Chapter 259. Dealing with Elves.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do. My minions couldn’t speak with the elves, and it would take me too much time to hoof it down there to negotiate. The system came through a moment later, as it had done with the gnomes.

The Zalbairn Forest Elves have offered to surrender to your forces. This offer has unlocked several options. Please select one of the following.

1. Eradication. Your forces will exterminate the elf settlement completely, netting you a moderate number of resources and gear.

2. Truce. You will impose a truce between your peoples for a set amount of time. During that time, neither faction may participate in hostile activities toward the other.

3. Subjugation. Your faction will take over the elf forest village and you will run it directly. The morale of the elves would be permanently hostile, and you would need to station a sizeable force of warriors here to prevent a future revolution. This option will extract a large portion of the elf economy and convert it into resources for your faction, but the elf economy will be stagnant and grow at a significantly reduced pace.

4. Confederation. You will accept the elves into your faction. They will remain autonomous but will be required to trade and provide mutual defense at your request. Their morale will start as hostile but, depending on your demands and treatment of them, may change over time.

5. Offer Fealty. You will offer your faction as a subservient ally of the elves. Your arena challenge will end, and you will be returned to where you had been summoned from.

Well, offering fealty was out. There was no way I was going to give up now, and I wasn’t sure why the system was even offering it. Maybe there were some people pulled here for the arena challenge that had pressing issues at home and didn’t want the distraction, but even with the extended length of the challenge, not much time would pass back home while we were gone.

Of the other options, I didn’t think that eradication was the best choice. A small bump in resources now was much worse than working out some kind of longer-term deal with the elves. Of the remaining three options, I didn’t want just a truce.

A truce had been fine with the gnomes, as there hadn’t been any hostility with my people before that. The elves had been the aggressors here and deserved to be punished in some way for their actions. If I accepted a temporary truce, it would just give them breathing room to rebuild and attack again.

Of the remaining two choices, I considered subjugation as a sort of punishment for starting the fight. It would give me a small, continuous flow of resources that were important when building up my faction. The downside was that it sounded like I would have to keep a good portion of my army stationed there to prevent them from revolting.

The confederation option seemed to offer the best of both worlds. We could impose trade demands and keep some income flowing, but I wouldn’t have to keep an army on their doorstep. In time, they might even prove to be valuable allies, especially if there was a mutual defense pact. My kobolds could really use some archer backup and that seemed to be the elf warrior’s strength.

You have accepted the Zalbairn Forest Elves into your faction. Do you wish to establish a trade and mutual defense pact at this time? If you choose to delay one or both of these options, the elves will look upon it favorably as it gives them time to recover from the catastrophic losses they took during the conflict with your people.

I wanted to establish trade right away, since I needed resources, but as for defense, maybe waiting would be the best option. From what I could tell, the elves had lost most or all their warriors in the fight, and it would be some time before they could offer any meaningful help if I needed them. Giving them some time to recover, and improving their morale, might be the better option.

You have chosen to establish a trade pact with the Zalbairn Forest Elves. Trade caravans will occasionally leave from your cavern and the elf village, bringing trade goods. Remember, trade routes must be protected, or losses will occur, affecting both resources and morale.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Please note, you currently do not possess a Market Square. Until a Market Square is built, you will not be able to open a trading route with the Zalbairn Forest Elves.

I sort of figured I’d need to finish the market first, though the construction was already underway, and it should be completed before too long. There was also a new tab in my headquarters for confederated factions. I pulled up the elves to see what kind of state they were currently in.

Confederated Factions.

1. Zalbairn Forest Elves.

Population: 21.

Military forces: 0.

Average structure rank: 1.4.

Morale: Moderately Hostile.

It wasn’t much information, but it was good that I could check on them. As soon as they replenished their population a bit, I’d have to see about the mutual defense pact. As it stood now, I’d probably be the one supplying forces to them since it looked like my minions had killed all their military forces.

As an added bonus, I now had vision over the elf village and the fog of war had been removed for the areas they’d already explored. Between my minions’ exploration, and the new elf information, I had a better picture of what the land looked like around us.

The elf village was in the center of the forest to the west of my kobold empire. The elves had explored further to the west, stopping at the edge of the forest where I found plains and rolling hills in the distance.

To the north of the elves, the forest continued, but they hadn’t explored all that far. Most of their focus had been to reach the edge of the forest to the west, and to where they ran into my people in the east. To the south of the elf village, the forest soon opened into a large clearing exposing a rather peculiar structure I had to investigate.

It was a log fort or small walled settlement of some kind. The elves had never made contact, and since there were no elves in the area currently, I couldn’t see exactly who was in charge there. For some reason, the elves had left them alone and not gone any further south. They instead had chosen to attack my people.

I didn’t have much information on the lands to the east of the mountains, or to the north, but first, I wanted to explore the strange building. It was too bad the system had instituted a simple interface to deal with the other factions, I’d have loved to question the elves about what they’d found, but it appeared that direct communication between our people outside of the system headquarters interface wasn’t possible.

The log fort had been enough to keep the elves away, and I needed to get eyes on it and determine if it was going to be a threat. I sent my minions toward the fort, leaving the elf village to its own devices. Supposedly, the elves were part of my empire now, and I didn’t need to keep my forces there to babysit. So far, my minions had proven to be the toughest kids on the block. Hopefully whatever was at the fort wouldn’t change that dynamic.

Your Market Square has been completed. Trade between your people and trade partners will now commence. The number of trade routes a market can support is limited to 2 with an additional route opening with every rank of the market.

Looking at my map, I could see a thin, green line connecting my kobold cavern with the elf village. It must have been the path the trade caravans would take. For now, there was nothing moving on the path, but I hadn’t forgotten that I needed to defend the trade route. I’m sure the system would spawn some highwaymen or monsters along the path if I didn’t do anything.

With my population increasing from the upgraded farms and housing complexes, I now had a total of three squads with five kobold warriors each. One, the squad that had been chased off by the elves, was down to a single kobold, but the replacements were already growing in the odd, dark-colored eggs.

Of my remaining two kobold squads, one was defending my cavern and would stay on that task. I placed the final, full-strength squad, on a patrol of the trade route to the elf village. A system prompt appeared as soon as I’d assigned the troops.

The trade route is now protected. The level of protection is considered Poor. Add additional troops or upgrade the existing troops to better protect the trade route. Threats may appear when a trade route is improperly protected.

It was all I could do for now; I’d just have to count on my minions dealing with any threats to trade that might pop up. Whenever I got another squad of kobold warriors, I’d assign them to help defend the trade route, but for now, I’d just have to rely on the single squad.

At least the squad might improve as the upgrades to my barracks and the crafting stations were complete. I had to check them out, as well as the new market square. Before I dug into that, I noticed on the headquarters map that a trade caravan had left the elf village.

It wasn’t much of a trade caravan, just a few elves with oversized packs on their backs. My kobold escorts were already leaving the cavern and would reach the slow-moving elves before too long. Trade had started, and I was curious to see what would happen when the elves reached my market.

At the back of my cavern, I heard a rumbling sound that drew my attention.

Your faction is under attack by an unknown force. Organize your defenses.