The next door creaked open on rusted hinges, the sound scraping against my nerves. My boots scuffed over the uneven stone floor, the cold seeping through the worn leather. Another room stretched ahead—empty, still, indistinguishable from the last dozen I’d slogged through.

  The damp air clung to my skin, thick with the scent of old stone and melted wax. The torches along the walls flickered in eerie synchrony, their dying flames offering nothing but weak, stuttering light. It was the same. It was always the same.

  I exhaled slowly, forcing down the irritation crawling up my throat. Just a few more rooms. A few more steps. Then I’d be done. Except it never felt like progress. There was no challenge, no thrill—just a dull grind that blurred together into one long, meaningless trek. How many more times was I going to have to do this?

  {At your current rate, you will need to clear the floor at least ten more times.}

  I stopped mid-step, pinching the bridge of my nose as a dull headache coiled behind my eyes.

  “You’re kidding.”

  {Oh, I never joke about suffering. Especially yours.}

  My fingers curled into fists. Ten more runs. Ten more cycles of the same, mind-numbing repetition. The fights were barely worth my time. The loot had stopped being rewarding. I wasn’t even sure if I was making progress anymore. A thought slid, unbidden, into my mind—what if this place never ends?

  A slow, creeping sensation twisted in my gut, something deeper than frustration. A whisper of unease, of something I refused to name. I shoved it down. Pushed forward. One more room. Just one more. I stepped through the doorway. Another step forward—then I froze.

  The room stretched before me, its details pressing in with an almost eerie familiarity. Scorch marks marred the stone floor, faint and long forgotten. Crates lay scattered near the walls, some broken, their splintered edges softened by time. The air carried a stillness that sent a prickle down my spine. I knew this place.

  This wasn’t just another empty chamber in an endless slog. No, this one mattered. This one had history. The random item room. The place where I first met Thumbs.

  The air felt heavier here, thick with a weight I couldn’t quite name. The room sprawled before me, a chaotic graveyard of forgotten things, and my pulse ticked up as memories surged forward.

  The floor was a maze of clutter—half-broken furniture, splintered chairs missing legs, rusted weapons tossed into corners like they had been discarded mid-battle. Books lay in uneven piles, their spines cracked, pages torn and yellowed, some still open as if their readers had vanished mid-sentence.

  Against the far wall, heaps of unidentifiable junk threatened to swallow the space. Moth-eaten clothes tangled with dented armor, trinkets glinting like scattered teeth in the dim torchlight. And then there were the stranger things.

  A wooden door stood upright in the middle of the room, unattached to any wall. A massive stone key, too big for any normal-sized lock, lay forgotten near a pile of bones. A rusted knight’s helmet sat among the wreckage, its visor welded shut from the inside. I stepped forward, the dust curling up from the floor in lazy swirls. My boots crunched over something brittle—bone or glass, I wasn’t sure.

  Last time I was here, he had been waiting for me. Thumbs.

  The weird little goblin with his choppy, erratic speech and bottomless enthusiasm for loot. It had taken me too long to understand him, and even longer to realize that, in his own strange way, he had been loyal. Always there. Always talking. Always moving.

  I clenched my jaw. Thumbs had been my companion. And then the Evil God took him. Wiped his memories. Wiped him.

  Aurentum hummed softly, breaking the silence. {Ah, yes. The goblin. I remember him.}

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The words crawled down my spine. Not because they were unexpected, but because of how cold they sounded. How clinical. Like Aurentum was recalling the existence of an old, discarded trinket rather than someone who had once fought beside me.

  I swallowed hard and turned, my gaze sweeping across the room as if I might still find him buried beneath the wreckage. As if, by some impossible chance, he had never left. But there was nothing.

  The room wasn’t just empty. It wasn’t just quiet. It was too quiet, like a stage after the final act, where the players had long since left, but the set remained—waiting for something, someone, to return.

  I took a slow step forward, my pulse loud in my ears. The air felt stale, undisturbed, like nothing living had passed through since I left. But that didn’t make sense. The dungeon was alive, always shifting. No room should have remained untouched.

  The thought twisted in my mind, refusing to settle. The way the torches flickered—subtle, like a breath against the flame. The way the dust swirled—not just from my movement, but as if something unseen had passed through before me.

  I scanned the wreckage again. Shadows stretched in unnatural ways, the torchlight failing to push them back completely. The faint hum of the Crystal lingered in the back of my mind, but distant—like radio static beneath a heavier, deeper silence.

  I froze. The noise continued, slow and methodical, like fingers combing through debris with absent focus. The room, already unnervingly still, felt even heavier—like the air had thickened around me.

  I shifted my stance, keeping my bow within easy reach, and edged around the junk pile. My pulse quickened, my mind racing through possibilities. Another mimic? A scavenger? Something worse?

  A small, hunched figure emerged from the dimness, crouched at the base of the pile. Bony fingers combed through the debris with eerie precision. His movements were slow but mechanical, as if searching for something just beyond reach—something he couldn’t quite remember. Dust clung to his greenish-gray skin, smeared across his hunched back and long, spindly arms. He slouched under the weight of something unseen, as if he had been sitting there for hours.

  Relief hit me so hard it nearly stole my breath. "Thumbs!" I stepped forward, almost laughing. He was here. He was alive. For a second, all the worry, all the fear melted away. He’s okay. He’s okay.

  "Thumbs, it's me!" I said, taking another step. "You remember me, right?"

  He paused, slowly lifting his head, his wide, yellow eyes locking onto mine. I waited for the spark—that flicker of recognition, any sign that he knew me. But there was nothing. No grin, no frantic words tumbling over each other, no snapping fingers. Just a vacant stare.

  Thumbs' breath hitched, his sharp teeth barely visible between his lips as his mouth twitched. His hands kept moving—clenching, unclenching, twisting around nothing. His eyes darted to me, then away.

  {He is not whole.} Aurentum’s voice slithered through my mind, heavy as molten gold. {Something has taken him—gnawed at his essence, devoured what made him... Thumbs.}

  My stomach twisted. Thumbs’ yellow eyes darted, unfocused, his fingers still twitching as if grasping for something that no longer existed. He had always been frantic, jittery, but this—this was different. He was hollow.

  {His soul is not lost, merely claimed. Stolen. Eaten.} Aurentum’s tone deepened, sending a shiver down my spine. {And there is only one who feasts upon the scraps of the forgotten.}

  I exhaled sharply, already knowing the answer before he said it.

  "Malikap," I murmured.

  Thumbs’ head snapped up at the name, something primal flashing in his gaze—recognition, fear, or both.

  {The gluttonous one. The devourer of strays. He has taken what remains of Thumbs, and he will not return it freely.}

  I felt my fists clench. "Then I’ll take it back."

  {Foolish.} Aurentum’s amusement rippled through my skull, sharp as shattered gold. {You cannot take from Malikap. You can only trade.}

  I stiffened, watching as Thumbs let out a quiet, shuddering breath, his fingers curling into the dirt.

  "And what does a god like him want?"

  {A price in flesh, a price in memories, a price in suffering. Malikap does not bargain with coin. If you wish to restore your goblin, you must step into the maw of hunger itself.}

  Thumbs' lip trembled, his voice barely a whisper. "Kingsley… sword is red is red..."

  I swallowed hard. “Fine. I’ll do it.”