This thing really is quite the mess. It’s so nonsensical and useless!

  Sitting in contemplation on a tall rock, I beat the occasional curious goblin away with kicks and flames. Must keep my status out to thoroughly inspect it. However, that also attracts the others like moths flocking to a warm, mysterious light in their midst. Such annoying little barbarians. Go get your own light!

  Impatiently tapping an already bloodied claw against my teeth, I’m not certain how to proceed. What exactly do I need to do? Fix it? That’s not enough of a direction. I don’t even know what’s wrong. If anything’s even actually wrong! Maybe it’s working as it’s supposed to, but my ignorance of its proper usage is holding me back. Do I need knowledge again? The books certainly won’t help with this. They clearly expect a very different sort of situation. What else is there? No, no, no. Information. I need information. I need more status!

  Bringing my bloodied claws down onto the panel, I allow myself to slip away into the fugue state, rapidly working with this strange, esoteric connection that I keep channeling from the obscure. Again, I’m less tense. Less addled. Less spent by the rapidly shrinking time that my hands require to finish their autonomous efforts.

  It’s done. Now, what have I wrought?

  That’s something, I suppose. It’s certainly new information. However, I’m even more lost now than when I started. Although, new information does often have that effect on me. Like adding new ingredients into a mixture, sometimes the result is an unexpected, confusing dud.

  So, then what? Is that it? There’s an error, so that confirms that it’s definitely broken. Is there a fix or must I accept being both tiny and weak forever? Why aren’t there better instructions?!

  Jumping down from the rock, I banish the light and storm over to claim my team. If I can’t get what I need from my status, then answers to my questions must be fetched from somewhere else.

  Management! Someone must be in charge, right? Exactly as they do in the big ones’ world. They have their town lords. Their city lord. The big ones endlessly complained about all those leaders and constantly blamed them for their faults. They passionately demanded action from those leaders to fix all their perceived wrongs! We must have some equivalent to that here, no?

  Yes, yes! Management, my savior. That must be the answer. If I do this complaining to management, then what’s the risk? What’s the worst that those abominations might do to me? They keep calling me special. Well, special people require special answers!

  “Ha’koff. Agobs gew. Fras. Gew,” I grumpily mumble at my teammate.

  “Wat? Gew war?” he sleepily retorts, always stubbornly resisting my benevolent, shepherding directions.

  “Non gnos. Deeg.”

  “Akgh! Afras?” he gloomily complains at my characteristically ambiguous response.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He’s really gotten better at this awful language. I find myself relying less and less on appraisal for his state of mind. However, he still acts as though he loathes his condition as a goblin. I don’t understand. Why isn’t he glad to have joined the brotherhood? Aren’t we all blessed to be a part of this clearly grand endeavor?

  “Peed. Con dur. Gew…” I start requesting, pausing to speculate on the best way to describe wherever it is that management might live. “Gew tup. Tup tup?”

  My first attempt failing, I obstinately invest more brain power. Management, management. What is management? We are the hand, and we take action! The foot provides transportation. The mouth… talks? That monstrous leviathan covered in eyes, is he part of the eye? He sees? And the chattering teeth… shouldn’t he chew or bite? He certainly didn’t appear to do any of that. At least not while I was awake.

  Where on the body would one find management? The head? Of course, at the head. That makes complete sense. No wonder I’m a genius.

  “Peed! Con dur. Gew skol!” I triumphantly shout up into the void, startling several of the other goblins quietly lounging in the dirt nearby.

  A tiny circular door opens next to the team, graciously inviting us inside.

  “Ha’koff! Gew!”

  “Blech,” he rudely sounds off at my command, crossing his arms.

  Rushing through the ring and dragging Ha’koff behind me by his leash, I trip and tumble onto the other side. Rubbing my sore head, I try to massage out the sparkling stars hovering above in my tattered vision. However, after the pain fades and the portal closes, we’re left in total darkness. Where is this? What kind of management headquarters leaves the lights off like this? Don’t they know that they have guests to greet?

  The ground below feels rough and sandy, but otherwise perfectly flat. Standing back up, I amplify my eyes, hoping to capture whatever small signals that this place may leak. The tiny outline of Ha’koff next to me springs into view. He’s hunched over, rocking back and forth while softly crying into his tiny hands. Good, this at least confirms that my vision can still work here, even if it’s severely limited.

  What else? Looking up, I catch the faintest hint of motion above us. A rising corkscrew of floating, yellow eyes intensely staring down at and harshly judging us.

  Oh, no! Is it that horrible leviathan again? Wait, was he always the head? Am I wrong about his eyes?

  “Awk!” I cautiously squeak, determined to call for their attention even if it appears already freely provided in droves. “Wan weens. Gib weens?”

  The hovering eyes answer with a discordant chorus of unsynchronized hisses, spinning and slowly moving closer with us at the center of their whirling focus.

  “Non? Gob gib. Gib…” I begin creakily explaining, desperately digging through my pouches for an offering of tribute. “Gib wel! Hap weens.”

  In my quivering, extended arms, I hold up a single pouch. In it, the only conveniently available item that may imaginably be desirable to the unknown authority. After all, if the big one porters love them so much, then why not whatever these things are as well? My interrogators also reacted positively to my offer of tribute. Eventually.

  The slowly spinning ocular twister stops abruptly, and a particularly larger pair of eyes glides down towards us out of the darkness. A big, arrow shaped head the size of a boulder gracefully presents itself a few feet away from our lowly, cowering, tiny figures. Forked tongue dangling out and to the side of its mouth, its larger eyes now dimly glow, barely revealing its outline and distinguishing it from the rest.

  “Foolish anomaly. You offer us an exchange?” the long, dark, unspooling serpent hisses directly into our faces. “You errantly steal the responsibilities of so many other aspects. Now you wish for ours as well?”

  “Tak scruls?” I nervously exclaim, questioning his bizarre claim out loud to myself. “Oh!”

  Quickly rummaging through my pack, I locate the scroll stolen from the sleeping goblin at the pit and offer it up to him. Is this what he means? Maybe he values it more than the coins?

  All the floating eyes jostle and hiss at my sheepish gesture. Are they mocking me? Am I wrong about the scroll?

  “Put away all those worthless toys. You may ask one question. The price for an answer will depend on the nature of the question. As it always does. You may refuse that price, but then your precious knowledge will be forever denied.”

  Shocked, I look down at Ha’koff to confirm my great luck. However, he’s figured out how to somehow curl himself up into an even tighter, smaller ball than before. It’ll just be me here facing off with the head.

  “Ask now, anomaly! You already rob us of scarce time better spent performing our sacred duty. No more delays!”