I wasn’t eager to leave the relative safety of camp while tired, but it wasn’t like I’d been pulling hard labor all day. I needed to get my ass moving and at the end of the day everything else was just excuses. I took the last chance to gauge my angle off of the great tree and headed off at about a thirty degree angle to its shadow.

My directions had included a crash course on jungle navigation, which turned out to be somewhat more complicated than I had naively assumed. When they realized I’d picked a straight line and then assumed I could walk down it the tribal council outright laughed at me. Navigating across open ground and through dense jungle growth were as different from each other as either was from tunnel navigation.

My decision to put the hollow sun’s light at my back had been more sound than the rest of my strategy, but it still allowed for too much drift. When I’d left the step-pyramid I’d been aiming for the very pillar-tree the tribe was camped beneath, but I’d overshot it due to my inaccurate navigation. Only the forest fire had blocked me and prevented me from diverging even further.

Of course, a nomadic tribe that wandered through the wilderness over the course of countless generations had picked up a few tricks. For one, you couldn’t stick to the ground level and expect to get anywhere specific. It just wasn’t possible. The light was too diffused by that point to provide proper direction and even a brief detour around a tree would prevent any straight line.

Instead you had to be constantly updating your landmarks. An ideal course consisted not just of a destination and a path to reach it, but of a dozen or more dots to connect. Maintaining view of at least one was critical.

To that end, I moved through the trees. Before I had hidden beneath the leaves on the ground, but the dangers above were no longer unknown to me. I could move among the branches without fear, leaping from tree to tree as the monkeys did.

Most of my attention was spent on moving, either on which patch of bark would be safe for my next footfall or on avoiding the hazards like thorn traps and blade baboons, but enough was left for me to consider my next Skill.

Pondering future advancement created an obvious question: Would the levels I’d gained here prevent my exit? Part of the barriers did function on the spiritual level. I’d thought about it over the night, but in the end I hadn’t seen any real choice. I couldn’t know how the system worked. If it did clamp down on my soul, as I expected it would, then the best I could do would be to jettison the levels I’d built with the energies of this place.

The thought of losing so much progress was painful, but if a limb was chaining me down, then I would cut it free. This was no different. I’d prefer to keep it, but freedom was worth any price.

And that meant that any reserve could well prove useless. I’d best spend the level when I had the chance, whether on a Skill or straight Stats. Luckily all this running was getting my thoughts running too, cause I had a great idea.

Jumping from place to place was a chore, so how could I change that? A clever alteration to my footsteps could do more than make this easier, it could make me faster, quieter, and more efficient, all in one Skill.

The first step, (heh), was visualization of the how the effect worked, and fortunately for me I was already running. It was only a bit more effort to experiment with different movements and pay attention to which muscles were doing what.

More importantly I studied how the environment reacted to each footfall. That would be the true key…

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

My Skill progressed as steadily as my travel, bringing me ever closer to my next leap in power. By the time I reached the Deathspeaker tribe I was confident in the image I wanted, all I needed was a safe place to focus and actually create it.

Hopefully the Deathspeakers would provide that place.

The tribe’s home first came into view as a shadow, just a smudge of darker green amid the jungle. Only the Lifefathers’ words prevented me from ignoring it entirely, and as I got closer those words were confirmed. The ruins the Deathspeakers called home were lower than the rest of the dungeon, a circular depression carved into the jungle floor, and I could only just barely see them from the highest perches.

I had a few scares, but in the end my Senses picked out dangers before they could take me and I arrived at the depression’s edge. The Deathspeakers could be picky about some things, so I made sure to follow my instructions to the letter.

I clambered down from the trees to a lower layer, meeting the ground halfway. Some ancient structure circled their hole in the ground, even if the stone was weathered enough to be indistinguishable from dirt in many places. The knobbly roots provided more than enough purchase for my clawed feet as the stone beneath moved upwards in steps.

I crested the edge and looked down, jungle falling away beneath me. The depression walls were kept meticulously clear of any greenery, but nonetheless were blanketed in roots reaching down from the thirsty trees above. There was no movement in that crater, but my goblin eyes could pick out the signs of habitation. Here a stone step worn from generations of trodding feet, there a doorway where the roots had been carefully guided to grow around, rather that over, it.

They were certainly no slouches at concealment, but neither was I. There was an almost artful look to the way roots draped and piled in just the right way to form seats and steps that couldn’t have come from nature alone. The Lifefather tribe hadn’t led me astray.

I stepped calmly forward, walking out fully into the open. If there hadn’t been spying eyes on me before, there certainly were now. I ignored the shiver that passed through my body and forced myself to keep moving down the path forwards. It stretched all the way from the upper edge to the very center, hanging over empty space as it slanted downwards.

It was cold beneath my feet, cold in a way dirt wasn’t. It felt like old pitted metal, worn by time, yet unbroken.

I arrived at the very bottom, in one final hallow. I looked up around me at the five ridges in the slope and cleared my throat. “I, Zhen Jiang the Tribeless, seek counsel with those who speak death.”

My ears flicked about, searching for a response that wasn’t there. I could pick out nothing more that the dead silence of this crater and the dim sounds of the jungle echoing from beyond. I swear, if the time I arrived was the one time the watchman decided to take a nap—

“Well, well.”

My wandering eyes snapped back forwards, immediately picking out a goblin who had not been there five seconds ago. He was hunched and old… was he old? I couldn’t see a single inch of skin anywhere on his body. Everything was draped in loose cloth and his face vanished into the kind of shadow that normal hoods didn’t create.

“Our second visitor! What an occasion, what an occasion indeed.” The old goblin, (Idon’t know how I knew, but he felt old.) nodded happily. “Welcome to the Deathspeakers my child.”

“It’s my honor, elder.” Best to veer on the safe side with the honorifics.

One eyebrow raised under the hood. The hood that I couldn’t see anything under. What the fuck? “Now, why exactly are you calling yourself tribeless?”

Well crap. I was hoping the magic-cowled fucker hadn’t heard that. I would never have mentioned it if the Lifefather elders were any less clear about how I had to introduce myself. Announcing my name and tribe was essential, and lying was a very, very bad idea.

“I have descended from the surface far above.” That would take his mind off the tribeless issue, and dodging the question wasn’t lying.

A faint sense of shock emanated from the cowled figure. A sense of shock that wasn’t displayed in any visible manner now that I knew not to subconsciously replace the unnatural emotion with physical body language I could understand. “The surface world? Are there no tribes left there?”

“I left my tribe behind.” And it wasn’t exactly an amicable parting, damn it.

“Are they not still your family?”

“My family is dead and gone, and they were none of your concern when they were alive.”

“Ah. Forgive me.” The old shaman turned and waved me forwards. “Come with me.”

Was he really giving up his questions that easily? I hesitated, but followed the Deathspeaker anyway. I didn’t trust that, far from it, but I couldn’t afford to turn away just yet.

I took one last look at the outside before I entered the depths. The ramp upwards looked like a massive arm, broken and fallen to earth.

I turned back to the darkness. There was no light, but the Deathspeaker’s footsteps carried me forward. I was no human, to rely upon light alone for my survival.

But neither was I a fool, to not want it. “Deathspeaker, where are we going, and may we have light to guide the way?”

“We are going deeper young one. I have heard of you, and of the spirits you seek.” The Deathspeaker chuckled, the sound coming from every direction. “And some places are best left to the darkness.”

“Spirits? I seek not spirits, but answers.”

“And answers you shall have, whether you sought them or not.”

I shook my head. Fucking shamans, always inflating their own importance with their mysticism. I glanced back at the entrance, finding nothing but more darkness behind. Of course it was gone. I rubbed my thumb over my spear shaft. If the Deathspeakers turned on me they’d find a goblin who wasn’t afraid of the dark.

Voices whispered all around us, speaking of a thousand nameless things, a thousand lives gone by with the passing of the centuries. A thousand selfless sacrifices, a thousand ignominious deaths. A thousand legendary tales and a thousand forgotten nights, all equal in death.

I shivered and hastened my stride to keep pace with the Deathspeaker. The last thing I needed was to be left behind among the voices. Even after they faded to silence I was more careful to keep to the Deathspeaker’s heels.

The footsteps ahead stopped and I froze with them. “Deathspeaker?”

A figure stood before me, a figure I saw with neither light nor sight. He wore a deep hood, but the gaping emptiness within made his true nature perfectly clear.

I leveled my spear at the specter, sliding one foot back into a combat stance. Was the creature physical? I had the blessed oil in my pouch, but that would cost precious seconds to retrieve.

A faint sense of melancholy drifted off the figure and I rejected the unbidden image of mournful eyes. This thing had no face.

“Why, child, are you so urgent to perceive a threat?”

I stabbed experimentally, but the space warped and twisted around my blade like a bad dream. The specter was within arms reach, but no matter how I attacked my blade’s edge didn’t so much as come within a foot of it.

“So quick to violence… what has made you this way?”

I stopped my attacks, simply watching warily. “Why do you care? I just came here to ask a few questions, not recite my life’s story!”

The specter shook his head sadly. A dozen phantom images moved in the darkness all around, a dozen long forgotten memories of dead elders shaking their heads at the foolishness of today’s youth. “How can one find truth without before they find the truth within?”

My left eye twitched. “I already know who I am and I don’t need any shaman to damn well tell me! This would be easy enough if you would just fucking tell me how to get out of this place! Neither of us would have to deal with each other anymore.”

“Mmm-hmm.” More memories played across the empty void we stood in. Countless angry goblins seeking knowledge they did not have the wisdom to wield. “Your passage treads on deep secrets young one, deeper than you know. Why should we trust you with such knowledge?”

I took a deep breath through gritted teeth. C’mon, remember all the times you’ve talked yourself out of trouble? This is no different than that, talking is better than fighting. Also, I just tried fighting and it didn’t work. “Look, I don’t know anything about your ‘deep secrets’ and I don’t want to. Just tell me whatever you can without… violating your sacred secrets or whatever. I’m not asking for anybody to put themselves at risk for my sake.”

Visions flickered across the void, a thousand moments of judgement and a thousand moments of the violence that followed. They moved like darting fish, none surfacing for long, so I never had the time to fully examine any of them, but still more than enough time to know that few of them were pleasant.

“Why are you showing me this? I don’t want to hurt you, for stars sake I won’t even effect the wards when I leave!”

“The wards are irrelevant. Motivation is not.”

“I swear, if this is more vague shamanistic bullshit…” I trailed off, not knowing what kind of threat I could be leading up to. What threat could be anything other than laughable to this thing?

But still I couldn’t help myself. A memory came up, unbidden and unwelcome. My mother standing up to a shaman, throwing everything she had into her argument. Better medical treatment wasn’t a pointless waste, it would make slaves work better, she said, reduce discontent and threats of revolt she said.

It was at about that point that they started the beating.

The memory was so vivid, it was almost like I was there… I blinked.

“No!” I ran through the nothingness, waving my arms as if that could disrupt the illusion. “No, this is not okay!”

I spun and faced the specter, finally calling up the mental effort that could truly dispel the illusion. “This isn’t yours! You have no right!”

The hovering specter examined me coldly. “Slaves. It is not a word I am fond of.”

The void swirled around us, and disappeared. Again we were swept into the past, me lying in my mother’s arms as she whispered forgotten tales of glass towers and miraculous medicine. I’d give anything to know exactly what it was she’d been saying, but the details were long lost to time. My child self had barely been paying attention, simply drifting off to the comforting sound of her voice. I wish I could slap the bastard for taking her for granted.

Again I cut off the illusion, watching it vanish into nothingness as it was severed from the mind that had unwillingly fueled it. “Why are you doing this?”

The visions returned, one final time. It had barely enough time to center in on my crouching form hiding behind an iron cage before I cut it off and let it die, but that was more than long enough to dredge up unpleasant memories. It had been the night I’d staged my jailbreak, and everything that followed.

One last afterimage outlived the rest, Kurg’s shocked face as he gurgled his last. His own blade was rammed through the side of his throat, my voice hissing the last thing he would ever hear.

“Never again.”

I straightened my back and forced my hands to steady on my spear. “Enough. You’ll have no more of me.”

The specter cocked his empty face to the side and the visions fell still. “Very well. I have seen all I need.”