Three spear-wielding goblins make guttural shouts and chase after me. As I reach the edge of the trees, my mom leaps out of the brush and ambushes one of the goblins, bringing him down in an instant with her dagger.

“Hey, greenskins!” calls Meadow, holding aloft a crude wooden spear she must have just made. “You want some?”

The goblins scream and charge at her. One of them gets caught in a crude snare and face-plants. Mom stabs him with her dagger before he can recover. Meadow takes the final goblin down with her pointy stick.

“Good, you got the cookpot!” Daisy says. “I have the plants, and there’s a stream nearby. Meadow, can you get a fire going by the stream?”

“You alright, Drake?” Mom asks.

“Bruises at worst,” I say, following after Daisy. “I killed two goblins and unlocked a few skills. I’m fine, Mom.”

She chuckles. “You’re not even pretending to be a kid right now. You can call me Anise.”

“I’ll pretend to be a kid again when we get back to the Hearth,” I say. “Screaming and crying would be a realistic reaction to everything that’s happened today, but it would be unproductive. So, Anise, let’s get your magic back so you can torch this camp and I’m not even going to give a crap that these goblins are people and not monsters because they’re probably going to kill my uncle.”

“Wait, they aren’t monsters?” Mom—Anise says. “You’re sure?”

I nod. “Positive. I can see auras.”

“Of course you can,” she says flatly. “It takes goblins seven years to become adults, and the goblins have definitely not been here for seven years, so where did they come from?”

We reach the stream and Meadow gets a fire going, but no one has any skills to make water boil or make plants cook faster so we’ll just have to wait a few minutes. Daisy grinds up her reagents between two rocks in the meantime.

“They must have come up from the depths,” Meadow says.

“Having a reincarnator here would explain why they’ve come to the surface only now,” Daisy says.

“It does?” Anise says.

Daisy sighs in exasperation. “Do you people not read books?”

“Not if I can help it,” Meadow says.

“Only raunchy ones,” Anise adds.

“In accordance with ancient prophecy, when an incarnated hero of the light rises, the forces of darkness will also rise in opposition,” Daisy says.

I groan loudly. “Noooo, not a prophecy! I mean, it’s really not. Saying what you’re going to do in advance is a schedule, not a prophecy. Corwen incarnated me when it did deliberately. These goblins must have been breeding beneath the surface for years. Can we please not call it a prophecy?”

“As you wish,” Daisy says with a shrug. She scrapes her ground plant paste into the pot and stirs it with a stick. “In accordance with ancient scheduling, heroes and villains go hand in hand.”

I sigh. “Of course they do.”

Dear Corwen, may I please have some comedic fantasy rather than tragic fantasy? I would greatly prefer not to have murdered family members or raging rampage of revenge plots. I don’t need any cutthroat politics or beheadings, either. Is that too much to ask for?

“Alright, potion is ready,” Daisy says, removing the pot from the heat. “We’ll just need to wait for it to cool down and—”

Anise grabs the pot and guzzles the boiling liquid.

“Anise!” Daisy exclaims in alarm.

“I have a lot of heat resistance,” Anise says with a laugh, and her hands burst into flames. “Kinda necessary. Alright! Let’s kick some green butts.”

She hands the dagger to Daisy and sets off back toward the outpost, and the rest of us follow after. Having an Elite Sorcerer on our side makes this battle suddenly a lot more one-sided. Mipsy rejoins us along the way, having survived her mad chase relatively unscathed.

You have cleared Skullburn Outpost.

Cleared. Nice way of saying there’s a bunch of dead green people who decided to mess with my family for no good reason. And Meadow is frantically trying to ensure that Anise’s pyromania doesn’t turn into a forest fire.

Meadow sorts out our packs while the rest of us scour the outpost for anything of value, but there’s nothing here but crude stone spears and knives, plus provisions that only a goblin would eat.

“Not even a loot chest?” Anise complains. “Rude.”

Meadow hands me Daisy’s small pack, and gives Daisy Uncle Hawk’s larger pack. “I’ve redistributed the weight and dropped a few things we don’t really need under the circumstances.”

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“I want a bag of holding,” I say, pulling on the light pack.

“Don’t we all,” Anise says. “Alright, we all ready? Meadow, your tracking skills are better than mine, so you’ll need to take the lead.”

“They weren’t dragging him this time but the tracks still shouldn’t be hard to follow,” Meadow says, heading off in the direction they took Uncle Hawk.

Along the way, I watch the ground to examine the tracks Meadow is following in hopes of unlocking a skill for it myself. She points them out now and then for our benefit.

The skymotes have turned orange by the time we reach the end of the tracks. A cave opening leading underground, partially concealed behind vines, but Meadow is good enough at rangering to follow the tracks that disappear inside and spot the entrance.

You have discovered an entrance to the Underside. Skill acquired: Survival (Tracking)

I didn’t even do anything and I’m still getting credit for it. I guess Meadow’s pointers count as “teaching” but it still feels weak. I think I’m adding another goal to me “to do” list right after surviving to adulthood: Find something I didn’t do in a previous life.

We take a short rest outside to replenish our Stamina and get something in our stomachs.

“Has anyone gotten a quest popup?” Anise asks.

We all shake our heads.

“How common are quests?” I ask.

“You’re a reincarnated hero,” Daisy says. “If the books I’ve read are accurate, you should be seeing them constantly. Of course, they might have been exaggerated for dramatic value, and you’re physically only two years old.”

“It’s kind of weird how quickly you guys adapted to the idea,” I say.

“I think it’s awesome,” Burdock says.

“We’re going to have so much fun!” Anise says.

“This isn’t exactly fun,” Daisy says, looking worriedly into the dank hole in the ground.

“Everyone’s Stamina meters full?” Meadow asks, and we all nod. “Alright. Let’s head down, then.”

Anise waves a hand, and a candle flame floats above her head. We enter the cave, letting Anise go first since she’s the highest level of us and most likely to not die immediately if something attacks us. Meadow takes the rear with her pointy stick, sandwiching the younger party members between them. We head down in silence, even Daisy stilling her chatter.

After walking for an indeterminate amount of time (or at least, mostly determinate by our dipping Stamina meters), the tunnel opens up into a large cavern lit by glowing mushrooms. Anise snuffs her candlelight and we pause to scan over the area from relative cover.

A veritable forest of giant mushrooms sprawls below us, and pale blue glowing lichen striates across the ceiling. Nestled within the mushroom grove stands a structure that is… not unfamiliar. High walls made of solid stone surround a cluster of buildings mostly made of bone and hide. In the center, a large stone building stands out looking much like a Hearth. Four wings jut out around a central tower, but the tower is only slightly higher than the rest of the building.

“A goblin Hearth?” Anise whispers. “This close to the surface?”

“That must be where they took Uncle Hawk,” Meadow says quietly.

“This… complicates things,” Anise says. “Here I was hoping they just had another outpost down here. We are in no way prepared to assault a Hearth.”

We sit still for several long minutes, examining the Hearth and trying to think of options.

“I have rope, but I’m not sure that climbing up the walls is feasible,” Meadow says.

“I could disguise myself as a goblin,” I suggest.

“That’s a fantastically stupid idea,” Anise says.

“Do you even speak their language?” Meadow asks.

“Nope,” I say with a smirk. “Just spitballing.”

“Did you ever speak their language in another life?” Daisy asks.

“I have no idea,” I say. “I can try and see if Recollection (Skills) brings up anything, though.” I hold up a hand. “I sense a patrol. Coming toward the tunnel. Three of them.”

Everyone readies their weapons. (Or fire, or claws.) The fight is swift, and we manage to capture one of them and put Meadow’s rope to good use.

“Okay, buddy,” I say. “I want you to talk.”

The goblin snarls and babbles at me.

“No, I don’t really care what you say, I just want to see if I can understand your language,” I say.

While I’m doing that, Meadow goes to scout the area, Daisy is mixing up green pigment to smear on my skin, and Anise works on making me a passable set of goblin ears. I don’t know that this will hold up to scrutiny, but I’m hoping to get some skills that might help unlocked.

As I listen to the goblin swear at me (at least, I assume what he’s saying is impolite), my mind runs over… memories. I feel like I’m reaching through a gooey mucus barrier. It feels wrong, as do the whispers and shadows of images I manage to dredge up. I stop and rub my head, which has rapidly started aching.

“I don’t like doing this,” I say quietly.

“We can always try another approach if you’re not up to it,” Anise says.

I sigh. “This is frustrating. I’ve been so many mes, but I kind of just want to be this me.”

“That’s fair,” Anise says. “Don’t go giving yourself Sanity damage you’re not prepared to handle.”

Meadow returns to our makeshift camp. “Good news, everyone. I found some weaknesses in the goblins’ defenses. There’s a back door in a ravine by an underground river on the far side of the village. It’s probably still watched, but I don’t imagine they expect invaders to be coming in from that side.”

That makes sense. Even our own village doesn’t have one single entrance. There’s a door on the back side that opens into a fishing area too.

“Let’s still try disguising you as a goblin,” Anise says. “If nothing else, it’ll confuse them and they’ll be less likely to target you immediately. You’ve probably at least learned a few naughty words. I know I certainly have.”

So, everyone helps in putting the disguise together, and somehow being slathered in green goo and wearing smelly goblin clothing feels less gross than trying to reach for memories of other lives.

I shake my spear menacingly and repeat a few words our captive said to me. I have no idea what they mean, but he spits a few words angrily back at me.

“What’re we gonna do with him?” Burdock asks. “It seems wrong to just kill him when he’s tied up.”

“Leave him here for now, I suppose,” Anise says. “Maybe gag him or give him a sleeping potion or something so he doesn’t start yelling for help. Somebody’s eventually going to notice their patrol never checked in.”

“Sleeping potion,” Daisy says with a roll of her eyes. “Do I look like I’m carrying that around? We’d need to light a fire and get more water and everything. Ugh, I’m looking forward to becoming a Wizard so I can actually do magic and not just mixing stuff up or enhancing my stats.”

“Enhancing stats?” I ask.

“Yeah, the first abilities you can unlock when you get a class, any class, are to boost your attributes,” Anise says. “Practice at it enough and you can get stronger or faster at the right moment, or slowly build up your attributes permanently.”

“Let’s get moving, if we’re going to do this,” Meadow says. “My uncle’s in there and he needs our help.”