Celine

> begin

You open your eyes to the reek of damp molted husk and copper, your body small, green-skinned, and shivering against the warm stone floor. Your fingers end in broad, blunt nails; your jaw aches with a crowded row of sharp newborn teeth. Across the birthing pen, a broad grey-green woman with pitch-black eyes turns her heavy gaze upon you—Broodmother Sza, keeping the count of the fresh spawn. "Three way-acts to prove your blood before the Trialmaster's bell tolls the cull," Sza rumbles, her voice like grinding shale. "A kill, a feast on the fresh flesh, or a true turning. The climb upward is barred until you pay it." Before the words fully settle, a scrabbling shriek echoes from the feeder trench as a lesser monster—a blind, razor-snouted tunnel scavenger drawn by the birth-blood—scurries over the rim, snapping its jaws straight toward you. The beast lunges low across the gore-slick flags, eager to make a meal of an unranked runt, while the open burrow behind you offers a narrow gap just wide enough to scramble clear into the crowded Warren.

> *Think to myself “I really hope im not a goblin, eww hate those” and then I defend myself and attack the creature*

You roll hard across the slick stone as the lesser monster snaps empty air, your blunt green claws catching the edge of a broken paver to haul your shivering newborn weight around. Instinct roars through the wet hollow of your skull—not human caution, but the vicious, low-cunning panic of a goblin line finding its balance. When the beast wheels with another shrill hiss, you do not scramble for the burrow; you drop low, drive both hands into its narrow throat, and smash its snout downward against the flagged floor. The cartilage gives with a wet, sharp crunch, and the thrashing thing goes limp beneath your fingers, leaving your small arms trembling and your palms smeared with black, oily gore. "First kill takes the panic out of the blood," Broodmother Sza rumbles from above the nesting pens, stepping down with the heavy, liquid grace of an elder slime as her dark eyes fix on the dead vermin at your feet. "A dead thing is only dirt until you claim it, little green skin. You carry nothing into this hollow but hunger, and the Molt Warrens above stay sealed tight until three true way-acts wake your first rank. Eat the meat while it steams, or leave the carcass for the trench and tell me what plan you mean to weave instead." The carcass cools against the stones between your feet, black bile pooling under its broken jaw while Sza waits for your answer.

> *start eating it and ask the mother* “I know im green but I really hope im not a goblin mother”

Your teeth tear into the steaming sinew of the carcass, the rank, bitter grease coating your tongue as you swallow the cold gristle down. Deep in your chest, no sudden heat ignites; your belly churns on the tough muscle, but the Tower grants no surge of power, no chime of essence waking in your blood. You have already claimed the spark of this dead vermin with your first strike, and the cooling meat gives only bulk, not growth. Broodmother Sza watches your jaws work, a low, wet rumble vibrating in her heavy throat as her dark, solid eyes narrow upon your green skin.

> “What am I?”

Broodmother Sza snorts, a wet sound of shifting silt, and points a blunt, clawed finger down at your squat, leathery green knuckles and sharp jaw. "You are a goblin, newborn—small, sharp-toothed, and born into dirt," she says, her tone neither pitying nor cruel as she nudges a wriggling larva away from the tunnel mouth. "A lone goblin is meat for the cull. But a goblin with cunning, tools, and a pack becomes whatever she claws out of the Spire's hide." Nearby, Shard-Mouth’s cold, calculating eyes track the newborn brood with ruthless appraisal, his posture rigid as the stone beneath you hums with mounting instability. Sza leans closer, her solid dark gaze pinning you where you sit beside the cold carcass. "Hate your skin if you like, but you still owe two more way-acts before the Trialmaster's bell tolls the purge. Are you going to crawl into the shadows to scheme your next blooding, or will you stand and swear yourself to a band?"

> “i refuse. i refuse to sinply be a goblin and follow the beaten path. I wont stay this way”

Your declaration cuts through the damp haze of the nursery, and Broodmother Sza lets out a heavy, gravelly chuckle that rumbles deep in her translucent chest. she rumbles, watching you with unblinking, dark eyes. Near the rim of the birthing trench, Shard-Mouth pauses his silent calculation of the fresh broods, his predatory gaze flicking toward your defiance with cold amusement before he turns away toward the darker tunnels. A squirming, blind newborn spawn scrabbles suddenly out of the muck at your feet, snapping its soft mandibles against your ankle in a frantic scramble for warmth and biomass. Sza folds her arms, the monster-core beads around her neck clinking in the heavy, pressurized air of Basecamp.

> Examine Carapace Plate

You pull the scorched Carapace Plate from your pack, feeling the blistering heat radiating off its blackened ridges. Beneath the soot, the chitin holds an unyielding, dense temper forged in deep fire—a salvage piece heavy enough to strap across your broken ribs, though wearing it raw against torn skin will burn before it guards. Behind you, the conduit walls hum with blinding monster-light as the Spire’s instability surges toward its limit; two turns remain before the floor vents its boiling marrow upward. Maricus does not offer the lattice again. He turns his calcified gaze toward the shuddering conduit where the stone fractures into the Veins of Mythora, his synthesized limbs vibrating to the frequency of the rising purge. "The floor cleanses itself of broken vermin," he states flatly, stepping back as crystalline shards seal the passage behind him. "Climb the Veins before the pressure shears the stone, or perish in the wash." The narrow opening into the Veins of Mythora begins to narrow under cascading stone, while the scorched plate in your grip radiates enough heat to cauterize your bleeding frame if strapped tight. With Maricus sealing the rear and the Spire ready to blow, the collapsing passage stands open for only moments.

> Leave this place to save the remaining lost brood to finish my quest

You drag your shattered ribs clear of the conduit's mouth, leaving Maricus behind in the grinding dark as you spill into the Undergate Warren. The stone floor beneath your knees shudders with a violent, deep-marrow vibration; the Spire's instability has reached its boiling crest, with the walls pulsing in rhythmic, blinding flashes of monster-light that announce the vent is exactly 1 turn away. Your breath comes in shallow, whistling gasps as your failing frame struggles to hold itself together at sixteen vitality, every splintered bone grinding under torn skin while you clutch your blade and the heavy tokens of your kills. Broodmother Sza towers over the nest-stones, her massive, grey-green shoulders rigid as she watches you stumble back into the cavern. Her pupil-less eyes scan the predatory Chaos warping your flesh, reading the first-rank marks etched into your bloodline alongside the brutal toll taken on your battered frame. "You crawl back on three legs and expect to chase the lost younglings into the western tunnels?" she spits, her voice a heavy rasp over the rumbling stone. "Three more acts of the goblin way—cunning, schemes, or a sworn band—are what it takes to earn your second rank and the right to stand at the Ashen Tier gate, Celine. A corpse cannot lead a pack, and the western breach will swallow whatever strength you have left before you reach them." The cavern behind her shivers as a crack splits the ceiling, raining chalk and grit over the nesting hollows. The scent of ozone and gathering discharge fills the stagnant air, warning that the entire Warren will churn the moment the floor purges its pressure. Sza does not move to bar your path, but her gaze remains cold and measuring as she waits to see whether your broken body turns back to seek shelter and bind your crushed chest, or throws itself directly into the western tunnels before the eruption seals the younglings in the dark forever.

> Cunning you say? Is that all I need? Well, would you not say I am the most intelligent and cunning goblin you’ve seen?

Sza’s pale, translucent throat ripples as she lets out a wet, guttural hiss that rattles the stone alcoves. The floor cracks with a sickening heave, and black, boiling molt-slurry erupts through the stone seams, flooding the chamber up to your ankles in scalding brine. The surge has broken through the lower vents, and five turns remain before this drowned hollow is claimed entirely by the tide. Riding the crest of the foul water, a thick-bodied silt eel thrashes violently into the breach, its jagged needle-teeth snapping toward your broken ribs as the venomous wake burns your raw skin. Your strength gutters near collapse, barely clinging to sixteen vitality as the scalding current rises around your knees. Broodmother Sza steps back onto a higher ledge, watching your trembling grip on the stolen blade with unblinking eyes to see if your boasted cunning can carve the beast apart or if you will haul your shattered bones toward the upper conduit before the chamber drowns you both.

> choice-1

You lunge forward, driving the stolen blade straight down through the silt eel’s thrashing maw until the crude steel crunches deep into the floorstone below. The creature whips violently against your shattered ribs before shuddering out its last tremor, leaving dark ichor pooling into the scalding brine around your boots. The exertion tears through your ruined torso, fire flaring behind your cracked chest as your breath rattles in your throat. Broodmother Sza steps down from her ledge, nudging the dead silt eel with a clawed heel while the stone arches hum with blinding monster-light. "Brutal enough," she rumbles, her unblinking gaze assessing your trembling hands and the blood seeping through your rags. "The Spire vents in three turns, little void-crawler, and you are bleeding out on my floor. If you want to ascend the Molt Warrens to the Ashen Tier, three more way-acts of cunning and blood must be paid—and the gate will not open to a corpse." Beyond the collapsed archway toward the Basecamp Trial Hall, a heavy scraping resounds through the shuddering stone, signaling fresh movement in the vents. Sza folds her heavy arms, waiting for your battered frame to yield or force its way onward before the brine consumes the floor.

> For my last act of cunning, could you teach me how to make your healing salve? I will need to know that for my future pack

Broodmother Sza stares down at your shivering, torn torso, the green translucence of her thick jaw tightening as scalding brine laps at the stone beneath your knees. "A cunning runt does not beg for milk while bleeding out in the conduit," she rumbles, her voice heavy and thick like cooling mud. She nods toward the fresh carcass floating in the dark brine, then pulls a small, fibrous lump of chewed moss and dried crawler-bile from her belt pouch. "You want the secret? The salve is simple: crushed bladder-rind of a silt eel, boiled in brood-bile, bound with salt-lichen. But knowledge does not close a punctured lung. You eat to seal your flesh, or you take my scrap and give me your token." The Spire groans deep in its roots, stone seams weeping hot vapor as the clock runs short—three turns remain before the lower vents blowout completely and flush the warren. Sza extends one thick, grey-green palm, offering the greasy brood-salve, her blank eyes fixed on your First-Skin Token. Your ribs scream with every shallow breath, the venomous burn of your open wounds dragging your strength toward nothing. Sza waits, offering the bitter poultice only in trade for your shed token, while the fresh silt eel carcass drifts beside your boots, thick with dark, raw marrow.

> Go kill 3 more apex predators

You stumble past Thistlewick's outstretched arm, the stolen blade dragging a screeching groove into the stone as your failing limbs surge with blind hunger. The wet, pulsating fissure beneath the drainage rib suddenly ruptures, disgorging a squirming mass of blind wall-leech cluster onto the floor. Driven entirely by raw Chaos instinct, you bury the blade into the writhing center of the nest, hacking and crushing until the twitching flesh goes limp and spatters dark ichor across your boots. Your chest screams in agony from the effort, shallow gasps barely filling your lungs as the kill settles into the Spire's cold bedrock. The floor itself trembles, an ominous surge of monster-light pulsing through the cracks as unstable pressure builds behind the bastion walls. "You hunt like a beast half in the grave," Zarthus barks, stepping back from the spattered bile while his eyes track the twitching remains. "The carcass is spent, goblin. Pass the Molt Warrens floor-gate once your transformation is complete, or rot here where you stand."

> Ill go get my next one right now.

You pivot toward the dark seam, but your torn flank gives out with a sharp, sickening pull that drops you hard against the wet basalt. The crude blade in your fist clatters against stone as blood seeps freely through your makeshift bindings, the shuddering rhythm of your chest betraying just how close your body is to folding entirely. Zarthus does not even turn to help, already crouched over a dripping cleft to scrape fresh marrow from the stone, his eyes fixed purely on harvesting the raw void-fragments for his own ascent. Across the seam, a blind wall-leech cluster hums with a wet, discordant appetite, its pulsing body reacting violently to the scent of your spilled blood. Voice-of-Stone Maru steps forward, their grey robes brushing the slime of the floor as the resonance crystal at their temple thrums in grim harmony with the Spire's rising fury. "You asked for the trial instead of fleeing like the rest of the vermin," Maru states, their voice flat and cold as slate, "yet you bring raw hollow-talk to the threshold. The gate does not open to promises of what you will hunt; it opens only when the horror before you is split and claimed by your own hands." The leech cluster heaves forward, glistening ridges expanding as it prepares to latch onto your failing flesh. Maru stands motionless, watching to see whether your broken frame will strike the creeping mass down where you bleed or if your ambition ends in this puddle of dark marrow.

> I go kill the next apex

Your stolen blade plunges downward into the wet tangle of the blind wall-leech cluster, pinning the writhing mass to the stone floor until the bloated segments shudder and go limp. Black, viscous fluid drains out over your boots, the creature's dying twitches leaving the cavern silent save for the ragged whistle in your punctured chest. The kill settles cold in your marrow—a sharp, unmistakable toll paid toward the threshold above, though the carcass remains untouched and unconsumed at your feet. Voice-of-Stone Maru steps forward, the humming crystal at their temple casting sharp grey light across your broken frame and the fresh puddle of leech-ichor. "The hunt for the apex is attempted," Maru murmurs, eyes tracing the tremor in your grip rather than the dead vermin. "A hollow strike buys nothing from the stone, goblin. If you mean to pass the Molt Warrens floor-gate, the Spire demands genuine prey, not wall-scum." From the dark mouth of the passage toward The Molt Warrens: Abyssal Sinkhole, a heavy, chitinous scraping echoes upward—a deep-dwelling apex shifting in its nest, far beyond the reach of this chamber. Thistlewick mutters a curse under his breath, eyes flicking from your blood-slick hands to the looming archway of the fissure. Your body burns, each heartbeat threatening to tear open what little flesh holds you together, leaving you teetering on the edge of complete collapse before the gathered watchers.

> Go and get my last apex kill

You lunge forward toward the dark, thrashing depths of the fissure, but your ruined ribs grind together with a sickening crunch. Your knees buckle beneath your weight, the claimed climber’s blade clattering uselessly against the slime-slicked stone as a fresh wave of black blood spills over your punctured chest. The predatory pulse in your veins flares and sputters, suffocated by the sheer ruin of your broken body; the apex beasts prowling the deep trench remain untouched in the dark, their chitinous scraping echoing mockingly against the cavern walls. "I witnessed your desperate kill, little stray, and I watched your failing frame split wide to do it," Voice-of-Stone Maru says, their resonance shard humming a cold, disdainful note. "The pit does not yield to a carcass on its knees. You will find no apex blood to claim while you bleed out upon the floor." Thistlewick hovers near the stone rib, his darting gaze fixed on your shuddering hands.

> I search for my last fight

You drag your broken posture across the slick basalt, searching the dark seam of the fissure for something living to butcher, but the chasm answers only with cold vapor and the hollow rattle of your own ribs. Blood bubbles across your cracked chest with every step, the stolen climber's blade scraping uselessly against stone as your vision blurs. There are no apex beasts stirring in the shallows—only the drained husks of your previous kills, their harvested cores already resting heavy in your pack. "Look at you—I didn't pull you out of the sludge just to watch you drop dead of an empty pride," Thistlewick snarls, darting back and pointing a trembling claw toward the seam's lower shelf where an undulating shape begins to stir. "The seam will not offer soft prey to a failing vessel," Maru intones, stone-grey robes catching the rising violet radiance of the Spire's unstable core. A razor-finned silt eel heaves its bulk from the deep sludge below, its maw yawning wide as the pressure builds around your failing heart.