The goblin woman’s ears truly were rotating constantly like two radar dishes. But I had to get closer to see it — if you waved an axe through the air, it would have gotten stuck in the sticky cigarette smoke. Unlike real life, smoking didn’t harm your health in Dis; on the contrary, it gave various buffs lasting up to quarter of an hour. Although not without side effects.
The conversation with the endlessly smoking goblin woman, after beginning with her complaints, now descended into a heated argument. Reason told me that although Mogwai’s escape had made my life harder, it hadn’t worsened the situation all that much. After all, not only he had Immortality, but all the legates did. But the battle I’d gone through with Mogwai and Eileen was the nail in the coffin. My emotions had long since reached bursting point, and now needed an outlet. Kusalarix just happened to be there.
I don’t remember getting that upset ever before — maybe only the night when my parents told me they wanted a divorce. I was so furious that I didn’t pick my words carefully. ‘Long-eared midgets’ was the gentlest phrase I used.
After calmly hearing out my rant — and I reminded her both of my capture at the auction house and of Eileen’s castle, which the goblins had let slip away, — she nodded and, pulling on her cigarette with a grimace, she spoke without her usual slang:
“I’ll just make like I didn’t hear all that, young Scyth. We’ll put it down to the hormones raging through your blood. On behalf of the Green League and the Goblin League, I accept that we made a mistake. Apologies.”
Her calm passed to me. My ears reddened — what could the goblins do? Even I couldn’t stop a legate of the Destroying Plague with active Immortality now. Nodding and shaking her narrow hand, I accepted her apology. The goblin woman seemed to read my thoughts:
“You must understand, partner, almost no sentient can stand up against the legates of the Destroying Plague right now. The Green League lost fifty troops defending the castle. Some of the best, as it happens!” She fell silent, her gaze darting to the office wall. On the wall was a painting of a crowd of smiling goblins of all ages: from a young babe in the arms of an unfamiliar goblin girl to a hunchbacked and gray old man with a cane, so ancient that even the green was gone from his skin. “That is my family. That little goblin I hold in my arms is my nephew. He is one of those who did not survive. I still don’t know why he didn’t leave through the portal…”
I bowed my head.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Now is not the time to mourn,” Kusalarix answered. “What do you have planned for them? For those undead bastards?”
“Revenge.”
I told her about the new quest from the Sleepers and the looming war with the Destroying Plague, then raised the issue that concerned me:
“The Sleeping God is certain that the Nucleus can’t be destroyed without Concentrated Life Essence. On top of that, to make sure, we have to have three temples to the Sleepers, and you can’t put them up just anywhere. Only in places of power. One of them is on Terrastera. The builders and I will be able to survive there thanks to this…”
I showed her the Isis’ Blessing artifact. For the clever leader of the Green League — not the big boss, but one of them, masquerading as an ordinary assessor, — it was enough.
"Funny gizmo," she said. "Will you let our explorers crash on Terrastera while the temple is built, which, if I have it right, you need built within a day?”
“Sure thing, Madame Kusalarix.”
“Alright. But that’s only the second one. What about the third? Nergal’s priests are already putting up their own temple in the desert, and the high priest has assigned the Aspects of Light to defend it. Even if you defeat them and build a temple to the Sleepers there instead, it won’t be easy to keep it.”
“I’m not sure where to put the third temple yet, but I’m more worried about how to get to the Nucleus. I have an idea related to my divine abilities, but to try it out, I need giants. If it works out, we’ll be able to put the third temple on Holdest.”
“Right under the noses of the undead? Risky business!”
“If we get three temples up, there won’t be any undead there. But we need that essence.”
“I don’t know if anyone has any of it left,” the goblin woman shook her head. “The Goblin League has only gotten Concentrated Life Essence once in the last hundred years, and that was from a winner who decided to trade in their strength for a life of luxury. He sold it through our auction house. The money didn’t bring him long life, by the way, but that’s another story. As for the giants… They’re at the brink of extinction. Many of them died in the desert after that treacherous attack from the backstabbing gnome Hinterleaf. The giants will not survive the loss of another hundred sons. Promise that you will return them as soon as you know their life is under threat!” the goblin demanded.
“We won’t even move away from the portal,” I answered. “I promise.”
She nodded in satisfaction, shook herself, stubbed out her cigarette and changed the topic sharply:
“If I correctly understand your abilities, you can repeat that trick with Mogwai, right?”
“Yeah, or with any legate.”
“Good. I haven’t been spending my time grieving my nephew, partner. I get that the legates can’t be killed, but maybe they can be imprisoned? Our best engineers and mages
