Goblin

When Goblin lost her bearings
When the going gets TIFF, the TIFF get going.

Few could find where Goblin lived, except for the resident dragons. With their maps and compasses, with their GPS and sextants the old race of Rasterfarians could find any location. They were safe from attacks for ages by laying hidden in the creaks of the map.

Goblin was barely more than a hatchling when her life changed forever. She was flying the bounds of their territory, moving closer to the buffer than she ever had before. She no longer followed her normal route, she was off the part of the map that said ‘here be dragons’ but she was not afraid. Goblin was never afraid.
Ever since her father’s tracker stopped responding, since he was nowhere to be found, she had taken up providing for her family. She was one of the best hunters, brought home an elusive mapfish almost daily. Lately she had less success. She even had to bring home unscaled maps lately. She couldn’t do that again. Her family deserved better than unscaled maps.

Far off in the distance a small island appeared. There was not supposed to be an island here, she’d have to report it to the Rasterfarian elders. Better investigate first.
The island was desolate. No life at all, except for a couple of trees. Just as Goblin was getting ready to leave she heard something rustle in the trees. Black and white patches showed themselves, and two dark, not too bright looking eyes. Goblin could not believe her eyes. A wild Cow-tographer! With a cow-tographer she could provide Legend-dairy to her family for life!

Goblin slowly lay her claws on the animal. The cow-tographer did not appear to mind. She picked it up and flew. With a soft ‘MOOO’ it let her. Just as she was preparing to take the heavy burden to her home, Goblin realized it was getting dark. Better sleep here tonight.

Early the next morning a friendly ‘MOOOH’ woke Goblin. She took the cow-tographer and they were off. Time to go home.

As she got closer to home, Goblin sped up. The raster cells under her moved fast, so fast she didn’t notice anything wrong until it was too late.
The pixels under her were darker than they should be. The bright green of meadows had turned in the dark brown of bare soil. The red marking urban areas had made place for the grey of wasteland. It was only as she approached the cave marked ‘home’ on her map, that she noticed the cells were no longer square. Something was very wrong.

“Hello?”, Goblin called softly. For the first time since she remembered she was scared. “Anyone there?”
There was reply but the soft ‘MOOO’ from the cow-tographer. She had almost forgotten about it. She put it down and it ran off. Goblin didn’t care. There was something worse going on.
She went in her cave. She startled at a puddle of blood under her feet. Her mother lay there, and her siblings. She nosed them, but there was no more life in either of them. She shrieked. Even the eggs in the back of the cave lay rotten. What had happened? How could this happen so fast? She shrieked even louder.

Outside there was an answer. A loud, evil noise. Goblin knew she had to hide. What made this noise could not be friendly. And yet… she had to know.
She poked her head of the cave. The sky was darkened by a large dragon, larger than she had ever seen before. He was black as night, bigger than the sun and stars together and moved with a speed that should be impossible for anything this big. Although she had never seen anything like this before, Goblin knew him from her bedtime stories. This was a creature of legend, it should only exist in campfire tales. This was Darth Vector.

Goblin cursed herself for making a noise earlier. Darth Vector must have heard. How could she possibly flee with him chasing her? How could she ever hope to survive?

Darth Vector plummeted from the sky in a large dive. What was he attacking? Goblin could barely see he had anything in his claw when he came back up. Then she recognized the cow-tographer. Darth Vector looked at it, seemingly puzzled. Goblin didn’t doubt, not even for a second, but snuck off. Crawling and flying, running and digging, she managed to make her way back to the ocean. At least the ocean was still blue. At least the ocean was still what it was supposed to be.

Goblin flew off. Swearing revenge. One day. When she was big enough. Revenge for her mother. For her brothers and sisters. Revenge for the cow-tographer. She flew three days without a break. Then she rested a night.
She flew over the buffer, where she never was supposed to go. She flew to lands never mapped before. And she mapped everything she saw. Eventually she came to the edge of the Viridian Labyrinth and she collapsed. When she woke up, she found herself surrounded by a new clan. She would live here, for a while. At least until the day she could take on Darth Vector.

Goblin keeps mapping the world to this day, maybe because as a rasterfarian it is all she knows. Or maybe because she hopes to find something, somewhere, that can help her defeat her mortal enemy.

And if you find a map, and it is not signed. If it is a good map, with a legend, and a north arrow and a fitting scale, but there is no signature anywhere, you might want to look for a tiny print. Because possibly, just possibly, somewhere you will find the text ‘Rasters rule!’ and you’ll know you have a map made by Goblin, the last rasterfarian.