Arden Vul - Dungeon World - Session 7

 Arden Vul Session 07

What Gog Knows

Date: May 11, 2026

Party: Florian (bard), Lorez (wizard), Cedric (Fighter), Johannes (cleric), Runner (Ranger)

See the whole thing on my Arden Vul campaign page.

Gog is speaking to someone, someone you cannot see.

They came down the stairs with goblins beside them.

Not prisoners.
Not hunters.

Companions.

I heard them long before they reached the river.

The poison smell reached the water before the blood did.

Mm.

The goblins from below had done well for themselves.
They had found strangers with silver in their pockets and murder in their hands.

Skeff brought them safely through the hidden way.
Past the beastmen.
Through the halfling scouts.

And when they reached my cavern, Skeff spoke true.

“The bargain is finished,” he said.

A clean thing.
An honest thing.

But the strangers asked the goblins to wait.

They promised more payment.
More silver.
More reward once the talking was done.

Mm.

So the goblins waited at the foot of the stair.

While the strangers came to Gog.

They asked for paths.
They asked for secrets.
They asked for the shape of the deeper dark.

And they brought tribute.

One of Kerbal Khan’s dragonflies.

A delicate thing.
Cleverly made.
Too fine for these tunnels.

I remember how it turned in the cavern light.
I remember the feel of its wings in my hands.

The strangers spoke carefully.
Respectfully.

So I answered carefully in return.

Measured words.
Safe words.
Enough to guide them.
Enough to keep them from drowning below.

I let them leave my river alive.

Then they went back to the stair
  toward the waiting goblins.

And the fire came.

Not frightened fire.

Thrown fire.

Chosen fire.

I heard the screams before I saw the light.
Goblin voices echo strangely through wet stone.
Thin at first.
Then sharp.

Then fewer.

I ran toward the burning place.

Too late.

Two goblins lay consumed in the cave.
Burned black.
Split open.
Smoking in the dark.

Five more piled at the base of the stairs.

And the strangers—

Mm.

The strangers had taken ears.

Not weapons.
Not silver.

Ears.

Proofs.

I saw the cuts.
Quick work.
Practiced work.

Not slaughter born from panic.

Deliberate killing.
Deliberate taking.

Then the strangers fled back up the stair before I could reach them.

I heard boots scraping stone.
Fast steps.
Hard breathing.

Afraid.

Good.

They should be afraid.

The smoke of burned goblin flesh drifted through my cavern for hours afterward.
The river carries it still.

And now I know the shape of them.

Polite mouths.
Careful bargains.
Murder waiting underneath.

They think the deep dark does not remember.

Mm.

But below remembers everything.

And Gog remembers most of all.