The duo had begun living together in tandem, the goblin was still convinced of his role and continued to serve as a caretaker while Isolde remained suspicious of the true nature of the space. Armand still indulged in his usual routine, but added cooking lessons and under the girl’s tutelage he became quite adept. Eventually reaching the point where he was put in charge of meal prep for the foreseeable future.

  What did Isolde do with all of her free time? She had made up her mind and had begun reading through the library's copies of her mothers ice grimoires and studying her father’s sword manuals. When she tired of reading she would go into the cave and carefully practice the movements.

  Day and Night she trained mentally and physically, it was all the same down here in the darkness. She had to be careful, the wounds those bastards made on her would reopen if she moved too aggressively.

  They were sitting by the table in the main room, their cuisine had evolved to include a rough bread made by taking seeds from the wild grasses hand milled by the goblin’s strong hands. The girl was twirling some ice on her fingertip. “Is that necessary?” The goblin asked.

  “Yeth!” She said her cheeks bulged with food. She hastily swallowed, the ice got unbalanced while she was distracted and shattered into a large number of sparkling fragments. “Concentration is important for any spell, additionally maintaining a spell uses more mana and that is good!”

  “How so?” asked the goblin.

  “Well think of your muscles, the more you use them the stronger they get.” Amand nodded in understanding. “It is the same for magic, the more you cast the more mana you can hold.”

  “What about me?” The goblin asked.

  “What about you?” the girl asked.

  “How do I do magic? I mean I am pretty good with my spear but I feel like that can only go so far.” Amand shared his worries.

  “I understand your worries but a warrior can easily beat a mage in the right circumstances, there are even some who can send strikes through the air!!” She tried to comfort her friend but he still looked disappointed. “You know there is a way to test magic but you need to give me some time to test it out.” The goblin immediately cheered up at the idea.

  “Well, I look forward to it.” He stood up and stretched, “well that was the last of that boar and we will need something to replace it.”

  “Are you going to hunt something that big again?” She said a little worried about how the last encounter went.

  “Not this time, I think I’ll try to catch a couple of fish for now and restock on our herbs, vegetables, and other stuff.” He picked up his fishing spear by the door. “I’ll be back soon!” As soon as he was gone, she stood up, stretched and began practicing. She had found a metal pole in the tool closet and had been using it as a makeshift sword. Amand wouldn’t let her practice inside but she enjoyed the warmth coming from the purple hearth, she had been very cold of late and practicing in the cave didn’t help.

  Not long into her practice she heard shuffling noises beyond the door, Amand must be coming back. She went to hide the rod again but stopped as the door flew open. It was not the short, lanky figure of her goblin friend but rather it was a tall man covered in scars. Isolde could smell him from here, he was covered in rough leather.

  The flicker flames illuminated his face and she recoiled in horror upon recognizing it. It was one of the bastards who raided her village… “Can’t believe you found your way here girly.” The intruder spoke gravely. “I must be lucky not only do I find the bitch I need to kill but even get myself and honest to goodness dungeon core to destroy.” His evil grin spread all the way across his face.”

  The intruder pulled a dagger from his side and began walking towards the girl. She raised the iron rod, she was shaking but still assumed a defensive sword stance. He thrusted the blade roughly at her; she hit the blade with the rod deflecting the blow, but the man did not relent and followed up the stab with a punch that hit her squarely in the gut. She felt an immense pain as she felt her wounds reopen, even in that moment she still tried to retaliate weakly, swinging the rod into his leg to bring him down to one knee. She jumped back and groaned as her wound opened a bit more.

  “A little whore couldn’t just die like a good little girl.” Spat the intruder, he set his eyes on the hearth in the center of which sat a purple orb. He pulled his arm back and threw the dagger straight towards the hearth. Isolde jumped towards the hearth, the dagger being knocked away but tearing across her body. She fell to the floor, she couldn’t feel her limbs and she knew she was running out of blood. “If you are so eager to die, little girl then I’ll indulge you.” The voice of the intruder echoed through the room.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  His mismatched footsteps could be heard as he approached and straddled her, he put his rough hands to her neck and began to squeeze. Those few moments felt like an eternity as all she was laid bare before the dead lifeless gaze of the man before her, the man who helped kill her parents, burn down her home, and tried to destroy her new one. She invoked in her mind a chant, Goddess of Ice give me a blade worthy of laying this wretch.

  In her hand for a shard of ice, not quite a blade but would work for this intended purpose as she rammed it into the man's side. Despite his grunt of pain he showed no intention of stopping. She stabbed again, again, and again and still his grip remained. Darkness began to flood the edges of her vision till all that remained was his face.

  Then suddenly the grip loosened and as her vision returned to her she saw that the intruder's face now had a spear point jutting out of one of his eyes, the eye itself pierced upon the prongs. She breathed in, it was ragged and difficult but it was sweeter than any air she had ever breathed. “Are you okay?” Spoke the voice she secretly longed to hear through the whole experience, Amand had pushed the dead weight off of her and was staring wide eyed at the huge swathes of blood across her clothes.

  “Not really,” she managed to squeeze out tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. He quickly carried her over to the bathroom and threw decency to the air as he stripped her of what remained of her clothes. He took hot water from the tub and washed her wounds wrapping them in fish scale bandages he had made. She was still dreadfully pale but at least she was alive. He took her to her room and laid her on the bed.

  Even with his care, she was growing paler and paler as the seconds stretched into minutes. “I need some medicine dammint.” The goblin choked out he didn't want to feel the pain of losing a friend again. “The master will come through…” he buried his face in the blanket but he felt a warmth grace his cheek, it gently pushed his lowered head and soon his eyes met the girl's.

  “Haven't you realized it, dummy?” Isolde weakly said. “You are the master of this place” He wanted to refute her but deep down he knew, just never believed. After all, why would something like this ever come to a pathetic goblin like him. “Magic is based on your will, you have to make it into existence!” She exclaimed with the last of her strength as she closed her eyes and her hand fell from his face.

  He still didn't believe it but he sure as hell had to try, he focused on the image of the salve the shamans used to use on wounded goblins. He remembered, felt, even smelled the ointment as it went across his skin. When he opened his eyes a jar was sitting on the bedside table he hastily grabbed and opened it. Sparing not even a moment he began to spread the salve rubbing it under the bandages and deep into the wounds. She was still very pale so he focused on another medicine, blood tonic.

  He remembered the taste of iron, the smell of blood, and its crimson hue. When he reopened his eyes the tonic sat there beside him. With no hesitation he removed the cork and poured it into the girl's mouth. He barely had the energy to do even that. But with the deed done his eyes closed and he fell into darkness once more.

  He awoke some time later, he felt hollow, not achey like after vigorous exercise but like there was a huge portion of himself missing. He pushed himself upright and looked upon the girl in bed, the color had returned to her cheeks and she was taking long and deep breaths. Somehow he had done the impossible. He pushed himself upright and took a few wobbly steps, his steps gained renewed strength as the rhythm of movement came back to him. The goblin pushed the door and looked back at the bed once again, still in doubt of what had occurred. She still laid soundly asleep, even the soft sound of her breath could be heard from where he was standing.

  The goblin finally mustered the willpower to push open the door and step out of the room. He made his way to the kitchen and saw that the fish he had previously caught and dropped off had gone rotten, clearly a lot of time had passed. He entered the main room and the body of the intruder still laid there but now swollen and releasing a nauseating stench.

  “Bastard is still messing up my space.” He grumbled as he eyed the pool of fetid blood that had formed around the corpse. Amand reached out and grabbed the leg of the body but as he pulled it left a trail of filth on the floor. “You just have to make things difficult,” he scolded the rotting intruder. He felt an odd impulse and decided to act on it as he pushed the remains into the flickering purple hearth.

  No stench came off as the body burned, it almost seemed to dissolve into nothingness and what remained behind was a mess on the floor. His curiosity got the better of him and he went to retrieve the rotten fish, on his return he tossed them into the fire. They too dissolved into nothingness. Interesting, no wonder I could never cook anything on this, he thought to himself.

  Whatever the case the floor was not going to clean itself, so despite the throbbing ache permeating his body he visited the supply closet and retrieved a bucket and mop, filling it with hot water from the bath he set to scrubbing and eliminating any remaining traces of the intruder.

  Little did he know that the girl he had just saved was peering through the door at him, watching him work as if nothing had happened. Call it stubbornness of sheer will; the little goblin was consistent in his work. But in a way it was calming, even after all of this he was still continuing his routine.

  She decided to take inspiration and headed to the kitchen so that at least she could prepare something for them. She snuck off as Amand finished his usual tasks, he even went out to catch a couple of fresh fish, missing the commotion occurring in the kitchen. On return he opens the kitchen door to see Isolde plating some mushroom and boar skewers. “I thought we had run out of boar?” He couldn’t contain his excitement.

  She smiled and said, “Well I may have dipped into the emergency rations.” She had been secretly setting aside portions of food for exactly this reason. The two sat down together and enjoyed their hearty meal even with what happened lurking in the back of their minds. Several minutes of silence passed before the goblin spoke, “Isolde, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” She earnestly replied.

  "What is this place?" The goblin couldn’t hide from the question anymore.

  Isolde took a deep breath and calmly replied “it is called a dungeon.”