The air in Rackamar tasted like old iron and bad memories.
We came lookin' for goblins, but what we found was fire made flesh-creatures from a place hotter than a forge and twice as mean. They didn't talk much, unless you count the hiss they made when Lori tried peace. Guess hunger's a kind of diplomacy too.
I hit the ground twice that day-once to die, once to get back up. Funny thing about pain: it makes the world quiet, like someone turned the volume down on fate. The others pulled me out, patched me up, sent me back in. And I went, because that's what you do when you're built for breaking things that shouldn't exist.
The last of those fire newts told us about a temple, something half-forgotten and half-mad. Didn't matter. Lori's hoof and Bowmore's daggers did the talking.
Then there was that statue-part gold, part silver, part everything else. Shined like a sermon and felt like a warning. Lori pulled a key out of it, one piece of something bigger. Maybe a door, maybe a lock. Maybe both.
When we crawled out of that mine, covered in soot and truth, Mergrim was waiting. Poor sap thought fire newts were goblins. Forty years of grief over a translation error. Makes you wonder how many wars started because someone didn't know the right word.
Balgus grumbled about elves, Bowmore pouted about promises, and Lori-sweet cow of the gods-just smiled like the world still had room for mercy.
Me? I looked back at that cave, at the smoke still curling from the cracks, and thought about all the things we call monsters.
Sometimes, they're just lost souls with bad timing.
And sometimes. so are we.
