After walking until sunset, we decided that it was time to set up camp. We were in a dense forest with treetops that prevented light from seeping through, except for the occasional narrow beam that fell in between the leaves. Even Sally, with the supposedly improved night vision that came from his goblin heritage, couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. He warned that dangerous monsters would probably maul us to death if we didn’t have a fire to scare them off.

As such, I found a dry patch at the base of a tree and sat down while he went about gathering firewood. Sally came back a few minutes later and built a fire. 

He looked at me strangely. “Hey, doesn’t it feel like this ground we’re resting on is a bit unstable or something? I feel anxious just being here.”

“It’s probably just retrocausality. Being part elf might give you some kind of killer premonition or something.”

Sally shrugged.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Yeah, I am right, because whenever I make a prediction it comes true. That isn’t because of retrocausality or anything, I just get really lucky.” I sighed, and hoped that whatever was coming would happen to someone other than us. 

Sally took to surveying the area, though he came up dry. He sat down next to the fire and said that he’d keep watch first, so I made an attempt to fall asleep, although it wasn’t easy for someone that had never slept in bed that cost under five thousand dollars. I did eventually manage, though.

I was awoken in freefall, not by the feeling of the air around my silhouette but because of Sally’s screaming. This was certainly new.

“Why’d you wake me up?” I calmly asked, breaking Sally's pleas to whatever gods he apparently still believed in. He seemed awfully stressed despite the fact that no harm could feasibly come of this, given my luck. There’d probably be something soft to break the fall at the bottom. Honestly, it’s really annoying how people don’t seem to learn.

Sally didn’t give any attention to my question and started again with the screaming. What a bother.

After multiple minutes of falling, which I realized probably meant that we were several miles underground, an end came into sight. At the bottom of the dark abyss we’d been falling into for so long, one of those smiley-face clouds that I’d seen at the start of my journey grew in our vision.

We crashed hard into what I assumed was its back and it slowly started breaking our momentum. It took ten seconds or so before we’d stopped moving downwards. Sally figured that we could probably get down from where we were if we just rolled for a bit, and sure enough, after a little effort, we managed to get onto the smooth stone floor that covered the large chasm we now found ourselves in. Even after straining my eyes, there were no walls or ceilings in sight.

I looked to Sally, who now looked stressed to the point where his face formed folds that I didn’t think were possible. He looked years, maybe even decades older now. 

“Hey, are you alright?” I didn’t understand why he was acting like that. We’d survived the fall without sustaining any injuries and he’d seemed fine when he told me to roll off the cloud. What could it be that bothered him so much?

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“Can’t you see them?! All around you?!” He frantically exclaimed, breaking the cool demeanor that I’d gotten used to.

“Look, I’m not gonna try to claim that what you’re seeing isn’t real or something, I’m not that genre blind, but you really need to understand that literally none of these small fry are going to end up a threat to either of us. Just don’t worry about it.”

It was clear that my words didn’t do much to help him. For someone who had seen me casually pull a meteor from the sky and wipe out a city, he was still awfully distrusting of my luck.

“I don’t have the kind of luck you do, I don’t have special powers, so please just kill them already!”

“It would be unlucky if someone with as cool of a fashion sense as you died, so it won’t happen. And it would also be unlucky if I were proven wrong, so even if you were in danger before, you definitely aren’t now.”

He really did have a thick skull. He still stood there, frozen in fear, as though he hadn’t heard what I’d just said. Maybe he doubted my capabilities after seeing me lose to Olivia?

At this point, even I heard the distant rumble of footsteps from these supposed enemies he was talking about.

“Okay, okay, fine, can we just get away from these guys already? They’re getting really, really close to you.”

“That’s fine, if they actually did attack either of us, they’d probably all simultaneously get cardiac arrest or something like that. The fact that it hasn’t happened already is kind of surprising in and of itself, it probably means that meeting them up close will offer some benefit. We’ll see soon enough, I guess.”

“Whatever, you can just stand there and let them lick you or something then, I’m going to head over to that arch-looking thing on your left.”

“Well, sure, I’ll follow you, but they still have us surrounded, don’t they? What’s moving around going to do for us?”

“It’s more progress than standing here. At the very least we could just try to push our way through or something, they just look like regular old invisible goblins.”

“Well, why were you so afraid then? Aren’t you half goblin?”

“It’s Oedipal.”

We started walking towards the towering arch in the distance. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was actually finely carved with fancy looking engravings. The craftsmanship impressed even me, which was saying something, as I had a disposition toward both multi-million dollar jewelry and good writing.

The closer we got, the more detail I noticed. It seemed like the engravings were a series of images that told a linear story, but I didn’t bother trying to understand it. Instead, I turned around and tried to make out these ‘invisible goblins’ that were apparently surrounding us. Surprisingly, no stupid occurance happened to make them visible. I guess they were just that insignificant.

Sally looked down. “Hey, doesn’t this floor pattern below us look kind of like a welcome mat?”

“I guess…” I didn’t see it personally, but I didn’t want to shut him down for no reason. “Hey, those goblins are getting awfully close now, aren’t they? Maybe they’re going to say something to us.”

“What kind of thinking is that? It means we should go faster!”

“I say this because they haven't spontaneously combusted yet, or done anything that resembles it.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna keep going.”

Sally, after taking a single step past the gate, was met with a booming cry.

“Who dares enter?” the voice said.

Sally screamed, and I stepped forward too to see if I could get the voice to say that every time, but unfortunately it stopped after the first call. There was a welcome mat anyways, so if I’m being annoying it was only because whatever demon runs this place doesn’t know how to treat guests.

“Oh, hi. My name is Emma and this guy goes by Sally. What about you?”

There was no response. Sally and I started in the direction the voice came from. We’d find out soon enough, I figured.