The female hunter recovered first. “Is this true?”

“Of course it’s—”

The goblin shaman cut in through Takahrah’s response. “Is the dungeon open?”

“Doesn’t look broken.” Raas turned back from where he’d reflexively glanced in the direction of the immense light at the center of the cavern. “I mean, the lights are still on and we’re not dead, anyway.”

“The dungeon is fine.” Takahrah raised his hands placatingly. “I would have warned you if there were any hints of that. The magic of this place has always been meant to keep things in, not out.”

The female Hob sat cross legged and pulled her quiver into her lap. “How does he need our help? He got down here on his own, why can’t he walk backwards. We have no ability to leave ourselves, not without jeopardizing the lives of our people, why should we sacrifice everything for one stranger?”

“Accident.” I spoke up ahead of Takahrah’s explanation. “I came down here by accident, I have no path back. What magic is it that keeps things in? How would breaking it hurt you?” That was critical information. I didn’t have anything against this place, but the very idea of being caged was viscerally disturbing to me. I’d heard hints of some wards from the ancient Hob, but more details could make the difference between life and death.

The council of Hobs and shamans looked at me and I shrunk back in on myself.

Takahrah cleared his throat. “Yes, that is a good question, Vru. But Zhen is right, the events that brought him here were beyo—”

“Were they? Did they even happen at all?” Raas leaned forward, hands underneath his chin.

I leaned slightly myself, just far enough to let my cloak fall across my body. It was uncomfortably hot, but it gave me the cover to slid a hand beneath my clothes and reach for my hidden weapons. I’d been at the mercy of people like Raas far too often, but now I was stronger.

“My divinations—”

“Are a critical element in the protection of the tribe. But they aren’t perfect. You know what is perfect?” Raas leaned clear across the fire to jab one finger at me. “This story. Perfect for some malcontent seeking to trick us into sabotaging the barrier!”

I extracted a dagger from the pouch I’d hidden beneath my clothes and moved back, letting my cloak move off me again with my blade now concealed behind my body instead. “I don’t even know what stupid barrier you’re talking about! Why are you so obsessed with living in a prison?”

Raas heaved himself up, stepping over the fire in a single massive stride. “I’m talking about the ancient magics that keep us all alive! Without the hollow sun, the plants would wither and we would all starve in the darkness!”

Raas seized my front in his hand with the speed of a striking snake and lifted me bodily off the ground without so much as a grunt of effort. “And that isn’t even starting about what else might be freed alongside us! Goblins are nothing before th…”

Raas looked down at the dagger stabbed through his flesh. “Huh.”

I tore it free and slammed in home again, a bit higher up the arm than before. Stars damn it all! Even fully stretched out my arms weren’t quite long enough to get at the medial tendons, I was only hitting the meat of his inner arm. The damn stuff was tough as inch-thick leather. If I just went for the inner wrist maybe—

Raas gently pinched the dagger’s pommel between two fingers and plucked it from my hand. He turned the human-forged blade over to let the light play across it. “This is really interesting.”

No! I didn’t come here just to have all my crap stolen! If I couldn’t slice up his tendons then pain would be the answer. Pain would make him drop me. I stuck my claws in his wound, squeezing two fingers in there and wriggling them about to get as deep as I could.

Raas grinned down at me, but I could see the sweat beading up on his forehead and the smile was obviously forced. “Are you sure this a battle you want to start, cousin?”

My eyes widened in horror as I felt the muscle squirming back. Raas’s arm bulged with growth and the wounds began forcing themselves back together before my eyes. Within a handful of seconds my grasping claws where squeezed right back out again. What kind of bullshit mutation was that? Most Hobs were lucky to get one, this bastard seemed to have at least three.

Fuck. I wasn’t getting my dagger back. I raised my arms above my head. I just had to wriggled free of the clothes Raas was holding and then I could—

Raas relaxed his hand and let me fall to the ground. I’d been a good five feet up, but I still managed to get my feet under me and land in a stable crouch. By the time I had my head back up Raas had his back fully exposed as he casually went back to his side of the fire as if nothing had happened. What the hell was the Hob thinking? My muscles tensed, but I knew I couldn’t draw another weapon from its awkward hiding place before he turned again even if there weren’t other Hobs watching.

Which there were.

“Must violence be your solution to everything?” The brightly dyed Hob asked.

Raas simply shrugged. “It can be when it works, Jurakra.” And then, shockingly, he tossed the dagger he’d been so happy with back to me. It wasn’t even a violent throw, the dagger was spinning along its axis with the blade perpendicular to me, making any injury unlikely.

I was so stunned I barely remembered to catch it.

“Our little cousin is who he says he is.” Raas said. “He is from the surface.”

The massive Hob nodded at me. “Sorry cuz, you were right. My bad.”

“Oh?” Takahrah said. “Would you care to enlighten me as to why that little exchange was more convincing to you than the word of the tribe’s seer?”

Raas gestured at the dagger in my hand. “That wavy shit?” I glanced down at the blade, and it was indeed ‘wavy shit’, with an undulating pattern of lighter and darker metal. “Only steel blades are ever forged like that, and all the steel down here rotted long ago. He’s definitely from the surface.”

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“It doesn’t matter.” The goblin shaman grumbled. “However he got here, he’s stuck here now.”

Nods spread among the circle, but I spoke up before any hope of aid disappeared. “That’s not true!”

The goblin shaman glared at me, but it wasn’t like the old bastard had refrained from interrupting himself. He deserved it. “The magic only prevents the exit of what was here when it was created! Anything else is free to go.” At least that’s what the undead Hob had claimed, but he had seemed sincerely intent on using me as a mechanism for his own escape so he had at least believed it.

Raas cocked his head. “Huh. Is that how that works?”

Takahrah, the only one who hadn’t been nodding along to the goblin shaman, nodded. “Yes. The seal only blocks what was present upon its creation. Kakvysz can explain it better than I.”

The goblin shaman, Kakvysz, sighed reluctantly. “It is true. The seal doesn’t block new substance from moving in and out as it pleases. We are still locked, as all life in this place is wrought from the same cycle of death and rebirth that existed when we were first locked away. A new creature, such as Zhen, could leave without breaking the barrier.”

Kakvysz raised on finger in the air. “In theory! But that doesn’t matter, because all that lives here is trapped. The more he eats the more his essence mixes with that of the fruit and the meat of which he feeds, and the less likely he is to make it out alive.”

I grinned. Finallly, some good news. Or at least news I could convince myself was good in order to cheer myself up. “I haven’t eaten much from down here. I have food that I brought with me.”

My grin turned upside down. “Unless breathing the air counts?”

Kakvysz shook his head. “No, water and air are free. Only the flesh and soul is trapped.”

Takahrah coughed politely, drawing every eye to him. “Lying sets a bad precedent, Zhen. Would you like to correct the record?”

I paled, and babbled out a flimsy defense as I tried to remember if I’d actually lied. I wasn’t really trying to deceive them, but didn’t mean something couldn’t have slipped out on accident. “Lied? What are you accusing me of?”

“Hmmm.” Takahrah stared into the fire and the rest of the council simply watched patiently. I jittered in place uneasily and I was on the verge of prodding him when he spoke up again.

“A half-truth. Not a full lie.”

I blinked. Was his divination that sensitive? “I didn’t bring food from above personally, but I do have food from above.”

Takahrah nodded and the council relaxed. They seemed to put a lot of faith in his magic, more than I would be willing to trust in his word even without the vague nature of divination on top. Even Raas took it at face value, the damn hypocrite.

“You killed someone and took it.”

Kakvysz frowned. “A murder?”

I bristled at the implicit accusation. “It had to be done.”

Raas shrugged. “It was another foreigner, right? It’s not up to us to judge their disputes.”

The javelin armed Hob nodded. “Sometimes death is necessary.”

“So we’re in agreement then?” The bright dyed woman said. “Zhen’s exit wouldn’t interact with the barrier, and we won’t have to risk ourselves to help him.”

“So you do know a way out?”

The council looked between one another. Takahrah cleared his throat. “Maybe? There’s certainly no established way to leave, but between us I’m sure we can give you a solid idea of the terrain and the threats you’ll face. And of course we can introduce you to the other tribes down here. I can’t tell you how useful their knowledge might be, but every tribe has some unique wisdom. They might have a perspective that we lack.”

Takahrah brought me here so I could learn from others, and when I got here he told me I needed to seek out an entire new tribe. Typical. “So what are these other tribes? I hadn’t known that the dungeon could support more than one tribe.”

Kakvysz smiled and waved one hand at the jungle around us. “We’ve been blessed with a lush and fertile land. There are more than enough resources for every goblin born to every tribe.”

I carefully schooled a scowl off my face. That wasn’t what I’d meant and he had to know it. There was never enough room for even two tribes in an area unless they were separated by significant geographical barriers.

The javelin-armed woman next to Raas, Vru, smirked. “There’s always enough food to go around, even if that food is trying to eat you. There are two other tribes and luckily for you they don’t move around much.”

Takahrah set out a line of small clay cups across the ground, filling each with a small handful of crumbled leaves. “The Rockbrothers are miners. They test the borders of the dungeon with each tunnel they dig and each ruin they unearth.”

“But they cannot forge steel.” Raas said. “They’ve unearthed records of it, but all their weapons are reclaimed bronze.”

“Yes Raas, we know.” Takahrah took his pot out of the fire and carefully poured it out over the leaves in each cup. “The Rockbrothers have more metallurgical knowledge than us and even they don’t know the secrets of steel. The Deathspeakers might have it buried somewhere in their catacombs, but they are unconcerned with any construction beyond their duties.”

“The Deathspeakers?” Rockbrothers was a name I could understand, a simple statement of durability and strength. Deathspeakers was a name with an entirely different meaning.

“Yes.” Takahrah said. “The Deathspeakers commune with the fallen and appease the spirits of this broken land whenever possible. When not… well, that’s why they might have some answer to your problem. They use sealing magics themselves, none so powerful as the force that sealed our ancestors beneath the earth so long ago, but that still might be enough to grant them some insight.”

Alright. They were creepy, but their interests laid more in restraining the undead than creating them, which was good enough for me. “Thank you.”

Takahrah nodded. “We are happy to help one of our cousins.” He passed a cup to his right and his left, until each of the tribe’s leaders held one. They raised them in unison and downed them as one.

“The stuff of life has been shared.” Takahrah said.

“And the peace of brotherhood established.” Raas rumbled.

Takahrah turned to me again, final cup in hand. “Welcome guest, will you drink to our brotherhood?”

I nodded my head, letting it stay down just long enough to bear some of the formality of a bow. “Of course, honored elder.”

My arms froze halfway to accepting the tea. “Uh, unless that would lock me down in the dungeon permanently?”

Kakvysz huffed. “Don’t be silly child, neither liquids nor air will have any effect. Only things of substance matter.”

I nodded, hurriedly moving to accept the cup. The tea within was as bitter as it was scalding, but everyone else had drunk it to the last drop and I wasn’t about to let something so petty as my own comfort make me show unnecessary disrespect. These Hobs and shamans had shown more familiarity than I’d expected from anyone of their rank, but that made the sudden formality of this ritual all the more significant.

So I winced and choked it down as fast as I could stomach it with as little actual choking as possible. It wasn’t anywhere near the speed at which they’d thrown it back, but fortunately none of them seemed to take offense.

Kakvysz nodded sharply. “Finally, we’re in proper session.”

I cleared my throat. “Ah, and did you say that you could give me more information on the general layout and threats of the dungeon, Takahrah?”

The seer nodded. “Yes. We range further through the jungle than any other tribe, so we know best what dangers lurk above. Either Vruilxi or myself are probably your best bets there. Our duties put us in the best position to hold such knowledge.”

So there was an established position each held, beyond the seer. “What about the barrier itself?” I glanced between the different leaders, unsure which might answer the question. “What form will it take?”

Kakvysz answered. “If you’re lucky, none that you can see. If you’re not…” The hunched goblin chuckled morbidly. “Well you still won’t see anything. The enchantments of this place are multilayered. The first obstacle is the beasts that dwell between us and the surface, but they are ultimately insignificant, a mere happenstance of chance rather than a deliberate defense.”

Kakvysz shook his head. “No, the first true obstacle is the very walls of this place. I have never sought to leave, but the Rockbrothers tell tales of those who venture too far. The greenery itself turns against them, impaling their corpses on its roots and draining their nutrients back into the dungeon over the course of centuries.”

I shivered. “Like the ancient Hobs in the ziggurats?”

Takahrah nodded. “Exactly. It is the same force, the remnants of the same cataclysmic spell that was laid down here at the birth of this place. But that is only the first line of defense. The Rockbrothers did not abandon their exploration so easily. They fought through the jungle itself turning on them, but their bravery only succeeded in unveiling the final line of defense. The magic here is alive in its own strange fashion, and as soon as it knew they would break free it tore their very souls from their bodies and dragged them screaming back within its walls.”

I swallowed. “How do you stop that?”

Takahrah shrugged. “You don’t. The force is inviolable, incapable of defeat by mortal defenses. The only way to survive it is to prevent it from ever occurring in the first place. That’s why Raas feared you—”

“I fear nothing!”

“—why Raas demonstrated awareness of your potential threat. If one of us wanted to leave we’d be forced to destroy this place entirely, and that cannot be allowed. You, however, are under no such risk. Your soul was born outside this place and the magic won’t even notice you leaving.”

So my foreign body would protect me from the physical obstacles, and my foreign soul would prevent me from falling victim to the metaphysical barriers. Getting out was entirely possible.

All I had to do was survive it.