Looking at the floating, magical box that hovers before me, I silently wish that I could read. But you need to understand that goblins… well, goblins aren’t the smartest people, okay?

I’m not being judgy, but you know, living at the bottom of the dungeon your whole life will do that to a creature. There aren’t many books here, except for the odd rare magical tome. And even if there were, normal goblins don’t really care about stuff like that. There are some casters, they’re a bit more bookish, but yeah.

I wonder what goblins are like on the surface? Are they smarter there? I think so. Surviving in the dungeon is easy, you don’t need to think a lot. Well, at least until you get murdered. But I mean like, in regards to finding food and stuff.

There are rats everywhere around the outpost, they basically walk right up to you. What do the rats eat? Other rats if I had to guess. Maybe dead goblins? Dunno. Like I’ve been saying, it’s a rough dungeon. There are also lots of mushrooms if you get sick of rats. But I am drifting off again. The menu. I have a menu. What does this mean? Am I a hero now? I don’t feel very heroic. I look down at my small, green body. It is thin with a flabby belly. I wear a loin-cloth, my chest is naked. My arms are jacked though, so that’s nice.

I take a moment to flex my biceps. Oh yeah! Check it out, dungeon-master. I lift, apparently. Nice! I wonder what my name is, this time? Grabbing down around my neck, I pull up the thin, rat-fur string that holds a small piece of carved rock on the bottom. Every goblin has such a talisman. On the small rock, which is about the size of my thumb, are carved two crude depictions, one below the other. A squiggle on the top and a pointy goblin face with two ‘X’s for eyes beneath. That means my goblin name is Zig’urk. ‘Zig’ being the goblin word for squiggle and ‘urk’ being the word for dead. Urk. I am urked. You are urked. He, she, it is urked. It’s a fun word. Simple, but gets the point across. The squiggle means something is weird, wrong or off. It’s kind of a rude thing to say to someone. But in this context, it makes sense.

See, goblins get their names at birth by their little goblin parents, often depending on the story behind their birth. Which can get out of hand quickly, because a goblin mother has a litter of a dozen easily in general. In a rather morbid twist, I suppose this body was born very sickly or dead from the womb? Squiggly urk. Almost dead. Very fitting. Sheesh, rough start there, guy. I guess one of the goblin casters probably brought me back from the brink as a baby. Thanks magic! Sorry for worrying you, mom.

- Menu! Focus. Menu. I look back to the menu, my eyes wide with all the excitement I can bring to muster. Which is a lot. I am seriously hyped, guy, tell you what. Now, let me be clear, I have no idea how this thing works. I have seen the hero mess around with his, so I guess I’ll try that first?

I take my gnarly goblin finger and touch the space in the air where it is being suspended by whatever voodoo-devilry is at work here. It is solid. I feel my finger press against it as if I was touching a wall. It feels sleek, smooth. Like the surface of very polished metal. Like glass. But there is a coarseness to it. It is as if I was smudging over a layer of dust with my finger as I move it around the window. The letters and symbols glow beneath my hand as I hover over them. Doing as I have seen the hero do, I swipe to the side. The whole thing shifts inside as if I had flipped the page of a book. There are new symbols now.

I still don’t recognize any of them though. I swipe again in the same direction. But nothing happens anymore. So instead, I opt to go into the other, to the right, past the first part of the menu I saw. There is another page, this one I am able to make some more sense out of. At the top of the window is my name in goblin, Zig’urk. Beneath that is a series of orderly symbols next to a word, some repeat themselves. They are crisp, simple. Are these human numbers? Stats.

I have seen this before. The hero has one of these windows, but so does everyone else. The other adventurers. I remember. They all have different stats. Now that I think about it, I recognize some of these numbers. Though I don’t exactly know if they are high or not. But here, this one. I point to the second value on the bottom area. The thief-girl had a number here like this one, when I saw her menu one time. Does that mean I am very… thiefy? No, I don’t feel thiefy. Also that was a long time ago, I think that was still on one of the higher floors, way back when. Maybe she wasn’t as strong then. So I am only a little thiefy. Like a early level thief at the top of the dungeon. If that’s true, it’s no wonder they always wipe the floor with us. How much stronger than us trash-mobs are they really?

Seeing this cold proof before me is a little shocking. I mean, obviously I know they are stronger than us, I mean come on, guy. But actually seeing it on paper and putting it into context? This makes me uneasy.

See, when I saw her menu a long time ago, it only had one digit. But the hero’s menu which I saw just in my other life as a uh… mm… dark-fairy! Yeah, as a dark-fairy? Some of his stats had two digits. I think one or two on the top row even had three. Does that mean there are entire orders of magnitude between us? Sheesh. Being a trash-mob is rough stuff sometimes, but this just seems unfair. Can I change anything here? Hmm, no. It doesn’t look like it. I remember the hero had a plus sign next to his numbers once or twice. I guess you can only change them sometimes? Special occasions or something? Dunno. I’m new to this, okay? I scroll to the right again. This is the final window in this direction. It is blank. There is nothing here. Huh?

I touch it. The spot where I grazed the pane had a smudge. No, a mark. I left a mark with my finger. Huh? I move my finger around and make a squiggle. The squiggle stays. Is this like a journal maybe? Wait. I wonder.

Will I keep this menu if I die? Will I be able to open this again as a slime? Or as a mimic? I guess my stats would change every time but… but what about the notes? What about the notes? Would they stay inside of this menu? My eyes go wide at the realization. This time they really, physically do, as I actually have real eyes. I can take notes with me. If this theory is true and yes, it is just a theory up until I have died and tested it, then this could change everything. Traps. Stairs. I need to take these down as notes, I need to remember them. My finger presses against the screen. I realize I have made a fatal miscalculation. I don’t know how to write.

Dang.

I stand there for a moment, wondering. Then I realize I can just use the goblin pictographs, I know those, most of them at least. Stairs is an easy one. Sliding my finger around in sharp angles, I draw a simple staircase. I look at it, hmm. No. No this isn’t good enough. What about the other stairs? If I forget the hidden stairs and see a picture of stairs, won’t I just think about the actual stairs? It won’t do me any good. I need to draw them hidden. How? Uh. Hmm. Well, okay wait. They’re at the bottom of the well by the Hidden-Village slimes, right? Yeah. Okay. I spend the next minute drawing the well and a couple of Hidden-Village slimes next to the stairs. I think that should give me enough context.

Traps? Goblins have a symbol for traps. And a symbol for the dungeon-master. And a symbol for trash-mobs. First, I draw the symbol for traps, which is a stick figure of a human with a line through their middle. Then beside it, I draw the dungeon-master’s goblin symbol, which is hilariously just an angry frowning face with a smudge over the eyes and a triangle on top. I interpret it to mean the dungeon-master has a cool hood too. Then I cross it out. Next to that combination, I make the same trap symbol, but use the trash-mob picture, an angry round face. No triangle. Goblins aren’t very skilled artists, you see, bless their dark, little hearts. Everything is really crude, simple and honestly, it would be weird if it wasn’t.

Satisfied with my crude drawings, I release my hand from the menu for now. I am happy that, if nothing else, I have found a way to keep information between my lives. This is huge. Game-changing stuff. I still wish that I could have fought the hero, but this is good too. Hell, maybe if I get to change my stats sometime, I can use that to my advantage. Maybe I can move up in the trash-mob world, make a name for myself, make my parents proud. Wait. Do I have parents? I mean, I guess goblin-me has parents. But do I? I suppose I have to, right? I mean, maybe I came from some giant spider’s egg or maybe it was a goblin? I honestly don’t know what my first life was, my ‘real’ life. Though I feel like it is unfair to all of my new lives to call it that. They were all real lives. First life. I should call it that.

I wonder what my first name was? I hope it was something cool. I wonder what my first gender was? Hard to say. As I let my hand come free from the menu, it simply fades away into nothingness. The dark midnight-blue tatters wavering in some unseen ethereal wind, as it dissipates into thin air. Looking around, I turn to the door, I know where I have to go. As I reach up to grab the handle, I suddenly hear voices from the other side, other goblins. They are grunting and arguing with surprising verbosity for the simple creatures that they are. The voices sound oddly familiar though? The shoddy door, made out of fastened bone and rat leather, swings open.

Now you might be wondering, guy, rat leather? Yeah, like I said. There are a lot of rats down here. A lot. Like, ‘enough to start making the furnishings and architecture out of them’ amounts of rats. Scary large amounts of rats.

They look at me as I open the door, the two goblins standing outside fighting. I know them. One is female, the other is male. How can I tell? I will spare you the details, friend, you are too pure.

“Zig’urk!” calls the girl goblin. Wait. That’s me. I’m Zig’urk, huh? I look at her, wondering what she wants. Oh. I know her, this is my childhood friend. Her litter was born the same day as mine. In goblin society, that means we are connected by the blessing of the dark-lord. We are of the same wave, we were born together and when the time comes, we will die together. The other goblin, I know him too, he’s her flesh-brother. What a weird word that is, flesh-brother. Let’s not use it anymore, okay?

I ask her what’s wrong. She says her brother ate her rat. He denies it. I sigh. I tell them in short, goblin words that I don’t have time for their nonsense, that they should just go catch more. They are literally everywhere once you go outside. As I walk past them they ask me where I am going, I simply tell them ‘upstairs’ as I leave the room. I’m going to get to that well, to that secret staircase. I’m going to go up again and this time I’m going to find you, hero. I’m going to fight you, even if it has to be as a goblin.