avarice's leg. "As long as this kid empties his pockets."

Avarice looked down at the goblin and began to giggle, then he simply started laughing.

"You think this is funny?!" Hissed the older goblin, whom Avarice at this point assumed to be the leader.

"Yes, a little bit. I don't wish to demean your intelligence, but how much gold do you really think someone like me, covered in mud and dirt, with sunken eyes and a malnourished face, will really be carrying?" The minstrel asked.

"Everybody's got something! Now come on, hand over what you've got! You're still wearing that fancy coat, after all!"

"I'm afraid I'm not handing over my coat, and it's worthless to you anyhow. It's part of a student-uniform which can be found a dime a dozen in the capital, and even if you did take it from me, who would you sell it to? It has no value now that the college it came from has been disbanded."