“You led me to this,” she hissed. “You forced me to leave my family and help your stupid clan!”

  “Nice to see you too, Rilwan,” I wheezed.

  I’d been wondering about her whereabouts. A long time ago, I had extracted a sworn promise from her in exchange for her friend’s safety. She had promised to help Harkonean against the goblin invasion . . .

  “If you’re here,” I said, “then I guess you kept your word?”

  Rilwan looked like she would throw another punch. “You set me up! You knew how bad the situation was, yet you didn’t communicate that.”

  What the heck was she talking about? I told her everything I knew!

  “Rilwan and her squad helped harass the goblin supply lines,” Tybalt said. “Their efforts bought Harkonean a few more days of freedom. Unfortunately, without a proper coalition of the elves, it was all for naught.”

  “You say that, but I should have been in Nybala fighting with my people.” She eyed me with distaste. “Because I was off honoring your promise, I wasn’t there for my village when it fell!”

  “We saw the outcome of that battle, kid,” Logain chipped in. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

  Rilwan glared at him. “Who are you calling a kid?”

  A proverbial bolt of lightning struck me. “Hold on. You’re Rilwan from Nybala . . . And, the chieftain is . . .” It all made sense now. “Dilwan is your father?!”

  Rilwan turned around so fast that her head nearly flew off her shoulders. “You met my father? Is he . . .”

  “He’s fine. Last we spoke, he was spearheading the effort to convene an Elven Meet.”

  The elves murmured among themselves at the revelation. Some of their words, especially those directed at the chieftain, sounded unkind, but Rilwan buried her face in her hands to stem the tears.

  “Oh, thank the Heralds,” she sobbed. “He made it . . . he made it out alive.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of time,” Kajal said in a stern yet melodious voice. “We have about two hours left till the cave bustles with goblin activity. What do we need to know?”

  “There’s no beating Galagor,” Tybalt said in a dour tone. “He is only Silver, but he holds the rank of Goblin Chief. He is also attuned to Hatred.”

  Kajal twitched. “Hatred is scary. But, it’s not the worst affinity around.”

  “It isn’t?” Tybalt’s hands tightened around his bow. “No other affinity grants the user the power to summon actual demons. Galagor possesses at least one summon that can obliterate an army of silver rankers. There’s no winning that battle.”

  Paz hummed. “So, we avoid the goblin with demon-summoning powers. Or you could just let me handle it if we run into him.”

  “No, Paz,” I said. “Galagor is mine. But, we’re best served fleeing without drawing his attention. He left for the surface a short while ago.”

  “No offense,” Rilwan interjected. “You both seem confident enough in your abilities, but Nana Irithiel is a freaking gold-ranker. Won’t it be wiser to leave Galagor to her?”

  It would. But, after all she had suffered at his hands, I couldn’t vouch for her mental state. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We need to secure her release first, and an alarm spell has been enchanted onto her bindings.”

  Kajal looked up with knitted brows. “The instant we break them, all hell breaks loose within the cave.” She frowned at the elves. “Is anyone here an Enchanter or a Runesmith?”

  A few elves raised their hands.

  The most advanced among them, a petite Wood Elf with a cute lisp, spoke up. “I can try to deactivate them, but alarm runes are tricky to spot. At level 39, I have a seventy percent chance or thereabouts to succeed.”

  That wasn’t too bad. “Getting you out to Galagor’s chamber will prove tricky.”

  “I’m attuned to Confusion,” a Dark Elf volunteered. “I can alter her appearance with [Seem].”

  “That solves one problem,” Kajal said. “But, unless you can mask the entire group with your illusions, the original issue remains.” She tapped her chin. “Do we have anyone attuned to Hope or otherwise bestowed with an ability to mold the earth?”

  No hands this time. Of the eight enslaved rankers, four, including Tybalt, were Rangers. Three were casters, including the confusionist from earlier. And, the last—Rilwan—was a Trickster. Little wonder the elves had lost rapidly to the goblins. They really abhorred diversity, huh?

  Kajal sighed and rubbed her forehead. “We have no choice, then. Medekeine, I’ll leave it to you. Just avoid bringing the entire cave down on our heads.”

  The dwarf grinned. “Finally.” He shoved Kreeta aside and cricked his neck. “I can track the munitions by smell alone. How large do you want the explosion to be?”

  “Large,” Kajal said. “Enough to distract every single goblin in the cave.”

  “But not enough to kill us,” Logain grumbled.

  Medekeine strode toward the exit. Before he passed the goat pen, he turned to grin at me. “Might want to get a headstart, elf. I’ll wait fifteen minutes, but no more than that. Try to complete your task before I finish.”

  “Can I borrow the div?” I asked.

  Medekeine clammed up.

  “I really need her healing,” I pressed. “And, I promise not to try anything untoward.”

  Kajal voiced her support. “He will have an easier time sneaking around with her than with Logain. We are going to need all hands on deck if we wish to survive this place in one piece.”

  Despite myself, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Deck. One piece.”

  Kajal glowered at me.

  Medekeine looked at us like we had both lost our heads. “I am not letting that monster out of my sight. It’s mine.”

  That was strangely possessive. “You can summon her to you whenever you want, dude. I only need her services. For the good of us all.”

  Medekeine spent the better part of the next minute contemplating his choice. “It is a monster. You absolutely cannot treat it like a [System] species.”

  “Noted.”

  “I mean it, elf. The div has more in common with the goblins than it has with us. Both species are closer in behavior to the chimeras you fought than to the elves.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I recalled my encounter with Hagar and Kreeta’s group. I wasn’t sure I believed that, but this wasn’t the place for arguments.

  Medekeine grudgingly released the div from her cage. She transformed from a white snake into a little girl, a display that stunned the elves.

  I glanced at the Enchanter and the Confusion user in turn. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s do this.”

  Two goblins hurried out of the slave pit, passing the still-snoring goblin sentries.

  One was Hagar, a Captain in the goblin army with a dagger in hand and a coiled snake around his neck. The other was a nameless individual who needed to avoid physical inspections at all costs.

  The unusual duo made their way across piles of slumbering goblins, some of whom veered dangerously close to consciousness, and entered a chamber that had been partitioned off in the wall. That room served as the office and sleeping quarters of Galagor the Goblin Chief. It was also a place of torture for his sworn enemy: Nana Irithiel.

  Nana perked up as the Wood Elf-in-disguise and I entered the chamber. “Who?”

  “I brought an Enchanter,” I explained and nodded at the Wood Elf to commence operation.

  She approached the pillory and pulled a quill, scroll, and inkwell from her inventory.

  Nana shook her head. “This won’t work, Damien. I haven’t heard of many Enchanters in Dreadwood who are worth their salt.”

  The Wood Elf—who currently resembled a goblin—drew an offended breath. “I led the team that maintained the wards back in Nybala. I might be inexperienced, ma’am, but I know my onions.”

  “Oh. Another Nybalan. Maybe if your chieftain had accepted my request, neither of us would be here.”

  “Nana,” I warned.

  She chuckled drily and said to the Wood Elf. “Forgive this prickly old lady. Give it all you got, dear.”

  The Wood Elf went to work, recreating the goblin runes on her scroll in a bid to decipher them. I tapped the snake around my neck and backed away as it took the shape of Div.

  Except that she didn’t land. Div remained seated on my shoulders, watching the scene unfold in front of her with a curious expression. Her small hands settled in my hair, and she tapped her bare feet against my chest.

  “I doubt your master permits this sort of impudence from you,” I said as she leaned over my head to stare at Nana.

  “Are you talking to me, Master Damien?” she asked.

  This fucking brat. So, that’s how she wanted to play things, huh? I had probably become her least favorite person in the party—not counting Medekeine—after my refusal to grant her a name.

  I sighed and let her down to her feet. “Medekeine made you promise to follow my every command. So, use healing. Now.”

  “Who’s that, Damien?” Nana asked.

  “A Bound Div,” I replied.

  Nana performed a double take. “You don’t mean that kind of div, do you? The dangerous, shapeshifting monsters who live under the earth and are perpetually at war with the dwarves?”

  “Yes, that kind—wait, what?”

  Nana tsked at me. “Now, you’re friends with divs. Back when we met, you couldn’t even fight Dread Tigers without having a panic attack.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Div grabbed Nana’s face.

  “Can you heal her?” I asked. “I know that healing techniques have limitations—”

  “I can’t do this with [Heal], master.”

  My heart sank.

  “But, I have access to [Greater Restoration].” Div threw me a glance as she spoke and ran tiny fingers across Nana’s eyes.

  A green aura coalesced around the blind matron, highlighting her scars until they diminished into skin. Nana sighed as the wave washed over her and opened her eyelids to reveal her trademark Irithiel eyes, bloodshot and dry.

  I heaved in relief.

  Nana stared at Div and then at the Wood Elf jotting on the scroll. She appraised me with a glance, then returned to Div. “Huh. I didn’t expect to ever regain my sight. You even mended my back which that asshole broke.”

  “Heal her repeatedly,” I instructed Div, “until she is back to full health.”

  “Compassion?” Nana mumbled as Div’s ability again bathed her form. “No, this feeling . . . this warmth . . . Love?” She looked Div squarely in the face. “That’s a rather odd affinity for your kind to possess, lass. Divs are among a handful of monsters that can influence their choice of affinity. If you wanted to kill dwarves, shouldn’t you have picked a more terrifying attunement?”

  Div answered with silence, then repeated her casting of [Heal].

  “Is she that unusual?” I asked Nana.

  “I’ll say she is,” Nana replied. “Divs are known to be [Formless], but they almost always default to an appearance that fits their mental state. You see, they are created not born. But, it’s rare to find a div who doesn’t identify as a senior or an adult in their prime of life.”

  Div turned to me with eyebrows drawn taut. “I have finished your task, master.”

  “You haven’t,” I noted. “Heal her again.”

  A part of me was curious about the nature of Div’s circumstances, but we were running out of time. Medekeine had promised to wait only fifteen minutes, and we had about ten minutes left if my internal clock was right.

  “How’s the decryption going?” I asked the Wood Elf.

  She wiped a bead of sweat off her brow. “Slowly. Enchantments are like languages, and runes are the words with which they are written. Sigils, then, correspond to phrases.” She pointed at a set of sigils splattered across her scroll. “The problem lies in the meaning of the runes. The [System] usually handles translation between spoken languages. Written ones are a different matter entirely.

  “Vizhiman species display divergence in their understanding of letters, and this dissimilarity bleeds into their use of enchantments. Elves and humans share a common tongue, so there is overlap in our enchanting structure. Goblins, however . . .”

  “. . . are different,” I said.

  “. . . are monsters,” she finished. “I tried studying their unique take on enchantments back in the slave pit, but with too little to work with, my knowledge has too many gaps. Sure, the goblins make use of a few common runes, but the way they fold into sigils . . .”

  Div pointed at a sigil on the scroll without prompting. “This contains the standard rune ‘mana’ and another for ‘take’. The structure used here often denotes something that must be obstructed. Putting them together . . .”

  The Wood Elf’s eyes widened. “To seal mana!”

  “And, this is for ‘strength’,” Div continued, moving onto another sigil, “closely intertwined with the compound rune ‘gift’.”

  “To give strength, huh?” Nana said. “I don’t feel strong.”

  “Not to the user,” the Wood Elf said, and her eyes lit up as if a switch had been flicked on in her brain. “It’s a sigil that reinforces the material. Some runes determine which sigil applies to what, and each of them exists in harmony with the others! I can see the runes for ‘gift’ repeated along with one for . . .”

  “Noise,” Div answered.

  “And, this jagged line that appears on repeat is an important clause, ‘break’ or ‘shatter’.”

  “To offer noise when shattered?” I asked. “Is that your alarm spell?”

  “To cry when broken!” the Wood Elf corrected.

  Div backed away silently.

  “If I break this down into its components,” the Wood Elf continued, “and restructure them in this way . . . I can overlay the original with a new sigil to muffle the noise! The goblin language might be unfamiliar, but their method of enchanting is far too primitive.” She chuckled wryly. “As expected of monsters. What time do they have for academic pursuits when they spend their days lusting after slaughter?”

  That sounded hella rude, but Div didn’t so much as twitch.

  “You didn’t need to help out,” I told her, “but you did anyway. Thank you.”

  Div simply shrugged.

  The Wood Elf scribbled some more at a frantic pace. “If I put this here . . . and here. Oops! A trap rune. How nasty. Then, what about this?”

  After a few more minutes, she was ready to commence.

  “This should do the trick,” she said and scrawled with chalk on Nana’s pillory. She added a few lines that extended to the chains and concluded the enchantments by placing her hand on the construct.

  The sigils glowed blue with the addition of her magic energy.

  “You may free yourself now,” she told Nana.

  I suppressed the urge to clap. My near-death experiences in Vizhima had granted me a pretty uncharitable view of specialists since they rarely did anything as flashy as rankers. Sure, Liliana back in Skeelie would never go hungry with her Merchant class, but it still rocked to see specialists outperform rankers on the field.

  Nana flexed her arms and shattered the pillory, dropping to the floor. She grinned as access to her stats, inventory, and techniques all returned. “Not bad—”

  A high-pitched whine emerged from the wood shards, cutting her off and splitting our eardrums.

  The whine reverberated all through the chamber and the space beyond. It bounded off the walls, louder than any siren, and echoed far off within the cave. The Wood Elf’s illusion face took on an ashen hue as the deafening noises reached a crescendo.

  “I don’t understand . . .” she stammered.

  The alarm spell ended.

  From beyond the chamber, fresh noises, capable of knocking terror into old bones, reached my ears. One was a goblin horn, a sound that I recognized from past encounters. It boomed deep within the recesses of the earth, alerting all nearby goblins to the state of affairs.

  The other began like a tumult, rolling downhill: the promise of slaughter to come. The shrill cries of a thousand waking goblins reached us from across the doorway, seeking blood.