Who the hell was Maizo?
I took a moment to verify that our opponents were under control before turning to see for myself. Nazralind had her bow drawn; Aster, Flaethwyn, and Adelly all had weapons ready; even Rizz and Rhoka had silently come in at the rear with those staffs of theirs held out, blades extended. These goblins weren’t much of a threat anyway, now that I looked. Those “weapons” I’d glimpsed while bursting in turned out, on closer inspection, to be pickaxes. Had we just captured a mining crew? In any case, I could risk taking my eyes off them.
The sole living goblin in the cells was laboriously rising up from a prone position, and it really looked like an effort. Poor guy had been worked over something fierce; I could hardly see the green on large parts of him through the bruises and blood. He could only crack one swollen eye to peek at us and was obviously having trouble breathing.
This looked like a job for the Dark Lord.
“Heal.”
Pink light burst from the cell, causing the other goblins to flinch.
“Whew!” Maizo gasped, straightening up fully. “Hoooo, that’s tingly! Holy shit, thanks. Wow, you’re…all here. Together. Now that I didn’t see coming.”
“Just a moment,” Flaethwyn said, turning away from our prisoners and lowering her weapon entirely, because apparently my concerns about operational security were not shared. “Hey, you’re that goblin who dropped us in that blasted mud pit!”
“Wow, I’m impressed, Lady Flaethwyn,” Maizo said sincerely, swaggering forward and grabbing the bars of his cell with both hands, which caused her to blush and avert her eyes as among other indignities he’d been stripped of his clothing. “Who woulda thought you could tell one goblin from another?”
“A mud pit? Really?” I asked.
“It’s…a long story,” said Yoshi, not meeting my eyes.
“You.” Rizz strode past me, lifting her goblin-sized mechanical naginata to rest it over her shoulder, and pointed at one of the felled followers of Jadrak. “Where are the keys to these cells?”
“The…keys.” He blinked at her, eyes seemingly out of focus, and reached up to grip his skull with one hand. “I don’t…”
Oh, right, this was one of the ones who’d been smacked against the wall. Little dude looked pretty concussed.
Heal, I cast, causing him to jerk upright with his eyes bulging wide. Then I did the same for the other two who looked a bit the worse for our encounter.
“You can talk to me, Judge.” One of the room’s goblins had got to his feet and now stepped forward, hands held out before him to show he had nothing in them. “I’m Rads, I’m responsible for this crew. We’re miners, not… Look, we weren’t told where keys are. They ordered us to leave ‘em in the cells. If there are still any nearby, they’ll be in the security office, just through there.”
“Rhoka,” Rizz ordered. The Arbiter nodded and stalked off through the door toward which Rads had pointed.
“Hey, alchemist girl,” said Zui. “Do you have an acid that’ll eat through metal?”
“Through metal?” Amell squeaked. “I don’t… Uh, not fast enough to help, no. I don’t encounter much metal, usually. It’s crazy how much of it there is down here.”
Weird how she could brew a magic bomb-finding elixir with what she was just lugging around but not hydrochloric acid. The rules of alchemy were puzzling, I really needed to get some questions about this answered.
“That goblin had been tortured,” Rizz continued in a grim tone, leveling her polearm at Rads. “So were those two—to death. And you wanna take responsibility for this?”
“We had nothing to do with that!” Rads exclaimed, waving his empty hands overhead. “I’m responsible for my crew, not the Goblin King’s orders! My people are miners, you understand? We dig up ores, not… Look, we’re only here on guard duty because everybody else bugged out and we volunteered to stay behind. We were ordered to feed the prisoner and not open those cells under any circumstances! You’ve got no idea what they do to people who rebel against the Goblin King.”
“No, we’ve got a pretty good idea,” said Zui, who was over at the bars now, giving Maizo a once-over. I couldn’t blame her; he was Healed and all, but there was an awful lot of dried blood still on him and his grin showed a couple of missing teeth.
“What do you mean, everybody else bugged out?” I demanded. “Where did they go?”
Rads gulped, giving me a wary look. He was clearly uncertain why there were a bunch of humans and elves down here, but it was plain that we were with the Judge, and that we weren’t to be trifled with.
“King Jadrak’s abandoned this base. He’s moving his headquarters to rule from Fallencourt. I dunno who else might still be kicking around here—we probably aren’t the only crew left to look after something, but it’s only been a few hours and we ain’t seen anybody else.”
Well, that explained it.
“Would he really give up a secure position like that?” Yoshi asked, frowning deeply. “That doesn’t seem to make sense. It’s risky.”
“It’s a bold move, but I could see it from Jadrak’s perspective,” said Gizmit, emerging from the door behind us. “Holding Fallencourt gives him central control and not holding this place prevents him stretching his forces too thin. It’s aggressive and risky, though, you’re right. I found what Rhoka’s supposed to be looking for, by the way. Catch.”
She tossed a ring of metal keys across the room to Zui, who snagged them out of the air and began trying them on Maizo’s cell door, muttering in annoyance. There were a lot of keys on that ring. Rhoka poked her head back out of the security office, scowling at having been upstaged.
“Anybody else nearby, Biribo?” I asked.
“Not within the radius of my perception from this spot, boss. Not in the tunnels above or below, either. I think this guy’s on the level, they really have pulled out.”
“I thought there was a Spirit here,” I said, frowning. “Would Jadrak really abandon that?”
“Lot of other assets here that can’t be moved easily, or at all,” Gizmit agreed. “But he is trying to consolidate his control in a hurry with adventurers closing in and a pissed-off Dark Lord invading Kzidnak. Like I said: not the call I would’ve made, but I can imagine Jadrak going for it.”
“Dark Lord?” one of the captured goblins whispered. “Oh, shit. Shit.”
“Hah!” Zui finally crowed in satisfaction, and the cell door swung open. “All right! Next step, we gotta find something for you to wear.”
“I dunno, this is pretty cozy,” said Maizo, who had wrapped himself in the threadbare blanket which was apparently provided with his cell.
“Why were you in there, Maizo?” Yoshi asked.
The goblin grimaced, showing off the new gaps in his shark-like teeth. I felt particularly bad about that, but Heal wouldn’t fix anything missing.
“Cos I’m an information gatherer working for Maugro. I dunno exactly how Jadrak got wind of this Dark Lord situation, but he also found out who else knew about it, and…well, there you have it. Since you’re down here, Lord Seiji, I’m hoping you managed to rescue Maugro and the gang?”
He looked up at me with such an eager expression I felt a crack form somewhere inside me. It immediately fell, though; Maizo could see my face, and everyone else’s.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I was too slow. Maugro and Mindzi both came running to me for help when they were attacked, but they died on the way. So did the other goblin in his office, I never got that guy’s name. You’d better believe I wiped out the assholes who did it, and Jadrak is next on my list.”
Maizo nodded, eyes downcast. “Yeah… That’s something. Guess I’m not human enough to find a lotta satisfaction in revenge.”
“We’re going back to the barracks,” Zui stated, glaring around at us as if expecting to be challenged. “There was abandoned gear all over in there, so we can find something for him to wear, and possibly eat.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “Adelly, would you go with them, please? I know this place is theoretically emptied out, but that can change in a hurry and I’ll feel better with somebody tall and Blessed watching their backs.”
“Hai!” Adelly said crisply, saluting before turning to follow the two goblins, who had started off without waiting for a response. Yoshi jumped and turned a wide-eyed stare on her, then me, but Rizz spoke up again before he could say anything.
“So you didn’t put them in the cells,” she said in a voice like ice, keeping her polearm leveled at Rads. “You just kept them there. You let two fellow goblins die of injuries they suffered at the hands of your coworkers, and would have let Maizo die just the same. Because you were told to?”
“This is not the job any of us signed up for, Judge,” Rads said, his tone pleading. “We’re just trying to survive. Do you have any idea what it’s like for those people? The fanatics, the… The Goblin King has everyone whipped into this rabid fucking frenzy. You can’t go against them, or they tear you apart.”
“And they are gone,” Rizz snapped. Rhoka stepped silently up beside her, holding her own weapon at the ready but not pointing it yet. “You consigned people to die alone and in agony because you were scared of the memory of the Goblin King?”
“You’re damn right I was!” he yelled, suddenly finding his spine. Rads even took an aggressive step forward, heedless of the blade which she kept aimed right at his chest. “And if you think that’s weird, then you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about! We got left behind because we’ve been trying to sit out the worst of the insanity. Because we’re not trusted or valued enough by the hard-liners to go along with Jadrak’s glorious crusade. You know what a delicate fucking dance we’ve had to do for weeks now, staying alive here without getting blood on our own hands? I didn’t see you here protecting anybody from the madness, or any other Judge! If those crazy assholes came back and found we’d gone soft on the prisoners, it would’ve been our asses next! I’ve got a team of six miners I’m trying to get through this shitshow alive. If you think you coulda done better, good for you, but you weren’t here.”
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Rizz shifted her fingers on the haft of her weapon, expression unchanging. “And does that make you feel better about your complicity? Look me in the eyes, Rads, and say you’re not to blame.”
“Ugh, why are we wasting time on this goblin nonsense?” Flaethwyn groaned. “The Goblin King isn’t here. This whole exercise is a bust. Let’s just squeeze these dregs for information and leave.”
Rizz very slowly turned to give the elf a long, hard stare, keeping her weapon at the ready.
“I think,” Yoshi began.
“I know a quick way to settle this,” I said, taking two steps forward till I stood abreast of Rizz and Rhoka. Raising my rapier, I pointed its tip at Rads, who backed away. “You and your team have killed two people through your own sniveling cowardice. Fair’s fair, foreman. Pick your two least useful team members.”
Well, that got everybody’s attention, all right. The goblin miners all began protesting and trying to retreat against the wall away from me. Rizz and Rhoka immediately shifted their stance, bringing their weapons up to aim in my direction.
“Whoah, wait a second,” Yoshi protested. “Omura, you can’t be serious!”
“I dunno what passes for justice where you’re from, boy, but this isn’t happening,” Judge Rizz stated.
I guess I was giving people the wrong idea bout Japan’s justice system, huh. Oh, well, it wasn’t like anybody back home would ever hear about this or have the chance to be embarrassed. More immediately…
“Your position is understood, Judge Rizz,” I replied. “Counterpoint: Windburst. Heal, Heal.”
I sent her and Rhoka flying across the room against the opposite wall and immediately remedied any damage done to them by the impact. Rhoka lost her staff in transit; Rizz actually managed to not only stay armed but land on her feet after bouncing off the wall.
“I’m not a patient man,” I said to Rads, taking a step closer. “Pick two. Now.”
“Omura, you can’t do this!” Yoshi insisted.
“Stay out of this, Yoshi.”
He drew his sword.
It was sort of incredible how a group of people could suddenly split into two distinct groups. Instantly, Yoshi’s followers and mine shifted just slightly, angling themselves to face between the goblins and each other. Aster had her sword across her shoulders in its ready posture, and now subtly moved to a balanced stance; Nazralind kept her nocked but un-drawn bow aimed at the goblins, but adjusted her angle so that she could instantly bring it to bear on anyone in the room. Amell rested one hand on the clasp of her potion satchel, and Pashilyn’s face went blank and expressionless, her hands tucking themselves into the wide sleeves of her priestess robes.
Astonishingly, it was Flaethwyn who made herself the voice of peace and reconciliation.
“What? What is everyone so tetchy about, suddenly? If he wants to kill goblins, let him. Haven’t we got anything better to worry about?”
Well, reconciliation, anyway.
Rizz made an abortive move in my direction and I held out my free hand toward her in a silent threat, bringing her to an immediate stop.
“Choose,” I barked at Rads, “or I’ll pick two for you.”
“You can go fuck yourself, tallboy!” the goblin foreman snarled, baring his full complement of jagged teeth at me. Positioning himself in front of his crew, he held his arms out wide as if he could block them with his own body. “You want a piece of my people, you go through me first.”
I held his red eyes with a pitiless stare for just a moment. Less of a moment than I would normally have drawn that out—it was a tragic waste of a dramatic pause—but I was sitting on a powder keg and any second either Yoshi or Rizz was going to do something to make all this much more complicated.
“Correct answer,” I said, nodding and sheathing my sword. “So there is some character in you, after all. Maybe not much, but that’s not nothing. Very well, where are your supplies? Food, water, medicine?”
Rads blinked rapidly. “I—you—uh, what?”
“You’re robbing us, now?” one of his subordinates protested.
“They’re for you, not for us,” I explained patiently. “You lot are going into those cells. And unlike you, I happen to care what happens to people in my custody. I don’t intend to let you starve. If the Goblin King’s flunkies come back, you can tell them exactly what happened here and they’ll have no reason to complain about a bunch of miners getting beaten by the Dark Lord. Once Jadrak’s dead, I’ll send somebody to let you out.”
“That’s…better,” Rizz said grudgingly, approaching. She had the polearm back over her shoulder and not pointed at me this time, so I allowed it. “But I believe it is still my business to dispense justice in Kzidnak, boy, not yours.”
“Fine, if you want to take further issue with them after Jadrak’s out of the equation, I won’t stop you,” I said, annoyed. “Or do you think I’m being too harsh on the poor little darlings?”
Rizz turned her gimlet stare back on the miners. “Hmph. All things being equal, I wouldn’t let them off that easy, no. But in this situation we don’t have the luxury of taking any drawn-out measures. Your solution will do, for now. I gotta say, boy, that was the most sadistic lead-up to a light-handed punishment I’ve ever seen. I’ve met, dealt with, and fought a lotta different kinds of people in my years, but I think you’re my first…vicious softie.”
Nazralind audibly stifled a snicker, which of course I ignored.
“I don’t like hurting people, Rizz. I go out of my way not to do it any more than is absolutely necessary. You, of course, know the only reliable method for getting through life without having to hurt anybody?”
She nodded. “Make sure everybody knows you can and will. Yep. And pursuant to that, what would you have done if Rads there had volunteered two of his people to die?”
“Then I’d have killed him and stuck the rest of them in the cells. No need to take my word for it, either, just ask any of my followers what happened to the last asshole who failed that particular test.”
“You killed someone,” Yoshi said quietly, “for that?”
“Because nobody fucking listens!”
I usually had more warning when it came upon me—in fact, I usually had a much more severe provocation. This time, though, it was just his soft tone of incredulity that made me snap. All but literally: I felt something go pop inside my head, and just like that I was too furious to see straight.
I rounded on Yoshi, words spilling out of me far faster than I could even think about controlling them.
“It would be so easy to make this country a better place to live in: all everybody would have to do is stop clawing at each other like crabs in a bucket. We can blame the assholes in charge—and oh, believe me, I do—but the fact remains they would be as ousted and slaughtered as the nobility of France or Russia or China or everywhere else that has happened if their sole talent wasn’t keeping all the common folk of this wretched little shithole island turned against each other instead of putting their anger where it belongs!
“I’m sure you’ve been having a grand old isekai adventure, Yoshi, hanging out with adventurers and well-mannered nobles. Well, fucking good for you. I have been mostly dealing with bandits and nobles when they weren’t trying to impress anybody, and let me tell you the important thing I’ve learned about human nature: when the chips are down, most people will usually do the right thing—if it has been made clear to them beforehand that the alternative is they get fucking murdered!”
Just as suddenly as I’d started, I was out of things to say. And the silence was utter and oppressive. Goblins were staring at me in terror, my own people with worry. Yoshi and two-thirds of his friends looked vaguely haunted, but Flaethwyn, for the first time I’d seen, appeared reluctantly impressed.
Also, naturally, the others had returned just in time to catch that. Zui and Maizo stood in the door, staring, with Adelly looming over them from behind.
“Well?” I said irritably. “Come on. Supplies, unless you want to go to jail with nothing but what you’re wearing. Zui, we’ll need those keys.”
“You’re gonna kill Jadrak?” Rads said suddenly.
I turned a tired scowl on him. The flash of rage was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving me feeling worn-out and cranky. “I’m pretty sure I was unambiguous about my intentions, yes.”
The foreman sucked in a breath through his teeth, glanced over his shoulder at his frightened subordinates, then turned back to me and nodded.
“Then…look, I dunno whether there’s still anything in this whole base that’ll be useful to you, but I know where you should look. You wanna talk to Digger.”
“Who the hell is Digger?” I demanded.
“That’s the Spirit this place was built around,” said Gizmit.
Rads nodded again, eagerly this time. “Yeah, see, this whole part of the complex used to be mines before the ore ran out, and it all branches off from the cavern where Digger’s located. The Spirit’s spot has always been secured, but for the last few months it’s been getting increasingly…weird. Only Jadrak and Hoy have been allowed in there, and how paranoid they’ve been about it has scaled directly with the whole organization going off the rails, turning from an honest mining company into… Well, if you got this far into Kzidnak, I bet you’ve seen what they’ve turned into.”
“We saw, yes,” Yoshi said softly.
“So…” Rads shrugged helplessly. “I mean, I gotta assume they’d take anything valuable with them, but you can’t move a Spirit. I dunno what clues or whatever would even be left, but that’s where they’ll be. If…there’s anything, I mean. You’ll, uh, you’ll have to bust in, probably, they had that place locked down tight.”
“Thank you,” I said in a deliberately calm and reasonable tone. “That is exceedingly helpful.”
“Sure thing. Just…don’t tell any of Jadrak’s people I told you nothin’.”
I nodded. “You’re still going in the cells.”
Rads looked at the empty cells, then at the one with two bodies in it, then over at Maizo, and lowered his eyes. “Yeah, fair. Zabbzi, show ‘em where the supply lockers are.”
----------------------------------------
The Spirit’s cave was not, in fact, locked down.
We found it easily enough with the miners’ directions, after we left them secured in their cells with sufficient food and water for at least a week. And indeed, there was ample evidence at the entrances to this cavern had been sealed at some point—the doors were not only heavy, but bristling with locks, chains, and even obstructions that looked like they’d been bracing them shut. Those doors themselves were standing open, though, all the chains and whatnot dangling uselessly and the barricades lying strewn about the hall outside.
“Oh, no,” Biribo whispered as we stepped up to the ominously open portal.
“What?” I demanded. “Who’s in there?”
“Nobody,” he said in a miserable tone. “But boss…we shouldn’t be here.”
“We need to retreat,” Radatina agreed, buzzing around Yoshi’s head in agitation. “This is way more dangerous than we came here prepared for!”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Traps?”
For once we weren’t the first ones in; Rizz brushed curtly past me, stepping into the Spirit’s chamber with her polearm at the ready. She came to an immediate stop, straightening up from her prepared stance, and shifted the weapon to rest its butt against the floor.
“Well, I see what the familiars are agitated about,” the Judge said in a particularly dour tone. “This is not good. But not immediately dangerous, so long as nobody does anything stupid.”
That was good enough for me; I rounded the corner, went through the gates, and stopped right next to Rizz. Seconds later, Yoshi drew up on her other side, sword and shield at the ready.
The cavern was clearly natural, its floor uneven and domed ceiling bristling with stalactites. More doors stood around the walls, most smaller than the one we’d come through; all had heavy barriers built into them now, and all were standing wide open. I paid all of this little attention, though, immediately zeroing in on the familiar shape of a Spirit positioned in the center of the room.
Well, mostly familiar.
It was the same waist-high column of white stone with inset patterns glowing, but this one was quite different beyond that. Rather than the customary pale pastel glow, its engravings were lit up a livid red, and slowly pulsing from bottom to top, making me think of a heartbeat. In place of the projection of a stylized face in light above its top, the crown was ringed by a slowly rotating circle in which letters were written in red light:
ERROR – CONTACT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR – ERROR – SYSTEM NODE CORRUPTED
“I—wait,” said Yoshi, leaning forward and narrowing his eyes. “Is that English?”
“Not English,” I said. “Those are Roman letters, though. Maybe…Spanish? I know a very little Spanish. It does remind me of a Romance language, but…I don’t see any accent marks. Most of them have those.”
“How can you read it but not know what language it is?” Aster asked, stepping up behind me. “Or…can you not read it? I thought the Blessing of Wisdom…”
“Being able to fluently read or speak languages you’ve never actually learned causes some weird effects sometimes,” I said ruefully, thinking back to her (lack of) reaction to Junko’s name, and the way Gizmit had tricked me into revealing I could read Khazid. “For example, apparently you don’t get to intuitively know the name of whatever language it is.”
“Could it be Latin?” Yoshi asked.
“I can’t—hm. Well, I was going to say that was silly, but honestly that doesn’t make any less sense than everything else about this damn planet. More importantly, what’s wrong with that Spirit?”
“What’s wrong is it’s not a Spirit anymore,” Rizz replied. “It’s been corrupted. That is now a Void altar, which provides the answers to a lot of questions about Jadrak. It appears he’s been dealing with devils.”
“Oh, shit,” I whispered. “That means we’re gonna be dealing with devils, doesn’t it.”
Yoshi turned to us. “Void? Devils? What are you talking about?”
“Why, yes, Radatina,” I said sweetly. “Why don’t you explain to him what we’re talking about?”
And that’s how I got smacked between the eyes by a dive-bombing angry pixie.