As an up-and-coming aficionado to the art of punching things, Cira had to ask herself, with what could I build my goblin kingdom so as to withstand the peoples’ ambitions?

He was only a boy, yet he could destroy the ground with a fist full of shadow. Cira could only imagine how hard he would punch once he was fully grown. That wasn’t to mention the shamans and their spells. Ideally there would be no turf wars in the near future, but she would soon be turning over the keys to the kingdom back to the masses.

That’s why she had to make this project count. She had to build a city that would last through time and provide them a way of life worth protecting.

Cira didn’t have a mountain of metal to work with this time around. As always, she could only work with what she had. After much observation though, Cira determined Acher to be made up primarily of hard stone. When she melted it down and allowed that to cool into a pitch-black volcanic rock, it turned nearly as solid as brinstahl. The fact that refining the stone reduced volume but little mass, meant she could clear out large swaths of land within the mountain and use the byproduct to build her city.

Thus began the construction of Stygian Deep, the Capital of Cira’s goblin kingdom. Future Goblin Lord Cira’s founding city. All of the darkness she gathered in her slumber went into filling this space and an entrance was opened to the shadow basin. The onyx was tossed outside to refill, but it would only gather so much by the time she left.

They seemed to like moonlight in moderation, so main streets were lit by such enchantments in the ceiling above or surrounding structures. The city itself was broken up into different districts.

Many preferred a darker darkness, so the residential district ran vertically like a column through the neighboring mountain to Kuja’s and many stayed near the surface where they could even leave to hunt in the evening. Those were the types who liked moonlight most.

For those who wished for nothing but the abyss, the deepest depths of her kingdom were sealed off and filtered through a series of artifacts she constructed to appease their needs. Shadow reactors, she called them, and there were thousands. Like house-sized blocks of stone hollowed out to the maximum degree they could be without losing integrity to form miles of tubes for shadow to filter through.

The further from light darkness became, the more pure in nature it was. This was the concept behind the shadow reactors. Though twenty feet of earth was twenty feet, a clear pathway through a long series of thin tubes formed hundreds of miles of darkness—or distance light would theoretically have to travel.

This was very much an experiment in the laws which governed darkness, and it turned out better than Cira could have ever imagined. There were tons of these reactors in series hosting almost fifty direct pathways just in case one of her friends teleported down here and needed air. Otherwise, they or the residents had to go through a sequence of quarantined elevators if interaction was required from above.

So, darkness in the Stygian Abyss was many times darker than the deepest reaches of Archaeum. Turns out, hundreds of miles of darkness resulted in a focal point of sorts not entirely unlike the dark mana well in the basin above. It formed a black sun that goblins could bathe beneath like lizards.

Cira was tempted to raise Goliaths here, but those were both Kuja’s ancestors and responsibility. The option could be presented if a certain mind-speaking mediator could get through to both parties.

Next, Cira propagated her last Moonberry plum seed and ended up with thousands more. This was actually an opportunity she had been waiting for. It grew lush and full of vigor in Stygian’s lower layers, just above the Abyss, but abyssal agriculture seemed like an option her people could explore later if they stumble upon the inspiration.

Somewhere in the middle of her grand city was designated for entertainment. It took a lot of deliberation and broken speech to come to the conclusion that there was only one form of entertainment the goblins were interested in.

Combat, of course. This resulted in the Shadow Coliseum. Just as she would solidify aether flame, Cira crafted an entire arena complex out of condensed darkness. It was as fun an exercise as it was fruitful, and she thought it the beginning of culture for her little friends.

This also gave her the chance to introduce the concept of law in a simple, easy to understand way.

Both parties must consent to a duel.

A duel is over when one party forfeits or exits the ring.

Killing an opponent is punished with exile. No exceptions.

These three rules were carved into a large stone plaque on either side behind the spectator seats and easily readable from the center of the arena no matter on which end a goblin combatant stood. Cira used sorcerous script which required no degree of literacy to read, and the goblins overall were very excited at the concept of a safe environment to fight each other and resolve disputes.

Many of them stayed there to break the arena in when Cira moved up to finish the city.

Throughout the mountain, she had also worked on making the city a pleasant place to be. That meant turning walls, ceilings, or sometimes carefully placed rocks into artifacts that could perform a slew of operations to grow foliage.

There were many plants which grew in the moonlight, but Cira didn’t have any. Just her plums and leftover seeds or those she didn’t use in Paradise. So, without any catalysts to rely on, her enchanted formations converted darkness into moonlight for efficiency which imbued itself with nature mana. It hurt Cira’s pride to produce something so convoluted, but it also left breadcrumbs for the next greatest goblin artificer to follow and optimize somewhere down the road.

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In sorcerous academia, these were called sequential arrays. They typically used many simplistic steps in sequence rather than synchronicity to achieve a single goal. While they were often characterized by superfluous operations and frivolous mana consumption, there was something to be said about how easily they could be replicated. A novice could pick apart at the array piece by piece until each step was clear to them.

In other words, there was some merit to leaving behind something half-assed for future generations. It was a thoroughly planned lesson that the goblins would only uncover with time, and that’s the story Cira was sticking to.

Planters from the base of the mountain to the top lined the streets and formed communal parks in different places. Some grew flowers, others a variety of berries. She threw in some corn here and there just because she had some on hand, a few hidden melon patches among other fruits and herbs within neighborhoods or otherwise accessible areas.

The best she could do for the abyss was cultivate non-luminescent moss. Something Cira noticed across her travels was that some springs naturally produce moss spores. This was a subject she yearned to research further when some peace and quiet presented itself, but it was the birth of a new technique she could utilize.

Luckily, she still had some unidentified moss from Deep Falls, the waterfall town of Fount Salt. They had already been cleansed of deritium, so she stuck it along the waterway, then enchanted it to oblivion until her river started to get infected with trace amounts of nature mana. Maybe they could enjoy it as a snack now and again, but an empty cave sounded depressing. More practically, anything that produced breathable air as well enhanced the purity of unreached darkness by bringing conditions closer to that of the open sky.

In reality, Cira could already write a book on her “Stygian Endeavors—a Study by the Great Goblin King Cira”, but she had scarce few hours to finish constructing her city.

Outside the abyss, these verdant features were present throughout the sprawling city. In the “so-and-so’s Guide to Practical Geomancy”, it recommended fifteen percent foliage space for highly populated areas, and a healthy 40% minimum for common or unpopulated zones. She bumped this up to twenty and fifty to make sure Stygian Deep’s scenery was never lacking, but depending on what manner of district she built this became tricky. Especially close to the surface where Cira introduced crafts and trade. Most of the population would end up here.

There were goblins who took an interest in carpentry and there were even the fine craftsmen who carved that statue of Cira back in Archaeum. There were a select few goblins who were amazed by the colorful flowers she placed along the way and Cira convinced them to get into gardening. They would tend to the parks and planters on these levels and perhaps even down below one day.

Right up there with corn, flax was practically a weed. One which Cira had even fewer uses for as it produced too low-quality fabric for most robes. But for the goblins, it was perfect. On top of a few agricultural districts by depth, she created a workshop with many sets of hand tools and some rudimentary machines that took multiple goblins on foot-pedals and cranks to spin flax into usable fabric.

While growing food down here would eventually produce something with enough mana to be a decent food source for these goblins, much of the crops they would produce would be either flax or wood to turn into lumber. Not many had to grasp the whole idea, as each locality would work on their own specialty, but it couldn’t go completely unmanaged.

It seemed pretty complicated trying to explain the inner connectivity of Stygian Deep’s commodity production to goblins, but even though most could not speak back to her, they seemed to understand better than she thought. There was at least one who excelled in each field of interest that would help the rest push through, but Cira thought making clothes, blankets, tapestries, or other crafts and the like would be a great next step for her peoples’ civility.

Naturally, Cira had to add a forge. One at the top and one just above the Abyss, in fact. Beings of darkness turned flesh, goblins were remarkably apt in mana application. While only some could cast magic, the shamans, anyone interested could pick up an artificing needle.

So, there were a great many goblins interested in artificing, and each forge was half the size of the coliseum. She showed off the basics, left behind a few inscribed obelisks to be deciphered for years to come, some in hidden areas throughout the mountain, and hoped that her people would make good use of the tools she left behind.

Trade was done with mana crystals as currency. Due to their almost pure constitution of darkness, goblins could actually produce them inherently. It only took time and mana—a direct crystallization of what was important to a goblin’s survival and continuance. Anyone could produce it if they wanted with just some time, then trade it for anything their heart desired, provided it was produced in Stygian Deep.

Now many of the dwellings from top to bottom were unoccupied—her city was large. There were plenty of goblin families who inhabited entire city blocks and her people had more than enough room to grow. Still, she spared no effort in making it comfortable and pleasant. Rivers cut through the city to vary the landscape and further add to the countless vistas, as well as provide water to the numerous plants all over.

It came directly from the spring—fresh and clean as could be.

Beautiful waterfall features brought it from one level to the next and its path basically formed one extensive series of public parks. There were already goblins playing in the stream, but it was only a matter of time until someone appeared.

Ella wanted to be included since the stinky humans denied her entry to their club. Strangely enough, the goblins liked her. They must have thought her and Cira were sisters or something, so Cira decided to give into her demands. She just wanted to be included after all. How bad could it be? It just so happened Cira was hoping for her to appear.

And that was how Ella, the human-form undine girl, became this kingdom’s Goblin Princess. But much to her disappointment, great titles came with great responsibility. She was chosen to spearhead trade between Hangman’s Cove and Stygian deep. It would help to have a familiar face who could communicate with mind alone as support to work with the council when the time came to establish diplomatic relations between species.

“Great… I bet they’re waiting on me.” Cira was well and truly tired. Absolutely ready for bed, but unfortunately, her day was just getting started.

She offered a bittersweet goodbye to the remaining goblins at her side, satisfied that so many had fallen right into their niche. If fate should allow, she would visit them again one day, and Cira hoped the people of Acher would help them along.

With that, Cira looked around the island for a while and eventually found her crew at the docks. According to Prismagora, it was late morning, so she followed a trail of shadows before eventually popping out from under the boardwalk.

“What’s up guys?” She asked, inspecting the ship they all seemed to be waiting on.

“Gah!” Jimbo stumbled over.

“Where the hell have you been?” Half the council shared the sentiment, looking a little irritated.

“At least she made it in time.” James shrugged, “Kieran is all yours to deal with.”

The ship had just moored and began tying off. Cira didn’t sense any strong magical presences coming from inside, but she knew this was going to be a hassle.