Jack reads through the note again to make sure of the contents and he’s surprised at the sudden reaction of the goblins but not that surprised because of the last interaction Jax and he had. Folding the note Jack walks to the city hall building, the main street of the village is filled with buildings now, the various workshops have expanded and the military production beneath the surface is still going but there’s an increase in other types of buildings selling consumer goods.

More humans have been coming in recently, first was the group of people that Albert brought back that were all lower class slaves, then there was the people from the mining village and after that there were the people from the german named city, unfortunately nearly all the people from these villages are the older people or the younger disowned people, very few healthy young men and women causing concern for where they went.

As Jack walks through the village, he can already see people lining up at the kitchen to gather their food for breakfast, most of them don’t know who he is which he would rather keep that way for now. The people that have newly ‘pledged allegiance’ aren’t wholly loyal while the people that spawn in via the city heart are, it will take a few weeks for the populations to shift to become mostly spawned in people if they don’t accept any newcomers.

He would rather the population recognise him for the actions he took within the german named city nor be easily identified by spies or whoever may be hidden within the ranks, it might be silly to be paranoid about spies at this early stage but this is also the best time to embed someone to rise through the ranks and become vital.

The morning is dreary as clouds hang overhead giving a somewhat depressing feeling to the village but many of the people look content; they have been given a place to stay and food. Most of these people, if they’re kicked out of their village, they will be forced to live off the land and given the demonic invasion that quite a few of them have witnessed. None of them want to spend excessive amounts of time out there if they’re even able to fend for themselves at their advanced age.

It’s not just the older villagers either, as many of the younger children went through horrific experiences when their village was being invaded by either the faceless demons or the rabbits.

Jack stops for a moment to watch the people gather the food from the kitchen, the younger children taken care of but it seems they’ll be needing actual places to house and educate these people soon, being able to educate and train people to fill out the ranks as the village expands and grows will be beneficial as so far they’ve been relying on people’s innate talents but that’s not reliable.

The village stats have a bonus toward spawning in special villagers but that bonus chance has resulted in 3 of them spawning with a Grade above S rank so far, which is far too low given the 20% chance to spawn in someone with a high grade, while there’s nearly 50 being spawned in every day not including the special races from the various city hearts.

Jack moves on from the kitchen area and walks down the street into the workshop area, it’s always busy in the workshop area no matter the hours with forges running, hammering going on and raw goods being passed about.

His vision stops on a large cart stopped by the edge of the road loaded with dead ants, Jack looks in and can see the various colours apart from the yellow ant featured there including a few of the metal ants surprising him but he no longer feels challenged by these ants, briefly touching a few of the ants while the labourers work around him he debates internally whether to store anymore.

“Hey Xueli, do you know anything more about these ants?”

‘These ants? These are just common elemental ants, you have the workers that are the small ones and the soldier that is the metal one, it must be a low level nest because only there’s only metal soldier ants’

“So these ants aren’t that rare? Do you know if they have a single queen or if they’re attached to a larger network?”

‘How am I meant to know that? If you want me to guess it’s probably a single queen trapped here since the heavens barrier came down and it’s only newly setup but these ants can grow quickly’

“Hmm so it might be worthwhile to subjugate the ants sooner rather than later” Jack mumbles to himself as he leaves the area, Xueli doesn’t respond to his mutterings.

Jack passes by a workshop and can see a few of the dwarves hard at work already, wholly focused on their forging work, bringing a smile to his face. He doesn’t stick around and rushes to the city hall building where many people are standing around discussing.

Hilda and Drakon are both standing around the table while Maurice, Tyson and Glomor are speaking in the corner. Amber is serving refreshments between the two groups and has a sultry smile to welcome Jack as she passes him a drink, Jack furrows his brows at this segregation but upon listening to their talks Jack can’t blame them. Glomor is speaking to Maurice about metals and forging while Tyson is speaking up sometimes with his experiences during the Phoenix Empire military, it’s filled with military jargon and strange terms that causes Jack to feel a headache after following for a few moments.

The room goes quiet upon Jack taking a sip of the strange drink but he waves his hand to indicate everyone should continue what they’re doing, Jack walks over to Drakon and Hilda first.

“Lord” they both salute him as they’re overlooking a map of the area which strangely includes outside the heavens barrier, Jack looks and can see to the southeast is a continuation of the endless plains with a few marks that look like large cities while to the northeast the terrain changes into one of nothing but rocky ledges and precipices, narrow trails through canyons and such looking very complicated.

“I take it the incident with the goblins isn’t very serious given that I wasn’t interrupted overnight?” Jack asks.

“Indeed Lord, a group of goblin riders showed up with a letter to deliver to you from Jax an hour before dawn, they were belligerent and wanted to deliver the letter personally to you and ensure that you read it. Tyson handled the incident and will give you a proper report later”

“Ok good, we’ll handle them today so I hope you have prepared for another expedition today, how about all the newly settled in people?”

“Lord, Bane is still processing some but most them have are in the general population, they don’t have strong allegiances as they’re from surrounding villages and only showed up to the destroyed one recently, many with their children who previously took care of them”

“Do we know what was going in that village?”

“The people of the village don’t know, the guards are still being processed but I believe Bane will travel to the village today to look for himself”

“Good, I’ll feel more confident with him at the location in case the owners show up” Jack looks to the little bird, Fia, that has randomly shown up dancing about the room on top of the high cabinets, table and doorway making its presence known as it makes its strange noise. The group in the corner watch it before pausing their conversation to come join in with Hilda and Drakon, Amber is acting as an attendant blending into the background.

“Did you guys enjoy the food last night?” Jack asks the old dwarf with a slight chuckle.

Glomor strokes his beard and responds with a smile, “Sure did but Mr Maurice here showed us his latest works and it’s interesting, working with such legendary materials gets the old ticker racing again, it felt like I was an apprentice working my first forge again with everything going on here but you’ll join us tonight for a feast I hope”

“Umm Sure I will tonight, what about the tunnel system what are we going to do with that?”

“My Lord, DeeYo has offered to lead his people in expeditions down there if the kobolds don’t wish to”

“Doesn’t he wish to help with the running of United Goblin Town?”

“My Lord, You must speak with him for his motivations but I believe he wants to give goblins a role within our village as we expand further” Hilda speaks up.

Jack pauses for a moment to think about this as it will solve a problem of having a force dedicated to exploring the underground before agreeing to speak about this later.

The group speak to Glomor about the tunnels and what they have explored, the dwarves have uncovered at the least 500km of tunnels smoothly bored through the rock just in the direction of the vine blocking the portal, that doesn’t include the tunnels discovered in the direction of the opening they entered via yesterday, the dwarf continues to speak.

“That damn vine has killed far too many of us so if you can help us return home then we’ll be eternally thankful and I don’t doubt that our cities will reward you for your help”

Jack nods and smiles at the dwarf, he still plans on bringing the dwarves under his banner but he won’t deny them the opportunity to go home first, the city of the star dwarves should be filled with countless sci-fi looking equipment. The dwarf speaks a bit more about the dwarves that were killed by the vine and their equipment that has been left to rot, giving Jack increased motivation to work out what to do with the vine.

The group speaks a bit more about the experiences yesterday while Jack shares his experiences matching Drakon’s opinion. The creatures seem weak to Dragon Qi based attacks while feeding off Phoenix Qi. This will be explored more in future but isn’t a high priority as the assumption is that the creatures won’t leave the particular rock type, the conversation then finally moves onto the incident this morning with Tyson speaking out.

Summarising what happened almost exactly as Drakon explained earlier, a group of Goblin Riders appeared by the city wall and were belligerent with the night shift of soldiers posted there demanding to see Jack, when they were told to come back during the daytime they demanded access and a scuffle broke out before the wolves were scared by Fenrir’s howl and the goblins left the letter that Jack is now holding.

Reading it, it’s a crude letter that has a single sentence; ‘The profit wants to speak to u today’

Jack passes the letter around, they each take a read having no reaction to it.

“So I guess we will see whatever this ‘Prophet’ is since he seems to be so interested in me”

“Lord, we have half of the squads prepared to leave while the rest will be left to Tyson to defend here, we don’t foresee any large force appearing out of nowhere but given teleportation, we can’t be neglectful” Drakon speaks and steps forward while Tyson does so too cupping their hands.

The group break up from there, Drakon and Tyson leave for the training grounds where soldiers are gathering, Hilda is left with Amber to handle the internal affairs while Maurice and Glomor continue talking about their metals and usage. Jack is intercepted by a group sent by Bane, they’re the next lot of villagers being sent into a system city which Jack helps them to do before proceeding to the training grounds too.

The soldiers welcome Jack as he rides Sleipner into the training grounds, the enormous horse sticking out among the other newly spawned Lightning Scaled horses. Fenrir has his pack over at the area with the plains rats, they have taken over management of the rats until a king rat is spawned or created that can control them, right now they rats are an uncontrollable horde that can’t be used for much more than target practise.

Jack says a few words to the soldiers before they all set out, a few hundred soldiers leave via the main road along the path to the goblin village before crossing over a bridge that has been built over the ditch that will be the natural water barrier soon. Pausing to watch the water slowly enter the ditch with its splotchy purple globs in it, Jack gets sudden inspiration about using the poisoned water within the tunnels but upon speaking to Drakon about it, it’s rejected because of far too many unknown factors.

The ant area can be seen in the distance but the group march as they’ve been trained, intercepting a few ants on the way and luckily no centipedes.

It’s late morning, the overcast sky causing a gloomy effect as they walk through the partially forested area that leads to the goblin town. The crude wall comes into view but things have changed a lot since the last time he saw them. Last time he didn’t have any skills nor any combat experience, this time he has come back with an army and filled with experiences from the ants, tics and even infiltration now.

Jack and Drakon are leading the soldiers but Drakon signals for them to stop a few hundred metres away from the goblin wall and gate that is closed, Jack furrows his brows as walks forward but a shimmer barrier blocks his way, Jack runs his hand along the barrier and can recognise it.

It’s the city heart barrier that he has broken through a few times, but this would be a feature of a town, the town barrier.

A few goblins are peeking over the gate so Jack speaks out, “I have come invited by Jax, I need to speak with him so send him out”

There’s no reply but listening quietly Jack can hear the goblins disparage him, “No humannz welcome”, “Only good human is dead humanz” and so on.

“Send Jax out now!” Jack yells out, but the goblins laugh loudly.

Letting out a sigh, Jack pulls out the spear forming a fire lotus within his palm as he holds the spear and readies himself to use the third motion of ‘Heavens Piercing Thrust’, the newly developed cracks on the spear shaft glow as it makes contact with the barrier that bends slightly under the pressure of the spear strike, the cracks get worse but a hole develops within the barrier.

Jack pulls the spear back ready to strike again but the little bird, Fia, appears on his shoulder and flies through the tiny little gap made within the barrier surprising everyone present. The goblins are prepared though as they fire arrows at the little bird that is flying quickly, easily dodging the clumsy shots.

Fia, the little bird suddenly redirects and turns into a fireball launching at the few goblins launching arrows toward it burning away their head and causing the top of the gate structure to catch on fire before it returns before Jack stuck within the barrier dancing about in the air. It leaves Jack surprised at what happened, but he doesn’t show it. The top of the gate burns for a few minutes before developing into a fire that fills the sky of the goblin town with smoke.

It doesn’t take much longer for the barrier to come down with some sudden storm clouds gathering and putting out the fire above the gate, the little bird flees from the raining storm clouds that look unnatural, the gate swings open with Jax riding his large wolf while holding a few heads of goblins that are still dripping with blood.

“These are the ones causing problems, they are dealt with now follow me” Jax throws the goblin heads on the ground and turns around, Jack looks at Drakon who gives him a slight nod.

Jack follows Jax through the goblin town while the rest of the soldiers file in too following them, it’s just like a normal town but with compact houses made mostly of wood with some stone. There’s a large well in the centre of town where the village gets all their water while the goblins seem to be to tending to the fields within the village, they silently walk through while the goblins all stare at Jack and the soldiers following him.

“They wait here, inside is only for elites” Jax speaks without stopping, Drakon indicates that he’ll stay behind as Jack follows while keeping an eye out for an ambush or anything.

They pass through an interior wall filled with fancier looking housing that have various precious metals and jewels embedded outside before stopping out the front of a closely guarded doorway that leads into the hill; the well dressed and armed goblins open up the doorway revealing a short tunnel that is dug downward causing Jack to pause for a moment wondering why everything seems to go downward.

“We need to enter through here, Prophet said today is important”

Jax dismounts the wolf and enters the tunnel, Jack quickly dismounts Sleipner and follows the dark-skinned goblin, the tunnel is short about chest high but it’s entirely smooth and well looked after, the brightly lit tunnel goes downward for sometime, Jack wants to ask the goblin why he could regrow his arm after such a short time but their trip is entirely silent.

The tunnel eventually becomes larger as it opens up into a large brightly lit area far underground, Jax is silently lowering his head and muttering things while Jack takes in the sights of this unfamiliar area. There are 8 large pillars arranged in a row while in the middle there is an old mummified goblin sitting on a throne, its eyes are entirely dark while its skin looks devoid of any moisture, like a single push will cause the mummified goblin to break down into dust.

Jax walks forward with his head still lowered, “Great Prophet, I have brought the one you asked me to”. He then proceeds to kneel before the mummified goblin that strangely moves like it’s a puppet as its eyes glow with a bright yellow.

“You have done well Jax, you may leave I need to speak with this young... man” the glowing eyes look over Jack giving him a shiver up his spine, Jax leaves the area leaving the two in private.