My feet plunge into ankle-deep, glittering water. The sudden brightness blinds me, and I stumble back, falling into the water.

  It’s… warm. Beneath the glistening, bright water is a layer of smooth, sleek sand. I press my fingers into it. Soft. When I drag my hand through it, a lower layer of darker, muddier sand is exposed. It’s colder than the topmost layer.

  I grab a handful and hold it up, watching as the watery sand drips from between my fingers. My eyes move to the sight just beyond it.

  …It’s a lake. A still, calm lake, stretching across my vision. It’s not huge. I can see the shore on the other side, tickled by reeds and creeping into a delightfully luscious forest. Trees in green shrouds stretch across the left and right side, going all around the circumference of the lake, all the way to where I’m sitting on the other edge. Above, the sun shines brightly, not a cloud in the sky.

  It’s… beautiful.

  
  Welcome to Purgatory!

  The ante-purgatory trials will begin shortly.

  As you wait for the rest of the challengers to arrive,

  please make sure to enjoy the lake.>

  
  ante-purgatory trials:

  22:15:33>

  The seconds slowly tick down.

  So, is this some kind of reward, or something?

  I sit up properly, still stuck in the water. My eyes move across the surface of the lake.

  It smells fresh. The rustle of the trees, the distant singing of birds, the intermittent splash of a fish breaching the water…

  A smile reaches my lips. This isn’t too bad.

  Swish!

  Something flies by my face at an incredible speed, hitting the water with a subdued splish only a moment later. I turn around to find that I’m not alone, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  A goblin smiles at me. “Well met, friend.”

  

  My attention moves steadily to what’s in his hands. Fitting his boots and trousers and cap filled with frilled hooks, he’s holding a fishing rod. A modern one, with a proper reel and everything. Noticing my confusion, he holds up the rod as he begins slowly reeling in. “Wonderful invention of yours. I used to be hesitant about this whole alliance, but this has convinced me. This, and those strange firepowder bows you’ve made.”

  “You mean guns?” I ask.

  “Yes, those. It’s only a shame the arrows aren’t reusable. Very unfortunate.”

  “Maybe so.”

  I watch as he reels in his hook, pulling it up to reveal that he caught absolutely nothing. He smiles sheepishly. “The weather isn’t exactly proper. Not to mention that it’s a bit late to be fishing.”

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  “Aren’t you supposed to be the god of hunting?”

  “Well, yes,” he says, smiling as he casts his hook again, getting a little bit further out this time. “I’m the God of hunting. Not successful hunts. I enjoy the game, not the win.”

  “That’s stupid,” I mutter. As I watch him pull his hook in, another unsuccessful one, I can’t help but grumble, “Also, I’m still mad at you for what you said during floor three.”

  “What I said…?” As he slowly reels in his latest try, he perks an eyebrow at me. “What did I say?”

  “You said that—” My jaw snaps shut. Huh. I can’t seem to… I scratch my head. “I can’t remember.”

  He smiles down at me. “In that case, what’s the use in holding a grudge?”

  …Damn it, he’s right. I hate when they do that! Sighing, I watch the surface of the lake again, glistening in the morning light. “Alright. All’s forgiven. Whatever. I turned out fine in the end, so… Whatever.”

  He casts out, pulls in, casts out, pulls in…

  He notices my gaze. “Have you ever tried fishing?”

  “No,” I say. “My family didn’t do that type of stuff.”

  “That’s a shame. I think you’d like it.”

  “What? Throwing out and pulling in empty hooks? Yeah, sounds like great fun.”

  “Are you afraid of not catching something?”

  “What I’m saying,” I enunciate, “ is that there’s no point. You said it yourself, remember? The weather’s bad, the timing is bad, so you’re not going to catch anything. So, what’s the point? Upper arm exercise?”

  “You don’t go fishing to catch a fish,” he says. “You go fishing because you like fishing.”

  “I don’t get it. That’s circular reasoning.”

  “It’s not.” He pulls in another empty line. I stare at him, but he still isn’t elaborating. In the end, giving me a look, he chuckles. “Alright—come here. Go on, stand up and come over here.”

  Hesitantly, I stand up and approach him. Being a goblin, he’s shorter than me, even though he’s a god. It feels weird. Once I’m close enough, he hands me his fishing rod. It’s surprisingly light. “What is…?”

  “Here,” he says, adjusting my hands. “You hold it like this, with both hands. But when you throw… You pinch the line in one hand… Here, like this… And you pull it back, yes, just like that, and while the reel is loosened, you… throw it!”

  Following his instructions, I throw it out, trying to match the stance he had when he did it.

  “Yes, just like that. Very good! And now that the hook is out, you reel it in slowly, but not too slowly… Wouldn’t want to anchor, would you? Right, just like that… A little faster… Good. Just keep going until…”

  I reel it in fully. I didn’t catch anything. I turn to him, frowning.

  He simply smiles back. “Go on, then. Throw it again, just like you did last time.”

  Shaking my head, I throw it out again. Then, slowly, I reel it back in. As I do, he pulls out another rod from somewhere, grabs a hook from his cap, and ties it to the rod. Then, standing next to me, he throws it out. When I’ve reeled my line back in, I toss it back out, without really thinking about it. And he, right next to me, does the same thing.

  The lake is quiet. The birds chirp in the distance. Or drakes, I guess. They make a different noise. Chattery, but still oddly melodic. I listen to them. One chirps here, another replies. Different sorts, different songs. Sounds a lot like birds, but the sounds have always been fairly similar. A gentle wind drifts across the lake, brushing through my hair.

  I reel it in. Clacka-clacka-clacka-clacka.

  I throw out the line. Swish—plop!

  And then, again, I reel it in. Slowly, gently. Not too fast. Not too slow. I breathe in, and I breathe out.

  I feel… at peace.

  …Hm? There’s a strange weight to the line. Did it catch onto the bottom or something? I continue reeling it in, but something’s off. The line jitters, back and forth, slowly. Yeah, I must have caught onto something, some piece of seaweed or whatever. Damn, that’s going to be a bother to get rid of. Might even tangle my line, that’d be even…

  I pull my hook out of the water. There’s something attached to it.

  A little fish, with silvery scales, floundering in the air, stuck onto my hook.

  I stare at it in disbelief.

  I turn to the god of hunting, only to find him grinning at me.

  “Wh—wh—what is—”

  He stomps up to me, beaming massively. “You got one! Congrats, man, that’s a, let’s see here…” Leaning in, he surveys the fish, nodding and humming. “Perch! Very common around these parts, and, as you can tell, not too clever.”

  My heart is thumping in my chest. “S—so, um…” He looks at me, still facing the fish. “What do we do now? Do we… eat it?”

  “Eat it? Oh, no, no, this is… Here, let me just…” At his request, I move the rod so the hooked fish dangles closer to him. It’s still alive, somehow. I’m honestly surprised. How do you kill fish again? I think I’ve heard people say you’re supposed to bash it against a rock, or stab the gills… I wonder what he’ll choose. Tenderly, he holds the fish in one hand, turning it over to look at its underside. “Male… no parasites… good.” Humming some melody or another, he lifts it slightly, takes a hold of the hook, and wiggles it until he’s been able to pull it from the fish’s jaws. “There we go!” He holds the fish back out to me, the strange little thing trying and failing to breathe through its gills, wide eyes blinking slowly. “Here—go ahead.”

  I accept the fish. “Um, go ahead with…?”

  “Release it,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing to do. “Go ahead. Don’t wait too long, or it’ll get hurt.”

  I blink at him, look down at the fish, and without waiting to hesitate or to think or to do anything else at all, I kneel down, put the fish in the water, and watch wide-eyed as it kicks to life, flips its tail, and swims off, gone in a flash. I stand up again. My hands feel strange. Like a gun that hadn’t been fired. While I’m still staring at them, he puts the fishing rod back in my hands. I stare down at him.

  His smile is warm, now. As warm as the water of the still lake. “How about we keep going while we wait for everyone else to arrive?”

  My fingers curl around the rod’s handle. I smile back at him. “Yeah. I’d like that.”