Chapter 53 - Break the Machine

Bole grinned, showing off those stupidly perfect teeth. “You’re part of a big club now, monk. The church has decided that you should be ground up to grease their wheels. How does that make you feel?” His words oozed smug satisfaction. He was reveling in the pious monk being brought low.

I decided against punching him, not because I agreed with him. The fleeting desire to hurt him came from Bole just being Bole. He wanted me to feel betrayed by the church, maybe spur me on to take revenge. I’d thought about it, angry as I was, but I just couldn’t get there. I, despite what Bole mistakenly believed, was never a part of their faith. I was a big dumb fraud, and that was insulating me from whatever feelings of betrayal a real Rising Sun might have in this situation. Hell, Kolash wasn’t even on the top 100 list of things that had tried to kill me on this planet. He did get a prize for coming close, though.

Taking a deep breath to reply with something pithy just resulted in me coughing up some kind of bitter, pasty substance into my hand. I rubbed it between my fingers. It looked gray in the half-light of the basement, and I could see little bits of leaves or plant fiber in there. I spit the rest out onto the floor.

“*Mlech.* Guess I was the first to fall asleep at this party,” I said, sticking a finger in my mouth to drag out the rest of the debris. “Waking up with weird things in my mouth is probably the tamest thing I could have hoped for. To answer your question: I’m feeling pretty good, considering.”

Someone shouted outside. The walls muffled it enough to where I couldn’t pick out individual words, but they sounded insistent.

Bole spared a look for the ceiling above our heads but went right back to playing with his knives. “Don’t worry about them. They’ve been blustering outside since the goblins brought you in here, but they don’t have the muscle to break in and defend the walls at the same time. The mighty Church of Light have been reduced to diplomacy. Heh.”

With some effort, I got on my feet and stretched myself. My entire body felt like it had been through a blender, especially in the shoulder.

I looked around and tried to get my brain back in gear.

Basement. Pouches, herbs, incense, bandages. People outside that want in. Bole.

Bole didn’t fit into this picture.

“I didn’t figure you for the healer type, Bole,” I probed.

He sneered as he rolled the knife across his knuckles. I wasn’t really playing into his revenge fantasy right now, and he didn’t seem to like it. “I would like to reiterate that you don’t know me, monk,” he replied then spat on the floor.

I arched a disbelieving eyebrow at him, holding the stare until he gave up. He rolled his eyes contemptuously.

“Alright. Alright. I’m not a healer,” he admitted. “The goblin queen brought you back.”

He snatched his knife out of the air and gripped it tightly as he pointed the end of it my way. “I swear, monk, if I had half the luck you have with women, I’d move to Manse and sire my own army.”

The comment hit me like a punch. I blinked, trying to grapple with pretty much every part of that sentence. “Hold on now. What do you mean by luck? Goblin queen? Why would she help me?” I left the whole comment about Manse and armies thing be. There were some things I really didn’t need to know about Ralqir. I was just content with saving it.

Since when did the goblins have royalty, though? They were a tribal people, and the highest station I’d ever encountered was a chief.

“Fuck if I know. She must have just liked your face, like, really liked it, because they were about to throw you on the pyre when she happened by and lost her mind. Her guards held the church people at spearpoint, wouldn’t let ‘em touch you.”

“And this is all her stuff?” I asked, gesturing to the scattered healer’s items. ”I assume that the voices outside are the church guards asking about me.”

“Demanding your body, yeah. Everyone gets burned. Amazing just how fast the church throws away its tenets, eh? No last rites for you.”

“So, they’re assuming I’m dead.”

Bole nodded and licked his lips. “Makes plotting your revenge a bit easier, doesn’t it? What would you say is a proportional response to what they did to you, monk? I was thinking a direct approach, but, then again, we could just leave them to their fates too. A bit poetic on that one.”

I gave him a look that I hoped communicated just how disinterested I was in what he thought was a proportional response. “I’m less worried about revenge than what they’ve done with our people.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Bole spat a bit more forcefully than I’d expected. The prodding, playful tone in his voice was gone, replaced by something dark and cynical. “They’ll get their minds right soon enough, probably quicker when they’re convinced you’re dead. They’ll be taking orders like good little kids by sunrise. It’ll be like you never existed.”

Of all the things the man had said, that got the most response out of me. My anger bubbled up from inside of me, hot, explosive. The world turned red for a microsecond, but that was enough to loosen my tenuous grip on my mana, and the flowing streams of blue inside of me came apart. I tried to recover, but I just wasn’t in the right mind for it. My aura bloomed to full strength again, exploding out from me and announcing my presence to every practitioner in the city.

Bole’s knife clattered to the ground, bouncing end over end across the floor. He cursed, producing another within a heartbeat.

Well, damn. So much for doing this quietly. Kolash would know I survived.

The desire I was feeling to go kick in Kolash’s door and hash this out right now wasn’t a good sign. It meant I, on some level, found Bole’s predictions believable, and I hated that. My fear of being discarded and forgotten wasn’t a rational one, but that didn’t stop it from hijacking my entire thought process.

It was too plausible, especially to a kid that spent the last seven years as the clan pariah.

Break the machine.

My cover, despite Jassin’s intentions, had become a part of that machine. Time for it to go. It had become a weight that was holding me back more than helping anyone.

Decision made, I turned on my heel and made for the stairs, not sparing another thought for Bole.

“Hey! Monk! Where are you going?” Bole called from behind me. I could hear him scrambling to his feet, knives being slipped into sheathes.

I stomped up the wooden stairs, probing my spatial storage to take inventory. I had my sword, some stones, a bunch of turret parts, assorted ammo, scrap wood, a bit of metal, an exploding broken blade, and a bunch of odds and ends that were more useful in a workshop than here. It would have to do.

The door at the top of the stairs was characteristically gone, probably part of the barricade outside now. I came out of the basement and rounded a corner to enter a large, open area, long and narrow with a low ceiling and regularly spaced windows. It gave off the vibe of a barracks, minus the beds and footlockers.

In place of whatever furniture had been here before were goblins. Lots and lots of goblins. Goblins were stacked like folded laundry, some sleeping, some in little circles talking among their immediate neighbors, others were…

I looked away from those. What an interesting and open society goblins had. Not at all weird. At least they were under blankets.

My heavy, human footsteps trumpeted my presence to the room as effectively as someone announcing me by name, and, one by one, every green face turned my way. The goblins under the blankets too. They did have the courtesy of stopping what they were doing, though. Not sure how I would have handled it otherwise.

I cleared my throat uncomfortably. The wind had really left my sails fast, probably a sign of a weakness of character, but if I didn’t go through with this now, I was never going to do it.

“Can anyone tell me where my friends are?” I asked.

The goblins looked at one another, exchanging unsure glances.

“The people I came here with,” I clarified. “Two dragonkin, a leori, and a volpa.”

Recognition blossomed in more than one green face. That sparked a flurry of activity. Goblins jumped up from their sleeping piles to put on clothes. Others grabbed spears from the floor and slipped on weird, hodgepodge armor made out of rope-bound wooden planks. Soon, I had an armed entourage.

Bole came up behind me, using his hand to cover his nose. “You’d think you’d get used to it eventually, but you don’t. I’d take musty basement over this” he said.

I shrugged. He’d probably get used to the smell too if he’d lived with goblins as closely as I had.

The leader of the little group, a balding, older goblin with a scar over his eye, stood up as straight as he could, craning his neck to look me in the eyes. “The cells. We’re escort,” he said, tone flat.

“Thanks, uh, what is your name?” I asked.

“Paula of the White Beaks,” he replied, puffing out his chest.

“Paula?”

“Yes. Paula.”

I nodded. Just one more thing for the ‘I’m far from home’ pile. “Thanks, Paula of the White Beaks. Are you sure you want to- uh- escort me? I can probably find it, and you guys don’t have to get caught up in my trouble.”

“We’re sure. You goblin, and we all stand together.”

“I am?” I wanted to add a ‘You do?’ to that too, but I decided against it. Goblins were contentious little guys, all too ready to screw over their fellow goblins if that meant an advantage for their own clan. At least that’s the impression I got from Chief Kuul and then from Jassin when we’d talked about it.

“Yes.” Was all the answer I got.

“Any Stone Hearts among you?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Outside.” He really wasn’t giving me much to go on. I’d get answers to my questions faster if I just went with it.

“Okay. Uh. Lead the way then, Paula.”

Then we were moving, to the far end of the building and out into the night. Immediately outside, there was another loose group of five goblins, but these were facing off with a very annoyed looking Miur and his two buddies. No one had drawn their weapons, though the goblins had no way to sheathe their spears… familiar looking spears. I did a double take. The armor they wore was familiar too. Iron, bulky, and loud, an amateur attempt at Shaping that, now that I looked at it, could probably be improved in a bunch of tiny ways.

In the middle of the two armed groups was-

“Holy, shit. Tiba?” The astonished words burst forth from my mouth, loud and clear without consideration for my situation. Everyone within earshot turned my way.

The church guards reached for their swords, the goblins leveled their spears at the guards, and my gaggle of escorts rushed over to surround everyone involved. Tiba turned into a green streak. She squealed a sort of girly, goblin, yowl like a cross between an angry cat and a bird call, and she was hugging me in short order, my bottom half at least. She was short.

“Ryan!” She squealed. “You return to us! You’re a goblin now, by the way. Hunty would be proud!”

I tentatively reached down and returned the hug as best I could, mostly making contact with her shoulders.

“Uh. Thanks, Tiba. I- Wow. What is all this?” I asked with a general flourish that I hoped encompassed everything. What was going on?

Tiba pulled away and stood, back straight, chin raised proudly. She looked different. She wore her hair down now, long enough to flow down her back, her posture was straighter, stronger, and in her hand she held Hunty’s spear like it was an old friend. It had acquired a bundle of bright feathers that bristled out from behind the head since I’d last seen it and a few notches in the shaft.

I tilted my head.

Was Tiba taller too?

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On top of all that, there was something my brain purposefully avoided processing until absolutely necessary. Tiba was what I would describe as “underdressed.” Her outfit was all strings and rough, thin strips of recycled linen that had to have the toughest job in the camp trying to preserve her modesty.

“He lives, and he speaks their tongue,” the leading guard said, immediately earning him the label of Captain Obvious. I didn’t actually know his rank, but he was a captain now as far as I was concerned. “Send word to his Holiness immediately,” Captain Obvious ordered the Miur behind him.

“No need, Captain,” I said. “He already knows.”

“It’s, uh, Lieutenant actually, sir. I have orders, though. We were assigned to dispose of your body, but…” He trailed off, not quite sure how to handle the new development. “Would you be willing to come with us, and we’ll get this cleared up? You’re obviously not infected.”

“No, I don’t think so” I said flatly. “Tiba, was it you that healed me?”

She beamed up at me. “I keep you alive. You are strong, though. I barely have to help.”

“Sir. Rising Sun. I really must insist.” Lieutenant Obvious took a step forward, but the Stone Heart warriors put a stop to that quickly with the tips of their spears. They didn’t draw any blood, but the Miur was good and stopped with pokey bits in uncomfortable places.

“Thanks, Tiba. You saved me again. I won’t forget it.”

“Sir. Could you tell the queen we mean no harm to her people or yourself?” Lieutenant Obvious asked. His hands were raised now, his sword held in a loose grip by two fingers, and his underlings were following his example.

I smirked at Tiba. “He’s calling you a queen.”

“He is?” Tiba’s eyes went wide.

“Yeah. Queen Tiba. I’m guessing the linen bikini is part of your royal attire then.”

Tiba blushed slightly but didn’t seem all that bothered by it.

“There’s a story there, I bet,” I added with a raised brow.

Tiba grinned in a way that showed off all of her canines. “I don’t know what a bikini is, but the chief title of the Stone Hearts comes to me. Then, when the Black Ones come, the rest of the tribes look to me for answers too. The chief title grew big. Way big! Me too! Do you see?” She looked down at herself and reached down to adjust her outfit to make sure it preserved what little modesty it left to her. “And warriors need a little help sometimes to remember to fight hard.”

She shrugged.

If it worked, it worked, I guessed. Guys really were that simple sometimes.

“Should I tell him?” I asked, gesturing toward the lieutenant with my head.

“No!” She squeaked, holding out a hand to forestall anything else. “No- ah- if he wants to call me a queen, I- Well, he can if he wants to.” Another blush.

“Your secret is safe with me,” I said, putting my finger up to my lips.

—-----------------------------------------

The pair of guards assigned to the cells didn’t really know what to make of it.

A boisterous gaggle of goblins boiled around the corner of the barracks and approached the doorway to the building. In their midst, a lone human that just came back from the dead, walking up to them like they ruled the place.

As far as the goblins were concerned, Tiba really did own the place. When she barked her orders (an experience both shrill and intimidating at the same time, even to me) they hopped to without question. The Stone Hearts with Kotes’ brand armor never left her side and never let anything not a certain shade of green anywhere near their chief, except for me. The other goblins took their jobs seriously as well, mean mugging the guards, the open windows, and the darkness in general. They didn’t seem to believe they were doing their jobs unless they were mean mugging something.

“I need some privacy,” I told Tiba. Then, I turned to try and convince Bole to wait outside too, but he was nowhere to be found… again. Did I leave him back where we detained the other guards?

“Okay, Ryan,” Tiba chirped happily. “Boys!” She shrieked. My ears rang at the sheer pitch of her voice, not to mention the volume.

Holy hell.

The goblins fanned out, ‘gently’ ushering the church guards away from the doorway. No one got hurt during the change of the guard, but they knew they were being changed. The guards seemed unwilling to draw on any of the goblins, which I was thankful for. They’d all been fighting side by side for weeks now, afterall. The church folks just looked confused.

I smiled at them as I passed in a way I hoped was interpreted as friendly.

The building itself was small, maybe the size of a single family hab back home. Most of it was taken up by stone cells finished in iron bars with a walkway on the right side that allowed you to patrol down the entire length of the building and check on all the prisoners.

I stepped over a discolored spot on the floor that I bet used to contain a desk. All that was left of that little area was a cork board inlaid into the wall and an empty rack of key hooks.

The interior was dark, but moonlight streamed in from high set windows all along the top of the walls. The shadows cast by the windows were deep, however. It was hard to see anything other than the shining pale beams and what they fell upon.

It sure was quiet here. Nothing moved, not even the wind. I’d expected to come in and hear snoring or yelling or fighting, but the place was tomb quiet.

Tentatively, I took a heavy step, ground my heel into the dusty floor. The sound it made felt wrong, like my ears were under pressure and they had yet to pop.

I narrowed my eyes.

Interesting.

I switched on Detect Iron and scanned the place again, not having to use my eyes. Three cells with iron bars that went three or so feet into the ground. Bars on the windows. Four figures in the last cell of the row, two were pressed up against the bars, the largest one, Geddon I assumed, and one of the sisters. Trix was in the corner, trying to scrabble up what had to have been the wall.

Lots of motion from that cell. I didn’t hear anything, but they looked like they were shouting, the way their chests expanded and how rapidly their blood rushed through their circulatory systems.

There was another figure in the cell adjacent to my friends. It was a large one, round in the middle but thick in the shoulders and arms as well and it carried something in its left hand. The other was raised slightly, its three fingers at an unnatural angle (for a human hand at least.).

Kolash.

With the realization that something was wrong here, I felt my perspective change slightly, and I could observe the scene from the outside. I felt it then, the thickness in the air.

I let my eyes unfocus and watched the motes of my aura and how they moved. It was wrong. They were there but being shaken, brushed by something invisible. There was magic in the air.

Well, I guess I invited something like this when I let my aura do its thing. It was an accident, but I’d hoped Kolash would sense me and either seek me out or make some other kind of move. Apparently, his move was to wait in ambush next to the rest of my party.

That told me something, didn’t it?

I had been preoccupied at the time trying not to die, but he’d told Sissa that he was purging the infection from my body. Purging it.

No one had survived the process so far, but if I was strong, maybe I’d be okay. If he was openly hostile to me now, despite having survived his purge, then I had to assume he did not want me to survive.

He knew what I was.

It was the only explanation. You wouldn’t kill an elite fighter like a Rising Sun on a whim. You’d rejoice that he shook off the evil plague and welcome him back or maybe examine him again.

Assuming he knew I was a human, his lie about trying to cure my infection made sense. Waiting in ambush made sense too.

Why didn’t I ever research non-lethal ammunition?

Carefully, I began my slow, methodical walk forward to the end of the room. I kept it casual, a slow stroll in the moonlight without a care in the world. I forced myself to look relaxed, look straight ahead. I was just here to rescue my friends. Nothing at all suspicious here. I didn’t get any levels in Stealth or Deception, though, which wasn’t a great sign.

Man, was I bad at stuff like this.

Kolash didn’t reveal himself as I went past. In my mind’s eye I saw him tense when he saw me. I could perceive that much with Detect Iron, but, apparently, he was waiting until I was good and distracted before he would make his move. Curious, I let my eyes glance his way, but there was just an empty cell, all bricks and moonlight. The big guy could hide if he put his mind to it, or maybe it was part of his magic.

Then the third cell came into view, and it nearly made me forget about the Kolash, despite him being my most immediate concern.

Samila was there at the bars, both hands gripping them tightly and screaming at the top of her lungs. Silently. No sound reached my ears. Geddon was halfway up the bars, arms gripping the top and legs braced against the bottom, flexing to try and dislodge the barrier. Sissa leaned on the wall behind them, eyes scanning the floor in thought.

When they saw me round the corner, they didn't look relieved. They looked horrified.

The air was sludge, so thick it messed with my inner ear, making the room swim.

Samila silently screamed my name, shook the bars. I caught her eye, and she said something urgent, but it was useless. I held up my good hand in a gesture I hoped was calming, then I gave her a wink.

I jerked my metal hand up to eye level, the fingers curled into claws, and caught the Bishop’s outstretched hand before it could make contact with my body. My fingers wrapped around the giant frog’s wrist and dug into the complex and essential bones in the joint.

Iron Grip [0.1 MP/sec]

I turned to look the Bishop dead in the eyes, giving my head a tiny shake.

Kolash now firmly in hand, I wrenched my body at the waist, took a step to my right, and flung the hulking frog Bishop off his feet and over my outstretched leg to crash down to the ground. I felt more than heard the impact of Kolash’s mass smacking into the stone floor through my boots.

My other hand snaked out, caught Kolash around the throat, and squeezed. Suddenly, Kolash’s vocal chords weren’t working like they needed to.

*RRRRRRMMMMGGHHGGGPHLMP!*

The room brightened significantly. Glowing bulbs I hadn’t seen before sputtered to life, bathing the room in white light. The world exhaled, and the air began to move. Suddenly, the tiny building echoed with shouts and cries, muffled struggles.

Below me, Kolash sputtered, struggling to bring his other hand up to my face. He was much bigger than I was, his arms longer, but the 40 Body I was rocking after my drastic jump in levels more than compensated for that.

Plus, I was heavy. I put a knee on his chest and tried to get my foot around to stomp on the upper part of his arm, but his hand got to me first. Golden light coalesced around the Bishop’s fingers, and his sticky palm wrapped around my forearm.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Sissa’s voice came from the cell. I couldn’t tell which one of us was the target of the question.

Kolash croaked something I couldn’t understand. The System didn’t translate, so maybe it was unintelligible due to the choking or-

A look of victory fell over the Bishop’s face.

No. Not this time.

With a crack, I broke Kolash’s wrist, freeing up my prosthetic. The Bishop, had he use of his vocal cords, would have yelled or shouted, but it came out in a series of choked gurgling sounds.

Meanwhile, the golden light seeped from Kolash’s hand into my arm, the sensation subtle but all too familiar. This was the more pleasant part of the curse’s application, but the fangs would be out soon enough.

I reached over with my now free prosthetic and made with the curse breaking.

Devouring Grasp (Magivore) [5 MP/sec]

Create reservoir? Y/N

Reservoir created: Purge Unclean [Total value: 210 MP (light)]

Previous reservoir destroyed.

Our bones broke together, his hand, my arm. Good thing it was just the spell being consumed, or this would have been a lot more gruesome. This time, Kolash did get to scream.

That was okay though.

The little yellow crystal that contained Kolash’s spell materialized about an inch from my chest, a perfect sphere of yellow at first that then formed sharp edges and shining faces like a gem until it grew to the side of an apple. It hovered there for about half a second, then tumbled down to bounce off the Bishop’s forehead.

*BINK*

My arm felt like it was on fire. Blood rushed to the injury and pooled there. Already, I could feel the tissues swelling around the break in the bones and the damage the spell had done on its way out.

I looked into Kolash’s eyes and put my full weight on his chest through my knee. “Not this time.” I ground my teeth around the words.

“You do not belong here. You have killed us all,” Kolash croaked, shakily reaching up to rub his throat with his hands, but his hands were useless wrecks.

“Brother Ryan! You’re alive!” Trix yipped. He was up against the bars now, hanging from them like he’d been climbing them.

“He is no brother of yours,” Kolash burbled. “He is a thing from beyond, hiding among us.” His eyes were wide, darting around the room, manic. There was madness there along with the pain he was experiencing. “I should have seen it! I should have seen it before!” He cried.

“Bishop, I am not here to hurt anyone” I said as calmly as I could. The pain and adrenaline weren’t helping with that.

Kolash didn’t hear me. His stare was beyond me, his wide set eyes focused on something far far away. “I should have seen it before all of this” he replied very quietly. Aching guilt seeped from his words. “I should have seen it. I should have seen it before. You. The thing inside of them. I should have-”

So, he blamed me for the plague. He blamed me for everything. He blamed himself too.

I shut my eyes and summoned as much calm as I could.

What a mess we’d caused, us humans. Not purposefully, but that didn’t matter.

I’d blame us too, if I were Kolash. Who else was alive to blame? The Dark Lord was long gone along with the civilization that produced him, his pet human was an ax hanging above the head of every living thing on the planet, and the gods had all gone to sleep.

Now, the rotten fruit of that pestilent tree was good and ripe, and there was no villain left to rally against. We were all tiny pieces in a game set up and abandoned a long, long time ago.

Sighing, I reached over and snagged the glowing hand the Bishop was just about to place on my calf.

The curse fizzled harmlessly without my having to Consume it.

Thanks Detect Iron.

I bottled up my anger and indignation at being convicted of something out of my control and then sentenced to death on the spot, a sentence the Bishop kept trying to carry out.

These emotions weren’t going to help me right now.

I opened my eyes and looked down at Kolash to see him renewed, determined. Even though his limbs were broken and he was on his back, he was still trying to kill me.

“You know what I am, yes?” I asked him. “Precisely what I am?”

His eyes narrowed, and his lips curled back to bare pink gums, entirely lacking teeth. “Yes,” he gurgled.

“Good. You don’t need to be awake for this part then.”

I hauled back and punched him in the face. My metal fist *clanged* off of his jaw, and his head lolled to the side. His eyes blinked rapidly as he fought unconsciousness.

Ah. Damnit, that would have been much cooler… and more humane… if it would have worked on the first try.

The Bishop was a big dude. Big dudes needed more than one punch, I guessed. The second time worked like a charm.

Slowly, I stood up from Kolash’s chest and let his arm fall to the ground.

Bishop Kolash Mro’ahn defeated.

You have been awarded 10 experience points. [50 capped for non-lethal (-40 non-combat class)]

Out of breath, despite the encounter only lasting about a minute, I had to collect myself for a handful of seconds. Then I turned to my friends, who all had expressions ranging from horrified to… whatever Samila had. I was terrible with girls.

Rolling my shoulders, I bent down and grabbed Kolash by one of his feet. He was heavy but not terribly so. Honestly, I was still coming to grips with having so many points in Body now. My scale was all out of whack.

“Trix,” I grunted. “Do you mind? I want to make sure I didn’t hurt him too badly.”

Trix hesitantly reached out from the gap in the bars and pushed aside Kolash’s robe to touch the flesh of his ankle.

“He’ll be okay with time,” Trix announced after a handful of seconds. “I don’t understand, Brother Ryan? What is going on? Why?”

I just needed to do it. Rip the tape off. Do it now or It’ll never get done.

“So, I’ve been meaning to have this talk with you for a while now,” I began.