After about an hour of cleaning up the trail, we came upon the clearing.

“Home sweet home” Wave called quietly as I placed another branch across the path. They jogged into the clearing, but I took one step into the clearing and froze.

“Guys,” I called, “slowly walk back into the trees.” I could see it. A small, brilliant, radiant light shone from several spots on the very edge of the trail.

I slowly backed into the woods and pointed out what had to be the brightest purple that I had ever seen to Star and Wave.

“It… It could be… What could it be?” Wave anxiously asked Star, hoping she would have an answer that we could all understand.

I picked up the rock that was dripping with purple and for a second something seemed to click in the world. Then the rock slid right through my hand. Wave grabbed it, inspecting it. “It looks like… a paint” He said softly.

The same though hit us all at once and turning to look into the clearing we felt… almost a ripple push though the world. Instantly all thoughts vanished as all three of us realized what must be happening. We sprinted towards the hidden tunnel.

“No, no, no, this can't be what it looks like” Wave was crying as he ran. Star was muttering something under her breath. I only caught an occasional word as my own thoughts were weighing me down, but I thought I heard some colorful words that I had never heard her say before. I was just going into shock, because if this was happening here, then nowhere was safe, but I couldn’t dwell on that.

I ducked into the tunnel after Star, who was right behind Wave. I normally didn't all out run, but I had to today, I stayed right on Star's heels as we flew into the tunnel. Star and Wave rounded the first of the three corners, flying by and I was almost blinded as Star disappeared. Against the wall was a huge circle of light, seemingly as brilliant as the sun. I reached out to touch it and realized it was a huge mushy substance, I looked down and saw the faint outline of two bodies in the darkness. One human, the other was smaller, with pointed ears, “goblin” I breathed watching radiant droplets slowly drip to the ground.

I glanced up, realizing I was alone, the others rounding the second corner in a flash. I grabbed the quarterstaff that had bashed the goblin’s skull in and continued sprinting down the hall, noticing that parts of the staff were glowing. "If I knew how to dimensionalize, this might be more helpful." I thought to myself quietly, as I caught sight of Star and Wave turning the last corner and then freezing.

I came up behind them just in time to see a group of goblins standing beside the White obelisk that was Ussa. I watched as one raised their hammer and swung it, arcing down to crack against the slab, breaking it into pieces. The sound of the hammer filled the small cavern, echoing in our ears.

We all knew the idea behind what would happen if a pocket dimension was destroyed. Even then, knowing the idea, and actually witnessing it is a big difference. The slab seemed to shrink and expand at the same time, some of the smaller pieces sending matter flying out while the larger pieces began darkening turning to black. Others maintained their color, those would possibly be able to be salvaged by a cleanup crew. In the meantime, the matter flying from the slab was filling up the area, and the goblins were smacking anything that moved, yelling and crying out in rage.

An occasional person managed to smack a goblin, bugging it, and I actually saw one goblin rear back as someone hit its face. People were appearing left and right out of the falling pieces of stone, but the goblins seemed to be fully expecting them. The people were quickly being corralled and I could see a few goblins in the mix tossing random colors of paint around. I think that was the most purple I have ever seen. It filled the room in spots and patches and it just amazed me.

Star and Wave ran in, jumping on the nearest two goblins, the goblins were too busy to notice as they were grappling with several adults. I just stood there open-mouthed, confused, and lost. I could see an occasional person disappearing into the brown ground around them, but most people were either being slaughtered or being shoved into the corner to be rounded up.

After a couple chaotic moments, Star and Wave were shoved into the corner to be taken with the others. I just stared… “How could this be happening?” floated in and out of my mind over and over again. Seconds later a smaller goblin let out a terrific noise and started scrambling toward me.

I ran, sprinting as hard as my worn-out body would allow.

Past the first turn, sliding around the second turn, I could see the purple circle ahead, then I felt something tangle in my legs and I was on the ground next to the body of the dead guard. I looked at my feet, wondering what had given me such a terrible turn of luck, and saw nothing, but my legs were bright with a purple that hadn’t been there before.

I rolled over, hoping to at least see my assailant before my death. I looked up into the fury of the hideous goblin standing, leering, over me, his brown eyes glowing with malice. He raised his short spear and I watched it fall, preparing to make a new home right between my ribs. I braced myself, and couldn’t bear to watch anymore. My eyes were closing and so I sensed more than saw a figure flying out of the wall near me.

I felt a tearing pain through my left wrist and then felt several feet running into me, sending me flying through the air. I hit the wall hard, hitting my already bruised chest against the wall, but that was nothing compared to the pain in my wrist. I lay on the ground in agony for what felt like forever, trying to see through the tears to see what was wrong with my wrist.

I could hear talking and murmuring around me until I was forced roughly to my feet and felt a rough hand over my eyes. I let out a little scream as the uncaring movement twisted my wrist yet again.

A hand quickly shot over my mouth, cutting off my scream. “Quiet, we can’t let them know we’re still here.” came a hissing voice from my right. “Help me hold this kid,” muttered the person holding me, “ He’s not cooperating.”

“Of course he’s not cooperating Nuff, he led them right to us!” came yet another voice gruffly.

“That may be true, but he’s just a kid,” replied my captor, Nuff, “And besides, he was almost killed by that thing moments ago. I would be acting much worse than he is right now.”

I tried to relax, but the pain was almost overwhelming. Nuff let go of my mouth and lifted my eyelid letting me see four rough young men, in fact, they looked like the guards from earlier, the ones with brown eyes. “He’s the purple,” the one said disgusted, “of course.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I managed to take a breath and breathe out, “ I didn’t lead them here.” And the one on the left slapped me on the back of the head, “You, don’t talk if we don’t tell you to.”

The slap on the head didn’t hurt so much as the vibrations that continued down into my chest to rattle my sore chest, and down my arms to my wrist. I gave a small moan, unable to stop myself, causing another smack. This time I realized there was a pounding in my head.

“Ok purple,” Nuff said “answer carefully, much depends on your answers.”

I looked into his deep brown eyes, trying to judge him. He looked into my eyes, then examined my wrist for a moment, twisted it carefully, and I felt a sharp pain. A moment later, he held up a chunk of wood, four inches long, the end of the spear I realized. “This can return, just as easily as it came out,” he threatened quietly, “think your answers through.”

I was shot with half a dozen questions almost instantly, and I missed all of them. “Could… Could I get those one at a time?” I asked tentatively.

The brown on the left moved to hit me again, but Nuff grabbed his arm to stop him, “It’s alright Wrath, he really couldn’t have understood us.”

“Fine,” Wrath said, yanking his arm free of Nuff’s grip, “What are you doing here?” He asked me heatedly.

“I-IwasfixingthepathRobmadeintheforest--” I was cut off, by the final of the four men, the one who hadn't said anything yet, he had moved up next to me and he gave Wrath a glare, seeming to say something I couldn’t quite read. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. He had deep, trusting eyes that seemed to speak of the jungle and blossoming plants. Things that would heal, and help you. They seemed to reach into my soul and speak with it, calm it.

“Calm down friend, we saw the chaos and carnage just like you. We feel just as anxious and powerless as you, we just need you to speak slowly and clearly when you answer, don’t freak out.”

His eyes calmed me, made me feel at home, at least for a second.

Wrath butted his head in, “K, we are on a little bit of an emergency recovery mission, in the middle of a hall about to be stormed with goblins, stop being stupid.”

“Ok then,” the man… K said, “Only time for two quick questions then,” he said smiling at me, “How many goblins are there, and… what is your name?”

I was kind of surprised by both questions and took a moment to respond.

“I’m… my name is Ray, and I didn’t get a good look at the room, I walked in right as the pocket cracked… forty? Fifty? There was one that seemed bigger than the rest, a leader of some sort.”

The four men exchanged looks, K motioned to them and the other three slowly faded out of existence into the brown floor.

K paused and assessed my injuries with the skill of a practiced medic. Within the next minute, he had bound up my wrist, ripping up his own shirt to do so. I was confused by how practiced he was until I realized he wasn’t a brown, at least not complete brown. I watched his eyes, and recognized that it was a dark green, almost brown, but still glowing with a yellow that lit up the life he worked on.

“You, you’re a primer.” I realized out loud.

“Of course, what other color would I be?” K laughed, “Did you think those browners respected me based on my hair?”

“So… So you came through the yellow plane?" I asked confused, I didn't think you could enter another color's plane, only their pockets.

“No, I was in their plane, I'm a browner too. I just have more openings with other colors besides brown.

I was saved from thinking this over by a sound that chilled both of our bones. There was a rush of clicking boots coming quickly down the tunnel behind us. I had the mental image of all fifty goblins streaming through the tunnel with one goal, to catch and kill us in the most gruesome way possible.

K scrambled to his feet, grabbing the club that I had dropped earlier and holding it menacingly toward the sound.

Fortunately for us, it was just Nuff and Wrath. They both looked worried about something, and were running as quietly as they could, “K” Nuff hissed quietly approaching us “the fool just got himself captured. The goblins know something’s up and they’re becoming suspicious. They could be coming right now, we have to go now!”

“Not without at least trying something... and why hasn’t Sunner escaped?” K replied, looking down at me.

“You don’t get it, do you, Sunner did try something, he came from the wall near the captives and tried to get them to get close enough to take them through, at least temporarily to some pocket… The goblins were waiting for that trick.”

“Why didn’t Sunner go through the floor, that would be so much easier than the wall.”

“Too much… painting on the ground. The fighting made too many… colors on the ground to give us a good way through…”

K looked at me, and I saw the sorrow filling his eyes. “We move on then, warn the towns that are nearby.”

K pulled me to my feet, supporting me, and holding my wrist gently. “Let's go, we need to run, if we can make it out of the clearing we’ll be fine.” He told everyone with an air of decision.

“Wait, what? Why are we taking the purple, he’ll just slow us down, and besides, we can just use the brown road to head there quicker.” Wrath said challengingly.

“Ray comes with us.” K firmly stated. “And he can't take the brown road. If you want to go on your own, go ahead, but I thought you were worried about the bogs around this area.”

Wrath paused for a moment thinking… “Fine, your way works, let's go” and started pushing us forward towards the mouth of the cave.

K never let go of my arm as we turned and started jogging towards the exit.

I looked back once more wishing with what I knew was a dead hope to see Star, or even Wave running round the corner at full speed, but all I saw was that small circle of purple goblin blood staining the wall above the corpse.

I paused and Wrath cursed, stumbling over me, “come on boy, if you want to live, we need to go!”

“What color was the ground stained with?” I asked Nuff, taking a few steps back into the cave, with K following tentatively, still holding my wrist.

“Does it matter?” Nuff responded, “We need to move.”

“How much purple was there?”

K, Nuff, and Wrath froze, staring at me.

“Enough you could do it…” replied Nuff quietly, “Have you ever gone through before?”

I paused long enough to think, “No… but I could do it?”

“He’s going,” Wrath said, “If there is any chance he can save anyone he is going.”

“Just give me a quick rundown of how to enter a plane and I'll do everything I can.”

“You just… walk through?” said Nuff, “for a plane you just walk in and--”

“No, no he can’t” K cut Nuff off, “We need to get going.”

I was stunned, I had a chance to help everyone escape and K was going to say no just like that.

“Wait, what? It’s just because I’m a young purple isn’t it.” I yanked my arm out of K’s grip, and almost collapsed… I was so tired… the pain in my wrist and chest was almost overwhelming…

I swayed on my feet until K grabbed my hand softly. He held me for a moment and I felt a little more energy course through me, the pain didn’t dissipate back to where it had been but it receded a little bit.

I had missed a bit of something K said, “... we need to keep moving, there is a post half an hour’s run from here, so we can probably get there in an hour keeping him”

My head started pounding with a beat I could almost hear… “What is that noise?” I said a little belatedly, “It's hurting my head…”

K paused for a moment “Run!”

He was pulling me, I couldn’t tell what was happening, I was right next to him, then behind him, my legs were moving, then they weren’t, I heard a yell, then a horrific scream. Then I felt a searing pain on the back of my head. The last thing I heard as I fell was a yell of pain… Little did I know it was my own.