I saw... something. It was the size of a large dog and sit on the floor using its front paws to furiously dig into the crevice between two bricks. The creature’s body was covered in rare patches of fur but mostly naked.

Its skin looked like someone took a massive heaping of dough, flattened it with a rolling pin, and then stretched it over a haphazard assortment of sticks. The skin covering the shoulder blades was incredibly taut, seemingly ready to rip at a sudden move, whereas the folds around the rib cage sagged in a sickening manner.

Dark, matted fur covered most of its head. Instead of a nose, the center of its face revealed a long horizontal slit. There was a fold of skin dangling from the top of it, and it kept trembling in tandem with the creature’s furious sniffing.

Most disturbingly, I could see a long tongue slithering from between its sharp teeth, trying to reach into the crevice whenever its paws managed to enlarge the opening a bit.

I stared at it dumbfoundedly. Even integrating into the goblin society never prepared me for the sight of such a monstrosity. Should we retreat? As bizarre as it looked, I had no way of gauging its strength. It seemed too preoccupied to notice us, but whatever it was trying to retrieve could prove useful to ourselves as well.

My thoughts were interrupted when my party acted of their own accord and charged at the beast themselves.

Gharak was the first to move. He simply rushed forward, his arms outstretched, trying to immediately pin the creature to the ground. Rubi and Trax were the second to act, following closely behind him. Only Bob and I were a step behind everyone else.

As absorbed with excavating its treasure as the monster was, it couldn’t miss a goblin launching itself at its body. It let out a high-pitched shriek and nimbly jumped to the side to avoid the impact. However, the corridor was too narrow to dodge Gharak completely, and the red goblin managed to grab onto its body.

This beast howled in indignation. It swiped one of its front paws at Alpha, the claws carving a bloody wound on his chest. The duo of green goblins meanwhile surrounded the beast from two sides and started to attack it with claws of their own. Their assault managed to leave some marks on its skin, but the drawback of having no weapons was evident.

Finally, Bob and I joined the fray as well. We both targeted the beast’s head, Bob’s fingers went for the eyes, whereas I tried to rip its throat out. That was easier said than done, the skin around the jugular was stretchy and leathery and I couldn’t quite pierce it.

All this time the monster never stopped biting and scratching in retaliation. Most of its attacks focused on Alpha, who wrapped himself around its legs, preventing it from running away.

I had to quickly do something. We clearly didn’t have the strength to break through its defences and prolonging this struggle wasn’t to our advantage.

I gave up on the throat, and instead pushed my fingers deep into the slit the beast had on its face. My fingers sunk into a soft, mucus filled cavity. The feeling was disgusting, but the response it provoked proved that we finally managed to find its weak spot.

The monster howled horribly. Its strength suddenly increasing, it finally shook Alpha off its body. I still held on, using my claws to dig as deep as I could into its tender flesh. My other hand was wrapped around its neck, so the beast didn’t have many ways to throw me off, save for furiously clawing and biting at my chest.

Distraught, it did what I didn’t expect it to, and ran straight into the wall. The impact shook my body. My grip slightly weakening, I finally couldn’t hold on when it attempted to shake me off again.

I fell to the ground, my right arm completely drenched in a sticky mixture of mucus and blood. The beast didn’t continue its attack, thankfully, and ran off into the depths of the dungeon, wailing pitifully as it did so. The green goblins looked set on following it, but I ordered them to stop.

My chest hurt like hell. Checking my status, I saw that my painfully restored vitality dropped down again to 113/152 (175). Alpha’s state was even more miserable. A layer of blood obfuscated the shallower wounds, but there were plenty of areas where his flesh was ripped open or straight up bitten off.

I had no way to view his status but Gharak’s condition couldn’t have been good. I took off what remained of my clothes, this wasn’t the time for modesty, and ripped them into bandages to tie around his injuries. The leather clothing the rest of us wore was of better quality, but it didn’t serve well in these kind of emergencies.

Despite losing a lot of blood, Alpha’s condition appeared to be stable. He had managed to hold on to his consciousness throughout the entirety of the battle, and with some help from Trax and Rubi, was even able to walk, if a bit unsteadily. It remained to be seen if he would develop an infection. That would be disastrous, since we didn’t have any healing potions left, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

With the most pressing issue taken care of, I decided to investigate what had gotten that beast so fixated in the first place.

I quickly located the place where I spotted it originally. Near the bottom of the wall there were two bricks, one of which was slightly loosened, creating a narrow gap between them. I kneeled down to take a closer look.

I saw numerous claw marks, yet what caught my attention was a glint of faintly shining red light deep inside the crevice. I tried sticking my fingers inside and pulling it out, but they wouldn’t fit.

I wasn’t discouraged. A small stick would’ve worked best, but there was so much vegetation all around us that creating a quick substitute wasn’t an issue at all.

I grabbed a piece of sturdy vine hanging from the wall. It was the right size, only a bit too flexible. Next, I took a thin string of ivy and tightly coiled it around the vine. It wasn’t as stiff as a real stick and would come undone very quickly, but it was sufficient to push towards me whatever was stuck there.

A small red stone came tumbling down. It was about the size of a fingernail, with a glossy, semi-translucent surface.

“Do you know what it is?” I asked the party. They all shook their heads.

Well, whatever it was, I wasn’t throwing it away. It was the only bounty we’ve obtained from our fight, save for a number of wounds. I could only hope it really had some value and it wasn’t the case that the dumb beast was simply looking for daubles to decorate its lair with.

“Rubi, pick up the food you dropped during the fight. We’re heading back.”

It was too dangerous to continue our expedition. Alpha was completely out of commision and I wasn’t feeling all too well either. During the battle I had to go all out and now even shallow breaths sent painful reminders of my recently broken ribs.

If we chanced upon another powerful monster, our only option would be to split up and run away in different directions. It was best to just head straight back to the tribe. Which reminded me of something.

“Trax. Give me your clothes.”

The goblin protested, but I was able to convince him with a few kicks. It showed me once again just how strongly ingrained the sense of hierarchy was among their kind. He could’ve made it far more difficult for me if he wasn’t so reluctant to retaliate against my attacks or simply showed a bit more spirit. He definitely wasn’t so cowardly when we were facing the beast just a few moments ago. Wait a second…

“Why did you attack before I gave the signal?” I asked him. The buck naked goblin didn’t respond, however, after a moment, Rubi chimed in.

“I don’t know. At the moment it felt like I stopped thinking. I just knew I had to kill it.”

“It’s an intruder. It shouldn’t be here.” Alpha suddenly added.

Oh? I was certain that what we faced was just another monster from the dungeon. Did it break in from the outside?

“How could you tell it was an intruder?”

“I just knew it.”

“Why did you want to kill it?”

“I just did.”

Gharak’s responses were becoming more and more succinct. Part of it stemmed from his exhaustion, but it was obvious that he found the subject itself difficult to speak about.

“How about you, Bob?”

“I haven’t felt anything like that. When everyone started attacking, I just joined in as well.”

Same as me. I fell into thought. The green goblins acted fairly closely to what one would expect from a monster inhabiting a dungeon. When they discovered an outsider, their instincts kicked in and they recklessly attacked it, with no thoughts about their personal safety.

The issue became more convoluted when it came to colored variants like me. I rejected any changes to my psychology, but even goblins like Bob and Gharak, who never heard any questions during their advancement process and most likely undergone the automatic evolution, displayed some measure of independence or at least self-reflection.

Alpha kept silent, but I could tell that he was brooding over his recent actions. His face was impassive, but getting his teeth smashed as a child must have left a trauma on the poor guy, because now whenever he became agitated, he’d start absentmindedly clicking his molars together for comfort. Walking close to him felt a bit like having a stroll with cuckoo clock.

****

The way back took us close to three hours. In the end, the ivy leaves I so painfully gathered and left to mark our way turned out to be a mixed success. Our scent did grow faint at some point, but maybe my memory was better than I expected, because whenever we came to a fork in the tunnel, I could somehow intuit which path to take. They still saved us some time, cause even if I felt I knew which way to take, I was bound to spend minutes hesitating at every intersection without the assurance the leaves gave me.

“Is there any reason we can’t eat the food we gathered ourselves?” We started hearing the distant sounds of the tribe and this was the last chance to do something before we had to surrender our bounty to Khar. It didn’t seem to be enough to feed the five of us, let alone after our leader took his share.

“You can’t eat them raw. They need to be boiled in a stew to remove the bitterness.”

That’s it? Compared to starvation, even if the taste was the most vile thing imaginable, I’d stomach it.

I grabbed one of the mushrooms and took a bite out of it. Chewed it. Spit it out. And then spit again to get the rest of the saliva from my mouth. Too late. I bent over a wall and started heaving, my stomach muscles convulsing to eject any remnants of the thing from my body.

It wasn’t just bitter. It transcended the very notion. The stomach acid that rushed to my mouth was sweet in comparison.

When I got a hold of myself again, I abandoned the idea of trying to consume the food on my own. This only left the tiny red stone I held in my hand. It didn’t have any obvious use, but it held a certain attraction that I suspected could catch Khar’s interest.

I couldn’t think of any better place to hide it, save for one place that reminded me a bit too much of prisons, so I popped it into my mouth and held it under the tongue. Having something to suck on had the additional benefit of stimulating my salivary glands, further diluting the bitter aftertaste that still lingered in my mouth.

We returned to the anteroom that was connected to our rooms. The other goblins were already waiting for us.