Chapter 33: Shazbla

The candle detonated and shrapnel tore through the crowd below. I tried not to think about that, focusing instead on the fate they would have suffered if not for this action.

It was the right thing to do, it was what I'd promised to do, If I couldn't save these people the Derro were taking deeper for slavery and sacrifice then I would grant them this mercy, the man we had recovered already would have a short and painful life even if he survived the journey home. His body suffused with the poisonous excretions he'd been forced to toil in and the punishments he'd suffered at the hands of the cult of the worm.

At this point I was still in cover, the echo of the explosion ringing in my ears, not really wanting to look but needing to know how many people were on my conscience. I wasn't sure if I felt worse about the ones still alive or the ones I'd killed. Then the experience started to roll in and I almost gagged with horror. Up until this point I had assumed experience points were an abstraction of my growing power, a representation of how much I'd learned from conquering progressively more dangerous foes. I didn't think it was an actual physical resource. And yet every one of these unarmed, defenceless civilians I had shredded awarded me 1 experience points. Their life forces had just been extinguished and I had been rewarded with power.

Level up available.

The message was there, accessible to me at a thought. I felt weak from the mana I'd put into my spell but I felt nauseous because of what I'd done with it and disgusted at the unwanted reward. I looked over the edge and saw the prisoners that were still alive being rushed by more waves of Derro, way too many for me to fight, even if everyone was there with me. Not even every Derro in the spell's radius were dead, despite the maximum amount of mana invested in the spell the priest was still standing as were some of the warriors that had shields or were far enough from the center of the spell. I needed to run but I had to see something first. There was one name not in the list of deaths I'd inflicted, a name I'd hoped not to see, the only person I thought I might have a chance to save. I threw a candle that burned like a miniature sun and risked the javelins of the creatures below for a quick glimpse of the chamber below. I didn't see her, Farrah was not amongst the dead. I turned and ran while the Derro recovered from the unexpected flare of light, obviously expecting a fireball of similar proportions to the shrapnel grenade. It was merely a light source however, fortunately they didn't know that.

"Dog! Surface-Dog! You'll bleed for this! A slow, unending death to make up for the sacrifices you stole!" Kazlo was fuming, ordering the new Derro into the tunnels above. A few of the higher ranked were clearly nervous about the prospect however. As I turned tail to leave I heard a snatch of conversation, the senior warriors protesting their orders, arguing that the evacuation needed to continue before the next wave of Adventurers descended on them.

There would be no second wave, only a battered group attempting to recover for round two if the Derro did not leave now. I ran up the tunnel and my heart leapt into my throat when I saw the humanoid form laying batterred in the tunnel ahead of me. I skidded to a halt, squatted low and hefted Farrah's lithe form over my shoulder, she had that ropy lean physique cats tended to have, it felt wrong without the layer of soft fur most cats had across their frames. She still looked a hell of a lot nicer than a hairless cat but the feel was deeply unpleasant to me. I didn't know where things would go with Victoria I but I knew for certain I wouldn't be hooking up with any Catgirls in the future, not if they all felt like this anyway.

Farrah was still completely braindead, whatever nine-lives bullshit magical Item she had seemingly teleporting her away from danger at the point of death and leaving her indistinguishable from a corpse, she hadn't explained how it worked but the Cleric had brought her to the estate on the wagon without her recovering, in fact she'd nearly been buried alive and If she'd been in the woods with Luna and I we would have burned in a self-fulfilling funeral pyre without a second thought. Derro shouted praise to their segmented overlords as they pursued me through the warrens and I cursed aloud. "You need to have a little more trust in your teammates lady." If there was a trick to waking Farrah early she had not told me about it and so I had to carry her, breathing hard as the lithe woman got progressively heavier and the tunnel began to feel more and more steep, my lungs burning as they worked exhaustively.

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"Ah, I see master has found a new woman without his humble thrall's assistance." I was following chalk marks I'd made in Shazbla's wake and was quite surprised to hear the little bastard's voice, the shrill creature had called out from very close by, keeping his voice low in volume if not in pitch. I whirled to face him, expecting a formation of pikes at his back and instead saw the single runty little Derro. He had a truly unfortunate face by human standards, bloated like a late-stage alcoholic and shot through with dirty patches of white hair that looked like spores more than a beard and dominated by a strangely shaped nose, far too round and with nostrils that were slit on top and bottom. He still wasn't that ugly compared to some of the others I'd seen down here though. That went to the worm infested face of Kazlo, I had only beheld that one for a few moments but I had no desire to repeat the experience without a follow-up casting of Dragonwick, preferably at second level intensity with a touch of Overburn thrown in.

"Come to feel the Big-Light have you Shazbla?"

The little monster shook his head, uncannily long teeth revealed in a terrible expression as he appraised me in the intentionally dim light of my candle. "I sent them down the wrong path oh great Master. I tire of life beneath the earth, I beg for a chance above, I will renounce the worm and serve whatever meek and trusting Pact-Lords you have above, no more exsanguination, no more pain perhaps."

The guy seemed, for lack of a better term, evil. A monster who had alluded to torture, obviously participated in blood sacrifice and benefited from slavery. I supposed I had bought products from sweat shops and been a citizen of a country that had killed tens of millions in its own bloody conquests so I wasn't one to judge.

"Fine, tag along Shazbla, I won't stop you."

In short order we came to the chamber I'd left the others in, they all went for weapons in alarm the moment they saw Shazbla but I raised my hands to halt any sudden moves. "He's friendly, he's going to send any Derro away if they come looking for us and he wants to leave this path behind, settle somewhere peaceful." Karl looked at me like I was mad, Victoria looked excited at the chance to pick his brains on Derro literature, Luna just looked confused and Farrah remained dead weight on my shoulder. Then I heard the crunching of bone and the clang of iron on iron as the Cleric slowly rose to assess the newcomer.

The burns left by his White fire had become much more obviously serious, blistering, reddening, sloughing away as the weight and chafe of the armour pulled the separating layers of burnt skin off his body to reveal oozing red beneath. The Cleric's right leg trailed awkwardly and his ribs audibly crunched as he moved. The others gave him a wide berth, treating the holy warrior with way more caution than I did. Hell, they behaved like he was a live wire or explosive substance while I found myself talking to him like a colleague.

The Cleric wordlessly shambled up to the unfortunate-faced newcomer, Shazbla looked up in trepidation, I was about to reassure him of the giant's nobility and goodness when he clamped one iron-gauntleted hand around Shazbla's head. "Irredeemable." White fire belched from the diminutive monster's eyes and mouth, Shazbla's body contorted and spasmed, dropping to the floor but continuing to burn even once the Umbani was no longer in contact.

I looked at him in anger. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

I half expected the giant to turn on me next but he instead turned his head a little and spoke apologetically, ruefully almost.

"A pity, I believe he had a truly admirable amount of blood on his hands. If he hadn't committed the irredeemable he would have made a damn fine Cleric."

I shook with barely controlled anger, Karl's demonic limb flexed as if it wanted to strike and be done with it but the Cleric hadn't really done anything too terrible, he'd saved our lives a few times already and suffered horribly in the process. People probably killed prisoners of war all the time here, right?

I looked unbelievably at the giant. "He was going to turn a new life, he needed mercy, redemption. You killed him for nothing, before you even knew if he deserved it."

The cleric looked at me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "I have the sin-sight of all Umbani, our job is that of the judge and the executioner. Who are you to question the judgement of the one who judges?"

I wanted to go off but I had now seen exactly why the Cleric was treated with such caution. The Derro had no warning, he was a noncombatant crushed like a bug.

"I'll try not to sin a 14th time then Cleric, wouldn't want to get on your list." I tried not to sound bitter, though I was. The Cleric didn't notice, instead he corrected me with a good nature that belied his grievous wounds.

"It would be a 15th time now actually Jack"