Returning to their territory, the goblin army gradually broke apart as members split off to return to their respective homes.

Arriving at the promise, the main family found themselves still sporting a retinue of unshed fighters.

"What's going on, are you lost?" Scratch scratched his head looking around at the strangers loitering in front of the gate.

"They're curious," Second explained, "they haven't seen the Promise before."

"Fine, I guess it's an open tour day. But we'll have them pull out these potatoes too. I think they'll rot if they stay underground any longer."

Second took the lead administering the visitors, while Scratch immediately descended into the dungeon.

-

Over time the dungeon had grown into quite a pathway.

At the back of the half-finished mansion a door led into a cozy and furnished wooden living room. A trapdoor at the back led through a decorated underground hallway, which tapered down towards a large cave opening.

There, a steep staircase downwards delivered the traveler into the wolf den. The ground there being covered with a wooden wooden floor, designed with circular openings onto the rock, for the wolves' bedding and storage. It was slightly cramped and over-populated.

At the back of this space a pulley system moved a platform up and down. From there one could be lowered many stories onto a wide open drip stone cavern. There a series of elevated paths led through the forest of stalagmites, all over the area. Towards the far clay stone walls, or past the large orange furnace and devil altar to where the dungeon was once again exposed to the open air. The foamy sea banks.

This area had undergone some change while they were gone. In accordance with Scratch and Harkness' plan the wood plank path had been expanded into a broad road, following and slightly overhanging the edge of the water. A dockyard on which dinghy's could be moored.

Currently no dinghy's or other vessels where present and the only activity was a from a few young goblins hammering in the last planks of the space.

Barbara was there, keeping an eye on them.

As soon as she noticed Scratch she pulled up her long skirt and rushed towards him. "Ah, you're back. Please tell me everyone made it out okay."

"Of course not everybody made it out okay... but most of us did. You could call it a stand still, but I suppose we achieved what we set out to do."

"Now tell me what the purpose is of this thing," she insisted.

He put a cigarette in his mouth. "I thought you'd realized. After this battle we can't keep a low profile anymore, moving smuggling carts in and out of Eston from the forest will be impossible once they know we live here."

She looked out over the waters. "So then ships..."

"It's a big project, but luckily we had the foresight to start it early," Scratch muttered through his pressed lips, "the thieves' guild already uses ships. I'm sure they have the connections for regular loading and unloading. Now that I think about it... we promised some of the bandits a return to society, perhaps they could be fisherman."

"Former bandits are usually unwilling to associate with the guild," Barbara said, "they are scared about losing their second chance. You'll really lose them, I think that's why Fyro was so hesitant."

"Hhm... only special favors then?"

"Pretty much. Say, how long until we can start using this place."

He thought for a bit. "Not too much longer. After the chaos of battle it'll be a few weeks before the state really clamps down on the situation, so we have time."

"But then you want me to move here?"

"It's up to you where you live, but we'll still be needing your shop at the surface. That's where the smugglers from outside the country will be loading and unloading after all, not to forget goblin products once I can get them to develop their commerce."

"Goblin products?" She seemed amused at the preposterous idea.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, having never lit it. "You do understand what's happening, don't you? I'm giving the smuggling to you. That was my promise, wasn't it? When this becomes the smuggling epicenter you'll be the new Fyro."

She looked at him with big eyes but then regained her posture. "... Yeah, no, I knew that."

"Good. Whenever it's convenient go topside and talk to Stan. We're setting him free."

With the cavern cleared of onlookers the goblin patriarch could safely retreat to his devil altar, where You There was patiently waiting with the child in a vice grip.

The infant was suffering greatly but prevented from screaming by the demon's fist in its toothless mouth.

Scratch raised an eyebrow as he lit his cigarette. "What are you doing?"

"I'm doing as you commanded master. Having concealed the sacrifice I brought it here for your use."

"No. I mean why are you holding it like that?"

You're crueller than I thought, Scratch, the evil god whispered into his mind, even most champions of evil don't leave babes in the hands of demons. They're sadists to the core.

Scratch sighed, blowing the luminescent smoke up to the roof of the tent. "Hand it over."

You There callously tossed the baby into Scratch's arms. "As you command."

Cursing, he fumbled to get a proper hold of it.

As soon as it was released from You There's painful grasp it began to loudly wail.

The high-pitched painful shrieking echo'ed all throughout the caverns.

"Ugh," Scratch complained, "what do I do now?"

Lay her down on the altar.

As soon as he did the infant calmed down and began to stare blankly into space.

"Do you have a ceremonial dagger at hand?" The demon inquired.

"It's not a blood sacrifice," he insisted, "it's an evolution."

It's not evolution, it's metamorphosis.

What's the difference?

This human hatchling is not yet blessed with any god's protection, we can therefore freely change her form. But my powers of evolution can only evolve her into a similar, humanoid creature. I could make her a witch, or an oni, but something like a goblin is just too different. To do that I need your help, it's a devil altar ritual.

"I stole the girl to make it one of us." Scratch summarized to the demon. Now tell me what I need to do.

First off, what sort of subhuman do you want?

I have a choice?

This one has the divinity of a knight, that is the point at which your species begins to diverge. The ogres continue the progression of the hobgoblins, becoming stronger in both body and magic. But there are also trolls, who lose their mana in exchange for a complete focus on physical might. You've met trolls in those deeper caves, they can crush granite with their fists.

I remember, those gorilla creatures. But those are dumb animals.

Goblins in the wild are not usually very sophisticated either. I estimate that she will come out equally strong, no matter which choice you make. The relevant distinction is future generations.

What do you mean?

Once the hatchling becomes a subhuman it will begin to rapidly grow. Soon she will be ready to procreate with captured knights. Her offspring will be of the same branch as herself then.

I don't know if it'll really go that quickly. We're trying to avoid too many encounters like that.

Regardless the time involved, once we get our hands on a baron or adventurer of that level, the offspring that comes from them will diverge in different directions depending on the subhuman parentage.

What on earth are you talking about?

It's a diverging path. A population of ogres may bring forth bogeys and eventually darkspawn, while a population of trolls will bring forth ice trolls, dark trolls, or giant trolls.

Somewhat less creatively named...

Often monster species that have nowhere left to grow begin to attain what we call 'additions' when evolving, instead of becoming a wholly different creature, they gain one added trait. Affinity for a certain element, hybridization with a different species, that sort of thing.

Hhm, well... It's too early for any of that. I think a troll on our side could help us set up diplomatic relations with our neighbors, give me that.

In that case, the process is simple. Smear some of your own blood on her forehead, grind up some bone and...

Cyclophan went through the ceremony. It was indeed rather simple. The most involved part was letting the child stew for six hours on the altar table without it rolling off.

There were only a select number of goblins in the inner circle that Scratch felt comfortable involving fully into the details of the secret kidnapping.

While Cyclophan was enacting his arcane rituals, he went up to confer with them.

"What is this?"

Having come up from the depths, Scratch was greeted by a large bonfire in the middle of the day.

Quiet held out his hand and offered him a potato. It was a roasted jacket potato with salt and no butter. "Potatoes are nice to eat."

The whole village including the guests had come together in an impromptu potato festival.

"I'd thought we'd save some in case the winter catches us with out pants down." He tried to grasp the foodstuff but it was piping hot.

Quiet raised both eyebrows, it was the first he'd heard of anything like that.

"Look," Scratch wiped his hand on his sleeve, "why don't you set a couple apart in the storeroom and I'll talk to the minister of agriculture."

He wordlessly agreed.

-

"No... I had not taken measures to secure rationing," Stanford explained from his seat next to the fire, "had you expected me to?"

"Hrm, you're our farming boss, aren't you?"

"Oh that is true, you had labeled me as such. I'm not much of a quartermaster, you'll have to forgive me! Haha!" The bandit laughed off Scratch's notion of officialism.

Scratch looked around. "Well... it's a party. I suppose if i makes them happy the food isn't wasted."

"Very true."

"Did Mabel talk to you?"

Stanford nodded. "She's not versed on the process either, but she said she'll contact the right people for me."

Scratch plodded himself down next to him. "You've got a marketable skill, you're not violent or unstable. I think you'll fit right in as a normal citizen. Makes me wonder how you became a fugitive in the first place, actually."

Stanford sighed. "Usually it isn't a matter of being desperate or anti-social. Many of us will have just found ourselves on the wrong side."

He said it with such finality that Scratch agreed to drop the subject. "Fine, don't tell me," he stretched his body, "man things'll get harder around here without a healer though."

"But you will have a healer," Stanford protested, "your own boy."

"You don't mean Jasper."

"Ada and Felix are fighters, but Jasper is a carer, he has the aptitude for it."

The goblin tilted his head. "Sure they can do some magic, but-"

"But nothing. The small spells make up the vast majority of the healing practice, look he's doing it again right now."

One of the goblins from the war had burned his hand on the fire and had come crying to the three hobgoblins. Jasper immediately patted his head and fixed the burn like an elder brother.

"I know that one," Scratch commented, "he's three times his age at least."

"The promise is build on a dungeon," Stanford explained, "mana refills quickly. I think you'll have all the healing magic you'll ever need."

"The dungeon... will stay a secret won't it?" The patriarch brought up hesitantly.

He seemed hurt. "Was that a genuine question? What must you think of me?"

"Oh I trust you. I also trust that loose lips don't just step on our toes, but on the guild's as well. Not to mention how they'd invite some unwelcome follow up questions, right?"

Stanford leaned into him. "Consider me properly threatened."

"Nothing personal."

"Of course not."

"Here," Scratch picked up a potato being roasted over the fire on a stick, "the next one is on me."

"Aren't they free?"

"That's because they're all on me."

In the end the atmosphere was too jubilant and chaotic to do any plotting. The next morning Scratch and You There had an extra subhuman on their hands without a proper past or future.

How did it come to this?

A normal life. That was enough for me.

To marry a nice girl. Work on the farm. Maybe raise a kid.

But now...

[Wow! Rank D! Our Rudy is a Rank D adventurer!]

[No! This has to be some sort of mistake!] I plead desperately with the receptionist.

[We. Don't. Make. Mistakes.] She's quite direct isn't she?

[Wear that badge with pride, Rudy. As my future husband you must reach rank C after all. Puyuu~] Lenore....

[Rank D... I don't agree with this at all...] Xandra! The only voice of reason. Please tell them not to make some sort of hero out of me! [When I'm only rank E... I'll definitely catch up to you Rudy. You hear me? I definitely will!] Noooo....

[I don't want to do any more ranking up,] I plead with them, [remember Xandra? We were only doing it for some pocket money for the festival.]

[Puyuu! Don't forget about me!] The cat girl puffs up her cheeks and tail. [You're supposed to marry me Puyuu!]

[Of course, because Lenore is a baroness, she has to marry a level C or higher adventurer.] Xandra helpfully points out.

[I have to marry for my family. Puyuu! But I'm not marrying a stuck up spoiled brat, puyuu! It has to be you Rudy, it has to!] She violently shakes me.

[It's a good thing you want to progress in your adventuring career,] the reception lady says with an ominously impenetrable smile, [we've received a special request for your party. It involves an excursion into a dangerous zone, so it could mean promotion to rank C.]

Promotion to rank C? I'm not even supposed to be rank D!

[It's a request by a local witch, not Reddington nobility, so you are allowed to turn it down,] she explains, [but if you don't do it, nobody will.]

She hands Xandra the details of the assignment. Immediately that childhood friend of mine gives me a determined look.

[No.]

[Puyuuuuu?]

Both girls are looking straight at me.

They're bringing their faces closer and closer.

[No.] If I remain resolute long enough they will have to give up.

Remain... Resolute....

[OK Fine!]

[Yaay!] [Hurrray! Puyuu!]

"Heavens, the poor thing!" Stanford poured over the infant they moment he laid eyes on her.

What had formerly been a captured human child was in the morning presented to the family as a subhuman monster. Her skin had gone a matte gray, and her eyes had gone a beady black. Small horn tips were already showing at the side of the head.

Besides the inhuman mutations she was covered in preventable trauma. Bruises and cuts.

The demon had cheekily claimed that no blame could be assigned to himself. After all, evil was his nature, one could just as soon blame fire for burning or the sun for shining.

This reasoning didn't particular appeal to Scratch, he made him stay around the underground surface to shovel coal just not to have to look at him for a while.

That left him on his own to present the foundling.

He and some of the more prominent denizens of the promise had collected in the central living room of the cliff side manor, the home for the hobgoblins that was almost completely finished by now.

"Left to die." He summarized succinctly. "Oh well, one man's trash..."

"You can't possibly be planning to raise it!" Huckabee protested.

The goblin patriarch showed genuine surprise at this reaction. "Why not?"

"Trolls are strong." Harkness commented, she wasn't as strong of a presence as usual, she had to remain seated due to her large pregnant stomach. "When she grows up, she might be stronger than any of us."

"All the better. We certainly don't complain about the kids being athletes, right Ada? Show them your muscles."

Eager to show off Ada flexed her biceps to the group.

Aimone had his own demurral. "Mannagia, real leader wouldn't allow this," he cursed at Lydia Harkness, "he's building up a collection of monsters."

"Aimone," Scratch looked him straight into the eyes and adopted a serious tone of voice, "are you going to kill this baby?"

The Grienician hesitated, uncrossing his arms at the thought of having to kill such a vulnerable helpless creature. "That's- I'm saying we shouldn't be keeping it."

"So abandon it and have it die more slowly, is that what you mean?"

"Pshaw." He turned his back to them and left the conversation.

"My concern is such..." the bandit leader spoke pointedly to carefully pick her words, "do you know how to raise a child?"

He frowned at her, he didn't need to say it out loud. As foster father to a mass of juvenile goblins he felt he deserved some credit in terms of parental experience.

"Trolls and ogres mature more slowly than goblins," she defended her words, "they're vulnerable for longer."

"I do hope," he lifted the infant onto his hip, now that she was healed, "that I can count on all of you to take a part in this. It takes a village and all that..." He played with the kid's little hands.

"Of course!" She exclaimed.

"Did you think of a name?" Huckabee wanted to know.

"I did not," Scratch retorted, "any suggestions?"

"It is customary to name a foundling after the place where or the person by whom they were found," Stanford suggested. "To allow them to retrace their origin if they ever so wish."

"Right. Because they can't just be told about it." Lydia quipped. "It has to be attached to them wherever they go."

Huckabee crouched down next to Scratch to play with the baby and booped its nose. "You found her abandoned by trolls in a cave... you could call her Trolly or Ca- AH!" The tiny creatures hand clamped down painfully hard on his finger.

"I don't think she likes 'Trolly'." Scratch remarked dryly. "What about you Ada? Do you have an idea?"

"Huh? No. Brick?"

"What?"

"Brick, you know like a brick."

"Were you just looking at a brick while you said that?"

"...Yes."

Scratch sighed. "Let's keep Brick on the back burner until we come up with something better."

"Uh... boss?" Aimone humbly stumbled back into the room to pat Harkness on the shoulder. "That woman has returned."

Lacrima was once again immersed in her kindly grandmother routine.

It raised some logical inconsistencies that the frail old lady she presented herself as could travel so easily through the dark wilderness. She was fine letting such questions hang in the air, it was not her true intention to completely deceive the bandit troupe, but rather intimidate them with her aura of mystery.

"A fine home dears," she croaked, claiming the most comfortable spot in the room, "that warms the old bones. I do so feel the autumn creeping up on us once again."

Ada almost fell out against her, intruding on their home so presumptuously. "What do you-"

"Why don't you and the boys-" her father interrupted her "-go to the remembrance tree and help with the red ribbons, huh?" He had taken her aside and whispered insistently.

He was referring to the tree in the forest that had become a memorial to fallen goblins, after the recent battle adding decorations for every name had become a day-long project for a large goblin troupe.

"I don't want to," she said defiantly, "why can she-"

"I'll go with."

He was just about to pull her along when the witch once again asserted her authority.

"Now now boy, be good and serve us some tea, eh? While I have a talk with your friend here."

He mouthed 'just go' to his daughter and the remaining bandits, he had just enough pull to make them clear the house.

Stanford picked up the troll and Huckabee gently pushed at Aimone's back.

After that only Lacrima and the two leaders of the Promise remained in the room.

-

"I hear you two have been using my steel." The witch began as she sipped the goblin-made tea, it was luke-warm at best.

Scratch sat down next to Harkness, who put her hand on his head. "Over the grapevine?" He remarked.

The bandit leader gave a soothing "Shush" and turned to the other woman, "I trust no obligations have been broken. You commissioned an armored throng. It was established."

Lacrima set the cup down. "You trust wrongly, love. I may have mentioned goblin sizes, but the armor is meant for my own purposes. If you were to lose that equipment in your own battles, I have no further reason to protect you, is that clear?"

Scratch leaned back. "And with protect us, you mean..."

"I do mean protect you. Did you truly think Mac and the Liege approve of this shift in power? Not to mention," she gave a quick side glance to Harkness, "the dark sorcery."

"We can ship the steel armor and weapons to Eston via boat," Harkness pronounced carefully, "we have our own harbor."

"Store them here," Lacrima almost put the cup of cold tea to her lips again but remembered her distaste for it in time, "it is closer to where they should see use. Which reminds me, an adventuring party will be making its way into the witchwood in the coming week."

"We heard about that," Scratch responded, he took Harkness' hand off his scalp and intertwined his and her fingers in-between them, "we had the combined military force of the entire extended family to our disposal and we fled the scene before they arrived."

"I'm here to tell you to leave them alone."

"Well good," he sighed, "not doing anything is always easier than doing something. I don't do thousands of things every day."

"Make a special effort," she demanded coldly, "this group will be escorting my apprentice near the border of your territory. They must not be harassed. No ambushes, no blockades,"

"Yes yes, it's all fine." He waved away her concerns.

"...no errant traps."

"Uh... we'll look into it."

Then Lacrima delved in what had to be the true reason for her visit. These adventurer missions to the witchwood were a semi-common occurrence, she commissioned them twice a year and the goblin civilization was growing much larger than the bandit camp ever was, and she did not want them to interfere, therefore- It was a whole story.

The bandit leader visibly relaxed. The casualness with which Lacrima commanded them told her the witch felt secure in her power. There would be no demonstration of force in their immediate future. At least, as long as they wouldn't do anything to offend her.

"How about you give us some more magic items." Scratch suddenly interrupted her.

Harkness tensed up.

"The last ones were useful but we've just about used them up," he continued, "the stick is good for finding iron, but then we have to hack it out with our little arms. We'd replace the lost steel a lot quicker if you gave us a way to get the iron out of the magnetite. Don't you have any potions for dissolving stone?"

"Darling..." she forcibly smiled, "begging isn't polite you know?" The normally strong knight seemed like a different person trying to play a proper host, a heavily pregnant beleaguered housewife.

He let go of her hand and slumped away from her, as a sort of full-body eye roll.

Lacrima didn't seem that offended at all. "The crushing the magnetite to powder will let you incorporate it into the pig-iron, the dwarves of the underworld often do it that way. Your... cave, does run deep enough to find several pockets, does it not?"

"...yes." It was an open secret that the Promise was build upon a dungeon. Somehow an etiquette had developed around not saying it out loud.

As long as it was a 'secret' nobody had to do morally protest.

"Then the surface veins should suffice, three dozen sets of armor, that is all you need to keep at hand for me."

"Crush the rock to dust, she talks like it's easy." Scratch would later complain.

"What does Lacrima need child-fitted armor for?" Harkness thought at loud, over him.

"How do you do that? A millstone? Big hammers?" The two continued to talk only with themselves and not each other.

"Now I know that that woman runs the orphanage, and as a witch she must be involved in guarding local nature. But Barbara tells us she buys and sells houses for the thieves' guild."

"What about it Bree? Are you gonna grow up big and strong enough to crush stone?"

The troll child giggled as Scratch bounced her up and down his lap. 'Brick' had turned into 'Bree', it was more of a girl's name.

"She wouldn't outfit children with armor, would she... Scratch?"

"Hhm?"

"Do you thin- Ah!"

"Hey!? What is it?"

"The babies are coming."

Harbors

In a select number of locations around the continent, the land near the sea tapers down gradually enough for river deltas to form.

These places will have ports build upon them.

Ports are important trading hubs, for they allow goods to be transported in large quantities by boat.

The largest port in the world belongs to the city state of Grienice, one of the four realms, and is essential for the survival of the city.

Adventuring quest in these towns can often involve protecting ships from aquatic monsters such as steelsharks or tentagrabbers.