The businesswoman taught the minotaur their language, and his wife taught him magical theory. The minotaur learned skills so quickly it seemed everyone should be hit on the head at least once.
The businesswoman understood from the dungeon’s text that the minotaur originated from the forest god’s coupling with a human woman. The minotaur was upset to not remember the mother he once had, but he was reconciled to know that with this knowledge, or lack of knowledge, he was recently wedded and needed no other woman. Our hero was slightly envious of the minotaur. The healer continued medicating himself with alcohol.
Our hero and the healer slayed several giant rats, which were the offspring of giants and rats, and they feasted for the evening. The healer showed how to clean the rats’ organs of disease, set up a fire, and roast the innards with some fungi harvested in the dungeons. The businesswoman figured only a person who drank as excessively as the healer knew how to eat things scrounging a cellar floor. They slept in makeshift beds, and when they awoke they were surrounded by goblins, who took them to their village.
The goblin chief assured them they had no ill intent. The goblins had long ago retreated from the sunlight, fleeing from the humans’ malice. They dug tunnels to other underground labyrinths and built settlements there. Recently one of these tunnels collapsed, and they were unsure what happened to their brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces on the other side and hoped our heroes knew. They all confessed not to know, and continued polite, engaging conversation, exchanging quite a bit of information on the dungeon.
For example, the dungeon was host to a great dragon and a river of slime. The river was once considered the origin of all life in the forest. Our hero excused the group to relieve himself.
A goblin led him to a patch of dirt, dug a hole and instructed him to relieve himself in the hole. Our hero did so. In the process of covering the hole, the goblin found a brooch with his aunt’s signature inscribed on it. This aunt had migrated to the lost colony. The goblin held onto this brooch and informed the chief, who remained silent until dinner.
Before they could sup on a pot of stew, the chief asked if his guests recognized the brooch. The businesswoman replied that it would have a fetching price at auction. This was sufficient proof to the goblins who promptly pointed their spears at our heroes.
Fortunately the soldier, who they hitherto thought deceased, leapt in front of them, received the spears, and died, as valor dictated. The minotaur refused to direct a fireball at the goblins, as he considered himself a good man. The healer instructed him to fire overhead, which he complied with. The awesome fireball roared from his staff, illuminating the room with golden light and struck the ceiling which collapsed into rock. The goblins were trapped in their dung heap.
Our heroes, satisfied with their success, took a different route back to the village to eat the villagers’ food and sleep in their beds. The couple took the goblins’ clothing for their future children, the businesswoman took jewelry from the funeral ashes, and our hero took the goblin chief’s staff. An orb of pure azure, it contained complex lines that made the mind wandered and mirrored the endless variation of the universe. Our hero expressed the desire to learn magic, but the healer was becoming distressed at the stock of liquor running out.
© 2025 François-Marie Lee