I blinked to clear my vision, getting my bearings. My vision still wasn’t what it once was, but even the lingering poison damage wasn’t enough to prevent me from seeing that the building was chock full of human brats, all lined up in the pews and listening to the old man lecturing at the front. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t the sweat shop I was expecting.

They actually seemed to be teaching their young. Something was sincerely wrong with these people. Didn’t they know that strengthening the younger, fitter generation would only hasten the day when they would be replaced? Wisdom was their only advantage, to just give it away was the height of foolishness. I mean, I’d experienced some teaching in my time, but that wasn’t exactly hob-approved.

But, for better or worse, the old man was indisputably teaching the little buggers. And, to my delight, he was teaching them exactly what I wanted to learn: the Soul System.

Humans, the decadent bastards that they were, gave even their children the secrets of this incredible power.

“You.” The old man pointed at a young boy who had raised his hand at the old man’s question, and had been eagerly waving ever since.

“You have to know what you want! I’m gonna get Strength, and pull a plow all by myself!”

The old man shook his head, smiling. “Ah, yes, knowing what you want is an important step. Specifically, you must meditate on each and every Stat you desire, fixing them in your mind throughout the relevant step of the endowment process. Remember, your own conception of each aspect shapes it, so even a small flaw in your visualization can lead to large errors in the function of the stats you receive. Stats don’t borrow as much from the gestalt mind as Skills or Classes, so you don’t have nearly as much leeway.”

“So.” The old man looked around the room. “What is the ideal number of stats?”

“One!” The same child as before jumped up onto his seat. “That’ll make you the bestest ever!”

“All of them!” Another boy glared at the first one from across the hall. “More stats makes you more powerful!”

The old man pinched the bridge of his nose. “Children, children. Little is so simple.”

The first child shifted his scowl from his peer to his teacher. “I’m not a child! I’m a whole nine years old!” He proclaimed proudly, holding up eight fingers.

The old man tried to hide his smile, and failed miserably. “Of course, Gerry. How silly of me. But the point still stands: the number of stats you choose is a trade off. Lower numbers are far easier, and thus likely to be far better visualized, but a higher number of stats captures your excess soul energy more efficiently, allowing you to have higher overall stats, even with less investment and lower individual stats.”

Gerry folded his arms, unconvinced. “Doesn’t matter how many you have if they’re all weak.”

The old man shook his head. “That might have some truth… if there wasn’t overlap between different stats. It all depends on how you conceive of your different stats. The same person could easily have their strength augmented by a Strength stat, a Might stat, and a Power stat at the same time.”

Gerry just looked confused.

The old man cleared his throat. “Well, that’s an advanced example. There’s no shame in not pulling off something that complicated with your stats. Most people only have one or two.”

The rest of the lesson was mostly hammering home the same information, understandable given the intelligence of the intended students, but it helped me solidify my understanding and pick a few things that were standard knowledge among humans.

Namely, I now knew at least one of the ways that the extra energy the Soul System allowed one to contain could be used: stats. Stats harnessed the excess energy and funneled it directly into enhancing you in some way that you’d hard-coded into your personal Soul System when you’d first gained it. I still had no idea what ‘Classes’ or ‘Skills’ were, but if they weren’t covering it in this basic course educating their idiot kids about gaining the System then I could probably worry about that later.

Now that was the kicker. Gaining the Soul System? All you had to do was drink a certain sacred elixir blessed by the priest before doing what amounted to picturing the stats you wanted to get. Normally this would all be done as part of a complicated coming of age ceremony, but that nonsense was all ceremonial bunk. I didn’t need it, which was good, cause there was no way the human priest was gonna let a goblin into his little ritual.

I was going to steal it. ...just as soon as I figured out where it was. I really hoped that he didn’t create it specifically for each ceremony, cause I had absolutely no desire to wait around for these brats to grow up.

So I waited for night with a patience born of playing dead for hours at a time and when the sun finally fell beneath the horizon and brought about the blessed safety of darkness, I squeezed from my hidey hole and set out to go through all of the priest’s worldly possessions.

I dropped down from the rafters, landing in a light crouch. My ears swiveled about my head, but detected nothing but snoring in response to the creaking floorboards. Good. It had been something of a gamble to jump rather than scrabble down the wall, but sometimes people reacted stronger to sustained noises than brief ones.

I crept forwards, staying low to the ground and leading with my hands. I might not be able to see more than blurred shadows in this light, but I was no stranger to navigating by touch. Gods know I had to do it often enough back in the tribe. Goblin burrows had no windows, and the precious few candles we’d stolen were in stronger hands than mine. Stealing from the hobs was fine and dandy, but only an idiot would steal something that literally glowed when used. You’d get caught before you blinked twice.

I fumbled up to the altar in only a few minutes, and ran my hands all over its elaborately carved surface. Fine work, but no secret compartments. Next I pried up some floorboards and crawled under the floor, rolling around between the hard packed dirt and wooden slats until I was satisfied that I’d run into every muddy puddle, loose nail, and rough support beam that was down there. Definitely no secret chests.

I crawled back up, carefully replacing the loose boards. Where was it? Perhaps there was some clue somewhere…

I, with some reluctance, crept into his living quarters, starting at the modest kitchen. Some of the more paranoid Hobs kept their stuff close to them at all time, specifically to stop night thieves like me. If I was unlucky this human might be the same.

After going through every cabinet and cupboard twice over, and enthusiastically chugging what turned out to be a bottle of milk, I was forced to admit the truth: I was, indeed, unlucky.

I swallowed as I faced the final door in the building, leading directly to the snoring figure even my goblin ears could barely perceive. I had very little respect for the senses of humans, but the idea of pawing through their valuables right in front of them was ballsy, even for me.

Not that I was a coward or anything, but… if this man was trusted to teach their Soul System, and empowered by their gods to endow it upon others, what were the odds of him being any less than a master of it?

Not good.

Every cell of my body screamed at me to turn away, to leave this strange power with the damnable humans who had been gifted it, but I couldn’t seem to move my legs. My mind was filled with a thousand images of myself dying.... But my heart was full of a thousand other deaths, of goblins cut down without a care, of human villages put to the torch. A thousand grand crimes, a thousand personal tragedies.

What? You think you can stop it? No. Not really. But maybe I wouldn’t have to watch. Maybe I wouldn’t have to sleep in terror and wake in a cold sweat each morning.

I couldn’t do everything… but maybe I could do something.

So I stepped forward, to steal might bestowed by the gods themselves.