I was about to die.

The air was rushing past. It was pitch black and I couldn’t see where the ground was – if it was anywhere. But I’d been falling long enough that the impact had to be fatal.

Then I hit something soft and springy. I was bounced into the air again. Then I was falling again. I landed on a curved plane and slid down it, fell another few metres, before my fall was broken by another springy patch.

Finally, I stopped moving, and lay on the ground a moment to work out if I was injured. Thankfully there were nothing too significant; some scrapes and maybe bruises, but that was all. In the dim light, the screen of my wristband caught my eye. The banner at the top of the screen now read: Level 2: Zangoti’Toma.

Amazingly, by this point, I still wasn’t dead.

When I stopped moving I found myself inside a very strange place.

It was the base of a huge hollowed out chamber, containing an eclectic fusion of medieval and futuristic. It looked like some underground research facility, if it had been hit by a bomb and left abandoned. Little rickety scaffolds built up against the stone walls, which flowered with ivy and vines. There were tiny lanterns flickering out from recesses cut into the stone, and screened by glass plates. The flames were cyan blue and wavered like the flames were made of lasers.

As my eyes searched around in awe, I made out details of stone carvings on the walls, as if written in an alien language. At one side, there was a circular pipe entrance.

I began to approach cautiously. It was possibly big enough for me to enter if I got down on my hands and knees and crawled. The dark tunnel inside jittered with the weird blue light, like an underground metro.

Stopping right outside the ringed tunnel, my eye was caught by a dark shape hanging from the underside of the inner top. It looked like a little gargoyle or something.

I did a double take.

And at the top inside of the ringed opening, there was a figure standing up there, upside down. A tiny figure, like a living doll.

“Who’s there?” I called out, my voice bouncing through the chamber.

The figure suddenly dropped from the ringed ceiling, nimbly somersaulted through the air like a cat, before landing nimbly on two legs next to my leg. I jumped back.

“Do not be afraid, visitor,” he said, looking up at me with a grave expression. It looked a bald man except for the grey skin, pointed ears and little upturned fangs pointing out of his bottom lip. He was wearing a light blue jumpsuit like he was from outer space, and had some kind of silver baton strapped to his belt.

“Who are you?” I said.

“I’m Cygon.”

“And, uh…what are you?”

“A goblin.” He peered up at me closely in the lantern light. “Excuse me,” he said finally. “We expected the visitation of our almighty Varathayer in a different form, reincarnated as he was. We didn’t expect that form would not be like one of us.”

“I’m a human,” I said.

“Very well,” Cygon said, unconcerned.

“How come you can stand on the ceiling?”

The goblin gestured to his feet, where I saw he was wearing a thick pair of silver boots.

“Anti-gravity,” he said. “A gift from the Airwalkers of the Cloud City. Their technologies are more advanced than ours.” He grinned toothily. “But we are more intelligent.”

He then strode fearlessly up to my ankle. “Come,” he said, gesturing into the tunnel. “I must take you to our high Arbiter. He will decide if you truly are the Varathayer.”

“Do I have to? I could just tell you right now: I’m not the Varathayer or whatever that is.”

Cygon’s little face looked up at me impassively.

“You are in our service now. We have been waiting a long time for your arrival, Varathayer, and now that you have finally come, we cannot let you leave. If you give me the slightest inference of an intention to shirk your honorable duties, I need only give the signal and my comrades will send you a hail of darts containing tranquilizing agents. If we must contain you, we will.”

I grimaced, in my mind’s eye seeing Gulliver lying on his back, strapped down by ropes, little people treading all over him.

“I’m coming,” I said hastily.

Getting down on my hands and knees, I began to crawl after the little figure. The stone was hard and powdery, within a short time my hands became stained with dust.

“What’s that blue light?” I asked.

“The blue fire.”

“Let me guess, another gift from the Cloud City people?”

“No. We stole that from them after they tried to pollute these tunnels with radioactive waste.”

My brow creased. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think radioactive waste belongs in a game with a medieval fantasy setting.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

We continued in silence for what seemed like a long time. I was about to ask Cygon how far our destination was, when something stopped me.

THUMP THUMP THUMP thump thump …

The tunnel jolted like something big had slammed into it – from above. The dark walls trembled against me and dust rained down overhead, backlit by the lights like blue mist. It sounded like a huge hammer pounding the ground repeatedly, I thought. Maybe a construction tool? – like something that might have carved out these tunnels, initially?

The thing moved fast, about a running pace, and the sounds gradually faded until it was silent again. My mouth was dry from hanging agape.

“Holy hell,” I gulped. “What was that?”

“A giant,” said Cygon, sounding unconcerned.

“There are giants out there?!” I yelped, my near shriek hurting even my own ears, from the sheer echo.

“All powerful,” Cygon addressed me, “you are modest beyond words but it is not becoming for you to feign this degree of ignorance. Was it not you who slayed the four giant kings in the twenty-first verse of the ballad of the Fire Tree?”

I looked on, nonplussed. “Yeah, something like that. Look, the giants don’t come down here, right?”

“Your humble show of ignorance grows most jejune. I am to present you before the tribunal, making a case that you are a true incarnation of our savior. Please do not embarrass me.”

I went silent. We carried on, slowly but steadily making progress down its dark abyssal pipe. The eerie lights illuminated little hollows, smaller tunnels, connecting to bigger one we were following. Glass tubes were connected to the walls, sometimes angling out of or curving into these little tunnels, via u-bends.

The airspace seemed to suddenly expand right out as I entered a much larger chamber, which allowed me to stand up again and look around.

There was more scrap scaffolding piled up around the walls, ropes and cables were suspended from broken pillars, holding up planks to create makeshift bridges and walkways. I saw little goblin faces peering out at me from improvised structures, crossing the planks – at eye level with me – and scampering around on ruined paved roads.

The crumbling stonework was also overgrown with plant life. Furry vines dangled from the ceiling, brushing through my hair as I went. The miniature denizens of this underground world didn’t seem to care; in fact I could spy a few clambering around up and down the vines and ivy.

The little goblin figures darted out of my path as I went further through the chamber. I tried to keep  my eye on Cygon, as there were many very similar looking goblins in here. They looked up at me, startled as my footsteps bounced around like the slam of a basketball in an indoor court. By comparison, their footfalls sounded to me like the pattering of rats or pigeons.

Past this chamber, we moved up some cracked stone steps which led up to an empty basin, cut into the stone floor in an octagon shape, with a ray of light shining down, entering through a crack in the rocky ceiling. Leaning over to glance down, I let out a gasp.

A gaping chasm lay beyond, dropping down into pitch black nothingness. Passageways ran around the edges of the chasm, stacked in a series of storeys. Some of these storeys were connected by ropes, or little ladders. Shaky blue light glittered out from balcony outcroppings, but not enough to illuminate how far the drop went, or what was at the bottom.

Passing the abyss, we turned a corner into a narrow pass which led up a seemingly endless stone staircase. The little goblin leading me seemed to have no trouble climbing this, his anti-gravity boots allowed him to spring up the steps like a jackrabbit. By contrast, I was panting and sweating coldly by the time we came to the top.

Ahead of us there was a circular stone platform directly over another yawning abyss. It didn’t appear to be suspended by anything. A beam of white light spilled from a hole in the stone above, while cyan light danced from below.

The platform was too small to carry me, but not too small to carry the three figures arranged on it. One of them, in the centre was a goblin with very pale, almost white skin. His eyes, too were milky white. He wore a white jumpsuit with a trailing yellow sash with black rune symbols on it, and a pointed mitre hat atop his head, like the pope wore, but it also was decorated in those weird alien runes.

The other two goblins flanking his sides looked like guards, wearing black jumpsuits and carrying long silver bidents whose tips glowed light blue.

Cygon stepped up a ledge facing the platform, where there was a stone block, like a lectern. Atop this was a little silver horn. I stepped forward after Cygon and a couple of goblins made out from the dark, closing in at my ankles. More guards, carrying bidents.

At their small size, their attempts to hem me looked ridiculous and I had to suppress a laugh.

Cygon spoke into the silver horn, which amplified his voice around the cavern.

“I come bearing a most imperative announcement. This stranger standing behind me is none other than the mighty Varathayer, who has unveiled himself to me. This is the coming of the first sign. We must make preparations for the prophesized journey.”

“This is not the first such claim I or any of my predecessors have heard,” said the pope-like goblin. “May the stranger approach.”

Cygon looked back at me, making a shy beckoning motion. His eyes fixed me a hard look that said ‘Don’t embarrass me.’

Stepping carefully so as not to trample either of the guards at my feet, I stopped beside Cygon, not bothering to bend to use the horn on the lectern, seeing as my voice was loud enough.

“Hello,” I said, clearing my throat a little. “Uh, your highness?”

"Greetings stranger. I am the sixty second Arbiter of Celesteor House. If you are the true Varathayer, as you claim, your arrival would presage an occasion more joyous than any in our history. However, forgive us if we seem reticent, as there is much riding on this outstanding declaration. It is incumbent upon me to verify your identity before we may proceed. If you are the Varathayer, you retain the mother tongue and possess the answer to the ancient unsolved riddle: facigaciph'gorthq'pacircept'fifter'borightfuluste'traran'flamidnes'achash?”

“Uh…” My lips moved with silent words, wondering if I was capable of bluffing. I was almost tempted to drop the old ‘me no speakee’ line, before I realized I had no idea what that language was called – Goblinese?

I could almost feel the daggers shooting out of Cygon’s eyes.

“It disturbs me greatly that he does not seem to recall who he is,” said the Arbiter.

“Every incarnation takes some years for the ancestral memories to reemerge,” Cygon jumped in. “Please, high one, grant him the chance to perform the divine call. If it is truly him, we will be blessed beyond measure. If it is not him, he will be ground to dust, or absorbed into her magnificent abundance. We risk nothing.”

My eyes dropped upon Cygon, silently seeking some clarification as to that ominous last part. But his gaze remained stiffly on the Arbiter.

“Very well.” Then the Arbiter addressed me again.

“Stranger, to complete this test you seek an audience with bountiful Juna, most high. You must persuade her to bequeath us her special blessing. Once our souls are duly blessed, we may ascend to the higher planes of this world, higher than the Airwalkers, and even higher than those that walk above the Airwalkers!”

“Where can I find her?” I said.

“Juna may not be ‘found’. You are summoned to her. When you are ready, we will perform the summoning ritual that will instate your passage to her realm.”

“Alrighty,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Let’s do it.” Persuade a lady to give a blessing – how hard could that be?

Cygon and the guards hurried back, giving me a wide berth as the arbiter began talking in that gobbledygook language again, this time intoning a long, humming monastery chant. The cavern gave the sound a creepy echo, like multiple voices were talking at the same time.

Sparks of light flashed in the air, brightening the cavern, and then the air space positively filled with white light, which blinded me for several seconds. I threw my hands up over my eyes, but the light seemed to enter my skull, get inside my head, light up my brain.

For a moment all I was aware of was the buzzing vibrations, and the dazzling light. I could no longer tell whether I was standing or sitting, up or down, under the earth or on its surface. It was neither hot or cold. I seemed to be a loose, insubstantial filament, floating in a vague, boundless ether.

Then a solid surface slid up under my feet again.