The darkness seemed to drag on forever. I couldn't see the ground beneath me. I wasn't even sure that there was a ground. I didn't know, where I was or how to go back. I tried walking forward, but I didn't know whether I had moved at all. Turning around changed nothing. How long had I been inside the abyss? Was this my punishment? Did some vengeful god kill me for slaying the champion of the human race. Ridiculous. What about all the goblins that human had killed? Other races as well. We had our own champions. Why would he have an omnipotent guardian, but not us? I felt my eyes welling up, but I only let out a scream of frustration. There was no answer.
Was I there for hours or days? Was it longer. At some point I would've believed anything I was told, if only there was someone there to tell me. I noticed I no longer heard the beating of my heart. There was indistinct noise in the background. I strained my ears. Was I going mad or were there voices, just barely audible, all around me? There was ground beneath my feet. I opened my eyes.
It was so bright I had to close them right back. I blinked a couple of times. I was in a narrow alley between two buildings. I looked around there were humans everywhere. I gaped in horror. Somehow I ended up in a human city. I sat there, hidden behind some kind of a box. It took me a while to calm down. I looked around again, this time composed. The composure didn't last. Only now I noticed that everything looked wrong. The people wore strange clothes. I knew they liked wearing colourful attires, but it was on a whole different level. No one was carrying weapons. A grin sneaked its way onto my face. Perhaps I wasn't in so much trouble after all. On the other hand. If this was a city of wizards, I might as well rip out my throat and save them and myself the trouble.
The people weren't the only thing that looked wrong. It was the city itself. The buildings were huge. Some were as tall as the trees of ancient elven forests. Perhaps they could even pierce the clouds.
The impressive size filled me with awe, but the outer appearance was also strange. There were so many windows and they were so large, it was amazing that a structure that size was able to support its own weight. It had to be some kind of wizardry holding it all together, or perhaps the windows were some kind of magical crystals. The thought made me grimace. It would make sense if it was a city of wizards. On the other hand the buildings were kind of ugly. Sure they were impressive, but they were only a single colour. The exact opposite of the people walking below the leviathans. If you looked at any part of the building, it would be impossible to tell it apart from any other. There were no carvings, sculptures or columns. It was unlike any human building I'd ever seen, though to be honest I hadn't seen all that many.
The buildings were blocking my view, so I wasn't able to tell which way would get me out of this place the fastest as I looked around. Crowds of people were walking around. I'd never seen so many people, humans or otherwise gathered in such a small space. It was as if an entire army was raiding the city, only there was no organisation. Every one of them was walking wherever he or she wanted. There were some groups, but never larger than half of a dozen.
My sweeping gaze wandered over the strange scenery. Then I did a double take. Was that an orc? I leant over my box and focused my vision. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were orcs, demons with large horns; wait, was that a werewolf? I couldn't see any goblins, but the presence of the other races was strange enough. To my knowledge, there were no cities, where humans still lived together with other races and there seemed to be no fighting going on despite the diverse crowd. One would expect many resentments and oaths of revenge even if there were no humans around.
I made my decision. I had to get closer and assess the situation. Even if those were just some kind of slaves for humans, I figured I could at least blend in and buy myself some time before I decided on my next move. I covered my head with my hood and veiled my face. I attempted to use all the sneaking skill that I had possessed. It was difficult to achieve significant results, since my speciality was hiding in forests and grasslands.
I took a deep breath and stepped out of the alley. It was nerve wrecking, but I took the next step and so on. I kept my head down and held my cloak to obscure as much of my skin as possible. My stealth skills weren't working. In fact I guessed I was making it worse by trying to be sneaky. Even if I was a little harder to see with my skills, it was also far more conspicuous to the ones that noticed me. Some humans stared at me as I passed, some gave me a wide berth, but curiously there were those, who smiled at me or stared as if in amazement. I couldn't figure out what that could possibly mean. Were there other goblins in the city. I sneaked a peak up at the faces of some humans. Surely my disguise wasn't good enough for them to think that I was a human child? My line of thought was broken as I took in another face. It was a female, but there was a mask covering her face. A quick glance around made me realise that she wasn't the only one. It seemed as if almost every other person wore one. It was the only part of their clothing, that was consistent. Perhaps they belonged to the same guild or some kind of gang. Some wore it just over the mouth, while others also covered their noses. Was it just preference, or did it mean something more? Some kind of hierarchy within their group?
The question would have to wait. I was finally near the non-humans. There were also humans mixed in with them. Some wore armour and weapons. Perhaps my initial assessment was wrong. Still something didn't feel quite right. It hit me as I came close enough to distinguish their faces. It was all fake. The armour was ridiculous. The design was awful. No one could ever fight wearing something like that. It was too much even for ceremonial armour. That wasn't the only thing. It didn't even look like it was made of metal. Sure there are some magical materials that could work like that, but it seemed obvious that that wasn't the case.
The last dagger in the corpse were the non-humans. It made me disgusted. It was all a sham. An imitation. There were only humans around. No one else. They painted their faces, wore fake elven ears, the weapons and armour they carried were useless. I knew humans were enthusiastic about theatre and such, but surely there were too many of them. They were just walking around and talking to each other. Most of them were moving towards the entrance of a large building. I decided to follow them inside. Even if these humans only dressed as other races, I might be able to use it to my advantage. I would pretend to be another one of them, except that I put more effort into looking like what a goblin should. I could take my lesson from before and try to be inconspicuous instead of stealthy. I entered the building.