Adamant Blood

Sacredcut Manor was located on the northern side of the Noble District.

It was something of a castle, with crenelations and towers, but it also had food gardens out front, knights in armor standing guard, and gun turrets of various flavors on the corners of tall stone structures. Mark spotted standard bullet-type gun emplacements, but also lasers with glittering crystals in their bases, and something that was probably an acid or oil shooter, with piping and nozzles. They looked like what Eliot could make, but a whole lot more unique, with actual magical materials. Eliot could only work with non-magical materials.

Some gears rotated on some of the walls, and Mark had no idea why there were gears outside of the building, but they were kinda nice to look at, all bronze and maybe-steel, so maybe it was an aesthetic choice?

As Mark and Isoko approached the house in the thinning fog, Mark asked, "You think Eliot would be more fearless if he could work with magical things?"

"It's not… comfortable to say, but I think allying with Hearthswell made him focus inward too much. That's the real problem. Castellan makes him too safe behind walls, but Union doesn't care about walls at all."

… Now there was a thought.

Mark tucked that thought away for later as he and Isoko approached the large archway leading to Sacredcut Manor's front lawns. There was no gate on the property, but the archway was clearly a defended location, with exposed gears here and there and also some embossed bronze plates that flipped over when Mark and Isoko approached. The flipped plate read, 'Welcome to Sacredcut Manor, Mark Careed and Isoko Kanno. Come right in!'.

It was kinda strange.

Not that strange, though.

Isoko walked forward first, but Mark was a little hesitant.

Isoko noticed, smirked, and pointed at the sign overhead. "It says to come right in!"

Isoko walked under the archway, and Mark followed.

Soon they were walking between private gardens filled with vegetables, and then they reached the front entrance. A wide staircase of white marble led up to the white castle-like house. A pair of guards were on duty out front, though they were more 'sitting to the side and talking' rather than 'on high alert'. Mark kinda wondered at the presence of the guards.

House Valen didn't have any guards, but the Sacredcuts did?

Mark knew enough about the Aluatha Empire to know there was something happening regarding all of that, but he didn't know what, exactly, having-guards versus not-having-guards could mean. Were the Valens not allowed to have guards? Because they were dragonists? But the Sacredcuts were dragonists, too, weren't they?

Maybe it was a personal choice.

Whatever the case, Mark and Isoko were only halfway to the entrance when a side door opened to the left of the main staircase, on the ground floor. Barba rushed out into the morning air. She was wearing her hunting leathers with her quiver at her hip, but her bow was nowhere to be seen.

Barba called out, "Everyone says that the team is dead and gone, but they were smart goblins. They might be from Goblinhome, which means the team might be alive—"

"They are dead, Barba," said an older man, who walked out from behind Barba, sounding exasperated. "You're not going back out there right now and Mister Careed and Miss Kanno are not taking you on their twosome. Please, Barba."

Barba wiped off her face. Mark thought she might have been wiping away a tear, as she glared at the older man. And then she stormed back into the house.

The older man turned to Mark and Isoko and put on a smile. It was strained. "Greetings, Mister Careed. Miss Kanno. I'm Baron Herb Sacredcut, but you can call me Herb. I'm Julie and Barba's uncle. Please, come in."

And then he went back inside, out of the fog, into the light of a main hallway, or room; Mark couldn't tell from this angle.

Mark glanced at Isoko, and she glanced back. Isoko gestured forward.

Mark took the lead, saying, "Nice to meet you, Herb."

Mark and Isoko stepped into an entrance hall.

Sacredcut Manor was a pretty nice place, but kinda plain. Someone, not Mark, might think the whitewashed stone walls and simple rugs and plain lights were the sign of poor nobles. The food gardens out front said as much, too. The rich liked showy gardens. The poor planted potatoes. But this place was only built last month, so maybe it was how it was because they were trying to be self-sufficient in the settlement?

Valen Manor was filled with paintings and vases and fine things, though, so…

It was a few more pieces to a puzzle that Mark didn't realize existed.

Barba's quiver was on the ground over there, looking like it had been tossed on the floor, next to the hook that should have held it. Her bow hung nicely on the wall, though, along with other weapons for —Mark assumed— other people. A spear, a sword, several maces. All of them hung on the wall like they were waiting to be picked up in case of an emergency… Which was probably exactly what it was.

Mark should hang his spear by the door to the apartment. It was currently hanging on the wall inside his room, but maybe… maybe he needed a second one by the actual entrance to the apartment.

Herb noticed the spilled arrows, too, but he flicked a hand at them and the walls of the house opened up just a little, and little mechanical arms came out of the wall and picked up the arrows, put them back in the quiver, and then put the quiver back on the wall. As that was happening, Herb said, "She's rightfully upset, so please forgive her excess."

Mark was pretty sure that he heard soft sobbing in a room down the hall. He felt two vectors in that room, too, and one of them was probably Barba. The other vector was someone consoling Barba. Maybe Julie.

"Of course," Isoko said. "We did not see the report yet, but we heard something about it. Eliot said that it was mind goblins?"

Herb easily said, "That's one of the theories, but it's not proven yet. People like to catastrophize in situations like this, and we must take care not to fall into that trap, for to catastrophize is to cause resources to be spent that might be better used later, when the emergency is actually here. The real problem is that Barba has never lost a team before. She's… not doing well."

"What actually happened?" Mark asked.

"… Would you mind waiting in the living room? I am sure Barba would rather tell you about it herself, and then, if you wish, could you take her out to exterminate the goblins? I know I said that she wasn't going out there again but… that was the response of an old man praying for something he knows is not going to happen. Barba is going back out there; it's just a matter of who she goes with." Herb continued, "I'm trying to get Aurora or a few others to do long-range bombing and it's not going well. No one wants to deal—" Herb cut himself off and looked to the right. A hole in the wall opened up and a metal arm extended, along with a phone. It was ringing. Herb grabbed the phone as he told Mark and Isoko, "This is Aurora. I need to take this." He gestured down the way, saying, "The living room is right— Ah! Hello… Yes, I'll wait… No."

Pause.

And then Herb looked away, scowling as he walked away and spoke to the person on the other side, who was obviously not Aurora, "No, Secretary Jones. I will not accept that reasoning. These are the first deaths of a settlement and such events must be met with overwhelming devastation… It's not superstition! It's a demonstration that we will not be made fools of, and if these goblins are from Goblinhome then we must act with pure offense… No, I do not believe that soldiers should respond to this particular soldier threat! My niece almost died, and..."

Herb was already down the hall, his voice turning softer and more angry as he turned the corner and went out of sight. His voice was too soft to hear.

Mark asked, "What's Goblinho—"

Isoko put a finger to her lips, her vector focused hard in Herb's direction.

Okay, so, maybe Mark couldn't hear Herb anymore.

Mark wondered about Goblinhome. Barba had said that word once, and now Herb said it, too. Mark was pretty sure he had heard that term… somewhere. But he didn't know where. Mark pulled out Quark and asked, "What's Goblinhome?"

Isoko raised an eyebrow, looking at Mark, and then at Quark. She stopped trying to listen to Herb and instead focused on the silver rectangle as Quark booted up his thinking processes.

Quark said, "Goblinhome is a loose organization of goblins, generally thought to be located in the Greendeath Mountains in the Northern Continent, north of the Empire of Aluatha. The Greendeath Mountains are named after the overwhelming presence of goblin tribes in the area. On Earth, the mountain range is known as the Appalachian Mountains, or the Appalachians.

" 'Goblinhome' is not a specific place. It is a loose tribal structure of goblins that create the temporary city of Goblinhome every so often, and then the Empire of Aluatha goes on bombing runs every few years to cull them back to manageable sizes. The Empire usually tries to rescue human breeding slaves captured by the goblins, but sometimes that is not feasible.

"Goblinhome might not be a real place, but the Elder Goblins who inhabit the Greendeaths are certainly real. The Elder Goblins have Skills comparable to humans, thanks to the Monster Tutorial, and they have something of a civilization that works to support those Skills and those Elder Goblins.

"The official stance of the Empire of Aluatha is to not engage with the Elder Goblins at all, and to cull all goblins located outside of the Greendeaths."

Quark went quiet.

Mark let out a breath he had started holding somewhere around the mention of the Appalachian Mountains. That was only 500-ish kilometers away. Mark put Quark away while saying, "Another horror show for the pile."

Isoko muttered, "Holy shit. Goblinhome is real?"

"You heard about it before?"

"I never thought it was real. Grandma mentioned it a few times, but… She said it was in the tundras north of unincorporated Xerkona. On the other side of Mongols. Orange City is below the Appalachians, though— That's only 500 kilometers away!" Isoko's eyes went wide. And then she asked, "You ever heard of goblins coming through there?"

"I don't recall any, but I was behind Curtain Protocol so… I think the cities up there do deal with goblins more than they deal with kaiju. It's an always-problem, too, so… yeah. That explains that."

Barba was walking toward them by that point. Her tears were dry and she was back to quiet fury, though her voice was solid as she said, "Kaiju, aberrant monsters, goblins, Mind monsters; there are many horrors in the wilds that never really go away. Goblins are an always-problem. Goblinhome isn't a real place, but the green horrors who know about Goblinhome usually have inherited memories and can thus organize better, so it's dangerous when you hear a goblin speak of Goblinhome. Most of the time they're not even sure what they're talking about, but those sorts of goblins are tricky. Trappers and planners. The ones that killed my team are from Goblinhome, even if they are not from the main Elder Goblin lines."

Mark wondered about Goblinhome, but he was more focused on solving the problem in front of him than learning history right now. Mark said, "Eliot told us they were possible mind goblins, and that he was going to ask Aurora to intervene, to annihilate the place. He's probably doing that right now."

Barba shook her head. "She won't do it." And then she got serious. "I saw the green horrors cutting off Akailah's arms where a goblin had bit her. They were not torturing her. Not yet. They saw she was a Marksman and they want that in their next generation. They want to keep her as a breeder. They're going to take her away to some elder goblin somewhere and she'll live in horror for her entire life, which might be a month while they fatten her up, or years, if they… If they…" Barba was breathing hard. Unable to form sentences. And then she focused. "This all happened yesterday and they told me that they sent scanners to find the goblins, but all they found were normal goblins and the remains of Denaka and Vikas and the broken left arm bone of Akailah. They did not find Akailah's remains, and they did not find the goblins I saw. Not the ones I saw. A three-horned blue goblin. That's the dangerous one. He's a corruptor goblin.

"I need to kill them all.

"Will you help?"

Julie had walked up behind Barba halfway through her words, preparing to speak as soon as Barba stopped. Julie did not give Mark or Isoko a chance to respond.

Julie said, "Barba lost an arm cutting it off to escape. She saved a guy named Onoho who lost both legs because she had to cut them off to stop the infection. Onoho and Barba have both been physically healed, but the other survivor is completely alone now and his response to the green horror has been to curl up and cry in Castle South, under the eyes of the healers there. Barba is having the opposite reaction, as you can see."

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Barba bit back strong words as she glared at Julie.

Julie glared right back at her younger sister, saying, "You are hyped up for revenge and you will get yourself killed. You just had your left arm regenerated last night. Tell me you have full functionality in your arm, that you can hold a bow at all, and I will call you a liar and a liability."

Barba's face reddened. And then she screamed incoherently in Julie's face.

Julie weathered the storm.

Barba stormed off.

So that was a lot, but Mark focused on the issue to be solved in front of them, the goblins. Was Barba a liability in a fight, or not? She probably was. And now that Mark was looking, Mark noticed that Barba's left arm was lagging behind her movements. Yeah; that was some sort of regeneration-related problem. Those issues usually passed with time and proper healing, but Barba didn't want that. She wanted revenge.

From her tumbling vector, Mark could tell that Barba was deeply ashamed about something. The team she had gone hunting with was not her own team, but Barba still felt incredibly responsible. That much was obvious.

Mark hadn't offered his time to any teams that needed a healer here at the settlement, but he had certainly partied with strangers back in Memphi. If any of those temporary teammates would have ever died under his watch then he would probably feel the same way Barba was feeling right now.

Mark said, "I'm going to help heal her."

Mark connected to Barba with Union and helped heal her some, and she burst into tears before she even got back into the side room. Mark kept healing her. He was pretty sure she was having a reaction to being told 'no', more than she was having a reaction to Mark's Union.

Julie glanced at Mark's arms, where some black veins pulsed in the air. She softly said, "Thank you. She's not taking too well to the regeneration. If she acts up too much then it might fall off."

Julie was exaggerating for effect. Regenerated arms did not fall off.

They might necrotize and then fall off, though. That much was true.

Isoko asked, "She still wants to search for this other person that might have lived? Akai… something."

"Akailah Hadj. She was a Marksman. People don't like to talk about it, but… Some people are more viable targets for goblins than others. Akailah was a Marksman, and goblins that can shoot well are always some of the most dangerous ones out there. So I could see the goblins trying to take her alive. But I still think Barba is making connections that aren't there. It's possible that Akailah is still out there, but it's been 12 hours and the area has been scanned by multiple people and Skills. There are a few strange blue-tinted goblins, but they're just goblins. This is just a bad goblin infection, and Barba is not taking any of this well." Julie added, "The entire dragonoid area is now off-limits to everyone not on the goblin killing quest, and the entire eastern exterior of the settlement is considered infected. So keep that in mind before you step out in that direction… Or really anywhere, actually. Goblins that are strong enough to grab people are the dangerous ones."

Mark asked, "The goblins infected all the dragonoids, too?"

"Dragonoid goblins," Isoko said, not sure how she felt about that.

"No no," Julie said, "The dragonoids are still alive and doing fine, as far as we've been able to tell. The goblins are living around them. The dragonoids protect their territory rather fiercely, but goblins hide rather well, so the goblins are parasitizing the dragonoid territory but not the dragonoids themselves."

"I… didn't know they did that?" Mark found himself asking.

Isoko said, "Me either. I didn't know goblins were smart like that at all."

Julie frowned a little. "Goblins… are usually not that smart, yes. So…"

Mark guessed, "This is a bigger problem than the notice says it is."

"… In a word, yes," Julie said, looking concerned.

Mark asked a different sort of uncomfortable question, "Do they really… I don't know how to say this. They use people as breeders?"

"Yes," Julie said, without hesitation.

"And they would really do... this... right in our backyard?" Mark found himself asking, not believing what he was saying, and not really knowing what he was saying, either. Were these goblins stupid? To hunt for humans right beside the human settlement? The answer was obviously yes. Resoundingly yes. Goblins were very stupid. Mark asked, "Are they smart goblins, or are they stupid, opportunistic goblins?"

Julie frowned a little, saying, "Their society is narcissistic, to put it mildly. They don't believe that they could ever be truly harmed, because they do not care about death, because they can be reborn through the bite on and on and on again. This leads to a certain kind of worldview. For all their evils, they are still sapient people. They just think differently than us. The goblins have been out there for about a week now. People were killing them just fine, and though there were bites, everyone had some anti-goblin medication, or something to solve that problem, so… the goblins here were a normal goblin issue. Goblins on the doorstep! Not a big deal. But… But then this happened. The first deaths of the settlement."

Julie was leaning toward a different conversation altogether.

The 'first deaths of the settlement' was a superstition-thing, Mark believed.

Isoko said, "I heard your uncle talking about that. Saying something about a curse?"

"It's a superstition, but people believe it, and Uncle believes it most firmly," Julie said, "The first people who die in a settlement set the tone for everything to come. Goblins are an evergreen problem, so for some people to die to goblins… of all the damned things…" Julie frowned. "No one should have died to goblins, which means either Aurora was incompetent about picking people for the settlement, Goblinhome is marching on us and half of us are dead already and we don't know it, or some third thing that I can't think of right now. I'm sure someone is coming up with crazy theories to explain what is happening so that they can un-ring the very largest of alarm bells. No one wants this settlement to fail, and so…" Julie paused. Julie continued, "All I know is that Aurora is planning for her choices to have been the right ones, which means that she's going to approach this with Empire Standard responses, which means soldier responses to soldier problems.

"Goblins are a soldier-level problem.

"This means that whoever goes out there to kill the goblins will either be successful, or they'll be additions to Goblinhome's breeding programs and then the entire settlement will mobilize against the existential threat."

For a moment, silence.

And then Isoko asked, "What actually happened out there?"

Julie began, "It was a dragonoid hunt, where they go out and sleep the dragonoids to harvest the mana crystals growing off of their spines and bone protrusions. And then it wasn't that at all. To make a long story short: The Spotter saw some plant growing out of the refuse of dragonoid they tranq'd and she failed to spot the goblins hiding in the refuse. From there, it was a bloodbath. She got taken first, and then the True Brawny was there and he lasted a while in a fight, while the Marksman did her thing and Barba and the healer tried to rescue the Spotter, and..."

Julie spoke of a battle that she was not a part of, and Mark knew he would need to get the information directly from Barba, when she came back out of the side room, because Mark got a strange feeling as he listened to Julie talk about goblins like they were kaiju. Goblins, as an existential threat. Yes, Mark already knew they were sort of like that. But not really. Most things ate and killed goblins on the regular. But goblins also never fully die until you kill them to the last.

So yeah, goblins were an existential threat.

Inquisitor David had even told Mark, Isoko, and Eliot that the goblins at Rome had been existential threats, which is why, if Mark and them hadn't been able to end that threat, that David was going to call in the big guns. So. Yeah. Goblins were an 'evergreen' problem.

Mark was ready to end some existential threats.

Was it hubris to think himself that powerful? Yes. But Mark was going to kill kaiju, and it was the height of hubris to think one man could kill any kaiju on his own. Killing goblins was just as important as killing kaiju, though. Mark knew he could find and kill goblins very well.

And yet, Mark had some thoughts for himself.

Respect the monsters, Mark. They kill every hunter who overextends themselves, as Barba's temporary team mostly found out.

Julie got through most of Barba's story before Barba came back out, so Julie stopped and asked her, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Barba's face was set, her vector solid. "Enough words have been said." And then she looked at Mark and Isoko. "I need to know your decisions. Will you please help me?"

Mark understood Barba. That desire for revenge. That burning rage.

Mark did not believe the worst case scenario that Goblinhome was preying on the settlement. It was much easier to believe that some aberrant goblin took advantage of a team in the wilds. It happened.

Aurora didn't believe this was Goblinhome, too, so...

Mark knew what he was about. He was about revenge and action. Isoko, standing next to him, felt the same way. Both of them were ready to go kill what needed killing.

Julie was the only one here who wasn't ready to throw down with death. But she was close. She just needed help, too.

Mark said, "An archmage once told me that I would be murdering mountain goblins by the tens of thousands when I got to Daihoon. I wasn't aware this is what he meant, but this is what he meant, and so, there's no better time to start than now."

Julie breathed deep, unbalanced.

Barba seemed almost fragile at that moment. She softly said, "Thank you."

And then Julie made up her own mind. She turned as solid as she could, and said, "I trust you, Mark, but don't take risks, please. Smart goblins make traps all the time, and that's what happened here. Isoko, I need to talk to you, since I assume you will be the one guarding Barba for the goblin hunt. House Sacredcut is outfitting this whole extermination order. We need to showcase strength more than ever before. I'll give you weapons and… and stuff. I'm sure Uncle will want to be involved, too."

Isoko said, "I'm good with that."

Mark nodded.

"Thank you," Barba quietly said to Julie.

"Don't be thanking me yet, Barba, because you're on the backline, sister. You're not getting anywhere near any goblin. Knights Aaron and Samson are going with you and they're going to be under orders to guard you. Say you understand."

Barba's anger became a tool instead of a weight. Filled with careful rage, Barba said, "I understand."

"I have that wand for you to use, too."

"Thank you." Barba held her left arm. It was still in pain, just a little. "I can hold a wand. I won't lose it, either."

Julie smiled just a little, though it was a broken, nervous sort of smile. "Good! I used up all my adamantium to make it happen."

Mark smiled a little. So that's what she had made with his adamantium. Mark was looking forward to seeing it in action.

Julie solidly told Barba, "Do not use it more than four times."

Barba nodded.

Julie said to Mark and Isoko, "I have weaponry for you, Isoko, if you prefer something besides the rapier you usually use."

Mark said, "I don't need anything. Who are Aaron and Samson, though?"

"Speedster and Shielder. They're good men."

Isoko shook her head a little. "I'll take a look, but I'm probably going to stick with what I know, for today."

"A reasonable plan," Julie said. "I'm not sure what I can give you, Mark, but I'm sure we can find something around here— Sensor systems? I can work some of those up, and Uncle will want to send along some things, too. I'm not sure what. Probably some spidercrawlers to serve as sensor banks."

Mark said, "Eliot is going to handle reconnaissance."

"Oh! Of course he is. Yes. Well… Maybe he can put some stuff onto the spidercrawlers? Or..."

The organization for the hunt proceeded in a rather normal fashion, though it was different from what Mark usually did. He had never gone on a rescue mission before and this wasn't a rescue mission, but Barba desperately wanted it to be a rescue mission. Julie twice said that Akailah was dead, but Barba did not want to believe it.

"I will believe she is dead when we have killed every goblin and found her spine or skull, and not a second before that."