The giant humanoid eye remained still, its pupil slowly shifting until it locked onto the man's gaze. He stared back for a moment, then gently closed the door. He inhaled his cigar, looked up at the sky before exhaling smoke.
"I'm more exhausted than I thought," said the man.
"Well, it was a long walk," the goblin added.
The man put his hands back on the handle and pulled the door open.
The eye remained, still fixed on the man.
He closed the door again, inhaled, looked upward, and released another cloud of smoke. "I never noticed how beautiful the sky is," the man said.
"Look! Stars!" the goblin pointed.
Once more, he opened the door..
"I've been expecting you for a while now," the eye spoke in a woman's voice.
Shutting the door, the man turned around and stepped away, with the goblin following behind.
As the two were about to leave, the door creaked open. The goblin's and the man's feet levitated, their bodies rose into the air making the man drop his cigar from his mouth , and in an instant they were pulled into the door and shut inside.
"Troll!" he called.
"I am not..." the voice of the goblin responded. "Never mind."
Out of nowhere, strange noises began to fill the darkness. The sound of a thousand monotonous taps surrounded.
"I haven't seen you for a long time," the woman's voice from before spoke and the dark was then instantly replaced with a luminous blue light from the glowing glare of an eye "and this is how you greet me?"
The man slowly stepped back as the eye levitated over them only for his leg to bump into something below him. The man tilted his head down behind him making him flinch three steps to the opposite direction.
Illuminated in the light was a huge segmented mass lined across before him carried by black limbs with long pointed ends from each side writhing slowly.
"What do you want?" asked the eye.
"Answers" the goblin replied. "We want answers!"
The eye shifted its gaze to the man, "I see," it spoke.
The luminous light slowly disappeared as the eye closed, the darkness wrapped for a moment before it was once again replaced by a different light. Small bright lights began to light, tiny beetles flying off the walls, and scattering everywhere like tiny flames revealing a cylindrical hollow space inside the stump.
Brighter than before, the man soon realized that the abomination that was before him belonged to an eye embedded centipede similar to what he saw from the woods, only it was gigantic.
The centipede opened its eyes again, in a sudden, it began to crawl creating a similar tapping sound from before, writhing as it gathered itself and curling into a giant sphere.
Its curled body then disintegrated into millions of small eye embedded centipedes, crawling all over the wooden floor, and unearthing a woman in a long black dress. She had black antennas on her head, one eye like a cyclops, black lips, pale grey skin and a long black hair.
"It's already surprising when I saw you with that human in Crawling Forrest," the woman spoke. "What did you bring him here for?"
"Take us down and I'll tell you when we get there." the goblin answered.
"Fine." the woman agreed. Slowly, she extended her right palm facing up, and tilted it upside-down.
A loud thud then came from beneath them in an instant. The sound of ticking followed as the floor started to descend into the ground, the door they entered in rose higher and higher above their reach, and the rugged ceiling over them also disappeared in the dark as the tiny beetles followed them down with their light.
"So..." the man looked at the goblin and whispered hiding his mouth behind his hand. "Who's the lady?"
"Is this how you usually do introductions?" the woman asked.
"Sorry... I... Uh..."
"No need for apologies, but since you're asking him..." the woman turned her gaze to the goblin.
"Well... Uh... Ahem!" the goblin cleared his voice, "This is Optessa..." he directed his hand to her. "She's... Uh... well... she's-"
"An old acquaintance of his." the woman added. "So human, what do you call yourself?"
"Fel." the man answered. "They call me Fel."
"Fel, I believe you've met Cog."
The man then turned to the goblin and extended his right hand. "Cog".
The goblin did the same and shook the man's hand. "Fel".
"What?" the woman spoke.
After a while, their descent came to stop. Another door appeared from where the previous one was.
"A parallel walker?" Optessa exclaimed. "That is unexpected."
"Parallel walker?" asked Fel.
"It's what we call those who are from the other world." she answered.
She approached the door and stood before it, "Nothing has changed ever since you left." said Optessa. The handle then twisted itself and the door pushed open, "I just want to let you know." she slightly turned to the goblin with a side glance.
They then proceeded to the door and into a tunnel. At the end of it was light.
Fel halted for a moment, meanwhile Cog and Optessa went ahead, "Are you coming or what?" Cog called.
"Y-yeah!" Fel replied.
Slowly, he continued his steps. He got closer and closer to the end of the tunnel, and before he knew it he was on the other side.
Fel's eyes slightly widened.
Before him stood a gigantic underground dome, as large as a soccer stadium. Thousands of bookshelves filled the entire space, stretching across the floor and even carved into the walls.