"Linel? Where have you been man?" A few of the regular layabouts in the guild hall saw fit to pause their card game just to stare at the haggard guildmaster.

"As you were," he muttered.

After an unannounced disappearance under the cover of night, that had left the guild rudderless in crisis time. Yesterday he had made his return, three days after setting out. He had looked like a beaten dog then, and he looked like a beaten dog now. Not the best image for a new guildmaster that had yet to earn their trust.

But in his office stood waiting an audience that he could afford to disappoint even less.

The Liege's twin enforcers. Brother and sister, aligned as much in their fashion as possible, even both wearing a single dangling earring in their left ear, but still easily differentiated by their gender.

"You've taken steps you were not ordered to take."

"Acted out on your own accord."

"And failed."

He leaned against his doorpost. "Can we not do this now? I've squeezed my mana twice yesterday, I had to drink a potion."

A ghostly white hand appeared on his throat. He grasped at it, but his hands couldn't touch it. It choked him and pulled him down until he fell to his knees, then it disappeared.

It was one of the enforcers casting some unknown magic.

"How dare you use dark sorcery in my-"

The other kicked him in the ribs. "How dare *you* still breathe after what you did?"

"Our sources tell us you were proudly invoking the name of your master during your attack." The first said.

"Just now? How could you possibly know that?"

He got kicked again.

"We'll be the ones asking questions."

"You have revealed our ambitions to a rival family," the brother said.

"turning a simple operation into a drawn-out, bloody conflict," the sister said.

Neither of which were questions.

"There would have been other opportunities to kill the goblin masters, but after today, my sister and I will no longer have safe passage into their home."

"Have you the trust of the elves at least?"

Linel rubbed his throat. "Yeah... the elves trust me. Eventually they'll allow me into their village, I just need a little more time..."

"Good. That buys you your life."

"But we're not leaving without giving you a small reminder of why you serve our Liege."

The man ripped off Linel's protective gear and pulled open his vest, exposing his bare chest.

The woman put her hand on it. And after half a second of nothing it began to sizzle.

"Nghaaah!" Linel dug his nails into his thighs from the pain.

"Be silent." The man said.

The skin and flesh under the burning hand began to bubble and pop. When the dark sorceress removed her hand it had left an imprint of violated flesh.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

The two enforcers left without any further care, leaving Linel gasping and sputtering on the floor.

-

"Linel! You're back."

Mildred appeared in his office while he was still on the floor feeling sorry for himself.

"We received a bird. The goblin army started a push back last night while you were gone, they- are you hurt?"

He buttoned up his vest. "Yes, no, just... what is it?"

"By the time we set new quest targets the throngs will have already overrun our bases. Most of our members are hobbyists, they've stopped taking missions and are leaving the area. Half of the elven archers have been captured or killed as well. I think we... lost."

"Lost?"

"It became a war and we... lost it."

*BAM*

Linel had punched the wall.

"H-hey!" She yelled at the property damage.

"Tell Harkness we surrender."

She looked at him.

"Captain Harkness. I'm putting guild resources under the control of the knighthood."

"Tell him yourself," she said, "I'm not your secretary."

The outer territories were retaken with barely any resistance. And the broodmothers that had fled with their lives were able to return. But not all of them had survived the initial invasion and several goblin nests were left without mothers.

When Lydia Harkness took control of the small forts the guild had placed in their forest, they lacked the adults to actually manage them.

She took one of her sons aside to discuss it with him. "I want to leave it to a nest of goblins." She said to Jasper.

"Just goblins?"

"Do you know any?"

He looked at the horde of green children running around and chasing each other. Now that there was nothing else left to do, they had dropped their weapons and started playing. "If it's new kids, they won't know what to do. If it's old goblins, they'll want to snatch up women from the farms."

She nodded. "That's what I was afraid of."

"And..." he scratched his head, "you know there's no stone or mill or farm here. So they can't buy stuff."

"We'd have to supply them. Like an actual fort. We don't know if we have that budget."

"But also, we don't have enough money" Jasper said, not knowing the word 'budget', "almost all gold belongs to the broodmothers. We're not allowed to spend it, only invest it."

"What's the difference?"

Jasper closed up. He didn't really know what he was talking about, he was just repeating phrases.

"It seems a waste. Not using a fortress when we're at the cusp of war. But I suppose when you're small. War is waged differently."

Jasper peered over her shoulder, where Felix had joined the game of make-believe the goblins were playing by pretending to be the bard. "I'm playing my magic song, you all have to lie down."

Bree was there punching him in slow motion, but the game sort of ignored her input.

"You can go play." His mother said.

He ran off to join them. "Underground bird attack! Flapflapflap!"

"Noooo! All my powers are taken away! Aaaaah!"

-

"It is as I said, is it not?" The demon grinned at her from below, "you can take the land, but you cannot keep it."

"We just need more women." She said. "More bandits from the continent."

"Such things are in the future, at present time we must defend against retaliation. Fortunately, I am here to advise."

She stubbornly refused to look at him. "What? Then."

"The art of war is the art of deception. We are weak, so we must look strong. Only fully staff the prisoner camp, but set a guard and light a fire at every other base as well, when the humans come to reclaim their prisoners, they must fear our defenses."

She crossed her arms in annoyance. "A skeleton crew in each fort? If they test even a single one..."

"They won't test it. Not while you have the lives of their precious youths in your hand."

"Are you certain?"

"Trust a demon of temptation to know the human mind."

He reached for her thigh, but she kicked him. "Don't touch me. Once this is over you will still answer for what you've done." She looked out over the forest, where a plume of smoke was already forming. "If it works out."

Goblins do not send out their own messengers to ask for peace negotiation.

Humans have the annoying tendency to kill goblins and other subhumans on sight.

So the only way to notify the guildmaster was by releasing one of the young adventurers that had defended the bases and letting him return with a message.

"Fifty-eight lives can be spared. Let today be the day that the borders are drawn. Suspend all attacks into our homeland, and your children will be returned to you."

It was a short message, because it was not written down but memorized. Not one, but three young adventurers were released with orders to relay the message.

It had been another scheme by Youthere. The released boys were originally from nearby farmsteads, and would likely visit their families before hiking on to Eston. With the words clearly on their mind they'd spread them around.

This made the higher-ups less able to deny the proposition.

Sacrificing fifty-eight prisoners for the sake of an unprofitable extermination was contentious at the best of time. But now it couldn't even be dressed up in rhetoric and mythology.

Even if they smelled weakness in the generosity of Lydia's proposal, their hands would be tied.

-

But Eston made them wait.

Five days they camped out in the camps.

Five days they had to feed, warm, and bathe not just hundreds of goblins, but prisoners too.

The elves had to be separated from the main glut. They were livid beyond reason at the very evident destruction of their home.

On the third day Scratch joined the camp and had the hobgoblins turn back, to police the colonies and oversee the Promise, alongside half the army.

"If we aren't going to have a defensible army, we might as well have a cheap one." He said.

The prisoners were now made to clean and repair their camp. There was grumbling, but most were glad to have the exercise, Harkness had made them sit still in the indoor area.

Only after the fifth day did word come that the guildmaster wanted to negotiate.

A trail of smoke alerted the scouts of a campfire, and at that campfire sat Linel.

-

Scratch arrived at the campfire alone.

He had been part of peace negotiations many times, but only once in this world, and that had been with a knight. It had involved a tent, some pomp and some ceremony.

But it was clear why Linel did not want to involve anybody else from the guild, "we're gonna talk about this 'Liege' business." Scratch said.

"You wait until your master is here." Linel responded.

"Nobody else is coming, and those two can show themselves as well."

The twins appeared much closer than he had expected, the mud around the fire bubbled up into man-high pillars and birthed two dark sorcerers.

"What do you mean, nobody else is coming?" The sister said.

"Lydia Harkness must speak to us."

"Yeah. See..." Scratch lit a blue grass cigar in the cinders, "...we didn't want to make it too easy on ya. Or you might think your underworld hit is more important than your legit gig. So tonight Lydia and Lacrima are our designated survivors, you can't snuff out the whole Promise in one go, sorry."

Linel didn't look mad, just tired, "do you know who the Liege is?"

Scratch smiled. "Tall guy? White face? Horns maybe?"

"Watch your tongue, goblin," the sorceress hissed, "none know the face of our master but us."

"The thieves' guild isn't run by monsters," Linel said, "the Liege is a man, and you'd know if I were lieing."

Cyclophan did confirm that Linel spoke the truth, or that he thought he did in any case.

"Eston's guild only exists with the consent of the Liege," the sorcerer insisted, "all thieves' guilds do. That consent can be withdrawn at any time."

"To get to the point, I'm not here to snuff everybody out in one go." Linel sighed. "We humans care about the lives of our people, so I will give in.

Your evil god can verify these words: we will no longer use Adventurer Quests to attack the Promise. That is, if you return the prisoners to me."

Cyclophan verified the truthfulness of the promise, but did make note of the specificity of the wording."

"Ah, but you'll use other methods then."

"Do we have a deal or not?"

"We do, but..." he eyed the dark sorcerers, "I won't be able to fulfill my end of the bargain if get hurt. You realize that."

"You have safe passage." The sorceress grunted, extinguishing the dark flame she had been playing with threateningly.

That concluded the negotiation, yet Scratch didn't show any intention of leaving. "What do you want the dungeon for anyway?"

"We are commanded to seize all powerful magic for our Liege," the brother said.

"There is nothing more powerful than a dungeon," the sister said, "it *will* belong to us."

"Fuck. No room for compromise there then."

"Fuck indeed."

"How many elven archers are in Eston right now?"

"A few."

"But not many?"

"You have promised to return all captured elves to us."

Scratch nodded. "Yes, but not with their weapons."

"Well," Linel chuckled, "I can not be held accountable if they re-make their enchanted bows."

This indicated to Scratch that he did not yet know about the destroyed village.

The sorceress suck out her hand and the hand print under the guildmaster's vest began to glow, he screamed and doubled over in pain.

"Return to your pathetic army," she said to Scratch, "release his pathetic comrades, but do not consider yourself safe."

"The shards of the second segment will belong to us, sooner or later." The brother said.

"Now go!"

Not wanting to try them any further, but with as much dignity as he could, Scratch retreated out of sight and returned to the camp.

"Bastards. So they couldn't even promise not to keep killing us." Lydia complained.

"The adventurers' guild is on the hook for the hostages, but the thieves' guild isn't." Scratch said sagely, "we can be happy we took even just this one avenue away."

"But how can we-"

"We'll be handling this like the business dispute it is."

It was clear that Scratch had a plan, but it'd have to wait. The whole day they were pre-occupied with the various movements of various people.

The hostages had to be released in shifts.

All together they were an army unto themselves and it wasn't out of the question that they'd pick up weapons somewhere and turn straight around, so they were let go spread out over the forest where they could meander their way into the human farmsteads in groups of fifteen to twenty at a time.

Most of the goblin army had home colonies to return to, and they were split up into convoys with different destinations. However, nearly a third missed their convoy, or didn't have one due to their brood mother having been killed. So the family ended up taking a large retinue with them back to the Promise.

A portion of them broke off from the group to join other colonies or leave to live in the wilds.

Still, more than a hundred lost goblins ended up being added to the Promise's lively population.

-

Lydia tried to take on an active role in giving them a place, but Barbara took charge, and Scratch gestured for her to follow him downstairs.

Underneath the Promise, underneath the basement, and the forge, was the troll garden.

A rickety rope ladder now let not just trolls, but humans and goblins enter and leave as they pleased. Which opened the door to more ambitious construction.

The dry desert where they had fought the cactipod had been transformed by Grienician engineering.

The sunstone that evaporated all liquid in its sight had been partially blocked off, a canopy of wooden beams and ivy was bolted to the ceiling of the underworld, and cast a spotted shade onto their corner of it. Just less than a football field in acreage.

As a result, a thin stream of water lapped over the vertical stone and onto the sand. It was a tiny river, though it had to fade away where the protective shade ended.

And where the river streamed, plants could grow.

The seedlings and root balls of surface plants, planted by goblins, were already peeking out of the dry sand and coloring the garden with a dark-ish green.

Trolls were strolling peacefully through the greenery. The garden was cool and pleasant, and they were used to the non-trolls by now.

"Ey, ey!" Aimone came up to Scratch as they entered the garden. "Swampgras? Why are you having us carry clumps of useless plants down your deathtrap?"

"Your colleague, the minister of agriculture, has given us a five step crop cycle." Scratch told him. "First we grow grass, to get some biomass on the topsoil. After that something with magic flowers or something, and then we start portioning it up."

"If it's fertilizer you want, you'll have enough of it," Aimone pointed at the meager waterfall, "we're directing the sewage of ten goblin nests into this place."

"Oh... ew. I though the slimes ate that stuff."

"Mannagia, they don't turn it into water! Slime runoff is the purest extract of detritus. It's poisonous to drink, and with your little stunt expanding the sewers, it has nearly contaminated the drinking water piu volte."

"Okay, calm down. Tell me what you need."

"What?"

"Tell me what you need to save the water supply, you have an idea, don't you?"

"We would need... three basins. Sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection. But there's no space for anything like that."

"We'll make the space. You're the minister of waterworks Aimone, you have hundreds of goblins at your command, not to mention magic. Use them."

"Pah," Aimone found something to complain about, "minister. You simply decided this. In Grienice, the people decide such things."

"...You vote for individual ministers?"

"Ye- Well no, but... forget it. *Puta*." He turned away from him and focused on the foliage.

Scratch didn't mind him, "look," he said to Lydia, "that's where we're keeping the... uh...."

"Spoils." She said.

"Sure, the winnings."

-

Elven women were kept there, in the trolls garden.

There were no bars or bindings, there wasn't even a fence. Just the beginnings of a home, elevated floorboards and a framework for the walls and roof.

After all, where could they run? Not into the endless desert, not up the rope ladder into the dungeon.

It was a prison without walls.

They didn't need much guarding either, yet all the male hobgoblins surrounded them.

"But we can spar later, I can show you how to..." Piers said to a woman that was clearly trying to turn away from him.

"No, I was going to teach her." Constantine whined.

"Boys, too early." Scratch broke them up, "you don't want to look needy."

Piers was a tad embarrassed. "W-what do you mean we were just talking."

"Prisoners. Line up." The mother commanded.

"I love your strict voice," Scratch whispered.

"Oh shush." She said through a smile.

The prisoners were obedient to the superior force, and a bit relieved to see a woman in power.

They lined up in a row of six like soldiers. Tattered clothes, messy hair, and eyes that had been crying. But their backs were straight, their poise dignified.

"When I point at you. You state your name. Do you understand?"

"..."

"I said DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

"We understand, ma'am." An elf with lock blond hair said with disdain.

"Good." She began to point.

"Farith"

"Albwynn"

"Pecorath"

"Thryst"

"Leandrel"

"Liorin"

Each one of them was called something complicated and ostentatious. The more mature long haired elf was Farith, the others had less wisdom in the eyes, with Liorin seeming the most innocent.

"These names... I'll need to write them down." Lydia complained.

"I've got it in here," Scratch pointed at his skull, "the goblin brain isn't good for much, but it's good for this."

"That's fine then... elves. Do you know why you are here?"

"To become brood mares for thine damned subhuman army, is that it?" Leandrel cried, "thee lost Fiora and now thee'll use *us*!"

Lydia slapped her, "who's Fiora?" She asked.

"We're not the first nest to bag an elf," Scratch laughed, "it's been less than two years since we cleared out the others. But I don't expect the hidden village to differentiate between us."

"Ma'am, please let us go." Liorin begged, "you don't understand, these creatures use women to procreate. We are elves, they will use our strength to fortify their army and overrun the countryside!"

"That's cute." Scratch commanded.

"These," Lydia gestured towards the boys, "are my sons."

Liorin recoiled.

"I am here to ask you to bed them. However. I will not force your hand. Those that volunteer may become part of our family at any time."

The elves waited for her to continue with clenched teeth. But no twist or trick was forthcoming.

"...that's it." She concluded after noticing the anticipation.

"What!?"

"Never!"

"I'd rather die! I'd rather die right now!"

Scratch pulled on his partner's arm and they turned away from the group. "They do need some sort of incentive, you know," he hissed, "there has to be a benefit."

"Can you offer them anything?" She asked.

"We can't let them keep the offspring like for the broodmothers... What do knights to if they want someone to switch sides?"

Lydia thought for a moment and then turned around. "SILENCE!"

The protesting elves fell quiet.

"This place is your new home. You might feel exposed by the house we gave you. You might feel unfulfilled by the food we give you. But you can earn a better living by joining our family. Not just for yourself. But for each other."

Farith narrowed her eyes. "So we can earn privileges by convincing our brethren to submit."

"Or we can help our brethren by submitting." Liorin added.

"That's it. I will now command my children to leave you alone. Reflect on this offer. We will contact you soon enough."

"Do we have to?" Constantine whined.

"You have to. Come on." She gestured at him to follow here, and all the male hobgoblins left reluctantly.

Ada and Bree were waiting halfway to the entrance. Ada looked annoyed.

"Why are you so interested in them?" She said when they had caught up to her. "They even do anything. They just whine."

"But they look-" Will changed his mind halfway through explaining. "I don't know either.

When they had traveled all the way back to the manor Scratch was surprised by the setting sun.

"Ah! You really lose track of time with those glowing rocks. I need to be somewhere. Bree, you were coming?"

"Yes!" The troll jumped up and down.

"Where are you going?" Ada asked.

"Taking care of business."

The adventurers felt stiff and uncomfortable, having to line up and wait for a superior wasn't their usual style.

Captain Harkness cracked his neck and began to speak. "Starting today you will be working under me. I don't put up quests. I hand out orders.

And orders are followed. Starting today you are no longer adventurers. You are soldiers. Do you understand?"

"Mhm."

"Sure."

"Think so."

"I said: DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

"Sir. Yes, Sir."

The staff of the Eston adventurers' guild was competent enough in battle, but they lacked in discipline.

He would make soldiers of them yet, and once he did, they would be able to assist the young barony heirs as the army's special forces.

He turned to the ostentatiously dressed man beside him and bowed his head. "Two months, mi lord, and I can supply you with the forces to eradicate this stain on your territory."

"Hmm. Do not forget who is doing whom a favor here, Harkness. I would not have called for wyverns if it did not concern a matter of family honor."

"Of course milord. Forgive me."

"You are forgiven," the count said, "it was time this place was put under the control of a baron." He stroked the winged deer on his brouche, "and this guild has failed to provide me one. So my vassals' chosen will be the candidates, this little war of yours the test."

"Then... this will be a proving?"

"Of course it will, don't be daft man, that's what I just described isn't it?"

The Ancient Waterways

Size: Small

Threat Level: E

Realm: Blurich

The ancient sewers underneath Old Finsterlein are rife with slimes.

Adventurers may encounter regular slimes, king slimes, and poison slimes.

Sewer halls may be subject to flooding.

Maps can be purchased at the guild hall, but may not be resold.