"Goblins?!" Konrad and Vargas exclaimed in unison, though with different tones.
While the captain sounded wary, Konrad felt disappointed.
"When you said the depths took 'em, I expected at least a balrog," he complained.
"A what?" Nimrod raised an eyebrow.
Right, nobody in this world saw that epic trilogy.
But if it were about mines and monsters, he could only think of what the dwarves had to face.
"The big question is, are they 'real' goblins, or dungeon spawns?" Vargas pondered.
Now it was Konrad's turn to act confused.
"What's the difference?" he asked, having fought them in the greater dungeon earlier.
Heck, he even made his own goblins to distract the Rabid Crows.
"Where do I start, kid?" The captain scratched his head while gathering his thoughts. "If they're dungeon spawns, the captives are as good as dead. If real ones—we're screwed."
"That doesn't make any sense." Konrad furrowed his brows.
"They came out of nowhere," the captured leader claimed as tribesmen disarmed him. "Two days ago, some miners went missing, and we thought they'd escaped."
"Does the Inquisitor know?" Vargas switched into interrogation mode.
The soldier shook his head, then stared at the ground.
"We wanted to investigate first, but things escalated fast," he noted. His defiance was gone; now he acted like a shy middle-schooler. "They ambushed us this morning, then you—"
"Great timing," Konrad sighed, wondering if Lily had foreseen this, too.
"Sounds like real goblins to me," Vargas concluded, his expression worrisome at best.
"But then the workers are alive?" Konrad tried to apply that strange logic he didn't understand.
"They're likely captives now. And breaking them out of there will be worse than if these guys were in charge. But they shouldn't be dead yet—not if they only appeared a few days ago."
The tribal warriors nodded, too, as if they were in on a secret, while Konrad was clueless.
"Bor went down there, so I'd like to know if he's in trouble?" he urged them, and Vargas sighed.
"He sure is," he said, looking at the mine entrance like it was the gate to hell. "The goblins you fought in the dungeons were mindless creatures designed to swarm, kill, or die."
That description more or less covered his experience.
They weren't that tough, but there were a lot of them.
"Real goblins are smart," Vargas claimed. "They're weak, and they know it. Won't face you head on, but they'll lure you into their traps, ambush and poison you—you name it."
"We had to deal with their kind," a Welf lookalike from the Blood Moons nodded along.
Nimrod was getting pale in the meantime.
"They raided our village once," his twin said, acting like he was cold out of the blue. "They lured the warriors away, then swarmed us, the kids, the elderly—they raped and pillaged."
"Goblins love to take hostages," Vargas added. "Keep them as breeders or foodstock for later."
"Fighting them one on one, or out in the open, is easy—but deep underground is where they thrive." The Blood Moon warrior rounded it out, sending a chill down Konrad's spine.
"So we're screwed," he could only repeat the captain's earlier claim.
***
Lily's interrogation was a different kind of business.
Her wrists still tied by Stella, she sat on a log, dangling her legs. Mercenaries almost devoured her with their eyes, her clothing working its usual magic. Men were too easy.
"So how many soldiers do you have?" The man interrogating her was almost salivating.
The executioner's face by her side was heavy with confusion and disgust.
But Lily? She was thriving and couldn't help but smirk.
"None. They're all out to plunder your goblin-infested mines," she said, voice light, teasing.
The funny thing was, she told the truth, but thanks to her tone, the mercenaries didn't believe her. The interrogator sighed, trying not to get distracted by her freckled skin, and failed.
She even leaned back a little to give a better view of her toned stomach.
This body was one of her favorites. She could shape it any way she wanted, but it was almost perfect from birth. And it was a near-identical copy of her shell from Earth—
Too bad she lost that. But with Konrad in this world, it no longer mattered.
"What about the rest? How many of you are in that camp?" The mercenary demanded, but his tone was borderline flirty. Money and girls, that was all they ever wanted.
Honor? Smarts? She could play with them as long as she desired.
"The rest? Gone. Dispersed into the woods," she said, her voice sweet. "Your scouts weren't exactly subtle. I was only unlucky to run into that tomboy there."
She nodded at the executioner, who blushed at the adjective.
To her credit, she remained quiet, doing as Lily instructed her.
Sure, as Gabrielle said, her mind was a mess to read, but she got that spark in her. Defiance. Rebellion. A newfound purpose. And the spirits wouldn't shut up around her, ever.
"You can't catch tribesmen when you barge in like a wild boar," Lily schooled the mercenary.
"It doesn't matter," he man said, shrugging. "Our job was to spook them, then teach them a lesson. We already located their villages—if they don't face us, we'll raze them all."
Them, them, them. He talked like Lily wasn't in the shape of a tribal girl, too.
Well, sure, she was so much more—but the mercenaries had no clue.
They saw a beauty with tied hands, so she had to reinforce the image of the damsel in distress.
"Oh no, please, anything but that," she pleaded, hoping that her acting skills were still up there.
"First, we will plunder their camp, though." The man grinned. "If they had to leave in a hurry, they might've left something for us. The Inquisitor promised us looting rights—"
"Please, don't," she said, "that feast they prepared—that was all they've left."
"A feast?" The mercenaries' eyes gleamed. "Why feasting when you have nothing to spare?"
The suspicion was there, but their brains were already her plaything.
"T-to celebrate the raid, when they return—"
And they lapped it all up. Well, it helped that she told the truth.
"So they will return," the man repeated, his face twisting into a victorious grin. "And we can even enjoy their feast while we wait for them. We can't say no to that, right, guys?"
The other sellswords were cheering, and Lily almost joined them.
But she couldn't break character—not yet.
She saw different versions of these future events, and most of them turned into a disaster.
She had to play all her cards right.
"Go out and comb the area," the interrogator ordered his buddies. "If we can find a few more girls like her to enjoy with our meal—"
This was one of the things that could've gone wrong. Half the time, they've found Eyna.
That purple-eyed puppy was smart. But her looks? They didn't lend themselves to sneaking around in the woods. Nor Welf's red mane—but at least he had some experience.
"A-am I not enough for ya?" She tried to act a mix of seductive and scared.
The first half was easy, but the second—she couldn't quite sell it.
"Oh, you'll be my personal bed warmer," the mercenary claimed. "But I won't share. We need tribal whores for everyone. Looting rights, remember? That extends to collecting slaves, too."