Pride was the farthest thing from my mind looking at the finished piece. It looked like shit, but it was definitely an improvement over my shirt and skin for stopping blades… so I was still going to wear it. Tossing the dagger to the side of the room as it wasn’t good for anything anymore unless I managed to find a forge down here to smelt it back down to an ingot. While the metal might still be worth something, the way this dungeon was going we were already going to find more than we could carry out so I may as well start pruning now despite the howling my inner pack rat was putting up.

All together it had taken me, maybe three hours to make the jerkin, and part of that had been because I needed to stay quiet so I wouldn’t wake my companions. Sienna had finished my shirt in short order, only having to stitch together the slashes. It looked like she was going to offer to help me with my project as well, but I waved her off and told her to get some sleep. Hacking through both of the chest pieces in half hadn’t taken me that long. It was trying to use the dagger as a hole punch that had been the biggest problem.

My original plan had been to use a rock as a hammer but rather than wake everyone up I just slowly kept pushing through the hardened hide. Finally, I had taken one of the goblin shirts they had salvaged, cut it into strips, and tied everything together so I had protection on all four sides down to my mid belly. I would see how this iteration helped in the next fight and go from there. I was thinking about trying to cut the shoulder pieces down so I could lower it protect my midriff better but didn’t want to weaken it too much.

Wanting to give the bear another hour before I woke him up for his watch, I decided to walk the room and figure out what I missed, so I would be more ready for the next fight. Also, I needed to figure out why the goblins were sticking to their rooms. I mean I knew the obvious answer was they were bound there by the dungeon, but that was just where my mind immediately went. I didn’t want to stick with that assumption and then we all wind up eaten because someone’s replacements wandered in while we were asleep trusting in the inviolability of the room.

Walking to the start of the room, careful not to break the plane that separated the room from the hall, I pondered what had gone wrong with this attack. It was obvious that the first thing that had gone wrong was the fireball hitting the bashers rather than the intendant target. That was just Murphy at work though and nothing was going to stop the demon of mischief from having fun at our expense. We had handled the change easily enough. The bigger problem had been not being able to burn down the targets fast enough because I hadn’t thought one of the shamans would turn out to be defensive in nature, which was stupid. After all, our preliminary fight at the camp had a protection shaman involved and that was another fight that almost didn’t end in our favor.

It was a habit of mine that I really needed to break myself of. I enjoyed playing chess back on earth, but I was only ever a middling player. One of the things holding me back was I was too aggressive and always tended to think the games were going to continue to go along the lines I had planned out only to have my legs taken out from under me when I missed something and wasn’t able to recover adequately. Now I remained middling because I was excellent at dancing on my feet and coming up with quick fixes. The shorter the clock, the better I tended to do. But this wasn’t a chess game anymore, lives were depending on me and I had to stop making dumb mistakes.

The biggest mistake I made was assuming I had counted all of the goblins. I knew the room had blind spots, but I had just assumed that everyone was going to be watching the fight. So when Murphy made his appearance I had gotten so involved in changing the plan I hadn’t swept the room for anything that might have been out of place.

Standing where I had confronted the smaller group of fodder goblins before it all went to hell for me, I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything that happened in detail for any clues I had missed that should have warned me I was about to be counter ambushed. Breathing slowly and dropping into a half meditation I played over the encounter in my mind. I had been so focused on the charging four goblins I hadn’t even noticed any of the exp funnels charging past me, I had just assumed when they hit me the exp was only heading for me and the four fodder. Breathing in I noticed something else, there was the slightest smell of burnt pork in the air. It was unmistakable as soon as I noticed it. No other meat has that sweet smell to it, opening my eyes I turned around and followed the wall back to an alcove that was nearly hidden between how the walls ran together and the dim shifting light that was coming from the spores of the mushrooms floating through the air.

Part of the problem that had helped it stay so hidden was that there didn’t seem to be any mushrooms in the room which might have lit it enough for me to notice. Walking back to the remains of the shirt I had cut open, I grabbed it and the dagger I had tossed earlier. Grabbing a mushroom with the shirt, I gently pried it up with the dagger so I wouldn’t disturb it too much. I didn’t think that it was poisonous due to all of the spores floating through the air giving us the lovely green cast to everything that let us stay on even footing with the monsters. But when it came to mushrooms I always erred on the side of caution. I can identify three or four wild ones back on earth with some confidence. By that I mean I can say I think that is a morrel, or that is an oyster, but I certainly wouldn’t validate my guess by picking it up by eating it.

Mycology is like electricity for me, I know just enough to know how bad things would go when I overlook a tiny thing as unimportant. With how often I do that, I leave it to the experts as it isn’t something for a hobbyist with too many other things on his plate. Bringing my makeshift flashlight around the corner of the alcove to me, I saw what the three monsters had been doing before they ambushed me. I also realized why there were still prisoners in the cage.

I had assumed the goblins were just rationing them for later. But while they certainly were doing that, it wasn’t so that they could eat them. They were sending them into the dungeon. I now had to assume that dungeons worked the way they did in the stories back home. Feeding on the life force of those slain in them, the goblins were trying to power their’s up by sending their prisoners in to die.

There were the bones of two adult humans here, broken and gnawed on; and I also saw the remains of a fire. Looking up I could see there was a small crack in the ceiling so apparently even dungeon formed goblins were smart enough to have an outlet for smoke. There wasn’t any meat on the bones which explains why there were fodder goblins in here instead of some of the elites. I can only be thankful for that as had it been an elite or two that I had missed, the goblins of this room would no doubt be feasting in celebration right now. I also saw the remains of some roasted mushrooms, so maybe this was just their dining room, which made me wonder why the dungeon hadn’t yet absorbed the bones to clean it up. Maybe it was trying to horrify me or the kids, hoping to play psychological games with us. Or maybe it is only given a certain amount of time after a fight to take something back in and after that it has to remain.

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Too much remained unknown and I was really wishing I had a way to talk with the kids, although how much three kids who looked to be part of a refugee or resettlement train would actually know about dungeons that were accurate and not hearsay was another problem altogether. I don’t know how long I stared at the bones while I really let it crystalize inside of me what would happen the next time I wasn’t able to pull a rabbit out of my hat when I overlooked something. This time I had been saved by the kids and Gaian. That wasn’t something I was comfortable counting on so I need to get better. I can’t keep relying on assumptions going forward.

Shaking myself with a start, I realized I needed to get some sleep, as we had more rooms to examine tomorrow… tomorrow being a loose term with no more cycling of lights to mark the days. Waking the bear quietly, I continued to let the kids sleep. When I was sure he was going to stay awake, I laid up against him and pulled out my wallet so I could drift to sleep to some pleasant memories of my time before all this madness. I found as I drifted off to sleep I wasn’t wishing this nightmare had never happened anymore though. Seeing the bones from the alcove intrude into my thoughts I knew that if I hadn’t come here and done everything the way that I did that sometime in the next week or two the bones of the kids I had come to care about would have been being worked over by their own goblin killers.

While I hadn’t guaranteed their survival yet, the outcome was looking a hell of a lot better than it would have been had I stayed on Earth. Looking at the picture I silently continued to talk to my memories of my children telling them about my time here. Finally accepting that something good had come from the eternity I had spent in the ball of Order and Chaos.

image [https://c10.patreonusercontent.com/4/patreon-media/p/post/118378972/506f65107a4a47f998cfe3acf35fcbec/eyJhIjoxLCJwIjoxfQ%3D%3D/1.png?token-time=1738368000&token-hash=Ab901CzdcresLiLn6zCUGAxKYPFl2a3xlys8sfXvJNQ%3D]

Waking up with a start I realized the picture I had been holding was gone. Standing up and looking around where I had been laying I saw the kids huddled together a short distance away. Realizing what had probably happened, I tamped down on the spike of anger that had started to form. Yeah, they had one of the irreplaceable memories that were frozen in time and not subject to manipulation by my imperfect mind. But they were just children and if they had woken and seen it, it was only natural that they would be curious about me. I was a strange man that they had only met a day or two ago and judging by how they had reacted the first day, the kindness of strangers wasn’t something that would even cross their minds.

Coughing softly to let them know I was awake, the three of them spun guiltily. Waving them over with a small smile on my face to let them know they weren’t in trouble, I was sure my own kids would be shocked right now. If they had taken something important from me, there most certainly would have been screaming, grounding and all manner of hell raining down on them. Maybe that wasn’t guaranteed, but it probably would have been a fifty-fifty shot depending on my mood that day. I’m not going to pretend like I was a saint of a father and handled every interaction with my kids perfectly.

This was different, whatever society these kids grew up in told them that I was going to rape and brutalize them and they hadn’t even been ready to protest until they thought I was going to do it to there eight year old sister. Until they knew I was safe to be around and truly knew down to the deepest core of their bones that I wasn’t going to hurt them, I needed to treat them with the gentlest of kid gloves. Yeah, when they do something wrong I would need to talk to them about it, but until they trusted that there was nothing to be afraid of I needed to let them know I wasn’t just the best choice of monsters they were stuck in here with.

Lotus was holding her hands behind her back, like wasn’t going to notice what was going on. Sitting back down crosslegged, I waved them over to me again. As they slowly came over I continued to pat the ground next to me telling them that everything was fine and I wasn’t mad. As they slowly sat down I held out my hand to the little girl. At first, she started looking at her siblings for help and Sienna stepped in, babbling to me quickly. I could only assume she was throwing herself in front of the train she thought my anger was going to be. Holding up a hand to indicate she should stop I saw her cut off immediately. I was a little disappointed at the fear I saw flash across her eyes, but I had to remind myself they had no idea who I was and it was perfectly understandable for a fourteen year old girl to be afraid of a strange man, despite the fact that I had saved them from a horrible death, at least temporarily.

Looking back to Lotus I again held my hand out and calmly said, “It’s okay, I’m not angry, would you like me to tell you about them?” As she carefully pulled her hands from behind her back I saw that the picture had become slightly crinkled from how hard she was gripping it. Again I had to tamp down on the surge of anger that threatened to wash over me. Part of my mind was screaming out, How dare this ungrateful little whelp ruin a treasured memory that was never coming back? But I tamped down on it before it could even begin to manifest. Not even letting myself take a deep breath that might indicate I was holding back an explosion.

Treating them like wild rabbits that might spook at the slightest indication I might send an attack in their direction. I continued to smile and again said. “It’s Okay. It’s okay, everything is okay, I’m not mad. Can I have the picture back please?” I know they weren’t able to understand my words but sometimes tone can be enough. After she gently placed both into my outstretched hand, she immediately jumped back, afraid that I might grab her.

I held still, not making a move, certainly not grasping my treasures to my chest like I wanted to. Setting my wallet down on the ground, I smoothed the picture out and then turned it around to show them. Pointing to my daughter first, I hesitated for a second. I still knew so little about this world and I was hesitant to say too much. If the Fae are a real force here, who knows what whispers they might be able to pull out of the past? And then there is also the fact that something seems to be controlling this dungeon. Maybe there are rules they follow, or maybe it is just being automated for now, but if it is automated maybe they have a recording going which means if my kids were transported here then I really didn’t want to use their actual names. Paranoia isn’t a vice when there are actually monsters under the bed.

Keeping to general terms even if I knew that they wouldn’t understand, I continued to tell them stories about the hijinks my kids had gotten into and different ways they had scared years from my life. Eventually, they started to scoot closer as I continued to slowly speak softer. Giving it about thirty minutes of story time I could almost hear Lotus wanting to say “More, More!” But she held it back, I guess happy that I wasn’t upset with her for damaging my precious keepsake.

Gently smoothing it out one last time, I slowly put it back into my wallet for now and I started pulling out two packages of food. One for the kids to split and another the second one for the bear and I. Letting Sienna take care of her families, I quickly tossed Gaian the bigger part of ours and took to chewing on pieces of mine while I packed up the camp. Pouring out part of the water into the bear’s bucket, I drained my own skin before refilling it and topping off the one I had set aside for the children. Keeping most of the extra weapons on top of my pack I left the bits of goblin scrap on the floor as I had no desire to haul it with us.

We had two exits leading from this room, and I was inclined to take the one to the right. Not only was it the traditional way to go through labyrinths it also was in line with how we left the first room. Sure that time it had been because it had been because the passage was going uphill, and I thought it might lead to the exit, but this time they were both level which meant having to choose another way, so when in doubt go with tradition. Before all of that though it was time to start building the wiki!