Goobdwib and Fernfrick, who'd been quietly wrestling to be kneeling in front of the other, finally stopped, both looking up in wonder and crying, "What?!"

The dwarf stood up, thoughtlessly helping the elf up, saying, "But ye can't mean that. There's still so much more good we—ye can do out there!"

Fernfrick dusted his robes off, "Yea, the dwarf has a point, for once."

Grinless growled, "Me no wanna do good! Not never, not no more. Me goblin. Me want go and do goblin things. So, me go home." With that he stomped off.

The elf and dwarf looked at each other, saying, "But what about us? What shall we do?"

Grinless called from the brush, "Me no care!"

Shortly after Grinless was all packed up. Unsure what else to do, both elf and dwarf did the same. Krigga hastily cleaned his face of blood and hid the bird bodies to join the others, asking, "What we doos now? Where we go, boss-buddy?"

Grinless hoisted his pack and grumped, "Home!"

Krigga froze in momentary surprise, a small beetle crawling over his pale, unfeeling eyes—the dwarf and elf shuddered—then he said, "OK. But, um..." Krigga racked his pickled brain. He felt there was something important that he and Grinless were forgetting, like how Grinless had been told not to bother coming back, but instead he said, "How we gets there?"

Grinless stopped. He realized, though he wouldn't admit it, that his sense of direction was horrible and he had no idea how to get back. Fernfrick and Goobdwib looked at each other hopefully, the glean of adventures still possible in their eyes.

Into the silence Krigga went on, "You want long way back, or short?"

All eyes turned to the mostly blind goblin.

Grinless began uncertainly, "You-you know way back?"

Krigga, peering up and away into the trees, not at anyone else, said, "Sure! Me scent boggy bog and misty woods from many ways away. Never forget them smells. So: long or short ways?"

Grinless said, "Short ways."

Krigga shrugged, grabbed for his pack where it wasn't until Fernfrick slid it into hands, and said, "OK. Follows me."

Then Krigga walked into a tree.

The others looked at each other worriedly.

Krigga shook himself, scratched his head, then walked around it, "C'mon!"

So, the possibly-last journey of their little group began. Despite Krigga's blindness and occasional spatial challenges, he did appear to be on a path to… somewhere. They passed many sights and landmarks beautiful and wondrous, all lost on the unseeing Krigga and the determined Grinless. The latter goblin ignored any and all travelers and any situation that could possibly contain accidental heroics. Sometimes he succeeded. Sometimes he failed, to Goobdwib and Fernfrick's pride and joy. But mostly they just went at a hard pace.

Passing a narrow mountain trail, they went by a fissure thru which they saw red glowing magma—a dormant volcano. Fernfrick paused to admire it saying, "Liquid rock, unborn future stone and mountain formations. one day they'll form new landscapes, support new life-"

Goobdwib butted in with a lecture on igneous versus other rocks and their cycles, so Fernfrick interrupted, "Then again, I've always found forest life more interesting..." and brushed past the dwarf, knocking loose stones into the crevasse.

The group moved on, but the falling rocks created a domino effect of spillage, turning into an internal avalanche dislodging boulders, until whole shelves of stone cracked and fell into the lava below. The magma steamed and bubbled furiously, began rising as something deep within stirred. For days the lava rose, the mountain vibrating imperceptibly, until it became a steady and notable tremor. Days after, when Grinless and company were on a valley path back-dropped by said mountain, the shaking became a loud, quaking rumble, the mountain erupting with smoke and fire.

The group turned back to watch curiously, except for Krigga, who looked off to the left of the mountain with sightless eyes.

"Huh," said Goobdwib, "Dinnae think that mountain was so close to erupting."

Fernfrick cast sly eyes at the him, "Oh, ye knew not? Even I thought it's peace nigh to its end."

Before an argument could fully begin, Grinless said, "Whatever, go on," turned and continued on. The dwarf and elf followed reluctantly, offering suggestions of warning local villages and helping with evacuation. But it was to deaf goblin ears (truly they were partly deaf; the grueling pace left little time for ear-wax figure making, so the wax continued to build up and he was having trouble hearing things). Yet Grinless, like the others, felt if not heard the even bigger explosion of the mountain falling away as something pushed and pulled its way free from the lava in which it had slumbered for eons.

A massive being, golden rocky skin, cavernous face, glowing orange eyes, and huge uneven horns on its head, emerged from the mountain remains, smoke and fire sweating from its body. It stretched and yawned a roar, before rumbling in a rockfall voice, "I awake! I, Titanomog, have slept with the earth, but now hunger. Hunger for destruction and devouring the lives of insects I've heard building their petty empires thru my dreams. None shall escape my wrath. None shall stop me. Tremble before my power, puny ones!"