“I get 12; this will be number one.” Informing the guards, I reached down and picked up a crystal. Allowed to take a dozen, getting one possibly able to be sold seemed like a good idea. Around the size of two fists, it terminated on both ends. A translucent deep-blue shade, I felt it looked rather attractive.

The goblin escorts also appeared to relax somewhat. Since such warlike societies probably had little use for such things, they were probably relieved their mercenary was going after useless shinies instead of something important.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but from here on, I’m looking for the good stuff.

Activating , , and , I also tried to feel the objects with {Soul Field}. and were both activated because they did not actually work in the same manner. would detect the presence of magic in items and traps, as well as describe what school of magic they were imbued with; though the magical schools didn’t exist in the same sense as Underworld, it made the same analogies. could technically cover those aspects, but was better suited to detecting spells, wizards, and residual magic effects. The schools of magic could be discerned from the information it showed, but it was not as easy to do as with . Using them both allowed me to get a general sense of the strength and direction of each item’s power.

The first thing to catch my eye were a pile of strange contraptions that somewhat resembled mushrooms. With a fire-hardened wood stem, thin strands of metal were jammed into the side. With a sharply barbed bottom and caps made from stone, bone, or earth, I sensed a malleable magic within, a feeling I would associate with transmutation. Quite interesting, I did not know their purpose, so I put it to the back of my mind. Whatever they were, given their numbers, they would probably be expendable.

Looking over the hoard, I looked over the section that seemed to be primarily made of bone. I spotted many decorated skulls not of goblin origin, and decided to take a closer look. Focusing closely, there actually seemed to be the icy blue presence of souls. Entangled, they somehow had been forced into one, and faint traces of blood red aura swirled about.

As a necromancer, it intrigued me; so I would definitely pick at least one of those. I needed to look at the rest of the goods first.

In the same area there were vambraces made of goblin long bones, and necklaces that strung together dozens of chunks of small goblin bones. Despite being visually distinct, comparing the souls, energy, and function, they were certainly similar in function. The main distinction was the souls within the necklaces were much more varied, while the power within the vambraces was more intense. A slight aura of divination about them, they were probably used to commune with the goblin souls within. Setting aside the space for two necklaces and one vambrace, I continued on.

The last thing that stood out among the section made from the deceased was not visible from the surface. Instead, I felt it with my multitude of senses, hidden under the pile. Carefully pushing away the items atop it, I gradually pulled out a bone staff from beneath it all.

About five feet in length, the body was formed from a single femur that had been covered with a black veneer. Lumpy in some places, it still had a very smooth texture. At the top it had been gobbed on to serve as a sort of glue for a fan of bones. Splayed out like the petals of a dahlia, it began to take a spherical shape, but stopped about 15° above the horizontal; appearing unfinished as a result.

Whether it had been completed or not, there was certainly plenty of energy flowing through it at the moment. Void soul aura to be precise, which made it seem all the more mysterious.

From experience, the black void was the most unstable, and the final state of a soul. Observing many goblin deaths led to a great deal of data about the matter. When killed, the mana field that made up their body began to collapse; after it drained by around 30% I could no longer detect the field, but the aspects of souls cropped up.

Primarily in the icy blue of the most basic form of souls; a particularly brutal or long lasting death usually created a blood red taint along the soul. The exact nature of it wasn't clear, but I hypothesized it to be some sort of murderous intent that could originate from either party. If that were all, I would expect it to be more frequent than it actually was; given its nigh ubiquity among the more intelligent, I suspected there was an intelligence component related as well with less confidence. Whatever it actually was, sometimes it would remain static, and sometimes it would grow on the soul it was present in.

As a short aside, the red present on instruments of killing were actually bits torn off of the souls of others—at least that was what I could gather.

No matter if the soul was infected with the murderous aura of remained plain, in time they would darken to the void black. It seems to be the decomposition stage of souls; vanishing without effect. I did observe it earlier imbuing the surroundings, but that likely was a result of massive quantities of it resulting in an observable number of anomalies. Across my many senses, the void soul aura did nothing but disappear, and quite readily too.

So seeing this staff functioning as a storage device for the transient void soul piqued my interest. Black soul fragments couldn't be assimilated into my Soul Power; not that that was a sufficient reason to keep me from taking it. Like the decorated skulls, it would be an excellent thing to study to learn more about the nature of souls in the world. Far surpassing the other objects, I held it up to show to Kuguhk and Khtkra to indicate it would be my second possession.

Circling around, a large segment of the goods were of too fine craftsmanship to be the work of goblins. Heading over to sift through the foreign loot, falling through the cracks between the larger objects, I spotted many translucent marbles of several hues, and varying sizes.

Ranging from the size of a golf ball down to a large pea, the distribution was mostly normal, slightly tilted to the larger sizes. Most were either green, blue, brown, yellow, or some mix of those colors, however a few red or purple spheres were also present. Protrusions began to bubble out of the larger beads, and while their presence was strong enough to be detected by , they also appeared more stormy.

Using to bring a large, light-olive marble closer to my eyes for inspection; stormy may not have been the best word, as it implies chaos. My finger hovered near its surface without touching it, {Soul Field} worked better the closer to the body it was.

The energy within roiled, but not without order; instead in ran in circuits—circuits that changed, but they were defined paths, at least to the power within. Resembling a fake soul like the ones created to animate my minions, instead of being filled up with being it was made with doing instead.

Ehh, that probably doesn’t help much does it. To try and reiterate, while most souls felt like a singular object, the bead had a presence like an animated force; perhaps in the manner of anthropomorphizing something natural, like wind or an earthquake.

While it didn’t have the disorder of those things, the bead did display an unrelenting nature, as though it had its own will. Actually, why couldn’t it? Elemental and Outsider types didn’t always have souls, the bead could very well be a fragment of some sort of elemental. Under that assumption, I had a minor epiphany about the nature of the artifact.

Looking at the array of colors, earth and water were definitely the sort of elements beings dealt with most, and yellow fit the airy nature of the yellow-bellied leaf-lickers. Probably some sort of way to commune with the spirits and enhance magic, but requiring a Will Save to use without backlash.

The only problem was I couldn’t tell if they were expendable items or not. I could pick beads of several colors, and then even if they weren’t expendable, I could possibly have multiple elemental spirits(if that was what they were). The downside naturally being the reduction in the variety of loot I took away; which seemed like it could be much more of a hinderance.

I mentally reserved at least two spots for them and continue browsing the wares, leaving me with at least nine spots taken up.

Glancing over the rest of the forest-folk’s finagled fineries, a few happened to catch my eye; but none so much as the others. There were some hide pouches containing some magical beans, which were an incredibly tempting sight, but in the end I dismissed them as some sort of alchemical ingredient. Of the many pieces of jewellery lying about, many seemed to have very little power invested in them. They may have just been foci, but I didn’t have enough knowledge of magic items to make that distinction.

Luckily I didn’t have to. Among what seemed like trash tier drops, I spotted a speck of healing magic. Pulling out a small wooden ring with small green buds around the outside, I grinned. The power within didn’t look like much, but for me, a healing object perfectly filled in a sorely vacant area of my abilities. Necromancers deal with the body and soul, but applying their abilities to living creatures is mid to late game content. The little ring may have been underwhelming, but it satisfied me.

“Three.” I held up my hand after putting it on my left ring finger.

Seeing nothing else exceeding the value of the items previously mentioned, I collected my Quest Rewards. The jewel, bone staff, healing ring, two necklaces and one vambrace imbued with many souls, one lean skull with a monolithic soul, one with fangs embedded on two side that swirled with a number of fused lesser souls, another vaguely humanoid but elongated skull that was more intermediate, and three of the elemental beads, two large—red and mossy green—as well as a yellow one of intermediate size.

Looking over the hoard I couldn’t help but sigh forlornly. Even if most weren’t the greatest, and even the greatest were only mediocre, that didn’t stop me from wanting them. Why would anyone settle for less when they could have more?

What an alluring pile of treasure it was. Glittering with so many goodies. A shame that Khtraal kept it all packed away, never to see the light of day. Such an arrogant chief didn’t deserve such riches that he would never even use.

After all, Khtraal was opposing tKlor’t’t, with whom I had a much greater affinity. If Khtraal was pushed into a corner, perhaps one of these could be a lifesaving treasure for him, and that would be just terrible for my chubby friend. It might be better to grab a few more to deny him the resources.

Oh, but to do that I would have to fight my way out wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t that just be weakening Khtraal’s forces to secure a more solid victory for tKlor’t’t? The more I thought about the benefits, the better that choice of action seemed to be. Unfortunately it seemed I wouldn’t be able to get away with most of the goods due to my Inventory being nearly full already, but there would be no harm stabbing the enemy in the back.

I’d been killing goblins all day, what was ten or twenty thousand more?