I stand trying to think just a few meters off and the serenity and comradery we found a few minutes ago are mostly gone, at least amongst the leadership.

“But why then can’t we just watch him trying to interrogate the thing?” Argues one of the commanders from the reinforcements our village received.

“Because it going to distract him. If you want to send for one of your researchers to help him, sure, though I doubt they would be of any real help given the unique circumstances. Hell, he just wants an hour or two at most to see if his first ideas will work out. If it doesn’t we can revisit it.” Charlie fires back.

“Uhghg… Fine, but we better get everything you find out, we paid a dear price here today, even if not of our soldier’s died.”

“I know well the cost we all paid and our village DID pay with lives. Send one of your mages to look if you really want to but they better not interfere or we are going to have a problem.”

I ignore them and soon they all move away. Only Merlin, Greg, Alex, and 3 other guards remain behind just in case.

The Shaman occasionally grunts or makes another unintelligible sound, but in general terms keeps quiet and peaceful.

“What is your Idea?” Asks Merlin. “And can I help?”

“My telepathy skill may work, I just need a good way to restrain him. I think something is forcing him to continue attacking, even if he can still choose to do so in an ineffective way.”

“Ok, Let me help you.”

We both work for a minute to encase the Elder goblin in roots except for his head. The others move back and we power form fitting mana shields around our bodies. Just another small layer of precaution.

After finishing I stand in front of him and touch his forehead.

The next mental image is not planned, but my entire being just screams out:

Why?

He flinches slightly and it takes him a few tries until he manages to send something in the right ‘mental frequency’ back.

Many why’s. Choose why.

A grin forms on my face. We may finally get some answers and at least it wouldn’t take months to learn his language to get the process started.

Why attack?

Orders, punishment, many reasons.

Can stop attacks?

Impossible.

You stop attack. Why not him? - I say pointing to a random fallen goblin.

He stops in his mental tracks for a moment, then sends back:

He dumb, controlled, fearful. Slave. I smart. Choice, consequences, but freedom.

I don’t let the simple concepts and simplification of his words fool me. He seems smart, very smart, we just didn't understand each other’s language and this open’s up so many possibilities.

WHY me?

Inner Space. Strong sign, early integration, you go far. Small chance for me, for planet. Knew you would succeed in fight even if I fought. Avoid your loss of life.

I take a step back at his conviction before continuing.

You risk all for small chance?

No risk. Figth is not living, I’m slave. Small chance is only chance. Small chance better no chance.

I nod seriously. I had to respect his decision. He had paid a steep price and stopped protecting his fellow slaves for the possibility that I could somehow save him and maybe his people.

It wasn’t enough for me to have the entirety of humanity on my shoulders, now he wanted me to tack on another planet? Though as much as it may cost me, a single glance at him, a small effort of will traveling on my memory palace and the vivid memory of tears streaming down his face as his fellow shamans fell erases all doubt from my mind.

I couldn’t live with myself knowing I denied him even this small choice.

You stop attack? - I ask still trying to organize my thoughts after reaching my decision.

No, can’t, not now. Maybe later.

Nodding I give him one last look and voice what I knew in my heart was the only decision I could in good conscience make

I will give my all.

I will help.

I will shelter.

I will protect all I can.

He gives a rare smile exposing his sharp teeth in imitation of me, though I don’t know goblins enough to know if they did that on their own.

“Let’s move him in the village,” I say as a few people leave the gates with tools to start cleaning and rearranging the defenses around the town.

“What did you find out?”

I update them on the jist of our conversation and we slowly make our way inside with him in toe. He still occasionally tries to attack as his MP slowly recharges, but even the most oblivious of persons would notice his unenthusiastic and purposefully ineffective attacks.

Getting his staff, this a metallic one with an intangible quality that I had found in no other, I pull it into my inner world. Merlin’s drool is evident and Burges would love to get their hands on something like this, I have ot think about what to do with it.

Arriving on one of the cells in the jailhouse, though we had little use for it until now, we put him in the middle cell with mana shields completely surrounding him.

“Well, it will cost us about a couple of thousand mana a day and I would prefer at least 2 people guarding him full time just to be on the safe side.” Says Merlin.

“And we should have a couple of people here to learn his language. I can do a lot, but I don’t have the time and I haven’t been able to teach my skill to someone else.”

“I tried to learn from your notes and didn’t even get off the floor with it. It may be arrogant to say, but I don’t think it is a question of magical talent and study.” Says Merlin.

“I was used to sharing my thoughts with a non human being long before the system.”

He looks at me. “Aliens…” I just stare at him waiting and then reality dawns. “Pando. Bloody Pando.”

“Yep, I just had to learn to link with another being using mana as the bridge, The mental part was very familiar already.”

“That is what I found to be the problem. The mana bridge is easy, but the mental gymnastics of sending and translating thoughts from someone else is way too alien for me.”

I look at the goblin arch shaman and enter the cell again while saying back:

“I’m going to keep this up for a while. I can also help the people learning his language get started, but after that, I will have to take a step back. Too much to do.”

Most f them file out and only two guards remain.

The ‘interrogation’ last longer than I had expected even to get just the basics and a general idea of what he wanted and what he could provide as help for the work we put into his imprisonment while learning more about why they were attacking us.

Communication is still limited and adding up the sheer number of things we have to discuss, the slow pace, and probably limitations of what he can discuss we soon reach the end of what I can quickly extract from him.

The conversation teaches me a lot. Best as I can tell, they were not just system constructs, but integrated people like us, except they for some reason are paying a penalty.

From what I gathered, being the council’s flunkies isn’t the only end a planet can have.

In some cases, the system did use ‘unliving’ beings. Just robots made of flesh with no thought or feelings. In reality true NPC’s. But most people were like Blackwood or the Mayor Glenwood, just trapped by the system.

The level of glee they took in their duties however was another matter all together.

I also find out that the number of dead in any attack is significant and to compensate, the goblins had resurrection magic cast on them before any attack, though after just a few death cycles what is left behind is just a shell of their former selves making them little better than the flesh puppets.

There are less than a dozen goblins in the attack which had yet to die and the arch shaman was chief amongst them.

This is an aspect I had not heard even a hint of in my book, it either wasn’t talked about or there was something else about it, but now that I knew a little about it the book should provide some more information occasionally.

Soon after something else shocks me as I find out one of the other shamans killed is actually his son and the mettle he shows impresses me. Few would have the guts to go through with a scheme like this and allow his very progeny to die.

Though he doesn’t explicitly says it, I have the feeling his son hadn’t had the luck to survive other battles and was in most ways no longer himself.

After a good while, I leave him with a team that is going to catalog their interactions closely while trying to learn the goblin’s language.

I help for another half an hour after they arrive, just so they have at least the first 100 words dialed in. That should save a lot of time. Probably one of the hardest parts of learning any new language is the very start.

Walking outside the jailhouse, I look up to the setting sun. Just a few more minutes before the yellow light is gone and we only have the moon to go by. Bloody strange the abrupt end to the lights in the sky at ‘sunset’. It is not a proper sunset with lights reflecting off the clouds and a beautiful orange or purple tint to the sky.

Shaking my head after reminiscing for a few minutes I walk off in the dry ground. The wind has mostly dried the village after the rainfall stopped.

That was strange. I wonder what the change of weather was all about?

Bloody rainfall. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

The shamans wouldn't have caused something so widespread, especially as the weather started shifting about a month ago.

It could just be a coincidence or a regular event in the instance but I didn’t think so. There probably isn’t some deep and mysterious factor behind it, but it seems to be more of a mark and it might be important. Regardless, it’s good to feel the rain again.

Shaking my head I head out with my mind already turning to the dozens, hundreds of things I should be doing in preparation for my upcoming class trial. I wish I could delay it and prepare more thoroughly, but we didn’t have the time not with the attacks getting stronger. Hoarding too much of my potential back might be a death sentence.

---------------------

Charlie’s POV

“This has come out of nowhere,” I say trying to see if they were angling for anything. The villages that came to our rescue were also some of our closest allies but this would resolve several things.

“It’s not like we wouldn’t be gaining anything. Hell, we got to admit, most of the reason we were being so strict with things is the fear from diminushing our own defenses and as we recently find out, we had spies fanning those flames.”

I grimace at this mention. I knew even in our village we still had spies, but manipulations like this sound more extensive than what I had encountered here.

“So you saw the EXP bounty and wants a share of it?”

Many of them had gone from about level 80 to 100 in a single jump.

“Yes. We need to come up with a good schedule and only the closest villages will be able to send reinforcements in time after defending our own villages at the end of the month.”

“If you are thinking about it, let us go all the way. I have an idea that will shake things up.”

“What?” He says warily looking at my smile.

“If you are already willing to send a portion of your population to our village, and provide reinforcements, what if instead you send only a few and talk the other villages further away into moving to one of our vialges?”

“Damn, that way we should still keep most of our people for a massive reinforcement drive while adding a lot of people to your village to increase the size and exp of the attack.”

“Exactly. It is a high-risk strategy that will require massive flying boats or other transportation methods to be made effective, but I think we can reliably delay the first weaker attack enough for everyone to get here before the second wave where the real enemies come out. We shouldn’t push our luck and bite more than we can chew, but…”

“No risk, no reward. And I agree, we should think of something around. For every person in your village, you would need 1 person as reinforcement in a timely fashion but we send two or even three times the number of reinforcements to guarantee a wide margin just in case they are needed. I don’t want anyone else dying because we got greedy.”

Sarah sitting beside the commander of her own village after a brief glance sideways says:

“I think the matriarch can get behind this plan.”

That lets the gates loose, and the people tethering on the edge all agree to the tentative plan.

“Ok, now let’s work on the logistics and who we should invite.”

Smiles all around while everyone thinks of the enormous rewards they could harvest. They really liked the idea, they just needed another little taste of sweet, sweet Exp and their concerns melted away like butter. No, it will be even easier, like galium liquifying against someone’s skin.

If this was their response, just the whiff of possible rewards should entice a lot more villages to join in on our scheme.

I should have thought of this before, but there is so much to take care of.

Now we just had to make sure the interest of other people didn’t derail our plans. Spies purposefully throwing a wrench into people thinking of migrating over. I should have expected this, but now that I know what to search for, even if most villages don’t take me up on my offer to move, I can adjust my diplomatic efforts accordingly and take precautions against their fearmongering. With that our population will slowly climb.

Why do they even bother to weaken us? It’s not like spending their strength to our detriment will somehow magically make them stronger, everyone will suffer from this.

Luckily we still had a little time. And the incentives we had in place are so very enticing.