My first thought was that it was clean.

  Too clean.

  The streets were paved in stone—just…stone.

  Plain grey, no rune-glass, no glow.

  Straight lines instead of curves.

  And it was loud here - but in a different way.

  The vendors hawked rather than called. The children hid in alleys rather than played.

  The ones who did walk did so with eyes alert and mouths tight.

  They didn’t smile.

  A few glanced at us as we passed. The way someone might glance at mud on their boots.

  I shifted the box in my arms, suddenly aware of how stained my shirt was, how scuffed my boots were.

  I wasn’t dirty—but I felt like I must be, standing here.

  “So this…is the Human Quarter?” I muttered.

  I must not have seen this part when I first came to the city.

  It didn’t reply for a few steps.

  Then, without looking at me:

  “Beeg. This is the Human Quarter slums.”

  I blinked. Looked again.

  The buildings weren’t elegant—they were just tall and narrow, paint peeling in neat vertical strips. The windows weren’t clean—they were just covered in thin curtains that tried too hard.

  Even the guards standing at the far end of the road wore uniforms with polished buttons—but threadbare collars.

  The tall buildings blocked out most of the light, and the lampposts didn’t do justice to the gloom.

  I had just thought it was nicer at first glance.

  It wasn’t nicer - it was different.

  “Do you really think they would build the nicer part next to the Non-Human Quarter?”

  I didn’t answer.

  But I looked back over my shoulder, where the soft glow of the runed streets reached out, as if trying to embrace us.

  It didn’t reach.

  And for the first time, I felt homesick.

  ——

  It and I didn’t make it very far before a mean looking Thug and his friend stepped in front of us.

  Well, his friend looked mean too.

  The first guy was just like…two times bigger.

  The guy was almost as big as Grif.

  Wonder what he is up to, I thought idly.

  “Move, stupid” It’s voice brought me out of my musings.

  I raised an eyebrow, looking at him in surprise.

  I noticed two things.

  First, the way he said stupid.

  When he spoke to our stupid, it was a name. In this case, it was decidedly not a name.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Second, he was not name calling nor belittling.

  He was simply making a statement.

  An observation.

  The Thug was stupid. And he was expected to move.

  I looked at the goblin, who while he came up to my waist, barely made it past the giant’s knees.

  He wasn’t even looking at him—just through him.

  Looking at where he would be going once the Thug inevitably moved.

  I found myself hoping (for the Thug’s sake), that he and his buddy would move.

  “Awww heee, look a’ tha,” the idiot sneered.

  I decided to call him an idiot, because Stupid was an important word now.

  And he didn’t get that word.

  His buddy chuckled too, adjusting his knife.

  “Wha’cha go’ in thar package, runt?”

  Oh…I was runt too.

  Before I could look up - It sneezed.

  There was no flash-bang. No pink fog.

  But the Thug did catapult backwards, crashing into - and then through the wall behind him.

  There was no way he got up from that.

  His buddy stood there a second with his jaw agape, before promptly running away screaming.

  What is with these goblins and sneezing? I thought to myself.

  It grinned up at me. It was a feral…creepy grin.

  “Learned that one from Stupid,” he said.

  Ah.

  I grinned right back.

  The humans gave us a wide berth for the rest of our trip.

  ——-

  It was early evening when we made it to the other side of the human quarter.

  Well really, it was the other side of the small corner we had cut through - but potato, potahto.

  Before us stood a wall.

  Ok, not really a wall.

  Really, just a wall of slum buildings stacked shoulder to shoulder.

  One sign even read “Nancy’s Nancers.”

  I didn’t want to know.

  Where we stood though - was an archway.

  Made of utterly pristine marble, as if rejecting the filth around it. The air beneath the arch was blurry, making it impossible to see what was on the other side.

  There were no guards.

  I saw one guy take a deep breath, holding out a piece of paper in his hand.

  He stepped through.

  Well he tried to step through.

  The veil vaporized him on the spot.

  He didn’t even have the chance to scream.

  I gulped.

  I glanced at It. He seemed utterly unconcerned.

  “So…what now?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We go through. Gate will lead us to uptown. That’s where our delivery is.”

  Uh-huh.

  “Need a pass to get through though,” he continued in his monotone.

  “Oh…kind of like a key then?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he responded.

  “So uh…do you go through first, or do we need to hold the key together?” I asked.

  “We don’t have a key, Beeg,” It monotoned, somehow sounding offended. “Why would we carry a key for such an unimportant place?”

  I looked at him.

  He finally looked up at me. “You work for Vaargus Beeg. Not even the Great Wizard Towers would keep you out.”

  He stopped to think for a moment. “They would still treat you like …well, like a goblin, but they wouldn’t dare keep you out. Your name tag is enchanted as a key and is enough to get you through here - or basically anywhere, for that matter.”

  Right.

  The words of the spider all the way back on my first day echoed in my mind.

  “You have no idea what you have gotten yourself into.”

  Maybe the spider hadn’t been talking about my fight with it.

  I gulped and glanced at the crumpled, filthy piece of paper - the name Beeg scrawled on it in bright pink crayon.

  “Don’t lose it, you will never get another.” It continued, but it sounded like he was speaking through a tunnel.

  I continued looking at the paper.

  The paper that, no matter what I went through, never seemed to tear, break or fray.

  Well, except for when I tore it in half to remove “Ugly” from it.

  Wait.

  I sighed.

  “So… my key—my identification to get through all the elitist portals and most important places—is Beeg? Beeg. In bright pink letters?”

  I couldn’t even feel horrified.

  This was just what my life was now.

  The shit-eating grin on It’s face said it all.

  Yes. Yes, I was.