Gate Marshal: A Tale of Magic, Machines, and Inter-Dimensional Adventure

Chapter 2: Spore Goblins

A calm silence filled the woods, broken only but the crumble of gravel beneath the wheels of a very old Mercedes-Benz station wagon.

Ahead along the gravel road was the remains of a Ford Explorer perforated with bullet holes, its windows all but denuded of glass and its tires deflated. Parked beside this, in far better condition, was a Chevrolet Blazer painted in a dull olive color with a large Hello Kitty decal applied slightly haphazardly to the driver side door. Seated on the ground nearby was a man in a green commando sweater. One sleeve was rolled up, and squatting beside him was a skinny woman in her late twenties, who was gently applying a bandage to his forearm. The woman had short violet colored hair cut with an undershave and was dressed in a black tank top and pair of woodland pattern camouflage pants. Like the man beside her she wore a satchel slung over one shoulder along with an old German G43 battle rifle, and well worn CZ-75 pistol riding prominently on her hip.

The Mercedes slowed to a halt behind the other two vehicles. The driver side door popped open and a man stepped out. He was in his late 50s, and had a slightly grizzled and musty sort of air about him, with salt and pepper colored hair and a closely cropped beard. He wore heavy grey slacks with an old brown blazer, the latter of which barely concealed a .44 Magnum Smith and Wesson Model 29 revolver. As the newcomer approached, he addressed the man in the green sweater.

"You alright, Donovan?"

The man in the green sweater shrugged.

"I caught a couple bullet fragments, but otherwise I'm fine. I'd be much worse if spore goblins could actually hit anything."

The young woman beside him snorted.

"Just stop, alright? It's not funny, you could have been killed just now."

"Yeah, but I wasn't, which makes me happy. Ouch!"

"Just hold still, will you?"

"You did that on purpose, didn't you Willow?"

"Maybe I did. Just shutup until I finish, ok?"

"Fine. You talk to Larry, and I'll just pretend I'm not here."

The newcomer coughed reproachfully. His name was Laurence and for some reason he had always hated it when people called him Larry, but at his age he felt it was better to let these little things go, especially since Donovan was probably doing it on purpose.

"So, where are they?", he asked instead.

The woman named Willow jerked her head in the direction of the wood.

"They're all in a pile over there. Seamus and I pulled the bodies out of the woods. We're pretty sure we found all of them."

"Did you use gloves?"

"Uh, maybe we did."

Laurence sighed, and stepped over to the place Willow had indicated.

Piled on the road were the bodies of five small creatures lying together in a heap, each between three and five feet tall, with long pointed ears and pale-green colored skin covered in green and white mold and grown all over with small mushrooms and shelf fungi. Next to the collection of corpses was a stack of primitive looking submachine guns. Stooping down with a grunt Laurence retrieved one of the weapons and examined it.

The firearm was crude in every respect, clearly made mostly by hand with hardly a straight line to be found anywhere outside the bore. That being said, it appeared to be surprisingly robust and functional, with halfway decent rifling and a remarkably well made magazine (all things considered). There was no possibility that Spore Goblins could have created such a sophisticated device, not under normal circumstances at any rate.