The words hit my mind like stones thrown through a glass window, shattering the intricate, beautiful latticework of my plan. Twenty of them. A baby. A factory for breaking souls.
The world narrowed to the space behind my eyes, the flickering firelight and the greasy goblin faces fading into an irrelevant blur. My plan, my clever, audacious plan to foment a simple rebellion, felt like a child's drawing of a battle, all stick figures and naive assumptions. I had been planning a prison break. Elara had just informed me I was standing outside a death camp.
The objective function had changed. The equation was no longer a simple matter of (Us + Guttersnipes) > Grul. A new, terrifying variable had been introduced: the psychological state of twenty-one non-combatants. Elara's assessment was chilling in its simplicity. They were broken. Broken people don't run when the cage door opens. They cower. They weep. They become casualties, trampled in the chaos you created to save them.
My grand strategy was worthless if the people we were trying to save died of shock in the first five minutes.
You have to be realistic about these things. And the reality was, I couldn't just give them weapons. I had to give them the will to use them. I had to perform psychological triage on a mass scale, and I had to do it without anyone knowing.
A cold resolve settled over me, pushing back the wave of horror. The plan wasn't dead. It just needed… another layer. A layer of unforgivable, necessary manipulation.
I felt Elara's gaze on me, sharp and questioning. She had delivered her report. She was waiting for my response, for the new plan from the man who was supposed to have all the answers.
"I need to see it," I said, my voice a low murmur, my goblin-illusioned face a mask of scholarly focus. "Your report is clear, Elara. But I need my own assessment. I need to see the layout, the guards, the cage itself. The plan must be perfect. There is no margin for error now."
It was the perfect cover. The Scholar needed more data. It was my nature, the core of my established persona. Elara, the pragmatist, would find it reckless, but she would understand the logic. She gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. She trusted my process, even if she didn't trust my methods.
I turned to Gnar, who was watching me with the rapt attention of a new convert. "The Sky-Chief has shown me a great darkness in this camp," I said, my voice taking on the sonorous, prophetic tone I was beginning to perfect. "A place of deep blasphemy against the Clean Light. I must go there. I must see the depth of Grul's filth, so that I may plan its scouring. Stay here. Pray for strength."
Gnar and his crew bowed their heads in unison, their fear and reverence a palpable force. They would not question the will of the Prophet's Speaker.
I slipped away from the fire, my own heart a frantic drum against my ribs. This was a different kind of infiltration. I wasn't a warrior like Elara, flowing through the darkness. I was a scholar, clumsy and out of place, a creature of the library forced to navigate a minefield. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat, every drunken shout sent a jolt of ice through my veins. I moved with a slow, agonizing caution, my shimmering illusion feeling as thin and fragile as a soap bubble.
I found the hut easily, drawn by the faint, heartbreaking sound of the infant's cry. I circled to the rear, to the hole Elara had carved, a secret door into hell. I peered through.
The scene was exactly as she had described, but seeing it with my own eyes was a different experience. It wasn't just data. It was a tableau of human misery so profound it felt like a physical weight on my soul. The vacant eyes, the skeletal frames, the quiet, defeated slump of their shoulders—it was a systematic erasure of the human spirit. I saw the quiet, meticulous goblin torturer's empty stool and the post where he worked, and I understood. This was not about punishment. This was about production. They were manufacturing despair.
My gaze swept over the captives, my mind a cold, analytical tool once more, but this time it was assessing souls, not stats. I needed to find the anchors, the points of leverage. The mother with the baby, her fear a fierce, protective fire. The man who had been tortured, now a weeping ruin, his anger buried under a mountain of pain. An old woman whose eyes, unlike the others, were not vacant, but filled with a hard, cold, ancient rage. These were my targets.
I slipped through the opening, a goblin-shaped ghost entering a tomb of the living. The prisoners flinched, a wave of terror rippling through them. They saw another monster come to torment them. I ignored their fear. I had no words for them, no reassurances that wouldn't sound like a cruel joke. I had only my will.
I moved to the center of the pen, a point equidistant from my chosen targets, and I knelt in the filth. I closed my eyes, shutting out the horror, and I reached into the deep, cool well of my mana.
Activating Skill: Subtle Influence (Tier 2)
The familiar hum started in my skull, a low thrum of power. This would be costly. My targets were awake, their minds ravaged by trauma but still technically resistant. I would have to be a surgeon.
My first target was the mother. I focused on her, on the fierce, protective energy she radiated. I didn't push hope. Hope was a fragile thing. I pushed a harder, more primal concept. I wrapped it in the image of her child's face, in the sound of its cry.
He will not have her. Fight for your child.
The suggestion was a spark thrown into the tinder of her maternal instinct. I felt a flicker of resistance, then a surge of fierce, defiant energy. It wasn't hope. It was rage. A mother's rage. It would do.
My second target was the broken man, the one whose defiance had been so brutally extinguished. His mind was a wasteland of pain and fear. There was nothing to build on. So I had to give him something new. I reached into his memory, to the fresh, searing agony of the torturer's tools, and I attached a new thought to it, a promise of retribution.
Your pain will be repaid. Every wound, a death.
It was a venomous seed, a promise of vengeance planted in the fertile soil of his trauma. I felt his shattered will begin to coalesce around it, not into strength, but into a sharp, focused point of hatred. He would be a weapon, if only for a moment.
My third target was the old woman. Her mind was a fortress, her will hardened by a lifetime of unknown sorrows. She was not broken, just dormant. She needed not a suggestion, but a key.
The cage has a crack. A storm is coming.
It was a simple, metaphorical nudge. An awakening. I felt her mind stir, the cold embers of her rage glowing with a new, sudden heat. She understood.
The mana drain was immense. I felt my reserves plummet, the hum in my head rising to a painful whine. I had done what I could. I had planted the seeds. Now I had to trust they would grow in the darkness.
I pulled my will back, the connection snapping, leaving me feeling dizzy and hollowed out. I slipped back through the hole in the wall, melting into the night, my own soul feeling a little more stained, a little more compromised than when I had entered.
I found Elara waiting for me in our filthy alcove, a silent, questioning shadow.
"You saw?" she projected, her mental voice flat.
I saw, I sent back, the effort feeling immense. You were right. They're broken. I paused, gathering my strength. But not all of them. There are sparks. We can work with sparks.
She accepted this without question. She didn't need to know how I had seen these sparks, or how I intended to fan them into a flame. She just needed to know the next step in the plan.
The walk back to the Guttersnipes' hovel was a journey through my own personal hell. The shimmering goblin illusion I wore felt less like a disguise and more like a shroud, a constant, draining reminder of the filth I was wading through, both literally and metaphorically. The knowledge of what I had seen in that pen, the quiet, meticulous horror of the Pain-Artist's work, was a cancer in my mind, metastasizing with every step. The plan had changed. It had been forged in the cold calculus of strategy; now it had to be tempered in the hot, righteous fire of extermination.
Elara was a silent shadow beside me. I had given her the barest, most clinical summary of my findings. She did not need the details. She had seen enough in my eyes, felt enough through the strange, empathic static of our bond, to know that the situation had escalated beyond a simple rescue. She was a weapon waiting to be aimed, and she trusted me, the madman, to point her at the right target.
When we slipped back into our stinking alcove, the goblins were waiting. The fire had been fed, the venison was roasting, and a palpable energy filled their small corner of the camp. It was the energy of a congregation waiting for the sermon to begin. They looked at me, their beady eyes filled with a new, hungry light, and I knew the performance had to continue. The Prophet's Speaker had returned, and he had to bring them the word of their new god.
I let the silence stretch, allowing their anticipation to build. I walked to the center of their circle, the firelight casting my shimmering, illusionary form in a grotesque, dancing silhouette. I looked at each of them, from Gnar, the one-eyed leader whose ambition was now a palpable force, to Pip, the runt who now stood a little straighter, his fear overshadowed by a fragile, newfound purpose.
"I have walked in the darkness at the heart of this camp," I began, my voice low, resonant, the clumsy goblin rasp I affected now imbued with a solemn, prophetic gravity. "And the MourningLord has shown me the depth of Grul's blasphemy."
I let the word 'blasphemy' hang in the air. It was a new concept for them, a crime not against the tribe, but against the divine.
"There is a place here," I continued, my voice rising with controlled anger, "a hut of unspeakable filth, where the Clean Light of the Goddess is mocked. Grul and his fat worms do not just steal your meat. They steal the very souls of the Bigskins, breaking them down, turning them into mindless, weeping things. This is the ultimate sin. This is a rot that will consume this entire tribe if it is not scoured from the earth."
I was no longer just a strategist offering a coup. I was a high priest declaring a holy war. I was giving their hatred a divine mandate.
Gnar stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife. "The Bigskin pen," he growgrewled, his one eye burning with a cold fire. "We know it. A place of bad-sky."
"It is more than that," I said, my gaze sweeping over the assembled goblins. "It is a test. The MourningLord has laid this evil before us not to make us despair, but to see if we are worthy of Her strength. She has shown us the path to the big change, the path to becoming Hobgoblin. But that path is not for the weak. It is not for scavengers who hide in the mud. It is for warriors. It is for Her chosen soldiers."
I could see the idea taking root, a powerful, intoxicating fusion of their own ambition and a newfound religious zeal. To become Hobgoblin was no longer just a personal goal; it was a sacred duty.
"The plan I spoke of, the plan to kill Grul, is not enough," I declared, my voice ringing with absolute authority. "A simple assassination will leave us with a camp full of leaderless, panicked goblins who will turn on us the moment the chieftain's body is cold. No. We will not just cut off the head of the snake. We will forge a new head, a stronger head, and we will take the entire body for ourselves."
I pointed a shimmering, illusionary finger at Gnar. "You, Gnar, will be the War-Chief of this holy crusade. You will lead the hunt."
Then I pointed to Pip, the runt, who flinched under my sudden attention. "You, Pip, are small and quick. You will be the Scout of the Hidden Ways, the eyes of our warband."
I swept my arm to encompass the rest of them. "And you," I boomed, "you are the Fangs of the Pack. The first soldiers in the army of the MourningLord."
I had given them titles. I had given them purpose. I had transformed them from a pack of miserable outcasts into a holy war party. They were no longer the Guttersnipes. They were my Gutter-Guard, the first, unlikely paladins of a goddess they had only just met.
"But you are not ready," I said, my voice dropping again, pulling them in. "You are still goblins. Your numbers are small. To face Grul and his Bully Boys, to cleanse this camp of its filth, you must first be reforged. You must walk the path of the big change. And that path begins now."
I paused, letting the weight of my pronouncement settle. The air was thick with their rapt attention.
"We will embark on a Great Hunt," I announced. "A pilgrimage of strength. We will leave this camp, all of us, and we will go into the deep woods. We will hunt the great beasts. We will kill the monsters that lurk in the dark places. We will feast on their deep-meat, and we will grow our numbers until they are worthy of the MourningLord's blessing. We will leave as goblins, and we will return as Hobgoblins, as the rightful inheritors of this tribe."
It was a beautiful, insane lie. I had no idea if they could all achieve the transformation in a single hunt. The Biomass requirement was immense. But I didn't need them all to succeed. I just needed them to believe they could. I needed to get them out of this camp, away from the prying eyes and the constant threat of Grul's guards. I needed to take them to a training ground where I could forge them into a real fighting force, where Elara could teach them the art of the kill, and where I could continue my work of reshaping their minds.
The plan was audacious. It was a logistical nightmare. It meant abandoning our observation post, leaving the human captives to their fate for a little longer, and marching a dozen noisy, incompetent goblins on a forced march through hostile territory. But it was the only way. To win this war, I first had to build my army.
"This is the will of the Goddess," I said, my voice a final, unanswerable declaration. "She demands strong soldiers. She will not suffer the weak to fight Her battles."
Gnar looked at me, his one eye blazing with a fanatical light. The cunning, suspicious scavenger was gone, burned away by the fire of his new faith. In his place stood a War-Chief, ready to lead his people on their first crusade.
"We will not fail the Sky-Chief," he growled, his voice a low rumble of absolute conviction. He turned to his crew, his new soldiers, his Fangs of the Pack. "You heard the Speaker! We hunt! We kill! We grow strong for the Goddess!"
A savage, unified roar answered him. It was the sound of a purpose found, of a destiny accepted.
I looked at Elara, a silent question passing between us. She met my gaze, her expression unreadable, but I saw a flicker of something in her eyes. It was the grim, reluctant admiration of a professional watching a master at work. She understood the madness, the sheer, breathtaking audacity of what I was doing. And she was on board.
I turned back to my new, terrifyingly devoted army. The time for words was over. The time for action was now.
"Prepare to depart," I commanded, my voice ringing with the authority of a prophet, a leader, and a madman who was about to bet the entire world on a single, impossible roll of the dice. "We leave at dawn."