Into the Maw of the Pit
The deeper Eliana crept into the caverns, the more the world seemed to collapse into itself—like some great, suffocating mouth swallowing her whole. The air grew colder, thicker, choked with the scent of wet stone and something fouler: old blood, rot, sweat-soaked fur. Light was a fading memory. Even the faint glow of lichen—her last tether to direction—began to sputter and die, like dying stars in a lightless void. Shadows thickened into walls. Sounds warped, bounced in unnatural ways. She no longer trusted her hearing.
She moved by instinct now, her calloused fingers grazing slick rock, her lungs pulling in air that reeked of death. Her senses were useless here, dulled by exhaustion and stretched thin by fear. And behind her—always behind her—the echoes of the goblin hunters remained. Soft, slithering footfalls. Dry breathing. The occasional rustle of claws on stone. They weren't chasing. They were herding her. Like a rabbit into a trap.
Then—she heard it.
A roar. Not a sound of triumph, but of ritual. Deep, guttural, layered with madness. It reverberated through the stone, pulsed in her bones like a second heartbeat. The very cavern seemed to twitch around it, trembling like a living thing. She froze, pressing herself against the wall. Her skin was cold and clammy. Her eyes wide. That sound—she had heard its like only in whispered stories from dying lips. Not a predator. Not a warning.
Celebration.
The roar was echoed by shrieks. Screeches. Gnashing. Chanting. A rhythmic pounding like war drums being played on stone with fists and claws. A chorus of cruelty. A frenzy of voices—none human, none sane.
The Arena.
She had dismissed it as myth. A place for exiled goblins and broken monsters. A pit carved into the lowest layers of the goblin underworld, where the weak bled for the amusement of the strong, and the strong bled for the thrill of the crowd. There were no rules. No escape. The only way out was death—or ascension through carnage.
And now she was here. Drawn to it not by fate, but by desperation. Her body was barely holding itself together. Her last meal had been days ago. Her limbs trembled from starvation, her skin clung too tightly to her bones, and her thoughts flickered like dying embers. But still, she moved forward. One foot, then the next. Into the black.
A lesser version of herself would've turned back. But Eliana—this Eliana—was no longer ruled by the same instincts. Her hunger was no longer just for food.
She needed something more.
She needed power.
And something inside her—something she didn't recognize anymore—whispered that power lived in the pit.
She crawled through the narrow stone corridor until it opened like a wound into something vast. She almost screamed at the stench that hit her—a thick, meaty cloud of blood and bile that made her gag. She covered her mouth and blinked against the sudden flickering torchlight. The arena revealed itself in fragments:
Rings of stone seats, rising in broken layers like crooked teeth. Shadows hunched in every crevice—goblins, mutated things, hulking brutes. All of them howling, convulsing with glee, their twisted faces illuminated by the flames.
And below them—at the center—was the pit.
A wide circle of jagged black stone, slick with fresh gore. Bones littered the edges like shattered trophies. The floor was cracked, uneven, layered with the remnants of those who had lost—flesh, shattered weapons, hair, teeth.
Eliana fell to her knees, choking on bile.
And then she heard the cheering rise again. Not just sound—fury.
A shape stepped into the center of the pit, dragging something limp behind it. Massive. Hulking. A Hobgoblin. Covered in patchwork iron. Its muscles moved like thick ropes under sickly skin, its eyes like burning coals. In its hands was an axe the size of a child—blackened, chipped, drenched in blood.
Eliana could not move. Could not breathe.
The Hobgoblin lifted the limp thing it had dragged—a goblin with a shattered leg, barely conscious. It stared at the crowd, then at the creature in its hands.
And then—it roared.
Not in challenge. Not in hatred.
In joy.
With a single movement, it split the goblin open, from clavicle to groin. The spray hit the stone like rain. The crowd lost its mind. Some tore into one another just to feel the bloodlust. Others banged their heads against the walls, screaming for more.
Eliana's heart thundered in her chest. Her teeth chattered—not from cold, but from a terror she couldn't name.
She should have turned back.
She should have run.
But her feet held still. Her body frozen.
Because something within her stirred.
Something darker than fear.
And it whispered: You could be more than prey.
Blood and Cheers
The tunnel opened suddenly, like the torn throat of some ancient, rotting beast, and the stench hit Eliana in a suffocating wave. Her lungs seized as her mouth filled with the sickly taste of blood, sweat, iron, and decay—all thick enough to chew. It clung to her skin like oil, sinking into her pores, making her gag silently as her feet scraped forward over the broken stone. The air here moved, as though it breathed, as though the entire cavern was alive and ravenous, waiting to swallow something whole.
Then came the noise.
Deafening.
Chaos.
The echo of countless throats shrieking, wailing, howling in discordant chorus. High-pitched goblin screeches overlapped with guttural chants, hisses, roars, and a rhythm that sounded like bone against bone. The sound vibrated through the stone, through her ribs. Through her skull. She crouched low, pressing herself behind a shattered column of dark rock, heart hammering like a tribal drum.
Her eyes widened as she saw it.
The arena was not a structure—it was a wound carved into the world. A vast chasm of blackened stone, its walls tiered like a twisted amphitheater, packed with hundreds of figures. Most were goblins—feral, filthy, wild-eyed. But scattered among them were abominations: flesh-warped hybrids, orcs with tumors for eyes, trolls missing jaws but still moaning. One creature had no face at all, just a gaping mouth stretched across its chest.
And they were all screaming. All watching.
At the center of the pit, smeared in blood and slick with gore, lay a goblin barely clinging to life. It twitched weakly, its chest rising and falling in uneven gasps. One arm was bent at a sickening angle, bone jutting through skin. Its face was a mask of horror—eyes wide, mouth slack, as if the realization of its death had robbed it of even the strength to scream.
Towering over it was the thing that had brought it to this state.
A Hobgoblin.
No, a monster wearing the skin of one.
It loomed like a walking nightmare—taller than any orc Eliana had seen, bulkier than a charging troll. Its flesh was a patchwork of pale scars and raw, pink ridges, as though it had been flayed and stitched back together over and over. Its armor was mismatched metal fused together with black resin and old blood, jagged edges turning its very body into a weapon. Its axe… gods, the axe… it was curved and chipped and caked with bits of meat, as though it had fed on the fallen.
The Hobgoblin raised it with one hand.
The dying goblin twitched.
And then came the cleave.
One smooth, horrifying motion—downward, fast, brutal.
The goblin split like rotten fruit.
A geyser of blood sprayed upward, raining down across the pit's edge. The crowd exploded into rapture. Goblins leapt into the air, some biting into their own arms in ecstasy. Others pounded the stone with their fists, cracking their knuckles, smashing their own faces, laughing. One hurled itself into the arena, only to be dragged away by three more and torn apart for the thrill of it.
It was madness.
It was hell.
And Eliana couldn't look away.
Every part of her recoiled. Her stomach flipped. Her fingers dug into the stone so hard her nails cracked. But her eyes stayed locked to the pit, unblinking.
Because something in her—some buried shard of instinct—recognized this place.
Not as a mistake.
But as destiny.
Another goblin was dragged into the pit—small, wiry, barely grown. It trembled with every step, knees buckling as it was shoved toward the blood-slick arena. Eliana saw its eyes: hollow and terrified. No defiance. No courage. Only the raw, animal awareness of death.
The Hobgoblin didn't move.
Not yet.
It waited. Watching the little one stumble forward, feeding off its terror like it was a delicacy.
The crowd quieted, as if holding its breath.
The smaller goblin struck first—more reflex than tactic. A wild, high-pitched shriek. A swing of a jagged blade.
The Hobgoblin stepped aside like it was swatting a fly.
Then it responded.
Its axe came down not once, but twice—first into the leg, then through the chest. The goblin screamed as its limb was severed, collapsing sideways. It gasped, blood bubbling from its mouth, eyes rolling. The second swing silenced it forever, splitting the torso into two wet halves.
The cheer that followed was deafening. Drunken. Goblins fought each other just to get closer to the blood, some lapping it from the ground like starving dogs. Creatures above hurled chunks of meat into the crowd, where they were caught in teeth and fists and shredded with glee.
Eliana's breath came in ragged gulps. Her hands trembled.
And yet—her feet did not move.
Because something inside her was changing.
She felt it in her chest. In her bones. A slow burn, growing hotter. Stronger.
Not disgust. Not fear.
Desire.
This wasn't just violence. It was transformation.
In this place, the weak were torn apart. But the strong—those who survived, who bathed in blood and thrived—they rose. They ascended.
Eliana's lips parted, dry and cracked.
She realized now—this was never about escape. Not anymore.
She didn't just want to survive.
She wanted to step into that pit.
She wanted the crowd to scream for her.
She wanted the blood to be hers.
A Hunger Awakened
The next fight was over before it even began.
A scrawny goblin—barely more than a malformed child—was shoved into the pit. Its bones jutted out beneath mottled green skin, and its eyes darted madly, wet with panic. The thing looked like it had never held a blade in its life. It held one now—a broken dagger, rusted to the hilt, trembling in a grip that didn't know how to kill.
It screamed.
A pitiful, high-pitched thing that was swallowed instantly by the weight of the arena.
It sprinted forward, half desperation, half madness.
The Hobgoblin didn't move. Not for a heartbeat. It just watched, head cocked slightly, like a cat studying a fly.
Then it struck.
A blur of motion—too fast for something so massive.
It sidestepped, caught the runt mid-leap by the throat, and slammed it downward. The wet crack of skull meeting stone echoed through the cavern, sharp and final. Blood burst from the goblin's nose and mouth in twin ribbons, painting the arena floor in streaks of red and pink-gray.
No cheer followed.
Just laughter.
Cruel.Ugly.Heartless.
It rolled across the terraces like a disease, goblins slapping each other's backs, doubling over, barking their mirth like hyenas drunk on rot. One fell from the upper tier and hit the ground below with a snap, only to be ignored as the others kept laughing. Another bit off its own ear in hysterics. Madness. Worship. Ritual.
Eliana shuddered.
Not from horror.
From how deeply it thrilled her.
Something inside her was shifting—no, molting. The sharp edges of her old self—clever, prideful, furious at a world that had tossed her away—were melting in the heat of this place. What remained beneath was pure instinct. Stripped of reason. Naked hunger. Every second she spent in this abyss peeled another layer of civility from her skin.
She watched the Hobgoblin turn from the broken corpse. It didn't revel. It didn't roar. It simply raised its axe—casual, almost bored—and pointed it skyward.
The crowd howled.
A thousand voices shrieking in unison. Bloodlust, yes—but something deeper. Devotion. Adoration. They weren't cheering for a killer.
They were worshipping a god.
And Eliana… she couldn't breathe.
The weight in her chest wasn't fear. It was need. It clawed at her ribs. Twisted in her gut. Her nails scraped into the stone beneath her as she leaned forward, breath shallow, eyes wide.
That could be her.
Not the scrawny runt. Not the ones screaming for scraps in the stands. Not a spectator.
No.
The pit. The blood. The chaos.
The glory.
She wanted it. She craved it. Not just the survival that had kept her crawling through filth and ruin—but domination. The kind of power that bent spines and silenced screams. The kind that made the world stop and watch.
She could feel it blooming inside her now—dark and awful and real.
The crowd faded into static. The jeering goblins became insects buzzing in her ears. All she could see was the Hobgoblin, standing tall in the crimson pool, axe glinting under the flickering torchlight, its skin slick with the blood of the fallen.
And she imagined herself there.
In its place.
No longer hiding. No longer running.
But rising. Conquering.
Her throat burned. Her fingers ached. Her eyes stung with the intensity of her vision.
A goblin behind her let out a wet snarl, dragging a dying creature by the leg toward a meat stall. Eliana didn't flinch. She barely noticed.
Because the hunger had awakened.
And it would not be ignored.