Erin waited for his mana to regenerate before he continued. The next cavern proceeded much the same as the first. The only difference was that the goblin numbers were much lower; apparently having provided the wave of attackers he had seen in the first room. Strangely, the goblins in this room were also much hardier than what he was used to. He was forced to pour extra mana into his dust storm in order to finish off the strongest of them. By the time he was done clearing the cavern, Erin was nearly out of mana.

Magically pulling a chunk of rock from the ground to use as a seat, Erin sat down to regenerate his mana. As he sat on his rock brooding, Erin heard a soft chittering sound behind him. Whipping his head around, Erin saw a pile of body parts. Staring at it, he saw a slight motion in the pile. A single goblin eye stared out at him from between an arm, and a torso, caught his eye, then closed; the goblin in question suddenly playing dead.

“Okaaayyyy.” Erin muttered to himself under his breath. The goblin opened its eye slightly, confirmed that Erin was still watching, and closed it again. Erin sighed, and stood up. He wasn’t sure how to deal with this development, but he wasn’t going to ignore it either. Erin heard a small squeak when he moved, the eye cracking open again slightly to track him before closing yet again. Erin walked over to the corpse pile, and sat down near it, out of the goblin’s melee range.

“Can you understand me? Can you speak my language?” He asked curiously.

The goblin said something in its tweeting, hooting language. Erin was about to say something when the goblin spoke again. This time it almost sounded like normal words, which stopped Erin from interrupting. On the third attempt, the goblin finally said something intelligible.

“Man words hard.” It said. Erin could practically taste the terror in its voice.

Erin nodded. “Do you have a name?”

The goblin seemed confused. “What name? I know word, but I not understand word. What it mean?”

Erin cocked his head in fascination. “It’s a word you use so others know the difference between you and someone else. I’m Erin by the way.”

The goblin bowed its head in consideration. “I am goblin. It best word for me.”

Erin shook his head. “That’s your race name. You can’t use your race name as your own name.”

“You expert. You name.” The goblin told him. It seemed to have forgotten its fear.

Erin mused on the problem, before remembering a time-honored anime tradition. “How about we call you Gob?”

Gob shrugged. “I am Gob then.”

Erin nodded. “So, Gob, do you plan to kill me? Do you want revenge for the others?”

Gob shook his head. “I not know them. I woke… two hours ago? What does two hours mean?”

“It’s a way of measuring time. Keep going.”

Gob screwed his face up in confusion. “I woke two hours ago. I not remember things. I know things, but not know them. It… strange. I know others, but not know them. I know death makes sad, but I not sad for them.”

Erin nodded. It made sense given what he now suspected about current circumstances. “I’m curious, do you get instructions from anyone on what you should do?”

Gob nodded. “Big Voice say to attack next cave. Others listen to Big Voice, go attack. Some not want to listen, we stay. Big Voice yell loud, but we not want to fight. Big Voice say attack Erin if we see Erin. We not listen, but Erin attack first.”

Erin frowned. Attacking mindless monster AI’s was one thing, but he wasn’t sure he had the stomach for killing sentient creatures that might be friendly; even if they were goblins. Feeling guilty, Erin looked Gob in the eye. “Do you want to be my spokesgoblin? You can talk to them for me so I can pass through the caves without killing. If I knew you were friendly, I wouldn’t have attacked. Do you understand?”

Gob nodded. “I understand. I will do this.”

Erin smiled in relief. “Do you know whether the goblins here will respawn? Do you know how quickly?” Gob had planted the seed of an idea in his mind, and he was interested to see if it would work.

Gob screwed up his face in concentration. “This another know but not know thing. If man in cave, gobs not spawn. If man not in cave, then half hour.”

Erin nodded absently, mind already churning with plans, and theories. “Will it be the same goblins, or different goblins?”

“Always same goblins. I in first two attacks, decide not to listen to voice after.” Gob’s words alleviated some of Erin’s guilt. Knowing that he hadn’t actually fully killed them was an excellent salve to his conscience.

“If we came back after they spawned, would they be friendly?”

Gob shrugged. “Before, yes. Now, don’t know.”

Erin sighed. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it then. Any chance you can talk to the goblins in the third cavern for me?”

“You come, you protect, maybe some listen.”

Erin gave Gob a thumbs up. “Sounds good. Let’s get going.”

The duo marched to cave number three, Where they stopped just out of view. “Anything I need to know before we go in?” Erin asked.

“Talk first. Then fight Big Voice listeners. Then talk if any alive.” Gob decided finally.

Erin nodded. “Sounds like a plan little buddy.”

“Little buddy? I named Gob.” Gob said, confused.

“It’s a nickname. It’s like a special extra name that friends use with each other.” Erin said patiently.

Gob looked confused. “Friend? What is that?”

Erin smiled at Gob. “I’ll explain later. Let’s get started.”

The encounter went exactly the way Gob had predicted it would. After Gob said something loudly in the goblin language, a number of goblins attacked. Erin did his best to only catch the aggressive goblins in his spell. By the end, over half the goblins in the cave were dead on the floor while Erin stared at a group of fifteen goblins that cowered on the ground. Erin motioned to Gob, who stepped forward.

[I come in peace.] Gob announced in goblin tongue.

[Who are you, and why did you attack us?] Another goblin asked, stepping forward as the group’s representative.

Gob sighed. [We only asked to talk. It was the others who attacked us. As for who I am, my master has named me Gob. He is the human that the dungeon voice ordered us to attack.]

[Why shouldn’t we do what it says now? It promised rewards if one of us kills him.] The representative declared aggressively. This gave Gob a moment of pause since he hadn’t been given this offer. Still, he pressed on.

[The voice hasn’t given us anything yet. All it’s done is tell us to throw our lives away in meaningless fights against other wind goblins. Even if we win, they just respawn. Erin wants to leave the caves. We could live in peace. How much better would life be without the constant pain of death?]

Gob could see the other goblin hesitate. [How can you guarantee this? How do we know he doesn’t want to lead us to something worse?]

Gob shrugged. [What could be worse than this?]

This stumped the representative who nodded begrudgingly. [True. Fine, we will follow you. If it means no more pain, no more caves, then I think I speak for all of us in saying it’s worth trying.]

The two goblins turned to the assembled others, who nodded. Then they turned to Erin. Erin had been standing still the entire time, doing his best to look stern, and powerful; as the goblins hooted, and tweeted at each other. When the goblins turned to look at him en masse, Erin looked inquisitively back at Gob. “So, how’d it go?”

“You lead, they follow.” Gob informed him solemnly.

Erin nodded, then turned to the next cave in line. “Alright, I guess now we do this again with the next group.”

After negotiating with the goblins of cave numbers four and five, the group of fortyish goblins, and Erin doubled back; performing the same process with the freshly respawned goblins of cave two. He was not a moment too soon, as fresh troops invading from cave one interrupted their talks. His decisive show of power as he single-handedly decimated the attacking wave effectively ended negotiations as the pacifist group all agreed to follow him in exchange for safety.

Over the course of the next day, Erin visited every cave in the entire first floor; camping out in an out of the way cavern with only one entrance when he needed to sleep. Several goblins acted as scouts for him to ward off any attacking groups, but none came. For their parts, the pidgits, seemingly unable to comprehend speech, didn’t react to attempts at diplomacy; forcing Erin to deal with several outraged flocks over the course of his journey.

Finally, the group of now almost two hundred goblins arrived at the boss room. Erin quickly slotted the four-hundred-twenty-two skill points he had gained into as much toughness as he could afford. The remaining points he placed into his divinity skill. Erin nodded at his stat page in satisfaction, before walking into the boss room. He formed a fist; tightening it as hard as he could to quell the tremors, before releasing it. A single drop of blood dripped onto the cave floor.

“Alright, let’s go.”