Odirb dropped to the ground from the portal. It hadn’t been the most precise of transfers, but he hadn’t been dropped from orbit. So that was good. Moving forward, his heavy armor creaking and clanking, he cleared the way for twenty more Daemons as they too shuffled out of the portal and into a short drop.
Once the warriors were on the ground the workers came after. Dozens of Goblins, Orkin, and even a few Aelvin trooped out. The Orkin and Aelvin landed with no issues while the Goblins simply piled out of the portal and landed, without exception, face-first in the dirt.
Glancing around the area, Odirb saw nothing but thick forest and underbrush. The clearing they had entered the area in seemed to be a rather extreme exception as the Daemon could barely see through the thick scrub.
“Spread out and begin clearing the area. Scout everything you can. Set up a defensive perimeter. Carve down these trees and get the Goblins to erect a palisade,” the huge Daemon ordered.
Odirb, even among his kind, was massive. Standing a full two feet taller than any of his Daemon warrior kin, he was nearly twelve feet tall. Massive by any measure for his breed and designation. Middle management had empowered him beyond all reason, he was incomparably powerful to others on his level.
Kicking a Goblin that had wandered too close, the small green creature was flung squealing into the air. “Get to work!” he roared, causing the others to jump into action. He turned to the Daemons in heavy armor behind him. Like he was himself, they were wearing the thick banded Hell Plate Armor, armed with Trion Inc. blades and full Gauss cannons. While meeting the basic requirements of shock troops for the corporation, they were entirely his. A gift from the CEO himself.
Thinking back on that meeting only made his rage spike to dangerous levels.
“Get the fuck to work slaves! Now!” he roared, causing everyone to double their speed.
The Orkin and Goblins withdrew axes from the rings of holding they wore. They were expensive, hardly items fit for slaves, but it increased their efficiency. And efficiency and speed were what Odirb needed. He had very little time to prove that this expedition was going to be profitable, and if it was he had to provide a damn good reason to remain in charge.
So he could find Matthias.
And murder him brutally.
Odirb couldn’t wait. He had to agree to, frankly, ridiculous restrictions to be allowed to pursue the little half-Goblin freak. The CEO had been adamant that should he actually want to pursue Matthias that he would be responsible for purchasing the resources to do so himself. Thankfully he had many, many, many agreements with those both higher and lower than himself to leverage for such resources. Not to mention his bloodline and the Patriarch of his House as well.
On top of that, Odirb had to give up his middle management role. He was now the Senior Director of Expansion for this world, tasked with leading a self-funded arm of Trion Inc. While that should have been horrifying and placed him in enormous debt, the CEO had given him a way out. Should he turn this expedition into a profitable one, and establish a foothold on the world he was being sent to, the one Matthias was on, he would be placed in charge of that world. Failure to succeed, however, would see him sold to the highest bidder along with his assets to pay off the Corporation's investments.
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High risk high reward.
The warriors and slaves he had brought were only the tip of the spear though. He had thousands more waiting for a beachhead to be established. Once it was the real equipment and supplies would be brought through, enough to build a significant outpost on this new world. Once that outpost was in place, resources sent back, and his debts paid off, Odirb would launch a full-scale invasion to conquer the rest of the planet.
He rubbed his massive hands together in anticipation. Right up until a Daemon that was sent to scout the area ran up to him.
“Report. What did you find?” he asked, excited at the prospect of resources or races that he could conquer nearby.
“Um. We’re on an island,” the Daemon said uncertainly. Odirb was about to punch the moron when he continued, “in the sky. I’m not sure how that works. But yeah. Its not very big either. Scrying shows that it's about eight hundred square miles or so of land. A few mountains and lakes. Big ass river on the far side dropping off into the abyss below us. Nothing makes sense here Director.”
Odirbs rage bled away. “A floating island? Are there other islands nearby?”
“Don’t know Director. The scrying wasn’t able to go much further past the borders of the island. Something is stopping it from working properly,” the Daemon said a bit sheepishly. “But we did find decent mithril deposits here. And a fantastical amount of Mana-infused trees.”
Odirb practically began to salivate at those resources. Both were rare, highly valued and could be immediately used or exported.
“Excellent. Send word back that we need equipment and extraction teams. And airships. We need airships,” he ordered. Then he tapped his chin. “What about threats? Any creatures or monsters on this floating island of ours?”
The Daemon shrugged, “No idea Director. There seems to be something in the lake, but we would need a crew to go out and survey it. We did see giant spiders in the forest, and there are large panthers watching us here now. They can turn invisible. Scary for the slaves but hardly a threat to us. Other than that, we need boots on the ground to find out.”
“Makes sense. Get those messages out,” Odirb said, dismissing his smaller cousin. He watched the Daemon run off to complete the tasks he had been given. Good help was hard to find, but he would readily take another Daemon's assistance over one of the salves or a dirty half-breed.
He wrung his hands in anticipation of strangling Matthias. Wandering over to the other Daemons, Odirb checked in with them on any threats nearby. Maybe the Panthers could be first. Their pelts were known to be valuable if gathered correctly, and he didn’t want to kill any of the slaves out of hand. Each was valuable if only within the confines that they provided the labor that he and his warriors didn’t have to.
Once the rest of the expedition arrived a few going missing wouldn’t matter. He grinned ferally. They were only resources, after all, it would hardly be an inconvenience to replace them.
Odirb spoke with the warriors for some time before taking several of them into the treeline. As they passed by the workers, he stopped for a moment to watch them. They had quickly cleared a large circle of underbrush and were, even now, discussing how best to take down some of the nearby trees. Most were of a size he would expect back home a dozen feet in diameter and a hundred feet tall. Others, however, were true monstrosities that seemed a hundred feet wide and so tall he couldn’t see the tops of them.
It wasn’t his problem as long as the work was complete, however, and the palisade built and empowered. As the crew got into position and began hacking at the trees however, a deep howl of rage sounded from within the forest. The panthers, of whom Odirb could see several lounging on the trees, lurched to their feet and charged the work crew.
If all the panthers came to them in response to chopping into some trees, he was going to lose a lot of workers. on the other hand, gathering the pelts and any usable materials from them would be far easier.
He chuckled as he waited for the giant enraged cats to descend on the crew. As they were tearing them to pieces, the massive Daemon led his troops into battle, catching the cats from behind and by surprise. It was a short skirmish, with the work crew being killed to a man and a dozen new pelts being added to the expedition's inventories.
To Odirb it was an easy trade. Now he just had to go find some more. Repeating this tactic seemed to be a good way to draw them in. A profitable way. It cost him a few slaves and was easy to repeat.
Profit was calling, and it was singing his name.