I felt my hands weaken, and I almost dropped my longsword. Nausea swept over me worse than I’d experienced from Krait’s magic. I swallowed once to keep from throwing up.

“I don’t believe you,” I growled. “Barney’s my friend. He would never put my son in danger. Why would he help you?”

The goblin exhaled a foul breath. “Heal me, Paladin, and I tell you.”

While conflict rose within me, Trox slumped onto his back. He lay there, his half-closed yellow eyes staring up into the dark cavern above. “Not much…time…Paladin….”

Mace wanted to let him die. He was an evil blight on the gnomes in this village, not to mention whatever communities lived in the lower levels. His death would satisfy the bargain with Nissa and enable us to get to Level Two.

But what if he was telling the truth about Barney? Barney hadn’t been truthful about this game or his intentions since he walked into that cabin in Georgia. I wanted to know why he had betrayed his best friends. Yeah, I couldn’t trust anything Trox said, but what if he gave me information that led me to the truth?

I had four Magic Points left. If I healed him, what was to stop him from trying to kill me? What if it was a trick just to survive?

He knows Barney’s name, I thought. He knew how to make an illusion of Jack. Even if this is a ploy to live, he has knowledge he shouldn’t have. I need to know how he got it.

I swore, knowing full well that I was about to go against every one of Mace’s instincts screaming at me to let this monster die. But I slowly put a hand on his massive thigh. I drew in a breath and said, “Enhanced Heal—”

Footsteps came down the street outside the alley, and then Sonja appeared around the corner, her ax raised. Her eyes took in Trox and saw nothing else. She brought Mourner down and cleaved Trox’s head in half.

“No!” I screamed. I jumped to my feet, leaped over Trox’s body, and pushed Sonja against the building. “He had answers, and you just killed him!”

She was surprised for a moment, then twisted out of my grip and managed to slam me face-first into the building behind me. She lifted my arm up my back like I used to do when arresting suspects, then snarled in my ear, “Never touch me like that again, Paladin, or by the Crimson gods, I will split your head like I did that goblin. Understood?”

“Let go of me,” I said quietly, “or I’ll drain your blood like I did that goblin.”

“Guys!” Stephen said breathlessly from the entrance to the alley. “What the hell? We won. Why are you fighting?”

Sonja let me go and stepped back. I turned and said, “She just killed Trox when I was about to get answers from him.”

“Whatever he was about to tell you would’ve been a lie,” Sonja said, then spit on the goblin wizard’s shattered head. Blood still poured from her wrecked nose, and her spit was more blood than saliva. “And that’s not the only thing he’ll burn for.”

“He knew things,” I snarled. “He claimed Barney told him how to find Jack so that he could make an illusion of him.”

Constantine came huffing up behind Stephen and squeezed his short bulk into the alley. “Barney?” he said in between heavy breaths. “Did you say he knew Barney?” Then he looked down at Trox, and his bushy gray eyebrows fell. “I suppose we’ll never know now.”

“Right, because bloody Sonja here decided to kill him before I could get anything out of him.”

Sonja smirked.

“I don’t know,” Stephen said, shaking his head doubtfully. “No question, Barney’s the reason we’re here. But do you think he’d give this monster info about Jack?”

“We don’t know Barney’s state of mind now or before all this happened,” I argued. “I mean, didn’t you guys notice how weird he was acting in the cabin just before we landed here? I swear to God I saw his eyes glowing red when he walked in!” I glared at Sonja. “And how do we know she didn’t want Trox to tell me something.”

Sonja’s smirk turned to something dangerous. “Your friend Melony was able to get along with me just fine. Do you think she’d do that if she knew my goal was to betray you all? Don’t you think she would’ve warned you all if she had sensed it?”

I stared at Sonja and realized that the confusion I’d been dealing with since I got here was gone. I was looking at a stranger. There wasn’t one spark of Melony in her. At that moment, I swore I’d not only get home but that I would somehow save Melony’s spirit. This dungeon was a magical place. There had to be a way.

“You’re not Melony,” I said quietly.

“And you’re not Mace.”

She returned my stare with a steady one of her own. The way she said it made me wonder if she and Mace had some kind of history. When I queried Mace’s instincts, I was shocked to feel a sudden flush of embarrassment from him that he quickly masked with feelings of admiration and loyalty toward Sonja. Regardless of his deeper feelings, Mace seemed to think Sonja was honorable.

I realized that my accusation of betrayal was a cheap shot, but I had been so angry that she’d killed my first source of real answers.

“Now that we’ve established who we aren’t,” Constantine said, “perhaps we should remember who we are. Are we the kind of heroes that will help the gnomes clean up any lingering goblin attackers? They were still pounding on the barricades when we left. Or are we gonna stand here and accuse each other of betraying the group while the gnomes get slaughtered?”

“We’re heroes now?” Stephen said skeptically.

“Of course we are,” Sonja said. She stepped past Stephen and Constantine and raised her ax. “Let’s go clean up the riffraff,” she said, then strode down the street toward the gnome army.

“Hold up, lass,” Constantine said as he hurried after her. “You want me to heal that nose first?”

“Not yet,” she said, their voices fading. “It’ll make me look scarier to the goblins….”

My forearm itched, and I read the pop-up that I knew would be there:

Congratulations! You have fulfilled the Quest, “Kill Trox, the Goblin Wizard.” Nissa’s disposition toward you and your party has risen to “Friendly.” You have earned (6) Character Points to allocate.

Do you want to allocate Character Points now?

Yes, now / No, later

I tapped No, later. I wasn’t in the mood to play with my victory spoils as I felt the victory had been too costly for celebration. The popup faded, and I noticed an update to the Quests section on my Character Sheet:

ACTIVE QUESTS:

Destroy Angelus the Demon Lord

COMPLETED QUESTS:

Kill Trox the Goblin Wizard

I looked up at Stephen. “I was about to heal him so he could tell me what he knows. Was that a stupid idea?”

Stephen shrugged. “Maybe he heard Barney’s name from someone else and knew it would push your buttons.”

I frowned. “Yeah, but who?”

“Or he was working with Barney, and Barney brought us into The Tomb to kill us.”

I glared at Stephen, but he just shrugged again. “We can’t know which is true until we play The Tomb to the bitter end. And the only way we can win is to trust each other and our characters, capiche, pretty boy? I don’t know about Mace, but Stephen trusts Sonja despite her penchant for getting her blood everywhere.”

I stood there quietly for many moments, trying really hard to stay mad. But then I couldn’t stop the grin that crept across my face. “You know capiche isn’t a real word, right?”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t a real world. Let’s go kill some goblins and rank up before the others take ‘em all.”

I picked up my Ancestral Longsword and felt its divine energy instantly lift my spirits. My dark suspicions melted away. All I could feel was an intense desire to right all the wrongs in the world and smite all the evils. I knew it was Mace’s instincts combined with the sword’s divine magic that fueled it, but at that moment, I didn’t care that it didn’t come from me. I welcomed it.

I also picked up the dagger that I’d used to kill Trox. I wiped the black-green blood on Trox’s dragon scale coat and put the dagger back inside my cloak. I winced from the pain in my shoulder and decided to get some of Constantine’s healing before entering combat again.

Despite my injuries, for the first time in years, I once again wanted to serve and protect.

“Let’s go be heroes,” I said.

So armed with grins, swords, and magic, Stephen and I ran back to the battle.