Chapter 207

◈ Chapter 207:

Rain found who he was looking for soon enough, the lamia was near the 'fake' market, which was still half heartedly being used by the monsters to buy goods, although they still weren't quite sure why. At least some seemed to be more enthusiastic than others. The kobolds had taken to running the stalls, happily handing out wares for ever more shiny golden coins.

Red wasn't one of them, but he had taken to trailing after Quisits, following her around, close but not close enough to draw the lamia's attention, or at least that's what he thought. Maybe not that surprising for a gold obsessed kobold who had recently seen the lamia create a tower out of solid gold. A person who could magic new gold things out of thin air was naturally a person of extreme interest to kobold kind.

The lamia was getting increasingly annoyed by his stalking, but she could do little as the fanged goblin was keeping a careful eye on her, holding one of her heart pin controls ready in case she tried something.

Rain set the giant golden egg down in front of Red, the first thing to draw his attention away from the lamia. His eyes went round seeing it.

"This is for me?"

"It's for you to deal with."

"Oh. Well, I am the treasurer so everything is mine… to deal with."

Rain squinted down at the kobold who was running his claws over the golden egg before he turned to Quistis.

"Is this your doing? This egg thing?"

"Hardly. Do I look like I would create some noble's folly such as that? I have far better taste in aesthetics."

Rain vaguely recalled the statues of muscular levelers scattered around the arena. Somehow he felt a little doubt about that claim. But in any case it seemed the egg was not something that the lamia had created. Very strange.

"Besides," she sniffed, "It is quite clearly alive, and as you managed to grasp during your captivity I cannot change living tissue... But perhaps you knew that from the start, it would seem you came here to destroy all that is mine."

"No. I did not."

The lamia looked frustrated by that answer, but didn't reply.

"She's right," grumbled Red as he examined the egg with an increasingly sour expression. "This isn't gold, it just looks like it."

"Isn't her gold just as fake?"

Red tapped the egg dismissively. "No, her gold is quite real, it doesn't stay as gold, but I can still enjoy the gold while it lasts."

As they spoke Opal and Lyra had approached from the fake market behind them.

Lyra looked between the egg and Red.

"If all you care about is touching it, but she doesn't seem to like tricking people with fake gold."

"Quite." said Quistis "The only true way to make use of it is to flee from city to city as a fugitive. Piles of gold coin turning into piles of dirt before people's eyes tends to create… a certain amount of animosity and reputational damage… and risks to my life."

Lyra tilted her head. "Which is why you were building up your wealth down here instead. And since you have been here many years, that must mean you have quite a lot."

The lamia froze. "I— I— do not know what you mean."

Lyra lifted her hand and showed the small dice shaped pin control in her fingers. She shook it suggestively and Quistis flinched.

Lyra raised an eyebrow.

The lamia made a huffing sound.

"There was… some small amount acquired…."

"Show me!" smiled Lyra sweetly.

The lamia led them across the sands, but not far from the market.

There she came to a stop and seemed to hesitate.

"So? I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what," spat Quistis.

"Show me all that you have gathered, show me your true wealth."

The lamia looked like she wanted to fight, to shout and argue. But one glance over at the heart pin control ended any thought of that.

With a sigh she raised her hands and the sands shivered and then began to disintegrate, coming apart into infinitesimal particulate smoke. In that way the ground seemed to dissolve, misting and drifting away and revealing a sheet of rough dark iron. This too soon became smoke revealing a thinner layer of diamond, and then, finally, all that Quistis had squirrelled away over the years.

A sheet of gold so bright that the eye watered to look upon it filled the space, like a small ornamental pond except instead of being filled with water, it was filled with glittering gold coins and crystal jewels, gem encrusted swords and rings and ornate armours, shatter-star sapphires and strings of tear drop diamonds riddled through golden silks, a truly staggering amount of wealth.

Rain to his shock, found himself looking at more wealth than was in Lyra's woolspace, easily three times as much.

Okay, before he had questioned whether they had an unfeasible amount of gold, with this however? This was more than unfeasible. It was completely unreasonable!

"Why? What was this all for?" he murmured.

"Before you made ruin of everything I had my own goals."

"Which were?"

The lamia remained silent for a moment, looking over the golden pond with her lips set in a thin line.

"I wanted to build something of my own, that is all."

Rain narrowed his eyes. That was all? He somehow doubted that, not with this absurd amount of wealth, and especially not considering Quistis was one of Wranvyre's daughters. He was sure the lamia wanted something more, something ambitious, something concerning.

Before he could think to ask however Red sprinted by and flung himself over the edge of the pond in a full body dive. Or at least he tried too. Gold was not very diveable and he collided with the unmoving and solid surface with a grunt and a heavy thud, breath blown from his body, scattering a shower of coins away from where he impacted.

But determinedly ignoring the bruising pain he rolled around in the gold like a pig in a sty, getting gold all over his scales and burying his face in it.

The fanged goblin and Beryl who had followed them over stared at the stretch of gold, Beryl watching Red in particular.

Rain doubted that Red was going to be very pleased when he found out it was impossible to take this with them, that is unless Lyra's wool space was stuffed to the ceiling with the stuff… which would likely cause a flailing Lyra to fountain gold coins in every direction the moment she switched from white wool to black. As amusing as that would be, they still needed her wool space for things other than just storing absurd amounts of gold.

As he was pondering what to do he noticed Opal staring out across the gold, taking note of the various jewelled daggers and swords. That was another problem. He doubted she would be happy to hear that he wanted nothing to do with her 'monster town', in fact he worried she was going to be quite upset.

Lyra was looking down at Red with much more practical concerns.

"Is Red okay? It looks like he might die from being too happy."

Rain glanced over at the kobold, it was true that he had started mildly foaming at the mouth as his eyelids fluttered and his body twitched. Maybe this was too much gold for one kobold to handle.

With a sigh he reached down and grabbed his tail, yanking him from the gold and tossing him back on the sand.

It took a moment for Red to realise what had happened and that he was no longer in the gold.

He gathered himself and clambered to his feet, pushing down the tent in his loin cloth and blushing furiously.

"Ahem. That— that was just me ex-examining the gold, as treasurer, yes."

"It was a pretty intimate examination," said Beryl sidling up beside him and putting her claws on the increasingly alarmed kobold's shoulder.

"I needed to be thorough!" he squawked, frantically trying to push his loin cloth down.

"I can see that." purred the blue kobold, practically leering at him.

Her tail coiled around his as she pressed against his side and squeezed down, crushing his tail beneath hers. Various sounds escaped Red as she did this, his whole body twitching and his toes curling in the sand.

But then she pulled away, her tail gently unwinding and brushing past his side.

Red watched her go, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. A little shiver ran up his back.

Opal sidled up beside him and elbowed him in the side

“You know she's into you if the tail touches, right? Right?”

“Stop elbowing me! And- And that's not how kobold things work!”

"Hmmm, isn't it kinda like that though?"

"N-No! Absolutely not!"

"What does it mean then?"

"It's j-just saying hello, in a polite way."

Opal gave him a disbelieving look, but then grinned.

"She was practically jerking your tail off, pretty interesting way to be polite."

Red didn't reply but couldn't stop a deep blush appearing on his face.

She patted him on the cheek and moved on, waving for the other monsters around the market and shepherding them together.

Rain watched with concern as she persuaded Quistis to build a wide dias in the sand before the gold and then had him sit cross legged in the middle.

He looked over the crowd of small monsters before him, their faces looking up at him with wary fear.

Opal stood in front of him with her hands on her hips.

Where was this going? Rain wondered.

"You were all gonna die here. So, you know, you should be happy about that," said Opal to the crowd. "But better than that, you are no longer in the dungeon, which is a very horrible place, and you aren't captured by levelers who will kill you for levels or work you to death. So where does that leave you?"

A susurrating murmur drifted around the crowd of a hundred or so monsters, along with quite a lot of confused looks.

"You are free from the dungeon and you are free from levelers. But you can't go to the surface 'cause you'll be killed and you don't want to go back to the dungeon, also because you'll be killed. So you're stuck here, in this cave."

The fanged goblin at the front of the crowd crossed her arms. "And you think you know what's best?"

"Yes. And being Free monsters doesn't mean you get to do what you want. You'll be joining my town because you have no choice, you're all now part of Opal town."

Rain made a strained expression as he looked down at Opal nodding her head confidently. Opal town? Seriously?!

"The pecking order is very simple. All of you are all equal. And then above all of you is the council which I'll pick. And then above that is me and Lyra. And then above that is Rain here, cause he's the biggest and strongest."

Rain really did not want to be at the top of this hierarchy. He almost said something, but then, she did seem so electrified, so enthusiastic, and he hesitated.

He was never going to stay with this 'monster town'. He had other things to do, like hunting Brax. But… he was injured… a day or two to hopefully recover, and in that time he could explain to Opal why this wasn't going to happen, ideally disappointing her in a way that would not upset her.

Better to let her down slowly.

She grinned fiercely.

"The rules are very simple, don't do bad stuff, not because it's wrong, 'cause most of you won't care about that, but because you'll get beaten up by the council and—."

A scream tore through the crowd, causing many to jump in surprise, the crowd turning and parting as a blade flashed through the air. The steel came down once twice, then its wielder lurching to the next victim, slashing it across the throat of a pink scaled kobold in a flicker of blood that splashed across the faces of nearby monsters who stumbled back, desperately trying to keep away.

The grubby rag-covered hobgoblin Opal had tried to teach how to run a market stall was crouching down over his victim, already tearing the toothy necklace from her neck and the clothes from her body.

Opal frowned, her gaze shifting from the smiling hobgoblin, down to the dead pink scaled kobold at his feet, and then at the mousling from the stall. Rain noticed that his arm had been reattached, although that hadn't saved him from his fate. He lay dead and still on the sands, his eyes unmoving and glassy, one paw clutching a single coin.

Rain knew Opal wasn't a fool, nor was she to be crossed.

With a dark look she dropped into the shadows and popped up in front of the hobgoblin.

The hob barely noticed her, still admiring his prize, holding up the ragged shirt against his own bare chest to check the fit.

That is until Opal took hold of his wrist, then he noticed. He glowered down at the shorter pregnant goblin.

"Get off me!"

"..."

Opal gripped down and twisted, twisting the hob's hand around. To the surprise of the hob he found that she was immensely stronger than he and with a cry he was forced to kneel, dropping the necklace and shirt and grabbing for his wrist.

"Let go of me bitch!"

The hob formed a fist and attempted to throw a punch into her pregnant stomach, a vicious and underhanded attack.

But before his fist could connect Opal caught his fist in her other hand, stopping it flat. Her fingers gripped down on the closed fist. The hob stared at his captured fist in disbelief, but not for long, and Opal thrust her hand up, smashing his own fist into his face.

The hob screeched aloud, a string of blood spurting from his broken nose.

"I'll kill you! I'll gut you like a fish and cook all the spawn inside! I'll shit on your body-

The hand was dropped and a black sickle appeared, a talon. Finally, for the first time, fear appeared in the hobgoblin's eyes. But, of course, it was far too late for that.

He tried to grab for the sickle as it plunged toward his head, free hand grabbing for it. He succeeded, and his fingers were bisected from his palm, flinging through the air to rain down on the sand in a shower of blood and wriggling flesh.

The hobgoblin screamed, eyes wild with pain, but only for a small moment before the tip of the sickle dipped into the side of his head, cutting through flesh and bone and brain and instantly killing him.

He went as limp as a wet rag, collapsing to the ground and only being held up by the wrist.

Opal, still silent, turned and began dragging the hobgoblin behind her, pulling his body through the sand, dragging a trail behind her footsteps. The crowd of monsters parted for her wide eyed and wary as they watched her haul the dead hob back to the dais.

She raised her voice, addressing the crown once again.

"If you do bad things you will piss me off, and If you piss me off I will kill you. But if you piss Rain off here and he will slaughter and eat every last one of you and we will start over with a new set of monsters we find elsewhere."

Rain watched and then took the hob she handed him.

"Eat him please." she muttered darkly.

Rain didn't reply, only taking the dead hobgoblin and then opening his maw. In a few bites the hobgoblin was gone, and all the monsters there had seen it. They had seen everything, in close up detail.

Opal turned on the crowd.

"To be clear, your greatest threat is Rain. You will need to work together to ensure you don't make him want to eat you. Just think about these blood covered teeth when you go to sleep each night." She hopped up on his thigh and prodded his muzzle making him lift his lip showing some very large and bloodied teeth, "Make sure you have regular nightmares about your arms and legs being ripped off and eaten in front of you while you are still alive, knowing there's nothing that can stop him. Think about what happened at the arena, all those powerful levelers died fighting him, what chance do you stand? Next time you're thinking about doing something bad, beating another monster up, killing, stealing, first think about how much you don't want to get eaten alive."

The hundred or so monsters stared at her with their mouths hanging open.

Well, terrifying the absolute living shit out of the monsters was one way to keep them in line and prevent them from killing each other Rain supposed.

"Opal town is an experiment, an experiment you will have to work together to survive. Because otherwise you will end up in him."

Rain's estimation of these monster's chances of survival was getting lower by the moment.

The crowd did not look happy, especially the fanged goblin at the front, who was staring at Opal with a sour look.

She put her hands on her hips and spat on the sand, sneering up at her.

"Why the hell should I-

"You're on the council."

"Okay what do we need to do first to make this town happen?"

Fast!

Giving power over other monsters was one way to get at least some on board with this scheme of Opal's. Was putting the monsters who might object most on the council a trick to get them to cooperate? Rain didn't know but apparently it was highly effective.

Opal nodded in satisfaction.

"We can't start here, in this cavern, which would be fine for building, but can't be used. There are levelers on the surface who know it exists, and they will be coming here sooner or later."

Rain frowned.

"So where are you planning on putting it?"

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to put the monster town beneath Warwick's house!"

Rain got the vague feeling that Warwick was going to be very very very angry when he found out about this plan.