Casually digging my way back up to the surface, I make a comfortable seat in the mud to wait. Rested and relaxed, I’ve completely reset from all the stress and turmoil of our pioneering expedition experience. Idly drawing my fingers through the lighter topsoil, I’m taken aback by this last dream. The echoes are fading. It’s all feeling more and more real. As if I’m awake and going through all the motions along with the big ones, and not simply watching as an observer. I don’t know what to make of it.

  That old one too, he mentioned the script? Is that the same script that the mouth chastised me about back in Tranas?

  “Why is the hand here off script?”

  Yes, yes, that was it. He was upset and scolded me, didn’t he?

  “You risk the script, why?”

  The old one also mentioned the hand reaping what’s been sown. Is he talking about us? I thought that I solved the mystery of Anatoly not being the Will, but then all of this new information brings everything into question once again. Are the big ones targeting us? Was this Linus, my teacher, our mortal enemy? Is he some kind of spy lingering in my dreams to sabotage our plans? No, no, it’s clear that he died in that first dream. That was the end of him, wasn’t it? Now his entire life is slowly replaying back like an echo, starting from his bitter end. Even the unimportant, little bits are flying by, a part of my lighter moments of solitude and sleep.

  Am I infected with something? When did it start? The first dream. It was in that tree after the scuffle with the first song. Did he infect me? Was the first song Linus? No, no, that’s not right. Linus was certainly killed by that other goblin breaking through the city gates, so the first song must have been someone else entirely.

  All of this keeps jumbling together in my head. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe I’ll need to cure myself of this infection eventually? Perhaps some kind of mixture will do. I’m sure that something can be found in Garret’s collection for dream sickness. He was very, very thorough. Especially with his recipes.

  Ha’koff’s hands barely peek through the surface of the mud, and I realize that he needs help up the rest of the way. At least I’m not having to entirely dig him out anymore. He used to oversleep so often, it was difficult to wake him.

  “Wan fud,” he sleepily yawns. “Gew fud?”

  “Yas yas,” I happily agree.

  It’s definitely been a while. We could both stand to refill our bellies.

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew mund,“ I authoritatively demand.

  The portal opens, we both step through, and then make our way up to the top of the hill. The others waiting there are still so cautious of me. As if I’ll break out into another excessively violent sparring session right at the dinner table. Absurd. I’ve certainly grown since those days. I’m a very different goblin now. Eventually they’ll all realize that.

  The wait is as annoying as ever, but eventually the portal opens up above the stone circle. After only a single piece of meat plops down onto the ground, the portal surprises us all when it unexpectedly closes. The goblins look at each other, bewildered, before something suddenly snaps, breaking into an all out brawl for the only delivered piece of flesh.

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  I hold Ha’koff back. Something’s wrong. This definitely isn’t normal. A moment later loud, off key horns sound from all around us. Dozens more scattered portals open up on the periphery of the stone circle, and an equal number of hog faced creatures grandly thrust through. Prancing every which way with a proud dominion of our now sullied dining room, a particularly large one approaches the center and accusatively leers at the chaotically wrestling goblins beside the lonely chunk of meat.

  “Where is he? Where is that scoundrel anomaly that you’ve been keeping? Bring him to me!”

  Without any other care in the world, the goblins continue their obsessive struggle. After all, meat reigns supreme. Especially over this silly display of toughness. If there’s one thing that I can commend our kind for, it’s our solidarity in the face of an enemy. Assuming that’s what these things are?

  “Do you deny us our right? Rob us of our legitimate privilege?” the furious beast steams, raging down at the twisting and tumbling bunch.

  Still they ignore him, their hunger easily winning over the barely existent sense of self preservation that any goblin may still possess.

  “Death to the disobedient!” he screams, promptly stabbing each in the head with a long lance drawn from his back with a blinding speed.

  The lifeless bodies of the bunch cease their struggle, leaving the single piece of meat unclaimed. Ha’koff grows restless upon seeing the now free meal, but I firmly stop him from racing forward.

  “Sir, what if the anomaly was one of those?” another smaller creature questions. “Won’t we have failed our task?”

  “Of course not! Our privilege would never allow for such a failure. Therefore, he must be somewhere else.”

  The others immediately wholeheartedly agree, nodding furiously at the statement.

  “You! You will guide us instead, now that we have thoroughly demonstrated the veracity of our intentions.”

  Dumbfounded by the sudden, explosive attention, my hold on Ha’koff’s leash weakens. Released to eagerly dash towards the meat, he topples me to the ground and roughly drags me along for the ride.

  “All you disgusting ingrates are the same,” he mutters with a deep, guttural flair. “Fine, then I shall add your bodies to the pile!”

  “Non non!” I scream, waving my hands. “Gob! Gob gob!”

  “You? You don’t look like an anomaly. You’re no different than the others here.”

  I desperately draw blood onto my claw, summon the message panel, and quickly scrawl out a sloppy message.

  “Ha! That’s certainly not ordinary goblin behavior.”

  The rest of the creatures energetically guffaw, loudly agreeing amongst themselves with the astute observation.

  “However! How do we know that you aren’t an anomaly, rather than the anomaly that we’re looking for? We can’t go around making mistakes and dirtying our good names.“

  Many, many more guffaws.

  “Is that true?”

  “There was the other one,” one of the smaller creatures adds. “But then you killed him, sir. It should definitely just be the one now.”

  “Really?” the esteemed one loudly observes. “Then I declare that we’ve found our quarry. Detain the both of them immediately!”