There came a pause in which we all considered the tunnel ahead of us, and during that silence a few things I knew about goblins and Jadrak in particular clicked together.

“Hey, Biribo. Can you detect the presence of bombs?”

Everyone’s heads whipped around to stare at me.

“Well… Not directly, boss. I can scan for the shapes of stuff that’s out of place…particularly stuff like fuses and packages of liquids or powder attached to a mechanical triggering device. There are ways to conceal that, though.”

I nodded; we’d used some of those ourselves, the sleeping-bomb-disguised-as-a-rock being my group’s favorite method of bandit attack.

“Give it a try, if you would. Just let me know if anything seems suspicious in that tunnel. Goblins are really good with alchemy,” I explained in response to everyone else’s questioning stares. “And Jadrak in particular runs a mining company. Odds are good he’s got explosives to work with.”

“Oh.” Yoshi’s expression lengthened and he turned an even more unhappy stare on the tunnel. Behind him, Amell—who was so quiet I’d almost forgotten she was there—knelt on the rocky ground, set her heavy satchel in front of herself and began rummaging in it. “Radatina, double-check Biribo’s findings, please.”

“With pleasure!”

Biribo actually broke away from the tunnel entrance to zoom at Yoshi’s face. “Oh, you think I can’t handle—”

“Heel!” I ordered. “The last thing this group needs is familiar drama! It’s a good idea to have an extra pair of eyes on this. If you don’t want Radatina to show you up, you’ll just have to be better than her, that’s all.”

He stuck out his tongue at me, but turned and zipped back toward the big crack in the wall which was the focus of all this scrutiny. Radatina hovered nearby, managing to focus intently while simultaneously radiating smugness.

“Booby-trapping this would be a strange move,” Gizmit said, studying the tunnel entrance through narrowed eyes.

“Jadrak knows Sneppit was against him, right?” I asked. “If he knows about this back way in, and that it opens onto one of her tram tunnels that’s a straight shot from her base…”

“Kzidnak doesn’t have any equivalent of your Fflyr messenger relays; information down here moves at, basically, the speed of trams. Today, we’ve had access to those and he hasn’t. By now Jadrak most likely knows he’s made an enemy of the Dark Lord and has a powerful King’s Guild party closing in, but it’s debatable he’d have learned by now you’re linked up with each other and with Miss Sneppit. A tunnel rigged to explode would be a measure against something like that, which he would not have had time to set up in advance, especially since it seems to have involved evacuating part of his own HQ. And he wouldn’t take a posture like this against Sneppit on her own; she’s well known to be a defensive thinker.”

“Hm. Biribo, anything?”

“I don’t think so, but—”

“There’s nothing obviously bomb-like,” Radatina cut in, “but that tunnel itself is littered with old trash and loose rocks. I don’t think we can say for certain that there’s nothing alchemical concealed as some of it.”

“It’s worse at the end,” Biribo said, refusing to give her the last word. “That’s a chamber that was recently inhabited. Lots of junk in there, much of it artificial; real easy to conceal a trap among that stuff.”

“Well, this’ll slow us down, but I’m experienced at trap work,” said Gizmit, rolling her shoulders. “Since I don’t think it’s probably trapped, I judge it worth the risk. If I could borrow an elf to stand behind me and glow—”

“Let me. I’ve got it.”

Amell spoke in an uncharacteristically even, firm tone, though it was still on the quiet side. She’d been silently mixing concoctions from her pack together while the rest of us conferred and in fact now looked focused and determined, quite unlike her usual tremulous demeanor.

Now she was shaking a stoppered bottle of what was either very fine powder or effervescent liquid and moved about in a peculiar way for whichever. As Amell agitated it, the substance shifted in color from a muddy pink to gold-tinged white and began to glow. The alchemist drew in a breath as deep as she could manage, her whole chest swelling up with the effort, then swiftly yanked the stopper out of the bottle and blew furiously over its top in the direction of the tunnel wall.

It was powder, all right. It mostly went into the tunnel, but some of it sprayed…well, everywhere.

“It’s all right,” Amell hastened to reassure us as soon as she’d drawn another breath; everybody was already shuffling back from the airborne mess, Zui muttering protests as she shielded her hair and Flaethwyn and Adelly angrily brushing at their clothes. “The dust is harmless, and it won’t be on you for more than a few seconds. All of it will go right back into the bottle shortly. Then it’ll change color and I’ll be able to tell whether there’s any dangerous alchemy in the area it covered.”

“You can do that?” Yoshi sounded as impressed as I felt.

Amell nodded, speaking distractedly with her eyes fixed on the tunnel entrance, the sides of which were still sparkling with her magic alchemy dust. “This recipe will react to explosives, combustibles, corrosives, and mind-altering agents. If it reads positive I can do specific tests to narrow it down. Of course, another alchemist working from the other end can take steps to conceal against this trick, but goblins in Dlemathlys almost never do because the King’s Guild doesn’t send alchemists into the field.”

“Why not?” I demanded. “Far as I can tell, you just made yourself the most useful person here.”

Amell gave me a wide-eyed look, ducking her head; I had the impression she’d be blushing if her complexion allowed it. “I, uh… Well, really only big, state-sponsored groups like the guilds in Lancor do that. An alchemist can make much better money without risking their life. Not many want to go on delves unless somebody very powerful is making them.”

Well, well, this girl had hidden depths. And here I’d been wondering why someone so timid was even along for this ride.

“How long?” Gizmit asked tersely.

“Seconds, for an area this confined. Two minutes, tops.” Amell looked down at her satchel and grimaced. “I hope it comes back negative… I’m running low on almost everything. I may not have enough reagents to do all the follow-up tests.”

“Miss Sneppit’s got an alchemist on staff,” I said. “Youda’s good people. The goblins can’t afford to just give stuff away, but I bet he’ll sell you supplies at a fair price. I’ll spot you if you’re tight; me and Youda are old pals, he’ll give me a good deal.”

“Oh!” The poor girl gave me an utter deer-in-headlights look. “I couldn’t—you don’t have to—”

“I’m just being practical, not generous. If we’re going to be working together, it’s in everybody’s best interests if everybody’s working at their best. Obviously your skills are valuable here.”

“I will pay for her supplies if it needs to be done,” Flaethwyn snapped, glaring at me as if I’d just insulted her somehow.

“Why, that’s real big of you, Flaethwyn,” I said sweetly. “Now, just out of curiosity, did you ever offer to do that before you had a reason to be competitive about it?”

“Please stop, both of you,” Yoshi pleaded.

Flaethwyn’s mouth was open to retort, and I had the distinct impression his urging wasn’t going to dissuade her, but then she chanced to catch Nazralind’s eye. Naz sardonically lifted one eyebrow and folded her arms, and just like that, Flaethwyn flushed and looked away.

“Stop calling me Fureidowen. I know you’re doing it on purpose.”

Aster took one look at my own expression and intervened with another distraction. “Is your alchemy the reason your hair keeps changing color, Amell?”

That seemed to just make the girl sad; she hunched her shoulders and reached up to touch her curls, which were some indeterminate shade between green and blue at the moment.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I, um… Well, yes. An experiment went bad and it changed to… I don’t know. It doesn’t take dyes in a normal way anymore; I can’t get it to look black again. Everything I try dyes it a different color that has nothing to do with the dye I used. I’m getting afraid to try new recipes, ‘cos half the time it starts glowing or sparkling or some nonsense like that.”

“Huh, why not leave it at its new base color?”

Amell gave her a miserable look. “Because the new base color is yellow.”

Aster winced. “Ohhh.”

“What? What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “Lots of people have yellow hair. I bet that’d look good on you.”

“She’s lowborn, you idiot,” Flaethwyn sneered. “Golden hair is an elven trait, and a sign of the Goddess’s favor; its appearance, or lack thereof, is a major factor in determining the status of a highborn family. A lowborn who artificially colored their hair gold would be flogged or worse.”

“Why is everything I learn about this country both stupid and horrible?” I demanded of no one in particular. “Stupid or horrible, sure, that’s everywhere. We’ve even got some of each back home in Japan. But no, you Fflyr always have to have it both ways.”

I guess that was really the optimal moment for Amell’s mojo to kick in, because that conversation just wasn’t going to go anywhere productive from that point. Fortunately, the spectacle was riveting enough to seize everyone’s attention. True to Amell’s promise, the glistening powder began to drift away from everyone’s clothes, gathering into streams in midair and whooshing back into the bottle from which she’d first blown it, with by far the biggest concentrations being from within the tunnel. It was actually a little disorienting, given the way its motion was suddenly unrelated to the constant warm breeze whooshing down the tram line from behind us.

In just a couple more seconds, the last of it had slipped home again and Amell plunged the stopper back into the bottle.

“That is a neat trick,” Nazralind cheered.

“How’s it look, Amell?” Yoshi asked.

She had shaken the bottle twice more, studying its nearly-white glow; there was the faintest tinge of yellow, but the white heavily predominated. The light very quickly began to fade, and Amell took time to make sure the color didn’t change as the energy leaked out from the alchemy before answering.

“Looks like a negative, Yoshi. Just the faintest discoloration, but that’s about what I’d expect to pick up just from traces on the air in a place like this. Goblins use lots of alchemy, all over everything. There’s nothing in the vicinity that triggered the detection, so…nothing directly dangerous.”

I was pondering just exactly how potent alchemy really was and what else I might be able to do with it; potions were nice, but this was starting to look almost like a whole-ass third system of magic, distinct from Blessings and the Void. Anything that might help me buck the Goddesses’ control was worth my interest. But that was a subject to investigate another time.

“Then we’re back at this being suspicious. Biribo, what about non-alchemical traps? Surely it’s pretty easy to rig a tunnel to collapse if somebody steps on a tripwire or something?”

“We would’ve spotted that immediately, boss. Familiars can detect shapes of any solid matter within the range of our senses; it’s chemical composition that gets tricky.”

“Anything like that would be large enough and complex enough to be easily identifiable,” Radatina added, because neither of them could just let the other explain something without chiming in. “That tunnel is not rigged.”

I turned to Gizmit. “What do you think?”

“Something’s up,” she said, staring fixedly into the dark gap in the rock before us. “This isn’t normal. I guess we won’t find out exactly what until we explore more. Seems like we’ve ruled out the immediate and obvious threats.”

“Right,” Yoshi said, nodding and drawing his sword. Poor kid was visibly steeling himself, it was almost adorable. “Right. Okay. If that’s the case… Miss Aster, you and I are the best-armored. We should go first. With Omura right behind us; that’s the optimal position for our strongest spellcaster, and he’s got very good healing magic in case something goes wrong. Amell? How’s your potion supply? I don’t want to waste any, but this seems like the right moment to take precautions.”

“I have a few more,” she said, already handing him a vial. Amell produced a second, which she handed over to Aster. “That’s a basic first-strike defensive blend; damage resistance and heightened reflexes. Baseline duration of about fifteen minutes, though it’ll burn up faster if you raise your heart rate or get injured.”

“Thanks,” Aster said, lifting the vial to her lips with a grateful nod.

I felt someone prod me in the hip and looked down to find Zui smirking up at me. “What, you just gonna let the kid take over like that? I’d’ve thought the Dark Lord would be too proud to take orders.”

“Do you honestly think this situation isn’t enough of a mess without you stirring up shit?” I demanded. Seriously, why was she even here? “I’ll take issue with it if he tells me to do something I don’t wanna; I’m not about to argue with a solid plan. Yoshi, if anything comes suddenly at your face, yell. The first seconds can matter, and I can’t heal the dead. As long as you survive anything that happens, I’ve got you.”

“Got it,” he said seriously. “All right, here we go.”

He stepped up into the crack, and right away I saw the flaw in his plan. The narrow tunnel required us to go single file; Aster’s position behind Yoshi and in front of me just meant I couldn’t easily see Yoshi to heal him if it proved necessary. She couldn’t even draw her greatsword in these cramped quarters; her sole contribution to this effort was forming a meat wall between me and anything that might take out Yoshi.

I opted to keep my mouth shut. No point undermining the kid when our familiars and alchemist were all reasonably sure we weren’t actually stepping into a trap.

But we made it through with nothing happening. Nothing happened beyond, either; the three of us emerged into a chamber in which no lights had been left on, so I conjured a Firelight as soon as I stepped out after Aster. I could’ve used the elven glow, but I wanted to keep that discreet for the time being. As Gizmit had predicted, we were now in a goblin barracks; I got the impression we could only stand up straight because this place was built on a pretty vertical plan, with bunk beds towering seven ranks tall built against the walls. Man, it must’ve been hard to get to the top bunk at the end of a long shift.

Flaethwyn emerged a few seconds later and lit up her aura, as did Nazralind when she came in at the end of the group, giving us ample light to see. This place was a mess, the floor scattered with what looked like miscellaneous personal belongings.

“This looks abandoned,” Zui said, peering around. “In a hurry, too. There’s people’s junk everywhere, but look: most of the beds are stripped. And those lockers were cleaned out in a rush.”

She pointed, and I followed her indication to a rack of metal lockers along one wall which, sure enough, were all standing open, several with miscellaneous personal effects lying in or beneath them. Not much by volume; it looked like the goblins who’d cleared out of here had had time to take most of what was important, but not everything.

“Well, this is good and spooky,” Nazralind muttered.

“Tina-chan?” Yoshi stage whispered, and I shot him an amused smirk which unfortunately he was facing the wrong way to see.

“We’re still alone here,” Radatina reported, “but I can finally detect some goblins in a chamber… Let’s see, if we go out that door and down the corridor, we’ll come right to it. Only eight goblins, though. Can’t tell what they’re doing.”

“I can,” Biribo declared, zipping over to the door she’d indicated. “That room is a prison, not a barracks. Open area separated by metal bars from cell blocks. There’s one goblin imprisoned and seven outside the bars. Oh… And two dead goblins in other cells.”

“I could’ve picked all that out if I was closer,” Radatina snapped.

Biribo flicked his tongue out at her. “Coulda, woulda…didn’t.”

“Shut up,” I commanded. “You’re like a pair of toddlers. What about closer to us, can you detect anything in here or nearby that looks important? Or even interesting?”

“If there are any clues among personal junk dropped by the mooks, they’d take far too long to sort through,” said Gizmit, already striding in the opposite direction from the door the familiars had indicated, where there was another one. “That’s the officer’s bunks through there. I’m gonna check if any of ‘em were incompetent enough to leave important paperwork lying around. You lot go see what’s up in the cells, I’ll check in on you in a minute.”

“As you command, my lady,” I drawled.

“Uh huh,” Zui said, poking me in the hip again. “So it’s fine if Hero boy barks orders, but you won’t take it from a goblin.”

So help me, I was gonna kick her.

“What else do you notice? Yoshi doesn’t bark orders; he speaks with some basic damn politeness. Regardless of social skills, Gizmit isn’t wrong. I say we follow her plan, unless anybody objects?”

“Sounds solid to me,” Yoshi agreed quickly, nodding. We shared the significant look of two guys trying to herd two colonies of cats into the same place; fortunately most of them were easier to manage than the familiars and Flaethwyn. “Same formation as before? Flaethwyn, you should move alongside Om—with Lord Seiji. You don’t have armor, but with those long rapiers you two can stab past us if we run into trouble.”

“If I must,” Flaethwyn said, tossing her hair and giving me a long look as if this were some great imposition.

I ignored her, which visibly pissed her off, which was why I did it.

We got less lucky once out of the barracks. This section of Jadrak’s complex was, after all, carved out of what had originally been mining tunnels, and it was goblin-sized. They liked giving themselves a decent vertical clearance, so at least we didn’t have to crawl, but all of us were forced to duck and shuffle awkwardly once we were out of the taller barracks room into the corridor beyond. I silently reflected that if it came to a fight in this particular tunnel, only Yoshi’s relatively short arming sword would be even slightly useful. It would come down to him fighting and me casting over his shoulder while Aster soaked up hits with her artifact chainmail.

It didn’t, though. Despite the acuity of goblin hearing and the way sound seemed to echo off these stone walls, it appeared that we retained the element of surprise just by shutting up and moving our feet in careful little shuffles as we proceeded. Getting closer, the distant murmur of voices grew clearer, and I gained some insight into just why this was going so well for us: the walls did bounce sound, yes, but those overlapping echoes made it hard to pick out any one sound in particular. The goblins up ahead of us were arguing, and that was about all I could tell.

Biribo and Radatina buzzed along over our respective shoulders, giving no updates, which I took to mean the situation ahead was still as it had been described. We crept along the awkwardly cramped corridor until we came to a metal door, through which the muffled sounds of voices raised in agitation could still be heard. No wonder I hadn’t been able to make out details. Only now that we were right outside was I able to start making out individual statements, and that not consistently.

“…should’ve at least tried!”

“Not when…our own skins on…”

“Well, it’s too late now!”

“…could still…”

No good, we were only getting about half of it. Yoshi turned to catch my eye, and nodded, reaching out to place one hand on the door latch. I nodded back, grasping Aster’s shoulder. She looked at me, then carefully retreated when I gave her a gentle pull. All things considered, Yoshi and I were still our hardest hitters, and it was clear neither of us was a lead-from-the-rear type. If we were gonna charge in, we should take point.

Yoshi gripped his sword, inhaled and exhaled slowly, then yanked the door open and stepped through.

Blessedly, this was another tall room, and we had space to stand up. I was right on his heels, bursting into the chamber beyond as we were greeted by incoherent yells of surprise. The goblins had been distracted, but all turned to focus on us upon our arrival. Two raised weapons, and I didn’t give anybody the chance to do something foolish.

Windburst, Windburst!

Two was all it took in the relatively confined quarters to knock down all of the targets arrayed against us and smash half of them against the wall from which they slumped down, stunned.

Yoshi and I kept moving, keeping them covered as we made room for the rest of the team to stream in after us. He had the presence of mind not to divert his attention from the felled goblins until we were amply backed up, but then turned to examine the cells in which there was apparently one living prisoner and two corpses. I kept my own attention on the enemy for now, so I didn’t see what he saw.

So it came as quite the surprise to me that Yoshi knew the prisoner—even more so that Nazralind did--but their startled yells came out nearly in unison.

“Maizo!”