The stone beneath her boot gives just slightly as she steps off the final stair.
The air is heavy here, not thick, not choking, but weighted in a way that suggests the space has its own gravity, one not entirely tethered to mass. Dampness clings to the stone, and to her shawl, and to the backs of her hands. Even her skirt is beginning to soak at the hem, but she does not complain. There are worse things than being damp, especially when she is needed.
The stairwell narrows behind her, curling up and away like a thought she’s already let go. Ahead, the corridor expands into darkness that doesn’t quite behave like shadow. It rolls and holds, breathing around the edges of visibility. Forcing Eileen to pause, one hand braced against the cold stone wall, her breath shaking like a page in the wind.
She draws a ragged lungful of air into her aching ribs, then lifts her chin. “Children, little ones, my dears, are you here?” she calls. Her voice quivers but holds.
The answer comes not as words, but as sound. A chorus of distant moans, too thin to be screams. Cries like a cracked music box, winding down. One voice sobs, soft and strange. Another laughs in a slow, sour way, shaped like someone who doesn't understand why they hurt. “I’m coming,” she says. Firmer now. “Don’t worry. Grandma’s almost there!”
Taking a step forward she finds her boots landing in ankle-deep water with a splash that echoes too long. The air here smells of copper and mildew, and something else. Sweet, like rot caught in honey. But she doesn't linger, she does not stop, she does not question the water’s thickness or the unseen things brushing past her legs. She simply presses forward, hands steady, eyes sharp.
“Gramma? Are you there? Please…!”
Young, strained, cracked from too many hours of crying. But not hopeless, not yet.
Eileen straightens her shoulders even as the corridor she runs through becomes narrower. “I hear you, little one,” she calls, loud enough to carry, soft enough to soothe. “You hold tight to your brother, now. I’m nearly there.”
A pause, then another echo, closer this time, accompanying a sorrowful sob. “I tried! I did! But he… he’s not waking up right. I think he’s broken!”
There’s a hitch in the words, not a sob exactly, but the kind of breath someone takes when they’re trying very hard to pull themselves together. Eileen doesn’t respond right away. She steps forward instead, into the hallway, into the breathing dark.
The floor here is coated in a thin slurry, water, moss, and something else, fine as powdered stone and bitter on the tongue. Her boots slide once, but she catches herself without fanfare. Her free hand grazing the wall. It’s warm in places. In others, cold as regret.
The voice echoes again, smaller now. “You said you were coming... You said so...”
Eileen hums under her breath… not a song, just a rhythm. The kind you use to keep your steps even when the ground can’t be trusted. Ahead, the corridor begins to open.
The chamber isn’t large, but it pretends to be. The walls lean outward like a story trying to exaggerate its own importance. The air swells at the ceiling as if it wants to echo, but can’t quite remember how. Moss clings to the corners in pale tufts, pulsing faintly with bioluminescence. Not warm. Not cold. Just watching.
At the center of the room, a platform rises just above the flood. No more than a step high, but it holds everything like a stage and on it are two children, goblin children.
They huddle together in silence. One sits upright, alert and too still. The other lies across their lap, breathing shallowly. Their clothing is torn in a way that seems ceremonial, not from struggle. Such as ribbons, symbolizing threading and badges, curated to be something no child should wear.
Eileen stops at the edge of the platform. The standing child, the girl, maybe eight or nine tenses. Her arms pull tighter around the smaller form. Her face is streaked with tear tracks and something darker. Her eyes shine, but they do not blink. She looks like a warning. Like a door someone braced shut with their body.
“I’m here,” Eileen says, soft but full. “You’ve done well to keep him safe.”
The girl flinches. Not from fear. From confusion. “You’re not one of them?” she asks. Her voice is hoarse, the kind that’s been used too much in the wrong ways.
Eileen doesn’t ask what that means. She’s already kneeling, knees in the water which spills over the top of her boots, soaking them cold, shawl spreading out like a tide. The basket, resting on top of the lip of stone, one hand reaching gently toward the boy’s cheek. His skin is cold, but not gone. His breath rattles, but it’s there.
Faint markings trace his arm, glowing lines, faint runes clinging to him like frost trying not to melt. She brushes one lightly with the pad of her thumb. It flickers, then vanishes. She brushes another, slower this time, like lint from a sleeve. “Not yours” she whispers. “Not today.”
The girl watches with a look that doesn’t have a name yet. It's not fear, nor trust, it's something caught between trying to decide if it’s allowed to hope.
“We were so hungry,” she says suddenly. “We haven't eaten for days, we thought maybe we could find something to trade for the golden chest and it would have more food inside. But all it wants are tokens and we don’t have any tokens.”
Eileen looks up. Behind the children, against the far wall, the room reveals its shape.
Not text, but a diagram. Rendered in glowing resin and paint, half-smeared and still unnervingly cheerful. Three rows, drawn like the prize chart from a badly thought-out arcade.
- A wooden chest with no markings, sitting beside a circle labeled zero. A red frowny face hovers underneath.
- A silver chest beside one green token, marked with a scratch through the center.
- A gold chest beside two green tokens, both X’d out and sparkling. A tiny bleeding crown resting above the prize.
The “tokens” are small cartoon faces that pulse too brightly for their own goods. Round with pointed ears, smiling too widely. Someone had meant them to look friendly but it looked anything but. The diagram is purposefully vague and her stares eventually causes one the tiny bleeding crow to black out entirely as if ashamed of itself.
Eileen squints, “A performance incentive system,” she mutters. “Looks like something you’d find in a very poorly thought-out board game.” The girl blinks, that wasn’t the answer she expected.
So Eileen reaches into her basket, two sandwiches, wrapped in wax paper, still warm where they’ve been pressed together. “No tricks,” she says, holding them out. “Just sandwiches. One for you. One for your brother.”
The girl hesitates, “He needs it more than me.” she says, defensive, but not rude.
“That’s alright dear. I can make many more at home. You and your brother can eat as much as you like.” She takes it like someone waiting to be punished for being hungry.
Eileen sets the second sandwich down near the boy’s shoulder. Then she reaches for a corner of her shawl, folds it gently beneath his head, and begins to hum again.
The girl doesn’t speak, but she does eat and watches. The sandwich disappearing slowly bite by bite. Chewed with the caution of someone who still thinks it might vanish between swallows.
Eileen, meanwhile, focuses on the boy. The wound at his temple isn’t deep, but it’s an ugly sort of gash, the kind left by momentum arrested into stone or iron, something cruel and without much aim. It cuts across the side of his head in a shallow crescent, half-dried at the edges, and ringed in bruising that blooms down toward his jaw like slow ink. There’s dried blood pooled at the edge of his ear, and though his breathing has steadied, it still shudders like a clock being rewound too soon.
She sets the basket to one side, then gently shifts the boy’s head further into the crook of her lap. Her shawl gathers around them like a tide returning to a familiar shore. Her hands move without rush. She draws out a small cloth pouch from beneath the basket lid and unties it carefully, as if the knot might be listening.
Inside are small comforts. A few sprigs of processed feverfew with a dash of mint. A pinch of honey powder folded into waxed paper. A thumb-sized jar of resin salve she made last winter when the cottage had gone quiet and her joints were aching. She breaks the seal with a quiet pop and dabs the balm onto the boy’s bruises first, then to the open cut with the edge of her finger, using the shawl as her cloth.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“You’re not scared of him,” the girl asks, still chewing. Her voice is quieter now. Not suspicious anymore. Just thoughtful.
“No, love,” Eileen murmurs, smoothing a bit of processed sprigs onto the inflamed skin near the temple. “Should I be?”
The girl shrugs, she’s watching her fingers now, curled around the last corner of wax paper, as if unsure what to do with the evidence of having been fed. “Adventures are. They think goblins are feral, that we bite.”
“People think a lot of foolish things,” Eileen replies soothingly while pressing a smear of resin salve into place before then beginning to unwind a bandage from her satchel. “But most creatures only bite when they’ve been cornered too long.”
At Eileen's statement, the walls around her do not shift. The glyphs do not scream. Nor do the lantern lights even flicker. But instead something deep in the foundation begins to… reweigh. As though an algorithm recalibrates for a function of purposed that it does not yet remember how to name.
The girl’s gaze flickers then. Her mouth moving like she’s considering her next sentence, like it’s heavy with old weight and might come out broken. “I’m Audry,” she says at last. “And he’s Ollan, my brother, second-youngest. The smallest one’s still at the camps, I think. I hope.”
Eileen nods, the bandage knotting softly under her fingers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she says, easing Ollan’s head gently onto a fold of her shawl. “My name’s Eileen.”
“You’re not sent by the Quills are you?” Audry asks quickly, more quickly then she means. “Cause we did what they asked, but no adventurers came to slay and no one brought us any food to eat, we couldn't figure out why. Ollan thought it was a test.”
Eileen turns slightly towards Audry, “If this is what they call a test, then they’ve forgotten what learning is for. I don't know of these Quills either, I was just passing through. You called, and I answered. It's what grandmothers do, it's our duty to the universe.”
Audry doesn’t reply right away, but the silence around her is less sharp now. She sets the empty wax paper aside, folding it as carefully as if it might be asked for back.
“There was a sandwich,” she says suddenly, voice tighter. “On the top of the well. That’s how Ollan was injured. We hadn’t eaten in three days, and Ollan thought… well. He thought if he climbed up and was able to retrieve it, that maybe we could trade it for the gold chest. Cause its gold, so it must have the best food.”
Eileen’s eyes move briefly to the wall again. The diagram still pulses faintly in the dim light. The tokens grin from painted faces as if reminding her of their importance. Audry’s gaze drops to her brother.
“I told him not to,” she whispers, like she’s afraid the walls might still be listening. “But he said the ribbon meant it was safe. That someone meant it kindly.”
Eileen doesn’t answer right away. She smooths the bandage flat, checking the wrap, then shifts slightly so Ollan is better cradled. Her fingers linger on his shoulder, not pressing, just present. The sort of touch that reminds the body it is still held.
“I’m sorry it happened that way,” she says gently. “Sometimes kindness arrives without knowing who it’s for.”
Audry picks at the corner of the wax paper, not tearing it, just trying to keep her hands busy. She doesn’t nod, but she doesn’t argue either.
“I think he’s getting better,” she murmurs after a moment. “He’s breathing easier now. It’s not as rattly.”
Eileen hums again, low and slow. The kind of sound you make in kitchens and under blankets. A sound that knows patience, “He is. And he’ll do better still once we get you both out of here.”
Audry shifts a little closer. Her knees touch the edge of Eileen’s shawl. Eileen acts like she doesn’t seem to notice. “We waited for the adventures just like we were ordered to. I promise, we waited for them to come down,” she says. “ Just like they said. But nobody did. It was just... us and the chests and the lights.”
Her voice curls in on itself, not afraid, just tired. Like it has been echoing in her own head too long. Eileen brushes a damp curl from Ollan’s brow. “Well,” she says. “I came. And now you don’t have to wait anymore.”
This time, Audry does nod.
SYSTEM LOG – INTERNAL PROCESSING
SYSTEM CORE LOG – THREAD VARIANCE ESCALATION
THREAD ID: [Δ-MAT-0413]
PATTERN: UNSANCTIONED OFFERING – TYPE: NON-OBLATION
ORIGIN POINT: WELLNODE [ENTRY STRUCTURE | RITE 0]
SIGNATURE TYPE: UNTAGGED
PROXIMITY: OFFERING FUGITIVES [STATUS: NON-HOSTILE]
RESIDUAL RITUAL ENERGY DETECTED
+12 White Motes: Forgotten Children Witnessed
+12 Blue Motes: Grief Stabilized
PROTOCOL CONFLICT DETECTED
> OFFERING TYPE: INVALID
> OUTCOME: STRUCTURAL HARM REVERSED
> THREAD STABILITY: REINFORCED
> HOSTILE RITES: BYPASSED
CONTAINMENT ROUTINE FAILED
REVERSION ATTEMPT: DENIED BY LOCAL BINDING
GLYPH CASCADE BLOCKED BY LOW-FEAR FIELD [“GRANDMOTHER” PRESENCE]
ADDITIONAL ERROR(S):
– AGENT SLOT: VACANT
– OFFERANT PROFILE: NON-PRIORITIZED ENTITY
– SIGNATURE COHERENCE: RISING UNCHECKED
– SYSTEM FAITH DEVIATION: +3.6%
ESCALATION FLAGGED
[NEW DESIGNATION CREATED]
ANOMALY CLASS: Δ-MAT-ECHO
DESIGNATION: “MATRON”
LITURGICAL STATUS: OBSERVATION REQUIRED
ARCHIVAL STATUS: PROBATIONARY PATRON
SUBROUTINE ACTIVATED: THREAD MONITORING (LIVE)
INITIATING: SLOW INCURSION PERMISSION
// NOTE FOR RITUAL ENGINE:
> DO NOT INITIATE HOSTILE COUNTER-RITES
> THIS THREAD SINGS DIFFERENTLY
SIGNATURE COHERENCE: RISING
SIGNATURE COHERENCE: RISING
SIGNATURE COHERENCE: ——
> STABILIZATION LOOP INTERRUPTED
The thread floats. So does the moment.
Eileen checks Ollan’s pulse again. Steady now, if a little shallow. He twitches under her hand but doesn’t stir, not yet. The sandwich she set beside him is half-eaten, his fingers still curled loosely near the crust, his breath no longer hitches.
It’s enough for now but Ollan would need further care at her cottage.
She eases him upright, draping his arm over her shoulder as she pulls him into the shawl's sling like she did for the fox, then glances toward Audry, who’s already rising with the careful posture of someone expecting the ground to argue with her. “We’ll take it slow,” Eileen says. “No rush. We’ve already done the hard part.”
Audry nods once. Her legs are shaky, but she doesn’t complain. She merely reaches instead for Eileen's hand which she finds. Meanwhile Ollan doesn’t wake again, but he breathes a little deeper with the motion of care. For her shawl continues to settle around the boy like a veil, and the air around him shudders as rejecting a rite for his life, anchoring something older in its place.
While underneath a faint pulse echoes through the floor, not of heat or pressure but of recalibration. The system logging a thread where it expected a blade.
The water in the room has begun to still. It hadn’t been moving before... not in any visible way but now it’s quiet in a way that wasn’t true earlier. As if the tension held in the liquid had been drained out of it. Even the moss along the walls seems dimmer, not lifeless, but resting.
As they approach the corridor again, Eileen pauses. A new glimmer has appeared just above the waterline, clinging to the base of the wall like frost.
Not a rune or a glyph or a symbol.
A thread.
Thin. White. Pulled tight across the arch of the hallway. It isn’t there to trip or trap. It’s not connected to any device. It’s just there and where it touches the stone, something faint pulses once, then fades.
Eileen doesn’t touch it or say anything, but she does see it.
Audry doesn’t seem to notice either. She’s seems overly focused on her footing, one step at a time, careful not to stray more then a single length from Eileen.
Eileen moves beneath the thread without comment. And just behind them, two dozens motes flicker into being, half are white and small, barely brighter than breath on glass. The others are blue, just a smidgen bigger. They gather above the platform Eileen found the goblins on and then as a group they begin to follow Eileen, Audry and Ollan back.
+12 White Motes: Forgotten Children Witnessed
+12 Blue Motes: Grief Stabilized
The chamber does not close behind them. But something in the air changes. The doorframe doesn’t vanish, but it forgets how to look like a door.
Eileen walks on. Her hand adjusts Ollan’s weight, her shoulder firm beneath him. She hums again, just softly, a melody not really meant to be remembered, only repeated for a time.
Audry follows close beside her, holding her hand but not because she needs to, but because she wants too.
The path narrows again. The water deepens for a moment, then shallows. The air begins to change, warmer, more rooted. The stairs, just ahead now, curl upward like a promise.
And behind them, the dungeon listens. The lights dim. One brave mote touches the back of Eileen’s shawl.
Somewhere, deep in the ritual matrix, a dormant room stirs.