Inside The Goblin's Head That Jumps.
Fivik frowned as she tried to make sense of the words He Xi had written down from memory: IlharI"khalthælik.
"It looks a little like ancient Elvish, but... not quite."
She tapped the paper with a fingertip and looked up at He Xi. "Where did you see this?"
He Xi briefly recounted the kobold's commission, focusing on the cave mouth that led into the dense fog and Trist's strange little cabin in the woods.
"...The thing that seemed most off to me was that it's already late autumn, but there was no stove in the cabin. Instead, there was a huge water tank beside the hammock."
Fivik thought for a moment, then waved a hand toward the bookshelf.
She used [Mage Hand] to take a large, black-bound book from the highest shelf.
She blew the thick layer of dust off the cover, releasing a heavy musty smell into the air.
A line of archaic lettering, written in faded silver paint, ran across the cover: <Tracing and Identifying the Scripts Beneath the Surface>.
Her little hands swiftly turned the heavy pages as she murmured to herself, comparing the text over and over.
After a long while, the furrow in her brow finally relaxed.
"Just as I thought. This is Drow script—the language of the Elves who live underground."
"Drow? Elves? There are Elves like that?"
"That's right. They're a people who live underground." Fivik pointed to an illustration on the page—a slender figure with dark skin, silvery-white hair, and leather armor patterned with spiderwebs.
"More precisely, they live in Andelker, a vast underground world far beyond anything you can imagine. There's no day or night there, only eternal darkness and... some natives who aren't exactly welcoming to visitors."
He Xi stared at the illustration for a