After tumbling down the trapdoor, Anastacia fell a couple of meters onto a sloped and slippery stone surface in a fairly tight, unlit tunnel. Once the trapdoor sealed itself, the tunnel became pitch-black. In the darkness, despite her best efforts to stay upright, she quickly found herself on her back, slow sliding down towards who knows what. Though the journey down was comfortable, the possibility of a larger fall or something even worse started to creep into the necromancer’s mind. Kicking and clawing at the walls did nothing to even slow her down and she simply had to accept her fate, which came in the form of a safe but uncomfortable fall resulting in nothing but a scraped knee and a strange feeling of disappointment.

The room she had landed in was just as dark as the slope. There was no noticeable echo so it couldn’t have been terribly big either. Anastacia figured that if the ones who had built the fortress wanted her dead, she would be dead by now and started feeling the wall behind her without much care. About half a meter above her head, she could feel the edge of the slope she fell from. But even if she did have the strength to pull herself up, there’s no way she could have gotten a proper grip for climbing back up.

Below the slope, she could feel a groove, about the width of her thumb and a centimeter deep. Compared to the stone around it, the bottom of the groove felt smooth, almost like glass. Anastacia slid her index finger downwards along it. Roughly at her shoulder height, there was a hole, just big enough for a single finger. After some deliberation, Anastacia pushed in her right pinky, thinking that out of her fingers, she’d miss that one the least. Even though her glove she could feel the sharp needle stab into her fingertip. As her reflexes kicked in and pulled her finger out, a blue light started to shine along the groove above it. The glow quickly spread along the walls, floor and ceiling, forming complicated and precise patterns on every surface.

“Damnit!” She exclaimed and took her glove off to see the tiny red point the needle had made. “Weren’t these guys supposed to be good at this stuff, and somehow they can’t figure out a damn lever for their dumb lighting?!” Despite being thin, the needle had gone deep inside her fingertip. Anastasia swore it touched a bone. “I’m probably just poisoned now too, or have some kind of ancient disease or something! Thanks in advance for the lockjaw, you ancient asshats!”

Now that the room was lit, she could see something that looked like a door on the other side. Upon closer inspection, it had a similar little hole in it.

“Are you kidding me?! Just invent keys!” The necromancer groaned and started going through her pockets and belt pouches. With a victorious grin, she dug out a small dried sausage and shoved it into the hole. After far too many increasingly desperate attempts with the sausage, Anastacia gave up and pushed her left pinky in. The spike was almost twice as painful now that she knew it was there, but just like she had expected, the door-like stone slab slid down into the floor. “If this continues, I will find you, bring you back alive and then kill your stupid dead faces again! I can do that you know!... Technically.”

As Anastacia cursed the ancient civilization, the opening door revealed a staircase that headed further down under the ground. She made a very vocal complaint about it not being the direction she wanted to head into. Unsurprisingly, the complaints did nothing, and Anastacia was forced to head down the stairs. The light patterns continued on the walls, making the otherwise plain tunnel slightly more interesting. Intrigued by the purpose of the lights, Anastacia spent a while studying them, the direction the pulsating light flowed into, the patterns themselves and the way they were arranged on the stairs.

Suddenly, she started to hear a strange noise coming from deeper down. Listening more closely, it sounded awfully gobliney, with a delightful mix of screeching and some of the worst singing the necromancer had ever witnessed. After going down a hundred or so more steps, she could finally see the end of the staircase. The noise the goblins made was almost as bad as above ground and the reason for it became clear to Anastacia. The critters hadn’t simply lost a couple of their fellow goblins into the fort, there were at least a hundred of them in the hall the stairs led to. All of them facing a throne in the opposite side of the room so none noticed Anastacia entering.

The underground chamber was as big as some of the halls in the castles back at Mournvalley, but the fact that it seemed to be dug into the solid bedrock made it far more impressive. It was well lit by the light patterns flowing along the floor and the columns placed around the room. The throne that the goblins were so focused on, was occupied by a fancily dressed skeleton, wearing a long golden coat a silver plate armor and a massive golden crown that resembled a dead tree with jewels and pearls fit into its trunk. Yet the most curious thing about the remains were their size. Though it was a bit hard to estimate the exact height of this ancient ruler, they must have been closer to three meters tall. As Anastacia started to walk closer to get a better look, the goblins noticed her.

“Girl of Underground, live here? She know sleeping god?” One of the goblins inquired.

“What? I don’t-“ The necromancer was about to say but realized that the truth may have been the best thing to reveal at the moment. “I mean yeah, we’re the bestest of buddies. We’ve been inseparable for ages.”

The goblin seemed impressed by Anastacia’s relation to their new god. “Girl of Underground live here? Not up?” It asked and pointed towards the ceiling.

“Yes. I too have slept for ages but was woken up by you.” Anastacia lied and pretended to yawn.

The goblins seemed ecstatic hearing that, they had found another god. They opened up a path towards the throne and allowed Anastacia to walk up to the skeleton. She wasn’t about to touch the ancient remains, but wiped off the thick layer of dust from one of the throne’s armrests and sat on it. On the skeleton’s lap, there was a leather and metal bound book that seemed important. As Anastacia grabbed it, the slight movement was enough to cause the skeleton’s skull and heavy crown to drop down and roll on to the floor.

“Oh crap!” The necromancer cursed and started to worry about the ruler’s new followers turning on her. She remembered the holy turnip and was prepared to face the wrath of the goblins, but they just stood still. After a couple of silent moments, a shriek came from somewhere in the crowd.

“Girl of Underground defeat sleeping god! Girl of Underground more powerful god!” One of them screamed.

“Uhhhh… Yes! I am your god now!” Anastacia played along.

The smaller horde of goblins began to dance and scream like they did around the fortress. Finding a new god seemed like a cause for great celebration for them.

Anastacia noticed another door in the corner of the hall, with another small hole in it. After looking at her pinkies for a second, she realized that she was a god now and didn’t have to be the one potentially poisoning herself with stupid ancient mechanisms.

“You, goblin. Come here and put your finger into this hole!” She ordered one of her new subjects.

The goblin tried to do as she asked but couldn’t quite reach the hole, So Anastacia ordered another goblin to lift them up. The door opened to a small room with a stone altar in the middle of it. On the altar, there was a platter on it, filled with various kinds of jewels and other trinkets. Seeing an opportunity for some additional rewards for the quest, Anastacia rushed over and shoved as many as she could into her pouches.

While she was busy being greedy, a goblin dragged the skeleton’s crown to her. “God of underground wear big hat.” Something about the critter’s tone made it clear that this wasn’t a question or a request.

Anastacia hesitantly put the crown on after making sure it didn’t have any of its previous owner stuck on it. The crown was a bit loose on her but nowhere near as heavy as she thought it would be. As she looked around for a reflective surface, the newly crowned god noticed a staircase in the corner of the hall, slightly hidden by a column – a staircase which led up.

Everyone had made it across the river in one piece and the goblins didn’t dare to even dip their feet into the water. Instead, they flung rocks and sticks at the outsiders they now deemed heretics.

Gilbert grabbed Emilia by the shoulders. “What happened and where is Anna?!” He asked, clearly more worried than angry.

“We were looking for a possible door into the fort, and Anna somehow managed to find one, but it closed before I was able to catch her. I couldn’t open it again and maybe did something that angered them? I really don’t know.” The devotee explained.

Gilbert quickly made sure his other party member was fine and started planning for their next move. “Anna can probably manage for now; she’s armed and not the type to die easily. What we need to worry about is getting to the fort without being torn apart…” He reasoned.

It took an hour to come up with a plan that would involve lighting dammar briefly on fire and throwing him across the river and having Xamiliere grow a fake party out of some trees among other questionable tactics. Weirdly, Dammar was the one who was most willing to go for it.

Suddenly Maximillian asked everyone to be quiet for a moment. “Gilbert, I think the goblins are saying that the god is coming. Should we run or fight?” He asked after listening to the muddled chanting from the other side of the river.

“Let’s meet this god, maybe they can be reasoned with.” The old adventurer decided.

“Or maybe it’s a turnip.” Added the spriggan.

The party prepared for a fight as they walked back closer to the river, but quickly realized their worries to be wholly unfounded as they saw this supposed god prancing among the small critters.

“I AM THE GOD OF UNDERGROUND, THE NECROMANCER QUEEN OF GOBLINS AND DESTROYER OF THE SLEEPING GOD. SUBMIT TO ME AND YOUR SINS SHALL BE UNDONE!” Anastacia declared from the other side of the river and almost died of laughter as her party was forced to bow down to her.