{"id":998,"date":"2026-08-31T10:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/?p=998"},"modified":"2026-08-31T10:42:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:42:40","slug":"damage-management-team-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/archives\/998","title":{"rendered":"Damage Management Team, Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This follows Damage Management Team Part III<\/a>, Part II<\/a>, Part I<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk shook his head at me sternly. His face, his eyes.. all sending the direst warning that he could muster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if I was telepathic, I could almost hear it: Don’t you fucking do it, Tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He signaled (open to some interpretation mind you) that if I revealed ourselves he would personally brain me with his chisel (by holding the chisel up to his own temple). Yeah, the implication was clear enough. I wouldn’t blame him to be honest, and I would probably deserve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a deep breath and think this through Tell, I thought. I glanced down at the stones, trying to stay rational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At best, three goblins popping out of the wall would result in our immediate deaths. There were at least three individuals that knew how to use the sharp implements of death on their persons, and they had made this far using those instruments of death, so if three goblins just materialized, one would die on a sword, one on a knife, and one on an axe. And worst case, incinerated alive until we were dead-ish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alright. Revealing ourselves would be a terribly bad, awful, short-sighted, idiotic thing to do. See? A good think after being threatened with involuntary lobotomy has its place! A win!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omish sneezed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He grabbed his honker of a nose with both hands and looked at the two of us with eyes the size of dinner plates. Grunk was furious. I probably looked relieved. I felt relieved at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now, when someone died by a chisel to the skull, it was not going to be me. (Silver lining.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dubndub was utterly quiet. The fart of a mouse could be heard, if there had been a mouse nearby, and said mouse had been in gastrointestinal distress. Phphbt! I wanted to make the sound just for a laugh. But now was not the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next sound was undeniable. The sound of a long silver blade being unsheathed from a hard scabbard. That is literally the sound of the death. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhink…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wondered how many goblins had died after hearing a noise like that? And with a measure of grim certainty, I know it was going to be at least three more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FUCK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked hard at Grunk, mouthing the word, “Options?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk’s nearly imperceptible head shake mirrored my state of mind. We were literally in a box of stone with someone that apparently had an allergy to staying hidden. What else could we do? We were not going to tunnel our way out. Two things could happen. They would realize that they were not alone and have the very pretty goblin fire mage blow us up, or they would have the dwarf start swinging at walls and do his dwarven-destruction-of-stone thing that dwarves got hard doing, and either way, we would have to crawl out of here, fighting or dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all collectively held our breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ventured a peek out of the peek hole that Grunk had made for me and I came eye to eye with another Goblin eye. Her eyes were pretty too. (Get a grip, Tell.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Its a pack of goblins. Probably dungeon management,” Miki sighed dismissively. “You can put your sword away, Christoph. Your axe too, Fror. The worst these guys will do to us is give us bad directions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Harsh.” I mumbled. Maybe she wasn’t that pretty after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Keep an arrow ready just in case, Streya.” Miki added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well that was just plain rude. I raised my voice, “We mean you no harm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Come on out, and we will determine that for ourselves.” The human Christoph said calmly. He at least sounded level-headed. “Keep your knives in their places and nothing will need to get messy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard him whisper, “That sounded tough, right?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes, you sound very tough.” Omish replied. He sounded like a freshly kicked puppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Sorry,” Christoph said. “You guys have great hearing for being in a stone bench.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Great eyes too,” Miki said with a bit of thought carrying in her voice. She was thinking out loud, and I did not like the sound of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we come out, will we be safe?” Grunk asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you stay in there, you definitely won’t be, because that means we will have to come in after you,” the dwarf Fror growled. “I might have to hurt you on principle if you make it my problem.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are coming out,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pointed at our roof hoping that Grunk would knock out the top. Easier for us if we are all exposed at once and not crawling out of the end like idiots. I peeked out of the hole and they were all standing away from the bench, the short human-ish one called Streya had an arrow in her bow, but it was not raised. That may be a good sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goblin had a her palm raised halfway, a little gout of flame spinning on her palm like a miniature tornado. That was definitely a threat. I heard a fair-barker in the back of my head, STEP RIGHT UP, STEP RIGHT UP, AND GET INCINERATED! ALMOST FREE!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk ran his fingers on the side of his hammer, fingering a sigil, and the cores hummed in response. He swung once, pushing the stone upwards with the hammer just like he had when he had made the door for us into the hallway. The hammer remained where he placed it as the stone seat swung upwards. We stood up slowly with our hands above our shoulders in unison, like we had practiced beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would have been funny if I was sure this was not how we were about to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Cozy in there,” Fror harrumphed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It felt safe until someone sneezed,” I muttered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You are the leader,” Miki addressed pointedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Not the old one?” Christoph made a face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was sooooo tall. I would have to be on stilts to just look at him straight in the nipples. The short human-ish one with the feet was only up to his waist, but she even seemed bigger than me. She probably wasn’t but every one near the hero in armor just appeared to be more imposing. Maybe it was the armor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or he was just a big scary dude (that was probably it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The old ones are too smart.” Miki tittered. “They are old because they have learned to keep their heads down. Its the ones that are old enough to want more, but not too old to know better. That’s why the leader is this one.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What about the other one?” The dwarf said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He is a baby.” Miki smiled knowingly. “Apprentice?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omish nodded slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Where is your fourth?” Miki continued with a raised eyebrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t have one,” I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We did.” Omish added quickly. “We lost him a couple rotations ago.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streya nodded sagely. “They are both telling the truth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would she know? “How would you know? Maybe he is out getting us help? Maybe I lied?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Streya is from a tribe of soothsayers. She can detect falsehoods.” Miki sighed heavily. “So no one is out there getting you help. They don’t even know you are lost do they?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I frowned. She was mean. But I could not take my eyes off of her. I felt my face flush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Oh, he is blushing.” Streya laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki lowered her voice to a sultry register, “It’s not because he is embarrassed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My face went even more flushed. I finally lowered my eyes. I could die. Just box me up in the bench and let me rot peacefully in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What were you doing in here?” Fror asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We…” I started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Speak up. And know that I will have an arrow in your shoulder if you lie,” Streya threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I believe you,” I replied. “Can we lower our arms?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No,” Streya flatly replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Its a long story,” I tried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That is true, but you are going to tell us the short version,” Streya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are dungeon management, Team Kelpie…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Cute.” Miki sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a half-hearted glare I continued, “We were deployed to room on level two to fix a collapse. We weren’t able to fix it in time, and the room fell in with our portal inside of it. We made the choice to head outwards-“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Outwards?” Christoph the human monster asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Outwards versus Inwards. Outwards is towards the surface, inwards is towards the lower levels.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki made another thinking face. “Huh. Go on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We were hoping that we could encounter another Dungeon Management team and use their portal to get home,” I finished. Then I glared wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left out the parts about why the Kappa room collapsed (explodey hexcore) and the ant colony (red beam of death and explodey ant heads), hoping those parts of the story were on a need to know basis. And this group of explorers definitely did not need to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That is truth.” Streya acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why were you in here? Hiding?” Christoph said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We were resting. We heard someone coming, and we are goblins,” I sneered with the obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Watch your tone.” Fror growled back. “Or your head may not be connected to your neck much longer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Fror, friend, step back,” Christoph put a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “What do you mean by that? What does being a goblin have to do with anything?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Goblins get blasted. They get massacred. They get chopped. Diced. Sliced. Shot down. We are treated like fodder…” My voice was raising again. I wanted to punch the dwarf in the face with my gauntlet of explodey heads. “And people like you, you people, kill us without so much a second thought. That is why we hide. We don’t want to be murdered in cold blood by a party of assholes who could give two shits less how many goblins that happen to die along their way. It happens all the time! Because WE DON’T WANT TO BE MURDERED!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the dwarf’s turn to lower his eyes. Even the smaller human-ish Streya looked conflicted. Miki was grinning devilishly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We try not to kill anything,” Christoph smiled kindly. “We only defend ourselves when we are attacked.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought it sounded like he was telling the truth. That bugged me. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had that huge sword that I wanted to believe him or because the tone of his voice made me want to believe him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streya’s eyes were hard, her brow was furrowed, like she was evaluating something about me that I did not understand. “He hears truth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well that pissed me off even more. Could I red beam them to death before I was impaled by an arrow? Probably not. Well… shit on a stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have a goblin in our party. Do you not see Miki right here? She is with us. Obviously we don’t kill goblins for sport,” Christoph waved futilely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And if he tried, I would just turn him into a crispy armor-enclosed human steak,” Miki grinned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have never heard of a goblin mage. Never.” Grunk finally spoke up. “Arcanists, sure. But never a full blown mage.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki grinned again, that devilish glint in her eye. She repeated my line back, “Its a long story.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We can’t let them go.” Christoph waved at us, speaking about us as if we weren’t right in front of them, awkwardly standing in a coffin of our own making (gallows humor).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We can’t take them with us,” Fror frowned. “They will slow us down.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Streya, what do you think?” Christoph tilted his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think we should be careful. They are not for us, but they are not against us. And that means danger. No loyalties.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hmmmmm.” Christoph stroked his smooth chin thoughtfully. “Miki?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think they should come with us.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What?” I said and the dumb dwarf said at the exact same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made a face (probably a bad one). Fror just set his mouth in a firm line. I could barely see it under the huge bushy beard, but I got the gist. I glanced at my compatriots. Grunk looked resigned to a fate, and Omish appeared to be on the verge of fainting. He was paler than the tall human. I would say a greenish-white at this point. I had seen greener molds on cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if coming to a final decision, Miki waved at the three of us with a wide declarative swing. “They are goblins. They can see, hear, smell, and navigate better than all four of us. They can see traps. They can hear trouble. They can smell out food and water. I can’t do those things because of my acclimation to surface life. But they can. They don’t even think about it. Do you see torches? Do you see a mage among them for light? They navigated the good old fashioned way. The way my mama would have. I say we take them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And if it doesn’t work out?” Grunk asked sullenly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We set you on your way, when we know that we are clear to do so.” Christoph shrugged. “We are headed downwards.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Inwards.” I corrected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes,” he looked at me shrewdly. “Inwards. Indeed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Can we put our hands down now?” I asked, again. “My arms are going to fall off at the shoulder.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki looked us over. “Those two can. You can’t.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why the fuck not, lady?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Because your gauntlet is absolutely roaring with mana right now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mana? That is reserved only for living things,” Streya squinted at my gauntlet. “That is definitely armor. Not a living thing, Miki.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki took a step forward and held out her hands. “Show me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sighed for the sheer art of pissing her off a small measure of what she had caused me to feel so far. “Why?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki lowered her voice as if the two of us were alone. “Because I want to look at it. You don’t have to take it off, ok? We are not thieves. It is still yours.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hmmph. I kept the groan inside my head. “Fine.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lowered my armored right hand into Miki’s waiting own. I swear I could feel her touch through my gauntlet, and I had the brief, one could almost say fleeting, sensation that I could stand like this forever. She smelled amazing. Was that vanilla?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She rolled my right hand over in her own, as she studied the gauntlet’s hexgrid that extended down the back of my hand and onto my wrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Was the hexglow always purple?” Miki asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes.” I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That is a lie.” Streya offered her opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No one asked, you. What are you anyway?” I shot back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Be nice.” Miki admonished. “When did the hexglow turn purple?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Today. Or yesterday. I am not sure what day it is,” I corrected as I made eye contact with Streya. “We have had a bit of a hard time since the collapse. I may have passed out one point from exhaustion.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki looked over her shoulder at Streya, and the stout woman nodded. “True.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What caused it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s see how accurate that Streya’s sense of truthiness powers were. “I honestly don’t know what caused it to turn purple.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Also true,” Streya shrugged again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Interesting. It seems that something was invoked. Your gauntlet is housing a soul.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That is news to me, lady.” I sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“True again.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Could you stop it?” I asked politely. Well it may have felt polite. The way it came out of my mouth it did not sound polite. I hoped that no one was paying attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Alright little goblins, you can climb out of the bench. We are going to start a fire and set up camp. I have first watch.” Christoph said, the last part was for his party, not us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe it was for us. He would be watching. They would all be watching. Shit on a stick (again.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t have an excess of provisions, but you can share what we prepare,” The knight continued. “If you are able to track more food down, that is.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk spoke up, “We can.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miki let go of my gauntlet and clapped her hands together. “Alright that is settled then. What are your names?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m Teller. That’s Grunk, our newbie is Omish. And you are Miki, he is Christoph, Streya, and the dwarf is Fror.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Very good,” Miki nodded thoughtfully. “Smart too.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They all had backpacks and bedrolls, and they let them drop to the ground, falling into a routine that I had a feeling was well established. They each seemed to have a job in setting up camp, and they fell to their parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dwarf pulled a length of blackened lumber from his bag along with a cast iron skillet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk walked over to the wall. “You can save your ironwood for later on. These dubndubs have wood boxes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What? Dubndubs?” Fror eyes went wide. “Show me the wood!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This symbol here?” Grunk pointed at the triangle over his head. “Tap here.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk elbowed the wall and it pivoted open. “Not constantly replenished, but the brownies…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You have got to be kidding me.” Fror laughed loudly, interrupting Grunk’s explanation. “We have spent days fretting over firewood. You my are my friend, …Grunk was it? Yes! Let’s get a proper fire going, eh Grunk?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grunk nodded, letting his previous explanation go, and instead started pulling firewood from the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did they not know about the wood boxes? Did they know about the clean water? Did they know about the waste grates? Did they know you could shower in a dubndub if you needed too? By the Underking, no wonder these asshats died so often. They had no idea of the basics. No concept of inwards or outwards? No sign reading? No pathing details. I bet they didn’t even know the pattern of the logic rooms! Idiots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were babies. Wee babies with bonnets and nappies, just wandering the Underfell. They were going to die… it was just a matter of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could use this to our advantage. They would have to take care of us… until we run across a point that we can escape. Some opportunity would pop up eventually, we just had to keep our eyes open for that moment. Make sure they were nice and comfortable with us and the could give them the slip, work backwards and find a dungeon management team. Maybe after watching them all die. Painfully. That would be almost perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timing. In the end, it was all about timing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking all this through, I was not paying attention to what the others were doing and I realized I was just standing in the box like an idiot. Grunk was helping build the fire, Omish was asking a million questions a minute of the tall human in armor as they set up camp, and I was still standing in the box with my gauntlet arm slightly extended in front of me from where Miki had released it. She was doing her part at the fire, making small flames catch at the smaller tinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streya made eye contact and she started to chuckle. “Have you never met a girl goblin before, young one? Do you think she is pretty?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No.” I outright refused a bit too quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Ah… that was a lie. But you knew that already.” Streya started laughing. A deep rumbling belly laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grinned for a second at the sound of her laugh, but I shifted it to a nasty frown the moment she looked at me. That only made her laugh harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pouted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still standing there like an idiot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dammit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This follows Damage Management Team Part III, Part II, Part I… Grunk shook his head at me sternly. His face, his eyes.. all sending the direst warning that he could muster. As if I was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-story","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions\/999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}