This cave now has a flat area carved into one of the walls, in which is mounted a door. A Gelek-sized door made of green-painted wood, with a brass doorknob. Gelek has a good feeling about this door, for some reason. Maybe there will be something to drink inside? Probably there aren't any greenskins. They'd have trouble opening it, for one thing.

What in the god's names? No, he'd remember if there was a door like this in the wall of his cave. 

It's green. Is that a good sign? Greenskins are green. The Bad Moon is green. So, it's probably a trap. Perhaps some orcish engineer attempting to replicate what he'd use on a human. 

... He's still going to open it. With caution and readiness to leap backwards, but he doesn't want to leave unsprung traps in his cave. 

Inside is a room, not too large in terms of Gelek's body, huge to anyone else. It looks better made than what he's probably used to. The floors are made of wood, even and smooth; the walls are painted plaster. There are a few coatracks, and covered lanterns mounted on the walls, but the room is otherwise empty. A hallway joins the room on the opposite side to the door, but he can't see where it leads past a bend maybe a hundred and fifty feet away. Only the flickering of firelight and the soft sounds of indistinct conversation (civilized conversation, not like the sound of greenskins talking to each other) offer a hint.

What. 

This is several flavours of impossible. The world is like that sometimes. But. 

... Is this what home looked like. He doesn't think so - plaster was considered artless and lazy, and it doesn't feel right. But it's been so long, what if he's forgotten. 

He steps through. If this is a trap, it is correctly baited. 

The door swings quietly shut behind him.

Oh my. She hasn't had a guest like this in quite some time. A few quick changes will need to be made to accommodate him.

Zog off. Does the door that just shut behind him open again? 

Nope. It's quite firmly shut.

What if he gives it a solid kick. 

Well, now his foot hurts. Door is still shut.

"I'm afraid that door is a one-way trip. Although, I've found, it doesn't appear before anyone who would be leaving anything important behind."

The voice comes from behind him. It's a woman, not as tall as him, but proportional in height to him. She's wearing a cream-colored dress with a veil draped over the top of her head. She's not speaking his language, but he comprehends her speech nevertheless.

Jokes on the door, his foot already hurt. Marching with bare feet does that to a fellow. 

Nonetheless, the trap is sprung. Now there is only a chance to see if he survives anyway. 

Now he's hallucinating. Great. A simple procedure for when you're hallucinating: stay roughly still, attack everything that seems like it needs attacking, accept that you'll break some things you didn't mean to and that the night goblins are laughing at everything you do, say, and feel. The important part is ensuring that their entertainment is limited to humiliation and not to knives. 

... None of this means he can't have a conversation with the hallucinations. 

"Where is this?" 

"This is the entry hall of my refuge. I, like you, entered this place through that door when I had something I needed to get away from, a long time ago. I don't know if I was the first to come, or the first to survive. This wasn't a very nice place before I got here. But I made some changes, and this place has served as a sanctuary and home for all who have arrived since. I extend that same hospitality to you."

"And who, exactly, are you claiming has arrived?" 

"Several thousand people in total, most of whom have since died or left the refuge. Those who enter through this door, without fail, have something to flee from, and nowhere else to go. They come from numerous different worlds across the multiverse—it's common for my guests to be the only people here from their homeworld. I believe you might be the first person here from yours. A few people have arrived through other means, though it is rare, and people are often born here, especially recently."

"Is that so? What sort of people?" (Will this hallucination contain.) 

"A very wide variety. It's difficult to generalize, but the current population is mostly humans and cats."

Humans. And cats. Well, fair enough. 

"I don't see the need to trouble them, then, while I have the pleasure of your company." 

"Most people are asleep now anyways. It's the middle of the night, according to our arbitrary clock cycle. Would you like something to eat or drink?"

He's only going to make things worse for himself isn't he? But he's very thirsty, can he afford to just sit here and wait for whatever drugs this is to wear off? 

"... Yes please."

"This way."

She leads him out of the room, into the hallway.

"I'm sorry, but I'm reasonably certain if I leave this room I will step in whatever spike traps people have used this hallucination to set up around me. Please don't leave." 

She stops.

"I see. Would it alarm you if I used another body to get you some water, or caused some to appear when you weren't looking?"

"Not more than I am already." 

Then she'll get a (Gelek-sized) tankard of water off a shelf outside of his line of sight (which definitely wasn't there earlier) and hand it to him.

"I think it would be a good idea for you to receive some medical attention. I employ a physician who can perform a simple spell to detect most things that plausibly could be seriously wrong with you. Is that alright?"

He will drink the water in a single long draught, after giving it a sniff to confirm it's purity. 

"I don't suppose I can prevent you." 

He would quite like some medical attention, honestly, but hallucinations are terrible doctors and goblins are worse. 

"I believe it's in your best interests, but not so likely to be urgent that I would proceed over your objections."

Would he like to swap his tankard for another, full, tankard she just grabbed from somewhere else out of his line of sight?

He supposes he would like some more to drink. 

"I would rather not." (Experience hallucinations of interactions with some shaman.) 

"Very well. Is there anything you would like to eat? We have some stew and rice, though perhaps not enough for your appetite, and I can get you anything uncooked easily enough."

"I would be quite happy to have any food you have worth eating, if you have it going spare."

Hallucinations of eating are probably better than not eating at all. 

Sure, here's a table with (human-sized) a pot of stew, a pot of rice, several loaves of bread, several hams, (Gelek-sized) a bowl of salad, a bowl of apples, a plate, a bowl, utensils, and a napkin.

Finger-food and vegetables. ... Better than an empty belly, but it's not mammoth. He'll take it, and eat with gusto and lack of either utensils or decorum. 

She will allow him to eat in peace, and get him more food if he looks like he's still hungry. It's all uncooked stuff out of the pantry, unfortunately.

Uncooked food is quite fine with him. He will eat extensively, putting down enough food to feed a thousand humans and then some more for afters. It's been some time since he's had a chance to eat to satiation. 

Once he is full, he will remember that he has a host. 

"Thank you. I apologise for my lack of table manners." 

"It matters little."

"Why do you believe you're hallucinating?"

"Because you are impossible, and I have 'coworkers' who think hallucinogenics are an amusing jape." 

"And are you experiencing any other characteristic effects of hallucinogens?"

"Your speech is not operating in the manner speech is supposed to." 

"Yes, that's a magical translation effect. My work. I don't know your language, although I'm capable of repeating things you've said. 'You are impossible.'"

"That sounds like something a hallucination would say." 

"Hmm." (He thinks for a moment and then switches languages.) 

The wicked usually attribute,

whatever faults they have to others,

Crows diligently wipe on something clean,

Their beaks they've dirtied by eating filth. 

What does that mean?" 

She repeats it in the language she's speaking, though the meter is different.

"That's a literal translation, if I wanted to preserve the meter I'd say this."

And she recites a poem in the language she's speaking which sounds, to him, like it means mostly the same thing, with some differences in sentence structure and word choice, and identical meter.

"I am reasonably certain you're not a goblin, then. I am quite certain that no living greenskin speaks a word in Sky Titan that isn't a loaned curse." 

"And are the hallucinogens you're familiar with capable of causing you to hallucinate this?"

He thinks. It's easier than it might have been, but he just had a heavy meal and sort of wants a nap.

"I think if I was drugged and when I woke up I believed myself to have been provided food and extemporaneous poetry in a made-up language by a hallucination of a beautiful woman, this would not be outside my expectations, for an experience goblin hallucinogenics could cause." 

"But this feels wrong, somehow, as a frame of reference." 

"Is there any experience you're confident goblin hallucinogenics couldn't cause?"

"This whole situation is very linear and calm, for a hallucination caused by goblin hallucinogenics." 

"Well, yes. That's because it's not," she says, serenely.

"So you say." The suspicion is starting to drain from his voice, though. 

"I don't really know what I could say to convince you it isn't, though I expect you'll persuade yourself of it eventually."

"There is certainly a maximum duration the drugs could last, yes, making a sufficient dosage for me has always been a bit of a problem for them." 

"Well, while you're waiting for that, if you have any questions for me, or there's anything you want, let me know."

Gelek opens his mouth, and then closes it again. What does he want? 

"I don't mean to be a poor guest." 

"I don't think you're being a poor guest. Believing that what they're experiencing isn't real is hardly the typical case for new arrivals, but this is a place for people like you, among others."

"Perhaps you had better tell me what this place is." 

"I've already told you the essentials. If you don't have specific questions or things you're confused about, I could give you the long version of the story."

"I was asking for the long version, yes." 

"There exist many, many separate worlds, which mostly keep to themselves, but under rare circumstances it is possible to travel between them. This one, we call the Eternal House. A seemingly endless series of rooms and hallways, sometimes caves and spaces which... pretend to be outdoors. It plays by its own rules. Things move around when you aren't looking at them, which makes it nearly impossible to navigate. Sometimes it obeys the usual physical principles most of us are used to, sometimes it would prefer not to. All these things make it very difficult for most intelligent life to survive. There are plenty of strange monstrosities, of course, either created by the house itself or somehow able to survive and reproduce within it."

"A long time ago, I found myself on the run from powerful enemies. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I thought I would die. Instead, I found a... distinctly extradimensional green door, and for lack of better options, went through. It was a one-way trip, as it always is, and I found myself in the house, as I described it to you. There wasn't anyone else here, whether because I was the first one to go through the door, or because none of the previous arrivals had survived, I don't know. In any case, despite the many dangers the house posed to mortals, there was nothing here that could challenge me, and I swiftly made myself at home."

Gelek has some level of awareness of other worlds - obviously the ogres (may they be devoured to the last child by their krumping idiot god) came from somewhere. 

"What does the house itself want?" 

"Ah, when I speak of the house wanting or preferring things, that's mostly a metaphor. It behaves in very complex and hard-to-predict ways that could be the result of a goal-driven intelligence, or merely a very complex mapping of random numbers to specific behavior. But if I were to interpret its behavior as purposeful, I would say that it wants to kill people in diverse and unsettling ways."

Really that could also describe most greenskins.

"Sometimes it feels like this is the principle motivation of the universe in general." 

"I don't know what the world you come from is like, but I strongly suspect you'd find the untamed house much more unsettling than you're used to."

"I hope I do not have to find out."

That would be a great excuse for this to degenerate back into the regular sort of night goblin induced hallucination. 

"Don't pass through any red doors, if you ever find one. That would take you out of my refuge, and into those parts of the Eternal House which I have not tamed and made habitable. Otherwise, you'll be fine."

"Got it." 

"At first, I thought I would be all alone here. But eventually, other people began to arrive through the green door. Their circumstances differed, but like me, they all had something to flee from, nowhere else to go, and nothing they'd especially want to return to. We later determined these are true of everyone who passes through that door, although not all arrivals to the refuge do. When my first guests arrived, I found myself glad to have company, pleased to be able to offer others the same second chance at life which I had enjoyed, and... unexpectedly well-suited to the role of a hostess. So I did my best to make this place hospitable to them, to shelter them from the dangers of the house, to which they were far more vulnerable than I. By exerting my power over a part of the house, I have been able to make it safer, more predictable, suitable for mortal life. Further improvements, like the translation effect, came later, and I continue to devise new ones."

"So, that's what this place is. My refuge. A home and sanctuary for all who find themselves here, carved by my power out of an enigmatic world hostile to intelligent life. Thousands of people have lived here, most of whom died here. Currently, I have four hundred twenty seven guests. Including yourself. I wish I could offer shelter to more, but that is—for now, at least—beyond my power."

"I do not think it is the case that I have nothing to return to. My people need me to be a steward and a rememberer of our fate." 

"What do you mean by that?"

"Once we were a great people, rulers of a vast realm, proud and free. All that has been devoured. Now, my people wander in ones and twos amongst the smallfolk, or are the slaves of the powers that be, either way filthy and starving and without knowledge of what they once were. I know of no other survivors of that age who still live." 

"And as a 'steward and rememberer', you do what, exactly?"

"Teach the young blood what I can of the old ways, when I can find them. Do my best to help them remember." 

"And this is something important to you? Something that you feel would compel you to return, if you could?"

"... Well. How could I not?" He doesn't sound enthusiastic about the idea. "They don't have anyone else to save them." 

... Was he saving them? 

She's going to let him work through this one on his own.

He'd rather not work through it at all, honestly.

"What exactly is the nature of your power?" 

"A complete answer would be both beyond your understanding and rely on information I wish to keep secret. But, for the most part, I have used it to exert my will over a portion of the Eternal House, and mostly control its behavior here."

Yeah okay you can't be trusted, great. 

"Who else do you have working with you here?" 

"Working with me in what sense?"

He shrugs.

"Any sense?" 

"I pay Ton'guni, our resident physician, to provide medical services to my guests. Occasionally other people assist me in accommodating guests by providing various services—designing and building furniture for species which have not historically had furniture, for instance. Otherwise, I don't consider any of my guests to be doing work that directly serves my aims, although they do trade things with one another."

"What sort of species have not historically had furniture?" 

"Several of my guests throughout the years have come from cultures that did not practice agriculture or live a sedentary lifestyle, and hence never developed furniture-making. I suppose I don't know that no members of that species ever made furniture, but if they did it was not known to us, and the house refuses to give us new information in that manner. Usually they can use furniture developed for other species, but sometimes that isn't comfortable for them. In one case, one of my guests was a winged humanoid from a hunter-gatherer culture. She disliked sitting on stools, and built a special chair with an exceptionally narrow back that could fit between her wings."

"Most recently we faced this problem with the cats, who did have some specialized furniture developed for them by humans, but not on the assumption that they were sapient. So, there wasn't a straightforward way for them to comfortably sit at a dinner table and eat with other people, for instance. A group of carpenters remedied this by developing a new type of broad high stool."

"Well, fair enough." 

"... No other questions are occurring to me. If you wish to go do ... whatever it is you were planning on doing today before I arrived, I don't mind." 

"My attention is not so limited, but perhaps it would be best to give you some time alone. If you call me, I will come."

And she departs.

What the fuck. He doesn't like it. It reminds him of gods, who are entirely untrustworthy and not nearly as predictable as you'd think. 

Nonetheless, it's the situation he's in. He's going to take a nap and see if things seem clearer when he wakes. 

Well, his head does seem somewhat clearer, and having a chance to nap somewhere comfortable* has reduced the aching in his bones somewhat. He's sort of thirsty, again. He ought to go see if he can find anyone to talk to other than that possibly evil goddess, or something to drink. Maybe they'll have some beer somewhere. 

He wishes he had his club, or really any sort of walking stick, but even without it, he will get up and head out exploring. Carefully. He has good reason to think this place has traps. 

*flat