The rain did not stop that night.
Harriet refused to bathe in the "freezing cold goblin slop" of the open-air stone carving. Quite vehemently. Also loudly. In fact, once that refusal began, she had devolved into an incomprehensible amound of shrill and drippy wailing, lamenting everything from her assignment in hunting down the Chosen One and the absolute ridiculousness of goblins, all the way to one of her boots being laced a bit tighter than the other.
Guffin was not much better. Their ears pinned like an angry cat, still too damp to be wearing their clothes, and by morning nearly blue-grey from the cold, they packed in seething silence. Kicking rocks and bickering with voices raised, the pair packed up and trudged on into the road pointed vaguely in the direction of Green Laurel. The road was mostly mud, but heaped high and hiding twisting roots and sharp rocks. Mist rose as fast as the rain fell, and the cloud cover was so high that there wasn't much more light than dusk.
The rain still did not stop, and progress was minimal, and yet enough. The next way-marker was not another rock, but a rather crusty wooden sign propped up on bricks and surrounded my mostly-dead daffodils, half-dried and half-drowned.
The sign said "PICKENS"
"Which Pickens is it?" Harriet snarled in the direction of the goblin. "You haven't shut up for days, and I know there's Slim Pickins and Fat Pickens."
"It's both," Guffin snapped back. "Either side of the river. And we're going to Fat Pickens."
They pointed at a side of the river Harriet hadn't really considered. Pickens, rising up the next hill, looked remarkably nice, all things considered. Brick homes with wrought iron and sturdy timber, glowing lamps in glass windows with comfortable curtains. What Guffin had pointed at was on the nearer side, and harder to see in the already-gloomy twilight - piecemeal wood and string and half-rusted sheet metal, lit by candles or not at all, and absolutely strewn with heaps and piles of things one could only guess at. No smell rose in the pouring rain, which was nice, but the nicest things that could be heaped that way was leaves. A stone bridge crossed between, with a shadowy figure pacing back and forth.
"Must we?" the mage whined. "It's one thing to settle for the likes of Pumpkintown when there aren't other options, but look at all that..."
"On your own head be it," Guffin spat. "I'm going to Fat Pickens to dry off a little and get some food. You can join me or try your luck with the Skinnies."
Something in the goblin's tone hit a mark, and Harriet plodded silently in the rain behind the creature, who had taken her whining as an opportunity to whip out the ragged and still damp towel, wrapping it around their chilled skin like a poncho. Toes squelching in the mud, the pair approached the biggest building on the near side of the river. It wasn't tall around the edges; only two stories, but had a truly intimidating column rising high enough to cover the moon if the moon had been visible spiking out of the center of the roof. The sheet-metal outside walls were piled around with what turned out to be mostly food. Some was almost edible, and some was all but rotted away, and it all jumbled up together. Candlelight peeked around the edges of the rough wooden door, and faint music that was again not unlike the howl of the Pumpkintown Opry House, but without the screeching voices.
With only the slightest hesitation, not enough for Harriet to notice, the goblin knocked... once. Before the second landed, the door blew open, knocking Guffin to the ground, stuck to their backpack like a beetle, only narrowly missing the mage. In the doorway stood a massive, shaggy-haired, tall, bug-eyed, wart-faced, horned...
...troll.