As distant as the mine seemed on the map, the walk ended up taking only a couple of hours. It seemed that I could jog almost tirelessly so long as I didn’t sprint and kept an eye on my stamina bar. But if I let the bar red-line, it would regenerate much more slowly.

Horrifying as the nanos were, they were definitely effective.

A set of railroad tracks ran out from a hole in the side of a cliff, and though a few longhouses crowded the entrance, there didn’t seem to be anyone around. I crept over to the mine just in case, though I made so much noise in my copper armor that sneaking seemed like a waste of time.

I brought up the stealth passive up again, trying to figure out how I could improve it, but couldn’t find any information on that kind of thing. That would be a good question to run by Ezzie when she came back. If she came back.

I stepped inside the tunnel, and the stink from deeper in the mine hit me like a pressure wave, a combination of odors that I knew all too well: human waste mixed with sour sweat.

The scent was overpowering, even worse than it had ever been out in the wild, which was impressive. The air was moist and humid as I headed in, so thick that it was almost sticky, and the tunnel walls were beaded with moisture.

Thick wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling, and a dim lantern hung flickering from every third beam. I wound my way through the intermittent darkness, and eventually the tunnel sloped down, so I took advantage of the decline and increased my pace.

I found a lift eventually, though it looked a little questionable, its entire weight supported by a spooled chain that was covered in rust. More importantly, a pair of goblins stood on the far side of the platform, looking down over the edge of a mineshaft.

{Mork} (level 4 humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 120/120

{Crulla} (level 4 humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 120/120

I crept up on the first goblin, hoping to kill him outright before the second goblin had a chance to engage, but I only made it two steps before a groan in my armor gave away my position and the goblin whirled on me.

Abandoning stealth entirely, I charged the closest goblin at full speed and rammed my shoulder into him, sending the lighter creature flying over the railing that boxed the mineshaft and into the darkness below. He howled the whole way down.

Pain blossomed in my lower back, all my abdominal muscles cramping up at once, and I spun to find the other goblin directly behind me, blood dripping from a hooked dagger that she held in her right hand. She must have managed to wedge her blade directly between two of my plates, where leather was my only protection.

I did my best to ignore the wound in my back, not willing to take my eyes off the goblin to check my health. The injury was painful—blindingly so—but I didn’t feel like it was fatal, and I just had to hope that that was the case.

We circled each other on the platform, slashing and jabbing at the air, neither of us willing to step into the other’s range.

Then I realized the goblin was wearing rags, while I had plate. So I stepped forward and baited an attack. The goblin lashed out horizontally, her blade sparking harmlessly off my breastplate.

I pushed through the impact and kicked the goblin hard in the chest, sending her backward into the railing. I followed through and stabbed the stunned goblin where I figured her heart would be and immediately yanked my blade free.

She stood there against the railing, one hand clutching the raw gap in her sternum, the other extended palm-out, reaching for me as if the goblin were asking for help, or maybe mercy. Then she slipped to the floor and went still.

But I didn’t feel anything. Some distant part of me knew that was wrong, but no matter how hard I tried to put the situation in context, I couldn’t make sense of it. I had no remorse, no regret. I’d simply done what I had to do.

How much easier would life have been out in the wild if I could’ve done just that? Maybe that was why when the androids had swept in, everyone had left me behind. They’d planned it—that much became obvious when someone I’d considered a brother had kicked my knee in and shoved me to the ground, then taken off.

I’d seen him do the same thing to others, of course. People we considered dead weight, mouths who weren’t worth feeding. But I never thought it would be my turn to go. I thought I was better than that. I thought I was part of the family.

I swallowed my anger and forced myself back to the task at hand. Voices called out below, so I crept back into the darkness to listen. The voices were human, and they were…laughing?

Maybe they thought the goblin I’d shoved over the edge had simply fallen. I headed back over to the female goblin and had my Constructor scan her for loot.

{Goblin Loincloth}

Slot: Underwear

Quality: Junk

I grimaced; my armor was definitely chafing, and maybe the lack of underwear was why. But I figured I’d put the decision off for a little while at least, until I’d cleared the area. Which gave me an idea. I stood the dead goblin up and leaned her over the side of one of the elevator’s three railings.

I searched out the switch for the elevator, hit the button, then climbed atop the car. The platform buckled beneath me, then groaned into motion, the car beginning its steady decent into the mineshaft below.

A man and a woman both dressed in blood-spattered leathers approached the car as it neared the bottom of the shaft.

{Supervisor Finda} (Level 5 humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 200/200

{Marion} (Level 4 humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 170/170

“Crulla?” one of the humans said as she approached. “What the hell happened up there? Please don’t tell me that you pushed him over.”

I didn’t dare move as the figures drew closer, unwilling to risk my armor making a noise and blowing my cover.

“Hello?” the other human said, the first hints of concern evident in the wrinkles that creased his forehead. “Crulla? Crulla you green idiot, we’re talking to you.”

The supervisor disappeared into the cart—no doubt to check on the motionless goblin within—while the other lingered at its edge.

I made my move, leaping down on top of the human I could see. I seemed to hang in the air a moment, at which point it became clear that I really didn’t have a plan.

The man looked up, sensing the movement, but it was too late; I crashed into him with my full weight, driving him down into the floor. He took the brunt of the impact, his head bouncing off the ground with a sickening crunch.

“We’re—” the supervisor cut off as the stone dagger I’d thrown buried itself in her throat. She gurgled twice, her hands clutching at the hilt as if she couldn’t believe it was there.

Her eyes hardened, and her skin began to smoke, whole patches of it darkening and roiling and sloughing off. She whipped a longsword from its sheath bolted forward, moving with supernatural speed, the dagger bobbing in her throat. I barely had time to raise my serrated dagger before she was on me.

She attacked in a blind rage, repeatedly smashing her longsword into my helmet and shoulders, each blow sending up a flurry of sparks. The hits hurt like hell, but the armor was taking the brunt of the impact, and she didn’t seem to be strong enough to cut through it.

I sidestepped a particularly wild overhand strike and moved behind her, stabbing her twice in the back before I retreated. The woman grunted but kept coming; her skin had fallen away in huge patches, revealing bones beneath, and she was moving much more slowly now, every action seeming to take an incredible amount of willpower.

She tried to raise her longsword, but the weapon slipped from her grasp. She bent to pick it up and her jaw fell off, crumbling into dust as it hit the floor. The rest of her body followed a moment later, leaving her longsword glinting within a pile of ash. Must have been some sort of suicide spell.

I reached for the longsword, but it too collapsed, turning into black dots that fluttered down the mine before vanishing from sight.

“Damn it,” I said. A longsword would have been a much better match for my armor, particularly now that I had the strength to wield one.

I reclaimed the dagger I’d thrown, then had my Constructor scan the two bandits as well as the pulpy remains of the goblin. The two humans came up empty, mostly—just a couple scraps of cloth, three copper coins, and some of the bloody clothing they’d been wearing beneath their leathers.

It seemed to be a cosmetic set that would replace my underclothes, but it didn’t have any armor values, so I didn’t bother with it. But I did find a necklace on the goblin:

{Greenskin Charm}

Grade: F

Item level: 4

Slot: Neck

Quality: Uncommon

Magical Resistance: 5

Primaries: +1 Intellect, -2 Wisdom.

Durability: 20/20

I wasn’t sure what to make of taking a hit to Wisdom, but the magical resistance alone seemed worth equipping the necklace.

The stench somehow got worse as I headed deeper into the mine and voices began to carry up from the levels below. Not voices, not exactly—nobody was speaking—but I could pick out the steady rhythms of people at work: breathing, grunting, groaning.

Then the cavern opened up, and there were hundreds of people in the huge space beyond, all of them shackled together by a single unbroken chain that circumscribed the length of the room. Each captive wielded a pickaxe, and occasional flurries of sparks lit the far reaches of the room, occurring whenever an axe met stone.

Maybe a half-dozen people dressed in leather patrolled the lines, inspecting the work that was being done. Two torches burned on the far wall, illuminating a door between them.

I had something vaguely resembling a plan this time, so I ducked back into an alcove where I couldn’t be seen by the people within the huge room and had my Constructor deprint my armor.