The s-sound slithered out of its mouth as its long slender tongue found a slot between its teeth to hang out like a dog, dripping. Colt recovered before Lacey did. That isn’t to say that either of them recovered quickly. The goblin stood in front of them, panting and drooling with a gaze as adoring as any almost-mindless hound dog, if the hound dog had red eyes and a face full of more needle-sharp teeth than anything else.

“The screen changed,” Colt pointed out, though Lacey didn’t see how that was important or how he’d noticed since they were both staring at the goblin, waiting for it to do something. It didn’t do anything but grin at them expectantly. The screen did have runes on it again, Lacey noticed, taking only a millisecond to glance down at it.

“So much for the language settings.” Lacey darted a glance at the screen, determined to keep an eye on the goblin like it was a weeping angel. She didn’t have anything on her to fight the darn thing if it suddenly decided to attack them, but that didn’t penetrate her frozen brain.

“You’d think the language change would be applied globally,” Colt frowned at the screen as Lacey boggled at the idea that he could take his gaze off of the dangerous monster in front of them.

“Guess not,” Lacey said, still peering around Colt at the goblin. She tried to reason with her brain to do more than shut down. It didn’t work right away.

“I’ll keep an eye on our friend here and you figure out the runes on the screen,” Colt urged her.

“While I appreciate your confidence in my abilities, buddy, this is way out of my league,” Lacey grumbled, letting her gaze slide over a screen full of symbols that made her head spin.

“Just start punching buttons and see what the translator says,” Colt suggested. “Like I did. Only you do it this time so you can’t complain about my choices.”

“What you did made a drooling monster appear in our midst,” Lacey argued, finally looking away from the goblin to glare up at a grinningly unrepentant Colt.

“So do better?” he suggested to her with a smirk.

Lacey stuck her tongue out at him, then thought better of it as the goblin thing giggled, which was a very disconcerting sound.

“Fine,” she huffed out, having gotten bored with the goblin now that it hadn’t really done much.

When she looked down at the screen, she was back at the Inguz screen, which she figured was home, but there were four new symbols beneath the home button. If she thought of it as a kiosk, it was easier to think about how it worked. The problem was that when she pushed a button, it took her to another screen instead of explaining what the rune meant so she wasn’t getting a good feel for what she was doing at all, even as she focused all her puzzle-solving talents on it. Lacey pushed one that looked like a B only with sharp corners and got to the same screen Colt had found when he’d been hitting the chance runes. Once she got to that screen, she could push a few of the non-chance runes.

“Strength,” the pedestal’s voice explained when Lacey pressed the rune next to the first chance rune. “This stat determines your minion’s physical ability.”

“You got it to explain stuff?” Colt asked, from behind her.

“Maybe,” Lacey answered, not comfortable with how Colt was inching toward the drooling goblin.

“Creativity,” the voice explained the next rune on the list. “This stat determines your minion’s ability to adapt to situations in your dungeon.”

“Your dungeon?” Lacey muttered.

“Is it a character sheet?” Colt offered up, having turned to glance over his shoulder.

“If so, it’s not our stats its listing,” Lacey replied, sliding a suspicious glance at the goblin who still hadn’t moved. She was pretty sure it was luring them into a false sense of security, but that was probably silly. She hoped that was silly. Maybe not as silly as aliens.

“Charm,” the voice told them as she hit the next rune down, the one she’d thought was Ansuz. “This stat determines your minion’s ability to lead or simply communicate effectively.”

“Will,” the voice gave them the last stat on the lefthand list of the page. “This stat determines your minion’s mental capacity and determination to survive.”

“It is like a character sheet,” Colt said, turning from the kiosk to approach the goblin they’d already made.

“This screen still has the chance rune next to all the stats,” Lacey kept her attention on the device, letting Colt study the goblin. “So, it probably isn’t this guy’s stats.”

“Still, it keeps saying minion, so he’s probably not dangerous to us,” Colt circled the goblin, causing it to fidget a bit and try to stand up straight.

“I’ve seen the movie and I wouldn’t call any minion harmless,” Lacey quipped, starting to relax into the puzzle of it all. “And why would something be giving us minions at all?” She was still more worried than curious.

Lacey pressed the first chance button next to strength and then touched the resulting symbol that she hadn’t had any clue about before. It looked a little like a twig?

“Four,” the voice said. It wasn’t nearly as helpful as she’d hoped.

“Four what?” Colt asked, too excited for Lacey’s comfort.

“The strength stat,” she explained, and Colt gave her a look that said he mirrored her unspoken opinion that it was pretty unhelpful.

Lacey rolled the rest of the stats and hit their numbers. They were all pretty low, with Will being the highest in this set. As soon as all the numbers were “rolled,” another stat at the bottom of the page filled in as well as the one next to it. When she hit the runes for the stats, it told them they were Defense and Health, both being determined by some mathematical computation that was calculated using the stats she’d just rolled.

“It is a character sheet.” Colt was looking over her shoulder again. “Hit the bottom rune.”

“It’s Degas for awakening, so I suppose that makes sense,” Lacey said and did as Colt suggested. It again brought them to the race selection screen. Lacey chose another goblin, and the current goblin moved over a little bit to make room for another one that looked similar, but not quite the same. This one had what she could only think were boobs, but they were like saggy, deflated balloons that were barely covered by what could only be called a fur bikini. The goblin next to her didn’t seem to find the deflated balloons a deterrent and stared at their newest minion like she was a super model, the drool increasing to alarming levels.

“Great,” Lacey shrugged as Colt stared at the two goblins in fascination. “We have Adam and Eve of the goblin tribe of minions. Now what?”

“What else can we make?” Colt asked by way of suggestion that didn’t make Lacey feel more comfortable about any of it. It all felt a bit reckless without purpose. You didn’t start putting the puzzle together without knowing what the result could look like. That’s why escape rooms were as much about having done a lot of them as being brilliant. Lacey didn’t consider herself brilliant, just experienced at how escape-game-creators used the puzzles everyone else used.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“But what are we making it for?” Lacey asked, frustrated by the lack of information.

“Fine,” Colt looked disappointed, and Lacey felt like she’d kicked the dog. “Look in some of the other screens then. More puzzle pieces will get us closer to an overall picture.”

The main screen was back up and Lacey tried another choice behind the Fehu symbol that she thought was something about wealth. After some fussing and rune pressing for explanations, they figured out that it was something of a spreadsheet showing their resources. It would have been so much clearer if the numbers had been anything she’d ever seen before. Lacey would have felt lucky to see a few roman numerals, but no, these symbols for numbers were so convoluted, she didn’t see the pattern of them yet other than that the higher the number was, the more spokes and symbols it had off the main shaft. It was a good thing that the voice clarified the numbers, or she wouldn’t have known how much they had or what everything was costing. The Gebo or gift rune had been very misleading in that it meant what they could buy more than what they were gifted with. So far, each of their goblins had cost about 200 of something out of a budget that looked surprisingly like the amount they should have won from the escape room contest.

Exploring, Lacey found that the third symbol took her into a store of some kind for basic supplies. This one had pictures and that helped a lot. She learned that pinching and expanding worked like zooming just like their phones had and sliding up and down did the scrolling thing. She didn’t want to spend all their money on stuff that they didn’t really need, so she left it. The store screen made her think of supplies though. What would they need?

It might have been nice to have their phones from home, but no one was allowed to take their phones into the escape rooms. Anything electronic had been left at the door, including her car keys with their electronic file and all their money and maxed out credit cards. They’d hydrated right before entering the escape room, but they hadn’t brought snacks or water because they’d been focused on winning, not snacking. All they really had was the change in their pockets and the clothes on their backs. Lacey’s mind wasn’t really thinking about how long they’d be in there, but that store with the cost of things like rations and simple resources like picks and buckets made something nervous in the back of her mind throb in a way she tried to ignore. It was easier to think of this as a bonus room than dwell on dinner, and she trusted that Colt, the inventory-master on their team, was keeping track of what they had to work with.

The fourth symbol was one Lacey didn’t recognize, but it could have been a combination of Inguz and Kennaz. The oh-so-helpful voice didn’t explain a rune when it represented a button of some sort. The weird rune took her into what looked more like a map of their 30’ cave at the center of a very large blank space. There were some choices on the side with price tags next to them. At least the symbols looked like the same numbering system she’d seen on previous pages and numbers were generally safe to touch for explanations. Then again, she thought as she touched one and accidently made a new room for about 500 of what Lacey wanted to think of as credits. She didn’t want to think that she was spending all her real prize money in this stupid bonus room, so she renamed the currency credits. A short “hallway” appeared between the current cave and the new smaller room.

“You created an exit?” Colt asked with some excitement.

“I was trying to get an explanation of what I could create but it just purchased it,” Lacey rolled her eyes at the display and threw up her hands. “I think it leads to a new room. I’ve got a map type thing here, but right now that’s the only way out of this room.”

The goblins gibbered at each other and rushed down the new corridor of stone holding hands, Colt and Lacey close behind them. Lacey had a moment of worry as she passed into the tunnel. What if the control room closed off once they went down the corridor? There wasn’t a door, so Lacey took the chance and followed after Colt, the fear of being alone higher than her fear of losing the pedestal. It didn’t disappear as she stepped over the threshold, so she tried to relax and go with it. The new room was dimly lit by two inadequate torches that didn’t look like they’d last long, and this room was as unremarkable as their main room. The floor was bare stone, but smooth and flat. The walls were rough stone as if the room had been chipped out of the surrounding mountain and only the floor had been smoothed down by some giant sander and buffer.

Girl goblin gibbered at boy goblin, running her clawed hands over the walls like she was measuring for wallpaper. Boy goblin’s brows furrowed, and he used his claws to pick at the wall a bit. Colt and Lacey stood like guests at a housewarming party who hadn’t brought any gifts. Boy goblin chipped off pieces of the wall in certain sections and bit the result, making Colt cringe. Boy goblin ran up to Colt to show him the rock proudly.

“It looks like it might be coal,” Colt said, chipping off little pieces of the brittle, black stone. “It’s not good coal, but it’s something.”

“Like a resource?” Lacey considered out loud, thinking about the kiosk and how much everything was costing. They could have started their business on the reward money, but it wasn’t millions. They would need some income coming in.

“What are we doing here?” Colt asked in reply to her non-question. “We’ve got minions, a control panel, and resources.”

“And our prize money seems to have been converted into whatever counts as currency in this system,” she added her own supposition.

“System,” Colt mused, looking around at the goblins as they plucked eagerly at the walls with their bare claws and hands.

“Like a system system?” Lacey asked, not finding the words to explain. “Like in the books we read online?”

“Like the stuff Cameron writes,” Colt suggested. “LitRPG?”

“That stuff is just fan fic, isn’t it?” Lacey protested, her mind slower than she wanted it to be.

“Only the stuff you read,” Colt teased her, rolling the coal so that it smudged his fingers.

“But in that stuff people get turned into players in like a live video game,” Lacey ruminated on it, and it made way too much sense. Then she made a mental appointment with a psychiatrist because that was what made sense about all this. “And you like some of the fan fic too.”

Girl goblin ran over to Lacey with another chunk of coal. It made her think of chalk. Lacey knelt on the floor and rubbed it against the smooth floor, making marks as the girl goblin watched curiously. It didn’t draw as well as it might once burned a bit, so Lacey took it to the nearest torch and burned the end of it. She blew on the coal to make it go out, almost regretting the smoke it caused that didn’t go anywhere, and tried again to write on the floor, girl goblin watching her the whole time. Lacey scratched out a few lines on the ground and the goblin girl suddenly got excited and plucked the coal back out of Lacey’s hand. Before Lacey could protest, the girl goblin was drawing lines on the ground and gesturing at the boy goblin imperiously. Boy goblin rolled his eyes behind girl goblin’s back as she flew to scratch out some more lines and he went back to picking stuff out of the wall with his claws.

“Are you really thinking that we’ve been sucked into an alternate universe where we are players in a video game?” Lacey asked Colt, not liking how reasonable that sounded when it should be anything but reasonable to a sane person.

“I don’t think we’re players,” Colt shook his head as they watched the goblins.

“What else is there?” Lacey asked, not sure she wanted the answer. Colt read a lot more than she did. Lacey played puzzles on her phone while he read on his. Those were their cherished quiet times together.

“I’m not sure, but what if we’re creators of some sort?” Colt suggested as if that was okay with him.

Girl goblin’s coal crumbled off at the burned area and she shook it like she was scolding it for not working well anymore.

“Creators?”

“I mean, sure,” he reasoned like they were talking about hypothetical stuff. “Why go to the trouble of finding people really good at escape rooms? What skills would people like that have?”

“Puzzles,” Lacey answered, numbly trying to take it in.

Girl goblin pouted at her piece of coal like it had failed her. With a desperate whimper, she brought the coal back to Lacey and held it out with an expression that could only be pleading, if you can imagine red beady eyes pleading for anything.

“It’s no secret that we were going to make our own escape rooms.” Colt tossed his coal up and caught it in his meaty hand like he was flipping cheesesteak and onions at Dirt Dog. “It’s all over our social media with Patreon and Kickstarter.”

Lacey took the goblin girl’s coal back to the torch and burned a bit of it again, handing it back to a grinning girl goblin who went back to drawing where she’d be placing furniture in their den. Calling their stuff social media was like saying that a kick scooter was a vehicle. They had two patrons and $20 on their Kickstarter and they had put that in themselves just to seed the investment with something. Neither of them had ever made friends easily and those they did make were quickly discouraged by how tight Colt and Lacey were. It was hard to penetrate their bond. Boyfriends and girlfriends came and went, but a lot of them also had issues with the closeness of their team. The others had just been crazy.

“So, we’re what here?” Lacey asked Colt with raised eyebrows. “Gods?”

“I don’t think so,” Colt chuckled and took another piece of coal from boy goblin.

“I can see it now,” Lacey joked, swinging an arm out wide. “Our newest social media title! The Mini-Gods of the two-room dungeon!”