Steve held back; a small silver insect-like creature moved from inside his armour up to the side of his ear.

"What was that explosion, there's a bit of a panic over here." asked the small silver drone with the voice of Adil.

"Oh, yeah. I heard it was something called an itherax. They are planting them around the maze."

There was a brief pause as the people on the other end started talking amongst themselves.

"Any idea what it does?"

"I'm not sure. But I think it makes a large explosion" Steve said with sincerity.

There was an exasperated sigh at the other end.

"Thanks, Steve. You've done well."

In the war room, Adil stared into the mist and at the holographic display that hovered above the war-table. The image was focused solely on Steve as the miniaturised drone slithered into his armour. 

"So... Steve..."

"He has done well."

"Yes...yes, yes, yes... But why Steve?"

"He did volunteer and already left with the others before we could do anything."

"That makes sense, yep, Steve. But there was also Griffon, and this is pretty important."

Morganna stepped up

"Darling, Steve has been doing all sorts of wonderful experiments with me. Testing certain compounds, even letting me see what happens when we *cough*. Fiddle with the spawn crystals connection to his essence. I am sure he has a few tricks that will be useful in his new role."

Adil sighed.

"Just tell me these things sooner."

 Adil looked back at the war table and stretched it over to the vast waste now made from the 'Itherax'. A small sandstorm of ash seemed to be picking up, and somehow some life appeared to still exist and even be growing in this strange new habitat.

The land didn't quite look like a waste as animals too large and durable sauntered the expanse. The essence from the animals and plantlife was emanating off them and falling into the land around. Adil looked in a guilty and ambivalent anticipation as he expected the energy to flow towards the spawn crystal. The few surviving creatures appeared to have grown and recovered from their wounds, becoming fearsome creatures with hardened defences. Adil failed to see much if any energy flow into the spawn crystal, raising it to a higher level. Then Adil noticed how some crusading soldiers appeared to have a trail of mana flowing off into crystals they held whilst wandering in from the perimeter of the waste. 

"What the hell!" Adil exclaimed, greedy for his essence.

"Predictable is it not?" Morganna motioned.

"They appear to be using the collected energies to power what are likely other charges of the Itherax."

"Fuck, fuck fuck fuck!" Adil exclaimed and collapsed into his hands. He then spoke through the drone to Steve.

"Get to Griffon and let's see if we can do something about this."

"Right' O leader!" Steve said.

The drone slithered down into his armour, and he noticed a strange robed person was staring at him. Steve was aware she wouldn't have seen the insect from that angle and so stuck his arm out and waved at the robed stranger.

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"Hi!" he said.

The strange person in dark robes did not seem to react to Steve's wave, so he walked away, feeling slightly insulted.

The immense military force was making slow movement through the jungle as they hacked away at branches, trying to clear the vast growing mass of magically growing plant life. Within the ranks of the army, Griffon had disguised himself as another crusader a transponder drone just over his ear.

"We need to you get one of the crystals called an 'itherax'" 

"What do they look like."

"No clue, but if you can get it from one of the soldiers, we might be able to win this without a real fight."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do," 

The drone dissolved into liquid and fell back into his armour out of vision. Griffon moved up next to one of the other soldiers.

Griffon had moved his units into supporting areas of each regiment. Griffon had paced around the area, looking for someone out of the ordinary. Someone that looked like they had something important to plant. He found someone with an unusual crystal he was hiding from view, appearing to take great care of it.

"Just another crusade right mate?" Griffon asked, walking up to the guy.

The soldier replied with a smirk.

"Tell me about it."

"You ever think about what we're doing though?"

"Like what?"

"You know, what if we're not on the right side of this war, these crusades."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nah mate, like really, what if goblins are the good guys?"

"You are clearly off your rocker."

"Alright alright, just messing with you."

"Ok. So, If I came across goblins and I thought they were the good guys, I would probably think I was under some kind of fucking mental magic, and some ass wipes were taking me for a big one."

"Alright mate, I think now you're the one starting to sound crazy."

"Yeah really, and those green rapist shits could be the good guys."

"You know what?" Griffon said, grabbing the guys attention. Then knocked him over the head with the pommel of his sword. 

"That's enough of your headache." 

Griffon, luckily out of view for the time being picked up the stone from the passed out corpse of the soldier and tried to drag his body quickly into a bush. He knew this wasn't going to last long until he was found out now, he had to get out with what he had. A man appeared out of the bushes.

"What do you think you're doing?" 

The man started drawing his sword and approaching when Steve appeared in the bush next to him. Suddenly Steve's voice grew deep, and a soft Portuguese accent came out.

"Palavras de sono sonolento sim dormir por favor" he chanted towards the crusader.

The man's eyes seemed to drop as Steve's spoke, a weary look of anger fading on his face as he succumbed to the mental influence and fell asleep.

Adil staring at the situation exclaimed in the war room.

"He can hypnotise people?" 

"My apprentice progressed far, even unlocking his mana ability through his help."

"What, is not telling the guild leader what you can do, meant to be some sort of tactical advantage where you come from?"

The group looked off-put. "I always thought of Swift as the leader personally,"  Urakle said. He had just respawned and arrived back in the war room.

"What, really?"

"I mean he did sort out all the food and really got the group together. did this inspirational speech and everything, uniting goblins and Human for a common cause."

"When did that happen?"

"When you went off to do all that crafting."

Adil connected a drone to Swift, who had moved further out into the jungle as well, he was steadily making his way thorugh an area further away from the crusade.

"Apparently people think of you as the real guild leader."

"I heard, they might even like me enough not to take a literal shit on my books."

Adil hung up the line and carried on staring through the portal as though nothing was mentioned.

Morganna couldn't help but ask.

"What did he mean?"

"There is no point going over this now."

Griffon and Steve had managed to hide the soldiers in another bush, a few goblins were hiding in a cave and managed to come out and take them through the catacombs back to the rest of their captives. 

Morganna spoke into the crystal to her apprentice.

"Steve, could you allow the crystal to interact with your drone." The image on the war map was not detailed even when focused on little more than one person; it could not give any details about the crystal outside of a soft glow highlighting it could use mana.

The small silver insect moved to the crystal and transformed into a silver goo which enveloped the crystal. She looked into her connection to the spawn crystal in order to analyse the potential Itherax further. 

"This will take me a moment." She explained and walked off as if to get to the research area and speed up its progress.