Vol.5 Ch.7.1 – Welcoming Committee I

Chapter 7: Welcoming Committee

I would like to say that after defeating the congregation we rushed forward down the path that would lead us to Olympus but unfortunately things weren't that simple. There were still two little children we had to take care of.

Obviously we couldn't leave them in this slaughterhouse and just as obviously we couldn't take them with us to Olympus. At the same time delaying while we found shelter for them wasn't going to happen. Thankfully Anna's mom came through with a solution to our problem.

While we were still discussing ways to get the babies to safety – we had almost made peace with Yume and me flash-stepping them to the nearest orphanage and hoping for the best – a group of Royal Guards arrived. As Anna had said, they weren't the army we truly could have done with.

There were forty-two of them, thirty-six fighters and six mages, and they confirmed that they had been sent by the queen. Once we had gone to Olympus and cleared the way they would set up camp and wait for the Heroes to arrive before storming in with them. Having them along with us from the start would of course have been more reassuring but it would have defeated the purpose of entering the realm sneakily if we arrived with two scores of armed fighters.

But them staying behind at least for a little while did have the advantage that they could take care of the children while we went on ahead. Gods above, maybe they could even start getting rid of the carnage we had left in the temple. Outsiders dissolved into ectoplasm but the hybrids certainly didn't and large swathes of the temple were covered in blackish blood and viscera, particularly in a half circle around the entrance to Olympus.

Well, 'entrance' was a misnomer. The large chamber where we had fought the cultists had two hallways connecting to it. One was the one we had taken to reach the chamber, the one with the doors to all those bedrooms. The other one, however, sloped gently downwards, leading almost imperceptibly down into the earth. About a hundred yards in the marble walls gave way to a tunnel hewn into the stone. And Athena assured us that this tunnel would eventually lead to Olympus.

It made no sense whatsoever. There was a system of sewers beneath the capital and we knew that beneath those were the ruins of a much older city, ruins that led to the Crystal Crown's dungeon. So the entrance to Olympus being located above this had some interesting implications.

Either the city the capital had been built over was older than the Olympians, or, much more likely, the Olympians had considered the place that was now the capital of the Trismegistian kingdom utterly insignificant for centuries and had only very recently decided to build an entrance to their realm here. Or maybe there had always been an entrance to Olympus in this city but the entrance changed as the city did. After all, dungeon entrances also led into pocket realities that didn't occupy any space within the physical world so maybe the tunnel was already part of a different plane.

Look, I'm not a space mage. I only know so much about this stuff. That didn't mean I didn't find it worth wondering about.

Either way, once the children were in good hands we made our way down that tunnel, knowing full well that we would be running into a fight. The congregation on this side of the gateway had been corrupted and they had considered running through the gateway to get reinforcements. This implied that there would be a welcoming committee on the other side.

Months ago Athena had been able to escape through this exact gateway without anything happening to her but apparently they'd been shoring up their defenses since them. Of course, that also raised questions about the congregation at the Temple of Zeus. If they'd let Athena go just a few months ago then that meant that their corruption had been a very recent change. But I had seen years-long worshipers of the Black Goat who had shown fewer signs of physical corruption that this brood had. It implied a lot about just how depraved these cultists had been, how much they had indulged in the vices of the Black Goat in such a short time. Or maybe it had nothing to do with how depraved these people were but with just how strong the Holy Maiden had become that she could corrupt men to this extent.

I really hoped it had just been a function of how vile these clerics had been.

“I think I see something,” Anna said after we'd been walking for a while.

Now that she said it I, too, could see something at the end of the tunnel. Athena had already confirmed that time worked the same on Olympus as it did on the mortal plane and so it should have been night on Olympus as well, but even night illuminated by stars and torches was brighter than the dreary tunnel we'd been creeping down.

As we kept getting closer the scene resolved itself before our eyes, thankfully long before those on the other side of the gateway could see that we were approaching – we had extinguished all lights just in case.

Goblins. A group of goblins stood guard. At first it didn't make sense for someone who controlled so many vile creatures to post goblins as guard but as I thought about it a chill ran down my spine. They still thought Athena might return and they had posted a group of goblins specifically to grab her if she did.

I could feel my teeth grinding as I thought of these pieces of shit grabbing hold of my woman, then blinked. My woman? What the fuck? Ah, damn it. No use denying it anymore. Athena was one of my women. The aggravating bitch of a goddess had wormed her way into my heart and I'd rather jump off of Mount Olympus than let a group of goblins have their way with her.

As we got closer to the goblins I could see that they were the same changed goblins we'd seen when we had fought the Dark Lord of Shub-Niggurath. They had the hoofed, digitigrade legs of bovines and their eyes were orange, just like those of a goat, rather than the yellow toad eyes that normal goblins had.

Even worse than their hideous appearance was what they were busy doing, however. There weren't any women around for them to violate so they were engaging in their second favorite pastime: Torture and mutilation. There was a body at the center of the group, or at least what was left of a body. The limbs were gone and the face had been peeled off. Thankfully the body no longer moved but I was sure the poor soul had suffered long enough before he had expired. Two groups of goblins each had one of the man's arms and were chewing on them like dogs. Another group of goblins had built themselves a little fireplace and they were roasting the man's legs like miniature piglings. Finally, the one goblin shaman in their group was doing something to the man's heart, something that involved a vial of black goo and a ritual dagger way too fine to be of goblin make.

“Goblins,” Alisha hissed. “How do we do this?”

“Hit them fast and hard,” I said. “No survivors, no noise. Yume, if you could place an invisibility spell on Selene, Athena, me and yourself, I think we can take them down before they can call for reinforcements.”

“Should I suffocate any of them?”

I blinked. I had totally forgotten that Alisha could do that. We had gotten so strong that there usually wasn't a reason for such tactics but this was the perfect situation for it. For all the power we'd amassed the forces awaiting us here were still more than we could take on and so there was a reason to be quiet here. But there was an issue with the idea.

“How many can you do at once?” I asked. Alisha used to be able to cast this spell on one target at a time, slowly stealing the air from their lungs to make them pass out and, if she kept it going, to suffocate them. And while we had all gotten stronger, we had never really been in a situation where Alisha had to test out her limits with this spell in particular.

She waggled her hand in response. “The targeting gets a bit messy with multiple targets. If I have to make sure everyone survives the spell I can do maybe half a dozen. If that's not a concern I'm sure I can do two dozen at once.”

“Yeah, I don't think you need to worry about leaving a pack of goblins alive.”

“Agreed,” she said. “It might get a little messy though, so maybe don't get too close to the ones I'm picking out.”

We all nodded. I had an idea of what might happen when she used this spell and if it worked the way I thought it would I was pretty sure it would get much more than 'a little messy'.

“So, to summarize: Athena, Yume, Selene and I go in under cover of invisibility and cut down whatever we can reach. Alisha rips the breath out of as many as she can. Anna and Melinoe, you need to take care of whatever stragglers are left.”

“I can do you one better,” Melinoe said. "Once we're fully on that plane I can place a barrier around the platform the goblins are on, make sure they can't escape while you guys cut them down.”

“Perfect,” I said, then turned to Anna: “Think you can handle sniping the ones that are left?”

“Definitely,” she said. “Let's do this.”

“Let's,” I said.

**

Yume's invisibility spell was a wonder to experience. For most of my life I'd had my cloak of invisibility and that was it. It was an incredibly useful item, though it came with some pretty severe drawbacks. First of all, it could only be used a few seconds each day and then had to recharge. That limited its usefulness severely. But another issue was that the invisibility it granted was absolute. It had to be, because if the invisibility didn't account for whatever other clothing and weapons you wore it wouldn't be useful. It would just result in you wearing an invisible cloak over your very visible body and gear. As such, it had to be all-encompassing. But that same complete invisibility also meant that it was impossible for your allies to see where you were. Back when it had just been Alisha, Selene and me there had been many situations where invisibility would have been useful but Alisha and Selene not knowing where I was while invisible had ruined any potential gain.

But Yume's invisibility spell didn't have that same limitation and that was solely because Yume's illusion magic was just that good. We were absolutely invisible, except Yume had then also cast another illusion spell that let us and us alone see where the invisible fighters were.

In general, illusion magic was a fascinating branch of magic simply because, fundamentally, illusion magic didn't really work. All magic used mana and while not all people could see mana, the amount of people and creatures who could was large enough that you couldn't rely on facing only those who couldn't see it. And illusion magic was no difference. Whenever Yume cast an illusion spell a light blue haze permeated the area and so if you knew you were facing an illusionist you could get an idea of how they were trying to trick you by looking for the mana they were spreading around the area. In cases like the illusory wall of fire Yume had used to stop the clerics from running her dual affinity had worked to her advantage, as both her illusion magic and her fire magic caused that blue haze to appear, thus making the proposition of running into a magically conjured wall of fire even more dangerous.

But with invisibility this was a legitimate issue. Normally, even if you could not spot the person that had had the invisibility spell cast on them, you could still check for the concentration of mana. But that's where Yume's expertise came in. She was good enough with illusion magic that she could use further illusions to hide away the signs of magic usage, eventually leaving only the barest trickle of light blue haze behind unless she chose to make it visible, like she had done with the wall of fire.

In this case, however, the group of enemies we were sneaking up on consisted of goblins, which were so notoriously bad at spotting mana that even the one goblin shaman would have had a tough time noticing us. But that was alright. I had picked him out as my prey already. Whatever he was doing with that heart, I didn't want him to finish it.

And so I waited until Selene, Yume and Athena were in position. Athena lined herself up so that she could run three goblins through with a single thrust of her spear, Selene prepared herself to swing her blade in a wide arc to hit a group of goblins and Yume had positioned herself to mow down a whole gaggle of the little bastards with a single Qi technique. Compared to that, me gearing up to chop the shaman's head off seemed almost quaint.

I raised a hand up high and began counting down from five. When I reached zero I reached down, grabbed the shaman's face and then used Helios Edge to slice through his little neck.

Immediately after, utter bedlam ensued. A purple barrier snapped into existence near the stairwell leading up from the little landing platform we had stepped out on. Three dozen slashes blasted out from Yume, turning a dozen goblins into minced meat. Selene swung her sword through a wide arc that decapitated half a dozen goblins. Athena ran her spear through three of the goblins and then swung her spear through a wide arc that flung the dead goblins off the plateau and to whatever waited down below, then swung the spear sideways, slicing two more goblins in half.

In a single moment, nearly two dozen goblins had fallen. A moment later a haze of gray-green magic sought out all the ones that were still standing and they started choking. I understood what Alisha had meant before now. This was far more savage than the gentle incapacitation spell she had used before. Their breath was yanked out of their lungs, so forcefully that blood and viscera were coming along for the ride, gathering in small balls above their heads, letting the little shits see exactly what she had taken from them.

A few of the goblins realized that they needed to get away and tried jumping around the barrier Melinoe had placed. Most of them plummeted to their deaths but one actually did jump far enough to clear the gap and reach the other side... except an arrow from Anna took it in the back of the head before it could flee.

From one moment to the next, the only sound that still rang across the landing platform was the retching of goblins and even that soon died down.

“These goblins look off,” Melinoe said as she poked one of the bodies with the tip of her sandaled foot.

“The Black Goat's taint,” I said. “They've been fed the blood-red milk the Holy Maiden produces, which induces changes like these.”

“I would call it vile but compared to what we saw in that temple, goblins with goat legs are still quite tame.”

“True enough,” I said. “But I fear we will find far worse sights than what we saw in that temple before we're done here.”

She nodded.

“So, where do we go next?” I asked Athena.

“Once we're up that stairway we need to head right, then follow the edge for a while until we're close to the first tholos on our list,” she said.

“Which is the first one?” Alisha asked.

“That would be the one belonging to Hestia,” Athena said.

I rolled my eyes.

“You know her?” Alisha asked.

“I know her,” I confirmed. Hestia was... well, come to think of it, she was a lot like Alisha, actually. She was a goddess of hearth and home and so it made sense that she would have at least a little in common with my little homemaker. “I think you might like her,” I told Alisha. “I find her... exasperating.”

“She's not really who I would have wanted to help us in a fight though,” Melinoe said.

“She's not as weak as you would think,” Athena said. “She only rarely gets angry but she can be quite formidable.”

“I think we should move,” I said. “We don't know when someone will come to check on these guards.”

“Agreed,” Selene said.

**

The stairway curved around from the landing platform, wrapped around the solid stone of Mount Olympus, and like the platform it was made of the finest marble. It was matte, not polished, though this was clearly a deliberate choice, not neglect. Even Mount Olympus experienced rainfall and polished marble was hazardously slippery when wet. On a flat surface that was dangerous. On a long, winding stairway it would have been deadly. But even if the marble had been polished, the sky was clear, the stars twinkling over our heads, looking nearly close enough to touch.

We made good time up the stairway and I almost thought we would make it without incident when a group of goblins appeared higher up on the stairs, evidently on their way down to replace the guards we'd slain.

Their disgusting goat eyes went wide and they immediately turned tail and ran.

Selene, Athena, Yume and I chased after them while Alisha and Melinoe flung spells but there were just too many. Anna fired arrows at the stragglers but even still there were too many for us to catch. We couldn't let them escape. They would warn the others and our entire assault would be compromised.

But before any of us could do something stupid and flashy that might give us away anyway a blast of silvery magic shot out of the sky and struck the fleeing goblins. The magic was bizarre. Shimmering metal blades materialized above the goblins, carving through them and twisting impossibly as they sliced again and again.

Only when the goblins were nothing more than cubes of meat on the ground and the blades slowed their onslaught did I understand what I was looking at: Quicksilver. The magical blades had been made of mercury. And there was only one Olympian who used such an odd form of magic. I looked up high into the sky and, sure enough, there he was.

“Hermes,” I said. “I have never been so glad to see you.”