“Approach, false meat,” the Queen says still looming over us and then points directly at Mr. Keith. “Approach and thou shalt receive thy payment.”

Mr. Keith avoids our collective stares, or perhaps glares, as he strides past us to stand before the enormous LM. I still can’t believe this is even happening—all of our preparation and struggle undone by one man’s actions. I can understand wanting to save his son, but why would he side with this monster to do so?

The answer comes in the form of the Goblin Queen taking hold one of the blackened corpses from about her waist, ripping it free and then dropping it grimly drops in front of Mr. Keith. I expect the old miner to begin wailing at the sight. To perhaps finally realize that he’d been tricked and that what he had bargained for, no longer existed, that he had just thrown away everything for a son who had long since died.

But instead, Keith Mr. looks up at the Queen expectantly.

“Do it!” he says. “Bring him back like you promised!”

Bring him back?

The Queen chuckles in her odd dual tone voice. “I comprehend the preoccupation the Enclave has with thy kind now. To barter with meat is…amusing. Even false meat as thee. Bear witness now, false meat…thou shall again have thy progeny. But for as long as thy elation shall last… let it be known that thou petty wants has come at a very high price. For thou hast delivered on thy promise…the Kono Zemsu and thus I shall deliver upon mine.”

The Queen raises her staff and a brilliant, golden light emits from it.

Dark Zanthea casts Great Miracle II

Lucas is fully restored!

I watch perplexed as the golden light surrounds the blackened corpse. Then like a time lapse video rolling backwards the decay recedes and the body of the young man becomes whole again.

Keith runs to him screaming as the young man rises to his feet.

“Lucas! Lucas!”

The old miner embraces the younger man, who looks the splitting image of himself. But the young man named Lucas doesn’t even react. He stands there as if in a trance, with dark soulless eyes. Keith notices it too and recoils in horror as he looks into the face of the thing that was once his son.

Keith then looks up at the Queen. “What have you done? This is not my son! Bring him back!”

“Thou dost doubt my power? Behold.”

The Queen waves her hand and Lucas suddenly reacts to Keith’s presence for the first time, dark eyes focusing on him. Then suddenly he thrusts his fist deep into his father’s chest with a point-blank strike.

Lucas uses Killing Blow.

Lucas hits Keith for 350 damage.

The old miner splits blood as his eyes go wide with pain and shock. Gilly lets out a horrified scream as Keith slumps to the ground next to her, his heath in the double digits and ticking downwards with blood loss.

“Oh how sweet thy savor is now, false meat,” the Goblin Queen intones. “Grief and horror hinted with the sharp accent of pain. If only thou were true meat… I would dine upon thee for a cycle.”

“You retch…you promised…” Keith whispers faintly, his health almost gone. “My son…my son…”

The queen then grins. “Know this, false meat. Thy did receive what thou didst request. Thy progeny is restored, but it’s freedom thou didst never bargain for.”

The air fills with a vile cackle of glee from the Queen as the look of horror and dismay on Keith’s face grows beyond measure. Our eyes meet and I see incomprehension there instead of the vile disdain I saw before.

This was a man now shattered beyond repair.

A man who risked everything…and lost.

“The scales are balanced in accordance with the Divine Will of the cosmos,” the Queen says. “But perhaps, a grain more in thy favor, false meat. Thou hast earned it for thy service.”

With another wave of her hand the black hue of Lucas’s eyes disappears and he seems to come out of his trance. As his eyes focus, he looks down at his wounded father and his bloodied hand and then screams hysterically. Keith opens his mouth reaching to his son to speak a smile growing on his face, but then his eyes go glossy as his health finally falls to zero.

“Father!” Lucas falls to the ground shaking Keith frantically. “Father! What have I done? Father!”

The Queen grins again. “Oh, how so sweet is thy savor of pain and agony, false meat. If only I could consume thee.”

Then with quick thrust, the Goblin Queen plunges the tip of her staff through Lucas’s back.

Dark Zanthea uses backstabs!

Lucas takes 1250(750) damage.

Lucas is defeated.

The young man dies instantly and a hollowness opens up inside of me as I see both father and son, now lying dead. Their hopes and dreams are shattered along with their lives, along with our own future now. The futility of it all kindles wrath in my soul and I turn it on the Goblin Queen.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done!” I shout at her, or rather not her, but directly at the shadow of the Other controlling her. “You’ll pay for toying with all of our lives like this! We are not your amusement! We are not your food to consume! I’ll be your end. I’ll slay you just like all the others.”

“Thou speaketh boldly, Kono Zemsu…I approve. Thy anger flavors thee. But I shall season thee with the savor I crave most. Thou shalt endure the splendor of grief as the false meat before thee. Witness now the loss of thy beloved before I sample thee within the apex.”

The Queen pulls her arm back, aiming the tip of her staff at Gilly’s back.

My heart stops for a second, right before a massive explosion rocks the balcony with a massive boom!

Backtop uses Aimed shot!

Rampart takes 560 damage!

Debris flies, pelting us with rocks and stone and as the smoke clears I see a huge portion of the balcony now destroyed. But the shot is wide.

Blacktop missed…

A faint whistle then fills the air, another cannon shot incoming. The first one was perhaps just his target shot. I pray this one flies true. The Queen must sense it as well and with a quick step she turns and whips her staff to deflect the shot.

Dark Zanthea uses Deflect!

Dark Zanthea fails to deflect the attack!

Yes, she’s too far away!

The cannon ball hits the orb with another fiery explosion, the thunder reverberating in my chest.

Blacktop uses Aimed Shot!

Dark Zanthea’s Orb takes 685 damage!

I expect it to shatter, but to my dismay, the health bar that appears over the orb is down to only halfway, leaving the orb with only a huge crack. But I can’t waste the opportunity Blacktop has afforded us; it’s nearly destroyed. I call on every once of my strength and manage to stand, throwing off the two goblin mages restraining me. Several mages close by react instantly, throwing dark bladed daggers in my direction. I don’t waste time trying to dodge them, but instead takes the hits, burning up my shadows as I draw back my arm to hurl my Zanbatō at the orb. My aim flies true as I release the drip, the massive blade sailing straight like an arrow.

Dark Zanthea uses Deflect!

Dark Zanthea successfully deflects the attack!

Damn it!

My weapon goes spinning end over end in a shower of sparks and embeds itself in the rampart wall. My shadows gone, the searing pain of multiple daggers finds my back.

Goblin Enchanter hits you for 145 damage!

Goblin Enchanter hits you for 147 damage!

Goblin Enchanter hits you for 142 damage!

Goblin Enchanter hits you for 149 damage!

Goblin Enchanter hits you for 143 damage!

I fall to the ground at the quick, successive damage takes my health down to 60%.

Val Helena lets out a roar, following my lead and tosses the weak Goblin mages off of her. She rears back to hurl her massive battle axe at the orb. Maxis does the same fighting off the Goblins surrounding her, to ensure she gets her throw off. I expect the Queen to deflect again, but she instead slams the tip of her staff onto the ground and a huge explosion of green mist fills the air.

Dark Zanthea uses Unholy Rot Gas!

You are poisoned!

You are paralyzed!

You are slowed!

You are bleeding!

You are cursed!

You are diseased!

I freeze in place as the huge list of debuffs fill my status bar and my HP trickles towards 45%, the worse pain in my life setting my entire body on fire. My friends are all in the same position, our screams of agony filling the party chat as the sickly gas kills us while frozen in place.

All of my options are blocked. I can’t move a muscle as our health bars creep towards zero with no abilities to break the CCs or even react. From my frozen vantage I can still see the conflict raging on the battlefield below, our forces down to less than a third. A huge explosion goes off near the cannons as one of them is destroyed.

This can’t be happening. How could we come so far just to fail now?

“No!” Gilly cries out through the party chat, anguish in her voice. “This isn’t right! This isn’t fair. Reece, don’t let—”

Her words cut short with a sharp urk as her smaller HP pool runs out.

Gilly is defeated! RIP!

“Damn it! Gilly!” I shout, my heart tearing.

Her body goes limp, her eyes wide in a death stare. The world sinks as Aiko falls next, screaming in a painful death cry as her HP runs out as well. The Queen reacts with another low cackle. “Such sweet savor… I shall feast soon. Eons since I tasted of fresh meat. I hunger. I crave!”

The Queen doesn’t even wait for the same to happen to Val Helena and Maxis. She raises her staff and draws it back for a Charged Attack.

Dark Zanthea readies Giant’s Cleave.

“Not like this,” Maxis says. “Not like this...”

“Max!” Val Helena says urgently, her voice cracking in a sob. “I love y—!”

The Queen dispatches them both with a quick AOE swing of her staff.

Dark Zanthea uses Giant’s Cleave!

Maxis takes 1870(2200) damage

Maxis is defeated! RIP!

Val Helena takes 1170 (2200) damage

Val Helena is defeated! RIP!

A cold shudder runs through me as I witness the last of my friends slain. I try to will myself to move. To activate Zenkai, but it’s not like being in the sphere here. The rules here are bound and set by Lythandra. And as much as I hope she is rooting for me somewhere, there is probably little she can do as well. There must be a cosmic balance as even the Goblin Queen herself said said.

And right now, the scales are not tipped in my favor.

Suddenly a warmth fills my body as a golden light surrounds me.

At first, I think it’s Gilly, come back somehow, but the truth is even more perplexing.

Dark Zanthea casts Heal II

You gain 450 HP!

My HP bar bounces from off the bottom and goes back to 40% again.

What the heck?

“I would not have thee perish yet, Kono Zemsu… for there is a savor I crave within thy flesh still.”

The Queen stoops slightly and lowers her huge hand towards me as my HP drips slowly back down. Her palm opens and reveals a festering boil the size of a watermelon, filled with yellow puss. I’m instantly sick to my stomach which grows only worse when the thing starts to undulate like there’s something inside of it. With a careful lowering of her middle finger the Queen slices it open with the tip of her sharp nail. The thing explodes sending stinking puss everywhere.

A horrid cry then fills the air. A human voice on fire.

The thing moving within the boil reveals itself to be a human head, a face embedded in the Goblin Queen’s palm. And one I recognize.

My mind does a double take of disgust, horror and incomprehension.

“Witness Kono Zemsu the Strange Meat which plotted they demise.”

I can barely say his name as I try to call out to the face. “Braxus?”

But the screaming head of my former foe doesn’t react to me. He screams in sheer agony, his eyes shut tightly, as if either mindless or in too much pain to know or even care about my presence. I’m repulsed immediately at the thing he has become.

“So clever this Strange Meat. It serves me well still. It knew how to ensnare the false meat when it came seeking its progeny. And it knew how to use the false meat to ensnare thee. It hates thee still. And yet its anguish shall go unquenched. For its victory over thee it shall never know. Its fills me with a sweet fragrance of lust for thy demise. Such Strange Meat.”

The Queen heals me again as I unravel every word she just said.

Somehow it used Braxus to concoct this trap?

It doesn’t make sense to me at first, but looking at poor Keith and his dead son, it starts to do so. Keith was a simple miner who only wanted to save his son. He couldn’t have come up with a plan like this. It was truly Braxus’ sick mind that had devised it all. The Orb. The ventilation shaft. The taking Gilly hostage.

It all reeked of him

It had to be.

Old feelings of resentment stir up within my soul and the Queen gasps in delight.

“Yes…yes… there it is… the hatred. So delicate. So pungent and sweet.”

But her words cause something else to snap inside me.

The screaming head of my enemy taunts me, and perhaps what Braxus has become––a festering boil on the hand of an Other––is exactly what he deserves for all he’s done, but I served justice to him already. My battle lies elsewhere now.

“Oh, you’ll taste my wrath,” I say, glaring up at the Queen. “But not in the way that you think.”

I steer my anger towards determination. My HP is close to 5% now.

There is only one chance to save all this and only one man can do it.

I shift my eyes towards the battlefield again, where more massive explosions are rocking what’s left of our troops. Please still be alive, I pray. I send what could very well be my last PM.

Me: Blacktop, if you’re still there, I need you to take one last shot. The Queen is fully distracted. Just one more hit will do it. Please!

I wait in painful silence as my HP slips to 3%. Finally, I get a reply.

Blacktop: Sorry. No can do.

My heart sinks at his response and as he sends a follow up PM I expect to hear the worse.

Blacktop: I’ll do you one better though.

Before I can even figure out what he means, the orb suddenly shatters in a massive explosion of thunder and glass.

Rembrandt uses Kill Shot!

Dark Zanthea’s Orb takes 2567(1403) damage.

Dark Zanthea’s Orb is destroyed.