The air in Gibbering Gorge had the specific, cloying dampness of a towel left in a bag for a fortnight. A low, miserable mist coiled around Sir Reginald Pifflington's greaves, making the polished steel look as dejected as he felt. Across the squelching expanse of mud and moss stood Gormless, the Goblin King — a creature who looked like a root vegetable left in a cellar to contemplate poor life choices.
For three days, the King's First Regiment had been exchanging volleys of insults and, occasionally, arrows with the goblins. Now was the moment of truth. Reginald, astride his long-suffering steed Binky, raised a gauntleted hand. This was it. The moment that would be recounted in tapestries.
He filled his lungs with the peaty air. "Gormless! You have pillaged our lands for the last time! Surrender now, or face my righteous fury!"
The armor, a magnificent suit of plate known as the Mark III "Proclamator" Series Battle-Chassis, whirred with arcane energy. The Vociferous Intent Magnifier™ kicked in, its runes glowing with sickly chartreuse light. And then, it bellowed a voice a hundred times louder and a thousand times more certain than Reginald's own.
"GUMBALLS! YOU HAVE PILATES MY LAMBS FOR THE LAST TIME! SURRENDER NOW, OR FACE MY RIGHTEOUS FUDGE!"
A profound, swampy silence descended upon the gorge. Even the mist seemed to pause in confusion. Gormless the Goblin King blinked his beady eyes, turning to a similarly bewildered lieutenant.
"Fudge?" Gormless whispered. "Is that a threat? A promise? A proposed term of surrender? The texture is famously divisive."
Behind his visor, Reginald's face turned the color of fermented beet. He tried again, focusing his entire being on the words. "I meant… Prepare to die, villain!"
The armor obliged. "PREPARE TO DYE VEILS!"
The goblin lieutenant's face lit up. "Oh, veils! How lovely. We were just saying the reception hall could use a bit of color. Do you have swatches?"
Reginald slumped forward in his saddle like a deflated balloon. Binky, sensing his master's mortification, whinnied sympathetically and began backing away from the battlefield without being asked.
The throne room of King Nigel the Nebulous smelled faintly of marmalade and old paper. The king himself was not on his throne, but rather kneeling beside it, attempting to teach a corgi how to play chess. The dog, it seemed, was winning.
"Ah, Pifflington," King Nigel said, not looking up. "Bad show at the gorge, I hear. Awful business."
"Your Majesty, it was the armor. A malfunction."
"Yes, yes, a malfunction. The thing is, Pifflington, the Royal Scribe's Guild has lodged a formal complaint. Apparently, 'Pilates my lambs' constitutes a flagrant misuse of the transitive verb. They're quite militant about grammar, you know. Then there's the matter of the Fudge Threat, which has the confectioners in an uproar over brand dilution."
The corgi nudged a bishop forward with its nose. "Checkmate," the King sighed, giving the dog a small piece of bacon from his pocket. "Look, it's a procedural nightmare. You have one week to get the Proclamator serviced. Off you go."
Reginald's quest began not with a noble map and a blessing, but with a stack of paperwork. To enter the Dwarven Quarter, he needed to file Form 27B, "Request for Inter-Special Dispensation." He sat at a tiny desk while a clerk with a magnificent beard and even more magnificent apathy looked on.
"Occupation?" the clerk droned.
"Knight Commander of the King's First…," Reginald began.
"OCCASIONAL PIRATE!" his armor boomed, shaking dust from the ceiling.
Reginald threw his hands up in exasperation, then immediately regretted it as his gauntlets clanged against his helmet. The clerk slowly raised an eyebrow, dipped his quill in ink, and meticulously wrote it down. Reginald spent the next hour trying to explain that his armor did not, in fact, have a Letter of Marque and was not available for pillaging on the high seas.
He finally located the address: a perfectly mundane stone door at the end of a soot-stained alley, with a small engraved plaque reading: Bori Grimsprocket, Certified Master Artificer & Riddle Ombudsman (Retired). Riddle-Based Entry System 4.2. Please Speak Clearly. No Hawkers or Bards.
A tinny, irritated voice crackled from the grille. "State your purpose and solve the access riddle. I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?"
Reginald felt a flicker of hope. He knew this one. "A map!" he declared, a hint of triumph in his voice.
He had forgotten, of course, who he was wearing.
"A MOP!" the armor bellowed with unshakeable confidence.
A long, crackly silence emanated from the grille. "Incorrect. And a truly dreadful guess. I'm logging that one for my memoirs. One remaining attempt."
"Wait, no! That wasn't me!" Reginald pleaded, rapping his gauntlet on the door. "That was the armor! The faulty, ridiculous armor I'm here to have you look at!"
"The system does not recognize excuses. You may, however, lodge a formal appeal by solving the appeals riddle. What has an eye, but cannot see?"
The answer flew into Reginald's mind. He took a deep breath, clamped his hands over the armor's speaking grille, and shouted through the gaps between his fingers: "A needle!"
But the Proclamator, sensing its master's distress, offered what it clearly believed was a far superior solution by somehow projecting its voice around his muffling hands.
"A GRILLED CHEESE!"
Reginald slowly removed his hands and stared at his own chest in betrayed disbelief. He could swear the armor's runes were glowing smugly.
Another, longer pause. Then: "Well now. That… is so profoundly incorrect it loops back around to being slightly intriguing. The previous answer of 'a needle' was sufficient, however. The door is now unlocked. Give it a good shove, the hinges need oiling."
The inside of the forge was a miracle of organized chaos. In the center stood a dwarf in a tweed waistcoat, polishing a pair of spectacles. This was Bori Grimsprocket.
"Let me see," the dwarf sighed, tapping the armor's chestplate. "A Mark III 'Proclamator.' Good heavens. I thought we'd recalled all of these. The Vociferous Intent Magnifier on this model has a known semantic drift issue. Tends to default to horticulture, light brunch items, and occasionally, haberdashery. Dreadful design."
Bori didn't chant ancient words or summon earth spirits. He pulled a very small, very precise screwdriver from his waistcoat, popped open a panel near Reginald's throat that he never knew existed, and peered inside.
"Ah, yes. There's your problem. The verbosity-to-valor converter has degraded." With a pair of delicate pliers, he snipped a single, faintly glowing wire. "There. I've bypassed the VIM unit entirely. It won't be spouting nonsense anymore. That'll be three silver pieces for labor and a written apology for that 'mop' guess, please. For the logbook."
Reginald returned to the royal court walking on air. The journey back had been blissfully, beautifully silent. He felt like a new man. He felt… competent.
His rival, Sir Percival the Pedantic, stood waiting. "Well, Pifflington. Back from your holiday in the land of vegetables? What is it today? Are you going to challenge me to a duel or to a spirited debate on the merits of fermented cabbage?"
This was the moment. Reginald stood tall, a newfound confidence swelling in his chest. He had been composing the perfect retort for two full days. He opened his mouth to deliver it.
[SILENCE]
He blinked. That was odd. He tried again, putting a bit more force into it.
[ABSOLUTE, TOTAL, RESOUNDING SILENCE]
Reginald's eyes widened in horror. The dwarf hadn't just fixed the autocorrect — he had bypassed the entire voice system. Sir Reginald Pifflington, once the owner of the loudest and most embarrassing armor in the kingdom, was now completely, utterly mute.
Percival stared, his sneer melting into puzzlement. "What's wrong, Pifflington? Cat got your tongue?"
Reginald gestured frantically, pointing at his throat, then at his armor, then making exaggerated shushing motions. He looked like a man trying to explain the concept of flight to a particularly dim pigeon.
King Nigel, however, who had been observing the scene while attempting to teach the corgi macramé, suddenly clapped his hands together with delight. "Pifflington! It's genius! Utterly brilliant! You've invented the 'Silent Treatment' as a formal battle tactic!"
Reginald shook his head vigorously and pointed at his mouth, making increasingly desperate "help me" gestures.
"I'm promoting you!" the King continued, oblivious. "You are now our new Royal Emissary to the Perpetually Offended Giants of Sniveling Peaks! They haven't spoken to us in fifty years over a poorly-worded birthday card. Your silent approach is exactly what we need!"
Two royal guards approached. Reginald backed away, shaking his head and making wild "no, no, no" gestures, but his protests remained soundless.
"Splendid work, Pifflington!" King Nigel called cheerfully as the guards took Reginald by the elbows. "Pack warm! I hear the peaks are frightfully chilly this time of year, and the giants are notoriously sensitive about noise levels during their meditation season!"
The story ended with him being escorted toward yet another absurd diplomatic mission, his mouth opening and closing in silent protest, his gauntleted hands making increasingly frantic gestures that no one bothered to interpret.
Behind him, the corgi had somehow managed to tie King Nigel's shoelaces together with yarn, and was now sitting back with what could only be described as a satisfied canine smirk.
In the distance, very faintly, came the sound of Percival's laughter — a sound that would haunt Reginald's silent dreams for weeks to come.