It was easy to find the trail of devastation left by the Viscountess’s army. The hero-looted remains of monsters and villagers were left strewn everywhere in their wake. The kind of destruction adventurers like these wrought turned Needa’s stomach.
She was determined to stop the carnage by any means, and make the land safe for evil creatures to grow and thrive once more.
They passed through another burned field, and Needa’s little sister could take no more.
“How could they do such terrible things?” Leeda asked no one in particular. “They could have taken so much more value from the peasants in the long term through a balanced tax strategy, one that leaves them enough profit to reinvest in their own farms, making them more and more productive over time.”
“This kind doesn’t care one whit about greed,” Needa answered. “All that matters to do-gooders is the purity of their beliefs. They’ll destroy anything they think threatens that purity.”
“But why? There’s no reason for this unreasoning righteousness!”
“Ask that one.” Freeda pointed at Keiko. “She used to worship the Sanctified Ones.”
Leeda looked over at her new friend in horror. “Is that true, miss Keiko? It isn’t, is it?”
Needa scowled at Freeda. “I asked you not to make a scene about this when I told you.”
Kev chittered nervously.
“I was a nun at the Temple of the Burning Lotus,” Keiko told Leeda. “A long time ago.”
“How could you join such beneficent and good-hearted people?” Leeda asked.
The entire group had stopped, and now everyone was looking at Keiko.
“When I was young, the… singularity… of their vision appealed to me. The order and discipline of obedience calmed my mind.”
“If it was so wonderful, why aren’t you still there?” Freeda began to square up to Keiko, although she was only a little taller than the nun’s waistline.
Kev mumbled something incoherent angrily.
Needa was ready to stop them, but she thought the most evil thing to do would be to let everyone freely express their feelings. She decided not to step in unless things got out of hand.
“I was forced to flee from the temple,” Keiko replied.
“Why?” Freeda was still pressing forward.
“I… fell in love.”
“Love!?” Everyone was astonished, but Freeda regained herself first. “You got kicked out just ‘cause you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar?”
“It wasn’t like that at all!” Finally, Keiko seemed to be letting out some of that fire Needa saw burning behind her eyes. “I was a… close companion, to a paladin from the Order of the Righteous Conflagration. We were… friends. We saved one another’s lives on many occasions and shared many adventures. Then one day he was selected for a dangerous mission on the Astral Plane, where the ethereal concepts of vice and virtue do battle against one another directly with eldritch means beyond mortal reason.”
The Astral plane! Only the most powerful material warriors were sent there. Needa dreamed of going there and seeing the blasted hellscapes where the Blasphemous Ones resided herself one day.
Keiko continued. “It was almost certain that he would die. On our last night together… well- we…”
“Put your hand in the cookie jar?” Leeda suggested.
“Something like that. It was the last time I saw him, and I don’t regret it. Even now, knowing what came after.”
“What did come after?” Freeda asked. She was so engrossed in Keiko’s tale that she had momentarily forgotten her anger. Like most goblin girls, Freeda had a natural appreciation for any good romance story.
“As I feared, he never returned from the Astral Plane. For a time, I went on as I had before. I believed no one would ever know what we had done. Then... I realized that I was pregnant.”
Everyone gasped, except Kev, who whispered unknowable mysteries in surprise.
“I could have done the right thing,” Keiko went on. “I could have confessed my sins and been burned at the stake in just punishment. But I was afraid for the life of my unborn child, who was all that remained of her father. So, in my cowardice, I fled from the temple before I was exposed. I settled in a neutral village here in Flushing Meadow, where no one knew me, and raised my daughter.”
“Where is she now?” Needa asked.
A pained expression crossed Keiko’s face. “She is… gone. The Viscountess took her from me, years ago. But my grandson, Shinji, can still be saved. He’s being held with the other young men and women conscripted by the Argent Legion. I raised him since his mother left us, and he’s the only family I have remaining. That’s why I must come with you.”
“Wow,” Leeda said at length. “That paladin guy must’ve been something else. I’d sure like to meet a cookie jar like that sometime.”
“He was very special to me. I loved him very much.”
“Love nothing,” Needa exclaimed. “Love is what do-gooders call that physical drive to procreate they use to make more soldiers for their crusade. What you’re describing is pure lust. It’s an emotional – maybe spiritual – connection that goes much deeper than just love. They say pure lust has the power to corrupt even the noblest heart to evil. From the story I just heard, I think you have what it takes to be a great villainess. And I for one am proud to have you with us.”
“Me too!” Leeda called out.
Kev cackled affirmatively.
Beeda nodded.
Freeda thought a moment, then spat into her hand and offered a shake to Keiko.
The nun accepted, and then they were off again as though nothing had happened.
Needa was rather proud with how she had handled things. Inter-team conflict resolution was an important trait for a villainess to have, after all. How else could they achieve peak efficiency in serving evil?
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Good was on the loose, and it was their job to stop it.
Keiko was still adapting herself to how open and friendly evil-doers were. The monster-kin were so debased they didn’t seem to care what anyone else’s private beliefs were, so long as no one tried to hurt anyone else.
That was precisely the opposite of how she was always taught to think.
The righteous had a holy obligation to constantly challenge the ideology of everyone, with a keen eye to the slightest deviation from one’s own beliefs. Then, once a difference was found, it must be immediately settled with violence, to determine who was truly ‘right' and ‘good’ through trial by combat.
It was taking her some time to readjust to her new lifestyle.
The day after Keiko was confronted, their coterie came upon a pair of knights in a farmer’s field. They were both immaculately dressed in shining armor, with elegant tabards. One was a light elf, the other a gnome.
They were engaged in the lawful bartering tactic of tying up the one you’re negotiating with and beating him with a cudgel. Neither of the two knights noticed them arrive, and Princess Needa ordered them to approach with stealth.
Keiko, Leeda, and the princess were the most skilled at moving silently, so they went ahead of the others. With hand signals, Princess Needa indicated a tree with a good perch for a clear field of fire.
Keiko stood atop her bench for extra height, then hoisted her commander up the rest of the way. Princess Needa motioned her forward, and Keiko was almost within striking distance with her bench when they noticed her.
“Who are you?!” the gnome said, with his cudgel still raised over the helpless farmer.
“Looks like another ner-do-well to me,” replied the elf.
“Unhand that man this instant!” ordered Keiko.
“Or what?” asked the gnome, with an angelic grin.
They began to advance on Keiko, but one of Princess Needa’s arrows hit the ground in front of them and brought them up short.
“Or you’ll be in big trouble!” Princess Needa shouted from her tree. Now the knights noticed the other three approaching, and realized they were outnumbered. “Surrender and you won’t be harmed! Unlike light worshipers, we respect prisoners' basic monster rights!”
The gnome spun towards the farmer. “Stay back! Or I’ll kill the… hostage-?” Leeda had circled around without being seen, and blocked the gnome’s path to his intended target with a knife in either hand. “Listen, what would you ladies say to a-”
Kev interrupted with a guttural sound Keiko couldn’t really translate, but it sounded insulted.
The gnome tried again. “What would you ladies, and gentleman, say to an honorable duel. One on one. If we win, we get to go. If you win, we surrender.”
“Knights!” Freeda was outraged. “You only want a fair fight when it’s you who’s outnumbered! When it’s the two of you knocking around a helpless farmer it’s all fun and games!”
Beeda pointed at the gnome. “I want to thump the little mouthy one.”
“Alright then,” Princess Needa declared. “You’ve got your duel, gnome. You’ll have a wrestling match against my sister. Beeda, thump him!”
Beeda started walking towards him, and the gnomes’ eyes grew wide. He tried to raise his sword, but Beeda easily knocked the weapon out of his hand with the flat of her axe. Then she tossed her own weapon aside to begin the match.
The contest's outcome was already determined before it had started, but Keiko still enjoyed watching anyway.
Beeda started with a series of boots and clotheslines, before moving to a chokeslam. She followed up with a belly-to-belly suplex, a released-vertical suplex, a high-angle belly-to-back suplex, and a fisherman’s suplex.
Next came the powerbomb, and then the backbreaker, and then the brain-buster, all followed by a piledriver.
Finally, Beeda climbed up a fence post on the edge of the property to perform a jumping frog splash. And that probably would have been sufficient, but she pulled him up and also dragged him over to a ladder propped up against the side of a barn.
She climbed all the way to the top of the ladder, and delivered a four-hundred- and fifty-degree twisting corkscrew moonsault senton to end the match.
Despite their bargain, the elf attempted to flee at once.
Keiko was ready. She blocked his path and intercepted a sword strike with her bench.
At once, she entered her combat flow. She and the bench were one. She wielded the bench as effortlessly as an additional limb.
Again and again, bench wood met elf meat, as she struck with expert precision. Systematically, she rendered each of his chakra points into careful misalignment until he collapsed paralyzed, and lost control over both his bowels and bladder.
“That was some fancy fighting!” Princess Needa and all others looked rather awed. “I wondered why you were carrying that thing around.”
Keiko bound the bench to her back once more. “It is one of the traditional weapons of my former order. As a novice, we chose a weapon to devote our lives to, the sai, the nunchaku, the tonfa… I chose the bench.”
“Why would anyone possibly-?”
Keiko felt moved - and interrupted Princess Needa - for there was more than needed to be said. “-Though it may be more accurate to say, rather, that the bench chose me. The first time I wielded one, I knew that I had been born for it. I fashioned this one myself, with my own hands. When I think of the feel of the hardwood in my grip-”
“Ma’am,” the farmer interrupted awkwardly. “That sounds like a very fine bench, ma’am. But could someone please untie me?”
Needa and the others sat around the farmer’s kitchen table, while the owner went back and forth bringing food and beer.
Normally, they would only eat red meat and sweets, but as they were roughing it on an important quest, they settled for turkey, mashed potatoes, and toasted garlic bread. All served with excessive salt and butter, for proprieties’ sake.
“The Viscountess is camped just a few miles from here,” the farmer told them, as he sat down with more pitchers of beer for the table. “She’s been sending out licensed purchasing agents to buy all our land and property for some useless trinkets and colored beads. If anyone won’t sign their legal documents, they beat and threaten us. This virtuous eminent domain business is simply too much. Give me an evil graduated income percentage theft scheme any day.”
“You have been giving accurate income statements to the reavers when they come to extort the Somber Toll, haven’t you?” Needa gave him the evil eye.
“Oh, yes! I strongly support unleashing our wrath through a robust national defense. Particularly against this upstart Viscountess. It’s my honor to contribute to your father’s vile rule over Flushing Meadow, Princess. And, of course, I enjoy hiking the nature trails that money pays to maintain as much as anybody.”
It was the kind of thing he would have said no matter how he felt. He did have a real shrine to the Blasphemous Ones hidden in the basement though, so perhaps he really was being genuine.
“Well, that’s fine then. You won’t mind us using your farm as a base camp then.”
“Oh no, not at all! I’ll be very glad to have such strapping lasses, and a- er- gentleman…”
Kev preened.
“… here to protect me.”
It was time for Needa to start handing out orders. “Kev, I want you to start appealing to the Blasphemous Ones to fray the fabric of reality and open a breach wide enough to take a group through the portal gateway back in our home caves.”
Kev laughed manically to signal his acknowledgement and understanding of his instructions.
“Freeda, I’m putting you in charge of Beeda and Leeda. I want the three of you to stay on watch just outside the camp. It’s going to be a hike to the portal, we can’t risk creating one close enough that their priests could detect us. Depending on how loud the breakout is, we may need you to cover our retreat.”
“But that will only leave you and Keiko for the actual rescue itself,” Freeda objected. “Even with father’s attack to distract them, how do you expect to get in alone?”
Needa smiled slyly. “We’ll be in disguise. Those two knights tied up in the barn looked about our size." She turned an eye to Keiko. "Lucky one was a gnome, eh, high-pockets?”
Keiko was still coming to terms with the implications of Needa’s plan. “And I’ll be wearing the elf’s clothes… but when I disabled him, I made him…”
Needa nodded solemnly. “Yes, normally I’m among those most opposed to washing, but even I understand there must be some limits. I recommend you give them a good scrubbing before we leave tomorrow.”
After dinner, Keiko went out to give her disguise a very thorough washing.
The night was calm, and quiet, aside from the soothing chirping of crickets. It was almost easy to believe the whole world was at peace from there. Of course, that was not the case.
Tomorrow she would be inside the Viscountess’ camp. Tomorrow she would see Shinji again.
Keiko was no stranger to battle, but a looming weight was hanging over her.
There was one face she knew was also in that camp, which she dreaded to see.
Suddenly Keiko felt very old.
Whatever was to come, she must make certain her grandson was safe. No matter what she needed to sacrifice.
She wanted to tell Princess Needa and the others everything.
Yet, how could she, when so much was at stake?
Perhaps her new goblin friends need never learn the real truth. That would be the best outcome, in Keiko’s opinion.
She just wasn’t certain that it was still possible.