“How did your engineers get into them?”
“The mages scanned the density of the mountain, calculated some coordinates, then the portal masters made teleportation guns. Their maximum range is a mile, but that was enough for our needs. They aren’t too accurate either; a few poor volunteers ended up stuck in the rock itself, may Bargrivyek forgive the portallers their miscalculations…”
“Hold on.” I raised my hand, palm out to the goblin. “We can seal only one legate inside a mountain. Immortality won’t let him die. If even just two are next to each other, they’ll both just kill themselves and revive in another spot. They’re undying, remember. On top of that…”
The idea seemed to me to have a big hole in it, but I didn’t know how to patch it. Call of the Nucleus would pull the legates out of whatever prison we put them in, and Mogwai himself could call his subjects to him. That meant that all we could do was start with the Supreme Legate and hope that the Nucleus didn’t catch on right away. To neutralize the legates, we needed something more than a hole in a mountain.
I shared my doubts with the goblin woman.
“Doesn’t hurt to try. Only way we’ll find out. As for cells spread across the world…” Kusalarix chewed her lips, gazed at the ceiling, then at a map of Disgardium, jabbed a finger at Latteria: “We’ll explore the Nameless Mountains for good spots. They stretch across the whole continent — we’ll find places to put cells. If it comes to it, there’s a mountain range on Shad’Erung too. And something might be found on the island you’re based on, according to Raidohelm’s report. How many traps do you need?”
“Eight, maybe nine.”
“We’ll throw all our resources at it. It’ll be done.”
“And I need to be able to go into the cells… Hey, how will I get out? My abilities will be blocked too, right?”
“You aren’t undead anymore, are you? No problem, the limiters will be set for dead meat only, so chill out. Those dead guys, on the other hand, won’t be able to use so much as a scroll! The first trap will be ready as early as tomorrow, so find time to pay me a visit — we’ll take you there so you know where to toss those rotting corpses.”
“Me or my friends, they have that ‘trick’ too. So I’ll bring them with me next time.”
“Up to you. All that matters is the result,” Kusalarix shrugged. She lit a new cigarette, tapped her nails on the table. “We discussed the current situation at the League High Council. There’s high pressure from the Commonwealth and Empire. Rumors of our partnership got to ‘em, and they really ain’t impressed. King Bastian the First and Emperor Kragosh want us to stop all contact with ‘those filthy degenerates of the Sleepers’ effective immediately. We can’t enter into direct conflict with them, although the High Council’s opinion is unchanged: we will support you, and on top of that, the goblin people are willing to accept the Sleepers as their patrons…”
I started up, but it soon turned out that the goblins could not provide a place for a third temple, counting the future one on Terrastera. That would mean tearing down the chief sanctuary of Maglubiyet or Bargrivyek, and for that the little green folk would get it in the neck from their patron divinities. On the other hand, Kusalarix took on the responsibility of building the second and all future temples, and I even extracted a promise from her to convince the dwarf builders to take Gyula on as an apprentice.
While we spoke, a message arrived from Crawler. It contained a map of Dis with the preventer clan castles highlighted. Quickly studying it, I determined which one we would capture first, overturning their clan vault in the process, just in case they had the essence.
I teleported straight from Kusalarix’s office to Holdest to place the beacon rod for the Great Portal, then returned to Bakabba. Kusalarix had already roused Gruzelix. It was like pulling teeth, but eventually the old goblin gave up nine giants — they decided to start small to lower the risk.
I grouped up with the haulers and then walked through the portal opened by the coin. A few seconds later the crowd of haulers followed, and the first ticks of the frost debuff confirmed my fears: Resilience’s Path of Sacrifice redirected all the damage to me, without hitting the giants. On the sixth tick I realized the idea wasn’t working, and sent the haulers back through the portal, but left the beacon.
Deciding that it might be to do with the giants’ immunity to climate debuffs, I tried again with a motley group of other haulers — ogres, titans and minotaurs. No dice. Worse, we ran into a raid from the Travelers. I saw their climate dome from afar, glistening like a soap bubble and protecting its owners from the freezing cold. They were pulling in mobs, but couldn’t go far from the dome.
I hurriedly herded the haulers back through the portal before we were seen, then quickly teleported to Bakabba.
So Irita’s idea had failed, but the giants might still come in handy. Kusalarix and I visited Gruzelix again and I ordered a delivery of portal beacons to the South Pole and Viderlich, the capital of the Destroying Plague. I’d marked both points on the map during the first quests from Behemoth and the Nucleus.
Perhaps the haulers, who couldn’t fight, but had a huge health supply and immunity to cold, could deliver the valuable cargo
