Digging up a grave at the breakneck pace our cast of lovable idiots dug would be unthinkably taxing on typical examples of their species. They weren’t typical examples, however; they were adventurers, with bodies enhanced by their blessings. Even Deacon, a meek spellcaster found he could frantically shovel dirt alongside his more athletically gifted new companions without breaking a sweat. In no time at all, they’d cleared out a six-foot path to the coffin lid.

“I changed my mind,” Sonnet seethed. “If there’s no dungeon under here after all this, I won’t wait until you’re asleep, I’ll murder you here and now.”

“Have a little faith, my melanin-deficient comrade,” Halwark teased.

Marla took the liberty of opening the coffin, in the most absurd way she could. She chopped into it with her oversized sword, and efficiently sawed a large hole out of the wood. The inside was dark, too dark for a shallow box. The dungeon appeared to be real.

Halwark peered inside, then stood and heaved himself out of the grave. “It appears to be a substantial drop. I’ll secure a rope so we may repel down safely,” he explained, as he began tying a rope to multiple anchor points: first around the base of a tree, then again around the headstone.

“Nah,” Marla declined. “I’ll pass. I’ve got a trick for this.” She then abruptly dove into the opening with her sword pointed down. Deacon’s eye followed her, having no trouble seeing in darkness. He saw as she dropped sixty feet or so, stabbing into the dungeon floor as she landed, somehow unfazed.

“Cool,” Deacon commented.

“I’ve got a trick, too,” Bones bragged, then stiffly toppled over and fell into the grave. It wasn’t the elegant dive Marla executed, and at the bottom Bones crashed, flinging their bones in all directions. Deacon reflexively winced. His worry was short-lived, as Bones’ bones reassembled themselves in moments.

Deacon huffed a single relieved laugh, then looked up to Halwark, and said, “I don’t have a trick like that.”

When everyone had finished descending, they examined their surroundings, finding a plain concrete chamber with a single wooden door. The floor was laden with chips and scratches of various ages from past struggles. “Weapons and spells at the ready,” Halwark instructed. “It appears battle awaits us.”

With everybody primed to attack, Halwark pulled the door open, and immediately several small figures flooded through it. Deacon’s eyes widened when over a dozen goblins stormed into the room, and his party began skirmishing without hesitation.

“Stop,” Deacon pleaded urgently. “Stop!” Nobody could spare the moment of diverted attention at blades clashed and the first wounds were opened on both sides. An arrow struck his thigh, but he paid it no mind as his vision narrowed on Halwark’s spectral sword of bright yellow light on a collision course with a goblin’s neck. Deacon reached out and fired a ball of clay ball at Halwark’s hand, stopping the attack. “I said stop!” All eyes were on Deacon, a look of shock and accusation within them. Deacon frantically ranted and raved in his native tongue in a verbal sprint. The goblins cautiously withdrew their weapons a few inches, confused.

One of the goblins, who held a studded club, spoke back to Deacon in the same language, baffling Deacon’s party. They spoke back and forth until Marla butted in, asking “what the hell, Deak?”

Halwark added, “yeah, Deacon, you speak goblin?”

Deacon scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Hal, do you speak human? These are people you were about to ruthlessly cut down with no questions asked.” Halwark straightened his face, visibly knocked back a step by the remark. “I’m speaking Avernish, my native tongue. It’s shared by a lot of goblins. Since they remember it, the first generation to get locked down here might still be alive.”

Halwark was flabbergasted. “The first… wha…”

Deacon resumed his conversation with the goblin who spoke for the group. In Avernish, he said, “as I was saying, we’re very sorry. This is a big misunderstanding. My friends were responding to a tense situation, as were you. We’re here to help, if I may speak to your elders.”

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“Ha, I won’t fall for that, long one,” the goblin sneered. “You just want to plunder our homes and slaughter our elders for trophies.”

“No, I don’t. My elders taught me better than that.” Deacon cautiously approached the pale-green man with both palms facing out. As he neared Marla, he lightly slid his palm against the sharp edge of her sword to draw blood, then held his bleeding hand out to the goblin. His team was stunned and frozen as they watched.

The goblin licked at the offered wound and swished the blood from side to side in his mouth, then grunted a mildly displeased confirmation. He declared the word, “seefs,” prompting the other goblins in the room to all repeat utterances of “seefs” amongst themselves.

Marla asked, “what is seefs? Is that good?”

“It means shiny,” Deacon answered. “It’s a regional goblin slang. Pretty sure it means good.”

“I mean, shit, yeah, Marla. It’s an insulated community. In my village the word for ‘no tectonic activity’ means good.”

“What’s the word for no tectonic activity?” Bones asked, amused.

“Your mother,” Deacon answered. “Now shut up I’m trying to listen.” The goblin who spoke for the group explained something, then walked out of the room, while the rest of the group stood behind Deacon’s party with weapons drawn. “He’s showing us to their elders, put your weapons down and be cool,” Deacon explained and began following.

“You’ve offered us up as captives,” Halwark complained as the group walked nervously. “You can’t simply surrender the party without our permission. You railroaded us into the worst possible option.”

“I upgraded us from invaders to untrustworthy guests! There was no other option. If you attacked them, I would’ve been forced to attack you!”

Halwark wore a face of betrayal and disgust. “You would have sided with them over your party? I’m sorry to break it to you, Deacon, but being an adventurer means sometimes you have to dirty your hands! You can’t break down into hysterics just because you have a twisted kinship with goblins!”

Deacon stopped in place and turned to face Halwark, putting barely an inch between their noses, and snarled. “I don’t care that they’re goblins! I stopped you from slaughtering them because they’re fucking people! If that doesn’t mean anything to you then you’re not my party. These are scared people locked in the dark, and defending their home. Do you think it’s okay to kill them just because they look threatening through your cultural lens? Wake up! How many adventurers do you think would try to kill Bones on sight?! Shit, look at Sonnet. She’s a spooky witch with a weird skin condition!”

“Damnit, people just look like this where I’m from! I’m not even that light-skinned. Wait until you see the countries with pale pink humans who are covered in lice because they don’t bathe,” Sonnet complained, tangentially.

“Hell, killing scriptyrs and halflings isn’t even illegal in this kingdom. I’m sure you’ve heard lots of songs about heroes slaying goblins, but you need to have some perspective if I’m going to travel with you. If we had reason to believe these goblins were up to evil deeds and couldn’t be reasoned with, I’d be right there with you. That just isn’t the case, and I’m saving you from recklessly staining your soul in a way that just can’t wash out.”

Halwark was stunned. “I’m sorry. Wow. I hadn’t considered… wow. Thank you for stopping me.”

Deacon relaxed his demeanor. “You’re welcome.”

“However you should have talked them into just letting us leave. Why are we going to their elders?”

“Some merchant pointed you to this dungeon, and you saw the entryway. Clearly, we’re not the first party to delve into this dungeon. These people are being used as fodder for adventurers to grind for mystical energy. I need to find out who’s responsible for that and burn the bastards down to ashes.”

“Hah,” Bones chuckled. “Deacon’s my new best friend.”

Marla concurred, “I have chills! That was awesome Deak. Talk like that more.”

Even Sonnet chimed in, “I’ve gotta go with the elf on this one. That was… very Dave.”

“Very Dave,” Bones confirmed.

Halwark had been operating in an unspoken leadership role to this point and straightened his back as he adjusted to the shifting tide. “You have a passion, my friend. I’m with you, lead the way.”

Deacon was oblivious to this shift in the power dynamic, as he was with most non-verbal social structures. He was just happy his friends were on board with this course of action, because following it was mandatory in his mind. He was stubborn as hell sometimes and narrowly pursued the path his conscience pointed him in. This can be a dangerous trait, given the relative nature of morality. Deacon knew this, at least theoretically, but he didn’t care. He knew in his heart that he was right. To him, every hill was his hill to die on, if the alternative was turning a blind eye to injustice.

“Alright then,” Deacon declared proudly. “Time to find out who’s using innocent goblins as bait, and then, let’s kill the bastards.”