The silence on the plateau was a living thing, a predator that stalked the spaces between our heartbeats. The wind was its voice, a low, mournful howl that whipped at my cloak and tore the heat from my body. Before me stood Rakka, the chieftain of the Shivering-Tribe. She was a creature forged in the crucible of this world's casual cruelty, her wiry frame a testament to a life lived on the knife's edge of starvation. But it was her eyes that held my attention. They were not the dull, black beads of the goblins I had known. They were intelligent, calculating, and filled with a fierce, proprietary pride that was as sharp and dangerous as the rusted cleaver at her hip.
She had accepted my healing, a small, calculated offering of trust. Now came the true test. My offer of help was a hook, and now I had to see if she would take the bait, or if she was smart enough to see the line attached.
"You said you can help us," Rakka's voice was a low, gravelly rasp, each word a stone she had to dig from the frozen ground of her throat. "Big words. My brothers have armies. Ufgak has the brutes. Grob has the sneaks. I have… this." She gestured with a flick of her chin at the ten ragged goblins behind her, who stood shivering but resolute, their pathetic spears held at something resembling a defensive posture. "Fifty-three broken things, hiding from the cold. What can a Bigskin and his tall-goblins offer us?"
Her gaze was a physical weight, pinning me. She wasn't asking for charity. She was demanding a value proposition. It was the language of a survivor, the only language I knew for certain she would understand.
I didn't answer immediately. Instead, I turned my head slightly, my gaze falling on Gnar. My War-Chief stood at the head of his squad, a silent, olive-skinned mountain of disciplined violence. He and his four Hobgoblins were a perfect, bristling wall of iron-tipped spears and reinforced shields. They didn't fidget. They didn't shiver. They simply stood, their presence a statement of absolute, unwavering power.
"I offer them what I offered him," I said, my voice quiet but carrying on the wind. I pointed at Gnar. "Three weeks ago, he was like you. A scavenger. A Guttersnipe, hiding in the filth, waiting for a stronger chieftain to kick him for sport. Now, look at him."
Rakka's gaze shifted to Gnar. Her eyes widened, just a fraction, as she took in the sight. This was not a goblin. The posture was too straight, the armor too well-made, the intelligence in his one good eye too keen. She was a leader. She understood power, and the creature standing before her radiated it in a way no goblin she had ever known ever could.
"What… is he?" she breathed, the question a whisper of awe and disbelief.
"He is the future," I said, my voice a low, compelling hum. "He is a Hobgoblin. Stronger, smarter, more disciplined. He is what every goblin can become, if they are shown the path. A path I can provide."
I could see the war in her eyes. The deep, ingrained cynicism of her species warring with the impossible, seductive promise I was laying at her feet. It was too good to be true. And in her world, things that were too good to be true were always a trap.
"You… change them?" she asked, her hand tightening on the hilt of her cleaver. "What magic is this? What is the price?"
"The price is loyalty," I said simply. "The magic is knowledge. I know the rules of this world, Rakka. The secret rules. The ones that allow for… growth." I let the word hang in the air, a seed planted in the barren soil of her desperation. "I can teach your people. I can give them the strength to not just survive, but to conquer. I can give them the deep-meat they need, and the wisdom to use it. I can make every one of your fifty-three broken things into a warrior like him."
I let that impossible promise settle. Her mind, I knew, would be racing, weighing the absurd grandiosity of my claim against the undeniable proof standing just a few feet away.
"Why?" she finally asked, the single word a razor's edge. "Why would you do this for us? What do you gain?"
This was the crux of it. The transactional nature of her world demanded a clear, self-interested motive. Altruism was a weakness, a lie.
"Because my enemy is your enemy," I said, my voice turning to cold, hard iron. "Downriver, there is a city. A goblin city, ruled by a cult that worships a dark god of whispers and rot. They hold hundreds of my people as slaves. They are a cancer, a blight upon this land. I intend to cut them out. To do that, I need an army. I need allies who know this land, who understand the way of the goblin. I need warriors who are not afraid to fight in the dark places."
I leaned forward, my gaze locking onto hers. "I am not offering you a place in my tribe, Rakka. I am offering you a place in my war. I will help you deal with your brothers. I will help you forge your Shivering-Tribe into a clan of Hobgoblin warriors, a force that will make your brothers' armies look like a pack of brawling children. In return, when the time comes, you will march with me. Your clan will be a pillar in the Grotto's new world, and your warriors will be the tip of my spear when we bring the cleansing fire to that swamp-damned city."
The silence that followed was absolute. I had laid all my cards on the table. The ambition, the price, the sheer, breathtaking scale of my plan. I had offered her not just survival, but a chance to be a part of something historic, something that would be sung about in the sagas of this new world.
"You talk a big war, Speaker," she said finally, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "But words are wind. Ufgak has forty brutes. Grob has twenty sneaks. They will crush us before your promises can grow."
"Not if we strike first," I countered. "Not if we strike smart." I took a step closer, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Ufgak is the strength. Grob is the brain. You cannot win a straight fight against Ufgak's numbers. But Grob… Grob is vulnerable. He relies on cunning, on poison, on traps. He expects an attack from his brother's front door. He will never expect an attack from his own shadow."
Her eye narrowed. "What are you saying?"
"I am saying we do not fight a war. We perform a surgical strike. You, me, my Captain, and my five best Hobgoblins. A ghost squad. We slip past their patrols. We infiltrate their camp. And we cut the head off Grob's snake before he even knows we are there. With him gone, his sneaks will scatter. You absorb them. Your tribe is now forty strong. The balance of power shifts. Ufgak will no longer see you as an annoyance to be crushed. He will see you as a rival to be negotiated with. And that," I finished, a cold, hard smile on my face, "is when we truly begin to work."
The plan was a masterpiece of asymmetric warfare, a perfect application of our limited but elite forces. It was a scalpel, designed to cripple the enemy with a single, precise cut.
Rakka stared at me, her mind clearly processing the brutal, elegant logic of the plan. It was a goblin plan, a plan of cunning and backstabbing, but on a scale she had never imagined. But the skepticism, the deep, ingrained distrust, was still there. She needed more. She needed proof.
"Your tall-goblins are strong," she conceded, her gaze flicking to Gnar. "But your magic is just words. Promises. Show me. Show me this… knowledge you speak of."
I had been waiting for this. I held out my hand. "Give me your cleaver."
She hesitated, her hand protectively on the hilt of the rusty, pitted weapon. It was a pathetic piece of scrap iron, but it was hers. It was her only symbol of authority. To give it up was an act of profound trust. After a long, tense moment, she drew the weapon and slapped the flat of the blade into my waiting palm.
I took the cleaver. It was poorly balanced, the edge notched and dull. I held it up, my eyes closed, my Rune Scribe skill activating. I felt for the heart of the weapon, for its faint, almost nonexistent internal structure. It was a mess, a piece of low-quality iron forged without skill or intent. It would not hold a complex rune. But it didn't need to.
I focused my will, drawing on the cool well of my mana. I chose the simplest, most fundamental word in my runic vocabulary. A word of pure, unadulterated function.
[Rune Word: Edge]
[Type: Passive Enhancement]
[Effect: The enchanted edge of a weapon is magically honed and hardened, increasing its base cutting power and durability. Effectiveness is highly dependent on the quality of the base material.]
I placed my thumb on the flat of the blade. The process was not the long, arduous carving I had performed on Elara's axe. This was a simple, direct infusion of will. A blue light, cool and analytical, flared from my thumb, sinking into the iron. The rune appeared on the metal, not as a carving, but as a faint, shimmering etching of pale, blue light, a single, sharp, elegant symbol that seemed to vibrate with a new, hungry purpose. The mana cost was minimal, a small sip from my vast reserves.
The blue light faded, leaving the rune behind, a permanent, ghostly mark on the steel. I held the cleaver out to her, hilt first.
"Try it now," I said quietly.
Rakka took the weapon, her expression a mixture of awe and suspicion. It looked the same. It felt the same. But as her fingers closed around the hilt, she felt it. A subtle, humming energy. A new, eager sharpness that had not been there before.
She turned to a small, gnarled pine tree at the edge of the plateau. Before, her cleaver would have simply bounced off the tough bark, leaving a pathetic, shallow gouge. Now, she swung. It was not a warrior's blow, but the swing was clean, fluid. The blade, wreathed in a faint, almost invisible blue shimmer, struck the tree.
There was no dull thud. There was a sharp, clean shearing sound, like ripping thick canvas. The cleaver bit deep into the wood, sinking a full hand's-breadth into the living tree with a single, effortless blow.
The silence that followed was absolute. Rakka stared at the cleaver, buried in the heart of the pine, then back at me. The last of her skepticism, the last of her doubt, was gone, burned away by the undeniable proof of this small, simple miracle. I had not just given her a promise. I had given her a better tooth.
She wrenched the cleaver from the tree and walked back to me. She did not kneel. She was a chieftain, a queen in her own right. Instead, she held the enchanted weapon out, not in offering, but in a gesture of shared power.
"The We," she said, her voice a low, steady growl, "will join your war."
[System Notification: Formal Alliance Forged!]
[The Shivering-Tribe has been integrated into your Settlement as a Vassal Clan.]
[New Title Acquired: High Chieftain]
[Settlement Population: 90/100]