I cursed my own hubris as I trudged onward. Hunkering down for the mist to clear was all well and good as a plan, but it kind of took for granted that the mist would clear.

After my third day of sitting about with my thumbs up my ass that assumption looked pretty stupid. Wandering blindly could render one far more lost than they’d been to start with, but perhaps three days was a tad more hesitant than strictly necessary. The first day was enough to be clear that it was no morning mist to burn away with the sun. Some sort of seasonal phenomenon perhaps.

I was doing my best to pick as straight a path as I could through the woods, but my best left much to be desired. I was honestly beginning to ponder the merits of heading back underground to try my luck at plotting a straight course there when I stumbled across it. More literally than I would have preferred to be honest. One second I was ducking my head under a branch, the next I was slamming it straight up into one.

I flinched and glared upward. The dim shadow I’d taken for a branch had a depth hidden in the mist. It was really more of a board.

No. I felt at it with one hand, running my claws over it and feeling the cracks in the wood. It was several boards nailed together, as if someone had snapped off a chunk of wall or crate and chucked it out into the deep woods. I glanced out into twisted shadows of trees all around me, picking out inorganic shapes among them. There had been something here. Was still something here, truth be told, something large enough that I’d have noticed it even if it hadn’t smacked me in the face.

A wall. Some of the pieces might be as long as five feet even after it had fallen over. Interesting but hardly important. At least it proved I hadn’t been here before.

I paused halfway through my crossing. I could easily see both the side ahead and the side behind, but to the left and right the fragmentary wall stretched off out of sight. It wasn’t that impressive, sight lines didn’t stretch far in this mist, but some faint fact or connection was tickling at the corners of my brain. I followed the hunch, scrambling up onto the closest board. It was of a level with the others, far from precise but more than random chance could manage from a falling wall.

I hopped off to another, then another, taking a sharp turn to follow the ruins stretching off rather than simply crossing them. The hops grew shorter each time until I was more walking than hopping. This wasn’t some collapsed wall hinting at a long forgotten settlement in these forsaken woods. No, it was a road. A road of unusual construction to be sure, but a road nonetheless. The wooden boards were reinforced with struts and cross braces drilled into the living wood to support some serious weight with a flat, stable surface. That flat surface had stayed impressively intact to be honest, trees could grow with the slow strength to crack stone, so someone must have done some real work to prevent that from happening.

I trailed off to a stop in the middle of the road. Roads had been a puzzling thing to me when I’d first risked passing into human lands. Why someone would have gone through all the trouble of boring such a brazen path through the wilderness was beyond me. It seemed in such stark contrast to human sophistication in other areas when goblins had so much more subtle ways of marking territory and crossing ground. A goblin trail was scarcely discernible from a game trail, even to our own eyes, and that was when we couldn’t simply exploit the existing deer paths. To see signs of lettered wood hammered into the ground next to a five span wide path of flattened earth when I was used to clawing hidden bark-signs next to a game trail just seemed… crude.

It wasn’t until I’d more fully acclimated to human society that I’d been struck by the obvious. It wasn’t merely their strength enabling the kind of stupidity that nature would never forgive of a goblin, it served a purpose. A single creature could trek through tangled woods and rough terrain without being overly troubled, but a wagon never could. With that ability humans could transfer a vast mass of goods across the miles in a way that goblins simply couldn’t. They could carry such food that they need not stop for forage, they could exchange resources with distant cities and organize large efforts otherwise impossible.

These brazen roads were, in short, the delicate threads that bound the artifice of their nations together.

And an artery that carried nothing was useless. This road was obviously abandoned, but for how long and for how far? In the end I decided it was worth it. It would probably be many miles before I hit anything worth worrying about and the temptation of a consistent reference point was too much to resist.

I’d follow the road. In the event that some part of it was still occupied it wasn’t like the humans would see me first.

I drifted off to the side as I walked, hopping back off the raised road and wandering back under it as I moved. Useful or not, I hadn’t grown brain worms. What, walk in the middle of an area deliberately cleared of all cover and broadly known for transporting valuables? Hells no, these things were death traps. I mean sure, it was dark under here, and sure, I walked into a tree or two, but the pain of private embarrassment would always be less than the pain of death.

I didn’t have much to go on down here, but a human would have to be even stupider than average to build a road that lead nowhere. I was sure the road would lead me out eventually. I wasn’t about my prospects of emerging in a human settlement, so I was careful to keep an eye on what faint light came down through the cracks above. That didn’t help the walking into shit issue any, but it was worth it when I noticed the changing light.

It was somewhere in the vicinity of three hours since I’d found the road when the faint gray light filtering the trees and mist began to do more than darken. It had been doing that for a while as the day passed closer to night, but now it was taking on a distinctly orange hue. That could mean only one thing. Well, it could mean a thousand things, but I knew which one it was going to be.

Fire. And fire meant civilization. Or any number of other… no it meant civilization dammit. No tangents.

I crept forward far slower than before, keeping my eyes on the ground with only occasional glances upward. Ironic that I’d be less attentive now that I knew there was somebody up there, but stealth was survival. Now that I was close I’d likely be passing into the detection range of even humans, if humans they were. I’d been firmly in human lands before, but even if I were sure of my position travelers weren’t unheard of. I was only dimly aware of human elf relations, but I did understand them to be less hostile than with goblins.

As I neared their position the light stopped being the sole indicator of their presence. I began to pick out speech, just faint enough to be murmurs rather than full words. The words might be incomprehensible, but it didn’t take much longer than that for me to pick up more. The crackle of a fire, the sizzle of a pan. Someone was cooking, and it smelled good.

And that was from whatever hints drifted down here. How good must it be in person? My mouth watered at the mere thought.

But the food wasn’t for me, not unless I was bold enough to steal some. I wasn’t, not in a world where bold so often meant dead. Not unless I saw a golden opportunity… No! Bad goblin.

I licked my lips and swallowed. No. I had too much to do for that kind of stupidity.

The discussion resolved into discrete words as I closed the distance. They were speaking Devlo, which was a promising sign. Not only was it essentially the only human language I could keep up with, it meant I couldn’t have wandered far. Devlo was fairly regional, even the wandering traders who dared to visit lonely mountain villages usually spoke better Seagri than Devlo.

Admittedly, one of them spoke far better Devlo than the other, but they were both speaking it. I hunkered down next to a support beam and rotated my ears around to focus on their words. I was close enough that I could see their shadows outlined through the cracks and the dim rustle of the woods echoing in from the sides faded out to be replaced by rough Devlo, clear as if they were standing next to me.

Well okay, I could have heard them far clearer if I was dumb enough to stick my big ol’ ears in their face, but what I had now was still a damn sight better than a human would be getting at any distance.

“Remember to watch the outside to see how it browns. Then,” the Devlo dripped with a heavy accent, but not one I could place, “You flip it to hit the other side.”

Something sizzled as the man presumably put actions to his words. I was getting a better picture of the layout, their were four shadows of varying sizes. The one that was haloed with light must be some kind of portable fire pit, with the closest shadow being the man cooking. The third shadow clarified itself as it shifted and spoke.

“And when will it be done? I’m hungry, especially after we had to haul the cart over a hundred feet of broken road.” The second speaker spoke faster, she was far more familiar with the language, and her accent was far more familiar to me. It was standard Devlo hickspeak, no different from any of a dozen mountain villages.

That was exciting. Maybe she knew how the hell to get back home. I certainly was going to have a rough time plotting out that long of an overland course. Sadly, the closest route to the Devain mountains wasn’t something that came up in their conversation. They wasted their time arguing about whether it was reasonable to expect one to double-check whether or not their ‘short-cut’ had been abandoned for a hundred years.

The answer was, shockingly enough, no. Less shockingly, the one defending his poor navigating decisions was the one in charge. That was usually how things worked. I shuffled over to the side and began working myself out from under the road. If they were arguing over directions, this was probably the best time to catch a look at any maps they might have.

It took a good minute to work my way out without making any noise, but I kept an ear on the humans (I was pretty sure they were human) the entire time. Their argument didn’t shift by all that much in that time, only transitioning from road choice to how much profit this ‘shortcut’ could even possibly generate. They were merchants apparently, with the younger human as the apprentice to the older male.

I pushed forward a bit longer after I left the road, getting out of sight before I circled back around in the third dimension. The road was narrow enough to have a generous canopy, and that would provide the ideal vantage to stare down at any maps they might have.

When I was back in easy hearing range things hadn’t changed much, but I now I had visibility. The girl was a dirty blonde teetering somewhere around adulthood. Where was anyone’s guess, but she’d far surpassed the stage where she was goblin sized. Maybe this was as big as she’d get, it wasn’t beyond the human range.

The other was garbed in mundane clothes, save for his face which seemed to be hidden some mockery of my own dress. Bandages covered every available patch of skin, just like the unfortunate diseased who could afford only to hide their blistered skin from society and not to heal it. I could see why the girl had chosen this merchant of all merchants to apprentice to. He couldn’t exactly be drowning in options himself.

Behind the probably human pair was one of their pack beasts idly chewing at his feedbag. Some bastardized cousin of the horses their warriors rode, though precisely which one I couldn’t be bothered to pick up through the mists. Combined with a humbly sized cart it formed the largest of the four shadows I’d been able to pick out from the bottom.

The last shadow was a brazier alight with dry hardwood. I hadn’t spent much time munching bark here, but it gave enough familiarity to judge this as a different breed of wood entirely. A quick glance at the cart confirmed it. They’d carried their own firewood with them.

Well no wonder she was mad at her boss. I’d be mad too if someone dragged me through the woods and made me lug twenty pounds of dead tree in the name of a clean fire to boot. Still, it was a clean fire. So clean I was barely got any smoke in my eyes even when I got just about directly above them.

“Look, cutting the gap from the South Sea to Seair is a good idea to start with, cutting out the detour around the Deep Woods just makes it better.”

His apprentice threw up her hands. “Only if the roads work! We’d already be halfway to the river by now if we’d taken the standard route. I don’t know how you even knew there was a road here at all, the thing is decrepit.”

The bandaged merchant shrugged. “I dug up an old map from a flooded fen temple a few decades back, wanted to know if any of it still held true.”

That line struck at my soul. Merchants didn’t raid ancient temples. Adventurers did.

His apprentice folded her arms. “Tinker. Did you really take us across the edge of a Dungeon just to satisfy your curiosity?”

Tinker stared down his apprentice while swirling grease around his pan. “And if I did? I’d have uncovered a valuable little secret, all for the price of leaving the beaten path. Not a bad trade.”

She blew out a long breath. “I… suppose you’re right.”

“Course I am. Carving out new paths through the wild is hard work, but the difficulty is its own reward. Trekking a dozen miles just to sell off one set of useless crap and buy another set to sell back where you started… it’d kill me Tharri.”

Not the way skirting Dungeon borders could kill him. Unless he was far more dangerous than he appeared. I couldn’t make out any clear weapon on him, even his apprentice had an unstrung bow at her side but he had nothing more dangerous than eating utensils and a black staff laid out at his side.

I mean sure, you could kill a guy with either of those, but I wouldn’t want to try it, not if they could see me coming. They just weren’t designed for combat. A kitchen knife was out reached by just about everything, including their fighting counterparts, while staffs had the opposite problem. You needed something to finish the fight. A stiff beating could fend off a lot, but Dungeon-born monsters? Not a chance.

His apprentice wasn’t exactly geared for Dungeon crawling either, bows were great and all, but there was a reason I didn’t carry one. Most had to be carried unstrung to maintain a good draw, perfectly fine if you thought you’d pick every fight you entered, but I wasn’t that kind of fool. Violence found you.

No, they had to have some kind of secret. Some reason his apprentice was complaining about lost money and time rather than lost lives.

Tinker took withdrew the pan from the fire, settling it directly in his lap. What the fuck. Tharri just got out two thin loaves of bread from a pack resting near her as if he hadn’t just burnt his nads off. “So, where are you going to drag us next?”

Tinker’s kitchen knife might not have the heft for battle, but it slid through the meat like nothing was there. “Time’ll tell. We might end up dropping by where you came from,”

My ears perked up at that. Her accent clearly pegged her as a native Devlo, so she couldn’t have been born all that far from my own birthplace.

“I was thinking about crossing the Iabian Isthmus.”

Well that would be convenient. I wasn’t all that well acquainted with the broad strokes of geography, but some features were impossible to mix up. If they were really gearing up to cross the isthmus, then they would cross straight through the mountains where I was born.

“What!?”

Tharri evidently disagreed. Wasn’t hard to see why. The very reason I was headed there, goblins, wasn’t exactly a desirable trait to most humans. Quite the opposite really.

Tinker held up his hands. “Thinking about. If you have objections you get to voice them.”

“I… what objections could I possibly have, beyond the incredibly obvious?”

Tinker shrugged, going back to slicing up the meat. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to think about it. Seair is just a little southeast of the Devain Mountains, so we have until then to plot our next course.”

Finally! I began climbing away from the stupid humans. I had what I wanted and hanging around watching humans feast on hot, delicious food while I had nothing but hardtack wasn’t my idea of a fun time. It wasn’t my idea of a safe time either. That merchant gave me the creeps.

So I left them to their continued argument, something about crossing the Sea of Teeth, and kept on moving. Now that I knew this road lead in at least the general direction of the Devain Mountains I could follow it out of the Deep Woods without worrying about ending up further from where I started.