Chapter 16: Chapter 16

My hand slides along the surface of the wall, as I awkwardly sprint as fast as I can through the darkness. I notice that the stones that my lower fingers run along are smooth, the upper half is still rough. I suppose this is the slime ‘water-level’, if you will. It’s a measure of how big they get down here. It is an odd thing to notice while I am running for my life. But it is just the thing that my mind has decided to focus on right now. The floor is also smooth, basically polished. It feels like running through a palace. A real one, not the goblin-king’s kind. In actuality I am unsure if this is what it’s really like, since I have never seen a palace, but it’s just an expression okay?

Anyways, I feel like you shouldn’t run in a palace. Seems like a good way to get into trouble with someone.

The other two are running behind me, following the sounds of my footsteps. I suppose that by now, they have seen the glowing light too and are heading towards it as well. I don’t know what it is though. I am sure that last time I was down here that there was nothing like this to see.

The slimes are hot on our trail, once or twice I hear a plop right next to me. I hear quick yelps from behind me, from one of my friends, but each time after I still hear the same amount of feet running after me.

It’s a mushroom. Now as we get closer, I see it. It’s a bio-luminescent mushroom. That explains it. See, there are things that are the same each time down here when I respawn, like the trash-mobs or the dungeon layout. But little things like plants or spiderwebs seem to move around each time. Mushrooms aren’t technically plants but-

No. No. Keep on topic. I suppose I never really thought it was important, okay? Just a shift in the random generation. But this time it might be what saved me.

Where are they? Where are the stairs? They have to be here. They have to be. A terror hits me. What if they are randomly generated too? What if the secret stairs are somewhere else every time I respawn? I would never find them again. I panic. Not that I wasn’t already panicking before, mind you. But now I panic twice as much, okay?

I hear a splat. Something is in front of me, I hear it. A slime.

I yell at the others that there’s one in front of us. I need to make a choice. I grab my axe. It’s not like I haven’t killed other trash-mobs before, but I feel sluggish in that second as my arm swings out. Sometimes it was by accident, sometimes on purpose, as a matter of survival. I know we’re supposed to be one team here, but that’s just how the dungeon works. You need to kill each other sometimes to survive and if there is a slime ahead of me, it’s going to be either me or him, if I like it or not.

I see the silhouette bounce up against the light shining dimly before me, obscuring it for just a fraction of a second. In that moment, with all of my resolve, I swing my dinky little axe and feel the weight of the impact. The blade of the hatchet strikes the little, gooey creature’s body and cuts straight through it. Droplets spray onto my arm and face and sting my skin as they burn through. I feel some of the goo land beside me, the other half flings to the side, sticking to the wall. I wince in pain but keep moving, however not a moment later, I almost stop in my tracks anyways, as it appears before me, the menu.

I didn’t call it out, it just came on it’s own. It’s only a tiny bit of it though, inside I see something. A pale yellow tube, like a glass filled with an old fermented liquid that rises up just a tick, before the menu vanishes again. Huh?

I call on the others to keep going. To keep running. If we stop, we die. I don’t have time to think about it, I’ll look into it later. I need to get to the stairs. They have to be here! They have to be h- I feel the warm air touch my thick, goblin skin. A draft from the deeper level of the dungeon, creeping up past me; rising, rising up into some crevice ahead. I don’t know where exactly this breeze is originating from, but I know where it's going.

“Over here!” I yell. “Turn left!” I hear something plop just to my right side, something big. The glow of the mushroom shines light on the gap in the wall. There is just a little bit of stone missing here. I can feel the wind rise up here as well. This is it. This has to be it! I jump in sidewards and land awkwardly and somewhat painfully on my flank. Scrambling up to my feet, I stick my arm out and grab my friends one after the other by the scruffs of their necks and pull them into the crevice. Up the first stairs, where we are safe from the slimes for a moment.

Cursing they scramble up the stairs a few steps like mad animals and hold on to each other panting and sobbing. “I told you death is scary,” I scold them. All I hear is their frantic sobbing and snotty wheezes. They aren’t used to it yet, like I am. I shake my head and look down into the darkness below us. Several slimes are there, they are multicolored and vary in size. Some are easily the size of an adult goblin like myself. Others are only half that.

They wiggle and waggle in agitation, they sense the vibrations in the stones, emanating from our bodies. They know they can’t get us here, unless they want to climb up the weird stairs. They don’t. It isn’t an efficient hunting strategy. Their hunt has failed. Agitated, they begin to hop away one after the other. In a matter of seconds only a handful remain and then only one. It is moderately runty. On the big end of small, but on the small end of average. It too turns to hop away in defeat, along with the others. Its motions are sad and unenergetic, lonely. I recognize her. Sister. I tap my axe on the floor and it quickly turns around and hops back into action, desperate for a kill. A meal.

I pull my axe back before she can reach it and undo the rat from my belt, tossing it down to the little slime. As the rat lands in its pink bubbling goo, it jiggles excitedly, triumphantly, confidently. It has caught prey. Good job, sister! Brother is proud. The rat slowly dissolves and the slime ripples in contentment. Almost teary-eyed, I watch as she hops away into the darkness. Go sister. Be happy. That is all I want for you.

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I turn back to the others who are still crying as they watch me with confusion on their faces. It’s a very bad look for goblins in goblin society to cry. It shows weakness, it makes you think you can’t depend on them in battle. But I understand. The members of goblin society who find out what it really means to cry, don’t have the opportunity to go back home and tell everyone about the horrors of battle. I don’t have time to wait for them to settle down, though. Who knows how long this life will last? Maybe the adventurers are already at the outpost killing everyone. Killing my family.

- No. They aren’t my family. I push up past the two and tell them to watch their step, there may be traps here.

For a second, I ponder sending them up before me as I take that first step up the hidden stairs. If there are any traps then they will activate them. I could use them to get to the top safely. It is an interesting proposition and it would be a lie if I didn’t say I’m not spending a disconcertingly long time thinking about it. But no, that’s not who I am. I think?

It’s not who I want to be at the very least, if nothing else. Every time I take a step, I tap the next stoop with the back of my hatchet, to check for any triggers or snares, but none seem to be there. Traps are random too, you see, at least from my perspective. The dungeon-master places them where he wants them to be this time around, so it’s not certain that there will be any at all today. It could be that the dungeon-master decided today to trap every single step. It could also be that there is just the one at the top like before. Or maybe there are none at all. Who knows?

My friends ask me what this place is. They are slow, further down. They don’t know how to go up stairs, you see. So their motions are rather awkward and clumsy. I tell them the truth, that this is a secret passage and that I don’t know anything more than that. You might be wondering, guy, why haven’t you been using their names? The answer is simple. I don’t use other people's names.

If I use their names, I will get attached. If I get attached, I will allow myself to sink deeper into my role as a goblin. It will be another little scratch that I will allow to be etched onto the window of my soul and if I do, it will obscure my vision of my true being. The first me. I can’t allow that to happen, I have lost so much of myself as is.

Soon we reach the top of the stairs, I feel the rising breeze grow stronger. I smell the difference in the air, the difference in temperature and the difference in the echoing sound of our steps. We are near the top. A vague light comes out from the large chamber, but I first check the final steps very carefully. There is nothing here, I realize thankfully, as we reach the top. There is no trap here this time. Cautiously, we rise up the stairs to the top. This time I tried to keep track of how long the trip took. About thirty minutes, if I had to estimate. Is that normal for a staircase? I guess so. Hmm…

Looking around the chamber, I see that it is filled with glowing mushrooms, like the ones below. They are higher up though. The floor here is an odd, dark stone I have never seen before. Parts of it are scorched, burnt as if by some great battle. Chunks of the room are missing, simply carved out of the dungeon walls by massive impacts. But this is old. It’s all old. All of this damage is overgrown by fungus and coated by dust. This happened a long time ago. I remember the demon-miasma, my new pal up in the place I go when I die. I don’t feel its presence here anymore though. The air, the vibe feels different now. Like a burial site, like the grave of some great forgotten noble or adventurer. It is calm, old and has a strange dignity that I can’t quite put to words, now that the frenzied, feral spirit is gone from this place. Like the quiet after a storm.

The others stand behind me, having calmed themselves, each looking out in one separate direction, in a typical goblin patrol formation with me at the lead.

In the center of the room is a pile, something laying there in a heap. A beam of light from a particularly large mushroom shines down onto it like a ray of moonlight. Particles of dust and mushroom spores hang suspended in the air, as if trapped in time eternal. We all look at the thing curiously as we approach it. The body of a human, an adventurer most likely, long since dead. A forgotten skeleton inside of a suit of dull, old, battle-worn armor that must have once shone in glory. A regal, purple and gold cape below the body. A symbol of a sun in the middle, visible beneath the bones and the chinked and dented armor.

In the hands of the skeleton is its weapon, an ornate lance.

I hear a strange sound, much to my discomfort, the menu pops up again. The others see it and are taken aback. Shit. A new window pops up as the menu now scrolls upwards rather than to the sides. One I haven’t seen before. A map. At the top are two simple goblin words. A sun and a skull.

This isn’t some random adventurer’s last stand. This is the grave of a hero.

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