The town veterinary surgeon lived with her family in a cottage on the edge of town. Her home was surrounded by barns of sleeping sheep who jumped in fright as Nanoc barged past them, humming loudly. The sun was rising over the forest, casting long shadows through the leaves. Morning. The perfect time to kill a vampire. Nanoc was smiling; Dren was not.

  “Can you explain the plan to me again, please?” Dren asked, worried. “There are bits I don’t feel I fully understand.”

  “We kill everyone,” Nanoc said.

  “And then we steal everything and run away,” Rotcel ‘Loc added.

  “Do you know, that’s the same plan we always use,” Dren said patiently. “And while it is a good plan and does generally work—”

  “It’s a great plan, and it always works,” Nanoc said confidently.

  “It didn’t work with the landfish,” Rotcel muttered, looking greener than ever.

  “We don’t talk about that,” Dren continued, glaring at his friend.

  “In this case I was asking about the details. First, we have to defeat the army of ghouls and ghosts, then fight the giant bone monster Nanoc told us of, and finally, defeat the vampire himself. And your plan for this is to—”

  “Wait,” Nanoc said, stopping suddenly. “What is that?”

  A wall of gnomes was waiting for them outside the vet’s cottage. The gnomish revolutionaries, Lrac and Xram, were standing at the head of the other gnomes. It was a mob, although the gnomes were far too quiet, stood in neat lines, and were too gnomish to be threatening. A few had brought weapons, but most only held rulers, books, and pens. The whole village was there: the young, the old, the short, the shorter. They stood nervously, shuffling their feet, but they did not run away.

  “Are you… going to attack us?” Dren asked. He wasn’t worried, merely collecting data.

  The gnomes looked at each other, then at their feet, then at the sky, and finally at their leaders.

  “We have come to help you defeat the vampire,” Lrac said loudly. “We’ve had enough of living as his slaves.”

  “Yeah!” Xram shouted. “Let us fight in solidarity today that we might live in utopia tomorrow! As long as we don’t die!”

  A hundred gnomes cheered, but quietly, so that the vampire didn’t hear them. Lrac had spent the night telling them of Nanoc’s adventures, and Nanoc’s bravery had inspired them – they had never thought a gnome could be so bold or so dangerous (or so sweaty). They envied him. He had breathed onto the embers hiding in their souls, re-igniting the fires of rebellion that nobody, not even the gnomes, had known were still burning. These were the flames of courage, the flames of Chaos herself, that still burned in the the heart of every mortal despite Order’s best efforts. One of Chaos’s great gifts to the mortals was that every single one of them, no matter how humble, could get angry. Even gnomes. After years of serving the vampire, the rage they had suppressed for so long was finally bubbling up and boiling over.

  And so the impossible had become inevitable: the gnomes had gathered together to fight.

  “Well, not to fight, obviously,” Xram said nervously. “While the revolution most wholeheartedly supports such endeavors against the oppressors, we aren’t ourselves willing to be involved in them, or at least not yet.”

  This was a common problem with revolutions: the philosophy was willing, but the flesh was scared. Could anyone blame them? The gnomish villagers were small, and mostly too cowardly to get into a fight. Despite their fear, they had at least gathered to watch Nanoc fight, and maybe offer a few shouts of encouragement from a safe distance away. That was immense bravery, for a gnome. Nanoc was proud of them.

  He turned to to address the crowd.

  “Everyone thinks that gnomes are weaklings, cowards, no good for anything except doing paperwork or assembling clocks,” Nanoc shouted.

  Taunt failed!

  You thought you’d make them angry by insulting them… instead, they just agree with you.

  The gnomes were all nodding, as were Dren and Rotcel. It was true; everyone thought that about gnomes, even the gnomes themselves. That would have to change. Nanoc paused, considering his next words.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “But gnomes can be more than that,” Nanoc said, speaking slowly. “We can choose our own paths! We can be anything we want to be! I’m the universe's only clerk-barbarian double class, and if I can do that, you can do anything!”

  This statement was met with looks of disbelief. A gnome, choosing their own path? Unheard of. Madness. Those were the words of Chaos, and every gnome of any sense knew to be scared of such things. Yes, Nanoc had done the impossible, but he was unique, a gnome set apart. The other gnomes didn’t think they could ever be like him.

  But they could. All he needed to do was convince them. That would take a miracle, but luckily Nanoc knew just where to find one. There had to be some advantage of carrying around a magical fruit, after all.

  “Tough crowd. Can I get a little help here?” Nanoc muttered to the banana in his belt.

  It buzzed.

  New skill: Dramatic speech!

  Using your words rather than your fists might sound like an unusual strategy for a barbarian, but this charisma-based skill can give a huge boost to your allies.

  A boost that they really, really need.

  Nanoc tried again, this time using his new Dramatic speech! ability. He was louder this time, his words landing with more impact.

  “For as long as anyone can remember, the vampire has stolen your daylight hours to feed his factories and given you nothing for your nights but terrors and fear!” he said, dramatically.

  His words made the gnomes shout in anger, their little faces turning red. Nanoc smiled; this was more like it.

  “You tell yourselves that evil won’t look your way if you just mind your own business, but that’s not true, is it? Evil is here now, and you cannot pretend otherwise! The vampire has taken your friends, your freedom, your future! I say we take them back! Who is with me?”

  “Yeah!” Xram shouted.

  “Yeah?” another gnome said, with less certainty, then changed to “Yeah!”

  “Yeah? Yeah! Down with the vampire!”

  “Down with the vampire!”

  The mob took up the chant, their words gaining volume and rhythm as they became more confident. They fell out of line, grabbed shovels and hammers to replace their pens and rulers, jumped and yelled, and became a proper mob.

  “Do you know, I never thought I’d see the day that gnomes would stand up for themselves,” Dren shouted over the noise.

  “They’re all going to die,” Rotcel ‘Loc grumbled, then brightened up. “They’ll make a great distraction, though. The vampire will be so busy killing them that he won’t even notice us escaping.”

  “Down with the—wait, what did the lizardling say?” demanded a nearby gnome, suddenly timid.

  Nanoc kicked Rotcel in the leg and said, “She said that the vampire will be so busy being killed that he won’t even notice you escaping?”

  The gnome nodded. “Kill the vampire!” he yelled.

  “Nanoc!” shouted a voice. “Nanoc! Is there a gnome here that goes by the name of Nanoc?”

  A tall, skinny orc in a black business suit ran up to the gnomes. He had a cardboard folder filled with papers tucked under one arm and three drops of sweat already working their way down his green face.

  “Who are you?” Nanoc demanded.

  “I’m a lawyer,” the orc said nervously. “I represent the Guild of Botanists. Your grandmother is suing them regarding misleading use of the word ‘berry,’ and I was just hoping—”

  Nanoc just shook his head. “Not now! We’re about to storm the manor house!”

  They reached the manor house, the gnomes marching together as the world’s least scary mob. Despite the hour, they must have been seen on the way. The ghouls were waiting for them. The undead had formed up in a messy pool of bodies in front of the manor house. They stood, gibbering and hungry, pointing eagerly at Nanoc. There were hundreds of them. The gnomish villagers shrunk back, the tiny flicker of courage burning in their hearts suddenly at risk of dying. Only the orcish lawyer seemed unworried – he drew out a pocket watch, looked at it, and sighed.

  “Do you know,” Dren said slowly. “There are quite a lot of ghouls there, Nanoc. “If I had to count, I would say… far too many?”

  “Nah,” Nanoc said.

  “Nah?” Dren repeated, confused.

  “Well…. Yeah, that’s a lot of ghouls, but can you ever really have too many people at a party. I wonder if they like beer?”

  “What? Why would you—”

  Nanoc clicked his fingers.

  A high pitched deee deee deee, dooo dooo doo sounded out above them. Rotcel, who knew the sound well, grinned. Ghouls and gnomes looked about uncertainty, and the orcish lawyer frowned at the high-pitched sound. The deee dooo was replaced with deedeedoodododoo and then, finally, doododoo.

  “Wait for it,” Nanoc warned the gnomes. “Wait for it.”

  “Wait for what?” a gnome called out. “What is that? Is it a bird? Is it a dragon? Is it… a stone inn made in the renaissance style with demonic flourishes?”

  It was. The Innstant fell from the sky right into the ghouls. A broad flagstone was the first to land, falling right onto a ghoul and squashing it flat. This was followed by several more flagstones that hammered the ghouls, then a set of bricks that formed a wall around the beasts, protecting their escape. There were thuds and moans as the Innstant assembled itself on top of the ghouls. A few of the undead creatures managed to run, but they were knocked out by falling pots of plants. The roof dropped on with the clunk-thunk tunk of tiles, and every window and door burst open simultaneously.

  “Can you smell that? I think Reeb’s been baking,” Nanoc said, pleased.

  There was nothing left of the ghoul army except a few groans and a lot of cursing. The mob of gnomes, brave in the face of an enemy that was already defeated, rushed forward to finish off the survivors.

  Nanoc walked in through the front door of the Innstant and walked out the back door a moment later, a pie in one hand and a human-sized axe in the other. He surveyed the chaos of the gnomes fighting the ghouls with a broad smile of approval.

  “Good,” he called out. “Good. Now, see if you can steal their wallets while they’re down.”

  The ghouls were defeated. The vampire awaited.

  Nanoc walked towards the manor house.