503
As the sun began to dip in the sky, Mark hovered over a gatehouse hidden in a small district in the goblin city of Clearwater. The human district was far away, but there was a train connecting there to here, and Quark had told Mark that the humans were being shoved this way via train, and so, Mark was waiting.
He was also focused on the city over there. It was nota full-goblin city. Oh sure, it had vines and goblin trees and stuff like that, and a lot of goblins being born and integrated into society via overlording goblins and otherwise. It was a rather lawless place. But it also had newspapers and cars and goblins both on their own and in vehicles, and metals turned into machines and those machines further turned other stuff into other stuff.
Mainly, though, underneath it all…
It was a silver city from another time, partially unearthed from the dusty red soil, from massive quarries and excavations and propped back up with greenery. It was almost like Crash, of the Picory; all silver and tall and with streets made of even more silver. The goblins covered it all in vines and goblin trees, of course, but it was still a city exactly like Crash’s. Mark was surprised, and not surprised.
This, then, was Metrovakara, thought lost to the worlds, but it was here the whole time. The ancient city of the Dragon King, in the middle of D’Australia, locked underneath thousands and thousands of years of dust, sand, and rock. But the goblins were excavating every part of it. Most of the work seemed to be happening in the quarries, by drudges of goblins, forced to work via whip and chain. The overseers were merciless and the slave driving was gratuitous, because all you needed to make more goblins was a goblin tree and a few Biters, so who cared if some goblins were worked literally to death? No one, apparently. Every goblinfruit, once Bitten, made 3-9 new goblins. Those new goblins did whatever their adult older brothers could make them do, which was everything.
No wonder Goofy and Grax thought they could split Wongod’s base of power so easily.
Mark imagined that if he flew over there, to the excavation pits, it would only take a single blast of Anarchy/Civilization to break their entire society into a free for all bloodbath. He had done exactly that in a lot less fractured instances, like back at the original Goblinhome on the other side of the world.
“Take plenty of pictures, Quark,” Mark said, still strung out across a good 800 meters of space, just in case there was yet another void bomb trick— And then Mark saw something else interesting. Mark pointed at the train tracks, and what had to be a whole-ass train station to rival the one at Dawncoast. “The fuck is up with that? I want Eliot to tell me what he’s seeing here, later. What are you seeing?”
Quark flickered across Mark’s body, taking pictures, as he said, “It looks like a 50-train station, with trams going out all across the land, and some raised rails still being laid out in the further distance.”
“50 trains is a lot of sprawl…” Mark looked out at the green fields to the sides of Clearwater, where the trains gathered food from big fields, which was also done through slave labor. Mark asked, “They’re expanding their agriculture, too?”
“It appears that way, sir.”
On the flight here, to this gate station hidden in the buildings far below, Mark had passed over a bunch of lands that were only half as active as this place, though pretty much all of the interior of D’Australia was active. Goblinhome was rebuilding better than ever before. Mark was pretty sure they were melting down some of those old silver buildings in order to get all the metals for all of the construction, too, since some of those ‘new’ buildings were distinctly less silverish than the others.
Was it aluminum? Or was it iron? It couldn’t be mithril; no way.
And where were the city walls?
“How the fuck are they even… aren’t kaiju showing up too often for all of this? Where the hell are the big city walls?”
“I believe the goblins are doing an ‘if people die they die’ kind of civilization.”
“… I guess they are. Yeah. I can see that now. If the slaves die in the fields then they can’t tell all of the goblins in the cities how bad it is out there, so… yeah. Think that might be part of Goofy and Grax’s plan? Inciting a slave rebellion?”
“According to my estimates of civilization size, there are at least 500 million goblins scattered across these lands, and Metrovakara is only 25% filled. There will soon be at least 2.5 billion goblins in these lands. In a society that large, finding an ingress in some sort of way would be easy for almost anyone, and especially if they had strong Powers.”
2.5 billion goblins? That was a big number.
That was almost half the human population in both worlds.
“Holy fucking shit,” Mark muttered, voice lost in the wind.
The goblins had been limited back at Goblinhome because the land was only so large and they only had so much metal. Goblinhome had been a thriving civilization, of course, but Mark had chewed through almost all of it in under a week, with a metallic elemental ‘dragon’ kaiju. Some billions of tons of metal got sucked up into that metal kaiju and then Goblinhome had almost no weaponry and no defenses.
This place had a lot of metal.
Mark asked, “What kind of metal is that silver stuff, anyway?”
“Enchanted iron,” Quark said. “Exact enchantments are unknown.”
“At least it’s not mithril or whatever…” Mark looked south, toward the train tracks leading this way. “Any sign of the transport yet? Either of them?”
“BiggestBaddest is transporting Kialo here from one city further over. ETA about 6 minutes. The human population… Hmm. Sir. The human population broke out down the line, the humans unwilling to go into the trams. In alliance with the spirit of the treaty you just signed with Wongod, BiggestBaddest held back the goblin enforcers from killing the humans to get them back into the trams.”
Mark was already flying, saying, “I’m coming in hot. I won’t kill any goblins if they stay out of my way, to stick with the same treaty. I need a location.”
Quark flickered pointers into Mark’s vision.
Mark burned the sky as he moved.
He had been hovering over the gate house’s location for a good 17 minutes. In that time many goblins far, far below had seen him and his spiraling black curves in the sky, keeping him afloat. They had been terrified. Some had been angry. Some had fired missiles at him but those missiles did nothing and Mark watched as those firing locations were overrun by other goblins. Probably BiggestBaddest or other actually-powerful goblins, trying to preserve the peace. Whatever the case, the city defenses had gone down and most goblins chose to hide behind corners, or behind buildings. The slave goblins still had to work, though.
But now that Mark moved, he went over other buildings and he saw crowds of goblins hiding from him.
Those other goblins went screaming to get away.
Soon, Mark arrived at the ‘human district’ and it was being overrun by humans who wore nothing but dirt and blood and who had scavenged weapons and scavenged cloth. They rolled over goblin encampments, and though some goblins fought back they did not fight back for long. Mark saw when some goblin with a gun was swinging at a human —must have been out of bullets— and then another goblin rushed the first one, tackling it down to the ground. Some vector crawled from one goblin to the other and then both of them just laid down and died to the human.
That was BiggestBaddest, for sure, forcibly connecting to those fighting goblins and putting down all resistance.
Some of the humans across the rebelling district saw the fire in the sky, but most did not.
Mark made himself known, spiraling whips of adamantium at superspeeds overhead, booming the world, and then he Called in normal speed to everyone down below, “I’m rescuing the humans from this location. Everyone stop fighting and get on the damned trams. You’re going back to Earth.”
And then Mark descended and Unioned with Purity and Corruption, ripping out every bit of goblinzation that was possibly happening down there among the few Bite-happy goblin babies and the weaker humans. Some humans were too far gone. They turned to disintegrating sludge.
It was a terrible 10 minutes getting everyone onto the trams. Lots of crying. Lots of Unions of Good and Bad. Mark explained what was happening a few times, but he did not do more than that. It was time to leave, right now.
And then BiggestBaddest told Mark, “There’s another enclave of humans to the north. They’re the cooperative ones. We were picking them up next.”
“FUCKING TRAITORS!” yelled a guy, and then another guy yelled worse things.
Some woman screamed, “Leave them to die!”
Mark gently Called out, “We’re not leaving anyone behind, even the traitors.”
Soon, the tram was active, some eager guys with some Mind Knacks figuring out the controls, and then they were off, 956 humans headed toward the gatehouse back home.
Mark got the second group of humans, all 87 of them, into a separate tram.
A few humans got stabbed by other humans anyway.
Mark healed people and got them moving, and soon they were back at the gatehouse to the north, opening the gates of the tram. The leaders of the humans rushed out with weapons, ready to kill goblins, but there were no goblins here except for the few working the gate apparatus inside, which was not visible to the public.
From the outside, the place looked like a normal warehouse.
It had a false wall behind the main warehouse, though. Mark could feel the goblins back there, calmly working and waiting. It was BiggestBaddest again, for sure. Everyone else had been evacuated. Mark wondered if anyone actually worked at this place besides BiggestBaddest. It did not look like a gatehouse at all. In fact, it looked like it was purposefully meant to be inconspicuous.
This book was originally published on NovelPhoenix. Check it out there for the real experience.
Did the goblins have… internal disputes against the existence of the gatehouse? Maybe. Or maybe it was more of, like, all the goblins in charge wanting more humans than they could safely take from Lake Eyre. Yeah. That seemed more plausible. They’d open the gate wide to grab humans if they could, and that way lay kaiju, and probably other complications, too.
Gates had a way of being dangerous for multiple reasons. Sometimes monsters slipped through from the other side, and especially if there was no matching gatehouse on the other side, on Earth, and the goblin gate had no such similar object over on Earth, as far as Quark had been able to figure out through his pinging of the internet. Those pings did bring some kinds of answers about everything happening here, though. Mostly, those pings brought a person.
Derek met them on a skiff in front of the gatehouse, even as people moved out trying to figure out how to use this place to get home. They wouldn’t find the path until Mark was ready, and he would be ready soon.
Two Dereks dropped off of the skiff, carrying between them a small cage with a goblin inside, while a third Derek landed a bit closer to Mark, saying, “Fancy meeting you here, Mark!”
Mark called back, “And a howdy morning to you, too!”
The humans did not appreciate the levity. Some were wondering why they had stopped, and why they were here. Some were very worried about the goblin Mark was obviously here for. ‘Was the goblin the purpose of being here?’ they wondered. Were they side-rescues? What was going on?
All sorts of very confusing things.
Derek made things less confusing by saying, “I got the city of Lake Eyre on the other side, ready to accept people.”
“Good. That’s what I was waiting for.” It wasn’t, but it was good to say in order to calm the others down. Mark pointed at the middle warehouse, saying, “That’s where the gate is back to Earth.” He Called out, “BiggestBaddest! Open the gate!”
The back of the warehouse floor opened up, metal walls falling down into the floor and a circular disk of metal suddenly pulsing to life. The world ripped within that circle of metal and suddenly there was a monster gator on the other side, jerking suddenly at being uncovered. Water flowed through the gate, onto Daihoon, and the gator came with it—
“One second,” Mark said, buzzing forward. One bloody minute later and Mark had killed a gator. He looked at the ‘wall’ of the gatehouse, where BiggestBaddest hid behind some fake glass that looked like metal, saying, “Try again, please.”
The second opening was to some open desert grounds where some wild monster dogs saw the opening and charged through.
Mark stretched tendrils of adamantium forward and turned dogs to gore as he spread out some eyes to have a look around. Open land, no dangerous footing. Good spot.
Mark pulled himself back and announced, “OKAY! EVERYONE THROUGH!”
People were already pushing to get through. A lot of them were calling it a miracle rescue, but Mark knew the only reason a lot of them were moving at all was because he was Unioning Good and Bad, a lot. A good half of them would be frightened and cowering from shadows without some Union assistance, urging them forward.
Mark told Derek, “I need you to be there with them, too, to keep them Good.”
“Already there.” Derek handed Mark the goblinized Kialo, as a few of him flickered and separated to follow with the crowd. Derek’s own Unions of Good and Bad and his organized words of ‘Quickly and orderly!’ grabbed all of the people and kept them going, even as he remained with Mark, saying, “They’re gonna turn worried as fuck if you don’t go through, too.”
“I’m not going through. You can handle it.”
People rushed through the gate, some of them flinching from getting jostled by others, some in real pain with bloody feet, yet heedless of whatever had injured them.
Mark extricated Kialo from his goblin-made cage, the little guy furious and not himself, biting at the metal and then at Mark’s adamantium as he made a new cage for the little guy, saying, “I got work here, Derek. I’ll see you when I see you. Maybe at Dawncoast.”
“Sure sure!”
Quark spoke up, “Sir, I have received a transmission from Lake Eyre.”
“Patch it through.”
The line was static and then—
“This is Commander Highgrade of Lake Eyre, and this was marked as a high priority message by my AIs, so who the fuck is this supposed to be?” said a guy in a thick accent. “Mark Careed, izzit? Well fuck if I believe that kaijushit!”
Mark did not personally know Commander Highgrade out of Lake Eyre, but Mark did know that Highgrade was on the kaiju squad down there.
“We got your people out of goblin custody here,” Mark said, with authority, “I already cleansed them of the goblin Bite. Come get them properly, Commander Highgrade.”
Something must have happened on the other end of the call, because Highgrade’s voice suddenly shifted, turning almost professional as he said, “No fucking way— Mark Careed! Blackvein?! … One of my guys once told me you were making a weapon for Eru. You ever get that done?”
Mark tried to recall— “That poison dagger! No. I’ve been busy as fuck.”
Derek chimed in, grinning as he said, “You owe me a special dagger, too.”
Mark rolled his eyes at the guy, and Derek laughed.
“Right you have! Sorry, sir— Oh shit. I see them now on radar— WE GOT GOBLINS NOW?! The FUCK?”
Mark assured Highgrade, “I just finalized a treaty of sorts done with them, like 45 minutes ago. Fought Wongod and captured him and beat a treaty out of him, so they won’t do this again. If they do,let me knowand I’ll be back to murder several million of them.”
All three bodies housing BiggestBaddest in the control room flinched at the same time.
Humans ran by, some hearing Mark. One guy heard and laughed and cheered.
Highgrade went, “You got Wongod? Why not just kill the fucker!”
“I did. It didn’t stick, of course.”
“Oh, fuck… yeah, I guess so?”
“They willfuck up the treaty,” Mark said, “I willbe back. Let me know when.”
“Yes sir!”
Mark hung up.
And then all of the people were through, including a few stragglers that needed help. They were walking fast, but they were also crying profusely, so some of them were more ‘carried by Dereks’ than walking.
Mark ripped away the metal mirror separating him from BiggestBaddest’s three inhabited bodies, staring down at the goblins, saying, “Stop the other goblins from making gates to Earth.”
“We already do, sir,” BiggestBaddest said, in triplicate.
“Good.”
And then Mark whipped metal through the entire facility, breaking the gate and much of the infrastructure, but he left BiggestBaddest, Derek, and Kialo alive. Derek dissolved his own body and Mark chopped up the space where he had been standing, too. Soon, Mark flew up into the sky, carrying Kialo toward the east, rapidly flying through goblin airspace to get out of goblin territory.
Sparing a glance at Kialo’s soul, Mark saw a portion of a soulhouse floating in the Green. It looked like a bookshelf and a bed and some flooring. A major fraction of the whole, but not the whole at all. Mark wondered if the guy even still counted as Kialo.
Grax and Goofy would know.
But for now, Mark Unioned with Purity and Corruption as he ripped out ‘Kialo’s’ fangs and left them to fall through the sky, along with the Green that spilled out of the little goblin’s gums. Kialo screamed but he also expanded, his screams of rage slowly ebbing away. He was absolutely not an elf after the transformation was done, still in his cage, his skin still bright green and his ears still way too big, but he was better proportioned and something of a recognition reappeared in his eyes, in his broken vector.
Mark cleaned him off a bit more with some more Purity/Corruption, and then filled him with Good/Bad. Soon the little guy was sleeping soundly. Mark adjusted his cage so he could lay down, and then Mark sped up, angling the cage so that Kialo didn’t get tossed too much in his sleep.
Soon, Mark was moving fast enough to burn the sky.
Long before he even left goblin airspace, Mark had Quark start throwing hands to cast spells of invisibility, misdirection, and anti-friction to stop the burning of the sky. Finally, Mark spoke of the Picory and the Forgetting a bit, and that’s what really helped to disguise Mark’s final destination.
Mark slowed down and caught his metaphorical breath as he started looking for Goofy and Grax’s secondary safehouse.