“Oof. That smarts.” Havoc’s raspy voice was Elfreeda’s only warning before his blades came down and sliced her apart. He stared down at the slain Elf, tears already flowing down his face. “I’ll be with you soon, sweetheart. Daddy’s coming to save you.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Thanks for the save, Joe. A thousand subjective years of sensory deprivation isn’t something I was looking forward to experiencing again.” Havoc couldn’t turn his eyes from her, but he didn’t need to; he simply sighed his next words. The eye on the back of his head studied his mentee and the bloody needle he was holding in his hand. “How’d you sneak over to me?”
“Choppy movements.” Joe informed him quietly, doing his best not to stimulate the mammoth golem he had vaulted onto. “Pretended I was one of the things your gas got at.”
“Yeah. Hard to get limbs to articulate correctly if you don’t do it by hand.” A pocket opened up on the side of Havoc’s ribs. “You mind?”
Joe grabbed the log-sized cigar and got it in front of the… Dwarf. It lit itself, grew legs and scuttled up to Havoc’s lips. He took a long pull and sighed out the smoke. “I’m gonna detonate pretty soon. My Core is overloading as we speak.”
“I know.” Joe could see the telltale lights emanating from his chest whenever Havoc opened his mouth or eyes. “I’m thinking fast might be the way to go, for both of us.”
“True; by now the walls are sealed…” Havoc took another deep inhale. “This place is going to be a disaster area of monumental proportions.”
There was silence for a few long seconds. Then Havoc continued, “They’ll blame you, ya know. For the loss. The core of the Legion, gone just like that. The Elven tide will sweep across the plane, and no one will be able to stop them. Ugh. Alfenheim. What an ugly name. Still, what can you do?”
“What a great pep talk,” Joe deadpanned, moving over to check Elfreeda’s body. She had on a spatial ring, and he almost gagged at the sheer wealth it contained. Metals, Cores, herbs… enough rare resources that it could have rivaled the yearly income of the Netherlands before Eternium became a thing. “At least I’ll have some seed money.”
“You should give that to the Elves.” Havoc chuckled at Joe’s glare. “What? Just looking out for the people I’m gonna have to join.”
Joe couldn’t help but laugh at that. The Dwarf-golem’s lips twitched, and he sighed darkly. “Too bad about those shapers. That’s what they call their scientist, ‘cause they ‘shape’ the natural world. I would have loved to know how they managed to turn an entire volcano into an abyssal power supply. Some kind of geothermal exchange? Oh, the things I could have done with that.”
The room shook, and ragged cheering could be heard through the new holes in the crystal walls around them. “There goes the Guardian. Time’s about up for me, Joe. See you on… the other side. You should run. Elfreeda used so much power in here… that had to have bought you some time. Enjoy the last few hours you have before the Dwarven Oligarchy turns on you.”
Joe nodded and turned, sprinting toward the exit. Havoc watched him go with his third eye, his main two still focused on Elfreeda’s corpse. A Dwarf and another human joined the escape, and Havoc made sure they were out before he took one last pull of his cigar.
Then he relaxed.
Crystals reverberated as the explosion finished the Prismatic Evergreen, and the magically expanded space collapsed. Joe stood outside of the building as it fell, looking over a notification he had been hoping not to see.
The Lord of Slaughter has fallen!
“Now… now what?” Captain Cleave swallowed deeply as the cavern went dark, only lit by the flowing lava.
“Now? I have an idea what we could do.” Joe paused and reached for his codpiece. Captain Cleavage’s eyes widened and she blushed under her teal mustache. Then a long-forgotten suitcase appeared in Joe’s hands, and he owned it for the first time. “Research. We have a volcano to tame.”
“A shoe to tie up!” Jaxon offered with excitement.
“Jaxon…” There were no words that Joe could use to describe his frustration at not being able to make a quip or insult to use against the gregarious chiropractor. He stalled, thinking that perhaps he could turn the conversation into banter, but the moment had passed. Jaxon chuckled as Joe awkwardly tried to move into new territory. “I just can’t with you right now.”
“I need to save this place. An enclosed volcano, far from anyone else, where my research would be useful as well as protected? If I capture this place, get control of it, I can finally get away from the demands on my time and focus for a while.” Joe’s eyes were bright as he looked for a place to start going over the documents he was holding. “Of course, that all depends on what’s in here. I’m really hoping that this was what High Priestess Embertank was talking about, and Tatum was giving me a not-very-subtle hint.”
Luckily, Joe knew a building nearby that had a perfect table for this sort of thing. He had wiped out a handful of Elves there, after all. It almost felt heretical to walk into the conference room and place the briefcase in the same place he had first picked it up. The Reductionist sat in the bloodstained chair, and started working even as his aura cleaned the room up. As his work proceeded, Officers started to filter in to ask him questions or see what was going on. In almost no time flat, the oversized conference room became an impromptu command center.
“Ten hours left, Joe, and that’s on the generous side,” Major Infraction’s voice snapped Joe out of his concentration, and he glared at her. “Then this place reaches the moon.”
“Constant updates about the
