The Goblinverse Chronicles
Episode 2: Through Her Silence
It was quiet.
Not the comforting kind of quiet—the kind that comes after a long day, when a fire crackles in the hearth and the walls feel full of stories. This was the sort of quiet that follows an answer whispered into a locked box.
“Begin,” the soil had said.
And the Lair obeyed.
Doors once sealed by dust groaned open of their own accord. Runes flickered back to life along the vaulted halls, their meanings half-erased by time and ash. The north tower’s shadow began to stretch in the wrong direction.
Something had changed.
Something was changing.
In the Upper Parapet
The Goblin hadn’t moved.
He stood at the edge of the parapet, eyes locked on the horizon where the stars had begun to flicker like faulty lanterns. The air around him crackled with unseen tension, the kind he usually ignored but couldn't afford to now.
The rain of burning glitter had stopped.
He missed it.
He turned slowly as a figure padded up behind him—Whiskerhex, soot-streaked, fur on edge.
“You felt it too,” the cat said flatly.
The Goblin nodded. “The Vault’s waking up. Not in a ‘stretching after a nap’ sort of way. More like a ‘remembering it used to be hungry’ sort of way.”
“Scarla?” Whiskerhex asked.
“Still gone,” the Goblin muttered. “Crystal’s cold. No trace in the Wilds. No echo in the sigil net. It’s like the ground swallowed her and chewed politely.”
Whiskerhex’s tail twitched. “We need Mournfyr.”
The Library’s Heart
Mournfyr was already waiting.
The page with no ink still lay at his feet, and though it no longer whispered, the silence it left behind had weight. His golden eyes were fixed on the fire, though his tea had long gone cold.
“They’re here,” he said aloud before either of them stepped into the room.
Whiskerhex didn’t bother with surprise. “You felt it?”
“I felt her,” the dragon replied.
The Goblin blinked. “You what?”
“I don’t know how. Just for a second. Like a string pulled tight across the continent. She’s not dead. But she’s… far. Wrong. Somewhere the Lair wasn’t built to see.”
Whiskerhex stepped forward. “Then we trace her signal. Follow the echo.”
“We can’t,” Mournfyr said. “She’s behind a wall.”
“What kind of wall?” the Goblin asked.
Mournfyr looked up. His eyes were older than before. “The kind made of intention.”
Beneath the Lair
The Vault door was ajar.
That alone was terrifying.
It had never opened without sacrifice. It had never opened without permission.
Now it yawned — an uneven slit in the floor of the world, pulsing with a slow, red glow that came not from torches or magic, but from a heartbeat not their own.
The three stood at its edge.
“She went in,” Mournfyr said, voice soft.
“No,” said Whiskerhex. “Something took her in.”
The Goblin dropped to one knee, running a hand along the smooth stone. Runes skittered away from his touch like ants. “This wasn’t built by us.”
“No,” Mournfyr whispered. “It’s older.”
The Vault whispered again.
But it didn’t say “begin.”
It said her name.
“Scarla.”
The Goblin stood. “That’s it. I’m done waiting. I don’t care what’s down there.”
Whiskerhex narrowed his eyes. “You never cared.”
The Goblin’s grin returned. “Exactly.”
And before either of the others could stop him, he stepped into the dark.
In the Hollow Below
Scarla Vexroot was running out of time.
The sky here didn’t stay still. It twisted like silk in water, and every breath she took left her lungs colder.
She had followed a thread of light she thought was a sigil-path. It wasn’t. It was a lure. Something had known she’d come.
She kept walking. The ground beneath her cracked but didn’t fall. The trees watched.
And somewhere behind her, that voice followed:
“Begin. Begin. Begin.”
Not a command.
A countdown.
To be continued...