My entire body complains of aches and pains from the brutal crash. Despite that, the literal mother of all joy overwhelms my senses due to this amazing, squishy substance squeezing between my fingers. The entirety of my short life flashes before me as I gleefully massage and play with it. Had I really wished to expel this wonderful substance from my body when I first emerged? Now I want nothing more than to reimmerse myself in it completely. To become truly one with the mud again.

  “Did you kill the kid, you piece of trash?” the Kurt voice viciously screams, before effortlessly kicking me across the pit. “What did you do?”

  His engorged, bloodshot eyes passionately search for sanity in my bizarre, unexpected form. He’s coming for me again, I have to get away. Where’s the gangway?

  “Bigun?” a wry, rasping voice quizzically calls down at us from above, precariously dangling from some kind of clumsily assembled crane of shoddy iron and rope.

  Due to the loud exclamation of surprise, another tiny head pops up above the lip of pit’s edge to take a look.

  “Bigun!” he screams in rage at the visual confirmation, tossing the scroll in his hands to the side as he roars straight into the pit for a fight.

  The first goblin struggles desperately to free himself from the ropes, now hanging only by a single, tangled foot. His attention intermittently transitions between freeing himself and slashing towards the distant enemy with his hands. The second goblin quickly reaches the big one, who snarls back and artfully strikes the little one down with a tightly clenched fist. The poor goblin’s tiny body is instantly crushed. Flying backwards due to the enormous force of the blow, his attacker nimbly pursues and unnecessarily pummels his broken body further. The grim big one then placidly marches over to the entangled, hanging goblin and easily snaps his tiny little neck.

  “Non!” I shriek.

  Finally back and reconnecting with my brothers, I can’t just let him kill them all! This isn’t the power and freedom that I promised to bring back to them. Steeling myself, I pull out my only remaining dagger and truly face him with a fully conscious resolve for the first time. The mind mud boils in revelry at my sudden, willing surrender.

  “What is this place?” the Kurt voice wonders out loud, shaking the dirty blood and grime of my compatriots from his fists. “Padras, can you hear me?”

  The loud silence and dawning foreign world distracting him, I creep up towards his exposed back. I strike fast and straight into a narrow gap in the big one’s armor. After lightly grunting his acknowledgement of the attempt, he casually turns to lock my neck in his vice-like grip, lifting me high into the air. Looking down, my blade shines back up at me completely clean, somehow having failed to draw any red at all. Was it always hopeless? Should I have run instead? Why am I so weak?!

  “Never seen a goblin play dressup before,” the Kurt voice expounds to himself. “Nor hide in some guild head’s office. Didn’t even try to kill him. She was even acting like everything was just fine and dandy. Business as usual. What’s going on? Is this another one of their stupid games? Some hidden dungeon?”

  Looking directly into my face while he thinks out loud, the strong one suddenly smiles mischievously.

  “Maybe you’re my lucky charm. Did I accidentally stumble into early access for a new reward quest? How do I clear this thing?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  He waits for a brief moment before giving an aloof shake of his head.

  “Why am I asking questions to this stupid goblin?”

  Lowering his prisoner, he drags me carelessly along the ground as he traverses the pit towards the edge. The dagger clenched in my hand, my only weapon, is lost during the rough voyage. I desperately search for a rock. A stick. Anything! Reaching his destination, he peers deeply into the dark, empty beyond in a dazed stupor.

  “Holy… Never seen a dungeon like this before. Maybe this is too much. Maybe I should go back for help.”

  Energetically struggling and kicking, I try to violently shove myself against him. He’s so close to the edge, if only I can knock him off. However, the effort doesn’t even warrant his notice. Still lost in his thoughts, he turns back around and away from the edge.

  “Where was the entrance? We fell, right? Hm,” he continues absentmindedly thinking out loud.

  Dragging me back towards the center of the pit, he carefully searches the area above us. I’m still not ready to give up. However, after thoroughly riffling through my pouches for another solution, there’s nothing at all. Remembering the partner emptying them all onto the streets of Tranas, I try to angrily gasp in frustration, but his tight grip transforms it into more of a sad whimper. It was lucky to have that single dagger. Now even that’s gone.

  “Huh, there it is. It’s so damned high.”

  Shifting my eyes up, I see my ripped hole beautifully shining a dim, flickering light down upon us both. As far as I know, it’ll stay open until someone far better than me forcefully seals it. Luckily it’s way too high for him to reach, so at least he can’t take me back again.

  “Haven’t had to use this for a long time. Glad I paid for the training,” the Kurt voice confidently proclaims, deeply squatting in place.

  Vibrant clouds of magic begin swirling around the muscles all along his legs in wildly complicated patterns. Slowly transforming into a more complex, woven tapestry from the initial storm, the energy builds to a crescendo and then fires all at once. The big one explodes straight up towards the hole, my body helplessly flapping in the wind, stuck along for the ride.

  My eyes tearing up and clamped shut, we abruptly stop before then immediately starting to slowly descend. He really made it back through. Like it was nothing. Was this all for nothing? I was so close! I was home.

  “A human wanders a rebirthing pit.”

  “Is he of mud? Is he a part of us?”

  “There is a large rip above the pit and evidence of passage.”

  “He travelled here? Impossible. No point of focus for their kind exists outside of their space.”

  “One goblin survives. A first mud. Rift residue clings to his claws.”

  “The hand acts to join void and cell? Why? The heart did not direct this. How? The hand overreaches into the foot’s domain.”

  “The first mud is connected to the ladder.”

  The rapidly dueling pair of sonorous voices playfully circle, never ceasing the running dialog evaluating us. Finally opening my eyes, I realize that we’re still above the pit. Below us, a long, narrow tower has extended up from the mud and wrapped itself around the strong one. He struggles against it with a wild, cornered rage in his eyes, but the rigid mud tightly imprisons him. Its target secure, the eerie tower then grows a new branch, snaking along his arm until corkscrewing up to his wrist and tightening until he loses grip of my throat.

  Falling onto the mud for a second time today, I quickly gather myself back up, ready for fight or flight. However, upon looking up at my trapped pursuer, a truly gigantic object stares back down at me. It occupies the entirety of space above us for as far as I can see. Worse, it’s covered in countless dangling, dancing appendages, each holding a single eye. During my time distracted by the fall, a few dozen of those arms have extended far from the leviathan body and slithered down to orbit me.

  “The ladder? Contradictions demand closer inspection,“ one of the mysterious voices echoes back from directly behind me.

  Spinning in place to observe the threat, I discover a diminutive figure parting the curtain of eyes to approach me.