Week 2 Story: The Goblin City

The island of Ceylon was once refuge and home to a great and noble civilization. Centuries ago the merciful fairy race rescued a ship of refugees from the clutches of death as they were ambushed by hoards of goblin warriors. Although the goblins were ferocious and driven, they were too hot headed to see that they were sailing to their demise. The goblins knew that contact with the water seething below them would mean certain death, as they were crude creatures of mud and would fall apart when submerged, but they were too vicious and blood thirsty to care. Besides that, waiting in the dark caves just west of the island of Ceylon were the hungry she-goblins, who were even more cunning and dangerous than their male counterparts, and the warriors knew that the fate awaiting them if they failed was far worse than that of a watery grave.

The fairies were good and caring creatures that had vowed to defend creatures of light and so, by harnessing their nature magic, they called the waves under the refugee boat to the protective shore of Ceylon. Knowing that the goblins would not give up their pursuit, they used their magic once again to bend the wind around the refugee boat, rendering it invisible before fashioning an identical ship out of mist to set so sail away from the island. When the goblins had followed this ruse far enough from the islands shore, the fairies willed the sea into a ragging storm that tore the Goblin ships asunder as easily as if they were made of paper.

The fairies welcomed the newcomers to their island and treated them as equals, imparting their knowledge of magic down and imbuing staffs and orbs with power so that they could harness the fairies gifts for their own. For a time, with the combined strengths of the fairy and human races, the vengeful goblins were unable to harm anyone and grew weak from their hunger. During this period civilization on Ceylon flourished and all who lived there felt no harm could come to them so long as they remained on the island.

Unfortunately for them, the she-goblins hadn't given up yet, but merely changed strategies. Realizing that they could never take on the sea and the island nation at once, they used their own dark magic to twist themselves to the likeness of a human. Although it was clearly an illusion close up, from a ship they knew it would be enough to trick the good and compassionate fairy race.

The remaining goblins pulled planks from their ship so that it would slowly fill with water and set off on a perilous journey to the island of Ceylon, knowing that with their false identities, the good people of the island wouldn't be able to watch them die. 

And so it was that when their sinking ship was spotted, the fairies had pity on them and guided them on the waters to their shore. When safely docked, the goblins leaped from the ship and set fire to the island. Without the protection of their watery border, human and fairy alike were no match for the fiery hunger that burned in the pits of the goblins stomachs. The humans were rounded up and cast into a dungeon and only a single fairy escaped. Using the tools the fairies had fashioned for their human counterparts, the goblins shrouded themselves in beauty, and cast a mirage over the island in order to lure unsuspecting ships to their dinner table, and waited for their next meal.

This is sort of how I imagined Ceylon looking

Author's Note:

I found the story "The Goblin City" to be a well written tale with a good line of action, however, I felt that there were lots of unanswered questions that led up to the events of the original tale. For this reason, I chose to write a sort of prelude to the tale I read.

Bibliography Goblin City