According to Gizmit, North Watch was a lot closer to the center of goblin society on Dount than to Gwyllthean, but we still had a bit of a walk ahead of us. Fortunately her shorter legs didn’t slow us; Gizmit kept up at a constant jog without apparent effort, even though I set a pace that was brisk even by human standards. All of us knew there was no time to dally. We passed branching tunnels and several more doorways into goblin dwellings or offices, all shut down tight. Biribo reported some empty and others with goblins huddling inside, having barricaded their doors with whatever furniture they had.

I knew goblins weren’t actually like the little green monsters from video games, but this was still a sobering reminder. They weren’t waiting to spring out from around every corner, but just trying to survive. These were people, that was all, coping the way any people would if they woke up one morning to find their city ripping itself apart in a civil war and then being invaded.

I wondered how Yoshi was dealing with that reality. What he thought about it, and if he’d even noticed.

“We’re in Kzidnak now,” Gizmit said when I asked how far it would be. “We don’t have defensive walls like a human town, obviously, but anywhere the tunnel floor is smooth and paved and you find art on the walls, that’s part of the city. This is still the outskirts, of course. I’d like to avoid getting too close to Fallencourt too soon, and that’s the part that you would recognize as a town. It’ll depend on what’s going on in these tunnels. We have to go there ultimately but we need to gather some intel first.”

Indeed, even though none of it was in our vicinity yet, we could tell there was bad business going down in goblin town today. Broken items including furniture and tools lay occasionally along the tunnel floor—freshly broken stuff that didn’t have the look of trash which had been here for a long time. In fact, the goblins seemed to do a fair job of tidying up apart from where violence had apparently happened recently. It was cleaner than most parts of the Gutters, anyway.

Worse, we could hear it. Raised voices, both angry and fearful, echoed from the distance, along with crashes and other indistinct noises. The way they were distorted and muffled by the acoustics made the sounds somehow more unnerving than if they’d been close enough to be dangerous.

“Don’t worry, boss, I’ll tell ya if anybody’s coming close enough that you need to know,” Biribo promised after the third time I paused at a distant scream and half-drew my sword.

“Sound travels a long way in these tunnels, and bounces unpredictably,” Gizmit said noncommittally. “Even for us it’s hard to tell where it’s coming from, or what it originally was. You get used to it.”

“Not that I don’t enjoy charging blindly into chaos,” said Aster, “but where exactly are we going, and to do what? And what do we expect to find there?”

Gizmit glanced back at her, then nodded once as if to herself and began talking in her usual clipped tone, her breath clearly not troubled by the pace we set.

“My mission is to extract Miss Sneppit’s…hairstylist from the Fallencourt tram terminal, where she ran off to without authorization to try to rescue the security team who’re supposed to secure it against the mob.”

“We’re rescuing Zui?” I asked, then stopped walking. “Hang on. Tram terminal? You have trams?”

“What’s a tram?” Nazralind asked.

“It’s… Look, I’d have to explain a lot of background technology for it to make any sense, you’ll see when we get there. What I wanna know is why goblins have them! And by why I mean how.”

“Trams are how we get around quickly down here,” Gizmit said. “They’re like carts on rails that go very fast. See, that wasn’t hard to explain, Lord Seiji. As for how…that’s what we do. Miss Sneppit does whatever business needs doing in whatever’s available and seems profitable—hence our relationship with you—but originally and primarily we’re an engineering company. She built and owns the trams and the company is organized around running them.”

Huh.

“The hairstylist tried to rescue a security team in the middle of an uprising?” Nazralind blinked quizzically. “Isn’t that a little…backwards?”

“Yeah, well, that’s Zui for you,” Gizmit said resignedly.

“Ydleth, keep up,” Aster ordered.

I glanced back to see Ydleth having paused several meters behind us, staring raptly at a piece of the wall art in the last edges of Nazralind’s glow (she was the only one currently on light duty, for discretion’s sake—people would find out about Enjoin eventually but I wanted to keep my cards close for now).

“Sorry,” she said, reluctantly tearing herself away and trotting up to join us. “It’s just so cool!”

The particular piece that had caught her eye was a great example of how the various goblins who’d painted these tunnels had tried to complement rather than compete with each other, despite their clashing styles. A very pastoral landscape that looked like the khora forest of Dount viewed from high up was rendered in an impressionistic style, creating a very gentle and peaceful feeling. Someone had scrawled abstract art using bold colors and mostly jagged lines across the bottom of it and both sides, but deliberately arranged their work to frame the landscape rather than obscure it. Across the top, high enough that a goblin would have to have stood on something to paint there, had been added beautiful word art that reminded me of those illuminated manuscripts European monks used to make, the Khazid text gloriously embellished and given intricate shading that made it seem about to pop off the tunnel wall.

I decided not to tell Ydleth that the script was a poem, an ode to the poet’s adoration of big human butts and his plea to Virya that he would forgive her for all the suffering of life if he got to fuck one before he died. Not because I thought it would ruin the art for her; on the contrary, Ydleth would find that hilarious, and she had a very loud, very shrill laugh. That would be an awfully silly reason to bring Jadrak’s minions down on our heads.

“It is cool,” I agreed, setting off again. “Hopefully when this is all settled we’ll be on good terms with the goblins and can come admire it at will. Right now we need to focus, though. Gizmit, what’s the plan?”

She had given me a thoughtful look at my mention of hopes for future peace, but answered briskly as always. “The geography and architecture of Fallencourt is complicated—you’ll see what I mean when we get there. I want to approach it as discreetly as possible and get a view of what’s happening there before we move directly to the terminal. Obviously we are not going to get through this without fighting somebody, but I’d prefer to keep things as peaceful as possible.”

“Okay, makes sense. You know your way around down here. Biribo, help her find us the quietest, most unoccupied route to wherever she wants to go.”

“You got it, boss,” he said, buzzing down to hover next to Gizmit. “Left at the next juncture, right? Looks like the tunnels start branching a lot after that. If we take the leftmost corridor that slopes upward, we’ll encounter the least traffic.”

“You,” she said, giving him an appraising look, “are handy.”

“You’re damn right, sister.”

I did not expect it to be that simple, because nothing ever is, but somehow things went right for a change. As we progressed through the tunnels, the doorways and actual architecture built into the walls increased in frequency, and there were even lights in the form of luminous fungi cultivated on little ledges. Biribo reported many of the chambers we passed were occupied, but everyone was staying firmly behind their shut doors today. The noise gradually increased as we drew closer to Fallencourt; though its echoes were still too confusing for me to pinpoint any source, it was clear we were approaching the largest concentration of whatever was happening. Gizmit kept us going at a brisk yet cautious pace, frequently diverting down side corridors as Biribo gave warning of groups of goblins ahead, twice even backtracking to evade them.

We couldn’t avoid them forever, but we were in unspoken agreement that the longer we put off being discovered and having to do violence, the better.

Then, quite suddenly, a corner we rounded opened up; directly ahead the tunnel walls to the right disappeared, the light increased dramatically, and I could tell that past this last goblin house—which seemed to be actually made of stone blocks, not carved into living rock like most—what had been a tunnel suddenly became a ledge.

“Stay back and stay low,” Gizmit ordered, then glanced back (and up) at us with a frown. “Well. As low as you can.”

We crept to up to the corner and peeked out, myself leaning directly over her, and I got my first view of Fallencourt.

Spreading out before my eyes was an absolutely colossal cavern which was basically an upside-down ravine. The canyon walls extended off until they opened up fully, what looked like a kilometer or two in the distance, and exposed this underground city to open sky. What was disorienting to me was that the floor was the ceiling; the canyon walls arched overhead to form a roof adorned with stalactites ranging from the titanic to too tiny to be distinguishable from here, but there was a terrifying lack of any bottom. The open floor just went down, down, until the sloping rock walls of the unthinkably enormous pillar of stone that was the island of Dount met the abyss. Below that, there was only the distant, swirling mists of Ephemera’s core, lit by flashes of pink and red luminescence from some unknowable source deep within the fog.

The goblin city had been built here, into every surface. Terraces lined the walls, covered in doors and stone architecture. Many side canyons branched off from the main space, all of them so built up and carved down that they looked more like multilevel streets than natural tunnels from here—as did the one from which we were peeking, for that matter. Bridges arched between ledges, ramps connected them—and to my horrified fascination, I saw that the bigger stalactites had windows and balconies, apparently having been hollowed out from within.

Though my first reaction was vertigo at the sheer scale of this, I realized that had a lot to do with the fact that it opened onto a seemingly eternal drop into nothing, a sight for which my life on Earth had not prepared me. The buildings and all the goblins present helped contextualize it, and I realized on second look that Fallencourt was overall not nearly as big as Gwyllthean. Well, the part I could see, at least. Undoubtedly most of it was buried within the surrounding rock.

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And Fallencourt was having a very bad day. There were fires in multiple places, a number of more fragile structures smashed, and unmoving goblins scattered amid the wreckage. That it wasn’t teeming with activity was probably just due to the overall smaller population and the fact that everyone who could escape from the center of the chaos already had, but what activity we saw was not encouraging. On two ledges there were massive multi-goblin brawls with deadly weapons employed, and dozens of smaller duels and scuffles here and there. I saw three separate goblins giving speeches to gathered crowds, one of which transformed into another battle even as we watched when a rival faction descended on them. Shouts, screams, and crashes echoed deafeningly from the stone walls.

“The acoustics in here are absolutely amazing,” I murmured.

“Thinking of giving a speech?” Gizmit asked.

“That’s not a bad idea, when things calm down. I was thinking of music, though. Here’s a question, Gizmit. It occurs to me that we’ve had no trouble walking upright down these tunnels, aside from having to duck through one doorway, and a lot of the doors we’ve seen are big enough I wouldn’t need to. There seems to be more of that here. If Fflyr won’t come underground and goblins are on bad terms with them, why is everything built to human scale?”

Her head was swiveling rapidly, expression intent as she studied the city and the pockets of movement, and for a few seconds I thought she was just ignoring me. She answered, though, without ceasing her focused study of the chaos.

“Everything isn’t human-sized, just a lot of the older stuff. Dount is an insignificant backwater now, but it has a very long history. Real funny joke the Goddesses played, dumping you and Shinonome off here of all places. You’ll get it once you start learning some of the history the Fflyr have tried to forget. That’s our destination over there.”

She pointed at one large nook off to our right, a not-quite-tunnel which was walled off in the front of a subterranean building with a surprisingly elaborate facade, complete with carved columns and tile mosaics between them. In front of it stood a wide, flat ledge, surrounded on two sides by cave walls and looking out at the great canyon of Fallencourt itself. The building’s doors and windows appeared to have been barricaded from the inside, to judge by the trouble the mob of angry goblins on the plaza were having getting in.

“That doesn’t look good. Let’s move—”

“In a second, but look over there.” Gizmit pointed at another side tunnel, a large one and the site of the biggest whirl of activity that wasn’t our target. “That’s where trouble’s going to come from. That tunnel narrows to a main path which leads to the general area where your boy and his party were last spotted.”

“Uh, wasn’t Jadrak’s main army down that way, too?”

“Exactly, and whatever the Hero has been doing, it looks like the army—to use the term very loosely—isn’t far from Fallencourt now. See all those armbands and scarves and whatnot? Goblins ostentatiously wearing green are Jadrak’s partisans, that’s the closest he’s got to a uniform right now. Look, lots of injured coming out of there, others putting up improvised barricades nearby. And their overall numbers, way too small to be the main force.”

“What’re you getting at?”

She looked seriously up at me. “Even with numbers, they’re not a match for Blessed adventurers; goblins just don’t have the armor or weaponry to compete. What the difference in numbers can do is force them to go where we want. Standard tactic for dealing with really persistent invaders is to herd them somewhere with a drop into the core and push ‘em off. Good odds we’re going to see a large group of angry Jadrak supporters push a small group of angry adventurers into Fallencourt and try to finish them here.”

“I have the worst fucking timing,” I muttered. Or, a suspicious voice whispered in the back of my mind, the best fucking timing from the perspective of certain string-pulling goddesses who’d probably love nothing more than to smash me and Yoshi together in the middle of all this chaos. Were they even able to manipulate events to such a fine degree? “All right, if we get to Zui, is the tram usable?”

“She took one to get here, but Zui’s no engineer. If she crashed it, we’ve got a very long walk through hostile territory to get back to Sneppit.”

“God fucking dammit. Okay, do you know a route closer to the tram station that’s less exposed?”

“This way.” She turned and darted back up the tunnel. I followed, the rest of my people trotting along with us. “Thanks for the help this far, Biribo, but from here speed matters most and stealth will be a lost cause anyway when we get there. If we meet goblins decked out in green, attack on sight. Anybody else will flee from six armed tallfolk.”

Aster moved up to join me at the front, pulling the greatsword off her back and holding it at her side, facing forward—about the only orientation at which she could carry it down here. Nazralind had been right about that thing, it was not the ideal weapon for cramped tunnels. Once we got out onto the plaza she’d have room to swing it, but Aster’s swing height would just be a mass haircut for that mob. Adelly would probably be more effective with the Lightning Staff…except Adelly wasn’t wearing artifact armor and would drop like a sack of onions if we got pelted by projectiles. Should I have them switch weapons?

I decided it’d be best if everybody used what they were most familiar with. No matter what we did, this was not going to be pretty.

At least our luck held a few minutes longer; the only goblins we encountered were not of the enemy variety, and just as Gizmit predicted ran from the sight of us in screaming panic. Well, our presence here was no longer discreet, but that was about to not matter.

We got amazingly close to the plaza without having to take one of the exposed exterior paths around Fallencourt. In fact, Gizmit picked a lock and took us through an occupied structure; the scuffling of feet and slamming of doors was the only sign of the inhabitants retreating farther in as we passed through, paying them no mind. Through three rooms and down a hall, she brought us to another door which, we discovered when Gizmit opened it a crack to peek out, emerged directly onto the plaza. The doorway was shielded in a small alcove, and the goblins out there were fully occupied trying to get into the tram station, so they didn’t notice the tiny movement immediately.

They’d improvised a battering ram and were hammering on the station’s doors; those were apparently barricaded from the inside, but the akorshil planks themselves were badly splintered and about to give way. Zui was out of time, which meant so were we.

And it got worse.

“Boss,” Biribo reported, “that goblin leading them, the one in the cloak? He’s Blessed with Magic. Not very powerful but I’d say he’s got at least a couple spells.”

“Shit,” I whispered. “Okay. Aster, do you trust me?”

“You asking that question at a time like this makes me think I shouldn’t,” she hissed back.

“Just listen. When this goes badly, you come out there and back me up. Gizmit, try to get into the station and help Zui once that mob is distracted. Adelly, you’re on door guard in case they come at this position, make good use of that staff. Naz, Ydleth, and Madyn, shoot from the doorway as best you can without getting in each other’s way. Prioritize keeping them out of the station; Aster and I can take care of ourselves.”

“Uh, Lord Seiji, you’re beginning to sound alarmingly like you’re planning to go out there alone,” Nazralind said nervously.

“You always were a smart girl.”

“Are you insane?” Aster screeched very quietly, a feat which I respected a great deal because I’m always impressed by good vocal control.

“No.” I grinned at her, just to see her seethe, and pushed the door open just enough to slip through. “I’m the fucking Dark Lord.”

“The second you step out there, you’re gonna get bombarded,” Gizmit warned.

“Did you not hear me?” I grabbed the handle of my dagger. “I said, I’m the fucking Dark Lord.”

Then I drew it from its sheath, vanished from sight, and stepped out onto the plaza.

Man, being invisible is neat. I got all the way across the open space to stand at the rear fringes of the crowd without anyone so much as suspecting my presence. There were between fifteen and twenty of them; even up close I couldn’t get a more accurate count because they kept teeming around, hammering and prying at the barricaded windows. The din of voices was deafening at this range, though easily sorted into three basic categories: the battering ram crew were chanting in unison to help coordinate their blows on the door, a lot of the rest were generally hollering and bellowing like hooligans, and the Blessed goblin Biribo had indicated was shouting slogans and clearly directing the group.

This one wore green, a stretch of ragged fabric which he’d improvised as a cloak. He was also a lead-from-the-rear type, standing behind the rest of the goblins under his control and encouraging their efforts with the broad gestures and hoarse yelling of someone who was really enjoying his role as rabble-rouser but clearly wasn’t very practiced at it.

“That’s it—we’re almost there! Liberation! VENGEANCE! Soon we’ll have the traitors by their ears! All who oppose the Goblin King will burn! Freedom for goblinkind! First Sneppit, then the Fflyr! Keep going, sisters and brothers! We shall have retribution!”

That was it, no rhythm or plan to it at all. Poor guy didn’t even know how to project his voice, and it was noticeably scratchy, no doubt from being overused all morning. Well, Lord Seiji was here to give him a crash course in crowd control.

Stepping up right behind the goblin in charge so that I loomed ominously over him, I drew a deep breath that expanded my lungs to their fullest, slammed the dagger back into its sheath, and projected powerfully from the diaphragm.

“Ara, ara, ara.”

Fuck it, I gotta be me.

I certainly got their attention, between the very nice acoustics of this little cul-de-sac and my own very impressive vocal instrument. Goblins scattered, the battering ram was dropped, and the leader’s voice broke with an embarrassing squeak as he scurried away from me, only turning around when he could retreat no further thanks to the press of his followers.

Despite Gizmit’s prediction, I was not immediately pelted with projectiles, I suspected only because everybody was too astonished by my arrival. What can I say, I know how to make an entrance.

“And why does goblin turn upon goblin?” I boomed, spreading my arms wide in a gesture of benediction. “In that station are your brothers and sisters—fellow children of Virya who only disagree with the means by which you shall achieve your retribution. They know as well as you who the true enemy is. If you only knew how many allies there are, just waiting to join you—on the surface of Dount and beyond, only waiting to be rallied against those who oppress us all.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you made the mistake of your life coming down here, tallboy,” declared the goblin in charge, regaining some of his poise and pointing at me.

It was a passably dramatic point; I could’ve done better, but I gave the kid credit for amateur effort.

“I,” I declared in a ringing voice which overrode him, “am the one who can deliver what the Goblin King can only promise. I can lay waste to your enemies and bring you freedom where he will only lead you to a pointless death. I am Omura Seiji, the Champion of Virya.” I grinned, wolfishly. “And you are going to make me prove it, aren’t you?”

They still weren’t attacking me, too confused and thrown off their game to know what to do. Damn, I’m good.

“Bullshit,” the leader scoffed.

“You want to be free of the Fflyr?” I retorted. “To repay blood with blood? Then it starts here, by laying down your arms and not turning your strength against your fellow goblins. You want victory over your oppressors? Then kneel before the Dark Lord.”

“Well, you may just be a crazy guy, but you’re as good a place to start as any,” he scoffed, raising a hand again. It wasn’t pointing this time, but held palm out. Casting posture. “Fire Lance!”

I indulged in a smirk while his melted away. Yeah, I felt for the guy. This target-blocking ring of Lady Gray’s was some real bullshit the first time you found yourself on the wrong end of it. God, I loved it.

“Perhaps you didn’t enunciate properly,” I said. “Try again. Maybe if you say it louder this time?”

“Fire Lance!” the goblin sorcerer shouted, backing up and shoving his followers away in the process, his red eyes growing increasingly wide as his magic failed him again. “FIRE LANCE!”

I waited until he gave up in complete panic before speaking again, pitching my voice lower but projecting just as loudly.

“So be it. Those of you who survive, remember: I tried to do this the civil way.”

Showtime.

Immolate.