Some ways down the river, a soggy goblin and a soggier mage scrambled up a muddy bank, chilled to the bone and covered in reeds and moss and even one small, slimy fish sliding out of the cavernous bulk of a batty goblin ear. Pickens was left behind, to whatever strange dichotomy they ran their world by.
Though wet and out of breath, Harriet and Guffin were already fighting again.
"Why did you just LET ME GO?!" the lady mage wailed. "They threw me out!"
"You left the place I knew how to protect us!" Guffin snarled back. "And I'm not running a rescue mission tired, wet, and on an empty stomach. AND it's not like you would do the same for me! I know you're going to get rid of me in Green Laurel when you find a better Chosen One!"
That shut Harriet up for a minute.
"Notice how I kept out of sight?" the goblin-beast spat. "Even I don't know what would have happened if I was spotted. They never come back. We're not sure if they turn you into one of them, or eat trespassers, or just throw them in the river..."
"You threw us in the river!"
"...with pocket rocks."
Guffin climbed to their feet, shaking out the horrible giant bag that seemed to have slowed them down not at all during the whole thing, dumping out a clattering heap of pots and pans, food, bedding, knick-knacks, bunched up clothes and socks, fish and river weed, rocks, bits and bobs, and enough water to slosh and splash over the heap and back into the river.
"There's all sorts of dangerous stuff out here," they continued explaining, breathy with cold and low on patience. "I'm doing this because I want to go on an adventure, and also because I think you're going to get killed. You got lucky stumbling into Pumpkintown."
"...thank you," Harriet grumbled finally, mostly towards the mud. Guffin heard anyway, and smirked.
It had thankfully stopped raining, but the river was swollen from all the passing storms over the past weeks. The goblin-beast shook out each item on its way back into their backpack, throwing fish and moss and water into the winds. Harriet perched against a tree, shivering, trying to wring out her robes bit by bit, and debated to herself whether it would be worth starting a fire this early in the morning.
"Fire isn't going to do much but hold us up," Guffin theorized out loud, making the mage jump. "A good walk will get warmer and dryer faster. Plus, all the wood is wet."
They weren't wrong. And the road is never too far from the river, around those hills.