The group of adventurers enters the cave, with Elara leading the way.

  “Psai, if you wouldn’t mind.” Elara says.

  “Most certainly! What is it I’m not minding?”

  “Light the cave; we need to see where we’re going, and these torches won’t cut it for long.”

  Psai does so, illuminating the length of the cave in front of them. The cave shifts and turns ahead of them, blocking their view of what may lie beyond. Wyn takes a deep breath. The last time she entered a large cave like this, her character had died. It feels like an age ago that it happened, but that memory remains firmly locked in her mind. At least this time, she isn’t being chased by a giant, flaming rat.

  Just barely within Wyn’s hearing, Psai mumbles something to himself. She can’t make out the words.

  “What is it, Psai?” Wyn asks him.

  Psai’s polygonal mouth smiles wide. “It is nothing! Yet another day of adventuring!”

  Wyn’s eyes narrow. There’s something off about his tone, suggesting that he isn’t being truthful. But given the threat of goblins and boomfrogs, Wyn doesn’t have the time to analyze his behavior. She focuses her awareness on the path ahead, watching carefully for any signs of activity.

  They tread lightly, not wanting to slip on the smooth stone floor of the cave. Wyn feels her heart in her throat as the tension of the moment increases. She expected to find some sort of trap or sign of goblins by now, but so far, they’ve only found sporadically placed torches lining this cave tunnel.

  Elara holds up a hand, stopping the group. “I hear something. Be on your guard.”

  The pace slows, and the sound of dripping water reaches their ears, followed by muffled goblin voices. Up ahead, the winding cave path opens up into a larger, unseen chamber.

  “Rennick. You’re up.” Elara whispers.

  Wordlessly, Rennick steps forward. He slips into the shadows, becoming difficult to spot in the flickers of torchlight beyond Psai’s glow. 30 tense seconds pass before Rennick returns, whispering in a hushed voice.

  “Cave opens up. There’s a large pool of water. Three boomfrogs drinking from it. One regular, one warrior. Another tunnel on the opposite end, likely where the bigger ones went. Two goblins standing watch, armed with spears,” Rennick whispers.

  “Understood. Wyn, create a distraction. Get their attention. Timnos, you take the leftmost goblin; Rennick, take the rightmost. From there, take out the boomfrogs. The goblins are the greatest threat, and we need to take them down quietly, got it?”

  “Got it,” says Rennick, Wyn, and Timnos all at once.

  Tilly raises a tentative hand. “And what about me?”

  “Stay with me and Psai. We don’t step in unless we’re needed.”

  Tilly nods, relief washing over her.

  Wyn pats Tilly on the back. “No fighting for you this time. Let’s get into position.”

  Wyn, Timnos, and Rennick step forward into the large cavern, being careful to stay out of the torchlight. As Rennick said, the large cavern is dominated by a pool of water, where a trio of boomfrogs relax. At the far end of the cavernous area lies a cave entrance guarded by a pair of goblins with spears. They speak a language Wyn doesn’t understand, though judging by their tone they’re complaining about something.

  The trio get as close as possible to the pair of goblins when Rennick holds out a hand to stop the group.

  “You’re up, illusion girl.” Rennick whispers.

  Wyn rolls her eyes at being called ‘illusion girl’ but does as Rennick said. Casting Illusions of the Beyond with her subtle spellcasting, Wyn tries to use her upgraded essentia manipulation to use as little essentia as possible. She’s experienced firsthand the challenges of running out of essentia, so if she can keep the spell working with less essentia, all the better.

  She feels the essentia coursing through her, and the tiny illusion orb forming as usual. Restricting the flow, she can feel the spell’s stability dwindle. She trusts her instincts, letting the spell have more essentia in spurts, but still keeping it short of the usual quantity. After a moment, the spell completes, ready to be activated. She points her staff towards the tunnel they entered from and sends the illusion on its way.

  A group of adventurers almost identical to their own appears stepping into the cavern. Though they appear strange. Their hands are disproportionately large, and their faces all look exactly the same. They also phase through the ground partially, not actually standing on the cave surface, but phasing through it.

  “Good job, you make a crappy illusion,” Timnos hisses.

  The goblins stop their idle conversation and glance at the strange illusion.

  “Khrak’zh uld’na vrezk?! Shuun’garik thol’brakka?” one of them says.

  “Nar’zhuk. Dreth kul’rash ven. Shaal’goth irr’kava.” The other responds before turning away from the cavern.

  “Shit, he’s leaving to tell the others,” Timnos says. “We have to attack now.”

  A knife flashes past Wyn, the blackened blade spinning through the air towards the escaping goblin. It finds its mark at the small of its black with a sickening squelch. Goblin blood oozes out as he collapses to the ground, dead in an instant.

  The living goblin whips around and spots the corpse of his friend. “KSREL’TSAK!”

  He rushes over to the corpse, reaching for the knife lodged in his dead friend’s spine. Before he reaches it, a lash of blue flame wraps around his throat. His skin sizzles as he lets out choked gurgles of pain. After a moment, the flame whip burns through, leaving the second goblin dead.

  For a moment, the group relaxes until their minds share a worrisome thought: They forgot about the boomfrogs.

  A ribbit of warning echoes through the chamber, launching them into action. Wyn fires off a pair of mage bolts towards the closest boomfrog. The frog dodges first, leaping over it, but careens headfirst into the second, blasting it against the far wall and splashing into the water. Just behind the mage bolts, a burst of flame leaves a scorched mark on the ground.

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  Timnos whispers, each word filled with anger. “That was mine.”

  Wyn’s about to retort when she spots two more knives flashing through the air, killing the other boomfrog, and the second lodging into the warrior boomfrog.

  “Argue later, kill now,” Rennick warns.

  Timnos bristles with rage, but Wyn chooses action over words. She launches a trio of bolts at the boomfrog, hoping to dispatch it quickly. Each bolt is charged with extra essentia to make sure the frog dies before it can fire any explosions. Just as the frog sucks in a gulp of air, the trio of bolts finds its target, blasting the frog out of existence.

  “You are going to get us killed one of these days,” Rennick says, his tone sharp. “Don’t argue on the battlefield, and just attack.”

  Timnos goes red in the face. “Why, you… I… Shut up!”

  Rennick ignores him, and loots the goblins and boomfrogs, collecting their essences and a handful of items. Timnos stews, anger pouring out of him with each passing moment.

  “Rennick is right,” Elara says, entering the chamber. “You were presented with an unexpected situation, and instead of working together, you shifted the blame onto Wyn.”

  Timnos folds his arms, avoiding eye contact with Elara. “Am I wrong? We wouldn’t have been in that situation if Wyn had done her damn job and made a decent illusion.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Wyn says. “I made a mistake. I thought I could create an illusion with less essentia, but instead it looked all weird. That’s my mistake.”

  “SEE! Even she agrees,” Timnos protests.

  “That is irrelevant,” Elara says. “You should not have been arguing mid battle, it’ll only end up hurting you in the long run. Save for after the battle.”

  “Okay fine. I was angry. But I won’t apologize for knowing better than she does. She knows nothing about this game, and yet you let her join the team without question. It’s bullshit!”

  “Timnos, that’s enough. Wyn has talent; that’s undeniable. Can you just—”

  “STOP ARGUING,” Tilly interrupts, her soft mouse voice ringing throughout the chamber.

  All heads turn to Tilly. Her ears go flat with embarrassment, and she looks to the floor to avoid eye contact.

  “I.. Uh.. It’s just like, really loud, and the goblins might hear us and see what’s wrong.”

  Elara grins. “She’s right. Good thinking. You all should’ve been thinking that. We need to be more careful.”

  A moment of doubt crosses Wyn’s mind. A question that she cannot fully answer.

  The thought prickles hotter than she expects. It tugs at something stubborn in her chest; that determined nugget that drives her forward despite the horrors of life. The same part of her that refuses to be steered anywhere she doesn’t want to go. That piece of her that pushes her to fight back against the world despite her lot in life. Wyn has always been a stubborn girl, and she’s uncertain why she’s going along with this despite the oddities.

  She looks at Elara.

  Elara’s eyes flick toward her, calm and unreadable in the torchlight.

  A soft wave of calm rolls through Wyn. Not relief exactly, but something smoother. The sharp edge of her irritation dulls. Her breathing evens. The frustration that had been building slips out of reach, fading before she can grasp it again.

  Wyn blinks, steadying.

  Whatever that had been… it’s not worth fussing over.

  With her frustration mollified, Wyn focuses on the task at hand. “Alright. That’s enough arguing. What do we do now?”

  “They have to know we are here.” Rennick says.

  “Unfortunate,” Timnos says, grumbling. “But we still have a task to do.”

  “And I need to head back to town.” Wyn adds.

  “I think we should at least see what’s here so we know what we’re dealing with.” Tilly says.

  Elara nods. “You’re all right. Let’s get the lay of the land. But let’s be careful. If we have to fight, we take the fight on our terms, not the enemy’s.”

  Wyn gives Elara a cheeky thumbs-up. “Let’s do it. Lead the way, boss.”

  Elara smiles, her too-white teeth catching the flickering torchlight. Wyn winces, though just like before, the feeling is gone before she has time to truly understand it. Elara turns toward the far entrance, no longer guarded, and waves the group to follow her in. Without question, the adventurers follow.

  Stepping out of the cavern, with their mistakes weighing heavily on their minds, they find themselves in another winding network of tunnels. Unlike the previous tunnel, these are clearly more active. Wooden planks line the floors, allowing for easier travel. The tunnels are much better lit, with signs of life around each corner.

  Instead of a single winding tunnel, multiple tunnels intersect. Wyn glances down each tunnel as they pass, spotting doors carved into the stone walls. But something feels fundamentally off here. Despite the clear signs of life, there are no true living things in sight. No goblins running around, no lights on behind those doors.

  Wyn falls back into the group, falling in step with Tilly. “Have you seen anything like this?”

  Tilly shakes her head. “No. Closest I’ve seen to this was an abandoned dwarvish city. Goblins don’t usually live in caves. Not to mention how abandoned everything is.”

  Wyn’s eyes narrow as they pass another intersection. Glancing down it, she spots something of interest at last. A large open area at the end of a long hallway, though Wyn wonders if it’d be more accurate to call it a street. This hallway is also wider, matching the width of the main avenue they’ve walked through.

  “Hold up.” Wyn says. “Psai, give me some light.”

  “Absolutely!” Psai says, illuminating the area in a blue glow.

  Wyn smiles, spotting tracks on the ground. “Bingo. Tracks. That elder boomfrog and the wizard must’ve gone down this tunnel, and into that large chamber down there.”

  Without a second thought, Wyn walks towards the large chamber, but is stopped by Rennick.

  “We wait for orders, greenie.” Rennick hisses.

  Wyn turns to Elara, who nods. “Go ahead. Let’s see what you’ve found.”

  Now with the full support of the team, Wyn continues down the wide tunnel street. As they pass, she glances through the small windows in the doors, trying to get an understanding of what sort of place this is. Wyn slows as the tunnel widens into what can only be called a street. Wooden planks creak underfoot, warped by years of damp. The air grows thicker here; humid, and mineral-heavy, with the faint metallic tang of old forge smoke clinging to the stone.

  Shops line the walls, crooked wooden signs swinging gently in the draft: jagged glyphs burned into them, their edges charred. A few doors hang half-open, revealing dark interiors stacked with crude pottery, chipped blades, bundles of sinew twine. Others look like homes. One porch has tiny wooden toys scattered across it, a toppled figurine with a single bead eye staring blindly up at her.

  But everything is silent.

  No clatter of footsteps. No goblin chatter. Just the echo of dripping water and the distant groan of shifting rock. An entire city, lived in but now empty. Wyn shivers. Something is wrong here. Not just empty. Hollow.

  A pang of guilt strikes Wyn. Were the goblins they killed outside parents? They may be goblins hellbent on killing humans, but seeing evidence of children gives Wyn pause. She glances at Tilly, who shares her guilt. Wyn tries to give Tilly a kind smile, but it falters upon seeing a flash of movement nearby.

  “Movement,” Wyn calls out.

  The group stops, heads on a swivel as they search for whatever Wyn spotted. Silence falls upon them, dripping water and their breathing the only sound in the stone halls.

  “Got it.”

  Rennick spots the movement, and flings a blackened steel dagger out towards an unseen spot on the group’s left. It finds purchase with something that squeals in pain briefly before going silent .Rennick stalks forward, pulling another dagger free. The rest of the group fan out behind him, weapons raised, eyes narrowed.

  Tilly whispers, “Do you… do you think it was another goblin?”

  “No,” Rennick growls. “Too small for one of their scouts. And goblins don’t squeal like that.”

  Wyn reaches the wall and crouches beside the crumpled shape. Psai brightens the glow at Wyn’s request, just enough to see what Rennick struck.

  Timnos grimaces, Wyn gags, and Tilly has to turn away to stop herself from throwing up. Wyn crouches beside the body and instantly wishes she hadn’t.

  The thing on the floor might’ve once been a rat, but now it’s a parody of one. Its skin hangs in sloughing sheets, slick with a greasy film. The knife wound has split its belly wide, and what spills out isn’t red and warm but ashen, like wet fireplace soot glued together with mucus. Coils of intestine slide out in sluggish clumps, pulsing faintly as if confused about whether they should still be alive or not.

  A thick green ichor leaks from the mess, bubbling where it touches the stone, releasing a sweet–rot stench that punches Wyn in the back of the throat. Her stomach heaves.

  “Hmmm,” Elara says, stroking her chin. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The quest called their leader the dead queen.”

  Rennick nods, an eerie grin crossing his dwarvish face. “Undead. My specialty.”