The funeral took place the next day. The entire clan gathered including those affected by Soul Sickness. They were propped up by friends as the group stood just outside of the Kelp Farm. The Quarters were as distant as they could be within the confines of the camp, leaving a large space for the kelp trees to grow.

Overnight, someone had dug out burial plots underneath the water by the roots of the kelp trees, a challenging task, and had now arrayed each of the otters in them. Staked rope made of kelp kept them from drifting away from the slight current in the lake.

Gi found himself facing his clan, each of them looking to both he and Tiria as they waited for them to speak. For Gi, tiredness grabbed at his mind, slowing his thoughts. He'd tried so hard to speak to Danna last night. He tried to understand why she was angry.

With the size of the clan, it should be easier than ever for her to send him a vision, but instead, she was silent. Not once in the entire night did she speak with him. His anger prickled just below the surface as he'd grown frustrated with his god.

How was he supposed to do better if she wouldn't tell him what had gone wrong? Instead, she chose to stay silent. She chose to let him worry and panic, instead of guiding him. If she refused to guide him, what was her realm of family even for?

"Progenitor," Tiria said with a gentle touch on his arm, "Would you like to say a few words?"

His mind snapped back into focus. Like he looked towards Danna, his clan looked towards him for answers. Gi set his jaw. Danna may not lower herself to explain things, but he would.

"We lost many of our number during our assault yesterday, but it wasn't without gain. We've grown our Encampment Crystals to two, effectively doubling our Spawn Rate. We've eliminated followers of another god to provide more space for Danna's presence here."

He stepped forward, looking each of the clan members closest to him in the eye. "Despite what we've lost, I want to be clear that this was a victory. It does not return our friends and allies to us, but they now rest easily next to the Great River in the heavens. Down here, the work is not finished for us."

He paused, gauging the looks on his otters faces. Most of them seemed relieved. They could accept anything as long as it had been part of a plan. They were monsters after all. Killing and death were a part of who they were. As his eyes cast over his clan, they landed on the edge of the Encampment that separated them from the lake.

A pale humanlike figure wearing leather armor with way too many straps dropped into the Encampment. Following her were other humanoids that shared her pale skin and armor.

"Elizabeth," Gi growled. He didn't know why she was here, but now was not the time for it.

"Attend me," she said, her voice sounding bored even when raised.

With a glance at Tiria, he stepped away from the group. The eyes of his clan watched as he listened to Elizabeth's orders. He could still sense that thrum of danger from her, but it wasn't as strong as before. Could he beat her now?

He stopped a few feet from her. "What is it? Can't you see we're busy?"

Her eyes drifted from him, to his clan, to the bodies lying still beneath the kelp trees. "Shame," she said without any hint of emotion. "I've been hired to keep you and your Elites busy while another mercenary group attacks you."

"...What?"

"Yes, they couldn't afford my rates to kill you. I figure you can call your Elites over here and we can wait for the results of the other mercenary group."

She couldn't be serious, could she? How would monsters attack him here?

"Ah, looks like we weren't fast enough."

As she finished speaking dozens of trolls started to burst through the Encampment line, water dripping down their yellow and grey skin. Their red hair hung slack like a wet rag and it took them a moment to orient themselves as they dropped spent Wind Fern leaves to the ground.

"Ry, take the angry looking one with two maces. Starla, you're on the big one. Ferdinand, take the Subgenitor there. Darcy, the weird looking twins. We weren't paid to kill them, but if they fight back, you can injure them a bit."

He'd been so blindsided by this that he only just then came to obvious realization. Elizabeth was attacking them. She had lead a bunch of Squads here to try and kill his clan... on the eve of their last attack when they were still weak.

"ELIZABETH!" He screamed, all of his pent up frustrations and anger poured out of him. His voice cracked with the raw emotion behind it. Elizabeth sighed, barely managing to summon her ice blades before Gi was upon her.

The trolls took his scream as the start of combat and a roar came out of them as they charged towards his clan. Elizabeth's own sprinted towards his Elites as they were already starting to head forward.

His clan wasn't weak either. Their return battlecries echoed throughout the small space in the Encampment and dozen bolts of light shot into the charging trolls before they could ever get close.

Samba's voice yelled out over the crowd. "Templar! Form a wall!"

Gi heard all this around him, but all of his focus and rage was on a singular person - Elizabeth. She'd fought with them for Jalx and in the Dungeon and now she betrayed them. He would end her.

Gi fired out a burst of [Divine Ire] and raced his attack to close in on her. She blocked it easily with her blades and dodged backwards just as all six of his summons appeared and blasted the space she'd been in just before.

Two of his summons swung their maces directly at her head and she blocked both on her blades. Gi darted into the gap and slammed his fist into her abdomen, but his [Divine Ire] wasn't ready yet. She took the blow, falling back as she plunged one of her blades into a summon ending it.

Two more of his summons appeared on the other side, swinging maces down at her from behind. She blocked those in a strange twirling form. [Divine Ire] ripped through the air towards her and she disappeared at the last second and his own attack, obliterated two of his summons.

Elizabeth's dull voice came from behind him. "You still owe me fifty silver."

"I don't care!" Gi spun around, his eyes taking in the chaos of the battle around him. His clan had managed to form a battle line and the Templar were using their heavy maces to keep back the trolls.

From the brief glance, they had weak offensive skills, mostly related to their claws, but their defensive properties were astounding. Each slam of a mace seemed to do nothing and often even a devastating blast of [Divine Bolt] from the Inquisitors seemed to heal almost immediately.

His Elites were entangled by Elizabeth's own clan. Each of them were Classers just as his were and they all had almost identical skills to Elizabeth herself. They were faring well, but her Classers seemed more willing to dodge than or block than actually fight.

"You seem angry," Elizabeth said. "You forget that I'm not your friend. We've never been friends. You were sometimes a tool for me and other times a client, but ultimately, I am a sword. Do you rage against the sword? Or the one who wields it?"

Gi fired off a burst of [Divine Blast] towards Elizabeth's feet, not wanting to hit his own clan. She dodged, but he didn't charge in after her. She had said that she'd been hired.

"Who was it?"

A retching sound drew Gi's attention back to the battle with his clan and it appeared that Poe had joined the fray. The dragonfly wasn't a Classer, but he'd upgraded his [Web Shot] to [Web Lock]. The powerful webbing was strong enough to even keep the trolls locked down and where he'd spat it, the war of attrition started to eke into their favor.

"The Illusor Clan, of course. During the attack on the Ferrous clan, you sent a bunch of enraged Ferrets to attack their home. Now, you're their competitor. What else would you expect?"

He sent another [Divine Ire] towards her and she dodged again. He was mostly venting his anger and less trying to actually hit her at this point. "That stupid fucking goblin...," Gi muttered under his breath. "If I stop fighting you, you won't attack my clan?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "I was only paid to distract you. You can leave for all I care."

He wasn't sure if he should, but he trusted her. He looked back towards the clan and they appeared to have taken the initiative since Poe's arrival. The experience they'd had fighting the Brain Goblins was apparent and even those with Soul Sickness were helping out, shoving out the last of their Aether to fire off [Divine Bolts] or dragging their injured clanmates out of the way for healing.

No one attacked his clan like this and got away with it.

Gi spun around and sprinted towards the edge of the encampment. He dove into the water and headed up towards the surface. The Illusor Clan had an estate similar to Ferra's on the opposite side of the Bazaar and Gi headed there now.

Despite his rage, attacking them singlehandedly wasn't as foolish as it appeared. With his Heart of the Crossroads, they shouldn't be able to affect him with any illusions. The only reason they hadn't been the first target was because they were more dangerous to his clan or so they'd thought.

Rain spattered against his fur as he raced up the mountain. Such an attempt would have exhausted him when he was a fresh Jobbie, but now it just served as a good warm up and a good outlet for his continuing to smolder anger. The only problem between him and killing all of the Illusion Goblins was his Aether stores, but if they couldn't harm him, it didn't matter how long it took, he would end them.

As Gi arrived at their estate, it was tucked away with half of it under an overhang. Unlike Ferra's estate which was tall and relatively small, the Illusor Clan's sprawled across this opening in the mountain. It housed enough space for thousands of goblins.

It was made up of the same red brick as the many of the buildings in Igna except these had been painted in black and white splotches that mimicked the goblin's own coloration. A couple of goblins stood outside and peered through the rain at his approach, but he didn't speak.

Instead, Gi stopped a few dozen feet from the main entrance. Six otters appeared flanking him on each side. Aether spread into each of them as though they were simply extensions of his own body and charged [Divine Ire] fit to bursting. Light danced in each of their palms as the pounding Aether started to turn sharply to pain as he plugged more and more into the skill. His ability to adjust his skills had grown even more since becoming a Classer and that new skill was evident in the growing ball of light in front of him.

"Shit! Run! Run!" The goblins at the entranced yelled at they darted back inside, but the walls wouldn't save them.

Like cannon fire, seven globes of light each the size of a baby elephant shot across the space and shattered the front wall of the Illusor Clan's estate. Light exploded outward, pushing back the rain and shooting shrapnel of light and brick all around.

A stray brick took out one of Gi's summons, but most of the destruction was inward. Mounds of goblins lay trapped or dead under the debris, leaving only the main hallway unblocked. After half a moment, rain started to fall on Gi again, but it barely even registered.

"Kill." Gi's demand didn't need to be said aloud, but in the grips of his anger, he didn't care. His summon that had perished reappeared and four of them started blasting through the debris to the left and right of the main hallway.

Gi took his remaining two summons and used [Celerity] to slip over the broken walls of the Illusor facility and into the main hallway. All around him he could hear the cries of the injured being silenced as his summons found them, but he had no thoughts for them.

He wanted the head of the snake - Yultir.

Stalking through the main hallway, beams of light blew doors off hinges, revealing goblins in adjoining rooms. Meager attempts at illusion broke like wisps of light against his Heart and the pathetic slings of their jobbies did little more.

His summons silenced the offenders as they appeared while the rest continued to push their way through the sprawling estate in big globes of light.

"YULTIR!" Gi screamed.

His call went unanswered and Gi continued to commit a genocide against every goblin in his path. From the Soul Orbs pouring in, he'd already killed hundreds of them, but they'd yet to rally any sort of actual defense and Yultir continued to hide from him.

His feet started to move faster and faster as he increased the rate of his destruction, blasting through every wall or being that entered into his vision. Then he felt it.

Two of his summons had been killed off to his right. Now that his anger had a focus again, it surged. All of the feelings of abandonment from Danna mixed with the sheer audacity that this goblin thought to strike at him.

Like a bull, he burst through doors with nothing other than his own stats and staggered his [Divine Ire] with his summons so the walls barely impeded him. The roof of the estate crumbled as he passed blocking the way back, but it didn't matter. Forward was the only option.

After a few short minutes, Gi burst through a wall and exited into a broad garden. It was a large square at the center of the estate and manicured grass pricked his paws as he stepped in. Hanging plants hung from the walls and columns that dotted the garden and bushes broke up the space into small paths with benches that lined them.

He sent a burst of [Divine Ire] tearing through one of the hanging vines, but he didn't get any notifications. After the Brain Goblins, he wasn't taking any chances.

"It's rude to destroy someone's home, you know."

Yultir stepped around the path. The tall goblin with his mottled black and white skin smirked at Gi. Nine shards of light cut through the goblin, but it just passed through him as though he was made of smoke.

Yultir wagged his finger back and forth. "Now, now. None of that. I was happy to let this be a business rivalry, but then you had the audacity to attack my sister clan. After our conversation during the Assembly, I must say I'll enjoy this. You'll remember me for the rest of your short life."