The Gilded Getaway.

“Don’t talk to strangers,” Matron Gribble warned, thumping Gribnock on the back with a ladle crusted in turnip paste. “And if one offers you gold, it’s either cursed, fake, or about to explode.”

Gribnock nodded solemnly. He even repeated it back to her. “Don’t talk to gold, explode the curse, curse the fake—”

“Close enough,” she sighed.

Exactly twenty-three minutes later, he joined a gang of strangers who were planning a gold heist.

So really, he tried.

The plan was “flawless,” according to Gribnock the Green, who had drawn it on the back of a tax notice with mustard.

“Gentle-goblins,” he announced, balanced atop a barrel in a way that inspired neither confidence nor stability, “at dawn tomorrow, we strike the Golden Griffon Mint. Vaults so secure, even dragons can’t sneeze near them. But not us. We’re invisible. We’re brilliant. We’re borderline unemployed.”

“Still not sure why the goose is here,” muttered Snib.

“Because it’s terrifying and we can’t get rid of it,” Fizzsprock whispered.

The goose hissed.

There were five goblins. Six, if you counted the goose, and most did because it bit.

Gribnock the Green — ‘mastermind,’ recently promoted from ‘mild distraction.’

Snib — the muscle, shaped like a siege weapon, spoke in grunts and violence.

Fizzsprock — tunnel-digger, bomb-builder, frequent regret-haver.

Greep — thief, pickpocket, possessed the moral restraint of a raccoon on sugar.

Nack — did… things. No one was sure. He kept showing up.

They had a barrel of boom, a cart of sacks, a goose in a leather helmet, and absolutely no idea what they were doing.

They entered the Wyrmwick sewers at dawn, dragging tools, ropes, two loaves of bread labelled “EARPLUGS,” and a single lantern made from a candle inside a pickle jar.

Fizzsprock patted the wall beneath the mint vault. “One big bang, boys.”

“Please don’t say that again,” muttered Nack.

Gribnock drew a shaky breath. “This is it. The heist that makes history. The vault lies just beyond this wall. The guards are changing shift, the wards are off for maintenance, and the treasury is holding orientation drills this week.”

“Drills?” asked Greep.

“Doesn’t matter. Focus. Fizzsprock?”

The bomb goblin grinned and set his clay charge against the bricks. It was labelled “TRUST ME” in purple crayon.

Snib cracked his knuckles.

Nack handed everyone goggles made from broken bottles.

“LIGHTING!” Fizzsprock shouted, struck a match with his teeth, and—

BOOM.

Smoke cleared.

They stared into the vault.

Rows and rows of solid gold bars, neatly stacked in gleaming towers. Each glinted like a sunrise in a royal painting. It was glorious.

It was majestic.

It was unquestionably gold.

“By the damp trousers of Maglubiyet…” breathed Gribnock.

Then chaos.

Snib dove headfirst into the pile.

Fizzsprock wept and started stuffing sacks.

Greep kissed a bar and whispered, “Mine-mine-mine…”

Nack high-fived the goose. The goose bit him.

Gribnock climbed the tower of wealth, held up a bar like a prophet, and declared, “This is it! Wealth beyond dreams! Influence! Power! Cheese wheels that aren’t mouldy on purpose!”

Ten minutes later, they were gone—sacks full, limbs shaking, grinning like lunatics. Even the goose was dragging a bar behind it like a war trophy.

They returned to The Broken Blade, their hideout: a half-collapsed windmill that leaned like it owed money to gravity.

They dumped the gold in a pile in the middle of the floor. It sparkled. It shimmered.

Fizzsprock hugged one. “We did it.”

“We did it,” Gribnock repeated.

Snib tried to eat one.

Greep licked one.

Nack sniffed a bar and frowned. “Smells weird.”

“Smells like success,” said Gribnock.

“Smells like paint,” said Nack.

They needed a fence—someone who could move that much gold without questions or morals.

Enter Old Mother Clagg, who ran Wyrmwick’s black market out of a cursed bakery.

Clagg was famous for:

Cursing an entire wedding cake with measles. Selling bread that screamed. Turning a debt collector into a croissant.

They trusted her completely.

Gribnock marched in, gold bar in hand. “We’d like to cash in.”

Clagg sniffed the bar.

Then bit it.

Then, I dropped it into a bubbling pot of vinegar.

The paint peeled away, revealing dull grey metal stamped with a small “T.”

“What’s the ‘T’ for?” asked Nack.

“Training,” Clagg spat. “Dummy bars. Fake gold. For practice vaults. Worthless.”

Silence.

Greep made a sound like a dying teakettle and fainted.

Fizzsprock lit a match, considered eating it.

Snib cracked his neck and stared at the wall as it owed him money.

“We… we stole fake gold?” Gribnock asked.

Clagg leaned in. “You broke into the practice vault, genius. You know why no wards went off? Why did no guards chase you? You stole props. The real vault is on the third floor.”

They dragged their fake fortune back to the windmill. No one spoke. Even the goose was quiet.

They sat in a circle around the pile. The bars didn’t even glint anymore. One of them was already flaking.

“I licked one,” Greep said miserably.

“I hugged three,” Fizzsprock added.

“I named one Bartholomew,” muttered Snib.

Gribnock stood.

“This… this is fine,” he declared.

Nack blinked. “It is?”

“Yes!” Gribnock paced. “Think about it! We broke into the city’s mint. Made off with twenty sacks of something. No one caught us. No one’s even looking for us.”

“Because we stole garbage,” said Greep.

“Exactly! We failed so hard we succeeded!”

Fizzsprock lit a match. “I… I like that.”

“They’ll never suspect goblins,” Gribnock continued. “They’ll blame rival guilds. Shadow cults. Rogue illusionists. That weird noble who collects cheese knives. But never us.”

“We’re invisible,” Nack whispered.

“We’re idiots,” Greep muttered.

“We’re legendary idiots,” Gribnock corrected. “And now? Now we rest. Regroup. Plan our next move.”

Fizzsprock grinned. “Next time, we hit something real.”

Gribnock nodded. “A bakery.”

Everyone flinched.

“Not Clagg’s,” added Nack.

“Definitely not Clagg’s,” said Snib.

The goose hissed and flapped its wings.

Then, without warning, it hopped atop the pile of fake gold, flared its wings, and laid a single glowing egg.

They stared at it.

The egg shimmered faintly.

Fizzsprock leaned in. “Is it… gold?”

“No,” said Nack. “It’s… warm.”

“Is it magic?” asked Gribnock.

The egg hatched.

A tiny, angry gosling emerged—wearing a smaller version of the helmet.

It hissed.

Gribnock stepped back. “I think we just robbed ourselves into parenthood.”

The goose—now a mother—let out a triumphant honk and settled onto the gold pile.

Silence.

Then Greep whispered, “Can we train it to steal?”

Gribnock smiled.

Somewhere in Wyrmwick, guards were investigating the missing training bars. The vault supervisor blamed elves. The elves blamed the dwarves. The dwarves blamed budget cuts. A wizard was arrested for no apparent reason.

No one suspected five goblins and a goose.

In a broken windmill, surrounded by fake gold and a suspiciously militaristic gosling, the goblins began to plan again—louder, prouder, dumber than ever.

Because for goblins, even failure is treasure.