Morning came like a bruise.

  It wasn’t the gentle creep of dawn nor the singing of birds that announced it, but a dull, pressure-heavy ache deep in the sludge’s borrowed skull. A throbbing, low and wet, as if something inside was knocking politely with a hammer made of meat.

  Sludge woke with its face pressed into cold loam.

  Its borrowed lungs drew breath with a rattling wheeze, and for a few confused moments it panicked—thrashing slightly as air burned through soft, human passages that still felt wrong. Too narrow. Too fragile. Too… separate.

  It pushed itself upright with a grunt, thick fingers sinking into the forest floor. Mud packed beneath its nails. Good. Familiar.

  The old trapper sat a short way off, already awake, already working. He had a kettle hung over a modest fire and was sharpening his blade against a flat stone with slow, deliberate strokes.

  Scrrrrk. Scrrrrk. Scrrrrk.

  The sound set something tingling inside the sludge.

  “Morning, pard,” the old man said without looking up. “You snore like a dying boar, y’know that?”

  Sludge blinked. Dew clung to its lashes. It opened its mouth.

  “Mm… m-mornin’,” it croaked, the lumberjack’s voice bubbling up thick and hesitant. “Hhh… head hurts.”

  The trapper snorted. “Aye. That’ll be the grief.”

  He nodded to himself proudly, the answer seemed to satisfy him.

  He rose and handed Sludge a chipped tin cup filled with something hot and bitter. Sludge sniffed it once, recoiled, then drank anyway. The liquid scalded its tongue and settled like a briar in the wash of its cheeks.

  Unpleasant. Necessary? Sludge wasn't quite sure, but the heavy, scalding liquid felt oddly familiar as it washed its way along the lumberjack esophagus and settled in the pit of its belly.

  The forest felt different this morning. Not quieter—tenser. Birds watched from branches without singing. Somewhere far off, something snapped a twig and did not bother to hide the sound.

  The old man packed away camp with a practised efficiency, every movement economical. When he finished, he reached into his pack and withdrew a squat bundle wrapped in oilcloth.

  He held it out.

  “For you.”

  Sludge stared at it. Then at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “Can’t very well go goblin-hunting without something better than them sausage-fingers, can you?”

  Sludge unwrapped the cloth. Inside lay an axe.

  “A-fore you to avenge your boy, like,” said the old man, cloudy-eyed. His bottom lip quivered ever so slightly.

  Not the heavy log-splitter from before—this one was leaner, narrower, its head darkened with old stains that had soaked deep into the metal. The haft was wrapped in cured leather, worn smooth by years of palms and sweat.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Sludge felt something click when it took hold of it. It was a sense of alignment. Of purpose.

  [New Item Acquired: Trapper’s Handaxe

  +2 STR

  +1 DEX

  Bonus: Cleaves soft targets more efficiently]

  The sludge flexed its fingers around the grip. Mud seeped into the leather. The axe did not seem to mind.

  The old man nodded, dabbing the swell of his eyelid ever so slightly. “That there’s done its fair share of honest work. See that it keeps doing so.”

  They set off not long after the pleasantries, though Sludge had made for a poor witness to the sentiment.

  Funny, that. Because the goblins made for even poorer neighbours. That much certainly became clear as the forest thinned and the ground grew wetter, fouler. Totems of bone and stolen iron hung from trees. Crude markings scarred bark and stone—spirals, jagged runes, crude depictions of screaming stick-figures with too many limbs.

  Sludge felt something coil tight inside its core. Memory, maybe. Or instinct. Or perhaps even hunger—just wearing a different hat.

  They found the camp near noon.

  It squatted in a low, fog-choked hollow where the mire swallowed sound as it met the darkest of the forest. Lean-to huts of bark and hide ringed a shallow pit filled with ash and gnawed bones. The smell hit first—rank grease and rot and the sharp tang of goblin musk.

  The old man crouched low, motioning Sludge down beside him.

  “Counted five last time,” he whispered. “Maybe six if they’ve bred again.”

  Sludge peered through a screen of reeds.

  Green-skinned shapes lurked around the firepit. Long arms. Narrow shoulders. Yellow eyes that flicked and darted constantly. One of them gnawed on something pale and fibrous, tugging strips of meat free with blackened teeth.

  The sludge’s grip tightened on the axe. Its breath grew wet.

  “Gob… lins,” it said, the word dragging out thick and heavy.

  The old man’s jaw clenched. “Aye.”

  The sludge did not wait for a plan.

  It rose before it's lumberjack gut could grumble in an old instinct of fear.

  Reeds snapped. Mud sucked greedily at its boots as it lurched forward, lumberjack arms and lumberjack axe lifting high. One goblin looked up just in time to scream.

  The axe came down. It bit deep like the crisp bite of an apple.

  Green blood sprayed hot and slick, hissing faintly as it met the sludge’s skin. The goblin did not fall so much as collapse, its upper half folding wrong as the blade of the axe tore free.

  Sludge roared—a wet, gurgling sound that carried across the hollow.

  The camp erupted into chaos.

  Goblins shrieked and scattered, grabbing spears and knives. One leapt onto Sludge’s back, hacking wildly at its shoulders. The blade skidded and stuck, half-swallowed by sludge and flesh alike.

  Sludge reached back and absorbed it.

  The goblin vanished screaming into its bulk, limbs flailing briefly before dissolving into thrashing impressions beneath the skin.

  [Sludge has gained Well Fed II

  Movement speed increased by 10% for 1 hour]

  Another goblin rushed from the side. Sludge met it with a sideways swing that caved in its ribcage and sent it skidding through the mud like a thrown sack.

  The old man moved with grim efficiency behind it, blade flashing, staff cracking skulls. He did not shout. He did not hesitate.

  This certainly didn't feel like grief. This was practice.

  A goblin with a feathered headdress lunged at Sludge’s face, shrieking something sharp and hateful. Sludge opened its mouth.

  Not to bite, but to pour. It flopped it's lumberjack form downward—fully encompassing the frail little goblin like a wrestler in a pit.

  Sludge surged forward, forcing itself past lumberjack teeth and tongue and down the goblin’s throat. The creature clawed at its own face as its eyes bulged, then burst wetly from the pressure.

  [Sludge Integrity: 41/75]

  When it was over, the camp was quiet.

  Bodies lay strewn and half-sunk in mud. The firepit smouldered weakly, choked by spilled muck and blood. The old man stood breathing hard, leaning on his staff.

  He looked around once—then he spat to the floor.

  “Bastards.”

  Sludge stood amid the ruin, axe dripping green and black. Its chest heaved. Something inside felt… settled. Not quite satisfied. Not yet, at least. But somehow pointed in the right direction.

  “Say… never seen one of ‘em explode like that before. More than lumber you’ve been hauling, pard?”

  [Quest Update: Goblins slain (5/?)

  Reward Pending]

  The old man wiped his blade clean and looked at Sludge.

  “More of ‘em out there, too,” he said quietly.

  Sludge nodded.

  “Good,” it rumbled.

  Beneath its fleshy, sweat-glistened lumberjack form, the sludge shifted beneath the folds of flab and belly hair, slow and patient, as if it were savouring the taste...

  Savouring the taste of sweet, sweet, goblin meat.