You've pried loose one treasure from each of your allies now, is that right?

I wouldn't say from each, right?

I gave you that manabelt.

Okay, one.

Then you merged with the bandits, and you obtained a spellrod.

Two.

The lich gave you the lightning glove.

Sure, but I can hardly use it.

And the witch gave you the lycanthrope locket.

...and that's all of them?

I think so.

Scratch paused to admire himself in the mirror. He was finely dressed once more, and feeling slick in his pinstripes.

You could... take one with you.

Those are all weapons.

Exactly.

If it comes to fighting, what I want is to escape, not to blow the joint up. I'd never get away unseen if I lightning the casino.

Still, it's dangerous.

You don't get the point of all this. It's a victory lap. My enemies in the guild are gone, my in-law is moving out, and the new police chief is under my thumb. I'm walking around town as if I own the place, and I don't need any weapons. Because that's exactly what's up.

At least take a monster with you?

Get off my back, mom. Jeez...

-

It was near the end of dusk when the sloop was moored at Eston's harbor.

Even with his rediscovered hubris, he wasn't about to walk around town in broad daylight. So it was under the cover of night that the small team snuck onto the bricked streets of the city.

"What say you?" Barbara asked, "you've never been here before, have you?"

"It's very... red." Scratch commented.

"Yeah, you can't really see it with this darkness. But when the sun's out..."

He didn't need sunlight to see it. To his goblin eyes the red bricks and bauxite occupied all directions in his field of vision. In varying shades from carmine to cordovan, the city was an ember of fire stamped out of the ground. Though white and blue accents were present in arches and windowsills.

"Come," she told him, "this is the place. One of Mac's- I mean Lucky's clubs."

-

The roulette wheel stopped.

Card players looked up, while the dealer kept his eyes low.

In the back one of the women crossed her arms.

The hazy cigarette atmosphere was sucked out of the door when the goblins threw it open, replaced by a thick air of expectation.

"You can go play," Scratch told the small gaggle of goblins he'd had brought with, and they gigglingly spread out over the room to gawk at the games of chance.

The goblin patriarch strode confidently through the room, and gestured his girlfriend towards a chair.

Lydia put the seat on top of a table, and then lifted him in it as he was about to climb on.

Far from showing his status, it only accentuated their difference in size.

Smiling away this small affront to his dignity, he began to clear his throat.

The room was silent, all were staring at him.

For humans, goblins were to be killed on sight. It was bizarre enough seeing one within the walls of the city, having to stand there and listen while it talked was dreamlike and surreal.

"There is a thing I like to do for my children. A service if you will. I judge, I arbitrate, I make law, it's a whole thing. And since you are now my children as well-"

One of the patrons piped up. "I don't serve any monster lord! If this is where-"

Scratch didn't even need to gesture as the bouncer wrapped his arm around the man's neck and dragged him off.

"Anyway... let's take attendance... Kathia."

A thin woman in expensive but faded clothes hurriedly stepped forward. "Yes, Papa Scratch, I'm here."

"You fenced one of our high grade weapons to a trouble maker, is that right?"

"No sir. I mean yes sir. I mean I didn't know at the time. The Tanner boy, he was a trusted member, and high status, so..."

"Did he say what he was going to use it for?"

"Nothing about attacking adventurers, no sir. It was for the proving, you see. It was my thinking; better to have an ally than-"

He held up his hand to stop her. "I have it on good authority that this won't be traced back to us, the boy is dead after all. Water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned. Next one... Lucky."

"I do have a name you know," the drug dealer said as he stepped forward.

"But you'll always be Lucky with me. Anyway, last I heard you thought you didn't need me."

"That's... I've reflected."

"You do have a debt to me after all."

"I do have a debt."

"And you cannot create Crimson without covert supplies."

"Yes, Papa Scratch, I am in your service."

"As long as you know... Mabel."

The woman in the back raised her arm without stepping forward, "I'm here."

"Mabel, you'll be pleased to know that I've decided to keep you."

"Ugh."

"You can thank your sister. I told her she could take your place, but she'd rather not have you popped."

"Thank you Barbara," she said with an annoyed tone. She had interpreted it as a literal command and she followed it reluctantly.

"For now the two sisters can continue to manage either end of the smuggling route, so that's that."

He went on to call forth nearly a dozen guild members he had working under him.

There was Stanford, the former bandit, who would heal criminals with injuries they couldn't explain to other priests.

There were contract killers, that paid the Promise to ambush their targets on the road.

And there was a whole slew of con men, burglars, and loan sharks that paid weekly dividends to Scratch for their starting funds.

For many of them it was the first time hearing of any of the other vassals, and it was a demonstration of power towards them that Scratch had gathered them all in one place.

Near the end of the session, he called upon somebody that wasn't paying him. "Mister Remus, how nice you could make it."

"It isn't any day I that I poaches for a dungeon master."

Scratch's eye twitched. His dark dealings were a sort of open secret, you weren't supposed to mention them out loud.

"Anyways, I 'aven't gots the direwolveses yet. Don' live in dis area y'see? Gotta move 'em 'ere all the way from out west. Harder since you wan't

'em alive. Wassit for? Like a guard dog?"

"Something like that..."

The fairy beasts had been disposed off, but the humans living in the Promise felt a lot safer knowing there was at least a contingent of hobgoblins between them and the outside world.

So the children of the leaders had been given an activity to occupy themselves with outside the perimeter walls.

There were gulleys between the farm plots holding different categories of crops. And one gulley had a straw dummy on a stick at the end of it, a failed scarecrow but a promising archery target.

One by one the hobgoblins took turns shooting a real life enchanted elven bow.

"Yes! I got the length! Did you see me get the length?" Ada boasted.

Up until then all arrows had veered off target just enough to fly into the stalks of wheat or corn and become an unpleasant surprise for harvesters come fall. But hers stuck proudly into the dirt below the straw man.

"A miss is still a miss." Felix ruled mercilessly.

"Ah man! At this rate she's gonna win!" Constantine whined.

"Twas thy own hubris, expecting to best the elven eye," Liorin declared smugly as she accepted the bow.

The hobgoblins had promised her a fresh water basin in the troll garden if she could best all of them in archery.

"Did thee really think I would grant thee the time of day if there was any chance of not receiving my prize? Now watch and-" She stopped as she tugged on the bowstring but it did not budge.

She had elven eyes, but she didn't have the triceps of a trained elven archer. Somehow, she had underestimated the task after seeing the hobgoblins do it.

"This is... hhnnng!" She arched her back and spread her legs just trying to pull back the arrow, but her upper body swayed so much from the effort that there was no hope in aiming.

The hobgoblins found it highly comical and she crumbled from the sound of their mocking laughter.

But she was suddenly embraced from behind, as two strong hands grabbed her wrists and straightened the bow.

She began to panic. "Don't touch-"

"Shhh," Will shushed her from behind, he pulled her arm back and drew the bow that way. "I'll pull it back, you aim."

Her breathing was still wild and erratic, so he relaxed the bow and whispered into her ear what his father had taught him. "Breathe in deeply breathe out deeply. Breathe in lightness, breathe out the heaviness." As she followed his instructions she visibly calmed down, and her hands stopped shaking.

Then he pulled pack again, and she lined up the shot.

Just as she breathed out, she released the arrow.

There were no magic bow arts invoked, no glowing arc of green, but the arrow flew far and true impaled the straw man exactly in the heart.

"Yes! I did it!" Liorin turned around in Will's arms and waved her finger close to his face. "I won your contest, I beat you!"

"What? No way, that's cheating!" Ada shouted.

"She released the arrow, she shot the bow herself." Felix said.

"Yes! I won! I won!" Liorin jumped up and down around the group.

She came to a sudden standstill when she remembered she hated them.

"I mean, you lot better keep your promise."

It was an engineering challenge installing a freshwater basin in the troll garden.

By design, the little hut was a short walk removed from any infrastructure at all. Only a muddy river seeped through the swampgras towards where the elves were.

There was the cable car that had moved the dungeon core, but there had come to be a general consensus that it should be used as little as possible. Certainly not to carry bathwater to and fro.

Naturally, the minister of waterworks was enlisted for the job.

Surprisingly, Aimone saw no reason to either grumble or complain. He was polite and respectful towards the elven hostages while installing the small purifier.

When it was done, the appliance had the appearance of a waist-high spire and would produce clean water from its tout when supplied with mana.

"The Promise can do without its crystal," he told the oldest elf, "since we've completed the reservoirs it has naturally filtered water. And advanced Grienician engineering can carry it from the underground to the surface. So the magical sapphire belongs here."

But she didn't show much gratitude. "Very well, you may leave us."

"Just glad I could make it that bit easier." He said.

"We do not sanction the obscene trade for this water, and we do not sanction thou who honors it. Return to thy diseased master."

"Hey! The goblins aren't our masters, they-"

"Return!"

Where he would have laid in verbally on anybody else disrespecting his work so much, he bowed to the elf and left.

"Why don't you take it back if they hate it so much?" Asked Ada, who had been standing guard.

He wrinkled his nose at her. "The hidden people are wise and ancient beings from before the birth of man, we owe them the very respect royalists heap on their kings. Not that a savage would understand any of that."

"Bleh!" She stuck out her tongue and made a noise to refute his accusation of savagery.

"Ugh, where's your father?"

"Gildo is showing him your reservoirs," she said contently, knowing it would annoy the man to have another show off with his work.

-

The first reservoir was quite large.

It was final destination of filtered water before the newly installed pump could take it up to the surface. And it was deep enough to provide the whole village with water for two days.

Because this was almost directly below the densely bricked square, the roof of the underground chamber was also heavily supported with brick arches and metal rods, making it look like an inverted fortress.

"And this is the mechanism from below," Gildo gestured with his mote of light, "in these parts it'll be quite unique. Only superior Grienician engineering can produce a water siphon without magic!"

Coming down from the ceiling was a long thin pipe, equal parts silver and glass. It was the underside of the hand powered pump.

Scratch took the cigarette out of his mouth. "Pistons separate going doing, get pulled tight going up, create suction?"

"Uh... yeah. But understanding it in principle is quite different from doing it, you know." Gildo said, a bit hurt in his patriotic pride.

The Grienician ability to figure things out without magic was supposed to be a special talent, since they were a nation of proles that had to survive without the resources of nobility.

"And this is where excess drinking water drains into the underground river." He continued.

This is more useless than the lycanthrope. Only I can control beasts, but water purification is a simple spell, any peasant can do it.

I can't. Which I'm sure you haven't forgotten. And it's good to have a big lake like this at our disposal. Scratch responded internally to his oldest ally.

"So the second reservoir is past these stairs, but you really need to put out that fire when we get there." Gildo beckoned.

"In a moment." And I'm not going through all this trouble with the direwolves just to have them. I need to put at least some token effort in Lacrima's plan to keep her happy, she's still vital to us.

My champion, sucking up to one of Guth's witches.

I can't afford to be macho, I'm three feet tall. Do I really need to kill a direwolf for each werewolf I get?

The lycanthropy curse binds a wolf spirit to a body where it can fight the host for control. You need a ritual sacrifice to obtain the spirit in the first place. So as I said, it's useless. Once you have a direwolf, just let me take hold of its senses.

"It's not to *have* a direwolf."

"What was that?" Gildo asked as he led the way up the stairs.

"Nothing, never mind." Scratch threw the cigarette on the ground and put it out with his foot. *Ritually sacrificed and trapped in a fight for control, no wonder they're cranky.*

-

The second reservoir was a lot bigger and a lot noisier.

"That sound is the underground river adding to the drainage!" Gildo shouted. "But you know how this works, it's a filtration reservoir!"

He held up his magical light to illuminate the wide and shallow lake, but Scratch could see in the dark. Knee deep below the water's surface were rocks, which were layered upon gravel, which was layered upon sand. It was the very same kind of filter the goblins had once used, but on a much larger scale. At the far end, a man-high waterfall descended upon the tranquil water and the sound reverberated all the way through the sound chamber that was the cavern.

"What's that smell?" Scratch asked.

"What!?"

"I said what's that smell!"

"You're smelling the runoff, which we're filtering out! Look!" Gildo held his light to the ground, and the viscous green liquid that couldn't pass through the mud was pouring out into thin channels between their feet. "It's flammable! That's why we can't have torches here!"

"This is... slime!?"

Gildo beckoned once again.

-

Where the first reservoir had been big, and the second had been expansive, the third was enormous.

There were levels to it. A balcony for observers and to operate large clay stirring tools, and a lower level of several baths and thin sidewalks, in which the slimes swam.

"Agh, the smell!" Scratch retched.

"You wanted to see it. Here's all the filth we're cleaning up for you."

"If I remember correctly you were happy to leave most of the work to your colleagues."

"Uhm... look. There's several stages to this reservoir," Gildo quickly changed the subject, "inner reservoirs if you will. The sewage is rushed in from all the goblin nests at the ends over there. The large detritus sinks to the bottom and is scraped out, but there's still middle stuff floating in the water. That's the stuff the slimes eat in the big one below us, so only their runoff remains."

"What do you do with the big detritus?"

"Uhhm... I don't know. Somebody takes it somewhere."

The patriarch wasn't satisfied with his answer, so he let his gaze glide over the collection of channels and baths. "It doesn't seem to be moving."

"It's not continuous, but in batches. It takes two days for the large detritus to sink and for the slimes to clean their batch. So we move it all at once every two days. Open up the floodgates."

"Somebody needs to be down here operating the machinery?"

Gildo nodded. "And killing slimes when they grow too many. You'd normally use rank F adventurers, but I guess here you'd send down some goblins, right?"

"Or you could do it."

"Managgia. No way."

"So, where are these mighty goblins that got you lot running, huh?" The lordling laughed heartily.

"These are just the outskirts," the knight said. "If we'd try venturing into the warrens, we'd be quickly overwhelmed."

"Nah, I've killed hobgoblins before. I'll protect you if it comes to that."

The knights looked away. They couldn't so rise against the youth's put downs, they were designated as his retinue after all.

"Shake it off," one said to the other, "the spoiled brats get filtered out, that's what the proving is for."

"I heard that!" The brat said, "you lot better support me like Harkness said! I want to be in the warrens as soon as possible."

"Ah, but the young lordship is asked to protect the farmsteads."

"Yeah, yeah. But the glory to be won is in the warrens!"

"Soon the saddle will be to hard for him and he'll be running back to his family's silken pillows." One whispered.

-

They had spend the entire month marching between farmsteads, instilling in their candidate a sense for the lay of the land.

When the party would stay at a home, the peasantry would lavish the lordling with praise and attention.

He was quite glad to be fawned upon by a set of farmer's daughters in particular. "When I become baron, I shall have need of handmaidens in my new castle," he told them.

So the father was more happy to see them off again.

But impatience did gnaw at the man. Whenever a wolf or goblin reared its head within sight he would go galloping off to be the first to slay it with his massive warhammer. "Slim pickings again!" He complained, "Dieless, that bastard, has probably slain ten war parties already with her elven archer. Why didn't I get an elven archer?"

"The goblins don't come to our homes, not while Papa Scratch is in the country," some farmer's fat wife said at their last destination.

Her husband tried to shush her, but the knights were already upon the poor woman. "Do not repeat such words in front of the nobility, who lay down their lives for your safety," one hissed.

"Anyway, it should be about time we return to the fortress," the lordling said, distracting them from the argument.

"But your lordship's mission is to spend the night here."

"We've spend the night at so many country hovels, and they never need protection. You heard the woman, there are no snatchings here."

The knight nodded, "as long as his lordship knows what the terms of the proving were."

This made him hesitate. "I mean... I'm not disqualified for not following the exact instructions, right? If I use my own judgment..."

They said nothing.

"Uh, on second thought, let us keep watch here anyway. It won't hurt to get to know my future subjects. But once we're back I'll insist on a real mission."

Proving Grounds: The Warrens

By special decree of his lordship the count Stavort Huberdinger of Linefort, the greater Eston area is to be liberated by his champions.

He or she that demonstrates the highest valor in freeing the people of Eston from the monster threat, will prove him or herself the rightful steward of their lands and earn the title of Baron.

In this battle, mankind is defended by:

Derrek Emberton, third son of the Emberton house.

Yason Deets, second son of the Deets house.

Feylina Dieless, legitimized heir to the Dieless house.

Rubelina Corintha, fifth in line to the Rochester house.

Sander Freeman, twelfth son to the Freeman house.

And the quarries are:

Lydia Harkness, the Brood Knight and commander of the hobgoblin troupe.

Papa Scratch, the one-eyed general of the goblin army and enemy of the gods.

Sybil and Auguste, twin dark sorcerers and commanders of shadow bandits.

Lacrima, bandit witch.

And Grienician subversives, of which there are four.

Be at alert that an adventuring stay on the Goblin Warrens has been declared and no adventurer may reap rewards for slaying the quarries.