As we head back to Brookrun I check the chronometer in the corner of my vision. The whole standoff with fake Braxus took a lot less time than I figured thanks to my newfound Kono Zemsu abilities. My mind is still churning with how I might use it next time, especially against the Goblin Queen’s army of undead monsters. That exceedence mechanic is something I still need to test and trial, but at four days a cool down, I doubt I’ll be getting another practice run in before I’ll need to face the Goblin Queen for real.

I look to the bare mountains of the Goblin Queen’s stronghold. It’s been less than a half hour since she left to perform her infiltration, probably enough time for me to catch up to her if I tried. And I really want to have a look inside that mine for myself.

“I’m going to meet up with Aiko,” I say to my friends who are strolling next to me. “I want to see just what we’re up against in there. Maybe check for some possible XP spots too.”

“Yeah, sure you are,” Gilly says. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with worrying about Aiko too, right?”

“Huh?”

“It’s okay.” She gives me a playful grin. “I give you permission to go check up on your other girlfriend, Reece.”

My mouth drops open a little as Gilly laughs. I actually wasn’t thinking like that, but maybe Aiko’s flirtations and my concern for her is more obvious than I thought. “I ah…”

“Go on, you duffus,” she says, cutting me off before I make a fool of myself. “Just make sure you both come back in one piece. I’m going to get started with the town management. There’s a lot to fix up.”

I chuckle and kiss her on the cheek. “You’re the best, Gilly.”

“I’ll see to organizing what troops we have left for the city defense,” Lady Diana says. “The next rounds of attacks will be soon.”

“I can help with that,” Maxis offers. “I can work on gathering some more materials for the fortifications.”

“We’ll both help,” Val Helena says and then grins as she smacks the butt of an unconscious Lord Xavier now slung over her shoulder. “Right after I prep this little toad for questioning. Lady Diana I think it would be only fitting that you get to wear the ring once we stuff him into some green garbs of his own.”

Lady Diana smirked. “Agreed.”

* * *

I head off from the group and sprint towards the mines. After an hour I reach the base of the barren hills of the Goblin Queen’s stronghold. Casting Shadow Cloak I begin picking my way up through the small pockets of enemies that I see.

For the most part I spot more Nether Trolls. They don’t really move around, like corpses stood on their feet. With their completely black eyes it’s hard to tell if they can even see or detect me at all, but I keep a good distance from them as I engage sneak and keep Shadow Cloak up the whole time. My recent use of Shadow Walk has me wishing I was level 95 already. With that I could literally just teleport inside the mine. But it will be a lot of hard leveling before I can unlock it the legit way.

I grimace as I sneak under the rows of spikes shoved into the ground, their tips adorned with the bodies of villagers just like I assumed. The sight makes my stomach turn. It also makes my heart sink with doubt that we’ll find those miners still alive in there.

I send a PM to Aiko hoping I’m in range.

Reece: Hey, Aiko, can you read me?

After a few seconds a message comes back.

Aiko: Yeah… You’re here? What happened with Braxus?

Reece: A lot. Wasn’t the real Braxus but we kicked his face in good and proper. I don’t think he’ll be heading back for a few days.

Aiko: Did you use Kono Zemsu?

Reece: Yeah, but I’ll fill you in on that later. Where are you? I’m at the base of the mines right now.

Aiko: Aww…Did you come to see if I’m okay?

Reece: lol maybe. I want to get that lay of the land.

Aiko: I was just about to head in. I’ll backtrack and meet you by the entrance.

We meet up still in stealth and then head towards one of the mine openings with Shadow Wall on. It’s barricaded with more iron spikes, set up in a chicane to make a frontal assault by a large force a difficult one. But it also allows their forces from the inside a clear path to send more troops and defend. Currently there are a handful of Nether Trolls and a few goblin warriors on lookout duty.

“Follow me,” Aiko says through our party chat.

I follow the graceful elf as she scales the adjacent mountain face with Wall Run and then drops down behind the chicane. I perform the same maneuver and landing soundlessly, we make our way into the darker interior of the fortification.

“Too bad we can’t get everyone in like that,” I say. It’s a reminder that our true goal is at the base of this mine—the shaft that leads to the old world below. Once there we can follow the coordinates to home. We’re so close to our goal of reaching Citadel that it’s killing me inside to have to deal with the Goblin Queen first. But no one will be saving Citadel if we wind up killing ourselves on the home stretch.

“How far in did you progress?” I ask.

“Just to the first floor. Come on the defense are light for now.”

We pick up the pace and I quickly remember my disadvantage of not having night vision like her the deeper we go. The smell is definitely a lot worse than I remember as well. Aiko switches to Thief for higher perception and as we creep through the mine, she stops several times to avoid traps.

“This place is worse than I thought,” I say through the chat as she takes my hand to skirt around a trip device that was set to send a log falling on top of me if I had triggered.

“How much farther do you want to go?” she asks.

“We need to look for those miners,” I say and try to remember the geography from the last time I was here. “If there are as many as that guy Keith said then they might be in one of the lower great halls.”

She nods and keeps holding my hand as we slip through the darkness.

My pulse increases as we pass right under the nose of several more Nether Trolls and normal goblins. I make a mental note of the numbers and estimate over two hundred trolls thus far. The goblins are harder to keep track of as they generally swarm in huge packs within the various chambers that offshoot from the main tunnel, but there has to be a good thousand or so of them. They bicker and snarl in their guttural language, squabbling amongst themselves mostly. The only time I notice any kind of order at all is when spot one of their female priestesses with them.

“Do you understand what they’re saying?” I ask.

“Cursing mostly as far as I can tell,” Aiko says as she grimaces at the goblins in the dark. “Trust me these things are foul in more ways one.”

We trek deeper in and over an hour goes by as we play cat and mouse with the enemy, but we finally reach one of the main chambers on the sub level. There’s faint light coming from it, as well as a steady stream of normal goblins. I spot a larger number of the female clerics as well. As we get closer my blood suddenly chills as a very human scream fills the air.

Aiko and I share a terrified look and my heartbeat quickens.

We skirt the outer wall away from the goblin traffic and finally get a view into the chamber. And my heart stops when I finally see what’s inside.

A mound of goblin corpses lay tangled within the center of chamber. The smell is horrendous and the buzz of flies is almost deafening. The human cry rings out again and I spot an iron-barred cage hanging from the ceiling by chains. A single man is within it, slumped upon its floor. As I peer into the darkness I can just make out a larger cage at the back of the chamber, which has more humans trapped inside.

“Damn it,” Aiko says through the chat. “Looks like we found them.”

As we continue to stare into the gloom of the semi-lit chamber another figure emerges from the darkness. Slender green legs that have to be twenty feet long step poise like through the mounds of rotting goblin corpses. The Goblin Queen herself emerges looking every bit like goddess herself now at a height of nearly fifty feet tall. Her massive hips are clad in a bronze chain loincloth and her shoulder and chest are draped in the same, but what strikes me even more is that entangled in the chains are the blacked corpses of humans.

Zanthea

Legendary Monster

Level: ???

Once the proud chieftain of a small goblin tribe, the Goblin Queen Zanthea was slain by a great hero, but with her dying breath she cried out in anguish to her gods. As hate filled her heart in death, so to it filled her soul as she was reborn from the ashes via a dark power unknown.

Affinity: Dark

Crap…that description is talking about me. It makes me wish I could remember exactly what she had said when she died. Her face looks somewhat the same as when I’d seen her last, green and more elflike than goblin. But now her eyes are completely black like those of her Nether Troll minions and the more I look at her, the more I sense an aura of darkness about her. Something alien…yet familiar. I read the description again. It would have been written by Karlis herself I imagine. And although she’s a lot more poetic in her description than Lenox was, perhaps this unknown darkness could be literal in this sense.

As I peer closer I see it.

You Awareness increases by 0.6

Hovering just over the massive Goblin Queen is a shadowy form made of black smoke. Its vaguely humanoid forms mimics the Goblin Queen as she steps towards the suspended cage and the man trapped within.

She raises her massive hand towards the cage and the man begins to scream.

“No! Not me! Please!”

She says something in native tongue, her voice reverberating through the cavern. “Vulks Shemitz Kur!”

Zanthea casts Sacrificial Resurrection

Jason is cursed with Death!

Jason is defeated.

The man’s cries cut short as his body vaporizes in a mist of blood and fragmented bone. Dark energy swirls through the cloud, driven by the Goblin Queen outstretched palm. Her words continue like a chant and the dark energy extends to one of the numerous piles of goblin corpses.

The sickening sound of snapping bone echoes through the chamber as the mound of corpses twist and rise, forming the body of a Nether Troll. The process continues, the Queen forming at least a dozen trolls from the single spell.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Aiko says through the chat.

The sight drives sickness through my stomach as well and ice through my veins. “This is way worse than I thought.”

The Goblin Queen’s sadistic laugh fills the air as she casually opens the cage and removes the man’s body. Admiring it for a second, she then twists a link of chain from her loin cloth about the man’s neck, and lets her new trophy dangle at her hip. The newly formed Nether Trolls start to scream horrendously, wild like monsters with no minds. They begin tearing into the bodies of the dead goblins, devouring them with shocking ferocity.

Then quickly a team of female clerics begin chanting and the trolls at once cease their feral behaviors and stand statue like, mirroring the ones I’ve seen outside.

“This is warped as hell,” Aiko says and then looks to me in the darkness. “What are we going to do?”

I swallow the lump in my throat as my mind begins to shift gears.

“We need to reset out priorities,” I say. “Big time.”