“Tribe welcome you, Human one,” a Goblin said, bowing its head in respect.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Was I supposed to bow back? Tell it to raise its head? Say ‘what’s up?’
In front of me stood around a dozen Goblins, all around half my height and dressed in the barest of tattered clothing, most of it strictly functional, such as little belts with tools and weapons strapped through the loops. One seemed to take the lead, standing in front of the others and speaking for them. Erani and I stood, looking at them, as Ainash stood to their side in the shaded forest, watching them with a look of approval.
“...Hi, everyone,” Erani said, raising a hand in an awkward wave. All of the monsters stared at her. “Um, thanks for your help, and…stuff.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. I’d switched to Light Plate once we were in the privacy of the trees, so I no longer heard the familiar sound of my voice reverberating in Dark Plate’s closed helmet. “Good work, everyone. You’re all some really good shots.”
Erani turned to Ainash. “You taught them? They’re all…very obedient.”
“Yes!” she responded. “One in front is named ‘Koblin.’ I assigned it leader of group, so they do what it says. Have you finished saying hello?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I responded.
“Okay! I will discipline them now.”
“Wait, what? What for?”
As I asked that question, Ainash walked over to the group of Goblins and picked one up by the scruff of its neck. It wailed in fear as she walked back to a clearing where there were some holes dug in the dirt and tossed it in. I counted about a full second and a half before I heard the thing distantly hit the bottom of what was evidently a very deep pit.
“Woblin missed most number of shots during fight. Should be punished for poor accuracy,” Ainash responded calmly, walking back to us.
“Woah, woah!” Erani rushed forward, looking down the hole with wide eyes. “You can’t just throw it down there like that!”
Ainash tilted her head like a dog who’d just heard a new word. “Why not?”
“Do they even know why they’re being punished? I mean, you can’t speak to them, can you? I know you can get some messages across nonverbally, but there’s a point where they won’t even understand what they did wrong.”
“Goblins are smart. Can figure it out.”
Erani turned to look at me with wide eyes.
“...I don’t know if that’s the best way to do things,” I said, agreeing with her. “I mean, if you just punish them all the time for no reason, especially in such a…violent way, they’ll just grow to resent you. Even if they fear you now, they’ll be constantly looking for a time they can kill you, run away, anything to escape. You want loyalty to come from people genuinely respecting you and wanting to do what you say, right?”
Ainash frowned. “Thought I was doing that by rewarding them.”
“It’s not just about rewards, it’s also about punishment. You can’t buy loyalty by saying some nice things while also beating them. You have to let them understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, and they have to believe your reasoning is fair.”
“It’s also just not right to hurt them like that when they’ve done nothing wrong,” Erani said. “Maybe if that one isn’t good at shooting, you could find another job for it.”
Ainash’s frown deepened, and she stood in thought for a moment. Eventually, she simply said, “Having soldiers is hard.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t think I could even get them to follow my commands, much less lead a concentrated strike force. You’re already doing great. Just, y’know, there’s always something you can improve.”
She seemed to lighten up at that, smiling and jogging back over to us and the main group of Goblins. The leader, Koblin, still stood bowed before us. I honestly wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“Oh!” Ainash said, “I have been learning, too! Have been working very, very, very hard on something!”
“What is it?” Erani asked.
“Are you ready? I have to prepare.”
“We’re ready,” Erani said, looking between me and her. “At least, I assume we are?”
“Okay!” Ainash took a deep breath, fiery white eyes narrowing in concentration. She looked at the group of Goblins, raised her hand, opened her mouth, and shouted—aloud—”Kneel!”
At the same time she shouted, she also raised her foot and stomped her heel into the earth in a deep thump. Her voice had a heavy accent, like her mouth was full of cotton, but nevertheless, the moment she uttered it, each of the dozen Goblins instantly fell to one knee. They didn’t quite move as a single unit; they weren’t acting with any sort of coordinated rhythm, instead each one using a different knee, hitting the ground at a different time, bumping into each other and trying to correct themselves as quickly and quietly as possible. But within a couple seconds, they were all on one knee, heads bowed.
I wasn’t spending too much time looking at the Goblins, though. Instead, I stared straight at Ainash.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
“Good gods! You can talk!” Erani exclaimed, a wide smile spread across her face.
“Only learned couple of words,” Ainash said. I could tell she was trying to be modest, but her own excitement was obvious. “Learned them to use them with Goblins! Also know ‘attack,’ ‘stay,’ and ‘stinky.’”
“Did the Goblins teach you the last one?” I asked.
“Yes, do not really know what it means.”
“Well, still,” Erani said, “that’s amazing! Just learning a couple words is the first step to learning them all.”
I nodded. “Yeah, even if you just learned it to get them to, uh, prostrate themselves beneath you.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Will make them get up now. Have another thing for them to show you!”
Ainash grunted, and the Goblins looked up at her. Then she raised her hands, making a few quick motions and expressions, pointing off in the forest and seeming to draw symbols in the air with her fingers. At the end, she stomped her foot on the ground, and the Goblins all scrambled off in the direction she pointed.
“Where are they going?” I asked.
Ainash responded with a word that took me a moment to translate, with me eventually settling on the phrase “spoils of war.” She continued, “Is a surprise what it is specifically, though. Will let you see for yourself!”
“...Uh huh,” I said, unsure if this would be a good thing or a bad thing.
“What were all those gestures you were using?” Erani asked. “Did you teach all of that to the Goblins, too?”
“Yes! Goblins are very good at learning under pressure. Create pressure, and they learn! Teach them lots of things. Like, when stomp foot on ground like this…” She slammed her heel into the dirt. “Means want it done fast!”
“That’s really impressive, that you’ve managed to teach them so much so quickly,” I said.
“Think they are used to learning like that because of Dragon.”
As we spoke, Erani walked over to the hole Ainash had thrown one of the Goblins into earlier, peering down into it. “Is this one going to be okay?”
“Probably will,” Ainash responded. “They normally survive.”
“Uh…” Erani rooted through her pack, eventually pulling out one of the ration bars we kept in supply. She tore off a piece and dropped it into the hole. “I hope it’s not thirsty, I’m not sure how I could get any water to it. Are you sure you want to keep it down there? It would be best to let it go with the rest of the Goblins.”
“You say that I am in charge of Goblins. Am supposed to make decisions and teach them. Will make sure they do not try to kill me and that I am not being mean for no reason, but I think this is best decision for teaching Goblins.”
“Just stay safe,” I said. “The Goblins are your responsibility, but you’re our responsibility. So it’s still our duty to make sure you aren’t going to get yourself hurt. If you can make them useful, that’s great. But don’t risk yourself for that purpose.”
“If do not train Goblins, then will not get stronger, then will not be able to kill bad guys.” Ainash looked away from us. “More important than my life.”
I glanced at Erani, and found her glancing back at me. This had been a sentiment I’d heard Ainash portray in the past, but never this matter-of-fact. I’d thought she had been getting better, learning to live her own life a little more during our time of relative peace. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe she saw this more as a time of preparation than even I did.
In little time, I heard the pitter-patter of feet and turned to see the Goblins returning. In each of their hands was an item. Everything was shiny in some way, but that didn’t mean it was all valuable. I saw the brass handguard of a sword, a scrap of shredded steel, a reflective shard from a mirror, some iron chains, and a bunch of other garbage.
“Goblins have picked out gifts for you!” Ainash said. “Told them that important people were coming, and they needed to give gifts. Here they are!”
They all formed an orderly line in front of us, the one in front proudly holding out its badly bent sword blade.
“Oh…well, thank you,” Erani said. “What is your name?”
“Toblin!” it answered.
“Were these from the Dragon’s hoard?” I asked.
“Mostly, yes,” Ainash responded. “Is ours now, though!”
Toblin the Goblin placed its treasure at our feet, then moved to the side to let the next one through, where it showed off its single eyt coin.
“I don’t know…where we should put all of this,” Erani commented, frowning down at the growing pile of trash at our feet as the Goblins continued to place their gifts into it.
I shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. Can’t hurt to have it, right?”
The line eventually ran to the end, the final Goblin placing down its final item. This one was the leader—its name was Koblin, I tried to remember—and it put down some sort of orb before stepping off to the side.
“Well, thank you everyone,” Erani said once again to the group of Goblins with a friendly wave. Then she turned to Ainash. “They understood that, right? I hope they understand what I’m saying.”
“Think they do,” Ainash said. “Are good at understanding.”
While they spoke, I bent down and examined the orb that last Goblin had placed in the pile. It wasn’t broken or damaged like most of the other stuff we’d received—that was all obviously just random shiny stuff the Goblins had found lying around or looted off of dead adventurers. This seemed to be something else.
“Hey, Erani.” I grabbed it and held it up. “You know what this is?”
“Hm?” She looked at it closer. “Uh, no, I guess not. I just assumed it was some ball from a children’s game, or something.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Feels way too heavy and well-crafted for something like that.”
Ainash overlooked our conversation. “Do not think Goblins know what that is. Just got it from pile.”
I frowned. “Huh. Hey, Index, can you tell me anything?”
“Try pushing Mana into it.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Just do a little bit. Nothing will happen if it isn’t a lot.”
I did as she said, treating the orb as I did the Mana Batteries I charged for the teleportation and sending some of my own Mana into the mechanism.
As soon as I did so, I got a notification.
Beacon is charged with 1/1k Mana.
“Beacon, huh?”
“Is that what it’s called?” Erani asked.
“Yeah. Apparently it needs a thousand Mana to charge to full. After that…Index, can you really not tell me anything? Is it dangerous?”
“Can’t say much. But it isn’t dangerous, no. At least, it’s not dangerous for you to just charge it up like you’re doing now.”
“So then I can just use it to see what it does?”
“That’s not entirely true, either. Once it’s activated, it’s activated. You can’t deactivate it. Well, you can, it’s just that it’ll stay powered off for quite a while afterward. It forms a connection with its activator and with the location it’s activated in, so you don’t want to turn it on haphazardly.”
“...Is this a good location for a ‘connection?’”
There was a pause before Index eventually responded, “Actually, yeah, considering the timing and circumstances. This might be a good place to turn it on.”
I glanced around. “I guess I’ll just do that then.”
“You’re charging it?” Erani asked me.
“Yeah. Index can’t tell me what it’ll do, but it says this isn’t a bad time to use it, so presumably it’ll help us out.”
With the Mana in my storage—plus the regeneration I had available to me—it wasn’t much of a problem to go ahead and charge the Beacon up to full. In fact, with my Mana/Minute having passed 100 by now, I could get back the Mana I spent charging the thing in less than ten minutes. So with little effort, I watched the number soar up to its maximum.
Beacon is active.
The moment I did, the little orb in my fingertips lit aglow, beginning to hover above my hand so it was just below my eye level. The light it emitted didn’t fade away completely, but dimmed enough that it wasn’t too noticeable. Taking a step back, I found that it stayed completely still in the air where I left it, hovering without issue.
The Goblins stared at me, wide-eyed. Considering neither they—nor their ex-overlord the Dragon—had access to Mana, I assumed the orb must have just been collecting dust in their possession. But now it was turned on.
“So,” I said, looking at the device, “what does it actually do?”