The descent into Hollowdeep felt like stepping through layers of a forgotten world—each passage tighter, each breath heavier. The dungeon’s walls seemed to sweat shadow, veins of dull green ore pulsing like veins under bruised skin. A silence had taken root here, not the peaceful kind, but the kind that waited to be broken by blood.


    Malrik walked first, his torch guttering softly in the stale air, the vault ring at his neck pulsing faintly with magic. Beside him drifted Veyna, her bones aglow with muted violet fire, silent as thought.


    “So,” Malrik muttered low, his voice nearly lost in the hum of magic. “If we do find a hobgoblin stalker… that could be the assassin type I need?”


    “Far better than the common wretches,” Nyra answered smoothly in his mind. “Hobgoblins train in shadow ambush. Poison. Terrain manipulation. Raise one properly, and it will walk through death without leaving a footprint.”


    “Raise it right,” Veyna added, her voice a whisper like ice cracking, “and it won’t just kill—it’ll make death an art.”


    Malrik''s lips curled faintly. “Noted.”


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    They rounded a bend, the narrow tunnel blooming suddenly into a broken chamber lit by glowing moss and the flickering green light of fungus-fed crystals.


    Movement.


    Malrik dropped low, dousing the torch. Behind a rusted crate, he peered out.


    Four figures.


    Three goblins, hissing and twitchy, armed with scavenged blades. And one larger shadow pacing like a warhound—the hobgoblin. Its frame was thicker, armor cobbled from mismatched plates. It moved with certainty. Authority.


    A leader.


    “Four of them,” Malrik whispered, heart hammering.


    “We can win,” Nyra murmured, “but not by force. One slip and they’ll gut you like a field rabbit.”


    “We need a plan,” Veyna agreed, eyes glowing faintly. “One fast. One quiet.”


    Malrik looked down at his hands—shaking, but not weak. Not anymore.


    “You have another tool,” Nyra whispered. “Use it.”


    The goblin scout.


    The one he’d claimed and stored. A lesser tool—but still a piece on the board.


    Malrik nodded, reaching inward.


    [Summon: Goblin Scout – Confirm?]


    The spell shimmered, and the bones of the fallen goblin reassembled beside him. Scraps of leather armor clung to its ribcage. Its dagger gleamed faintly.


    It looked at him. Awaiting command.


    “Go,” Malrik whispered. “Make noise. Draw them left.”


    The goblin nodded—then screeched.


    Its blade scraped against the wall as it bolted through the chamber’s far edge.


    The goblins turned.


    The hobgoblin bellowed.


    The plan was in motion.


    “Now,” Nyra whispered, her voice a blade of glass.


    “Veyna—take the leader.”


    “With pleasure.”


    She surged forward like wind given form, soulfire blooming around her hands.