Though my Stun had worn off, the drax jostled me around its throat. It tilted its head upward to swallow me, but the low ceiling prevented it. With me fighting against the effort, it stood little chance of finishing its meal. The lizard had bitten off more than it could chew.

  Its tongue forced me from the center to the corner of its jaw, which closed with a crunch on my leg.

  /Drax Hatchling critically bites you for 64 damage (0 resisted).

  I briefly fantasized about grabbing its tongue and teleporting it to Hawkhurst, but the Switching Glove only worked on handheld items.

  Instead of trying to use a short sword, I opened my interface and equipped a dagger—the only weapon usable in this space. Without room to perform slashing actions, I feebly jabbed at its gums. It felt like fighting inside a washing machine.

  /You hit Drax Hatchling for 23 (15 resisted).

  /Drax Hatchling critically bites you for 60 damage (0 resisted).

  /You hit Drax Hatchling for 24 (16 resisted).

  /Drax Hatchling critically bites you for 62 damage (0 resisted).

  The creature’s mastication bent the blade out of my hand, and it disappeared in the shadows of its wet, undulating innards. A dagger would not turn the battle. I downed a 100-point health potion.

  Another crunch prompted me to reopen my inventory, looking for anything to stop the maelstrom of teeth and tongue. I wished I hadn’t returned the onyx elemental’s ridiculous spiked shield. Then I spotted something I thought I’d never use—Winterbyte’s fist weapons, the only spiked items I possessed. Weren’t fist weapons immune to disarming? I’d never used them in all the RPGs I’ve played. After closing my inventory, I equipped the spiked gauntlets and jabbed in every direction.

  /You critically hit Drax Hatchling for 60 damage (0 resisted).

  /You critically hit Drax Hatchling for 66 damage (0 resisted).

  /Drax Hatchling critically bites you for 64 damage (0 resisted).

  With two fist weapons, my attack cadence worked twice as fast as the monster’s gnashing teeth, which I slowed by kicking. It spat me out in a pulpy mass of gore, depositing me when it fell to only 30 health. My health pool stood just as low. Freed from its maw, I wasted no time and finished it with a Scorch.

  The drax hatchling slumped to the floor, dead.

  I rolled to the side of the tunnel beside the corpse, performing a Rest and Mend sprawled out on the ground. Soloing monsters seemed a terrible way to fight in The Book of Dungeons. This creature rated only a few levels beneath me, and I couldn’t keep getting this close to death. I hoped Fabulosa missed having me by her side.

  Blood and slobber glistened off my spiked fists. At least I’d found my go-to weapons down here.

  I rolled over, sat upright, and carved into the Drax’s body. Detect Magic revealed a Necklace of Sustenance, an item made redundant by a void bag full of leftovers and raw foods from Hawkhurst. Since I wore no other neck slot item, I put it on.

  I pulled a green core from its maw as I reassessed my philosophy about spending power points. My lack of melee powers felt inexcusable for someone with such high melee ranks. This underpowered feeling wasn’t solely because of power point expenditure or my recent equipment losses. These goblin tunnels offered terrible battle conditions—especially against lightning lizzies. Against goblins, the tunnels provided bottleneck opportunities—especially if I had time to channel Dig.

  The goblin exodus made sense now. If this was a hatchling, I couldn’t face a nest, a lizard queen, or whatever spawned them. Without my daily cooldowns, moving underground wasn’t so attractive. I had come close enough to the relic that it made sense to camp in the Dark Room and start a proper dungeon crawl tomorrow morning. Since dusk neared, I doused Presence and climbed to the surface at the next egress point.

  I decided against positioning the Dark Room in the tunnels. The null space acted as a listening post, and without goblins underground, I’d gather no intel. Setting it up outside wouldn’t involve significant risks. At this time of the day, most of the goblins would still be asleep.

  Since the tunnels stood empty, the goblins took no precautions guarding them. I poked my head above the surface in the shadow of three heavy timber spikes. The protective tripod offered enough cover to conceal my activity, although most goblins remained asleep. I tossed the Dark Room rope as high as possible, Slipstreamed to the top of the line, and scrambled in the last few feet to safety.

  As I climbed inside, a sharp cry sounded, and I quickly pulled the rope in after me—all but erasing evidence of my existence. From the Dark Room, I watched a goblin below searching the air for me, providing an excellent opportunity to study their language.

  The impervious position filled me with a mischievous impulse, and I cried out. “Boo!”

  As expected, the goblin, standing only a few yards away, hadn’t reacted because sounds didn’t carry outside the Dark Room. I sat on the floor and watched through the transdimensional room’s trapdoor. When the goblin lost interest and turned away, I tossed a copper piece to the ground.

  Another goblin hurried from a nearby hole to retrieve it, but the first snatched it before the second reached it. After a harsh exchange of unfamiliar words, the pair wrestled over the coin. Their oversized noses bumped as they struggled.

  I tossed a gold piece at their feet, leaned back, and snacked on sliced carrots from my inventory. It would be entertaining and educational.

  They quarreled with raised voices until three larger goblins, annoyed at the commotion, crawled out of their shanties to officiate. When the trio spotted the gold piece, they joined the fray. I picked up a few words and phrases from the fray below. “Kill you,” “human,” and “never” gave away their origins. They hailed from the Shoughmeat tribe.

  More goblins arrived, gesturing at the nearby entrance and urging one another to enter. A few raised their noses and sniffed the air, and bigger goblins directed smaller ones to investigate the pit. Watching the scene gave me intel on their pecking order and how they went about the investigation.

  Their interaction convinced me that Sune Njal wasn’t wrong about not trusting goblins. Pushing seemed a social norm, although sizes didn’t always determine dominance.

  Some withered, old goblins ordered about the larger ones, sometimes striking them with sticks or fists. The oversized tribe members cringed at every blow. As night fell, they gathered around a fire and roasted watermelon-sized larvae and grubs over spits.

  The goblin hierarchy became transparent during their twilight breakfast. Groups circled a cooking area, eager for their turn to take food, waiting for the bigwigs to take their share first. As the portions diminished, only dregs remained, leaving some hungry. The chef tossed leftovers in random directions for the rabble to fight over.

  But breakfast brought only the night’s first spectacle of savagery. I witnessed goblins fighting to the death. Far from spontaneous—the crowd gathered beforehand, and their bouts seemed almost ritualistic. Watching the melee wasn’t particularly informative. Either they made poor fighters, or Dino turned me into a combat snob. I watched the lackluster battles until the victor performed indignities upon the loser’s corpse.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Their cultural behavior cast doubts on bartering a passage or brokering a truce and acted too scatterbrained to hold an agreement. Widespread laziness pervaded their waking hours. The goblins’ lack of industry and ambition made them particularly unlikeable.

  I awoke before dawn to a high-pitched distant chorus of fervor. The goblin chanting sounded aggressive.

  Luckily, the clamor hadn’t interrupted the resetting of my daily cooldowns. After breathing a sigh of relief, I redirected my attention to the noise outside. Looking through the Dark Room’s trapdoor, I spotted no goblins beneath me. I lowered my head to the floor and scanned the horizon toward the excitement.

  The goblins held a tribe-wide meeting a hundred yards away. Thousands encircled something.

  I spied ten-foot tripods that hadn’t been there before falling asleep. Someone had heaped drax corpses between the three prongs. Before I could contemplate how they could have killed a full-sized drax, I sighted an enormous corpse draped across a pair of tripods, one I mistook for a pile of bodies.

  At such a distance, I wouldn’t have seen the nameplate were it not for the size of the corpse. The slumped shape compared to the size of a whale shark. Hundreds of wounds and burns covered its head and neck region.

  The gruesome scene included over a dozen hatchlings. Goblin workers lifted one of their corpses onto a tripod.

  I checked my curiosity to examine the bodies and stayed put. How had goblins killed them? In the open, their numbers could swarm over anything, but below, it didn’t seem likely. When daylight approached, the assembly dispersed to the topside hovels.

  I postponed my trip to the relic to see how the goblins bagged the brutes. After dropping the Dark Room line to the ground, I clambered down and shook it free from its anchor. It made sense to avoid contact, so I hung the rope loosely around my shoulders for a quick getaway. Armed with the Divine Bow, I kept my hammer and Wall of Wind handy—since the shield’s pushing effects worked well against smaller opponents.

  I cast Heavenly Favor and closed the distance between myself and the tripods. It was day, and goblins abhorred sunlight.

  Stealth powers might have served me, but avoiding dark magic still seemed the best way to play The Book of Dungeons. Playing the game in a principled way made things challenging, and virtue had its benefits. Playing with a code simplified matters. Hesitation during combat almost ensured failure, and I equivocated enough without worrying about the temptation of death magic.

  I’d learned from a book about songwriting that taking the hard path produced rewards. Finding lyrics that rhymed complicated writing, but it forced poets to stretch for words they wouldn’t ordinarily find—producing more creative phrases. Charitybelle said chess players sought elegant checkmates. She claimed barbarians who snatched pawns instead of pursuing checkmates lost the respect of their peers. Grandmasters regarded one another by how they played as much as their record. They aspired to be artists, not butchers.

  Although chess wasn’t my game, I understood the importance of playing with a code. The main reason I stayed in Hawkhurst revolved around the honor of cleaning up my mess. By moving on, Fabulosa chose the easier path. It made tactical sense, but on a gut-level instinct, leaving felt irresponsible and wrong.

  Moving downwind, I edged behind huts, boulders, and underbrush to get a closer look. I kept the hood of my cloak up to conceal my identity. Leeward goblins poked out of their burrows and huts, sniffing the air. I kept my pace and avoided the busybodies who wondered why the stench of humanity invaded their domiciles.

  Despite the count of dead draxes, the goblins stayed in their temporary shelters. Perhaps those responsible for killing the lizards hadn’t finished their task, or maybe whatever killed them killed goblins as well. Studying the corpses in broad daylight surrounded by goblin artifacts felt strange, yet no one interfered.

  It wasn’t unusual that the drax corpses contained no teeth. The goblins extracted them with no thought of how it inflated their currency. Hundreds of wounds covered every corpse. Aside from their number and placement, nothing about the drax wounds called attention to themselves.

  Peculiar concentrations of wounds covered only parts of their bodies. I counted scores of slashes across the belly of one drax, while the same marks appeared nowhere else. Deep punctures covered its neck and upper chest, whereas the rest of the corpse looked free from injury. Another drax received a rash of bruises on its hindquarters—it looked like one goblin possessed a free license to bludgeon with impunity. Why wouldn’t the monster have reacted to the first injury?

  I survived fighting a drax by dancing around it—producing wounds everywhere. These looked as if stationary assailants had attacked them. Had they used nets to root them? Nets for creatures of this size in goblin tunnels seemed unlikely. Drag marks from the nearest shaft confirmed the kills occurred underground.

  A rustling from behind interrupted my thoughts. A goblin beneath a patchwork of hides emerged from the nearby hole. He draped the blanket of furs over its head like a rain poncho in a downpour—except the element he kept off his skin was sunlight.

  What Deathless monster possessed an easy difficulty rating? Zazz’s status made no sense. Monsters at his level typically had twice as much health. And a level 15 goblin seemed remarkably high, but he looked unimportant.

  The orcs we’d fought outside Fort Krek, whose health and damage output matched that of players. They also used powers, which meant they earned power points.

  Perhaps this oversized fellow had left the monster progression track, forgoing health for extra damage. Perhaps gaining levels somehow switched monsters to players. Did that mean Zazz spent power points? Would goblins draw from the same tree of spells and abilities?

  I knew from observation that human NPCs didn’t receive power points for every level. Crimson gave its player an unfair advantage this way, but I wasn’t sure about goblins. How many powers did this level 15 goblin possess? I had to be careful in case a Deathless Honor Guard fought as well as a player.

  I caught a glimpse of a ring around Zazz’s finger but couldn’t see its description from my vantage.

  Zazz acted like a player, acquiring loot and leveling. In either case, I hoped the ring wasn’t like the obedience rings that Femmeny spread around her settlement. I had two empty ring slots, so any stat boost they gave would soon be mine. I’d wanted more stamina—but these thoughts put me ahead of myself—I had to defeat him first.

  Zazz wore a yellow skull over its helmet, probably signifying his honor guard status. A mace covered with fresh blood dangled from his belt. On the other side of his belt dangled coils of rawhide, matching the cords trussing draxes to the tripods.

  This drax slayer’s unassuming appearance dumbfounded me so much that I forgot about standing upwind.

  Zazz whirled on me and attacked without hesitation.

  /Zazz misses you.

  /You Thrust Zazz for 31 damage (3 resisted).

  /Zazz has bleed.

  /Zazz misses you.

  /You critically hit Zazz for 66 damage (0 resisted).

  My training kicked in. Instead of jaws and claws, I faced footwork and weaponry. I withdrew all my grudges and complaints against Dino—he knew how to train warriors.

  Zazz broadcasted his attacks and possessed no cooldown abilities besides a jumping maneuver. His defenses proved as ineffective as his attacks, hitting me only twice for 20 points—barely worth a Rejuvenate. After seeing how I outclassed him, he called for help—a few errant arrows sailed by, far off target.

  Even though he presented no challenge, I nearly tripped over the Dark Room rope. Wrapping it around my shoulders wouldn’t work in a more serious battle. I disappeared it into my inventory.

  A few looky-loos poked their heads up to watch our battle. The shiftless goblins didn’t sound the alarm or join in. Why weren’t they helping Zazz? Perhaps the Deathless and Sloughmeats were enemies.

  I ignored them.

  The honor guardian fought poorly, casting a measly 10-point Scorch on me. I finished him quickly. Zazz bore an exalted name for such a weak opponent, wearing only frayed leather and possessing only teeth, rocks, and bits of junk.

  His other equipment surprised me. His mace possessed a +1 damage bonus, and his ring gave +4 willpower.

  The goblin had emerged from a hole scarred with drag marks. Had this unremarkable fighter been responsible for killing the draxes?

  I turned toward the relic—my goal lay close by, but something felt wrong with the Shoughmeat tribe. Curiosity got the better of me, and I resolved to take the rest of the distance below the surface. It might reveal Zazz’s involvement in killing the lizards, and it let me shake off goblins watching my combat. Besides, I could fight with Winterbyte’s fist weapons underground.

  I lit up Presence, cast Heavenly Favor, ducked under the protective tank trap above the hole, and climbed down the row of wall staples leading into the tunnels.