I’d finally made it! A real and proper Dungeon settlement at last. Sure it had only my goal for like maybe a week, two? The time scale is a bit fuzzy as I had been a plant for a good chunk of it. Anyway it had been a very eventful however long is my point.
It was honestly not at all what I had been expecting. In my mind’s eye I’d been seeing a little village like you’d run across but In a cave. Pitfall (I was presuming it was Pitfall for reasons that will be pretty obvious shortly) was nothing at all like what I had pictured. For starters it was built around the insides of a gigantic vertical shaft. I could see at least a dozen levels of boardwalks ringing near perfectly cylindrical walls from where we had exited the bathhouse. We appeared to be on one of the lower rings with only a handful more visible below us. The thoroughfares were as wide as a city street and filled with more goblins than I'd ever seen in one place. They shouted and called to each other as they bustled about their business around vendor carts and stalls. There were also whole buildings affixed to the walls seemingly at random in the five or six stories worth of space between the level’s striations.
As Gig hustled us towards the edge of the platforms, which somewhat alarmingly lacked any short of railing, I got a more direct view of below. Without the benefit of the town's illumination, past the lowest level the only thing I could make out was a deepening gloom. I couldn’t even guess how far down the shaft went. A quick glance up proved the ceiling was equally out of sight, though that was due to my view being blocked by the bridges crisscrossing the width of the chasm as much as its height. All together it gave the impression that someone had managed to bore a hole straight through the dungeon.
My musings were interrupted when Gig, who still had me slung under one arm, let out the all too familiar shout to “Hold on!” before taking a running leap straight off of the boardwalk. Nearly fumbling a grab for the cable of a crane hauling a net full of goods, seemingly unused to performing the manoeuvre one handed. In a bid to free up her other hand I scrambled out from under the goblin’s arm across her back to up on her shoulders.
Seeming to understand my intention she gave me a quick nod of thanks before adjusting her hand hold and footing around the cord to slide to the cargo below.
~~~~~
We rode the cargo in silence as it steadily descended towards the bottom most level of Pitfall. It was the first moment since the start of our wild badger ride that either of us had gotten a chance to catch our breath. We were still going to have to have a talk about my title but I wasn’t nearly as worried now as I had been originally. Gig had plenty of chances to get rid of me already. So I was confident that at least for the short term we were good. Till our contract ran its course at the minimum anyway.
As we neared the level a burly looking goblin in overalls used a hook on a poll to guide us over the platform for a landing. He called up to Gig as he went about his task. “Oi, Gig what I tell you about catchin’ free rides?” In a mock serious tone.
“That it’d be my own damn fault if George gets me… again.” The goblin girl answered as the net full of goods settled onto the walkway.
The goblin worker nodded in acknowledgement, seeming satisfied with the response. Looking over Gig’s soddin state and clearly adding one and one to make two with the impromptu rainstorm their section of lower levels had gotten a few minutes earlier he just snorted in amusement and shook his head before waving the young goblin away. Adding with surprising cheer to gig’s back as she scampered away “The new pet’s cute.”
Ha, thanks goblin guy. I knew I was a handsome rat, but confirmation was nice.
After we got some distance, I leaned into Gig’s ear and asked. “So, where are we going?”
She startled, seeming to have momentarily forgotten she’d had a talking rat draped across her shoulders.
Gig spun around, looking to see if anyone had overheard me or took notice, and in doing so called far more attention to herself than anything I could’ve done short of breaking out into song and dance. This kid would make a terrible Rogue. No sneak in her at all. Still the few people around just chalked her antics up to an over abundance of youthful energy or whatever and continued with their day.
Deciding the coast was clear she darted for a stack of dilapidated crates piled up in the gap between two buildings pushing out onto the boardwalk. She squeezed between a series of gaps in the boxes and climbed over another before we reached a hollow against the shaft’s stone wall.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“OK, we can talk here.” Gig whispered at me with poorly contained excitement spilling from her voice.
I hopped down from the goblin’s shoulders and brought out my Lantern of Glowing to light up the little space. Revealing a tatty blanket and a small stash of food in one corner.
“Do you sleep here?” I voiced the question without thought. A knee jerk reaction of wanting to help swelling up from a childhood of having to sleep rough myself.
“What? Oh.” She said when she noticed I was looking at the blanket. “Naw, this is just one of my hidey holes. I’ve got bunches.” She waved it away dismissively, not catching my reflexive concern. “My place is above Dinkum’s Deals but that’s on the other side of the ring.” She added as an afterthought.
I forced myself relax at that. There didn’t seem to be any distress hidden in her answer and I wasn’t even sure what I could do about it there had been, but old habits die hard.
Remembering herself the young goblin’s attention snapped back to the real matter at hand. “You’re an adventurer!?” She whisper shouted at me, eager eyes shining with admiration, before breathlessly adding “That’s so fucking cool!”
That… was not the reaction I had been expecting. I thought I was going to be in for more of a pitchfork and torches sort of response. My former job involved turning a lot of goblins to pulp after all. Though now that I thought about it they were all basically Pseudo immortals with how the whole respawning thing worked. So maybe that wasn’t going to be such a big deal after all. Or maybe Gig was just weird. I was going to assume the latter for the moment. Just to be safe.
“Like I said before it’s a long Story, but yeah I used to be an adventurer. Had to pay the Guild dues and everything.” Not seeing much benefit in denying it at that point.
Gig made a sound like the world’s happiest tea kettle at my affirmation.
“AH! I read all the books and listen to the stories from the gauntlet grunts, but I never thought I’d get to talk with a real live adventurer!”
“Deceased adventurer technically speaking.” I corrected her. Then gave her an abbreviated version of what happened after I died. Meeting Dunnie. Spawning as mods. My epic snake slaying skills. My encounter with the pixie of doom. All the highlights.
She hung on my every word. Calling the Gods “A bunch of lazy fucking busybodies who couldn’t find thier asses with both hands” to my great satisfaction, after I’d described my divine encounter.
Until I finally got to joining up with Tim and Bert on their way to Pitfall.
Gig cut me off with a surprised exclamation of, “Holy shit, you know uncle Tim?!”
As it turns out, Tim wasn’t Gig’s blood relation. Because biological families weren’t really a thing at all for Dungeon spawn. The Dungeon would just spit out the occasional new youth if conditions were right then they were sort of adopted by anyone who wanted an extra pair of hands. Apparently the official goblin term for them was ‘sprat’ and they appeared without exception as level five. They’d be considered a full adult when they naturally grew to hit level seven.
Gig’s case was a bit special. She actually had been Pitfalls first native spawned sprat and was basically adopted by the entire burgeoning community. Which included Tim prominently among them. He was something of a local celebrity as well as one of Gig’s personal idols, being one of the Pathfinders that had mapped the entire region and even helped found Pitfall itself. Also being a chicken riding badass didn’t hurt his reputation any.
It’s also the reason Gig had the [Mercenary Spirit] perk. The first sprat being a ‘rare spawn’ who’d show up already having unusual perks and the like was apparently something of a common occurrence.
I pieced all that together from an enthusiastic though somewhat disjointed explanation of “how awesome uncle Tim was” which somehow also involved no small amount of her own life story.
After that I went on to tell her about the battle of the bats and how I ended up in the aqueduct with our old badger buddy.
Hearing about her favourite uncle and an adventurer fighting side by side seemed to be a team up straight out of her daydreams leaving the young goblin starry eyed.
“Ok, I get why you’d think Tim’s great, He’s got my vote for best goblin too, but I gotta know, why are you so big on adventurers anyway?” I finally broke down and asked, still perplexed by her reaction.
“Becuase thier fucking badasses who can beat the shit out of entire guanlets and get payed to doing it” She answered clenching her fists in imagined triumph “Adventurers are the ultimate mercenaries!”
Then an idea seemed to hit Gig like a bolt of lighting and suddenly she was way too close to my snout for comfort “YOU GOTTA TEACH ME!”