Lobix crumpled to the ground in a faint. The other goblins nearby bowed their heads, gesturing for Laryn and Kenna to enter. They stepped around the unconscious body of their guide, and entered the throne room.

  The room was not as large as the doors had suggested. Seated at the other end of the hall, perhaps twenty meters away, was Grimby, the goblin queen.

  Dramatically lit by burning braziers, the woman sat atop a stone chair, wearing a thin dress, designed to show off her body.

  Laryn’s mouth hung open as he took in the goblin. She was not quite the ugly thing which Laryn had expected. Her eyes, perhaps, were larger than a humans. And her arms longer. Her skin was green, of course. But her features were decidedly feminine.

  Grimby had an agedness about her, wrinkled skin, sagging in places, but always matching one side to the other. Laryn wondered how that might be possible.

  She gazed down at them contemptuously, and the great doors swung closed behind them. A dozen goblin guards knelt around the throne, heads pressed to stone. Mirrors decorated the walls, as if to provide additional angles from which to view the queen.

  “Great queen!” Laryn exclaimed. “We… are in awe of your symmetry?” He prepared to reset time if he saw her obviously offended, but it seemed to be the right thing to say, as a smile touched the corner of her lips.

  “Humans do not respect the beauty of symmetry,” she said, her voice clear and strong. “Is it too commonplace among you?”

  “We do respect it,” Laryn protested. “Of course. And I can say that you appear to be the most symmetrical goblin I’ve ever seen.”

  “Appear?” the queen asked, rising from her seat. “I am the perfect specimen.” She turned slowly, allowing Laryn to see her from every angle. When her back was turned he stole a glance at Kenna, who still gaped at the display.

  “By Ishtoran,” Kenna muttered softly.

  “Of course,” Laryn said. “You are perfection.”

  “How could I rule if I were anything less?” Grimby asked. She returned to her seat. “But enough of my symmetry. You are the one who killed the voidbloom to the west?”

  Laryn thought she meant the one near Orfswell that he’d killed. “I am,” he said.

  “You have stolen something of ours.”

  “I have?”

  Grimby chuckled. “Do not feign ignorance. My children have told me your secrets.”

  A strange scent wafted through the chamber, and a cold chill ran down Laryn’s spine. Kenna edged closer to him. He wished he still had his sword. He could still reach for his magic, if needed.

  From behind the queen’s throne, a lanky, pale figure loped. The creature had the appearance of a goblin, but it was taller, and longer than normal. Its skin was pasty white, like a grub that never saw the light of day.

  It came forward and leaned into the queen, nuzzling its face against her bosom. It slowly knelt at her feet, and rested its head in her lap.

  “My children see much,” the queen said. “I want my property returned to me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Laryn said. “What have we stolen from you?”

  “Humanity creates nothing, but steals everything,” the queen said. “Your kingdom core was created by the deceiver.”

  “Galwyn?” Laryn asked. “The coresmith?”

  “Where else could he have learned the secrets of symmetry, but from its masters? He stole our knowledge and used it to his own advantage. We desire the return of what was taken from us.”

  “Why?” Laryn asked. He wondered what the queen knew about his core. “It’s just a kingdom core. If you taught him how to make it, can’t you make your own?”

  Grimby glowered. “The power belongs to us. You should not have it.”

  “Galwyn learned the craft from the ancient elves,” Laryn said. “Not from the goblins.”

  “Your legends lie to you then,” Grimby said. “When Galwyn came among us, our people invited him in. But he stole from us; the powers of balance. Goblins were once perfectly mirrored.”

  Laryn raised an eyebrow.

  “Now your kind hunt goblins for sport,” Grimby continued. “We wish the restoration of what was once ours.”

  “They’ve lost the knowledge,” Kenna whispered, voice so low Laryn barely heard her.

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  “So you think that taking my core will help you with that.”

  “It is in part, a reparation of the damage that was done.”

  “I cannot give you the core.”

  Grimby cocked an eyebrow.

  “We have more important problems right now,” Laryn said. “Your population is dwindling. The true threat is not me, but Harrat!”

  The woman stroked the head of the pale creature leaning its head on her lap. “What do you know of Harrat?”

  “He’s here to strip the land of resources,” Laryn said. A partial truth. “He will gather gold from your mines.”

  Grimby did not seem phased.

  “And he also desires my kingdom core,” Laryn added.

  This caught the goblin’s attention.

  “What does he know of your core?” she hissed.

  “Little,” Laryn said. “But he’s already tried to take it from me by force. Listen. You need me. We need to work together. If you thought you could take my core by force, you would have done it already.”

  “I can take it by force,” Grimby said. “But we prefer not to damage an ancient relic.”

  “Fine, whatever. March down to my kingdom with your armies, and claim our tiles and our core. You’ll have to fight through Harrat first. He is my enemy, and yours. He’s been torturing and killing goblins.”

  Grimby did not seem convinced.

  “At the confluence of two rivers even the stones may drown,” Laryn said. “We should work together against Harrat, and then perhaps we can deal with the issue of Galwyn’s core.”

  “When two flames burn together into one, both masters might be consumed,” Grimby countered.

  “I have laid aside my sword in a gesture of good faith,” Laryn said, raising his hand. “I don’t want to fight with you. I know that your people are struggling.”

  “My people are strong!” Grimby shouted.

  “They are abandoning Grekhol. They flee to the north.”

  “Do not speak to me of the traitors. They forsake the balance of their lands and go in search of the mother of the void. We here have nothing to do with them.”

  “Please,” Laryn said, running out of arguments to make. “Send us back to Vallor, along with a company of your soldiers. We will fight Harrat, and prevent him from taking the core.”

  “I’ve heard enough of your sniveling, human. You have killed many goblins yourself, and you must be held accountable for your crimes.”

  Grimby clapped her hands once, and guards opened the doors, grabbing Laryn and Kenna and chaining their hands and feet.

  “I came here freely to treat with you!” Laryn protested to the queen. “Let it be known how the queen of the goblins hosts her guests!”

  But goblins, unlike elves have no tradition of hospitality.

  “Shut it, scum,” one of the guards said, striking Laryn in the side of the head.

  “Can’t you reverse time or something?” Kenna asked as they were dragged from the throne room.

  “Not a lot,” Laryn said. “Not enough to get us out of Grekhol. Besides, I don’t think this is the worst outcome. She will think about what I said.”

  “I don’t know…” Kenna said.

  They were taken to cells in a dank prison, somewhere in the dark halls of Grekhol. Laryn contacted Adi.

  “Any news?”

  “Hey! We saw Gaten earlier. He, Widan, and Gall are lurking around the woods to the north, hunting down and scattering Harrat’s men. Your attack on the core seems to have spooked them, because they’re withdrawing, and seem to be sending cohorts marching to the north.”

  “Horel’s balls,” Laryn muttered. “They’re probably coming after me.”

  “Are you returning?”

  “Soon,” Laryn said. “I’m working out a treaty with the Goblin Queen.”

  “The floods have started subsiding. Soon crossings will be manageable.”

  “As soon as that happens, I want the [Mages] back on the island, sifting to enhance our influence. I might need to use some time resets and I’d like to bank as much as possible before that point.”

  “Can do, boss. Oh, and Hela is having some kind of strange void visions. She says that something is coming, and wants you to be careful.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Laryn said. “Anything more specific than that?”

  “No, but I’ll tell you if she has something.”

  Laryn considered his options quietly in the cell for a short time, then noticed that Kenna seemed distressed.

  “This isn’t going well, is it?” he said.

  “You’re remarkably calm, sitting there with your hands in your lap. You don’t even seem alarmed.”

  “I was just checking in with Adi,” Laryn said. “This isn’t exactly going well, but I had to try.”

  He started inspecting the cell. Stone blocks with crumbling mortar, thick walls, and a barred door blocked them in.

  “So what are you planning now?”

  “Strength and magic,” he said. “We need to figure out a way out of here. A back-up plan.”

  “Back-up? What’s the main plan?”

  “The queen is going to see the sense in allying with us, and she’ll come let us out,” Laryn said. “Probably send a few thousand goblins on the march to drive out Harrat, and then we’ll establish a peaceful trading relationship.”

  Kenna rolled her eyes. “I’m not holding my breath.”

  “That’s why I’m searching for a weakness here. The goblins have underestimated my strength. I think that with the help of some magic, we should be able to break free.”

  “Then what?”

  “After we get out of the cell? We head back to Vallor. Now help me search the cell. We’re looking for places where the masonry seems weakest.”

  They ran hands hands over the walls, examining mortar.

  “What was that thing in the courtroom?” Kenna asked. “She called it her child, and it looked a bit like a goblin, but not like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

  “I don’t know,” Laryn said. “It was strange. But she seemed to know more about our core than possible. Some kind of spy, I assume. Who knows what kinds of magical spells Goblin cores can grant?”

  “It gave me the chills, to think of that thing watching us from the shadows.”

  “We’ll be more vigilant in the future,” Laryn said. “Wait, you’ve reminded me of something. When we made the jump to tier four, I gained a new spell that I haven’t tried yet. It’s called [Survey]…”

  Laryn pulled up the information panel for it while he spoke, and found the description.

  He read it aloud. “Casting this spell gives an idea of what lies within a given tile.”

  “How will that help?” Kenna asked.

  “Let’s try it and see.”

  He cast the spell.

  An information box displayed some general statistics about the hex that contained their cell. “Stone… Topsoil… Some caves… Structures?”

  Laryn examined further. “Goblin prison; crumbling. Goblin catacombs; unused.”

  “Catacombs?”

  “It says unused,” Laryn said.

  “But they could be anywhere in the tile.”

  “Catacombs are usually underneath,” Laryn said, shifting his attention to the floor.

  “Why would they put an entrance from a prison cell into catacombs?” Kenna asked.

  “They might not have, but how about we do?”

  Working his way around the floor, Laryn discovered one stone that was slightly loose. He worked at it, using his strength to shift it and grind at the mortar, but he was unable to do more than loosen it.

  After a while he took a break, wiping sweat from his brow. “An elemental bomb might do it,” he said.

  “It might kill us too,” Kenna protested.

  “It won’t,” Laryn said. “If it does, then I’ll undo it.”

  Kenna cringed as Laryn prepared to cast the spell. “I don’t like—”