Daverius, Ziplocke, Graul, Leandra, and Lummox snuck through the portal while the fiends frantically fought to get the mobs of thralls under control. They found themselves in a hallway where the walls were made out of a mixture of steel, stone, and some sort of glowing red clay-like substance. It bathed the hallway in an eerie blood-red light. Daverius looked closer, and his eyes went wide with shock.

  "Is that flesh?" He asked, poking the pulsating patch on the wall.

  "Don't touch that, you fool!" Graul rumbled.

  Lummox and Leandra giggled. Ziplocke rubbed his face. "I was hoping we would avoid this floor."

  "What is this place?" Daverius asked, scanning their surroundings. It looked like they were in a hallway connected to a larger building of some sort made of stone and steel. "I have never seen anything like this."

  "We are inside the God Thing!" Lummox cried, snickering.

  "The what?" Daverius asked, pointing at the smaller goblin. "Why was he allowed to join us?"

  "Hey!" Lummox exclaimed, cracking the red Affliction-infused whip. "I am a mighty goblin."

  Daverius deftly caught the whip, yanking it from the small goblin's hand. Lummox yelped and hid behind Leandra. Daverius tossed the whip back at the goblin's feet. "Swing that at me again, and I will strangle you with it."

  Leandra chuckled and rubbed Lummox's small, bald, green head. "Your ancestors sabotaged the Stronghold, and only five can travel together through the floor portals. Lummox is our fifth."

  Daverius narrowed his eyes. "Are you not concerned for his safety?"

  Graul crossed his thick arms. "Only through adversity can he expect to advance to become a Greater Goblin."

  "Or die trying! That would be most entertaining!" Leandra exclaimed, clapping her hands. "In either case, it's a win for us."

  Ziplocke agreed. "That is true. He knew the risks and has accepted them."

  "Risks?" Lummox squeaked.

  Ziplocke shrugged, snickering. "Or not. Too late now."

  Lummox sulked with his ears pulled back. Daverius shook his head and knew better not to linger on this topic with the goblins. "What is this God Thing?"

  "Exactly how it sounds, you knucklehead. We are inside a God Thing," Graul answered.

  "That can't be its name. Which god is this?" Daverius wondered.

  Ziplocke shrugged. "Who knows? All gods are big." He squinted at the fleshy patches that appeared to break through the stone and steel walls. "We managed to trap this one, but from the looks of things, it is starting to get free."

  Daverius raised an eyebrow. "You trapped this, God Thing?"

  Graul waved his hands in front of him. "We made the Stronghold!"

  Leandra tapped her chin. "If I had to guess. Someone else took another Hold Core, and the protections are weakening. With the one Zippy has, that leaves only two Cores left."

  "Don't call me that!" Ziplocke snapped and then sighed. "That means we don't have much time. I wonder who took the other Core?"

  "Maybe your human friends?" Graul muttered.

  Ziplocke glanced at Daverius. "Perhaps, but who knows?"

  Does he mean my sister? I keep forgetting that these chaotic creatures are more dangerous than they appear. Daverius reminded himself to stay on guard with them. They may act foolishly and share a common goal with him, but they have their own agenda. Most infuriating for Daverius was that the goblins casually say things that have enormous impact and it was easy for him to overlook them. He needed to get oriented.

  "This is really a god? Like the One Goddess, the All-Father, and the Night Eye?" Daverius asked, pointing to the ground.

  Leandra rolled her eyes. "Not that type of god."

  Daverius nodded his chin at Ziplocke. "He just said all gods are big."

  Ziplocke shook his head, patting Daverius on the shoulder. "The universe is not neatly packaged and organized for you. It is wild and chaotic. There are many uses of the word god. Don't conflate God Thing with the other god things you mentioned."

  Daverius sputtered before calming himself. It can be organized, just not by goblins. When he was composed, he asked, "So, what was the purpose of trapping this God Thing?"

  "Isn't it obvious knucklehead?" Graul snorted.

  Daverius pinched the bridge of his nose. "Enlighten me."

  Graul glanced at the other goblins. "Can you believe this guy?" They shrugged. "It's how we get Bloodlings and Rovers."

  "They were not native to the Abyssal Plane?" Daverius asked and immediately regretted his question.

  "Of course not!" Graul snapped.

  "Be patient with him. He can't help it that he is a dumb human," Leandra said and Lummox snickered, repeating her in his high pitched voice. "Yea, dumb human!"

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  Ziplocke spoke his words slowly. "The Fiends used the Stronghold to house their armies to conquer the other realms. The Ones from Before corrupted it and locked each floor in its own dimension. Before the corruption, each floor worked with each other."

  Daverius knew that much. He studied the splotch of glowing red flesh on the walls and recognized that it was the same color as a Bloodling. "The God Thing, It just creates Bloodlings and Rovers?"

  "Yes, spits them out. You'll see soon enough," Ziplocke answered. "If we stop yapping and start moving. The overseers will soon flood these hallways with Thralls. When they do that, things will get real ugly."

  Daverius raised an eyebrow. "Why is that?"

  "The God Thing will eat them. It's gonna be messy," Graul answered.

  Leandra shook her head, snickering. "That's how it is able to create more Bloodlings and Rovers. It consumes Thralls and stupid adventurers."

  "Well, not Bloodlings and Rovers. The God Thing creates Greater Bloodlings and Rovers. We technically tamed them into the smaller versions you are familiar with," Ziplocke exclaimed.

  Daverius nodded, but was confused. Tamed? The Bloodlings and Rovers he fought were far from tamed. I need to be careful on this floor, he thought to himself as he readied his sword and kept his offhand free for Rune magic.

  Graul muttered. "And before you ask another stupid question. Bloodlings are not just used as invading shock troopers. They are also used by the fiends to feed their thralls. It is a good food source for us as well."

  "I thought you absorbed essences," Daverius pointed out.

  "When we can, knucklehead! It's what we prefer, but sometimes there are none. So you gotta eat," Leandra chimed in.

  Ziplocke tapped his chin. "Technically, you can absorb essences too, now that you are Elite ranked."

  Daverius glanced at the Goblin Lord. "Really?"

  "Yea, you are one of us now. A magical being," Graul said, slapping him on the back.

  Ziplocke rubbed his hands together. "We can get essence stones from the Greater Bloodlings." He smacked his lips together. "It's been a while since I have had a Greater Bloodling essence stone."

  Leandra and Graul nodded vigorously in agreement. Just like that, they went from hating this floor to loving it! Daverius took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Thralls started to storm through the red portal.

  "We gotta run!" Ziplocke cried.

  As they fled, Leandra summoned a wall of flame and the crazed thralls ran through it burning and dying. While running, Daverius looked over his shoulder and saw that as soon as the thralls' blood spilled onto the floor the pulsating patch of flesh spat out a large glob that splattered on the ground and transformed into huge monstrosity.

  "And that my friend is a Greater Bloodling," Graul observed.

  It was a Bloodling that was the size of a horse! It reminded Daverius of a Prey Mantis where the lower half of its body stood on four legs, and its top half rose up with two extremely sharp hooked arms that it used to impale and slice with. Just like the Bloodlings he was familiar with, this one had large insect-like mandibles and multi-faceted eyes. The monster tore into the swarm of thralls, and soon, their blood splattered along the walls. But the mad warriors kept charging forward with howls of fury.

  "We gotta run faster!" Ziplocke cried.

  More blobs gushed out into the hallway and started to form a pair of Greater Bloodlings as the five ran past. Luckily, the monsters were attracted to the howling force of Thralls that flooded through the portal at the end of the hallway. Daverius and the goblins ran down the corridors of stone, steel, and flesh. The deeper they ran into the God Thing's twisting maze-like body the walls became more fleshy with less and less stone and steel.

  "This is not good," Ziplocke muttered.

  "Please tell me you have a plan," Daverius asked, knowing the answer already. They didn't have a plan.

  "We treat this like any other floor. We search for the Guardian and the Floor Portal," Ziplocke gasped in between breaths. The five slid to a halt as the corridor in front of them collapsed in on itself in a fleshy heap.

  "We are gonna die here!" Lummox shrieked.

  "No, we are not. Stop being so dramatic!" Ziplocke snapped, his eyes glancing around. "We just need to stick to the hallways that have more stone and steel."

  Three blobs plopped out of the fleshy mass and formed into Greater Bloodlings. "Meat!!!" The three monsters hissed.

  "It can talk?" Daverius asked.

  "Of course, it can! Why wouldn't it?" Ziplocke answered.

  "Let's kill them!" Graul roared, readying his spiked shield and curved sword.

  "Yeah!" Lummox cried before fading into the surrounding shadows.

  "Coward," Leandra muttered, but she did the same.

  "It's you and I human, let's show these monsters our warrior skills!" Graul charged ahead to meet the rushing Greater Bloodings. He looked so small in comparison.

  Daverius grinned. Finally, something I can have control over! The Elite followed the Greater Goblin and tapped into his Spirit to enhance his strength, speed, and durability. He dodged the serrated arms of two of the monsters and countered with his sword. The steel clanged along the hard edges, sending sparks into the air. Two of the giant monsters rushed him as Graul faced the third. The scarred goblin sliced his curved sword along the joint and removed the serrated arm in a spurt of blood. The Bloodling howled in pain.

  "You need to cut their weak points, numbskull!" He cried.

  What does he think that I'm trying to do? Even in the middle of a fight, I still have to listen to their nonsense. Daverius used his supernatural speed to weave in between the attacks of the two Greater Bloodlings and remained close enough so that he could cut with his sword. He removed two legs at the joints from one, and the monster fell over. Daverius completed a gesture with his off hand a huge boulder crashed into the other to splatter it against the wall. As the other monster struggled with its two remaining legs, Daverius weaved his blade past the serrated arms to stab the Bloodling right between it's eyes. Blood gushed out as the creature spasmed and died.

  "Do you need my help?" He asked Graul.

  The scarred Greater Goblin grumbled. "Show off."

  Ziplocke bombarded the last remaining Bloodling with fireballs that caused the giant monster to hiss and retreat. Graul removed its remaining arm, and Leandra materialized out of the shadows to strike it with a ray of red greasy energy. The Greater Bloodling contracted in pain under the effects of her curse, which gave Graul the opening he needed to remove the monster's head.

  Daverius couldn't help himself and gloated. "If you want, I can do the fighting from now on. It seems like this is too hard for you."

  Graul's face turned red. "You got lucky!"

  Ziplocke grinned. "I'm more than happy to take you up on your offer."

  "Yeah, thank you human. That saves us a lot of trouble," Leandra added, snickering.

  Daverius rubbed his face. That was not how he wanted his joke to land. Ziplocke and Graul blasted the large knot of red flesh with fire and the pulsating mass shrieked and retreated back into the oravices along the walls. The passageway was opened, and they had three choices. Straight, left, or right.

  "Which way?" Daverius asked.

  "You pick! You said you will fight from now on!" Lummox joked in a high pitched voice.

  Graul, Ziplocke and Leandra broke out in laughter as Daverius scowled.

  "You did say you would fight!" Graul cried, pointing a clawed finger at the human.

  Daverius took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This floor is not going to be easy. After he steadied his breath, Daverius marched down along the middle corridor. The one with the most steel and stone along its walls.