Gem, the goblin with the soul of Bartleboth the homunculus slime, shook violently as the figure of his king lethargically approached. There was plenty of room between them, yet the dragonkin with the searing crimson eyes took his time. Those eyes were as efficient as magically securing the goblin. Locked onto his prey, The King of the Undead seemed to absorb the world around him so only two burning orbs existed in this level of Perdition.

Bartleboth tried to focus on his limbs. Run, dammit! Damn you Gem! Dammit! He’d had so little time to acclimate himself to muscles and joints.

Still, the lumbering behemoth that was Gohdin marched on. All the world could have burned away, and he would continue to march. Through flames, blades, or even the wrath of the gods… it seemed he would never cease his hunt.

Shiver, the world quakes as ice covers all that the fire has annihilated. Let the world shift between Death and Life; flames and ice. Question not why the dice fall as they do or the cards that fall across the table, for the gods have positioned themselves with strategy. Who are mere mortals to question their wisdom?

Bartleboth questioned no specific god—having no true faith within either body.

Instead, he was left in the path of the unstoppable force that was Lord Gohdin.

The horns that stretched up from his head were the very accessories of the devils. His eyes were the gems of Hell. His tail a blessed appendage to wreak havoc upon beasts and man. His magic was a glimpse into the eternal divinity that would destroy lesser beings. His physical prowess, hulking beneath his cloak, was the visage of a titan careful to not break his toys.

The wounds that covered his limbs were testament to his might. All the holes, the severed pieces, and the opened sores proved the worth of the beast. Bartleboth gulped a mouth of dry air as he watched that which shouldn’t be alive approach to steal his soul.

Run! Bartleboth’s legs wouldn’t budge. Run! Dammit!

A storm that rains boiling pitch from a crimson, blazing sky spread over Bartleboth. His mind fell subject to the tempestuous bloodlust. Madness of the blackened shadows soaring above the clouds as bright sparks of fire illuminate their deadly forms. Hands that reach from the dirt and muck, decayed and unyielding, spread the mire of this hellish vision farther and farther across the world. And the will of man, unrelenting as the seasons, carries them both to tribute for all the goblin had done.

“No! Damn you!” Bartleboth threw all of his will into shutting his eyes and turning. His king was only twenty meters or so from him. It had taken him so very long to find the courage to run; to find something to live for.

One step in retreat was halted with the sound of metal against stone. Knowing he’d at least turned from the encroaching doom, Bartleboth opened his eyes and searched for the answers. Before him was a length of beautiful metals molded into a fantastic polearm. The halberd style head, though much larger than any man could easily wield, was driven into the stone and rested lazily within its hole. It stood as a post to block the goblin’s retreat.

Bartleboth yelped in surprise that his foot hadn’t been severed off. He glanced up to one of the buildings to his right where the angle of the weapon told him it had originated. There, atop one roof, was Captain Bo’Ra’Set. The lion’s mane glistened in the dull lights of the far-off forges. His arms were folded across his breastplate. Lips were pulled back into a revealing growl.

Bartleboth growled as well; though, his was rather pitiful. He moved to step around the side of the weapon when a puff of smoke and the sound of a ricochet made his foot stop once again in the air. He looked up to the other side of the street to see the false-human form of Corallan smiling down on him. She hung upside-down from an overhang on one building. Her psychotic smile spread across her face as the true form behind it took aim with one of her hooked arms. A number of bugs were spinning around her arm as if they’d practiced daily for this recital.

Bartleboth hissed at the sudden appearance of two Captains. That was, until he turned his attention back down the road he planned on fleeing down. He’d considered it.

I could outrun them both if I really push myself. I’m smaller now. I just need to get away! Dammit, I need to get away!

That was, until he saw the newest entry.

Jeseph stood in the center of the road. His thick neck twisted as the head moved from side to side. A heavy crack was heard with each movement. Bartleboth ceased all movements as he noticed the two halves of the Locked Shield covering his arms and sides. He’d been prepared to lock down the entire street. There was no escape in that direction.

This shitty goblin’s blade won’t break through that shield’s abilities.

That was it. The pieces were moved into position.

I have to go down one of the alleys.

To the right was the lion-man that had kicked off the roof, off a wall, and then off the first building to land safely in the middle of the path. Another weapon like the one imbedded into the street was in the Captain’s hands. A wicked smile told Bartleboth he wasn’t going to make it by.

Behind him, Corallan had skittered down into the alley on the other side. Her wicked human form giggled with the bug clicking behind her.

No way out. Bartleboth looked down to the two blades in his hands and the pouch containing the odd gem. This is all I have. The curses of Gem continued in his mind. If only I were in my body, I could slide away or get through tight spaces. I could actually put up a fight, too. The end had come, and the goblin was slowly beginning to accept it. Focus on what I can do.

The goblin shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. Then, as if shoving all the fear aside, he turned toward the marching king. Fortitude that the true Gem could never produce.

I have two options. I can either try to escape or fight… even in his head, he paused at the hopelessness. Neither is likely to succeed, but maybe this will work. Please, work. Bartleboth dropped two fingers into a pouch on his hip and then spread his stance.

Opening his eyes, he could see Gohdin had stopped just ten paces away from him. The sword he carried was glistening at his side. Keeping it at rest, the undead king stared down with an emotionless expression and no defenses readily prepared.

Bartleboth considered leaping forward and stabbing him. He was relaxed.

It won’t work. He’s too fast. The blade sparkled a bit in the dragonkin’s hands. I don’t recall stories of any combat skills. Yellowish goblin eyes scanned over the king as quickly as he could; blinking continuously as to not be drawn beneath the weight of the frightening aura. Magic and close combat? I only have one option…

Green hands tightened around the handles of his blades. Two fingers lifted slightly above the others; a small jewel settled between the metal and the flesh.

This is it.

He couldn’t look his king in the eyes. Be it a sense of shame, fear, or some mixture of those and other emotions, Bartleboth kept his narrowed eyes fixated on the blade in Gohdin’s hand.

“Are you ready?”

Bartleboth felt the emotionless question poke through his limbs like a series of needles in some insane experiment. The dragonkin was simply asking… as if this were nothing more than a nuisance. He wasn’t breathing heavily. He wasn’t hunched over in pain. He wasn’t even energetic in his preparation for the final fight.

This seemed to mean nothing to him.

Merely confirming that the goblin was ready to accept his death.

“Does it matter?” Gem’s higher voice carried Bartleboth’s intensions. He tried to keep his limbs in control, but they shook with the impending end.

The dragonkin shook his head.

“Then it won’t matter that I’m not Gem.” The goblin tried. By all the gods, he tried.

Gohdin’s eyes flickered slightly, but Bartleboth couldn’t see it with his narrowed view.

“What does that mean to me?”

The cold voice was a frigid wind carring the strikes of distant lightning ever closer. “Gem had used magic against me.” There’s hope. “Gem took my body.” There was more silence, so the goblin continued. “I am Bartleboth, the homunculus slime, Lord Gohdin.” The goblin tried to bow deeply, yet his stiff body would only allow him to bend at the neck.

More silence. Perhaps his voice wasn’t heard. Bartleboth cleared his throat as quietly as he could, but he’d hoped to keep this a two-party conversation. Keeping his voice low, he continued.

“I’ve served my king, but the goblin stole my body by some unknown means.”

Could it be?

That was all Christoph considered in response, yet the parts of Gohdin that bled into him considered the remainder.

“So, your betrayal was a façade?”

The goblin tensed, but he moved his eyes upward so he could only see the bottom of the scaled jaw. There was a twisted smile where a number of gouges had peeled back his lips.

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“Of course, my Lord.” The tricky slime spoke with confidence as no spells seemed to have been cast or wardings placed. “I brought out the traitors for you. They had gathered in the shadows. So, I revealed them to you.” His bow now fell deeper as the lie began to take root.

Gohdin’s eyes still burned with the bloodshot crimson. He glanced across the distance to see the Captains keeping their distance—prohibiting any escape. They were ensuring their king his prey. Such loyal subjects. None were reacting to the goblin’s soft words. Perhaps, they were unable to hear him.

“Then, I ask, where is Gem?”

He believes me? The goblin stood slowly, careful to keep his eyes down, and resisted smiling. “He is in the alley behind Captain of the Northern Guard.”

Christoph looked between the insect, the goliath, and the lion-man. “Which alley?”

These words, though quieted, did interest the goblin as if made of sparkling metals.

“Behind the Northern Guard’s Captain.” There was another pause. “My Lord knows his Captains, surely.”

There was a soft growl.

“Interesting.” Bartleboth rose slowly. With yellow eyes shining with greed, he found himself staring into the crimson eyes of Gohdin. “He said you’d changed.”

Cold air was now filling the street; funneling down both directions from the tense area between the goblin and dragonkin. Christoph’s stance remained solid, but his eyes became less like infernos and more like fires built beside a camping team of adventurers. The two remained quiet as the Captains watched on in anticipation of their ruler’s awesome might.

“Who?” Growled The King of the Undead.

“Gem.” The goblin relaxed only a little, the blades were still in his hands to keep something between the two. “The real Gem.” The goblin spit to the side in curse of the name.

“So, you’ve change bodies.” The eyes of Gohdin narrowed. “How did this happen?”

The goblin glanced around himself. The Captains were still far enough away. Being a clever slime, he even checked the air around him. No bugs. He confirmed they weren’t being listened to—only watched. Bartleboth took a step forward. Closing the gap just slightly, the Captain’s reacted with risen hands or grunts.

Gohdin’s open arm rose to silence the movements.

“Let us talk!” His voice roared. He hadn’t removed his eyes from the goblin. “Let me hear this goblin’s treachery from his own lips, and I will pass judgement.”

That was all it took.

No Captain would step forward. It was the king’s right to hear the voice of his betrayers, and it was his right alone to pass judgement. None would question it…

Only watch on with amazement in their eyes. All those eyes. All open wide to watch as the two moved closer.

“Who are you?” Bartleboth hunched over slightly, but the blades were only prepared as defense. His portentous smile made Christoph pull his lips back.

“You speak to your king, goblin.”

Doing his best to resist shivering at the words, Bartleboth forced himself to smile further. “Oh, I doubt that. You look like him, but who’s in there?” The goblin opened his hand slightly. He tried to keep his movements like he’d dropped his defenses, but his intentions were to showcase the jewel between his fingers.

Gohdin looked over the goblin and the small stone in his hands. “I am Gohdin, the king of Surton Spire. You test my patience.”

Both had bluffed their way to this point. Both were doing quite well to find themselves trapped between barricades of incredibly powerful beings. One slipup could bring the wrath of The Spire down on them as a mighty waterfall upon a pebble.

Bartleboth’s eyes widened as an annoyed anger spread over his king’s face. He saw no spark in those eyes at the sight of the gem. So, he tried again.

“Does this mean nothing?” His hand slightly opened further so the dagger balanced oddly in the two smaller fingers.

Examining the stone, Christoph huffed. “You are trying my last nerve, goblin.”

“You are not my king.”

Both were whispering, but the whispers were quickly transforming from a spark into a flame that threatened to explode.

“Watch your tongue.” The dragonkin was now standing over the goblin. His form towered over the smaller creature. Though their minds might have reversed such standings, their physical forms created a vast canyon between their might and imposing.

Averting his eyes from the looming reaper, the goblin tried to reconsider his ploy. “But, you are different.”

Had the goblin pushed further or began to scream wildly, perhaps it would have mandated an emotional response. Had he the ability to read minds, he could have sensed the dragonkin screaming internally. He knows! How does he know? What does it matter? There would have been all the confirmation he needed, yet he could not read minds. And, he dared not turn to yell and leave himself open. So, his handicap came from the mortal’s limitations.

“This is your reasoning?” The dragon’s booming voice was much louder now. He cared not for any watchful eyes or the judging stares. The goblin’s response was weak; no evidence and apparent lack of confidence in his own claims. He can’t live.

A king mentally damned his subject to die. There was more than enough reason to end his life, but now it was obvious he had to. He can’t spread that doubt. I have to keep them caged. I have to make an example of him! The undead mind needed no such justification from the humanity within.

Bartleboth’s eyes darted about as the dragonkin’s hand swung wide in an instant. The cloak on his back, slowly regenerating holes in the magically imbued fabric, flew up.

This was the first time since they’d come together that all Captains could clearly see the situation. One black eye watched from far behind; witnessing a goblin gradually coming to an understanding. One black eye witnessed, even from the distance, the shimmer of some spectacular little jewel.

Not many understood that this black eye caught more than the natural world, but it interprets the aura about the material world. Anything that shimmers with magic is understood. Gohdin, the dragonkin that simulated a mad god, was covered in sparkling lights and colors while the goblin possessed only the small stone that shined like a small star.

Bartleboth and all Captains present opened their eyes wide—though for different reasons. Gohdin experienced the world in a slightly slowed fashion, yet he took the extra time to flourish his attack. It was necessary, for the might of the dragonkin, The King of the Undead, to slay with both impossible strength and glorious splendor.

This is it. The goblin thought. My last gamble. Gods damn you, Gem.

As the black-metal blade arched over the king, the goblin pushed off. It wasn’t as quick as the previous owner of the body. He hadn’t quite figured out the limbs’ truest potential, but it was the last option. Both moved to end the other.

No Captain moved. They simply watched.

They all bore witness to the goblin landing both blades into the chest of Gohdin.

Gohdin’s face was pushed up to look toward the rocky sky; a small hand slapped into the bottom jaw only after driving a blade partially through the armor. There was a pause in the violence.

“Hah… huh?” The goblin, standing on the chest of the dragonkin, gripped his blade for balance and pressed harder with the stone. It neither glowed nor reacted to the touch between the two.

Gohdin’s eyes dropped to the goblin on his chest and began to growl.

“That,” his eyes began to overflow with crimson, “stung.”

Then the creeping smile came. Bartleboth was only centimeters away from a mouth full of teeth evolutionarily constructed to tear through armor-like hide. The slime trapped within the goblin began to scream.

With all options exhausted, the execution’s order came down. The traitor would die, and die by the very hands of the injured party. So, we see the laws of Surton Spire. Though it may seem barbaric within the havoc of simulated society, there is still a presence of law… one that must be followed.

Blood sprayed into the street as Gem the goblin’s throat burst open.

Gohdin’s maw wrapped about the thin frame of his opponent. Lifting upward, the smaller foe was removed from his chest. Godhin’s free left hand pulled both blades free of his armor. His mouth instinctively tossed to the left, and then to the right, and then back again. Tearing deeper into the flesh, his prey cast blood like violent rains while his agony manifested through muffled screams.

The Captains watched with joy as the leader of this insidious plot was viciously ended. Flailing about, the goblin tried to slap, claw, or punch his way free. His loose packs and armor were cast aside in the grapple—even a small stone that tumbled to the side of the street and fell beneath one business’s wooden deck.

Gohdin’s hands rested at his side as his mighty neck and jaw provided more than enough power to end the goblin in an instant. Instead, all watched as judgment passed with at an excruciating pace.

An example. The sour taste of goblin blood filled his mouth, yet Christoph clamped down just enough to force more out. Like biting into a sour fruit, he told himself it was nothing worse than that. He still had his tongue then; flavors not entirely lost on the lich. An example!

The memory of a burning sky flashes through Christoph’s mind.

Every flinch or movement yanked another scream from the goblin. His left shoulder was trapped as well; so the arm hung loosely from the split flesh that grinded between sharped bones. There seemed to be no end in sight.

That was, until the king dropped his toy. The goblin fell to the ground, as all his comrades, as a limp husk. The flesh was mangled beyond repair—even the clerics of the area would have troubles healing this without him sustaining long-term damages.

“All hail, King Gohdin!” The goliath down the street shouted with a low voice.

“Lord Gohdin!”

“The King won!”

Voices cried out from corners and shadows, the dimly lit street filling with shouts of his victory. Gohdin stared down at the goblin’s lifeless form. What little blood remained in his veins spilled out to trickle down the slightly sloped street.

Blood slid down the back of Gohdin’s, Christoph’s, throat.

The newborn revolution had been snuffed from The Spire. All present saw what would happen when the king was tested. Word would spread, and the law of the dragonkin lich would be unquestioned. With crimson eyes like the infernos of the various layers of Hell, he stood an embodiment of sovereign evil.

Blood continued to drip down the back of his throat.