The goblin camp was a festering sore on the landscape, a chaotic jumble of scrap-metal hovels and muddy, refuse-choked paths clustered around a sputtering, smoky bonfire. From her perch on the overgrown ridge, Veridia surveyed the squalor with a curl of her lip. The air that drifted up to her was a thick cocktail of odors: the stench of stagnant water, the sour reek of goblin filth, and the acrid, greasy smoke of something unidentifiable being cooked over damp wood.
*Pathetic,* she thought, her internal voice dripping with the casual contempt of a superior being. *They live and breed in their own waste like corpse-rats.* Her eyes, sharp and analytical even in her weakened state, scanned their defenses. Crude watchtowers, cobbled together from rotting wood and scavenged metal, listed precariously to one side. The scattered spike-pits were so obvious a blind mole could have avoided them. It was the work of witless, barely-sentient pests. A direct assault was beneath her, but the gnawing hollowness in her core demanded she assess the… quality of Essence available before committing to such a distasteful act.
A shimmering light coalesced beside her, forming the pristine, insulting shape of her sister. Seraphine's gown of woven starlight seemed to repel the grime of the world, making her look utterly alien in the swampy gloom.
"Oh, a stealth mission! How thrilling," Seraphine chirped, her voice a poison dart of manufactured cheer. "Our princess, reduced to skulking in the muck like a common assassin. Do try not to trip, darling. The ratings can't handle that much second-hand embarrassment."
Veridia's jaw tightened. The mockery, combined with her own simmering disgust, solidified her decision. She had spotted a path leading directly into the camp, a route that seemed almost comically unguarded. A small, cautious part of her, the part that had orchestrated political coups in the Infernal Court, whispered that it might be a trap. But her pride, vast and wounded, roared over the whisper. *A trap? Set by these creatures? It would be like a rat setting a trap for a dragon. The very notion is an insult.* She would not creep and crawl. She would walk their obvious path as a statement, a swift, contemptuous victory that would prove her innate superiority even in rags.
***
She moved with a predator's grace that her filthy appearance belied, a ghost gliding through the twisted trees. The pathetic attempts at traps were an insult to her intelligence. She sidestepped a frayed tripwire with a disdainful flick of her hips and leaped over a poorly concealed pit, a faint smirk touching her lips. Each success swelled her pride, reinforcing the comforting narrative that she was a queen surrounded by insects. They were nothing. She was Vex.
She was ten paces from the camp's edge when her foot found the real trap.
It wasn't a snare for the ankle. The ground beneath her boot gave way with a soft, muddy squelch, depressing a hidden plate. There was no snap, no warning. Just a loud, wet *thwack* as a heavy counterweight was released somewhere in the canopy above. Something erupted from the filth beside the path.
A net, woven from thick, thorny vines and studded with clattering animal bones and sharp shards of rusted metal, did not fall *on* her. It swung up from the ground with brutal, horizontal force, enveloping her in its messy embrace. The impact was a symphony of pain and shock—the thorns tore at her skin while the rusty metal edges sliced at her rags. The net wrapped around her like a fist, cinching tight and hoisting her five feet into the air. The noise was deafening, a cacophony of rattling bone and clanging scrap designed not merely to capture, but to scream an alarm to the entire swamp.
Before Veridia could even begin to process the sheer, unexpected cunning of the trap, the world exploded into motion. Goblins poured from the ground itself, emerging from camouflaged tunnels and hidden pits *behind* her. The unguarded path had been a funnel, and she had walked right into its mouth. They swarmed her hanging form, a chittering tide of sallow-green skin and jagged, yellow teeth. Crude spears and rusted daggers jabbed at her through the net's wide mesh, their points sharp and their intent malicious. She was a pinata of flesh, and they were all too eager to break her open.
***
They cut her down with rough, hacking motions, letting her crash to the muddy ground with a jarring thud. Veridia lashed out, a snarl of pure fury on her lips, but the effort was futile. The curse had drained her completely; her Essence reserves were a barren wasteland. Her struggles were weak, pathetic shoves that the goblins barely seemed to notice as they descended upon her, binding her wrists with coarse, fraying rope that bit into her skin.
The gibbering horde parted, creating a path. A new figure emerged, and Veridia knew at once this was their leader. He was not the hulking brute she might have expected. He was wiry, his movements economical, and his dark, intelligent eyes held a sharp, cruel cunning that was far more unnerving than simple muscle. He circled her, his sneer a masterpiece of dismissive appraisal, his gaze lingering on her as if assessing a prize hog at market. This was Grolnok Gristle-chewer.
Seraphine's voice materialized in her ear, a purr of pure, ecstatic glee. "Well, well! Look at our co-stars! So proactive, so engaging! Lord Kasian, I hope you had your wager on 'overwhelming odds'! This is spectacular television, sister. Truly. Your finest performance yet."
Grolnok's appraisal ended. He grunted, a low sound of satisfaction, and grabbed Veridia's bound arm. His grip was like iron. He dragged her through the jeering crowd towards the center of the camp, a makeshift square of trampled mud surrounded by leering goblins. With a grunt of effort, he hoisted her arm high, displaying her like a hunter showing off a prize kill, forcing her to her knees.
He let out a triumphant, guttural roar.
The entire tribe—dozens and dozens of them—answered with a deafening, unified cheer. It was a wave of victorious, bestial sound that washed over Veridia, a physical force that sealed her humiliation, her capture, her utter defeat. She stared out at the sea of monstrous, triumphant faces, her own contorted in a mask of pure, impotent fury. The show had just gotten interesting.