They spent about an hour in that little house. The goblins hadn't broken down the door or hunted them down, so wherever they had went, they were probably a good ways away. Gen wasn't sure how Kat had managed it, but the muscled lady had calmed down enough he could even catch some shut-eye. Well, it had only been thirty minutes- he took a nap and had Kat on guard-duty, and then he switched with her and let her rest. It was sleep, nonetheless, and no matter how far they'd get off the rocker, everyone needs sleep at some point. He still desperately wanted to slap himself down on the spare mattress and spend the whole night there, on a real bed for the first time in the God knows how long it had been since they arrived in this new world, but he couldn't afford it. There was too much to do.
He poked Kat, trying to wake her. It was time to move. She shuddered, muttering something about "five more minutes" and "the sleep button", but when he shook her a just a tiny bit, she went lucid. Her eyes shot open and she tensed. When she saw it was just him and there were no little green men clustered around the small room, she relaxed a little. He was pretty sure she was peeved about being woken up so soon, but they really couldn't afford that much time. Things would only get harder with the rising sun. All things considered, she handled it pretty well. When she woke him up, he nearly took her arm off before he realized what was going on.
Gen stood, properly addressing the two strangers in the room. The muscle-bound mother was still awake, eyes trained on them but not nearly as hostile as they had been when they first arrived. Her child was sleeping, of course. It was well past curfew, no matter what world you were in. "Thank you for your compliance. It will be remembered." He said. He almost blushed- that line was entirely too 'Darth Vader' for his tastes. Kat chuckled a little, but the woman seemed to be taking it well. She nodded gravely, otherwise unmoving. She seemed to be waiting for them to just go and leave her and her child alone. Even the kindest of home invaders were still invaders, no matter how you painted it. So they left, without proper goodbyes or time for second thoughts. They needed to get clear of the building before the woman could find someone to tell about their presence.
The streets were dark, so dark. The only light was that of the moon, which was almost new. No one had come by to light lamps or place candles, and nothing came from the windows of homes, shuttered as they were. More than likely, most everyone had been ordered to hide inside, so most of the buildings were occupied. They probably should have considered that before just picking a door and running in, but it was a bit late for regrets. They ran along the dark corridors, rarely slowing down to take in the details and feel out for walls when it became too dim to move at speed. Gen was in the lead, this time. He had a pretty good idea of where Merrilyn had gone. They made good time despite the circumstances, reaching once more the market where they had been chased before. Within the clearing, a few solemn candles still burned. The distant glow of the traveler's district- the inns and eateries- had finally given way to pure smoke. The fire was likely almost over, if not entirely.
This time, it was not empty- not entirely. He didn't know where she was hiding before, but she had probably been giving the guard the slip like they had tried to avoid the goblins. Now, she was in broad daylight- moonlight?- and holding her arm above her head. She was directly below the gate, and surrounded by guards. They kept their distance, but and despite their relative size, there was enough of a gap between them he could see her. Merrilyn, the third member of their little crew. The first thing he noticed was that she was holding a misshapen block of something yellow and tan, with a cloth 'handle' sticking out of the structure. His guess had been right, more or less. It was some variety of RDX, complete with a hand-made detonator. She had been industrious, too- he could spot several more of the blocks sitting on the ground at either end of the massive gate. That was probably the main reason she wasn't being brutally murdered, or at least apprehended, at the moment. She had set up her own chain detonation, one the guard didn't understand, but one that certainly had the power to level the only other gate into- or out of- the city.
Everything else he took in all at once. Her skin was pale in the night, and paired with her face, she looked like a ghost. Her face was the picture of 'calm', and despite the fact she was holding explosives, she seemed unworried and unconcerned. A bit too unconcerned, in fact. Even when she noticed their approach, she merely glanced at them and nodded slightly. There was no surprise, happiness, relief, tears, or even just overwrought drama like what they had come to expect from her. Gen had never seen her 'calm', not even once. In the short time they were in a group, she had been the most expressive of the three.
Deliberately. That was the theory, anyway. A good Generalissimo did not ignore his soldiers' personality, or their mental state. He had learned the basics of evaluating these things at a younger age, around the time he had wanted to really start crushing it in the little skirmishes they had. By building a profile, he could start to play around 'who they were' rather than preset strategies and expectations. He had applied the same concepts to his own team, when they still let him have one. It was a function of time and experience, and it distinguished those who would be stabbed in the back by a misevaluated soldier from those who would fall unconscious and wake up on the back of their trusted officer on the way to the military hospital. At least, that was the thought. If he had access to modern psychology, why not use and abuse it?
It had been a sub-hobby of his hobby, but he had learned enough. Hardly a professional-grade, but for all of Merrilyn's talent with acting, she still had lapses. They were not in the comfortable environment she had learned to manipulate, and she had not suitably concealed her nature from the start. It was simply too much of a coincidence that a hapless 'girl' like her had survived two sets of cannibals all the way to the last day, anyway. That had caught him off guard. He had other guesses as to what really happened in the pit, and why everyone left her alone, but she was the important part. Not what she had done.
A number of signs had been preeminent, all the way from the start. She had never been nervous in ordinary situations, on hunts or in action, but she was exaggeratedly concerned over 'risky' endeavors. She had very limited shame, even for someone who underwent such a traumatic scenario or was "steeled" to the situation. She had even tried to use and abuse her shamelessness for social 'points' from time to time. She was eminently smart, but awkward in circumstances where she should have had a clear reaction, and despite all of her posturing and befriending, she had never really 'connected' with them like she should have. He had written it off as mostly due to trauma and the 'social anxiety' she claimed to have (and never consistently demonstrated), but he had always had a suspicion as to her true nature in the back of his mind.
She was a Sociopath. She was a legitimate sociopath, of the sort that lack fundamental elements of empathy and emotion. Gen suspected that she had been that way long before they had come to the new world, regardless of if it screwed with her head or not. She was a basket-case, a loose cannon, a mad bomber.
…
Not that he cared. So what if she was a bit broken? She was useful. As long as he kept her true nature in mind, they could have a healthy working relationship, even if she would never be as close of a confidant as Kat was at this point. Hell, she might even be more useful on the merits of not caring what he did or said as long as it didn't harm her chances of survival or well-being. Kat wasn't a bleeding heart, but she hadn't quite let go of her sympathies yet. It made her all the more appealing to connect with, to feel some semblance of modernity, but it made her a liability of sorts, too. He could only hope that it wouldn't be her undoing, in the long-run.
Merrilyn had set up the stage. She had faded into the dusk like a ghost in the night, rained hell down on the city, and now she had re-appeared, complete with a captive audience. Gen was a bit worried about the absence of the mage-lady, but without extreme circumstances, his plan could work. It was time for action. He stopped walking nearer to the group, veering off to grab a table. It wasn't super stable, but he needed a platform. Kat helped him bring it along without dragging it. In retrospect, even if he could win fights with one hand tied behind his back (or in this case, crushed near-flat), it was trying to do literally anything else that sucked. It might have been a bit too much to hope for a legitimate prosthesis, but he'd need to replace it with something eventually, at least before his arm started to atrophy or gangrene from ill use.
He hopped on the table, which they had sat as close to the middle of the road as humanly possible. To his surprise, none had yet turn around. They were impressively well-focused on Merrilyn, who was still stony-faced and immobile. Her eyes were upturned, though, following his actions. She had provided them what she felt was the best odds at an outcome beneficial to her. It was up to him to deliver that. Or, at least, deliver the best outcome for their whole group. So he stood on the table, standing as confidently as he could, and spoke.
"Submit immediately. We have placed explosives in the nurseries and hostels and your homes. If you disarm now, no more people need to die."
The soldiers whirled around, startled. Each of the Frankenstein-men was shocked. Even as they moved, Merrilyn withdrew something from her little skirt-pouch with her unused hand. It was a little fire-bug, dead but still plenty functional. She had been striking it to light the fire-crackers, probably. More importantly, she had been bluffing the guards with the RDX, even though she hadn't prepared to light it. Damn, she was good. Gen couldn't say much, though. He was bluffing them too. He had no idea if they had placed any bombs anywhere, let alone if she could detonate them remotely. Almost on que, a market stall far behind them detonated, tarp and table alike blown to smithereens. Some of the shrapnel-slash-fruit flew almost the whole way to them. The guards looked suitably horrified, and when the few with their heads on straight stared at Merrilyn inquisitively, she just nodded slightly. Honestly, her demeanor and stoic face were starting to creep Gen out a little bit, no matter who's side she was on. It was good stuff. He could capitalize on it.
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"She can make that happen anywhere she has set them up. You can see them set by the gate. I'm sure you know what will happen if we blow up the gate itself and then trigger each of the other explosives, yes?" He continued, as confidently as he could. His serious face was coming in handy, or the prospect had scared enough of the guards shitless it simply didn't matter anymore. They keeled over, throwing down their spears and blades. The carnage that a series of bombings like that one could cause and the chaos that would ensue if the populace was trapped within were intimidating prospects. Merrilyn lowered the fire-bug, replacing it in her pouch, and set down the crystalline explosive. She walked through the guards, and they split like the Red Sea, mortified by the prospect of contact with her. Maybe they had concluded that she was not even of their species, but instead some angel of death. From what Gen could tell, that wasn't necessarily far off. Lives taken apathetically, out of obligation and necessity rather than pure cruelty. If that didn't describe the Grim Reaper, he didn't know what did.
She paced up to the table and whispered, looking at him. It reached his ears, soft as wind, despite the fact she wasn't even close to his face. "Those are the last of my batch," she said. He had guessed as much. As fast as RDX could be made with experienced hands, it was hard to say how much access to materials or tools she had. The other explosions were a bluff, too. von Clausewitz had said many notable things in his day, and yet another such example was about that of the field of military deception. "Killing the enemy's courage is as vital as killing his troops", he said, and sure enough, these guards had lost any courage they might have once had. It was not as permanent of a death as the death of the body, though. He needed to act, and long before this small army recovered its stripes. So he gave his first order.
"You will leave the city and keep walking until you reach the bottom of the hill. Stay there until you receive further orders," he said. They started to walk before he had even finished speaking. He paused, mulling it over. "The guard named Netya, you will come with us." One guard, otherwise inconspicuous, halted suddenly. He whirled back around. The other guards were suddenly worried, suspicious, and even more scared all at once. How did he know his name? Was there a traitor in their midst? Did they have such knowledge of all of them? They hustled faster, hoping to escape any such attention. Netya could be dealt with later, if he had betrayed them all. "How do you know my name?" The stricken soldier asked. Instead of answering, Gen just smiled at him. "Congratulations! You are now Captain of the Guard."
Rather than confused, Netya looked indignant at that. "Under who's authority? On the warden-" Gen cut him off, angrily. "Under my authority. You will respect it, before the night is out." And so he would. So far the situation was proceeding as planned, or similarly enough it wouldn't matter. The guard was subjugated, and he even had a few daggers to replenish his stash. He hopped down, brushing past his new captain of the guard, snatgging a weapon or two and plunging him into the grey Jerkin. The 'sockets' were getting a bit loose, but Gen didn't mind the feeling of the blades sliding about. It almost felt comfortable, like he was getting back to what he was used to. The caliber of these daggers and knives were far lower than his old ones, though, which was a pity. Had the area possessed expert smiths in the past, while the quarry was still being mined?
"Who are you, whelp?" A voice called from behind. This time they had all been focused elsewhere, caught off guard. Kat dived to the side with impressive speed. A wave of pressure fell on both Merrilyn and him, and almost instantly, it was hard to even stand, let alone move. Netya, caught in the force, simply keeled over. By the time he had turned around, it was like he had been dropped in a vat of molasses. He focused mana to his neck and mouth, looking the nice Frankenstein mage they had met in the eye. She was furious, impressively so, and she was out for blood. He didn't let that stop him, though.
"I am the General, and ruler of this land." He said, as determinedly as he could. The pressure seemed to flag a bit with the words. It was working! Then it wasn't. The mage redoubled her efforts, fury mixing with apprehension. This night had gone all sorts of wrong, and she would be damned long before she handed up control of the reins to some newcomer. They had done great and terrible things in such short time, and to let her people suffer under their heel was too much to bear. So she tried to crush him, using the simple weight of the mana that responded to her call. It was working, too. The boy's impudent mouth had closed and his head sagged.
She was winning, right up until the point that she was tackled from the side. The other girl had actually escaped her grasp and scrambled up to her, slamming into her. Gen recovered quickly, willing himself to his feet. Netya was just limp. Perhaps he had passed out from the shock of being attacked by the town's mighty Warden. He would need some correcting, should he win this struggle. The Warden recovered quickly, too, and Kat was sent flying. She slammed back-first into one of the stone-brick shops, falling into a pile. Gen could only hope that it was just a concussion and she wasn't dead. He strode forward, chucking a knife at the muscle-wizard as she lifted herself up. It bounced off her shoulder, edge-first, cutting into her cloth armlets but otherwise failing to do lasting damage. The sudden pain distracted the Warden, long enough for him to channel mana to his good arm and punch her in the face, a strong right-cross. The recoil of the blow hurt like hell, but it got her far worse. She fell back once more, nose spouting blood.
"Once more. I am the General, ruler of this land." The mana responded, surging to him like it once had in the far-off Jungle. He was cognizant of it now, certain in the feeling. He swished it about his body, letting the accumulating aches and pains wash off of him. It was certainly nice. Merrilyn jogged forward, back to her feet, and started to pummel the downed mage. He had to stop her, pulling her off. The Warden was important, a resource. She had the capacity to be useful, should they stop antagonizing her quickly enough. She was also considerably weaker without the power of the city in her veins.
At least, that was how she should have been. The Warden suddenly shot up, grabbing them both by the neck, lifting them high. She was furious, terrified, and out for blood. The power was wrested from her, the dominion she had carved out of the husk of a once-great boom town, far away and fortified enough that even the Kaenids were loath to attack them, and these little newcomers had stolen it. Stolen it away! She would retrieve what was hers, and it would happen now. There would be no more back-and-forth or struggling or mercy. She gripped their fragile necks tightly.
Gen's vision swam, growing even darker than the night. He could see only fragments of what he should have, little specs blotting out his sight otherwise. He hung there, growing so tired and neck in sheer agony. Suddenly, there was green. From every shop window in his sight, from under every table and over every tent, a little green head popped. He hadn't even known there were that many hiding spots, before. They surged, a silent mob of menace and intensity, each in step. It was like they were each part of one body, cells operating in unison. They creeped up behind the Warden.
The Warden shrieked in pain. She turned, releasing the two ragdolls she was holding in her grips, and she could see them. Silent goblins, an army of them, painted for war. She hadn't even known the friendly little race knew what a war was, rumors of their past or not. Now, though, they were lethal. She had no less than 6 knives, butter knives and butcher's knives alike, jutting from her calves. Little green hands gripped each, and she tried to move herself. The agony of her calf tightening on the blades was enough to tip her over, and she fell on her side, right by the ragdolls. They were in a circle around them, staring, still stoic. She tried to speak, but one kicked her. They were waiting on something. The impudent boy sat up, and when he did, the fuming mass seemed to relax. They were taking his side?
Gen wasn't sure precisely what he did to gather so many goblins, but as he rose, they kneeled in union. He held off of gawking or staring confusedly or being otherwise useless for long enough to take advantage of the moment. The Warden was down, and most of the populace was deferential to him. This would be the last push.
"These lands, and the people within, are mine. I am the General, and you will obey me." He wasn't speaking to the Goblins, naturally. The spearhead of all of this chaos, Merrilyn's escape, and this coup d'etat were all one in the same. The realization that land could be controlled for power, that the mana would grant them strength, was of great value. They needed any advantage they could get, so why not commandeer a city? They already knew that the Crocodile-men could do far more complex magic than the Warden had just demonstrated. What if they used the 'scry' spells to save their own kind? What if they could expedite advancement, bringing this small city to the modern era? If they could attain control of the locals, they could do so much work, save so many human lives. Merrilyn's dysfunctional brain probably didn't care whether or not it had consequences or casualties- this was simply the optimal path to guarantee her survival. Gen wasn't entirely clean in that regard, either. They were a pair of lunatics, through and through.
The Goblins stood, once more. They circled them one, and then they dispersed. Suddenly, the horde of militant goblins was just a bunch of individuals once more, going about their business. Many were tending to broken shops or heading for their homes. They had saved their Chieftain and guaranteed his dominance over the Mana. That was more than enough. They would learn from him, day by day, what it meant to be Goblin. Or, at least, they would try. He was not true Goblin, but through him, they could still garner insight. So they dispersed. The only thing the goblins hadn't lost over time as the centuries passed was the principle of appearing weak. They had simply taken that principle so far that they had actually become weak.
Gen and Merrilyn stood there. The Warden was writhing on the ground, the goblins were going about their night, and Kat was still crumpled in a pile. They had attained victory, and that was true, but the part after winning mattered as much as the win itself- if not more. Though, it was a miracle they made it this far. Whether it was a feat of skill, or luck, simply fate, or a combination of the three born of determination and opportunism, this was the destination they had reached. That journey was over; they had found a home, or at least a more substantial resting place than some stupid cats' den. This was their land, now, and with it, all of the burdens and responsibilities and options and hope it provided. Not that Merrilyn could feel 'hope', really, but Gen felt it. For all of the dead and dying he had seen around him, this was his chance to change it. To lead them. He resolved to start moving, and to never stop, to drive for that distant future where this new world was as safe for his people as the home they had been stolen from.
There was work to be done.