Tightly grabbing the leash, I immediately dash through the beautiful, open portal, forcibly dragging my team close behind me. Pattering little feet carrying me through to soft, slightly yielding mud, it’s clear that we’re home. Home! Safety and protection. Precious sanctum in the cold, barren, unyielding void. The ring of mud behind us collapses, shattering the contained light’s glow. No beasts at our back, only sweet victory welcomes us here!

  Taking a moment bent over and holding my knees to calm my racing breath and heart, the situation fully sinks in. Was this always possible? Have I never actually been trapped anywhere this whole time? I feel like such a fool. A few simple words would have freed me from nearly any danger all this time. What’s the point of bothering with my spacial songs then?

  Taking a seat to reflect on this conundrum, I consider the implications. All I did was ask this foot to open a door. That’s it. That door then brought me home, which makes some sort of sense as the default. If I ask for another door now, then where would that take me?

  “Peed con. Con dur,” I experimentally mutter down towards the mud below me.

  However, no muddy circle forms. Is it confused by my ambiguous intent? Perhaps because I wasn’t specific enough. After all, the chattering teeth gave very explicit orders when he requested the big door. The walking stick quietly snapped his fingers for his request, but they’re such a silent sort. Maybe they can’t speak at all? Are they restricted similarly to us little brothers?

  Ugh, effective speech really isn’t our forte. If I must be specific when requesting the doors, then that may be a problem. However, even severely limited, this is still amazing. It opens so many new opportunities!

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew mund,” I tentatively command, narrowing my eyes and closely surveying the mud in case I miss any indicators of subtle action by the foot.

  Proving my careful attentiveness unnecessary, the mud animatedly springs to life, quickly forming a personal, little circle directly in front of my sitting position. The shimmering light explodes out from the center, obediently providing the requested doorway.

  “Uoh!” I reflexively exclaim at the eager, pliant response.

  Peeking my head through, I see the usual group of friendly goblins lounging around on the mound. It worked! It really worked. How lovely. This alone saves so much time and danger. Those stupid, precarious gangways are so awful. One wrong move and we’d be cold toast slowly waiting for sweet death out in the void. Now we’re the proud owners of a luxury shuttle linking at least the pits and the mound. Perhaps true wealth isn’t solely in the domain of physical treasure?

  Back under the void again, Ha’koff is getting progressively crankier, so I quickly tuck him into the mud for a short nap. It’ll be better to do any additional experiments alone anyways. He’ll be safe enough down there.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew…,” I start to say, hesitating on selecting another clear destination for my feeble little lips.

  However, nothing easily comes to mind. Where exactly have we gone beside the pits and that stupid, floating mound? We spend so much of our time idly waiting for those occasional, short hunting expeditions into the beyond. The destinations of the hunts are far too ambiguous, so my ability to adequately describe them to the foot is questionable at best. Where else? The rocky caverns behind the second portals? Do they all go to the same place? They certainly all look identical.

  “Gew den. Peb den!”

  Worth a try, but clearly a failure. Without even knowing exactly where I was, how could I possibly describe it? Something silly, like that place where the super cool, golden boxes live?

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew den. Hol den! Shim hol. Hol peet?”

  I feel like an idiot trying to smuggle something that complicated out of my irreparable mouth. Predictably, it fails to elicit any response.

  Can I write to the foot? Methodically, I carve out a detailed message on the ground requesting passage to the caverns connected to the hunts that house the golden treasure boxes. I also describe the brothers bringing the unconscious, conquered beasts there. That should be more than enough.

  “Peed. Con dur. Der!” I shout hopefully, eagerly hopping in place and pointing at my message scrawled into the dirt.

  Nothing. How is that not clear? I spent so long carefully crafting that message. Even stupid Ha’koff would’ve been able to understand that! If he could read. Maybe the foot can’t read?

  I scrub out my first request, instead detailing the barren mound where we spend virtually all our time. Since I just verified that this destination works even with my limited speech, that means that failure indicates that written requests will never work.

  “Peed. Peed! Con dur. Der. Der!” I again demand, pointing with both hands this time to assure full clarity.

  However, again the pit stays silent. Writing really won’t work. That’d be far too easy, I suppose. Either it can’t read or it requires my true voice in order to honor my requests. Maybe as a matter of security? I suppose that makes sense. Can’t have some stupid big one pretending to be me and asking to be snuck into our precious home. That’d be ridiculous!

  That gives me another idea. Can I ask to go back to Kyklos? To the big ones’ world. How would I even describe it?

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew… bigguns,” I attempt, unsuccessfully.

  Disappointing. Having even one more destination option would make this feel so much more valuable as a taxi service. Two destinations is far too tragically limited.

  “Foot, reach into the appropriate net. The hand will crush him there.”

  The same memory as earlier plays back to me again. The appropriate net. Did he mean Kyklos by that? It certainly seemed so. The net. That’s fairly simple. Can I say that?

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew wev,” I say with no small amount of snark, lacking any faith in the silly sentence.

  Surprisingly, the mud instantly grows back up into the now familiar ring, lighting the center and welcoming my entry. Poking my head through, I see a very recognizable forest. In the distance, there’s even a familiar, worn path of the big ones. This is definitely their terrain. It was that easy? How surprising!

  However, why would I ever want to go back to that awful place?