“I want to help you, Snik,” Elijah called in the general direction of the shaman. “That might sound hard to believe, especially after I broke into your home and killed your people, but I don’t wish you any ill will.”

  ”No, your kind rarely does,” Snik called back. He did not sound closer, and the echo suggested he had turned away from Elijah. “Of course, that was not helped by your friend, the green goblin either.”

  ”It is of no matter though; in goblin society, strength is always the prevailing factor. All that died by your hand were weak. Your slaughter of them strengthened the tribe. As members of a lower race, we must always be cautious not to allow undue weakness in our ranks.”

  That was a very generous way of looking at it, in Elijah’s opinion.

  ”So? Any idea of how we get out of here? And do you happen to have any spells that can generate light?” Elijah asked.

  “I do not, but the oral histories tell of something like this happening once. Long before the Mountain Goblins enslaved the tribe. We need only wait, and light will return.”

  As if on cue, long lines of silver light spread out over the floor and ceiling, pulsing in a steady rhythm starting from the cutoff entrance and running to the other side of the room before starting over again. Deep beneath the floor, something ancient rumbled to life, vibrating the floor through his boots.

  He watched the lights cycle several times before turning to face the shaman. The rest of the goblins in the room were holding back, but he could see that they wanted to attack.

  “Alright, Snik,” he assented. “What do your oral histories say about getting out of here?”

  Snik grinned at him. “Nothing much. There were heroes in those days, strong helpers who aided our ancestors in their escape. My people did not follow—a gross oversight that I am hoping to correct.”

  Elijah nodded. “You want to follow me as I work my way through the dungeon so you can add it to your oral traditions?”

  Snik nodded, stepping over to where the lights were terminating on the far wall. His hands traced along the grooves the lights were following. “I shall help where I can. I do not expect to be carried along in my pursuit of knowledge.”

  There was a gentle thrumming of something deep below when Elijah joined him. “No, if we do this, then you let me handle it. I don’t need you getting in the way.”

  Snik took a step back and gestured to allow Elijah closer. There was agreement in his eyes. Elijah’s fingers brushed over the metal, following the same path that Snik’s own had followed moments ago. It felt cold to the touch, even colder than the surrounding metal. There were traces of code flowing along those lines; they needed something to activate them further and open the dungeon for further exploration.

  A key, or maybe a spell? He couldn’t quite grasp what was necessary to open it, but he got the impression that it was something that could find in this main room, not something that he would have had to bring with him from outside. After all, it wouldn’t make sense to trap players in a room with no way to escape.

  Snik was talking about searching the room for clues. He was attempting to guide Elijah along this quest, but Elijah wasn’t a normal player. He felt the code and opened it up with his skill. It resisted at first, which was novel for Elijah, but gave up after a few moments of ‘prying’ from his skill.

  Images flashed into Elijah’s mind—the correct way to solve the puzzle of this room. There was indeed a key hidden in the ornate carvings on one wall, but Elijah could sense there would be several steps and puzzles standing in his way before he’d be able to pull the key from the wall and open the next area. Instead, he simply broke the code.

  The world tried to resist him, the very code of his new reality attempting to overwrite his changes, but he pushed harder. He focused his willpower on rewriting what the game wanted from him.

  The lights stopped their constant race along the walls and ceiling; instead they held still where they had been when Elijah had broken the code. Their glow brightened, bathing the room in a harsh silver light, then the wall shuddered before pulling away from Elijah. It went backwards several feet, leaving a cog-like hole before rolling to the side. On the other side of where the door had opened, bursts of steam erupted up into the air and a steady klaxon rang. It wasn’t loud, but it was constant.

  “A second vault within the first?” he questioned, though he didn’t expect any kind of reply. Instead, Elijah looked back towards Snik. “Guess that was easy enough. Let’s go.”

  He pulled himself into the short tunnel, coming out on the other side and stepping down onto metal grating. He could see through the holes in the grate, and it looked like there was an orange light below. Much, much further down. He felt himself lucky that the magic infused in these metals kept them structurally sound. The grate seemed thin, and if it had gotten as rusty as he suspected it would have without the magic, he’d currently be falling.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  He stepped quickly out of the way as Snik joined him on the walkway. Looking down just as Elijah had and fidgeting nervously. It didn’t appear that any of the other grey goblins had followed him.

  “My less intelligent brethren are still wary of you. It would be best if it were just you and I partaking on this mission.”

  “Fine by me,” Elijah said with a shrug. “Fewer people coming down here means more experience for me, and I don’t have to worry about hitting someone I shouldn’t.”

  He stepped forward to where the grating met solid ground. The klaxon wailed again, and the door rolled itself back into place, sealing him and Snik in. That didn’t matter though, not to Elijah; it just meant that if the grey shaman betrayed him—or if he had to betray Snik—he wouldn’t have to fight through the dozen or so remaining monsters.

  He crossed over onto solid ground and felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He trusted the magic of this place and this world, but he didn’t trust the game not to drop him into a pit for the sake of drama.

  A menu box popped up in his vision the moment he crossed off of the metal grating.

  [Alert]

  Breach of the (error) containment unit.

  Proceed with caution.

  Panic set in as he read the message. Another glitch affecting a quest. He started trying to figure out how something could have glitched this deep in a puzzle-locked dungeon. It couldn’t be from something as simple as bypassing the key to this area, could it? His Reality Warp power pulled at the code of the text box as he tried to make sense of what was going on.

  Slowly, he realized that something was different here. In the past, when he’d come across an error, the code had a certain feeling to it.

  This message felt different. The best way he could rationalize it was the difference in the way something tasted. Like two jellybeans. They could look the same, but the second you put one in your mouth you knew immediately if it was orange flavored or flavored like gym socks.

  This code didn’t taste like gym socks.

  The error part of the message wasn’t a link to something broken; it was just text. Written as a piece of flavor text to enhance the mystery surrounding this place. He couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate the mystery, but he was still grouchy about the minor freakout it had caused for him.

  The room’s decor screamed ‘Steampunk’ to Elijah even though the rest of the game could be described better as ‘High Fantasy’. He wondered if there were other areas that followed different genre designs, and if this was something invented by the AI or one of the seemingly rare developer-made areas.

  Metal gears rotated in alcoves along the walls and up out of the floor; pipes curled around strange-looking pieces of machinery and let out little bursts of steam from time to time. Across the room from where they had come in stood a large metal door that appeared to open from the center, and the entire room smelled of some kind of oil.

  “Stay close, Snik,” he whispered, moving closer to the door. It opened wide by itself upon his approach, and he had to bite back a yelp of surprise. This area of the game was definitely more technologically advanced than the rest of it had been. Made even more obvious by the glowing signs on the far wall of the hallway just inside the doorway.

  He couldn’t read the script that was in use and turned to Snik. “Does your history say anything about the writing the mountain goblins used?”

  Snik moved past Elijah and looked up at the signs. His finger went to his chin in a very human gesture of contemplation. “I believe this word,” his hand traced the higher of the three signs, running along the beveled edges of the letters and the arrow pointing to the left. “This word should mean something along the lines of storage, or possibly depot?”

  He made a strange clicking or possibly chirping sound. He’d heard Bitter Root make the same sound before, but had never heard it so clearly or loudly. His fingers moved down to the other two signs, looking them over closely and running his fingers over the letters. “My apologies, my knowledge doesn’t extend to either of these two words.”

  Elijah turned to the right and sent one of the two scouts down the hallway in that direction. Only one of the two unknown signs pointed in that direction, so hopefully it wouldn’t be anything dangerous. He didn’t want to split his focus but hoped that it would alert him if it found anything interesting. “Alright, let’s head to the left towards the ‘storage’ or whatever it is.”

  He took the lead again, keeping an eye out for any hidden entrances in the dark, but not pitch black, corridors. A steady orange light emanated from long, thin crystal-like structures lining the edge between the floor and walls, spaced every few meters. It was just enough to give the hallways a haunting feeling as they worked their way deeper into the dungeon.

  “Why do you travel with a green?” Snik asked, the tone of voice implying that he’d been holding back the question since they first began talking.

  “He’s my familiar,” Elijah responded. “I’ve been travelling with him as my companion since I first became an adventurer. He saved me from myself when I made a stupid decision shortly after we met. As strange as it sounds, he’s probably my best friend in this world.”

  Snik made a sound of disgust. “I do not see how one could be friends with such a creature. Were you unaware that the greens devour their own children?”

  Elijah stopped and dipped his head, letting out a snort of amusement. “You know? I heard the same thing from him about the greys. Seems like there is a lot of hatred between your peoples, and there is a lot of false information being passed around.”

  He turned to face Snik, who had recoiled in shock at his proclamation. “How dare you claim we do such a vile thing?” the shaman hissed. “Such traitorous words are an act of war.” The shaman’s fists were glowing with crackling energy. Their uneasy truce was already at risk of fracturing.

  Elijah rolled his eyes and pulled his sword from his shadow. “Easy now, Snik. You’re getting upset about a claim you just used against them. Don’t get hypocritical.”

  Snik sneered at him, and for a moment Elijah thought the creature was about to attack him. He didn’t want to kill the creature, but he also wouldn’t mind gaining the extra experience from the fight. He might prove useful in whatever came next, but he wasn’t about to leave such a dangerous enemy at his back if he couldn’t keep the grey shaman calm.