Yoshi was trying, bless him.

“So, that’s a cool artifact, uh… It’s Adelly-san, right?”

She gave him an inquisitive look. “It’s Lord Seiji’s, he took it from some criminals who were trying to…it’s a long story. I’m just using it. More importantly, what did you call me?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Yoshi said hastily, “I must’ve misheard your name. Fflyr is really hard for me to pronounce so I still mess up details sometimes.”

“No, you got it right,” I said. “She means the honorific. In Japanese you append those to everyone’s name unless you’re on really intimate terms with someone or trying to insult them. ‘San’ is the default one, that just connotes basic politeness.”

In fact, I thought it was odder that Yoshi was still doing that than that he was having trouble with pronunciation. So was I—so would be any reasonable person. Fflyr was a preposterous nightmare language full of non-Euclidian consonants run through a blender.

“I have never once heard you use that,” said Aster.

I turned while walking to give her a wide, sweet smile.

She sighed. “Yeah, that tracks.”

In the somewhat awkward silence which followed, I glanced over at our prisoner, not bothering to be surreptitious this time; we were obviously keeping him under close watch, but I didn’t want to stare too much as he might catch on to what I was doing faster if he knew his reactions were being monitored. Aster was walking behind him, keeping his bound hands in her view at all times; Adelly was in front, currently holding the rope tied to him. Flaethwyn had also nominated herself to stride alongside the goblin with her rapier out, conveniently within stabbing range but out of his much shorter reach. I’d decided to leave that alone, since she didn’t seem about to launch a preemptive execution, and if she did, Aster was capable of dealing with it.

Currently, Ritlit was strolling alongside Get Fucked, chattering merrily away. He kept glancing at her sidelong over his gag; his expression, what I could see of it, vacillated between annoyed and worried. Just behind him, next to Aster, Maizo caught my eye and nodded, winking.

Good, that was proceeding according to plan. I really liked working with goblins. Maizo and Zui at the very least had picked up on what I was doing without needing to be told, and I suspected that Ritlit had as well. It was a little hard to tell as she could also just be babbling on because that was what she did.

Though his initial effort had gone awry, Yoshi did not give up. You had to admire the tenacity.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how’d you end up working with Omu—with Lord Seiji, uh, Miss Adelly? Not to pry or anything, I’m just curious. I’ve found that people with Blessings always have interesting stories to tell.”

She gave him another skeptical look. “Mm hm. You looking to fish out the details of Lord Seiji’s operation, Hero?”

Yoshi flushed and opened his mouth in preparation to stammer apologies, but then deliberately inhaled and steadied himself. Honestly, I was more and more impressed with the kid. In addition to getting in better shape he had clearly been doing his best to train up those social skills.

“Of course I would never try to put you on the spot like that. I apologize if I gave that impression. I’m just trying to…broaden my understanding, since if there’s one thing I’ve learned here in Kuzidnak it’s that I’m missing a lot of context for life outside of…what I’ve seen so far, in Dlemathlys.”

“Kzidnak,” Zui corrected.

I took note of Yoshi’s companions staring at him now: Amell worriedly, Flaethwyn with seething intensity, and Pashilyn with an expression so performatively blank I could practically hear the gears turning.

“Right, sorry.”

“Well, sure, since you asked,” Adelly said, putting on a broad smile. “I was in the King’s Guild and was lucky enough to get Blessed. Then my luck ran out, I couldn’t keep food on the table, and I ended up as a whore. That satisfy your curiosity?”

Yoshi went bright red again, but continued valiantly to control himself, till managing a polite tone. “Ah, I…see. I’m sorry to bring up an…uncomfortable memory. This, um…this happened after you were Blessed?”

Adelly narrowed her eyes in rising anger. So did I, but for a different reason. He was saying the right things—where we came from. But here…

“If that’s surprising to you, then you’re right. You don’t understand anything about this country.”

“I guess that’s true,” he admitted.

Conversation lapsed into the sound of a couple dozen marching feet echoing off the tunnel walls around us. Awkward, but at least the Hero knew when to stop before he made it—

“So, Lord Seiji rescued you from that?”

Aster winced; Pashilyn’s face tightened in a more controlled version of the same expression.

“Spoken like a true Hero,” Adelly replied, and abruptly her tone was mild, bland, even delivered with a faint smile. Yoshi smiled back, clearly encouraged, and I suddenly understood exactly why this was going wrong. “Obviously it takes the intervention of a powerful man to right a wrong. I’m afraid you would be disappointed, though, Shennimeh-san.”

“Shinonome,” he corrected, “but that was cl—”

“Look, I’m sorry, but no human being could possibly pronounce that,” Adelly said, still smiling pleasantly. Now even Nazralind was staring at Yoshi through narrowed eyes. I’d noticed she and Adelly seemed to be getting closer during this mission, and as always I was glad when the noblewomen with us didn’t act like they were above the others, but this was starting to smell like trouble. Most of the lowborn would go exactly as hard as Adelly was right now and no harder, but aristocrats had different ingrained ideas about who they were allowed to get shirty with. “And in fact, Lord Seiji doesn’t usually rescue people.”

“Obviously,” Flaethwyn sneered.

“Oh, yes, he does much worse,” Adelly continued, turning to give the elf a big smile over her shoulder. “He tries to improve people’s situations so we’re able to rescue ourselves. I’m sure that must be very inconvenient to you highborn.”

“I can see why you’d feel loyalty toward him, then,” Yoshi said, hastily and diplomatically. “Thank you for indulging my curiosity, Adelly.”

Her smile vanished, her fingers whitened around the Lightning Staff, and I realized I had seconds to salvage this.

“Hey, Yoshi! Did you know a lot of Americans think the Japanese don’t understand sarcasm?”

That certainly seized everyone’s attention, even the majority who barely had any context for what I was talking about. Yoshi actually stumbled a step, turning to stare incredulously at me.

“Wait, what? You’re serious? That’s…no way.”

“I thought sarcasm was culturally universal,” Pashilyn commented.

Good girl, use those noble social skills, help me defuse this.

“I am pretty sure it is, but the way it’s used is culturally variable, see?”

“Pashi, I’m pretty sure he’s just setting up a joke,” said Yoshi.

“I am painfully serious,” I said, attempting to be solemn while also grinning. “I’ve had this conversation multiple times on English social media. People who had no idea who they were talking to would inform me that ‘it’s just not part of their culture.’”

“You got in a lot of intercontinental Twitter fights?” Yoshi’s eyes flickered as he swiftly looked me up and down. “Yeah, I could see that.”

“I am going to let that pass,” I said, soul of magnanimity that I am, “because I can tell that roasting me represents great personal growth and I’m proud of you for coming out of your shell. No, what happens is they’ll visit Japan and try to use American-style sarcasm. See, in America it’s common to use sarcastic insults to express affection or praise with people they don’t feel close enough to for sincere emotional displays. So, they’ll call you a troublemaker if you’re good at solving problems, for example, or pretend to be disgusted when they meet a casual friend in the grocery store. It’s all meant to be positive and complimentary.”

Yoshi’s whole face scrunched up. “What? Now I know you’re messing with me.”

“Obviously, yeah, no one’s going to be amused if you do that in Japan. So they’ll try it, get rejected, take away the wrong lesson, and go back home with stories about how sarcasm just goes right past the Japanese.”

“Yoshi’s right, this is a pack of silly lies,” Flaethwyn scoffed. “No one would act that way.”

“Goblins do that,” Zui said in a neutral tone.

“Fflyr do that,” Aster added. “Lowborn, anyway. Not often or to that extent, but the basic idea? Definitely.”

“It’s common across English-speaking cultures,” I explained. “Brits pretty much can’t express emotion except ironically, and Australia’s national sport is affectionately fucking with anybody crazy enough to go to Australia.”

“One of my favorite tutors told me,” Pashilyn chimed in smoothly, “that there are two distinctly Fflyr types of humor, that both are meant as a form of class warfare, and that neither works.”

“Oh?” I had to admit, this had me intrigued beyond the scope of my current prolonged conversational deflection.

“There is highborn humor, wherein we can carry on entire conversations in nothing but literary references. Its original intent and earliest development was to have discussions in front of lowborn and exclude them, assuming that those whose days are filled with labor would have had little time for literature. But we Fflyr are the most literate people in this archipelago, both highborn and low, and most of these references are opaque only to complete outsiders to the culture.”

“They sure are,” Yoshi muttered.

“Wait.” Flaethwyn suddenly looked slightly queasy. “You can’t be suggesting that lowborn understand allusions to that extent.”

“When I still had an adventuring party in the King’s Guild,” said Aster, “we mostly took bodyguarding jobs for merchants or highborn. They talk like that all the time, and it mostly wasn’t hard to follow. The stories they callback to are mostly stuff everybody in this country has read. They’d only start to lose me when they would get into these highborn pissing contests where they’d try to one-up each other with more and more obscure references until one had to admit ignorance.”

We were all treated to the spectacle of Flaethwyn looking ashen and haunted as she began mentally going back over every conversation she’d ever had in hearing of a lowborn.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“And then there is lowborn humor,” Pashilyn continued, “which consists of…sarcastic politeness. Using a calm, gentle demeanor and courteous words to express insult. That was also devised as a way for them to insult highborn right to our faces, and it also doesn’t work. Everyone raised in this culture at any level knows exactly when someone is doing that. But among highborn at least, it is considered a sign of weakness and ill bearing to overreact emotionally, especially in public—and this lowborn sarcasm is by definition subtle enough to be plausibly deniable. We don’t dare to acknowledge the insult for fear of looking foolish before our peers.”

“Sounds like it does work, then,” Zui commented. “Take it from someone who’s lower than anybody else in your culture: when it comes to mocking people right to their faces, you don’t win when they don’t notice it. You win when they do and can’t do anything about it.”

Pashilyn blinked, her face lengthening subtly as she absorbed this sudden dose of perspective. Yoshi was also staring at the distance ahead with wide eyes. This really was a day of revelations for the forces of Good.

“And that’s kinda what I was referring to, in another context,” I said, my tone now deliberately casual. “There’s sarcasm in every culture, and it’s so second nature that you don’t think about how the rules for it might be different. The lowborn sarcasm thing, I only learned about that recently and somebody had to explain it to me. And man, I was never going to figure that out on my own. Because, by coincidence, scathing Fflyr sarcasm happens to look exactly like Japanese politeness.”

There came a beat of silence, followed by a collective hissing as quite a few of the goblins accompanying us sucked in air through their teeth.

“Oh, man,” said Ritlit, ever the one to voice what everyone else was thinking. “And you guys’ve just been letting him walk around, talking to people like that? I never thought I’d say this, but…poor Hero.”

I’m glad I wasn’t the one who had to say it, this time.

“Human drama is straight up hilarious,” another commented.

“Right?”

I ignored them, watching Yoshi, who had turned to fix his companions with a look of pure betrayal. Even Adelly was cringing now.

“So, anyway,” I continued, “this may be a silly thing to say, since none of you will ever in your lives encounter another Japanese person, but just for the record? If you do, and they deflect contentious topics with a smile and respond in platitudes rather than confronting an argument, they are just being courteous and respectful. Not making fun of you.”

“We’ve…tried to ease Yoshi into life here,” Pashilyn said carefully, turning to face him even as she was clearly speaking to the rest of us. “An entire new world…just learning one new culture while suddenly immersed in it is a huge burden, let alone a whole world of them. What sort of friends would we be if we just tossed him to the wolves?”

I shrugged. “Hey, I dunno what kinda things you guys have been doing, so it’s not like I can judge. Just seems to me that Yoshi’s smarter than you’ve been giving him credit for.”

I stopped there, because this was starting to look perilously like me trying to drive a wedge between the Hero and his party. Not only did it not benefit me to do that, it was such classic evil Dark Lord behavior that Pashilyn and probably Flaethwyn would react immediately and harshly if I went any further.

Well, if anything, Flaethwyn was the more reactive of them, but I wasn’t sure whether she was clever enough to notice on her own.

“It isn’t just that,” Pashilyn said, looking back at me with an edge to her tone now. “I know Yoshi has spoken to you about the need for secrecy, Lord Seiji. Every slip is a potential trail left for those who will be out hunting the Champions. Who will be out hunting in earnest and in force, particularly here, since the night of the Inferno. I am reminded, suddenly, that I haven’t had a chance to inquire whether you happen to know anything about what caused that?”

“All right, okay,” I said, raising my hands. “Sorry, Lady Pashilyn, I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything. Sometimes my mouth just runs ahead of me. You can ask any of my friends, they’ll confirm that.”

“If anything, he’s nicer to you lot than most people,” Aster said dryly. “Most of us don’t get apologies afterwards.”

“Yeah, and speakin’ of stuff I never expected to say, I gotta express some sympathy for the Hero party here,” Biribo piped up. “I dunno about Yoshi, boss, but with you it is an ongoing struggle to feed you information and not have it go in one ear and out the other. I’m not trying to roast you, either, that’s perfectly sensible. You cannot just dump an entire culture on somebody and expect ‘em to understand or remember most of it. There’s a process.”

“Thank you for that extremely necessary contribution to this conversation, Biribo.”

“You got it, boss, I live to serve.”

Yoshi cleared his throat, turning toward Adelly with a wince. “So, uh…”

“No worries, kid,” she swiftly said, with a much more genuine smile. “You’re fine. We’re cool.”

Somehow during all the chatter we had straggled to a stop. I glanced around, noticing most of the goblins grinning as if this were the greatest entertainment they could have asked for. With the exception, of course, of Get Fucked, who was squinting at me. It was hard to interpret that expression since I could only see half of his face.

“You know,” Zui said pensively into the silence, “you humans are…complicated. I think I liked it better when you were just monsters. That was simpler.”

That caused the silence to stretch out further, because…what the hell do you say to that?

We were spared having to answer that question by the return of our advance scouts. Judge Gazmo and his apprentice had loped off ahead of us almost an hour ago to check on the situation around our next Spirit target. Now they reappeared around a bend in the tunnel in the near distance.

“Situation’s stable up ahead,” the Judge called by way of greeting. “Folks in Spiketown have shelled up, like sensible people. I spoke with somebody I know, says they’ve had suspicious goblins wearing green poking around. Sounds like scouting parties. No aggressive push like what happened at Goggin’s place, though.”

“Which is weird, y’ask me,” Fram said cheerfully, swaggering up to us with her polearm over her shoulder. “Why go past a big, easy target like this and try to zero in on Goggin? Well, aside from Goggin bein’ such a pushover. Reckon it’s worth un-gagging that guy and asking him? He’s probably not gonna do anything but cuss, but we can try!”

Get Fucked scowled at her over his gag. The rest of us were still standing in silence as the Judge and Arbiter came to a stop in front of us.

“Damn, you guys look grim,” Fram commented. “Who died?”

“It, uh…” Yoshi trailed off, grimacing and averting his eyes.

“Oh, holy shit.” The Arbiter’s expression changed to sudden mortification. “Somebody didn’t actually die, did they?”

“No bodies, just egos,” I assured her. “No great loss. Shall we?”

----------------------------------------

Spiketown was well named. It occupied a cavern reminiscent of the one in which Fallencourt was built, albeit on a much smaller scale. Compared to the city that was at the center of Kzidnak society, it was just a village. Still, the sight was impressive.

There was no conveniently even floor and only a few usable ledges along the walls; the big chamber was roughly oblong in shape, like an American football, and dominated by mirrored forests of stalactites and stalagmites. The goblins had carved structures into the walls, of course, but also atop the conical spires of stone sticking up from the floor, the largest of which had been cut and flattened at a consistent height all across the cavern, roughly at the same height as the tunnel entry through which we emerged. Metalwork had been added everywhere, forming bridges and support struts to hold up and connect the structures of stone, metal, and akorshil built across the stalagmites. More metal planks were used in place of natural ledges to form walkways around the wall, providing access to the dwellings cut into the living stone.

It was interesting how most of it had been carved and/or built on a single level, though the wall dwellings had more structures above and below it; some were reached by ramps or ladders, but it seemed most of the staircases were on the interiors. The surprisingly even construction really helped emphasize the tram track that ran through the cavern above most of the roofs. Between two higher tunnel apertures in the walls, a swath of stalactites had been removed to allow the rail to pass through.

“Hang on,” Yoshi said, staring up at that. “I thought we couldn’t get here directly with the tram?”

“Currently, no,” Zui explained with a scowl. “It would’ve been a fifteen-minute ride at the most, but the track between here and the main depot is one of those we’ve confirmed too damaged to use.”

“Stands to reason,” Gazmo grunted. “Doesn’t seem Jadrak’s got forces for a full push at Sneppit’s base yet. Or at least, isn’t willing to commit ‘em. Out here we’ve seen scouts and a small strike team, that’s it. Damaging the track between here and his biggest competitor denies her easy access.”

“Wait,” Yoshi said, frowning now. “Doesn’t that mean… Does Jadrak have a direct line from Fallencourt to here, with a working tram track? There’d be no reason for him to damage the tracks in that section, if he can use it instead…”

“Use it how?” Zui demanded. “He doesn’t have any tram cars. He’s got metalworkers who could probably rig one up, maybe, eventually, but not fast enough to help him right now. Especially not since he’s had ‘em on the move most of yesterday and had to abandon their heavy equipment back at his old base.”

“Also the trams are propelled by air currents, and it blows the other way,” Maizo added.

“What kind of place is this?” I asked. “Not another water business, I can see.”

“Learned to ask before committing to anything, did we?” Fram said sweetly. Gazmo kicked her leg even as he answered me.

“Spiketown’s a farming community. Residences are built on the supported structures out there in the middle; behind the outer walls is the agriculture. This is under part of the northern khora forest, real old growth with deep roots. Those root systems run through tunnels around here, and can be tapped for edibles and alchemy reagents. Gotta be carefully managed, though, so the khora aren’t damaged. The parts that don’t have root systems have mushroom beds and small-scale crawn farms.”

“Crawn farms?” Adelly asked incredulously. “Don’t they just…?”

“Crawns are mostly surface-dwelling,” said Zui, curling her lip. “They do come underground, but not in large numbers and only in winter. They like fresh air, vegetation, and human garbage. We don’t get easy protein handed to us by the goddesses. What we’ve got, we work for.”

“And complain about!” Maizo chirped. “Don’t forget that. Very important step in the process.”

Zui gave him a particularly filthy look, which he pretended not to see.

“This isn’t a setup like Goggin’s, where one goblin owns the cavern and the business,” Gazmo continued, sparing them nothing more than a long-suffering glance. “Smaller, independent farmers and root tappers, mostly, but the community’s tight-knit. We’re gonna talk to the guy who owns the Spirit’s cave. He’s kind of a community leader ‘round here.”

While he spoke, the Judge set off along one of the few natural ledges lining the walls. This one sloped slightly downward, terminating up ahead where a grated metal platform continued the path, affixed to the walls and ceiling with chains.

“So, not a boss like Sneppit or Goggin?” I asked.

Gazmo nodded. “Which makes him one of my favorite kinda people to work with. Gilnik has no actual power over anybody here; they mostly do what he suggests because they respect him and he does his best to look after his neighbors.”

“Gilnik’s great,” Ritlit added from behind me. “Stand-up guy!”

“Hm.” Gazmo turned to give her a look. “You from around here?”

“Yeah, but it’s been years. I went off to get rich hacking up ore in the mines. And we all know how the fuck that turned out.”

We were spared more of Ritlit’s tragic backstory, fortunately. Between the talking and all the footsteps our approach was hardly quiet; once we hit the metal walkway it became an outright racket. I wasn’t the only one to step carefully and peer suspiciously at the chains holding this thing up, but though the metal vibrated under so many feet, as metal does, the entire thing held, apparently quite sturdy. The goblins might be chaotic in both organization and personal style, and they might be working with the scraps leftover from the richer civilization above, but when it came to the things they built they did not half-ass it.

Probably summoned by the noise, a goblin emerged from the doorway in the wall just ahead of us, where the path turned back into a blessedly solid-looking stone platform. He was middle-aged, to judge by the beginnings of lines on his face, but like most of the goblins we’d met, it hadn’t stopped him from expressing himself via hairstyle—they weren’t all Zui, but they mostly did something; I’d seen very few goblins with just the stiff black hair that was natural for them. He had a pompadour with gold highlights, which was actually kind of a contrast with his subtler choice of clothing. It was a Fflyr highborn-style coat, much like Zui and Goggin had chosen, but unlike their flashy aesthetic, he wore muted shades of gray and light brown, without embellishments.

“Judge,” he said, nodding. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. This everybody?”

“Not in the whole campaign,” Gazmo replied. “Rizz is out gathering as many other Judges as she can find, and Sneppit’s on board with her people. Goggin, too, for whatever that’s worth. This is everybody with us, though. Tall one there’s the Dark Lord, and the rest…well, you can make introductions if you care.”

“I do, but first things first.” Gilnik, whom I assumed this to be, nodded again, this time to the group. “Welcome, folks. Let’s get everybody inside. It’s, uh, it’s gonna be a little tight, with the tallfolk and all, but we should have room.”

He stepped aside, indicating the door through which he’d just come, which led into the outer cave wall.

“I thought you all lived out there on the…um, islands?” I said.

“We do, but for right now we’ve got everybody evac’d into the farms,” Gilnik explained. “Those structures are vulnerable in a lot of ways. These are behind thick walls of solid rock—and they’re interconnected by tunnels most outsiders won’t know how to navigate. We can defend ourselves better without getting cornered. Besides, it’s roomier. Just, uh, please don’t mess with anything you find growing in there.”

“Tina-chan?” Yoshi asked, very softly.

“Goblins moving around in there,” his familiar reported, “but by their movements and equipment, it sounds like he’s being straight with us. That looks more like refugees settling into a shelter. Nothing I’d say is an ambush risk.”

I glanced at Biribo, who bobbed his head once in silent agreement.

“Sorry, no offense meant,” I said, turning to Gilnik. “It’s just—”

“Hey, none taken,” he assured me with a smile. “No goblin would ever begrudge you doing your diligence before agreeing to anything. With all the shit going down in Kzidnak this week, it’s no time to take stupid risks.”

“Goblins first,” Judge Gazmo ordered. “And no, before any of you butts complain, I’m not playing favorites. There’s a lot more head room in the entry space up front. Believe me, you’ll wanna be the last ones in.”

They began filing inside as ordered, after a reassuring nod from me. It was a bit of a process; the door wasn’t excessively narrow (though us humans and elves were going to have to duck when our turn came), but the platform outside clearly wasn’t meant for a large crowd.

Gilnik led the way in, and I could hear his voice echoing from inside as he directed his guests into the available spaces. Only most of the goblins started moving; Gazmo and Fram waited with us outside, as did Maizo and Zui for whatever reason. And Get Fucked, of course, who didn’t really have a choice. Adelly was still holding his leash.

The rest of the goblins were in, and Maizo just turning to follow, when we got the only inadequate warning we were going to.

“EVERYBODY INSIDE!” Radatina abruptly shouted.

“GET DOWN! FIND COVER!” Biribo yelled at the same time.

It was interesting, how the different groups reacted. The goblins did not wait a second for confirmation, all of them bolting for the door—even Get Fucked, who actually made it through despite the rope still connecting him to Adelly outside. The rest of us tall folk had different instincts: falling into ready stances, drawing weapons, peering around for the threat.

Turned out the goblins were wiser this time. In fact, I was yanked almost off my feet as Zui seized my coat and tried to drag me bodily through the door. They weren’t kidding about that magical strength, she could pull like somebody easily twice her size.

The threat arrived, and we barely had a second to register what we were seeing before it was too late.

Goblins were creative problem solvers, indeed. Just as we’d learned from our last encounter with Hoy and laid plans to nullify his advantages next time, our enemies had also examined our strengths and done their own planning. We had provided them a problem, and they’d found a solution. How do you counter a familiar’s ability to sense everything around their master?

Bring the danger from beyond the limit of their senses into lethal range before the master has time to react.

The craft that screamed out of the tunnel was a far cry from one of Sneppit’s well-designed trams, but a slapped-together contraption powered by a bunch of goblins turning pedals with their feet. Sparks flew and brakes screamed as soon as they passed into the cavern; they were going far too fast to fully stop, but that wasn’t the point. The sudden deceleration caused the contents of the open basket affixed to its front to jolt forward, spreading out as they were hurled across half of Spiketown and against the walls above and around us.

Too fast to see clearly what they were, but we all ducked and tried to go for the door anyway, knowing this couldn’t possibly be anything good. Pashilyn put up a Light Barrier over our ledge and Yoshi planted himself in front of the group with his own shield upraised.

It barely helped.

Bombs ignited as they hammered into dozens of spots all around us, and the world dissolved into fire and shrapnel.