"Ugh, this place stinks." Mona complained.

"It's the only way in not swarming with hobgoblins," Letta said to the tiny fairy girl, "now stop complaining. You said you'd do anything to find your queen, didn't you?"

Mona could at least hoover mid air. She didn't have to touch the slimy sewer walls.

Letta was a human being, not gifted with flight and larger than a goblin.

In many places the walkway was to narrow for her, and she had to wade her fur shoes through the slime filtered runoff of dozens of goblin outhouses. It had long soaked in and touched her skin by now, but she did not falter, she had a mission.

"Something's here!" Mona warned.

Her tiny body lit up the pitch black tunnel, revealing the far wall where it chicaned, following the pre-existing curvature of the underground river.

"More slimes?" The young teenager gripped her short sword with both hands. Slimes were ranked as a level F threat by the adventurers' guild, but in large groups, in narrow confines, they were a lethal threat.

A large shadow stretched over the far wall, but the creature casting it was small.

A pustulated goblin in full body black clothing, wielding a two-pronged spear.

"Yikes, so they do have ugly ones," Letta joked, but not very mirthfully, "they just keep them down here."

The goblin wasn't surprised to see them. He had to have heard their bickering long before they came into view.

Mona fluttered out of the way as he charged at Letta.

She widened her stance.

By now, she knew how to deal with it.

Don't let them drive you onto your back foot, stay stable.

Redirect their attack, use their own momentum against them.

Then, when you see an opening, lunge!

She jumped forward, hacking her two handed bronze short sword into his chest.

The sheer force threw the goblin onto his back, but she hadn't cut through his layered clothing.

He tried to raise his spear, but she put her foot on his forearm, and forced the tip of her sword down.

Into his eye.

The goblin screamed inhumanly as she pulled it out.

He would die in only a few seconds.

She kicked his body into the water stream, spreading a cloud of carmine colors into the stream.

"It looks like we're beyond slimes now, Letta." Mona squealed, "the further we get into this dungeon, the more goblins we'll see."

"Are you sure it's a dungeon?" Letta asked, shuffling further into the rancid tunnel.

Slimes and goblins were to be expected, they were above ground as well. A dungeon would have dangerous evolved monsters.

"Def- def- definitely!" Mona came right up to her face to insist on it. "Our queen wouldn't disappear into any old hole. This was the last place she went! There must be dungeon magic in play."

"Mhm." Letta nodded.

The prospect was scary but enticing.

On the one hand, there was the threat of running into dangerous magical beasts.

But on the other, there was no way the adventurers' guild could turn a blind eye to the goblins then.

"... What is that noise?" She said.

There was a distinct clatter, like a stormy river, that had been present faintly for a while, but had become really noticeable now.

"We're coming up to an artificial lake," Mona said, "that's the sound of streams converging! We're getting closer!"

-

The room housing the artificial lakes was domed, spacious even.

Standing on the edge of the first basin they could see ahead twenty paces at least.

There was a balcony above them. Rafters from which large clay stirring tools were operated.

The basin served to gather the large detritus in the streams, before it was drained into the next pool, for further cleaning.

And feeding on that waste product was a great collection of slimes.

A few goblins were stirring and separating the pot with their prongs, and were slow to react to their arrival, but the slimes reacted immediately.

A large bubble of blue heaved itself out of the water to block Letta's way. It was a group of smaller slimes fused together.

"Now the real challenge begins, kill them Letta!" Mona yelled out encouragingly.

Letta grit her teeth and widened her stance.

"It's just a slime, do it the same as you did with the others." The fairy cheered.

Don't let them drive you onto the back foot.

The mass of slimes flooded forwards, surrounding her on two sides, but she didn't move.

Redirect their attack.

When it converged on her she tried to slash the slime out of the way, but her weapon simply entered the gelatinous mass.

When you see an opening...

Letta saw no opening, she had her eyes firmly shut as the acid tried to invade her orifices.

She wildly hacked around herself with no technique.

Actually, it worked rather well.

The individual slimes within the bubble were killed one by one, and soon the entire thing burst apart. Leaving her unscathed but covered from head to toe in slime and sewage.

"Ugh." Mona grunted at the smell.

The goblins quickly came charging, but she dealt with them easily enough.

"Letta... are you alright?" The fairy asked. "That sure was a lotta slimes. But you know... getting dirty, withstanding hardships, that's what heroes are made out of!"

"Mhm."

Letta didn't know if she agreed.

She had seen a hero, once. She had looked happy and careless, traveling the countryside with friends.

She certainly couldn't imagine the Rose hero toiling in the underground, being humiliated by slimes.

"Come on, I'm sure there will be less slimes in the next room." Mona said.

And there were.

After balancing on the edge of the sequential stirring basins, they were able to find a tiny door towards the next room, where the water, undone of its solid elements, was dumped via waterfall into a large shallow filtration pond.

There was no life here.

The stink had become more chemical, as the pure flammable slime that could not pass through the sand underfloor was collected into several glowing green gutters and transported somewhere else.

"Ugh." Mona complained. "I'm sorry I complained about the feces smell. This is an affront to nature."

Letta retrieved her water flask from her breast pocket and poured it out.

"What are you doing?" The fairy asked.

"May be able to use this..." she murmured, as she put her flask into the gutter and collected the slime.

The liquid stained her hands, but she was already dirt anyway.

The room after that, the noise died down.

It was a tranquil lake of now filtered clean water. An immaculate silver pipe stuck out from the middle and disappeared straight into the ceiling.

"This is where they get their drinking water." Mona said. "What should we do to it?"

But Letta was already moving on.

"You're right," the fairy sighed, "that wouldn't help the mission. And it'd just alert them to our presence. Still, I wish- hey! Wait for me!"

----------------------------------------

The entrance to the water treatment chambers was a small door, bordering on hatch.

It wasn't locked.

It opened outwards as the girl opened it from inside, and she had to squint against the light.

Even though they were underground, the next room was brightly lit.

"Oh, I see. This is the wolf den." Mona whispered, she had crawled into Letta's pocket for safety. "Where they keep their beasts."

It was a cave, but one with wooden flooring and cushions. The natural rock face was painted with the colors of nature and the occasional rope decoration. And the light came from unflickering lanterns incorporated into the flooring.

There weren't many wolves around, but there was the sound of poultry scratching in hay nearby.

"Watch out Letta, if the warg wolves smell a whiff of you they'll come running in packs. If that happens, you have to use the spellpaper."

"I think a golem could smell me from three miles off like this." Letta complained, still covered in sewage.

"There has to be a way deeper into the dungeon," Mona insisted, "stick to the walls."

Letta followed her advice and snuck with her back to the wall alongside the edge of the cave.

There was an eerie peace in the empty den.

The master of the house had left it empty, but he could return at any moment, with his hounds.

The cave had a curve to it, like a horseshoe, and as Letta progressed through it, new things came into view.

Such as a bond with geese in it.

No, on closer inspection, there was only one goose in the pond. But it had two heads.

Two necks sprouting from its fluffy body.

One of the heads spotted her and began honking, the other soon joined it.

It was the kind of noise that could wake up a castle.

"That's a dark goose!" Mona yelled, "an unnatural creature."

"Figured as much." Letta widened her stance and held up her sword as it thrashed its feet through the water and damn near flew at her.

One slap of the bifurcated beast's mighty wings slapped the short sword out of her hands.

It had the advantage of a goose's unrelenting rage, in which no other creature is their peer.

Letta rolled out of the way and ran backwards as the dark goose continued its pursuit.

"Is it that strong?" Mona gasped.

"It's a goose, a goose can break your leg." Letta said.

She was able to kite it around for a bit, until she had made a wide circle back to her weapon and picked it up.

"Eat this!" She was able to avoid its wings this time and swung into its necks, cleanly decapitating one, and half decapitating the other.

The one-headed goose slowed down, tucked in its wings for a bit, and then, with an uncomprehending look, died.

"Good job Letta!" Mona fluttered out of her pocket to celebrate. "You're becoming a real monster slayer!"

"I hope we didn't attract any attention." Letta muttered.

But they had.

"Hello? Yanus?" A voice came calling from somewhere inside the cave. "What's that ruckus, huh? Did the puppies come near your pond again, huh?"

Letta dove into one of the inset cushioned nests in the wooden flooring and pressed herself against its side to avoid detection.

-

As the voice came closer, it suddenly gasped.

"Yanus! Who did this?"

The dead goose did not respond.

"Oh no... oh what a pity."

Mona dared sneak a peek over the edge of the nest.

"Oh my stars," she said, "it's a young girl. No older than you are."

"That's Cobaline," Letta sighed, "she was raised by bandits and taken to this place when the goblins conquered them. I don't want to fight her if I don't have to."

"Who's there!?" Cobaline shouted, "show yourself!"

"She might be our only lead further in." Mona said.

Letta groaned and jumped up out of the nest.

Cobaline was the same height as she. Dressed in a peasant dress, but with a few wild barbaric ornaments, furs and bones.

While Letta had been ravaged by her journey, Cobaline was clean and braided, with only some grass stains on her lower dress and shoes.

They were inversion of one another. One groomed but barbaric, the other disheveled but proper.

"Who are you?" Cobaline said slowly, "you don't belong here."

Letta raised her sword. "I'm here for the fairy queen. Show me where she is and don't make a sound, nobody has to get hurt."

The bandit girl's eyes quickly glanced at a wooden lattice in the cave wall at the mention of the fairy queen, and then she quickly avoided it. "We musn't-" She said to herself, "it's not safe to fight without the pack- We musn't."

"Who are you talking to?" Letta said, closing the distance towards her. "...Hey!"

Cobaline looked her in the eyes.

Hers had already changed, become yellow.

Letta froze up as the girl before her disappeared, replaced by a warg wolf in ill-fitting clothes.

It turned around and ran off, barking heavily.

"What do we do know?" Mona asked.

"That thing," Letta sprinted at the lattice, "it has to be some sort of door, it..."

She stopped talking.

A massive creature had approached them.

The honking and barking had brought out something fiercer.

It looked like the necks and heads of five swans, but scaled up to be the size of constrictor snakes.

Like the goose before it, they were connected to a singular swan body. But even the body was branched into more of itself, as a second pair of webbed feet supported the elongated torso at the back, and its wings, when it spread them, were large enough to cover the breadth of the cave.

It didn't make a noise.

It simply began to step towards them with an increasing pace. Some of its heads turned to look at them, some opened to reveal the hideous serrated tomium in their bills.

Letta pulled on the lattice in a panic as the monstrous bird got closer and closer.

"Letta hurry up!" Mona screamed.

"It won't budge!"

"A dungeon door can't stay closed. It has to open to let the magic through. There has to be a trick to it."

Letta smashed into the wood with her sword, sending splinters flying, and again. Breaking one plank turned two adjacent openings into one slightly larger hole.

A fully grown adult wouldn't have been able to crawl through, but she managed to squeeze in just in time, ripping her vest.

The room at the other side was cold and dry and she scrambled to the other side of it on all fours.

A swans head stuck out of the lattice when she turned around, squawking angrily. The long neck couldn't reach even halfway across the oval room.

She had escaped.

"You did it Letta!" Mona cheered.

Letta began to laugh. But she felt closer to crying.

----------------------------------------

The room was dark.

Darker than the sewers had been.

Darker than the forest at night.

Mona shone some light upon the thrashing swan head, but almost nothing could be made out.

Having caught her breath, Letta traced her hand around the cement walls. There didn't seem to be an opening.

"A dungeon closing off its entrance is like a person holding his breath," Mona said, "sooner or later, they have to let air in."

"We're not even sure it's a dungeon." Letta grunted.

The swan had stopped thrashing now and stared calmly into the darkness.

Voices were coming from behind it.

"Turn him... no, like this."

"Pivot. Pi-vot!"

"They're trying to get the hydra swan out of the hole," Letta said, "and then they'll come for us."

"It has to open up quickly, it has to." The fairy said, now with less conviction. "Look for a hole, anything..."

"I don't think so..." Letta reached for the spellpaper, when suddenly the floor made a clicking noise.

A section in the middle of the floor began to sink.

"What is that? A trap?"

"It's a way out! Jump in!"

She followed the fairy's advice and jumped onto the platform moving down.

"We're following her path..." Mona said, "are you excited?"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"That's one word for it..."

-

The platform kept sinking and sinking.

It was a cargo lift ensconced in a steel frame.

Letta watched as the many tons of steel beams passed by her, while she was still holding her tiny bronze sword.

Then she saw beyond it.

An enormous drip stone cavern, lit up by the fires of industry.

Countless pockets of molten metal spread their orange glow.

Melting pots, purification table, and many smithies dotted the darkness underneath them like stars in the sky.

As they continued to lower, they were swallowed by that sky.

Trolls beating metal, pipes carrying fumes, and chemical baths with ore were rising up above them as they entered the web of metal.

There was a rhythm to the sound they were making. A drum beat of synchronized labor.

The platform was speeding up now, dangerously so.

"Letta, get ready. There's a welcome party down below." Mona said.

The human girl couldn't stick her head out to see the bottom, but there were several hobgoblins there to receive her.

"Like I'm waiting for that."

She sheathed her blade and took a few steps back.

"Letta, what are you doing?"

"Hold on to my shirt."

With a running jump she dove off the falling lift, between the girders flitting by, and towards one of the suspended workshops.

She met with the cold and hard metal floor arms first, and rolled to catch her fall.

Even with that technique, it was still a hard landing, and her skull bonked painfully against the surface.

"Ow ow ow."

"Letta, watch out!"

She looked up just in time to see the troll, who had a stone glove used as blacksmith's hammer swipe at her.

It banged loudly against the metal frame, one hit would have killed her.

"Run for it!" She screamed at herself.

There was a pathway leading up to the smithy, and she barreled down the staircase, kicking a goblin with a bucket of water out of the way.

Down the stairs. Over the railing. Under the transport belt.

There was no time to determine the optimal route, as she rushed by every worker in the foundry as soon as possible before they knew what was happening.

"Letta, were are we going!?" Mona yelled out.

"Down." She panted. "This isn't a prison. We have to go further down."

-

Eventually she was able to drop down to the cave's ground level, somewhere outside the hobgoblin's expected entrance.

In fact, they had rushed upstairs to find her in the maze of workshops.

Ground level was were the big industrial machines were.

The giant caldera pouring molten steel.

The beam rollers creating wire.

Rolling band of metal plates and cutting arm.

They were all placed in a forest of stalagmites, connected by a suspended pathway of wooden floorboards.

Letta moved underneath the wood, as panicked footsteps could be heard above her.

The residents were intent on catching her, but none had considered the possibility that she could have gone below even the floorboards.

"Whereto hath she runneth off?" Someone said.

"I cannot say, brother. She be somewhere among the forges, surely."

"Why do they talk all old-timey?" Mona whispered.

"Standeth guard near the Lion's Head. Don't let her reach the next level," the goblin said, and a stampede followed into a unified direction.

Letta and Mona looked at each other knowingly. They couldn't have the way to the next level more clear if they tried.

----------------------------------------

Clambering around the stalagmites underneath the floorboards was a whole lot more cumbersome than strolling over top them.

And Letta had to slow down for a token attempt at stealth when her pounding heart allowed her.

So they could not keep pace with the hobgoblins.

As such, they came upon a fork in the road without knowing which was the way to the Lion's Head.

One scaffold continued on into the dark depths, while the other branched off into the middle of the stone forest and led to a strange, rounded boulder, unnatural in its matte smoothness.

"Could that be the Lion's Head?" Letta asked.

"Looks more like an egg." Mona remarked.

It was an egg. A big round egg of concrete and cement with a portcullis to keep out its ovivorous enemies.

Mona audibly swallowed. "I'll go take a look."

Before Letta could say anything, the tiny fairy had flitted out of her pocket and towards the small inner building.

What followed felt like a year of darkness and silence.

It seemed like Mona would never return, and Letta let her hand stroke the spell paper, just to check if it was still there.

Then, a light emanated from the egg. A short burst of diffuse beams of brightness coming from the portcullis.

It was silent once more, and the portcullis slowly began to open.

Letta curled up behind the rock formations, and Mona still hadn't returned.

-

Some time later, she could hear a group of people walking overhead.

They had come from the egg, and were talking loudly.

"Zhat is just vhat I vanted to show! Zhat a labyrinth may change at zhe dungeon master's digression. As long as zhere is a path tovards zhe outside and zhe sky, from vhich all magic flows."

"I wonder, Noss Fleder, if you will ever run out of dungeons to show me. Honestly, it's all become a blur to me now, I can't tell them apart."

"Zhese lessons are important for zhe defense of your own dungeon, you know zhat."

"Do I? We haven't had an intruder for more than five years, I know that."

"Papa!" A goblin called out to the boy that had been speaking. "We have an intruder!"

"What? Inside the foundry?"

"Vhat vill you do now?"

"Let the bats and grues catch them. We're going downstairs to the garden, it's the closest panic room."

And the voice, which had to have been Papa Scratch, left towards what could only be the direction of the Lion's head.

-

Letta was once again alone in the darkness.

She wondered if she should have jumped out when the goblin patriarch had been right above her.

His voice had sounded so clear and close, yet she had done nothing.

She had simply shrunk back and observed. Just like...

"Letta!" Mona appeared suddenly from the darkness in her face, almost triggering a reflexive swatting.

The fairy had managed to suppress her natural glow.

"That place... it's a strange circle of stone and crystal. Then it lit up... and there were people that suddenly came out!"

"It must be a warping circle." Letta explained, "just like they have at the adventurers' guild. The person that came out was Papa Scratch, the goblin boss. He's going down to the next level."

Without realizing it, she had been fondling the hilt of her sword as she spoke.

"Letta..." Mona whispered, "we're here for the queen, right? Not for Papa Scratch?"

"R-right." She quickly let go of it, and released the weapon to hang into her scabbard fully once more. "But we might have to get past him."

----------------------------------------

The end of the wooden pathway sloped down, becoming the tongue of a stone carving of a lion's head. Or the head of some large carnivore at least.

The stonework was impressive in its scale and nothing else.

Copper plating had replaced parts of the lion that had fallen off, and they had rusted green.

Standing inside the mouth of the lion, barring access to its insides, stood a trio of hobgoblins.

They were dressed not too dissimilar to rookie adventurers, wearing peasant clothing with some protective leather overneath, and a number of unique metal weapons. Only the clothing and equipment looked more uneven, more amateurishly made.

Letta could just about take all of this in, her body half covered by the slanting wood, without springing too much in their eye, as they were bent over a small booklet the middle one was holding.

"Tis supposed to be a duck and a rabbit at once." He explained.

"This is folly," his brother grunted, "I hath not seen but one of these double-views."

"I dare say, the old woman and the young woman I couldst not see. But this I can. It could be a beak or its ears, yes?" The third said.

"Lines on paper canst never show the form of nature," the second insisted, "rabbits and ducks are naught flat like your pages."

"Thy words are like the fox, decrying the sour grapes, Maüriel," said the hobgoblin holding the book, "Thou hath never seen a rabbit. Come, I shall show you another one. For this one, one must cross one's eyes. Like so."

As they were discussing the booklet of visual curiosities, Letta searched the ground near her feet for loose pebbles and found one.

"What are you doing?" Mona whispered.

"I need to lure them out of there to get past." She whispered back.

With a deft throw she hurled the pebble many paces into the darkness where there was no pathway, and hid.

As she had hoped, it made a clear and conspicuous *thwack* noise, that caught the guards' attention.

"What was that?" One said.

"Somebody threw a pebble." Said the other.

"They must be hiding underneath the planks!"

Two of the hobgoblins dropped down on different sides of the walkway, to approach her from different sides.

"Was this what you wanted?" Mona asked.

Letta pinched the bridge of her nose. "No..."

-

When the brothers approached the location of the intruder, they were suddenly met by a cloud of billowing smoke.

A simple fire starter spell and the efficient slime kindling had managed to set fire to the wooden boards.

"Aww, ugh!" One of them coughed, as the black soot drifted straight in his direction. "Incomplete burning."

"But we art not permitted to burn treated wood," the other said unhelpfully.

"Put it out then!"

Waiting between the burning wood, Letta held her breath and tucked her fingers under her armpits not to sear them.

The smoke was supposed to provide a cover against detection, but it became increasingly a threat to her own well-being.

"Letta! Now!" Mona yelled out from somewhere, and at the fairy's direction, the girl dashed out of the smoke and ran parallel to the path.

Due to the good timing the hobgoblin has just begun a water spell and wasn't prepared to intercept her dashing out of the fiery nook.

Once the path became low and unburned enough she was able to jump on top of it without slowing down, directly toward's the Lion's Mouth, where the third hobgoblin was now guarding the entrance by himself.

He saw her coming and quickly stowed away the book of illusions, unsheathing a short metal staff from a thigh strap.

In one fluid motion she drew her sword and lunged.

The sword cut through the air and met with the subhuman's rod.

*thwack*

The copper short sword bounced off of the superior steel, now permanently deformed and bent 60 degrees.

Letta struggled to stay on her feet after being thrown back, but the hobgoblin had seemingly not felt any force at all.

His arm shot forward and grabbed her by the wrist, more curious than angry. "Art thou a human? Thou art rather small for a human."

He was barely taller than her, but his strength was like a grown man, and he effortlessly held her in place.

In her panic, she swung at him again with her ruined sword, but he violently clubbed her over the head.

The pain was sharp and instant, and her vision blurred as she lost strength in her legs.

"Maybe mother will let me keep her." She heard him say.

Suddenly, the painful grasp on her wrist disappeared and he cursed.

Mona had flown in from somewhere and bitten him in the finger.

The hobgoblin dropped his weapon to grasp the tiny girl with both hands.

Letta picked up the ruined weapon she had let slip out of her grip and widened her stance.

"Letta! Run! Go find the queen!" Mona grunted from her constricted position, "don't worry about me, just go!"

After half a moment's hesitation, Letta moved to the side of the hobgoblin, who had trouble divvying up his attention, and then dashed into the lion's mouth.

Not a hair too soon, as the other brothers had already caught up with her and she only narrowly escaped a tackle.

----------------------------------------

Letta had always been proud of her running.

In absence of fighting ability, it had helped her survive in the crime ruined streets of Eston as an orphan.

But the hobgoblins weren't just good fighters, they were physically developed in all aspects.

Sprinting through the river that the Lion's Head lead into, she couldn't get a lead on her pursuers.

Unlike in the sewers, there was no continuous walkway next to the water here, only a series of slippery tiles that one could step on to keep their feet dry while crossing.

And between the tiles, the river became increasingly wild.

"Stop!"

"Hey come back, we just want to talk!"

The guards were wholly unconvincing in their attempts at getting her to stand down as they swung their weapons around.

Eventually Maüriel got his hand on her sleeve.

That's when Letta dove into the river.

It could have been an escape gambit, and it could have been due to her waning strength and despair. She wasn't sure herself.

But letting the strong current drag her on she escaped the grasp of the hobgoblins. They stopped running and just looked at her with a bewildered expression.

-

The underground river was so strong that Letta had trouble coming up for air.

For a moment, she lost consciousness, until she was fished out by the scruff of her neck.

When she looked down, she saw a dizzying drop.

Below her was a waterfall, countless story tall and a death sentence had she gone over.

At was a lush green pasture and river, lit by a cloudy, moving pattern of light.

Her addled brain wondered how she came to be on top of a mountain, in broad daylight. Then she looked up to see who had saved her life.

Orange-skinned, with small horns, but a feminine face.

Letta didn't know there was such a thing as a female hobgoblin, yet she was dangling from one's arm now.

The girl's face leaned slightly to the side while keeping her eyes on Letta. "Papa! What do we want with her?"

Behind her was a whole retinue of goblins, in cloth and fur.

They were attending to a house, suspended in mid-air.

The wood and metal dangled a few inches above their brick platform and there was a ramp for entering it.

"Ah! A roof!" Letta exclaimed, now seeing the metal cables holding up the object and the wooden lattice covering the luminescent rock sky.

"What are you saying?"

"Ada! There's- oh, thou hath gotten her." The other three hobgoblins came running over the river steps.

"We knew thou wouldst catch her." Maüriel panted.

Ada frowned. "You three are the worst guards. I should tell your mothers about this."

"Aw... Ada!"

As they talked, the goblins inside the dangling home began turning some large wheel or mechanism. And it began to move.

It began to move away from the platform, over the dizzying heights over the edge.

The cables led all the way down at a gentle slope, towards a series of erratic and crooked buildings in the depths, where a reception platform stood amidst the greenery.

"The next level!" Letta tightened her grip, feeling the ruined sword still in her hand.

She heaved it up and arched her back, which released from the distracted hobgoblin girl's grip.

When she fell down, she tensed her whole body to force the sharp of the blade into her sandal.

*snap*

It broke in two.

Letta fell to the ground and could only just avoid falling into the waterfall below, digging the bleeding fingers of her free hand into the brickwork.

Ada was staring her directly in the eyes.

She breathed in.

And then fell backward, screaming in pain, grasping at her foot.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"Ada!" The brothers yelled out.

"Oh no, Ada, you've got metal shards in your foot!"

"I can see that you idiot! Grab the girl!"

Roused by the commotion, Papa Scratch came to the entrance of the moving house.

His eye met Letta's.

She scrambled to her feet and, clutching the broken blade, sprinted towards the edge of the cliff.

She would have taken a longer running start if she'd had the opportunity.

Be that as it may, she made it.

She collided directly with the goblin patriarch, who hadn't flinched, and landed on top of him.

His eye widened as he fell backwards and she landed on top of him.

"Nobody move!" Letta screamed triumphantly, though her voice cracked a little, "or Papa gets it."

The broken end of the sword was pressed against his throat, and she was holding the grip with two hands.

The goblins that had been turning the wheel stopped to look at her confusedly, and the vessel swung due to the sudden stop.

Behind her, the hobgoblins were lining up at the edge.

"Except for you. You keep turning the wheel." Letta commanded.

They hesitated.

"Do as she says." Papa Scratch sighed.

So they continued, and soon the distance became too far for the hobgoblins to jump after her.

"You're going to show me what lies at the bottom of all of this." She panted.

----------------------------------------

The vessel creaked slowly forward as the goblins, somewhat self-consciously, dragged it forwards.

There were benches at the sides of the interior, but apart from one boy, they were empty.

Scratch was laid on his back on the floor, Letta still on top of him.

"Think this is wise?" He asked.

"Be silent. Tell me how you carved out this space."

"Be silent and tell you?" He nearly laughed, but she pushed the blade threateningly into his skin.

That's when the individual on the bench stood up.

He was well dressed, perhaps a bit mud-stained at the extremities.

A boy, smaller than her, but exuding a silent strength.

He cracked his neck.

"S-stay back." She held up the sword.

He looked her in the eyes and bared his vampiric fangs.

Then he fell face first onto the ground.

Scratch raised his hands. "That was my last backup, you're the captain now. Now can we both take a seat?"

-

Letta first pushed the fainted boy out of the door, tentatively, using her feet.

He flopped over the edge and plummeted into the field of unseasonal barley below. A troll looked up lazily at the sight of him and she hid from its sight.

"Keep going." She commanded the worker goblins.

The leader was granted the limited freedom to get up from the ground and sit on the bench, though she didn't let her grip of the half-sword waver from his direction.

"You realize that the people living here are protected by the crown," he said, "you're not adventuring down here. You're breaking the law."

"The first adventurers were lawbreakers." She said.

"I didn't know that."

"Well... anyway," she peeked out of the vessel towards the small neighborhood at the end of the cable. A number of hobgoblins had gathered around the arrival station, "I don't think the queen would let all of this go on if she knew about the dungeon. It is a dungeon, isn't it... Papa Scratch?"

"It is." It would have been pointless to deny now. "Is that why you Linel send you here? To find proof of a dungeon?"

"No. To find the queen of the fairies. I know you keep her at the lowest level of the dungeon."

"So Linel did send you."

She gritted her teeth, feeling somehow tricked into revealing potentially dangerous information. "N-no... the guildmaster doesn't know that I'm doing this. I was... approached by the fairies directly."

Scratch smiled faintly. "That's a lie. I can tell when people lie you know."

Letta flinched.

"The god that resides within the dungeon core tells me about it." he said, "Linel has avoided telling a single lie for five years now, so I don't know who he talks to or what his plans are. You on the other hand, lie all the time. To the other orphans, to the adventurers' guild, to the city guards.

That puts a big red spotlight on you as far as Cyclophan, evil god of deceit and trickery, is concerned. We just hadn't expected you so early."

"An evil god..." Letta gripped the sword tighter. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"You won't be alive to pass it on." He said, matter-of-factly. "What convinced you to go along with it, anyway?"

She looked at his smug face and felt like lashing out with the weapon right there. But without their leader as a hostage, she would probably be overrun by the worker goblins. "That's none of your business."

"Ch." He clicked his tongue, "don't be like that. This will be the last chance you get telling your story... Pumpkin."

"You're trying to get me to kill you!" She shouted.

The goblins stopped turning the wheel, but Scratch gestured at them to continue.

"You're the little girl we traded for the guild traitor," he said eventually, "what was it? Six years ago?"

"Almost seven. I could never forget what you did to my family. It was due to you that I was taken in my that hag, Lacrima. She used all the children at the orphanage as her test subjects. Even after I was freed of her, I had to pick pockets to survive, and then I learn you are sheltering her."

"So you're here for revenge?"

"I'm here for justice!" He voice cracked as she yelled. "It can't be that the farmsteads call you their protector. That the knights bow to you as their baronet! A wretched goblin like you, an enemy of the gods. I can't abide it!"

Just the thought of it caused her some distress, her face and neck contorted in disgust as she spoke. So much that it caused her physical pain.

"I see. If that's where you're standing, you have no reason not to strike me down right now."

Scratch seemed to be perfectly at ease, presenting his neck as if indulging the game of a very young child.

"No. I can't do that." She simmered down into a cold fury. "If I kill you now, all people will know is that a rogue adventurer killed a minor noble. I'm here to expose you for the monster you are. Once I release the fairy queen, we'll-" her hand hovered around the pocket with the spell paper, but she quickly retracted it. "Anyway. You don't need to know the details, just sit back and let your empire crumble around you."

Scratch nodded. "You can have her now."

"Have wh-"

A steel whip flung through the window, wrapping its segments around Letta's right arm.

She had one second to look at him confusedly, before she was suddenly yanked outside.

On top of the cable that supported the vessel, stood the hobgoblin girl that she had hacked in the foot.

She had healed her wound rather trivially and followed them on top of the metal wire in a feat of death defying tightrope walking.

Letta was weightless. In free fall.

She flailed helplessly as her attacker tightened the whip... and her arm was sliced into many parts.

The shock was so great that she barely felt any pain at all.

Her vision went black, and she never noticed hitting the ground.

----------------------------------------

The pain woke Letta up.

Several of her bones were broken and she was being dragged by her hair over uneven ground.

But most of all, her dominant arm was torn a bloody pulp.

A trail of blood was being left behind from her stump, and she was feeling cold from blood loss already.

The troll that was dragging her along lifted her up and threw her on some smooth rock, and that really woke her up.

"Here, buy yourself something nice." Scratch told the troll, handing it some of his paper money.

"Yish Papa..." it grunted and sauntered off.

"Still alive... well I'll be."

"She is persistent. I vill admit zhat much."

"Ada. Heal her."

"Papa! Why?"

"Because I say so, get on with it."

There was a faint itching in Letta's stump, and the bleeding stopped. Although she was still very much anemic.

She groaned and looked up, but immediately closed her eyes.

Scratch and the boy from earlier were standing over her. The latter still very much alive, despite being thrown from a much greater height than she was.

"Good morning Pumpkin." Scratch forcefully pried her eye open. "It's time to meet that fairy queen of yours."

"Letta! Oh no!" Mona's voice called out to her. One of the hobgoblins was holding her.

-

The goblins had been thorough in their ministration, when Letta climbed to her feet all her pain was gone.

However, her arm had not been returned to her.

Stumbling a bit, for lack of balance, she let herself be urged forward by their weapons.

The finality of her disfigurement hadn't yet set in.

They went up the steps of a lush garden. Between the sprawling family houses was a vibrant green collection of ferns and fruit trees. And hedges that fenced it off from the gardens.

Notably, there wasn't a sound of animal or insect anywhere.

"Don't give up hope yet, Letta." The fairy said sympathetically, but she was squeezed into silence by her captor.

Letta wasn't listening, her eyes were focused on Papa Scratch, who had at some point snatched the spellpaper out of her pocket.

"Vhat is it?" His friend asked.

"I don't know. There are parts of the spell that are familiar, and parts that aren't. I think it might be some sort of transformation spell?"

He handed it over.

"Ah. I should have suspected. 'Escape', one of Walgis' spells. Upon casting, zhe user turns into pure energy and floats against zhe currents of zhe dungeon, appearing at zhe entrance. Zhat is zhe infuriating zhing about celestial magic, it casually invents zhe most revolutionary patterns, and zhen uses it for such trivial purposes as escaping a dungeon."

Scratch laughed. "If that's how you feel, why don't you edit it for your own purposes?"

"Hmmpf. Now you sound exactly like my master. It is not zhat easy."

As they crossed some invisible barrier out of the vibrant green, Letta's eyes were suddenly hit with a piercing light.

Before here stretched a sun-bleached stone road, amid a simmering hot desert.

Beside the road stood an elf.

Very pregnant and clad in a luxurious white silk.

Some of the hobgoblin escort walked up to speak to her, and she kissed their cheeks. They were explaining what Letta was doing here.

Letta looked over her shoulder at the towering and chaotic homes, and saw more elves and hobgoblins gathered on the balconies to gawk at her.

"Is this where the hobgoblins live?" She asked.

"It's where the hobgoblins come from," Scratch said, he waved the spellpaper in her face. "You won't be talking about this to anyone, you will die here. I just don't like people dying slowly like that."

"How benevolent." She said sarcastically.

"Thanks." He said sarcastically back, stuffing the spellpaper in his breast pocket.

-

The desert road led to a castle, as she had seen at the waterfall.

But coming close, she could feel her body shaken by a deep and unnatural sound.

A tempestuous roar loosened the sand around them.

"She's in one of her moods today, isn't she Bree?" Scratch said cheerfully.

"Always Papa." A troll in full shiny steel stood under a shade giving overhang, guarding the entrance.

"Well, let's show her in."

Letta experienced a moment of dread when the castle's heavy doors began to open, almost expecting the horrible beast inside the burst out immediately.

But the opening of the doors did not provide escape for the monster.

The inside of the building was empty space.

The monster was below, in a deep pit that was kept in shape by metal struts and stone walls.

An enormous earth dragon bashed its head against the walls of the pit in pure rage. The crest on its head had been flattened due to years of abuse.

A token, symbolic, railing separated the walking area from the sunken territory of the dungeon boss.

"See that little hole in the middle of the pit?" Scratch asked Letta. "That's how you get to the deepest part of the dungeon."

"So the queen is guarded by the dragon..." Letta said.

He didn't answer. "The dragon may be hostile to us, but we still have to keep it alive. You know, feed it. That's why I asked you to come all this way."

Her eyes shot open in shock and the armored troll's hands appeared to keep her in place.

"I mean, why kill and bleed you in the middle of the garden when we have all the facilities right here? Plus, less carrying, you know." He gestured towards a set of equipment installed in the castle's interior not too dissimilar to a butcher's workshop.

"Wait!" Letta screamed, as she was being moved towards it. "Wait. Throw me to the dragon alive!"

Scratch raised an eyebrow. "I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't think you could kill her. But I'm not fond of drawing out deaths either. Rasthumin's pin is quick and painless."

The hobgoblin holding a miniature crossbow with the mentioned pin nodded eagerly.

"What's cruel," she was still struggling against the advanding troll, "what's cruel is letting me get this close to the fairy queen and not giving me a chance to see her. Just throw me in. If I'm going to be eaten anyway, at least give me a chance to make it to the hole."

"Sorry. My mind's made up."

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you what Linel's plan is. I'll tell you who contacted Mona and the other fairies."

"Letta!" The fairy screamed.

Scratch gestured at Bree to stop.

"You can see when I lie, right?" Letta said. "So you know I'm telling the truth. If you give me to her alive, I'll tell you."

"Papa, we haven't known what Linel is doing for months." A hobgoblin said, "if we just throw her down... it doesn't cost anything."

"You stupid girl..." Scratch said, his face full of genuine pity. "Come on then, tell me the secret. I'll judge whether it's worthy of a last wish."

"I'll whisper it into your ear."

There was possibility that she wouldn't try something. But the girl has lost her weapons and an arm, so Scratch rolled his eyes and approached.

Bree let go Letta and she leaned in.

Instead of trying to attack him, she whispered into his ear.

He took a moment to absorb the information.

Then, as she wasn't being held, she dove over the protective railing straight into the pit.

----------------------------------------

"Vhat is she doing!?" Noss exclaimed, looking over the edge.

Scratch was still recalculating his position with the adventurers' guild, but was convinced to join him by those words.

Instead of running towards the middle, Letta had curled up against the wall.

She held out her one arm towards the dragon, looking over her.

"Vhy von't she attack!?"

There was a short flash of something.

A burning flicker.

Scratch's hand shot towards his breast pocket. The spellpaper was gone.

"Son of a- When?"

"She's casting a spell!" Felix said, and he was about to jump in.

Bree grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.

They could all see the magical energies now surrounding the girl. But inside the dragon pit, there was no way to interrupt her.

The magic collapsed on top of her and she began an orb of light to those who can perceive magic, and her being shot with lighting speed towards the dungeon stem the spanned through the air.

It circled the flow a few times, and before anything could be said, she had disappeared. Returned to the surface.

"Hah! Take that!" The fairy Maüriel was holding boasted. "Soon the whole human world will know about your underground operations."

"I don't think so," Scratch said, "with no proof, she's just a criminal with a fancy story. Still... it could come back to bite us in the ass. We may need to look into- ... Actually, shut the fuck up. It's not your business anymore."

----------------------------------------

Hydra Swan

Family: Bird

Threat Level: C

Reward: 20 gold

A hydra swan is a creature that can only be found in dungeons. It can be recognized by its outward resemblance to swans. Despite its name, it is unrelated to the hydra, which is a dragon.

Although it possesses wings, the hydra swan is incapable of flight, and uses these appendages as bludgeoning weapons. Adventurers are advised to ambush the creature from behind and get on its back, where its wings can not touch them. In order to defeat a hydra swan, one must cut off all its heads.

The hydra swan does not yield any especially useful materials, but its meat is edible and quite delicious. There have been personal quests by nobility, commissioning adventurers for the special purpose of procuring hydra swan meat for a special occasion.