The very first thing I required was knowledge of the land. I had a shallow perspective of the world around me. My domain was the forest around me, anything outside of it felt distant, and my ignorance is my own fault. I needed a proper mental image of my territory and neighbours. Much to my relief, most of my battle-ready goblins were hunters. They had excellent scouting skills and knowledge, thus I ordered them to chart the land.

However, there was an issue I hadn’t foreseen. The goblins had no writing system. Each map they drew was different. Some had stick figures, others had illegible drawings. The deviations caused arguments, such as “A goblin with a spear makes no sense as a hunting spot! You should have drawn a paw print,” and another “why did you draw a fish in the middle of nowhere?” With the reply being “I ate a nice fish there once.”

I had complete knowledge of the goblin language in my mind. It was a simple language, entirely phonetical. Simple sounds comprised most of the words, but some had growls, even hisses mixed in. Yet it was nothing a human couldn't replicate. Without much thought, I mapped each sound in our language to a random scribble. I made the letters out of a mix of Cyrillic, Latin, and random scribbles. It was not my priority to design an eloquent language for poets.

I needed the hunters to all write down whether something was of note or not. I created 6 written words, meaning “friend,” “enemy,” “resource,” “safe,” “danger” and “land.” The Gulk territory was marked as “friend land.” If there was something valuable, but inaccessible, they would mark “resource danger.” It was not a perfect system, but I was more worried about an impending attack than proper goblin grammar

Interface You have acquired a new skill, Linguist (Beginner) You have dabbled in the creation of tongues. This skill provides passive bonuses in the understanding and creation of languages.

Having resolved the map issue, the hunters ventured once more into the wild. They were eager to put their skills to practice. Their fingers twitched in delight when writing with their fancy new “chief pictures.” After a night of nonstop goat galloping, they returned at the crack of dawn, waving their maps. With Clara’s help, we pieced together our territory.

My face soured as I looked at the map. To our right was Ovolenskia. She was right about us being right on the border. To our direct south were the various goblin tribes that I had never interacted with. The Amber Skins had migrated from there and thus had some recollection of the area.

I was more concerned about the Bloody Bones. In a typical situation, an aggressive power would cause others to unite and suppress them. The fact that they weren’t, indicated that they were the dominant force, or they were part of some coalition. Yet I doubted that others would try and join such a zealous tribe.

To our north was Humblebog. It was impossible to scout ahead of the bog since the terrain was untraversable. Clara said in that direction is the rest of Troystein, the kingdom in which we resided. No other particular points of interest. To our east was Woodwick, the small, abandoned village. Even further east was the capital city of this barony, Barkshield. In all situations, we were completely surrounded. We had enemies from the east, west and south, and no escape through the north. The sole redeeming factor was the great river that separated us from the east. But in all likelihood, the humans had a way of getting around it.

I summoned my courtiers, it was time to discuss our further actions. Sitting around a round granite table were Voglo, Rugum, Zotnik, Clara and Umlau. I had insisted Olma not to come to the meeting, as I did not wish to stress her and the baby. I translated everything said to Goblin, Human and Gulk, forever prolonging the meeting. I wished and prayed for a dedicated translator, but we could not afford to train such a specialist.

“Although it is uncertain when the Bloody Bones will attack, it is certain that they will. The same could be said of the two warring kingdoms. The mercenaries are on their way as we speak, and Ovolenskia may deploy its troops at any moment. In short, what do we do?”

Everyone’s expression darkened. They pondered potential solutions, but there were no obvious answers.

“Retreating underground is an option,” Voglo suggested. “Dig out a few holes, block out the caves. Wait under the earth until everything passes.”

It was a tempting offer. To shut oneself away from the world and do nothing while the storm passes. Much to my dismay, the proposal was not realistic. We had too many established structures on the surface, like mills and farms. We couldn't grow food underground, we would starve. That is also only considering our goblin population. What of the goats? What of the humans?

I shook my head and rejected the offer.

Umlau raised their paw “I doubt all those soldiers would follow us to the swamp. If they did we would hold a terrain advantage.”

We would but escaping to the swamp posed much of the same problems as hiding underground. There was no arable farmland or solid ground to build upon. The Gulk may enjoy such land, but it would be hard, perhaps even detrimental to humans and goblins. I wanted, no, needed a drink.