A grand gameboard spread out across an ornate stone table dead center in the room. The soft lights were dim, but it was still possible to see properly. A window at the far end was closed, red silk curtains drawn so one couldn’t see through it at all.

On the board, various carved pieces sat, their positions indicating that the game had already begun. Two sides to the conflict, one dyed in a bright blue, the other stained a dark crimson. Even without knowing the rules of the game, an observer could tell that the pieces in blue held the advantage.

“You’re out of moves, I can see your strategy already.” A female voice smirked, emanating from the shadows of the foot of the table. “Why not just surrender already? I’ll have you defeated within ten moves.”

The woman played with a crimson game piece, rolling it through the fingers of her left hand. She brushed a lock of pure white hair away from her glowing purple eyes, then sat the piece down on her side of the board. Next to the captured piece, a half empty glass of red liquid waited, which she took up to her lips, taking only a small sip.

She was dressed in the fashion of high nobility, and her voice and mannerisms matched, at least at a glance. When one spent enough time with her, her true nature slipped through her well honed facade. Her lips curled, giving way to an inner sadism.

“You know how much I dislike being told to quit, Vi.” A deeper, likely male voice responded quickly. At the head of the table, sitting directly in front of the large, closed window was the owner of said voice. “You think you’ve won so easily, do you? Well, let’s just see how the rest of the game plays out, shall we?”

His hair was pitch black, the complete opposite of his opponent’s, and in his hands he shuffled a deck of cards, their red and white backing mirroring the color of the playing pieces. He stopped the shuffle, placed the cards between himself and the woman, then waited.

“Go ahead, cut the deck, I wouldn’t wish to be accused of stacking the deck so late in the game, my lovely challenger.” he smirked as his words leapt off his tongue, a passionate fire behind his pale, almost colorless eyes.

“No matter how many times you draw, you won’t find what you’re searching for!” she hollered, her composed look giving way to her excitement as she split the deck in half, returning the top section to the bottom of the cards. “just give in already… Beelzy~”

The man picked up the deck, holding it motionlessly and silently before him as the woman cackled uncontrollably. With a soundless, imperceptible motion, he flipped the top card of the deck into the air before him, catching it with his other hand.

The card’s back faced the woman he called Vi, making it impossible for her to see what he had drawn. But still, her look of determination did not waver. This time, for sure, she would defeat him.

His voice calm and collected, unlike her boisterous laughter, spoke a single word.

“Jackpot.”

Goblins were low level mobs, every adventurer knew that. They were only dangerous in a group, so quests were often posted to slay them, cull the population so they don’t become a threat. But isn’t there something wrong about that?

Would you cull the human population because of the wars they cause, the violence they commit? When the Dwarves take over the supply chain of a mountain ore vein, would you post a quest at the local adventurer’s guild to slaughter them all? Preposterous.

Goblins are intelligent, capable of speaking the common tongue, learning new things, but the adventurers never give them a chance. No less smart than a gnome or elf, goblins just aren’t given the chance to acquire knowledge, since we’re on the run from parties of psychopathic adventurers with overpowered skills every day of our lives.

When I was a little girl, I asked my mother ‘why do we have to live in this smelly, damp cave, I want to go to the surface!’ and she always told me that I shouldn’t say things like that, that it was safer if we lived down here.

But I don’t want to be a mushroom farmer my entire life, there’s a whole world out there waiting to be seen! I protested, and every day she told me the same story, the story of the Cobalt Knight, the adventurer who had appeared before my father, who once spoke the same words as I did.

And that’s why I’m still in this dirty, wet, dark cave. We grow mushrooms, using their fluorescent glow as our only light source, making them into bitter stew. We’re safe, because we don’t bother the humans and elves above us. No quests will get posted, no adventurers will wander in here looking for easy experience, we’re just a small group of non hostile level 1 goblins.

Well, that was what I was told growing up, what a stupid lie. If that were true, why was there a steel sword buried in my chest right now?

They burst in without warning, hurling fireballs and crossbow bolts with no regard for collateral damage. I watched as a bolt of lightning burned my uncle Bol to a blackened crisp right before me. I didn’t even have time to be horrified, no time to feel fear, before a blonde woman in a blue cloak thrust her thin blade into my breast, piercing directly through my heart.

I thought I could hear my mother calling my name, Fiffil, but the sound of the adventurer’s slaughter soon swallowed her voice up. The adventurer who towered over me laughed, pulling her sword from my chest and kicking her dirty leather boot against my numb body.

The next thing I knew I was falling down the cliff at the edge of our shoddy cave town, down into an abyss I was always scared to look down into.

It wasn’t as deep as I thought, since I hit the ground after a few seconds, how am I still conscious? Anyway, you’re all caught up now, inner thoughts of mine making sense of what just happened. Is this that thing about your life flashing before your eyes when you die? Is that why I’m narrating my own death silently, as if anyone can hear me?

I can’t move, that’s just fantastic, am I paralyzed? Or just too out of blood to stand up? Not much difference at this point, I’m not gonna make it. Yeah, definitely blood loss, I’m starting to hallucinate now.

There’s no way anyone else was down in this chasm, nobody in the village ever went down here, but I could feel the presence of someone else. It was both terrifying but also comforting.

“A..Are you Gron’kal?” I asked weakly, using the name of the goblin’s god of death. “It hurts… take me already...”

“Sorry, nobody as merciful as him.” an unknown, deep male voice called back from the complete darkness. “Well, at first I might seem like your savior, but I assure you that only hell awaits.”

I couldn’t see him at all, but from within the darkness something fell down slowly, fluttering down until it gently landed on my forehead. Weakly, my hand reached out and took it, and my dark adjusted Goblin eyes were able to vaguely make out what it was.

It was what the surface dwellers called a playing card, I didn’t know much about them, but it was a game they played when they weren’t out hunting what they called monsters. I think the cards were decided into four types, cups, coins, clubs, and swords. But this was none of those, I had no idea what it was.

“I prefer when my pawns consent, so before you lose the ability to speak, will you answer my call?” the voice asked me, echoing as though it was within my own head. “Will you die a peaceful death here, and reunite with your family in the world beyond? Or will you take my hand and jump headfirst into the fire in order to live?”

“I want to live… I want to live!” I screamed, but it only came out as a weak whisper. “I haven’t… I haven’t ever seen the surface, the sky, I can’t die here!” tears rolled down my cheeks, and the voice made a nondescript noise in response.

“Good.” he said, and then his voice faded away, his presence vanished, and I… I… lost consciou-

“Hah?! you’re not finished yet?!” Vi cackled manically, hardly able to draw breath. “What a worthless piece you’ve added to the board, you complete fool, idiot, moron! Hoe utterly incompetent can you get?! What would a single pawn get you in chess?! A single checker piece?! Are you trying to make me laugh?!”

“You’re forgetting, my cute little Vi, how pawns can become queens, how a checker can become king. And who doesn’t love an underdog story, from pauper on the street, to royalty? From farmboy to hero? There’s nothing more classic my dear.”

And the man placed a small, crimson red piece on his side of the board. It looked weak, and it was surrounded by the armies of the azure forces. But still, he looked happy.

“Now let’s have the game begin anew, my little Wildcard.”