You nod to yourself and stretch your wings. Winglets, you remind yourself. The forest sounds like a good idea.

Taking a few long breaths, you head back into your cave, before exiting it at a run. As you reach the cliff that forms the other side of the path, you snap your winglets open and let them fill with warm, morning air. With nothing in your cave, its not like you need worry about defending it, and Imporne is an odd mix of low level mobs (Like yourself, you think glumly) and high level mini bosses which even in Shards of Akrus' heyday made it somewhat unpopular as a grinding point. Even knowing it will likely take you most of the day to climb back up to the relative safety of your cave, you're pretty sure you wont have to go through overly painful death today. What with how sporadic your memory is right now, you can't be sure, but you think you've never died in a way you've actually enjoyed.

The sunlight feels good on your scales as you slowly make your way to the forest and begin to hunt for signs of activity. From scattered remembrances you think that you know that Goblins like fire, often building one in the middle of their communal cave area, but the skies of clear of smoke. The few clearings you see are devoid of life too as your gliding slowly bleeds altitude. Before you get too far from the mountain, you turn your straight flight in to a curving swoop , covering new ground while still making your inevitable walk back less annoying.

When you're only a few feet above the tops of the trees, you finally hear something other than rustling from beneath the leafy canopy

“GROOKA BAAH!”

That guttural tongue sounded... somewhat familiar. Flaring your winglets, you slow your forward momentum and begin to drift downwards. Now you're listening for them, other sounds drift up to you. A rhythmic banging, muttered words in the same language, and a strange, two tone dee-ooo, so unlike anything else you've heard recently you struggle to place it. When it happens again, as you make landing on a springy branch in the upper reaches of a tree, you finally recognise it. A game error – a public one. The last time you'd heard it had been... a long time ago. Something to do with a maximum party size you think.

You start to slowly make your way downwards, branch to branch, and the scene beneath you becomes clearer, if no less confusing.

A small group of what are unmistakably Goblins labours beneath you. Standing at about three foot tall, their eyes and yours naturally sit at the same height. That is most definitely where the similarities end, however. With their skin ranging from a bright, spring time green to the forbidding shade of a toad and all they way back up to pond scum; their eyes yellowish brown and abnormally large for their faces; their humanoid bodies covered in strips of hide and fur. They are certainly better suited to forest life than you yourself, however, as almost immediately you are spotted. They start pointing up at you and chittering in their odd speech.

“Drakor goon, Drakor!”

They aren't acting particularly aggressive, however, so you feel safe to continue to ground level and examine what they are doing, even if there is a certain language barrier. The goblins cluster around you as you examine what was until recently the centre of their attention.

A large pile of logs, stacked remarkably neatly next to a smaller pile of stones and a third, even smaller pile of what you hope is clay. One gobliness, standing just a little taller than the others and with skin a pleasantly light shade you want to describe as minty, seems to be doing something with a hammer, although you have no idea what. She raises it above her head, before bringing it down with a familiar sounding thwack. As you watch, a small progress bar above her head fills up, increment at a time. When it fills, there is the two tone noise of an error once more and she lets out an explosive curse and hurls the hammer aside.

“KRIEN BAAH GOKYAH-”

She cuts herself off, however, when she turns and finds herself face to face with you. What she probably thinks is a sly smile passes over her face, before she hides it, badly. To your immense surprise, what emerges from her lips is a passable version of... whatever language it is you know.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Red Scale One! You just in time!”

You frown at her. “What for?” you ask in response, managing to avoid the surprise at the noises you make. They don't sound... right.

She bats her eyelashes at you and crosses her arms, pushing her small breasts together. “Clan need...” she seems to struggle for a moment before beckoning you closer. She whispers the last word. “... help.”

You cock your head at her. She uses her new, closer proximity to you and starts to gently push herself into your side. “Me being so very grateful if you fix.”

You can feel an old fire beginning to stir between your legs. The Gobliness pouts full lips at you before slowly licking them.

“What do you need me to do?” you ask, feigning a non committal attitude. The Gobliness leans closer to you once more,*CENSORED* as she points at the pile of materials.

“Me remember making hut-” she begins, and the word fills in a small portion of missing memory for you. Yes, huts, villages. Firepits and walls... you being yourself back to the present as she continues. “-but now no can. Try, get big float, little squiggles, like adventurers do. If press red, go away. If press green, try make hut. But then -”

She turns to rest of the small and says “Krien,” causing them, almost as one, to look at you and say in unison “DEE-OOO”. She continues a moment later, one hand now gently resting between your wings, and almost idly removing a few flakes of muck that you had been unable to reach.

“Dee-oo” she continues, voice soft and sultry and her hand slowly moves down your back towards your flank. “More squiggle. No hut. But Red Scale, you smart, smart like adventurer. Maybe you know squiggle, build hut? Goblins be very-” *CENSORED* you merely nod as she continues “-very... grateful.”

*CENSORED* Once you move fully up to the pile of materials and begin to study it, however, *CENSORED*. Not one hundred percent sure how to proceed, you gently place one of your forelegs against the pile, and are immediately greeted by a pop up window.

“I see something” you whisper to the Gobliness, who smiled at you and speeds up her twisting.

The pop up was relatively simple, all things considered.

Building materials detected. Building: Tribal Hut. Build?

You hit accept, and a progress bar appeared above your head. The Gobliness grinned,*CENSORED*

It was rather distracting, but the progress bar was not filling up. You experimentally pulled back your foreleg and hit it against the wood again, only to see a tiny floating message drift up from the impact point

Non-applicable skill, -80%. No Tools, -50%. Dexterity Penalty, -30%. Total build speed: 7%

but with that, the progress bar above you filled, just a sliver. At the sight, the goblin tribe around you went wild, hooting and hollering, *CENSORED*

*CENSORED*

“You no stop,” *CENSORED*, “I no stop.”

And with that making everything perfectly clear, you began to pound your foreleg into the wood as fast as you could. The same message drifted up with every blow, but slowly the bar above you filled up, *CENSORED*

When the progress bar is nearly three quarters full, *CENSORED*. “Nu-uh. You get more when Hut built. Then, you get-” the chieftainess made several *CENSORED* noises, and laughed when your *CENSORED* twitched in front of her face, before giving a small kiss. “More. More build, more fun, yes?”

You nod eagerly, and keep pounding. By your second strike, *CENSORED*

You enter a kind of meditative rhythm, *CENSORED*, but before you know it, a familiar noise echoes though the forest.

DEE-OOO

You hear the moan of despair and don't bother to turn. The Gobliness barks something at the others before crawling out from under you, not bothering to cover herself again. “Well? What say? Why fail?”

The pop up in front of you is, once again, simple

You have not claimed this land, you cannot build here. To claim land, find a Claimant Crystal

You turn to look at the chieftainess, and bob your head. “You need a 'Claimant Crystal' so that your tribe owns the land before you can build.”

She nods in understanding before looking confused. “What claimant crystal?”

“No idea,” you respond. Before you can continue, the Gobliness' demeanour changes abruptly. She throws her hands in the air and seems to resume her curse rant from before she spotted you without a moments warning. She barks something to the other Goblins, who quickly, if reluctantly,*CENSORED*, and within moments, they vanish into the under brush.

You are left next to the resource pile with nothing but a sliver of knowledge and a *CENSORED*