Death After Death

Simon woke up once during the night, dreaming that the goblins had tried the shutters, but when he went outside, there were no fresh tracks, so he lay back down until sleep took him. He didn’t fear goblins anymore, but bravery wouldn’t be enough to stop them driving a spear through his guts or ripping out his throat. They were like raccoons but more murdery.

Both creatures could open doors and latches, of course, but one of them only wanted to knock over your garbage cans and feast on your trash. The other wanted to feast on you. Well, goblins probably would be perfectly happy to feast on whatever was in my trash can if I had one, Simon mused as he lay there, falling back to sleep.

In the morning he took his time getting ready, and prepared as well as he’d ever done. He didn’t even forget the axe, though he did desperately regret that he would have to cary a sack for of junk around rather than a real backpack. He’d have to get one of those made at the first opportunity.

In the root cellar Simon killed every last rat without difficulties, and it was only when that was done that he slammed the trapdoor shut and then started to hack it to pieces with the axe. It was awkward work because he was swigging a hatchet against thick wood above his head, and it took several minutes to make an real progress as wood chips rained down on him from above.

Part of him worried that someone would investigate because he was being so loud, but the rest of him kinda hoped that they did. Chopping away at the boards from such an awkward position was a pain. Finally, after a couple minutes of creating a slowly deepening series of overlapping cuts, he threw the axe down and picked up his mace, shattering the weakened board.

Simon reached up and tried to move the bar that was holding it closed, but he found no such object. Instead there was something heavy resting on it.

He fished around a little and was gradually able to push whatever it was out of the way, but the whole time he did so he worried something would chop his arm clean off. They didn’t though, and when he finally freed up the trapdoor and pushed it open he found a dark room.

When he finally figured out where he was, though, he had trouble believing it. The furniture had been knocked over and smashed, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime, but he would have bet his life that this was his cabin. Just dirtier, and maybe older.

Simon crawled up out of his hole, and with a word, he ignited a torch so he could get a better look. It didn’t answer any questions, though. He could see signs of goblin damage, but there were human tracks in the dirt, too. There wasn’t even enough left of the mirror to ask it a question. He tried, but its words were scattered across the slivers and shards of glass so thinly that they were little more than a blue shimmer.