Eventually the sun approached the horizon. The wind held, which was good. If my plan A didn’t work, and Plan B looked rough I did have a plan C that probably wouldn’t go unnoticed, but would hopefully keep Spine alive. Then there was of course the last resort, Plan Extreme Violence.

Brunhilda was apparently ride or die if it came to that. Brand was clearly leary of this, we had things to do after today, like fight a demon, and then get back to England. I wasn’t sure where Angelica stood with regard to picking a fight with the whole city, and possibly by extension Lola. There was also the issue that throwing weight around probably meant the goblins would literally be left out in the cold to mobs.

Stepping out of Seth’s House was an experience. I could wax poetically but it is better to be blunt. Somewhere around a thousand people had crammed themselves into the streets around the shed. It was a crush of people. They apparently had been hesitant to kick down the door to get to us, but now that we were out in the open… my god, the shouting. It was just a din. Questions, demands, offers, all of it was lost to the roar of everyone talking at once.

Unlike the last time they weren’t interested in being ignored. Also a lot of people wanted to touch me. No idea why, but a lot of people pressed their palms against me.

I stalled out as the crowd surged, Brunhilda didn’t, she grabbed Spine in one still clad hand, and placed the other at the small of my back and pushed. She was extremely strong and had good leverage. I quickly became a bulldozer blade as she pushed through the crowd. Angelica followed behind and basically body-blocked the people behind us. Janie whisked away, she could give Angelica a run for her money in the speed department.

She came back about five minutes later with maybe three to four dozen people in uniforms that looked official. It wasn’t anything too fancy. They were all wearing dark green shirts and pants, a red sash, and black hats and boots. The guards -I guessed- under Janie’s instruction began to bodily break chunks of the crowd off and send them on their way. Think polite-but-firm bouncers over jackbooted thugs. Then again that could be due to the majority of the crowd following their instructions.

It became immediately apparent everyone was heading toward the dueling ground and more than once Brunhilda had to shove me through the crush of people. I kept relatively quiet, and thankfully Spine didn’t throw a fit about Brunhilda touching him.

We eventually reached the training grounds, and found the remainder of the town’s population. I hadn’t really appreciated the bowl shape of the field before, but now that it literally had thousands of people crammed into the focus became apparent. Sunit was standing in the central arena with Howard and Madigan standing to one side.

The crowd parted sensing the impending clash and parted. Seth materialized out of the crowd and fell into step with Spine and me. I put a hand on Spine’s shoulder as we walked toward the circle.

“You nervous?” I asked. I could feel him shaking.

“Terrified,” Spine admitted.

“Just ride the adrenaline. If you can, find a balance where you can still think while having the energy,” I advised.

“What are you going to do?” Spine asked.

“Just let me do the talking at the start,” I said. Somehow the stress had taken me full circle. Instead of pulse pounding and jittering. I was calm. I probably couldn’t do that on my own, but since Spine, a kid, needed me to be a foundation for him I was rock steady… on the outside at least.

We stepped into the circle and everything went silent.

Now or never.

Before Sunit could speak I spoke loudly, “Are you still going to set on this to happen, Travis?”

Madigan glared at me, “This is happening.” His voice sure could carry.

Oh good he was still angry. Angry is predictable. I replied loudly, “I had hoped you would wise up, Travis.”

Madigan reeled like I had slapped him. The vein in his head bulged and screamed at me, “You arrogant son of a bitch! You think you’re better than us, don’t you?”

Here it is, the first step. Even as the crowd began to murmur my voice cut through the noise and carried all the way to the back crowd. “No! I don’t think I am better than them! These people are just trying to survive. The mobs are coming and bringing a hell of a fight with them.” Madigan tried to get a word in but bellowed over him. “I don’t think I am better than you either! Hiding the threat from your people, delaying the defense, refusing thousands of additional fighters to focus on forcing two kids to fight to the death! I know I am better than you!”

Persuasion check… successful

Crowd believes Mobs are coming.

Crowd believes Travis Madigan knew about the Mobs.

There was a roar from the crowd. People said all sorts of stuff. Some were mad at Madigan. Some were mad at me. Fair, I was being a dick, and I was the source of the impending doom. Some people were mad at the people mad at Travis or me. A shit load of people were surprised, and deeply mad about that.

There was a lot of anger.

That said most of it was aimed at Madigan, and he knew it, “Better than being overrun by goblins!” he roared over the din.

The crowd quieted.

That was not Ideal, “Thousands of helping hands to help ward off the mobs, protect the green houses, guard the children. You are stopping that!”

Persuasion check… partially successful

The crowd does not completely believe you.

The crowd had gone almost silent.

“I need proof they aren’t mobs!” Madigan shouted back.

I kept my voice calm, but projected my voice, “So the duel is just to prove it is possible? Because mobs can’t duel?”

Madigan almost froze. As angry as he was, he wasn’t stupid. He watched me for a moment, “Of course.”

“Cool!” I said loudly. I turned my gaze on Howard, “Howard, hear me out. Throw the fight after the duel starts. The point is just to prove Spine isn’t a mob. No sense fighting.”

“You son of a…!” Madigan started.

“Quiet!” I growled at Madigan.

Intimidation check… successful

Travis Madigan will remain silent for 20 seconds.

Good. I kept my eyes on Howard, “How about it? Spine won’t hurt you if you Surrender. Hell, thousands of Goblins will owe you their lives.”

Howard hesitated for a long moment, “I can’t go against my master.”

“He just said the point of the duel is to prove Goblins aren’t mobs.” I replied loudly. “No one needs to die.”

Madigan glared daggers at me. His baleful gaze drifted to Howard.

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I lowered my tone, “If you do this I will owe you one.”

Madigan realized Howard was considering my words. He made to drape an arm over Howard, but stopped when he saw Sunit watching him. “This isn’t okay.”

“The duel hasn’t started, this isn’t interference,” Sunit said, clearly uncomfortable, but he still added, “Unlike laying hands on a duelist in the ring.”

Well that’s good, because I was going to keep bribing the kid. ”I can sweeten the deal Howard, You want a Titanic Pact? I can give you regen.”

“My Master would abandon me if I betrayed him,” Howard explained.

“How about an Epic Scale master who knows a Cosmic Martial Art?” I asked, pointing a thumb at Seth. “As a bonus he won’t force you to fight duels to the death over his pride. Take the deal. I will take care of you.”

Persuasion check… Successful

Howard ….

All processes stopped.

I felt the telltale thrum of time halting.

“You mother fuckers,” I swore into the impossible stillness. No one reacted and nothing moved. Everything was

[Flag] Delete Message

Retcon begins in:

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“I am sorry, but no,” Howard said, shaking his head.

“Let’s get this done,” Madigan snarled.

Holy shit, they just took it away. I felt the phantom fangs of the Snow Lion Alpha pressing down on my neck. My thumb touched the nail on my pinkie.

I kept my face and voice calm as I spoke to Spine, “You are ready for this. Find your moment, hit hard, and keep hitting.”

Spine nodded. His skin went from his normal healthy green to a pale ashen one. He nodded, more to himself than me. “I can do this.” he said. He didn’t sound convinced.

I almost tried to use the Persuade skill on Spine. Ultimately I decided not to. Besides the ethical issues of messing with people's brains, there was the practical issue that I did not know what I was doing, and the risk that Narrators could just adjust the die rolls again.

“Are you ready?” Sunit asked. His voice was gentle but had a slight push to hurry the hell up.

I waited for Spine to say yes. He was clearly waiting for me to answer. I could tell because after about ten seconds he started poking me.

I sighed and then opened my mouth to speak.

“Wait!” About a dozen people called. A massive crowd of thousands, myself included, turned to the east and found about thirty battered and bloody people. They were a motley crowd. all of them wearing clothes with a digi-camo pattern based in gray and white tones. A large number of them had guns, long rifles, probably automatics, and pistols on their hips. A few had old-time melee weapons, a few swords and axes, one had a huge spear. The group was a mix of men and women, and they all looked to be in their late twenties or younger. Didn't have much else in common… other than one thing.

All of them had eyes that reflected the waning light of the setting sun. That troubling yellow glow that cat eyes have in low light.

“Chimeras,” Seth whispered. He almost keeled over, but I caught him. He didn’t even acknowledge me. “Please no.” He muttered almost silently.

The heavily armed group of soldiers that appeared from nowhere tried to approach us. They were immediately stopped by the crush of bodies from the crowd gathered to see the duel. After several verbal exchanges between them and the crowd one of the soldiers began to gesticulate wildly. The crowd was unmoved. The soldier slumped.

After another brief exchange the soldiers tried to sort of push through the crowd. This caused a loud uproar in the area, and the press of people quickly drove the soldiers back. Finally, a shorter woman from the soldiers’ team grabbed two of her cohorts, just ducked her head, and started to power through. The crowd protested, but she fought the mosh like a seasoned concert-goer.

Since I was in no hurry to force kids to fight to the death, I just watched the soldiers awkwardly shuffle through the crowd and listened to the increasingly loud -and creative- insults being hurled. Turns out thousands of people can cycle through a lot of insults in rapid order, especially when someone was taking their good spot.

Thankfully neither the angry crowd nor the well armed soldiers actually started a fight. Small miracle.

The young lady who forced her way through the crowd gasped in effort before managing, “Wait! We have… ho-ly fuck… you really are tall.”

Rather than say anything quickly I gazed at her dumbly before pointing at myself and waited for her to confirm.

Seth stepped behind me.

The soldier stooped hands on her knees catching her breath. “Yeah, you,” she said at last, and smiled as she straightened up. Her teeth were unnaturally pointed and her eyes had an undeniably cat-like shape. A quick glance at her hands showed her nails were long, tough, and sharp. She took her cap off and quickly brushed her black hair out of her face before slapping it back down. The skin on her brow, back of her hands and on her neck had a textured, almost scaled pattern: built-in armor.

The guy on her right had cat eyes but his polite smile showed normal teeth. That said he was hairy as a bear, or maybe a bigfoot. The guy on the left had bulging eyes along with the same scaly looking skin, which in his case looked upsettingly wet.

The other bit that was odd was that rather than their names over their heads were tags that read, from left to right, Corporal, Lieutenant, and Sergeant. That was new, and troubling, and likely to be a new pain in my ass.

Sunit took charge, “Are you seriously interrupting a duel just outside the Mandir of the War Goddess?” He wasn’t so much angry as confirming if these people were really going to be that stupid.

The Lieutenant grinned and pulled a red envelope out of her pocket and handed it to Sunit, “Goddess Lola left instructions to open this immediately.”

Sunit looked at it. His name was written in large black letters with the words: Open Immediately.

Sunit shrugged and opened the envelope.

The world went dark. In the sky a gigantic glowing form of Lola manifested. She gazed down at us. “Thank you Rachel for bearing my message.” Her gaze drifted to a spot about five feet behind Madigan where he would have been standing had he not approached to argue with me. “Travis Madigan, this duel is not needed. I know you wish to serve me as a devout follower, but this is not the way. Withdraw the challenge.” The manifestation’s gaze lifted to the horizon and gazed toward some point near the setting son. When Lola Spoke again her voice rumbled with power and shook everything around us. “All who follow me will be welcomed here. Be they man or woman, Fantasy Kingdom or Technacoast, human or goblin: If they follow me I will protect them.”

With that the manifestation ceased and the crimson light of sunset reasserted itself.

The crowd immediately burst into hundreds of conversations. Apparently Lola wasn’t prone to addressing people directly like that.

“Withdraw the challenge, Madigan,” Sunit instructed. He looked remarkably calm considering thousands of people were losing their shit.

“What…” Madigan asked. He was still gazing up at the sky. “Was that her? Did she actually appear and call me by name?”

“Sadly, no,” Sunit said. He gently placed a hand on Madigan’s shoulder, “That was likely a recorded message Goddess Lola composed earlier.”

“She gave me the message three weeks ago,” the Lieutenant, Rachel, chipped in. She kept glancing over at me.

“She can see that far ahead,” Madigan said. It was almost a question, but came out more as a realization.

“Probably further,” Sunit said. “Withdraw the challenge.”

“Fine, I withdraw the challenge,” Madigan said quietly. He paused for a second before repeating much more loudly, “I withdraw the challenge!”

The crowd cheered.

“”I love a happy ending,” the Lieutenant said. She turned to me, “I’m Lieutenant Rachel Blum of the Technicoast Chimera Core.” She held out a hand to me.”

“You can call me Doug,” I said, shaking her hand gingerly, “You have great timing.”

“We are here to help. The truck has supplies, and we plan to make a run on a dungeon. Hopefully that will help clear a path for people again. This is a holy place after all.” She said, smiling. While she was laughably smaller than me she was strong enough to give me pause. She carried herself with that casual confidence Angelica and Brunhilda embodied.

“That’s good to hear. We have an imminent Mob Rush heading our way, also.” I shrugged.

Rachel went still for a long moment. She turned to Sunit, who nodded. Rachel’s eyes bugged slightly and she turned to the hairy guy with the title of Sergeant. “Get the group ready. Tell them no leave yet. Shit’s about to get weird.”

The Sergeant nodded and turned to force his way back through the crowd: he was almost out of ear shot when he started muttering something about not being surprised.

“Is that why there’s like thirty-thousand goblins gathering outside the city?” Rachel asked.

Sunit, Madigan, and I gazed stupidly at each other for a long moment.

Spine tried to creep away, but froze when my heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

“Any idea what that is about?” I asked him, trying to sound curious rather than upset.

Spine tried to laugh like it was an amusing surprise, but it sounded more like an awkward cough, “So what probably happened is when I sent out the call to my family to bring everyone here for the Mob Rush, they probably read that as everybody everybody. Hehehe!”

I blamed myself. I had every opportunity to ask questions but made assumptions. I needed to get better about that.

I turned to Rachel, “Do me a favor and leave the goblins alone. They are friendly.”

“Sure, no problem,” Rachel said with a negligent shrug.

I almost sagged in relief, “Thank you. I was afraid you would be unreasonable or aggressive.”

Rachel just laughed, “My god literally just said she would shelter goblins. Besides, I am not here to kill them. I am only interested in killing Seth Cohen.”

There it is. The shoe dropping.