A Goblin's Gourmet Guide to the Underdark

With Gnikpaugh’s confidence – and my subtle, long-suffering guidance – growing, he decided it was time to expand his culinary horizons. And by expand, I mean he started trying to poke, prod, and occasionally consume anything that moved, twitched, or merely looked vaguely chewable in the deeper, damper sections of the Deep Deeps. This, naturally, led to a whole new series of unfortunate encounters for yours truly.

“Ol’ Rusty hungry too?” he’d ask, holding me aloft as we peered into a particularly gloomy crevice.

No, Gnikpaugh, I am a dagger. I do not experience hunger, I would think. What I am experiencing is a profound desire for you to not stick me into whatever horrors lurk in there without a discernible plan. Or at least some rudimentary understanding of pointy-end-goes-where.

His bravery, or perhaps terminal stupidity, led us into some truly memorable locales. Caverns dripped with phosphorescent slime, casting eerie, shifting shadows that Gnikpaugh insisted were “sneaky shadow-beasties.” Tunnels echoed with the gurgling of unseen water and the chittering of things I devoutly hoped would remain unseen. The bioluminescent fungi here grew in spectacular, if unsettling, profusion, painting the subterranean world in hues of sickly green, ghostly blue, and a rather alarming shade of purple that pulsed faintly.

Our adversaries also received an upgrade. We graduated from mere oversized insects to territorial, acid-spitting cave slugs that left sizzling trails on the rock and, more worryingly, on any part of a goblin or his dagger that didn't move fast enough. Stitch’s assistance became less about gentle nudges and more about frantic, last-second "suggestions" to dodge, you imbecile, dodge!

Then there were the Leggy Nightmares. That was my name for them, anyway. Scuttling, multi-jointed horrors the size of small dogs, with far too many eyes and clacking mandibles. Gnikpaugh, in a moment of tactical genius, decided the best approach was to charge directly into their midst, yelling what he probably thought was an intimidating war cry but sounded more like a distressed badger.

It was during one such Leggy Nightmare rodeo that I felt a distinct change. As Gnikpaugh, mostly by accident and my increasingly desperate mental shoves, managed to impale the alpha Nightmare through one of its many eyes, the thrum of energy I received was noticeably stronger. And later, as he was wiping a truly offensive amount of goo off me (using his own equally offensive loincloth, naturally), I could have sworn my edge felt… different. Keener. Holding its sharpness with a new resilience.

Gnikpaugh, of course, just grunted. “Ol’ Rusty good poker. Sharp today. Gnikpaugh make sharp.” He then proceeded to try and eat one of the Leggy Nightmare’s antennae, gagged, and spat it out.

Acid slugs. Leggy Nightmares. Gourmet goblin snacks, I mentally cataloged, trying to maintain some semblance of sanity. It’s a rich tapestry, this existence. A sticky, smelly, frequently terrifying tapestry. And if he even thinks about tasting that pulsating purple fungus over there, I’m going to… well, I’m still just a dagger. But I will be a very, very disappointed dagger. Vigorously so. The thought, however, was accompanied by a faint, almost smug sense of my own improved deadliness. Maybe being a goblin’s shiv wasn’t entirely without its perks. Microscopic, foul-smelling perks, but perks nonetheless.