The next few days I spent relaxing with Nymph and occasionally exploring the city with her. At some point, she got confident enough to move around on her own whenever we were near plant life. Thinking about it, it must have been scary to walk the streets normally with her size.

We met with Foxy and Brilda again one day and Nymph invited them to visit her Comraich. That freaked them out a little but it looked like they would eventually take her up on that offer.

Soon, it was time for me to leave once more. The goblins needed more help with their fields. I bought a bunch more potatoes and wheat seeds as well as four saplings for fruit trees. Two were apple and two plum. I had asked the farmer to give me some that could be kept short and wide without impacting their produce. Hopefully, these would work in the caves. The rest of my storage was filled with smoked meat and other processed food. I left a little space to hunt something fresh on the way and bring it to them.

On my way back, I took a two-day break in Borsdown with Vivi and Safrah. Part of that was looking for a Gurrin Clan member to teach the goblins about mining and basic metalworks. I had little success in such short time but Captain Dor promised to keep an eye out. That included asking the other town leaders which lead to a fancy dinner with everyone at Vivi’s place. Safrah even tried to make some of the food I had told her about. She was far less successful than the restaurant but it was still good enough for me not to waste.

I was a little surprised how nobody reacted to me figuring out [Telepathy] but maybe it felt very similar to the supersensory matrix to someone untrained in the thaumaturgical arts. Even then, Vivi and Safrah had not figured it out until I told them. The ocelot made me promise to teach her when I had some time.

After that, I returned to the goblin village. There was little new there other than everyone being hard at work with the new farming cave. They had finished the fourth chamber and were pushing for the completion of the fifth. I only had to clean up the rough parts here and there and check the stability. It looked fine to my eyes even though I was no expert. I knew more about statics than the goblins at least.

It took another month to get everything to stabilize. We focused on potatoes at first, the crop having proven to be fine with purely magical growth. Wheat would also require more processing to make something sating. When I talked to Chef and Roguk about how to go about that, the alchemist figured he could get something done for yeast. They had water aplenty from the river and with that, basic bread was only a matter of getting an oven done. That looked to be an easy task as well. Some of the new goblins had switched Class to something for working with stone. They had already started on building a stone warehouse for all the food and would get to replacing the huts after that. This would free up a lot of wood to use for other things than fixing small damages or rotten boards here and there. It looked like the goblins were rapidly progressing towards a more developed civilization. I was looking forward to their growth.

Alex spent a lot of that time reading the Thaumonomicon and studying how the lamps impacted plant growth. She was taking a very scientific approach. I often saw Roguk with her, the golem working out how to properly communicate. I had offered her the supersensory matrix but she decided to take [Telepathy] lessons instead which worked out incredibly quickly. I applied the same method Nymph had used with me and within two days she had figured it out. That helped a lot but she still tried to reach a higher level of language. That meant, teaching Ordugh and writing to everyone interested as well as the value of standardized communication. There were a lot of complicated things in her mind and she wanted to bring a number of them into the village. Something about logistics and city planning. I let her be. The goblins would figure out how much help they wanted to take from her.

I found myself in my workshop one day a week, making more lamps of growth for the farm. I also remembered another issue that might crop up and took a look at my Thaumonomicon to figure out the solution.

The node I had used to clog the lower tunnel would, eventually, start to spill stone into the village cave. I remembered the construct used in Borsdown with the warding stones and vis absorbers. I wanted to make something similar.

The stones themselves were a very simple thing. I remembered the artificing plans dwarvish craftsmen used which had complicated brass and gold patterns to drain and guide the energy away from where it wanted to go. That much was something I would not do. If anything broke, the goblins were reliant on me once again. Instead, I found the thaumaturgical method. Those stones were infused with earth and order crystals to create a binding barrier and then other aspects to define the barrier’s properties. I wanted to block vis from a node creating stone. That would be best accomplished with magic, aura and possibly more earth. The creation was very simple since I did not have to use the infusion altar. Guiding my personal vis and some from gathered crystals was more than enough.

The resulting warding stones were placed in a ring inside the tunnel that had become a dead-end by now. I put them rather close to the blocking material so I could figure out if I needed to make changes the next time I came over. They should be powered by vis from the surroundings and whatever they drained from the node.

I also checked in on my experiments. The modified relays to drain vis into crystals worked out okay. There were tiny growths right when I came back and slightly larger growths a month later. Maybe something similar could work with natural nodes. I only had to find a way to focus the energy emitted from it into one spot. For now, I only had vague ideas about how that could work,

I remembered at that point Servin the merchant would return to Borsdown soon or maybe already be there. I planned to check in on him to see if he succeeded in the challenge. Just before I left, I had a little discussion with Alex.

“What’s the plan with this place? Long-term?”, she asked.

“That is for them to decide. I want them to be self-sufficient which needs quite a bit of stuff. Their infrastructure would likely lead to scarcity very soon. The main reason I helped them out was to get them away from the orks.”

“Weren’t they away already?”

“Yes and no. It was only a question of time with how they had to hunt down in the valley for their continued survival.”

“Hmm… I get that. Still, aren’t you doing a bit much?”

“I decided I want to so I’m doing it.”

She smacked my chest with a hand.

“Don’t be so stubborn.”

“I’m not going back on my word.”

“That’s a good value to have but you need to look out for yourself. You spent what? Three months? Four? Just to help them live a little better? How much time have you spent on yourself?”

That made me stop to think. After my birth, it was three months with my parents and siblings. I had little free time there. Then, moving out and trying to find a new place. When I met the goblins for the first time, did I do something for myself, then? Maybe absorbing vis from the node… learning things, Skills and Classes. It really was not much. The ork valleys were not the best place for self-reflection but I did have a bit of freedom at the idiot’s place. The most I could think of was after meeting the dwarves. Even in the wilderness, where I had evolved and met Vivi, not much was just for myself. There were the two weeks just now and a few days before, in between everything else. That was all very recent, though. I did not see the issue with finishing this right now.

“I don’t think you would call it enough but most of that time was the last two weeks. And a lot of the other things I still enjoyed. At least in the last half a year.”

“Alright. Then, how far?”

“The goblins? I’m helping them finish enough farms to no longer need me to bring over food. And I’m gonna try to find a miner and maybe a smith to move here for some time and teach them. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

I nodded.

“Good. I… think I want to leave this place. And I’m making good progress.”

“With your enrichment?”

“Correct. I have the feeling I’ll get the first level of it soon.”

“So you’ve succeeded in absorbing a crystal, then?”

“I have.”

“That’s great! We’ll see if minor enrichment is enough. I have a suspicion it might not be for combat. Even then, I could temporarily bind you to me and escort you to a different place.”

“I’d rather make it on my own.”

“I understand. If I can help you, just ask.”

“Of course.”

With that, she was satisfied. I was as well. It would still take a while for her to be able to move and I expected she would at least want me to guide her so she would not get lost. But that was for another time. Now, I wanted to find a dwarf willing to teach goblins.