Lord: Starting from a Goblin Nest

”It seems you’ve never found this before.” Elden studied the expressions on Ron’s group and said slowly, ”I take it your previous interactions with this Ghost Witch were relatively peaceful, never escalating to the point of flipping the table.”

The mechanism wasn’t particularly well-hidden. Though it wasn’t magical and thus didn’t give off a Spiritual Light, anyone who took the time to flip over the coffee table and search would have found it without much trouble.

”The last time we were here, our attempt to flip the table failed,” Sera huffed. ”That ugly thing foresaw we were coming to cause trouble and ran off ahead of time—don’t tell me?”

Ron and the others all understood what she was implying, but they had no way of knowing where Polly had actually hidden. Perhaps she really had fled to her mother’s lair. Or perhaps she never left at all, had no foresight, and simply hid underground after spotting them, tricking them into leaving.

”Ghost Witches truly are deceptive creatures,” Gordon and Shiva said, nodding as they grasped the situation. They were seeing firsthand what the literature described. ”Even in a situation like that, she’d still try to bluff you?”

”What if you had discovered this secret passage? Wouldn’t she have gotten herself trapped inside?”

”If you can think of it, why wouldn’t a Ghost Witch have prepared for it?” Elden shot the two a look. ”Don’t you remember the article by that scholar from Cloud Port? ’The lairs of Ghost Witches are complex and mutable. They are adept at using traps, mechanisms, and illusions to conceal their nests, with what is visible being merely the tip of the iceberg.’”

”’Furthermore, the vast majority of Ghost Witches prepare plenty of escape routes for themselves to avoid being buried alive in their own lairs...’” Elden recited from the text while illuminating the stairs below, preparing to lead the way down. ”I’m sure there’s more than one entrance and exit in here. Alafat is a renowned monster scholar and an old friend of mine. He wouldn’t joke about something like this.”

”I don’t care if he’s joking—are *you* kidding me?!” Aive’s hand shot out, grabbing the Dwarf’s arm. ”You know what could be down there, and you’re going to go down first?!”

”What if there’s another Flesh Golem like that one!”

”In a Ghost Witch’s lair, mental corruption is a far more insidious trap than any physical attack,” Elden said as a faint layer of Protective Magic lit up around him. ”Even Legendary Mages have fallen prey to Ghost Witches, so we must be extra vigilant in that regard. You don’t have a way to protect your mind like I do, do you?”

”You’re the most heavily armed person here. If *you* were influenced by the Ghost Witch, what would the rest of us do?”

”You don’t need to worry about that,” said Ron, who was in the middle of casting Protection from Evil on the others with Silvia. ”Her Hand Armor can resist mental attacks to some extent.”

”Has it been proven in practice?” Elden retorted. ”Or is that just an effect you discovered with Identification Magic?”

”In practice. It protected me from a devil’s temptation,” Aive said, hoisting Elden out of the secret passage and hopping down first herself. ”So you just stay put and follow behind me!”

”You two are Gordon and Shiva, right? Keep an eye on your dean, and don’t let him wander off!”

At Ron’s spell, a faint light began to glow on Aive’s ordinary tower shield, dispelling the underground darkness. Although many in Ron’s party had Dark Vision, he still created a light source out of consideration for Elden and his two students.

The previous attack hadn’t managed to kill any of them. Now that they were prepared, even if Ghost Witch Polly was waiting in ambush with an entire army of Flesh Golems, they felt they stood a chance.

Ron was even looking forward to such a scenario. ’If that happens,’ he thought, ’my special arrows will finally see some use.’

But apparently, while the Ghost Witch’s power was grotesque and bizarre, it shouldn’t be overestimated. As they traveled down the winding tunnel, the most common enemies they encountered were mere swarms of insects and rats. Ron’s group didn’t even have to lift a finger. The local rat swarms submitted at Delaford’s feet and then devoured the insect swarms like a whirlwind.

”SQUEAK...”

Delaford’s pet, Big White, let out a weak squeak, its belly swollen and round. With a flip, it burrowed into the goblin’s clothes. No one knew what these insects ate to grow up, but they were all incredibly nutritious. Big White had truly eaten its fill this time.

As the party descended deeper, they finally discovered what those insect swarms had been feeding on.

”Lizardmen!” Aive suddenly stopped in her tracks, causing Sera to nearly collide with her from behind.

”Enemies?” The barbarian, who had been bored to tears by the trek through the tunnels, instantly came to life. But when she got a clear look at what lay ahead, she couldn’t help but let out a low snarl.

”Dammit, what are those? Are they Kobolds?!”

”And other races, too—they’re all completely dead.” Shiva added, standing on her tiptoes to see past the others.

It was a massive earthen pit, filled with the casually discarded corpses of various creatures. Some were still relatively intact, while most were mangled, some even badly decomposed.

The master of this place clearly had no common sense or inclination to sort their victims. As Ron and the others began to carefully examine the corpses in the pit, they found not only the remains of sapient creatures (or at least semi-sapient ones) but also the bodies of numerous beasts and monsters. Ron himself spotted the rotting corpse of a sub-adult Owl Bear and the skeletons of several wolves.

”This isn’t the only one!” Aive looked around and quickly spotted several similar pits. However, the areas between them were covered in traps and mechanisms. Even with Delaford working at full tilt to disarm them, it would take a significant amount of time.

”These are meant to keep out the living,” Ron remarked, watching the Goblin Hunter disarm the traps. He recognized the familiar design of the magical components. ”It looks like the Flesh Golem from upstairs was ’manufactured’ right here.”

”But doesn’t that seem strange?” Victoria’s brow furrowed. As a Priest, her faith compelled her to offer prayers for the dead, but the sheer scale of the carnage was overwhelming. ”If they’re all stitched together down here, then why did that Golem appear on the surface?”

Victoria had barely finished speaking when a string of vicious laughter echoed through the oppressive silence of the underground world.

”Why? Do you even need to ask? My dear darlings, these little playthings were, of course, prepared just for you!”

”Rise, my servants! Now is the time to prove your loyalty to me. Kill these intruders, every last one!”