Soma brought them atop the cliff, onto a stone platform with a blue mushroom tree in the middle. It was blooming with more spores than the others, a clear sign of it being looked after, unlike the rest they’ve seen so far. The bright spores escaping its glans flew into the hole and illuminated it in the form of a soft blue cloud.

“Welcome to the Home of the Sati, outsiders!” Soma spoke proudly as he ventured into the hole.

What hid inside that hole was an entire society of pink scorpions. A city, built around a single road surrounded by shopkeepers and craftsmen, each dedicated to their particular expertise.

Tanuki watched as the scorpion children played between booths packed with herbs and shiny stones, and he couldn’t help the mist of confusion descending upon his head.

“How did an entire society form on a tile I created just hours ago?”

There were at least forty scorpions, which they could easily count by the number of frowns aimed their way. The other satis gave them unfriendly looks as they went along the road. They looked both scared and angry, some of them so upset that they ventured back into the confines of their hole homes dug in the wall.

“Why do da bugs hate Maduka?” The goblin observed her torn cape. “Is Maduka smelly? She just washed her clothes!”

“Ah, don’t worry!” Soma replied. “It’s just rare we get any visitors. Don’t take it personally!”

A shout echoed from down the road. It was aggressive enough to be mistaken for a lion’s roar.

Tanuki moved his eyes gently towards the sound, only to see the all-too-familiar sight of a huge boulder flying his way.

“W-What?!”

Soma banged together the orbs on his hands and tail. It created a fizzling ball of electricity that the three limbs held in front of them with threads of lightning bolts. And when the flying boulder was just about to hit them...

"Bzzz!" Lightning crackled and spew sparks as it caught the rock in the air. Soma gently lowered the ball to the ground, just beside the road so it wouldn't be of anyone's nuisance.

Tanuki watched in disbelief as lightning bolts moved the tons of mass as if it was just a small feather in a strongman’s arms. The way electricity bent to the large orbs' will reminded him of an item he once read a lot about: Tesla coils.

Nikola Tesla designed these groundbreaking items. They are part of the electrical resonant transformer circuit family, but we’ll just call them fun-balls for now.

These fun-balls were used in a lot of his experiments and they even had a commercial value regarding radio transmitters up until the early 20th century. Nowadays they are used mainly for entertainment and educational purposes.

Despite their funny and alien look, these items served a huge purpose in the second industrial revolution, and our world wouldn’t look the same without them. Fascinated by these items, Tanuki brought himself a small cheap one back then which he used from time to time to zap himself out of boredom.

The most important thing about Tesla coils is that they were the first systems able to transmit energy without wires. The satis used their big round orbs the same way Tesla used his coils, creating magical effects by transmitting magic from one orb to the other.

That's the reason why Soma was able to catch the large boulder in the air. He waived a net of electricity that was strong enough to stop the flying rock.

"These creatures seem so dependent on magic..." Tanuki thought to himself, but only for a moment, as somebody's violent yelling deafened his thoughts.

"Soma, you bastard!"

It was a slightly larger sati, though one in much better shape. It was clearly younger, given how fast his needle legs moved.

Soma greeted his violent kin with kindness.

"Good day to you too, Suchreet."

"We think you're dead, then you return weeks later with outsiders on your back! Have you got no respect for your kin?"

"I don't think I understand your problem, friend."

"Don't you dare call any of us your friend! You’ve gone mad from the poison of those stupid mushrooms; just look at you! Your body perfectly mirrors how far you’ve sailed from the ways of our elders!”

“I have already told you, Suchreet. It is a shame that we’ve had to go astray from the elders’ path, but if we want to survive the pink infestation, then––“

“Shut up!”

Though his face was that of a scorpion’s, Suchreet’s eyes wore the bloody dress of red. His breathing was heavy and loud, and saliva rolled forth from his mouth down onto the ground. The raw anger and hatred in his voice was also something to behold, fueling his words with such volume that they almost hurt to listen to.

“Suchreet, please––“

“Don’t come rambling about ‘We’ or ‘Us’! The tribe hates you! You’re a failure of a chieftain!”

“I’m only doing what is necessary. I know that it isn’t the way we’d want to go about things, but you have to listen to me! What will traditions be worth if there’s no one left to preserve them?”

“Then our bodies will sink into the ground with prideful glory! Our elders will shine bright smiles upon our corpses as they feed the very land they were born from! Not that it matters much to you anyways, now that you’ve disgraced our elders’ ways.”

Suchreet turned around and looked at the other satis. The scorpions hid in their holes or covered behind their booths. It was clear by the looks of them, that they weren’t only afraid of Soma, but Suchreet too.

They looked truly miserable.

Suchreet raised his two round hands and addressed his kin.

“How about this? Our elders honored the will of every man. Why don’t we let those most affected decide how the tribe will continue to operate? They can either vote for your stay or leave. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?”

Before voting would’ve begun, he added one more thing only Soma and the ones on his back could hear.

“Don’t worry, old man. I’ve already begun taking hold of the tribe. Our ways won’t be disrespected by you anymore.”

Soma stayed calm all the way through, even when his opposition screamed with its angriest voice. Maduka found this frustrating. If she would’ve been in Soma’s place, she would’ve given the obnoxious sati a good beating.

“Why not Soma beat da bug? Want Maduka to give ‘em a good kickin’?”

“That’s not the solution, my goblin friend.”

“Oh, no problem! Maduka can use her fists too!”

Despite how confidently they treated the situation, not all of them felt that way. Tanuki felt his heart beating in his throat as a specter of fear crept up his spine, bestowing him cold kisses that left his body trembling.

This wasn’t the kind of ‘problem’ he imagined in his head when the weak scorpion approached them on the beach. If all he needed was help with fighting off monsters or removing a large rock from the front of his home, Tanuki would’ve been as confident in his abilities as a snowman in the freezing depths of the Siberian wilderness.

But this wasn’t anything like that. The problem he found was one far too unfamiliar to him, despite how much it now endangered his and his tiny friend’s life.

“Just what the hell did I get mixed into?!”