"Goblins inherently seek out mana-rich creatures to prey upon, often alive so as to prevent premature nutrient dissipation. In this way, goblins gather mana directly from their diet to sustain themselves. Unlike humans and most other aether-touched fauna, goblins neither possess an aura nor store their mana within one. Instead, it becomes part of their corporea, seeming to meld with their body as a whole.

“Because of their unique physiology, they don’t derive any nutrients from the meat they consume except mana. Unlike elemental constructs, however, they do indeed possess an internal physiology which, aside from sensory organs, seems to serve no further purpose than to remove waste. A very curious creature—okay, Dad, I get it.” Cira flipped through the pages of ‘Goblins: A Study from the Depths of Mudrock’, authored by none other than Goblin Lord Gazen.

Seriously, what the hell is with this, Dad? Why was this in the forbidden archive?

“What do you hope to find?” Kuja asked from across the dining room table, “It’s getting late if you still want to return to Archaeum sometime tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.” Under the old woman’s pointed gaze, Cira knew she was worried about the first tomb. Having landed on a promising page, she picked it up again, “Goblins inherently form a hierarchal structure among any given community based on magical prowess. Those with large reserves and a high aptitude for mana induction often assumed roles similar to a mage, and I have classified them as ‘shamans’.

“Most goblins fall short and make up the bulk of their population, which I have divided into ‘hunters’ and ‘villagers’. Rather than mana, or even gender, these roles are naturally assumed based on physical strength. Individuals among the dredges of goblin society may also possess smaller degrees of magical aptitude depending on nearby resources and how their particular community handles food distribution, but it’s not as common as I would like to see.

“At the top of the hierarchy lies the ‘king’. This class of goblin is never a shared title and is almost always the absolute strongest specimen among them. While I have seen the odd shaman rise to such status on occasion, it is more often than not a mere hunter with a tough body built through countless physical battles. Naturally the mana goes to where it is needed most through years of victory and strengthens the goblin’s body to the point it can easily resist any shaman who may oppose them.

“Such goblin kings are not often wise, and this ultimately results in rapid degradation of the local gene pool as they tend to horde nutrients for themself, thus weakening the overall population. This often perpetuates as the only goblin who may hope to usurp such a king would be the same manner of particularly strong hunter through traditional trial by combat. If they are lucky, an outsider from beyond the tribe will appear one day and defeat the tyrant, thus breaking the cycle. In this case, the victor automatically assumes kingship by way of instinctual loyalty from the affected community. Hang on a minute…”

“Child…” Kuja gave her a serious look, “Did you…?”

“No… am I…” Cira’s whimsical expression fell as a crease formed on her lips, “Am I the goblin king?”

“It would seem that way…” Kuja sounded troubled. It all made sense now how they stopped being hostile all at once. The uncomfortably reverent looks in some of their beady little yellow eyes. “What do you plan to do about it?”

“Well, I kind of feel bad for telling them to piss off like that, but I guess they really wanted to eat us. Is there anything to really do about it? Sounds like they won’t attack us at least.” I’m certainly not going to move in with them and spend my days in those ruins. “I guess we can move onto the next floor.”

“Not quite… It looks like Shores has returned again.” Kuja looked out the window and, just as she said, a torch came through the fog marking his second trip back. The first time was as soon as she finished enough boarding passes to let the initial group in, so she had to double down when an even greater number showed up.

Cira was starting to worry as she had plenty of time to hammer out hundreds more and start reading about goblins by the time they returned again, so this was something of a relief.

She waved at Jimbo as he passed by leading a new group through her front door, down the stairs, and into the training hall. Having such a large space was nice in these situations, but her crew had to station at key points to keep them moving along as they gawked at the sight of Breeze Haven’s interior.

I’m definitely never having this many guests again. “How’s it been, Jimbo?”

She caught him in passing and he took the moment to break into his flask, “Like pissin’ in a barrel.”

“I’m not so sure that’s how it goes… could you elaborate?” It was clear they were doing just fine, but her crew was in a rush. The sun must have risen by now and they were about to take off on the open skies, having raided the two storehouses on Lost Cloud.

“Just as the girl said, Wick only had a couple guys at each spot. Couldn’t believe it! They didn’t even try to fight back. Let’s hope Plackelo is the same.”

“Yeah… what’s that place like?” Cira figured it was an island she would never see, so couldn’t help but be curious about it.

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“Kind of a shithole. I guess you could call it a trading post, though. People from Lost Cloud sell stuff there sometimes—you know, stolen stuff.” The stream of hostages passed, and Cira looked out the window to see Captain Shores just beyond her fence standing ready at the helm. She turned away from his bright smile when James walked into the room, hoping to spare him from staring directly into Breeze Haven’s light.

“Wanna know how many women and children are downstairs?” He asked.

“Not really…” Responsibilities were best left in ambiguity, but that wasn’t often how life worked out.

“You got two hundred sixty people down there… That training hall is pretty big, but if the next spot is much worse, we’re gonna have some real space issues.” Cira pursed her lips at the staggering number. That’s way too many people. I wish we kept another boat here so we could just send them off. “They’re getting restless, too. You might want to pay them a visit at some point.”

“…how far away is Plackelo?” Cira deflected, hoping to avoid confronting such a mass of humans.

“We’ll be back by sundown, so at least go calm them down in a little.” James gestured for Jimbo to follow him out the door so they could depart when Cira stopped them.

“Wait a minute, are you sure there won’t be any problems?” It wasn’t comfortable just sitting around while everyone else launched an assault on another island. “It’s daytime now, right?”

It was impossible to tell by looking outside, and Cira hadn’t gotten up in a while to find a clock.

“Unless Wick’s already sent a ship there, we’ll be fine… Otherwise it may be a fight, or we’ll have to turn around. No more time to chat, though.” With that, they were gone.

Cira watched Shores’ black ship rise and quickly disappear through the shadows before returning her gaze to Kuja, “Alright, then… I guess they’re okay. Where were we?”

“You were going to tell me what those beasts we found in the tomb were.” Evidently, she had grown tired of the suspense.

“Of course. Well, beast is a stretch.” After picking herbs the other day, Cira had flipped through one of the books she studied as a kid which held some of the more common among obscure creatures one may come across while traveling the skies. “All the dark mana threw me off because I had never seen them like that before. They also seemed much more developed than I’ve known in the past, but my father coined the term ‘amalgam’ to define them. Simplistic, instinct-driven lifeforms born of the aether.”

“Amalgam…? I have never heard that word, but if there aren’t beasts… then just what are they?”

“Well, when I say born of the aether, I mean it. Under almost all conditions when mana naturally condenses, it forms crystals. Very rarely, something like a cancerous mutation, mana will refuse to crystallize but continue to coagulate.” This non-forbidden knowledge was something she learned very long ago, but it was nice having a refresher to keep her mind sharp. “If by chance this formless glob of mana is stumbled upon by another creature mistaking it for a food source, the amalgam will naturally absorb the creature if its mana is around the same level or not much higher.

“This allows it to take a semblance of its prey’s physical characteristics to acquire further sustenance as soon as locomotion is possible. Over time with a consistent diet, their form can even mimic a creature they’ve eaten many of. Upon reaching a certain mana or age threshold, the creature will split, over time forming a large colony. Think something like coral, or um… barnacles maybe. Though, they’re a little more autonomous than that. Do jellyfish form packs…?”

“I… think I get it. They sound like an infestation of bugs. One that’s been getting worse for… centuries.” There was a pained look in Kuja’s eyes as she peered into the floor. “To think it’s come to such a state…”

“An apt analogy, but don’t get too worried about it. We’ll work it out.” Cira knocked on the table to get her to stop moping. There were many ways to get rid of them, as they were feeble beings at the end of the day. All the memories of her time reading about them came flooding back as she went through the book, even seeing little notes she wrote in the margins. “I never liked my dad’s ‘amalgam’, though, so I decided to re-coin them as ‘slimes’. You know, the nature affinity ones can be quite adorable.”

“I suppose I will take your word for it.” Kuja shuffled nervously, “So you can kill them, right?”

“Ah, sorry. I got a little off track. I typically don’t like to exterminate things with less than eight legs, but I think this infestation calls for it. They’re not even living creatures, simply mana which absorbed the will to consume. I’d say we’re lucky they were so stained in dark mana, else such an evolved colony of slimes would easily have mutated elements and branched out by now to consume the island. The easiest way to kill them is with heat—or cold for that matter. Anything which rapidly alters their formless structure can cause detrimental damage to the slime.”

Cira found a rather embarrassing blueprint she drew when she was ten or eleven of a supposed slime press. It had a flat tube, open on top, with a single lever connected to a piston. It would theoretically squish the slime until its form simply dissipated. It sounded fine in theory—it would certainly work—but Cira never realized the moral implications of such a device until the other day.

If she were forced to fight a slime, such as the ones down below, there was no way in hell she was getting them to sit calmly in the tube and wait for death. The device would only work on docile slimes that she loaded by hand and set down gently before walking around to the lever. Cira had a flashback of a slime she found mimicking a bunny and hiding in the tall grass as she passed by, and the image of compressing it to oblivion made Cira crumple up the old design and throw it in the trash.

“So, we can just use fire, then. I assume we need a lot of it?”

“Too much and we’ll suffocate… so we’ll use ice as well. Maybe the brothers can do an icy mist or work together with Cedric to spread his electricity. Lightning is perfectly viable here, too.”

It was a simple enough explanation, but Kuja wasn’t convinced yet. “It sounds like we had all the necessary components. Why were we so overwhelmed?”

“Preparation is key.” Cira pointed out, “I’ve never seen such violent and capable slimes, meaning they’ve consumed a great many creatures and proliferated mostly unhindered for a very long time. They aren’t exactly nutritious, so there’s a fair chance their colony extends to the bottom of Archaeum. I honestly hope that’s the case because the other option is beasts so powerful they no longer need food, or malicious spirits. This time we will have plenty of artifacts and hunt them with a plan.”

Her spidery companion sure slept a lot, but Mac promised her a perfect soul a few days prior. She didn’t want to say anything now, but that pretty much guaranteed there was a powerful beast hidden in the depths, if not multiple. Cira kept avoiding the subject because she was scared to ask what creature her prospective new soul belonged to.