It took him mere minutes of pondering to decide on his next spell. Minutes because the magical offerings in the book weren’t exactly vast or extensive, though they were thorough. 

His choice ended up being Burning Hands. It was a spell that lit his hands on fire without harming him and allowed him to use those flames to sear enemies at a close range. The fire could also be extended along any surface he was touching up to a few feet, inflamed if he supplied it with mana or even left burning on a point he’d made contact with for a few minutes. And it even worked on normally non-flammable materials. Ash grinned as he pictured himself with a burning sword in hand, smiting down his foes like a legend of old. 

Of course, he’d much prefer to melt their faces off at range if given the choice, but he wanted to be prepared for it if it came time to rough and tumble. 

The actual process of learning the spell itself proved more difficult than Fire Bolt had been. Far more difficult. The intricate forms into which he needed to manipulate his mana into and the extent to which the formulas and patterns ran demanded a hundred times the concentration from him. 

It was such that he hadn’t even comprehended the whole thing at first. It’d taken breaking it down into parts and trying to work it out piece-meal that he’d finally managed to grasp at what the magical theory was spelling out. 

Even so, the work proved more difficult than he could manage. Ash knew that he’d understood it well enough that he could probably get the spell to cover his hands if he tried to cast it, but he had no guarantee that he would be isolated from the flames and he definitely wouldn’t be able to extend it over any surfaces he touched. It was frustrating but he was nothing if not determined. 

He wouldn’t let himself stumble over a damned tier one spell! If he could be stopped here by a pair of burning hands, how would he possibly be able to manage a spell at the higher tiers that he imagined would undoubtably be many magnitudes more complex? 

He wouldn’t, and so Ash grit his teeth and steeled himself as he dove back into the theory. Or attempted to. The searing head-ache that confounded his thoughts brought him to a grinding stop. It had been throbbing for a while now, and though he’d ignored it at first, it had steadily grown more agonizing until even its slightest throb was enough to snap his concentration. Ash sighed. 

Was it a sign that he needed to rest? 

It was likely, he supposed. He didn’t want to, but he was hardly going to let his desire for magic lead him to ruin. And so, despondently, the young man withdrew from his mindscape and returned to the waking world. The first thing he’d noticed was that Myr and Wixxack had returned from their negotiations. The second was that they, and Soraxx alongside them, were prostrated on the ground, their foreheads kissing the floor. Maxxine was nowhere in sight. 

And the third was that they were no longer alone. 

An elderly goblin was seated across from him, and it was in her direction that everyone seemed to be prostrating. 

Ash gulped. What the hell had happened? Had he done something, somehow whilst meditating? 

Surely not. 

He noted with some measure of relief that the elderly goblin’s posture didn’t seem hostile or aggressive in any way that he could make out. If anything, she looked like she was asleep. Her eyes were shut but her back was straight and her breathing even. She wasn’t even paying him any attention, for some reason, despite having seated herself mere feet across from him. 

Ash decided to take the opportunity to study the woman instead, if only to try and unravel the mystery of whatever was happening. 

His first thought was that she was a really adorable goblin grandma. The kind that he could see baking frog-cakes for her grandkids, or whatever it was that goblins ate. 

Her appearance only further lent to that image. Her hair was a pure silver tied back into a loose bun with several wooden hair-pins inserted seemingly haphazardly. However, a few strands of silver lay at rest across her face having escaped the clutches of her pins, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her face was lined with creases upon creases, and yet what he could see of her posture told him that she was far from infirm with age. 

There was a certain inner strength there obvious even through her rest. 

She was dressed rather mildly compared to some of the displays he’d seen from the other goblins. There were no ostentatious displays on her. Her robes were well-made and multi-layered but bereft of any ornamentation or extravagant embroidery or even bright colour. A necklace of metal styled in some strange spiral design was the only piece of jewellery that he spied on her. 

Her figure radiated no sense of authority or power, and in every way his senses could perceive she seemed little more than a mildly dressed elderly goblin. 

“Are you done staring?” came her soft, mild-mannered voice suddenly, startling Ash from his study of her. Ash looked to her, but her eyes were still shut. 

“I need not my eyes to see you.” she said with an amused lilt to her tone, as if having read his thoughts. “You are an interesting one, I must say. How is it that you came to be here?” 

Ash gulped. Was he... expected to answer? She didn’t think that he could understand them, right? He was just a human. But something told him that this woman wasn’t to be lied to. Hell, if Myr was still prostrating to her, then she definitely wasn’t one to be messed with. 

“I-I wa-” 

“Hohoho, a haughty one, aren’t you? Well, I suppose that all of your kind tend to be so, going by the stories.” 

Ash blinked. Had he said anything... haughty? 

“I do-” he began, only to be interrupted by a cackle from the elderly goblin. 

“And temperamental too!” she declared as she slapped her knee. Ash shot her a confounded look. What the heck was going on? Was she actually senile? 

“Calm yourself. I care not for your existence or goals so long as they are of no threat to my people.” 

Calm? He was as calm as he could possibly be, given the situation. If he were to be any calmer, he’d be no different than the stone he was seated on. 

“Yes, yes. So be it. What are your intentions?” 

Ash checked his tongue. Whatever or whoever she was speaking to, it obviously didn’t involve him. Was this the equivalent of a person walking into a conversation that another was having to someone over one of those small, wireless bluetooth headphones that so many office douchebags seemed to use back home? 

Seemed like it, and so Ash kept quiet as the woman kept rambling on and on, her tone fluctuating between amusement and chiding as she spoke. 

This continued for a few minutes until Ash felt the goblin’s tone suddenly grow grave. 

“Indeed. Old as I am, I suppose that even I am nothing in the face of the years you have lived, but nonetheless, it is I who wields strength here, not you.” And with that, something about the conversation shifted drastically. Ash felt a presence push down onto him like a mountain on his back, pressing him down onto the floor.  

The adorable little goblin before him was suddenly a giant for all that she hadn’t changed size an inch, and her eyes were open. Ash spied rings of silver against a field of black in her bottomless gaze and knew then what his place in the world was. He was a mere mouse stood before a lion, a squirrel against a wolf and a leaf against the storm. He was so small. So inconsequential, a mere grain of sand amongst countless others. 

He pressed his forehead against the stone and didn’t even bother praying to any Gods that were listening for the promise of salvation. It wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it. 

But somehow, he felt the presence lift off his shoulders, and his entire sense of self slowly return. Ash blinked and groggily rose back to a proper seated position. The elderly goblin was seated there still, and she still seemed monstrously powerful in his eyes, and her presence was still very much pressing down on him. 

But it was being resisted. Not by him, but it felt something like an umbrella had opened to cover him from the storm. 

Ash still had no idea what was happening, but he was comforted by the certainty that there was something protecting him at that moment. 

Fortunately, the giant vanished in the blink of an eye and Ash was again seated before an unremarkable elderly goblin. 

“You wish to speak privately now, do you?” grumbled the elder before she snorted. “So be it.” 

Ash sat there in absolute silence, not knowing what was happening or how it involved him, unwilling to so much as twitch a finger until finally, minutes later, the goblin spoke again. 

“Most interesting.” she said to herself as she slowly rose to her feet. “What is your name?” 

… 

… 

Ash stared. 

The goblin sighed. “You, human child. What is your name?” 

Him? He gulped and the thought of feigning a lack of understanding crossed his mind for a scant second before he threw it far away. He had no desire to feel that presence again, no matter what. 

“Ash Pale.” he answered smoothly in their tongue, and he swore he saw Myr flinch where she remained prostrated. 

“Mhm. Yes, you are not what I expected, but you will do.” She turned from him after that cryptic comment, leaving Ash fumbling to try and make any sense of it. For the sake of his sanity, he chose to simply see it as the eccentricity of the elderly. 

“You are the bond-mate of Councillor Cyrillaxxa, are you not Wixxack Myrxxson?” asked the goblin as she strode up to the merchant. 

“You are ancient and wise beyond all words, honoured elder Sylaxxa!” declared the fellow without raising his head. “Yes, I am blessed to be so.” 

“Mhm. She has done well in convincing us to agree to trading with this human. We must remain open to the world beyond our forest, yes?” 

“I believe so as well, honoured elder!” 

“Mhm, and it was you who brought this child here, human Myr?” 

“Yes, great and honoured elder.” answered Myr in the quietest, most subservient voice he’d ever heard her use. 

Sylaxxa cackled amusedly. “You are neither goblin nor of my tribe, human Myr. No need to prostrate yourself so.” 

“Beggin’ your pardon, great and honoured elder Sylaxxa, but even if that be true, there still ain’t no way that I wouldn’t show my respect to someone of your power and strength.” 

“Yes, I suppose so. Well, you have done a good deed this day. You are welcome to return as you please.” she declared and Ash presumed that no one would dare countermand that. “I shall return to the temple, then. Good fortunes on all of you. Especially you, human Ash Pale. I believe that you very well might need it in the days to come.” 

And on that ominous note, the goblin strode right out the door and into a street that he could see from his position on the floor was full of prostrating goblins one and all. 

Ash watched her go; his gaze fixed so firmly on her retreating figure that he hardly noticed Myr looming over him. “Looks like we got some discussin’ to do, Ash.” said the woman in a sickly-sweet voice. 

He gulped. 

◆◆◆◆◆ 

“You want me to believe that you just know how to speak the fair tongue? A tongue that took me years of slowly earnin’ the Everwatch tribe’s trust to learn?” she asked with a snort as they strode through the forest. The rest of their time in the goblin town had been spent discussing matters with an irate Wixxack who’d very irately wanted to know why their most venerable and beloved shaman had deigned to visit his shop, and why she’d been so interested in Ash in the first place. 

He hadn’t been very happy when neither he nor Myr could give him an actual answer. There had been a visit from another parade of goblin authorities after that, each of them asking him the same question, and each growing progressively angrier when he gave them the same answer. At a certain point, Ash had been sure that both he and Myr would have been arrested and kept for questioning but somehow, they’d just been allowed to leave without so much as a hair out of place. 

Ash suspected that the old goblin might have been the reason behind their leniency. 

“Listen, for the millionth time, the answer is yes. I don’t know why. I just can. Hell, I’m doing it right now with you! This isn’t my original language! I hadn’t even known that I could speak it until we first met.” 

She stared at him and then grunted in assent. “Damn, you’re either the most convincin’ liar I’ve ever met or my spells are broken.” 

She was using a spell to tell whether he was lying or not? He wasn’t sure whether that irked him or not. 

“It’s not a lie.” he reiterated.  

“Fine.” Myr agreed. 

“Hey, by the way, how strong was that old goblin, Sylaxxa? Probably a lot if even you were paying her that much respect.” 

Myr chuckled, her irritation forgotten in the wake of his generous assessment of her strength. 

“Kid, as much as I like how much you treat me like I’m the largest boulder on the mountain, truth is that I’m near the bottom when it comes to strength. I’m... just tier two. Have been for years. That goblin you met? She’s tier four. Not the top of the ladder by any means, but nothin’ to sneeze at either. If she were human, the empire would throw a noble title at her before she could even blink.” 

Noting the other tid-bits of new information that the woman had revealed, Ash focused instead on how that veritable mountain of strength and power that had left him feeling so very insignificant had only been tier four. 

“How many tiers are there?” 

“Eight.” answered Myr. 

Ash blinked. That goblin had felt monstrously powerful to him, and she was only half-way to the peak of strength? 

If that was the case, just how powerful were those at the very top? He stared at Myr, the question obvious in his gaze. 

“Only a handful of ‘em in the entire continent, and we’re all the better for that. Takes a special kind of crazy to reach that realm of power and the less of them there are, the safer the world is.” 

“How strong are they?” 

“Strong enough to be emperors and kings. Strong enough to destroy nations and continents if they felt like it. Strong enough that I wouldn’t dream of opposin’ one for all the gold and titles in the whole damn world.” 

Ash digested that revelation as he walked. That sounded... strong. 

Could he be that strong one day? 

It wasn’t a question. He would be so, no matter what. 

“You make any use of that spell-book?” asked Myr a moment later. 

“Yeah. Learnt one spell and learnt half of another.” 

Myr paused in her steps. “You learnt nearly two spells in the hour I was gone?” 

“Yeah.” answered Ash distractedly, his mind still mulling over her revelation of strength. “I also understand how useful ability-slots are now. Jeez, imagine casting spells without them.” he grumbled. 

Myr was also grumbling, though the topic of her irritation was an entirely oblivious human. 

And so, the rest of their journey back continued in a silence mixed with irritation from one end and bafflement from the other until they were again safely ensconced in the warmth of the burrow.