By the time Lucia and I got to the smithy, the workers were already fixing the exterior of the building. All of the corpses but the dwarves’ were mostly left on the site of the battle. There was a lot of decaying goblin and spider bodies just scattered all over the place. I headed straight to where the hole was at. Lucia had the dwarves and workers leave the building to allow me to work in peace.

“What sort of clues would your lordship find, this one thinks to oneself,” Lucia pondered loudly enough for me to hear as I crouched in front of a dead goblin that’s mostly intact. I ignored her then inspected the corpse. The dead goblin wasn’t wearing the typical worker outfit and he was lightly geared. He had leather armor and a sword on his hip. I am sure that smithy workers don’t run around working around armed, or at least the dwarves wouldn’t have let armed goblins in the smithy.

I examined the goblin closely, moving the body around. When I didn’t find anything else interesting, I lifted my hand off the body. I felt something slimy and sand-like on my hand and inspected it.

“Ew. Glitters. Why the hell are there glitters here?” I said as I cleaned my hand off.

“Glitters? This one will inform Her Majesty,” Lucia moved up next to me as she said that, taking a closer look at my hand.

“What? You’ll go run off to the queen now?”

“No? As this one is a thrall of Her Majesty, I have a telepathic connection with her,” She explained to me.

“Damn. That’ll be troublesome.” I clicked my tongue.

“Hm? Troublesome? What do you mean?”

“Nevermind that.” I quickly shrugged her off and stood up in front of the goblin. I raised a palm facing the corpse, and black mist started to collect around my hand. As death essence gathered and materialized into the mortal realm, I clenched my fist letting the mist dissipate. The goblin corpse twitched. Then it opened its eyes. It raised its head then slowly turned to me, before trying to raise its body. Bit by bit, its limbs started to respond and shambled its way upwards. It had a cut around its neck area, so this goblin must’ve bled out to death.

“Ooooh. Very interesting, your lordship,” Lucia commented monotonically.

“Isn’t this, at the very least, expected of a lich?” I shook my head and sighed. I felt like this girl was just mocking me. No, not felt like. I knew that she was mocking me! But that doesn’t matter. This damned sack of meat wouldn’t be laughing soon.

“Hey, you. What are you supposed to be?” I asked the corpse. It twitched a bit before answering me.

“Goblin. I,” It gargled.

“You idiot, I can see that! What are you doing inside the smithy armed?” I interrogated it.

“Steal from smithy. Get bombs. Rebel. Free goblins,” It continued. A rebellion to free the goblins from dwarven rule, huh? But what were the goblins going to use the bombs for? I turned to Lucia but she only shrugged back at me. This must’ve been the work of the demon. I threw a robe at the goblin which I took from the smithy.

“Clean yourself as quickly as possible and put on this robe. Lead us to your base,” I ordered the goblin. The goblin nodded as it tried to clean itself enough that it wouldn’t leave traces of blood or gut as it moved around. It put on the robe and started walking towards the exit.

“That’s outstanding, your lordship. This one have not heard of zombies retaining their memory or intelligence upon resurrection.” Lucia clapped lightly as she was impressed by my necromancy. Hmpf, of course. I wanted to show off my amazing abilities. I couldn’t let her mock me.

We followed the goblin around but it moved slowly. I shambled through the capital street, making multiple turns and passing by a lot of buildings. Soon, the streets started to have less people and the place around looked deteriorated.

“Lucia, do you know this place?” I asked.

“Somewhat, this part of the capital is owned by Duke Urist, but is mostly abandoned,” She explained. It’s that dwarven duke again. Why does he seem to appear everywhere? The goblin shambled towards a large dam.

“What’s with the dam?” I asked Lucia.

“It was a project to create a supply of water for the capital,” She explained.

“But what happened to it?”

“Well, the mines accidentally rerouted the river that was intended for the dam, which is why there’s a river in the middle of the city. There was no point in building the dam so it was abandoned,” She explained. That made sense so I didn’t question it. In the first place, it was dumb trying to build a dam under a mountain anyway.

The goblin led us inside the main building of the dam complex. After walking down a narrow corridor, he stopped right in front of a wall. At first I thought he was lost, but then he pressed against a hidden button and the wall moved, revealing the inner part of the dam.

The inner part of the building was as huge as the capital smithy workshop area. There was a lot of equipment strewed all over the place and a lot of wooden constructions were built around the dam, creating rooms. This must have been the rebel hideout.

The goblin corpse stopped in the middle of the hideout and stood there silently. I walked over to him and placed my hand on my sword. I detected the living beings inside the dam but didn’t think they were a threat so I ignored them. I looked around me and saw figures getting their weapons ready to ambush us.

“Alright, goblins. We’re not dumb. Nobody would just walk into a rebel hideout and not expect an ambush,” I announced, my voice echoing across the massive hall of the inner dam. Once I made that bold announcement, the goblins finally revealed themselves among the shadows. They all locked their crossbows towards me and many were prepared to dash at me at any moment’s notice.

“Izzat a royal palace maid?! Boyoz, we gott’em loyalists in our ‘omes!” A goblin shouted. I still don’t understand goblins. The zombie spoke clearer than the goblins, really.

“Hold up. Who’s your leader? Can I talk to someone that actually speaks commons, pretty please?” I shouted towards the goblins surrounding us.

“‘Ere comes tha’ Boss! Leh’ ‘im thru’!” A goblin shouted some more nonsense. A massive goblin moved towards us and the rebels made way for him. He was a huge for a goblin and was wearing plate chest armor. He lugged a large club and was wearing tattered trousers.

“Me. Boss!” He roared. The rest of the goblins cheered as the goblin leader pointed his club at me. Wait a damned minute. This nation was only large enough for one boss!

“So, you’re probably smart enough and charismatic enough to gather these goblins, huh?” I took a few steps forward towards the goblin leader.

“Yes. Me smart. Me Char-Is-Ma enough! You now butter!” He roared again. Was this guy serious? I looked around me and there was clearly a lot of goblins and I didn’t want to work too much.

“Who’s your real leader? I know there’s a demon around here. You won’t get another chance if you answer this with lies,” I threatened. The goblin leader yelped and held his club with two hands.

“What? No. No. No demons. Me boss. Me lead. No demon tell me what to do. Yes. Totally,” He nervously answered me. I could see his feet shaking. Sigh, I don’t like doing this, but…

I clapped my hands hard once and spread my arms. The ground behind me tore and opened a massive hole, the goblin corpse falling into it. After a few seconds, thick essence of death invaded the whole place. Living beings wouldn’t directly detect it, but they could at least feel as if they were being choked in the sense of fear. The goblins nervously backed off a bit. Following that, undead spiders started to flood out of the hole and started to attack the goblins. Unlike the dwarves who were better equipped and disciplined, the rebel goblins were being cut into pieces or gobbled up quickly.

“Isn’t this a bit counterproductive?” Lucia asked me.

“Heh. Quietly sit tightly and close your mouth.” I pointed at the hole. The goblin zombie that fell into the hole came out riding atop a spider, swinging his sword at his former brethren.I watched the massacre happened while I was waiting for the demon to show up and go like, ‘You ruined my plan! I will now fight you! Aaaahh!’ or something but nothing happened. Just as the last few rebel goblins were surrounded, including the goblin leader, I stopped the spider attacks.

“Alright, looks like the demon controlling you all isn’t here or has fled. Cough up some answers before you turn into spider food,” I threatened the survivors.

“Eeee! Wait! Me answer! Me smart! Goblins make ale. Goblins put ale into dam. Goblins will blow up dam with bombs. Dwarves then be poisoned with ale! Demon tell me do this!” The large goblin cowered with the rest of the goblins. I remembered that the governor of Azkator did acquire dwarven alcohol somewhere not in Azkator. So it seemed that it was in the capital. The goblins probably had been making alcohol and for this plan.

Now that I thought about it, it actually sounded like an amazing idea. The only problem was…

“Excellent job, your lordship! This one requests that this one finishes off the filthy traitors!” She smiled as she revealed her claws made from shadows coming out of her hands.

“Have you told the queen?” I asked.

“Ah. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I haven’t. I shall now….?!” Before she could even answer finish, I drowned her with essence of death. The strong foreign aura forced her kneels to give up, causing her to collapse. She screamed hard, unable to do anything about the suffocating aura. This went on for a minute before I stopped.

“Ah...ha…..ah...Geugh? What...What have you done?!” She vomited some blood then weakly stood up, taking a stance to defend against me. Luckily for her, I wasn’t planning on killing her.

“I cut off your connection with that vampire. It seemed easier than I realized. I needed a test subject, so I had you follow me. For some reason, I can’t link your loyalty to me, but that’s fine. It’s probably because you’re different. For the rest of the thralls, it should be possible. Well, it’s all temporary anyway,” I explained as I walked up to her.

“Cut off?! That’s….impossible! Nobody has ever done that before!” She backed off a few steps away from me.

“That’s what I also thought. I didn’t know which spells and sequences I should use so I spent some time silently casting spells on you while I was raising the goblin zombie.” I chuckled.

“Guh?! Without this one realizing it? That’s..”

“Possible. The massive amount of essence of death dulled your senses. Anyways, now that I know which spells and sequences to use...severing all of the thralls’ connection to the queen is much easier now.” I smiled.

“Your lordship isn’t going to kill this one?” She coughed lightly. By now, she composed herself and was fully on guard against me.

“Of course, not. You’re no longer a problem. How does it feel? To be truly free?” I asked her.

“This one...feels empty. Like, dead inside.” She relaxed a bit and pressed her palm against her heart.

“Of course, you do. You’re a walking sack of meat.” I shrugged and walked over to the middle of the room, near the hole I caused.

“Wow. That made this one more depressed. This one will go...walk or something. Think about one’s existence.” She walked off dizzily. Well, I’m sure she won’t just run off and tell the queen. From what I could tell, she was simply confused and completely stunned at her sudden independence. The spell that cut off her from her connection with Ellysa was temporary, but should be long enough to buy me time. Besides, if a thrall’s connection really was severed permanently, Ellysa would know.

I turned towards the surviving goblins and started interrogating them one by one. Once I got some information, I locked them into an earthen cage outside where they won’t disturb me. I got back to the rebel hideout and started to work.

I raised a fist into the air then collected essence of death, forming a bolt made of black mist. I threw the bolt into the floor and the mist scattered all over the place, resurrecting all the dead goblins. They all got up and started to move towards me. I noticed some glitter on the floor once more and inspected it.

I rubbed my hand and the glitter fell onto the floor. I smiled to myself and whispered, “I will finish what you started.”