Chapter 20:Law and order

It took a while for the Newer goblins to trust Scitus but after a few weeks; little by little his population grew from it's original 34 to 350 strong and all corrupted Goblins that survived, with the exception of Valentine, were magically imprisoned by Scitus. This Began Scitus's plan for a functioning government.

"I need help with this Master" Seresa infrequently forced the new words out of her lips. Despite this ineloquence, Scitus was impressed that she had learned English so quickly. He noted a difference in her, her thoughts had become more complex and consequently had become prone to asking questions.

Scitus looked over her shoulder, looking at the dirt markings she made. These markings were numbers and letters, Echo two had begun teaching her basic algebra. The others were still learning basic arithmetic but since Seresa had improved very quickly, she was provided special classes tailored to her.

Scitus thought she was impressive but it wasn’t just her, nearly all the goblins had an amazing learning speed that seemed inhuman. It was as if they were all prodigies. Seresa was ahead in both English and in Math and seemed to be moving faster and faster. Although slower, the others were not dumb; the learning was progressing so quickly that Scitus had begun to wonder if it had something to do with his presence as a god.

“Thank you master.” Seresa gleefully responded, before quickly refocusing on her work.

“isn’t she a wonderful student.” Echo two’s voice jolted his muscles and Scitus reflexively jumped. However, Instead of a normal hop, his jump reached far higher than any ordinary human. Scitus fell after reaching the height of the average tree and roughly landed with minimal injury a moment later.

“Wow!!!” echo two clapped, impressed by her creator’s inhuman feat. The inhuman feats had started with his encounter with the Wyvern and had only increased in frequency.

A day Prior while accompanying some goblins on their daily hunt, he noticed that his speed was only a moment behind that of a startled deer. He wasn't expecting the speed and hit a tree only a moment after and broke both his arms. The goblins ran up to him worried about his condition but Scitus made it a point to not show the immense pain he suffered. Fortunately, his passive healing activated only a moment after.

Seresa, who was only a few feet from the landing site, seemed completely unfazed, her mind seemed entirely dedicated to solving the problems in front of her. Seeing her writing on the dirt floor made him pity her. “I should start making ink and paper soon.”

Echo 2 walked up to Her creator still giggling, before extending her hand to help him. Scitus gladly took his daughter's hand, much to her delight. "Tell me to echo two." His tone of voice seemed to change, Echo two picked up on this quickly but only answered as she always did "yes master?". "Are you sentient?" Her eyes lids nearly opened, it was as if they would fall out of their sockets at any moment, and her mouth made a surprised O shape. Her sarcastic surprise wasn't lost on Scitus.

“Was I too obvious, Father.” Her sudden response took Scitus by surprise.“How did you know that I designed you?” The Echo series was one of Scitus’s many inventions as a child. Both the male and female versions were of his design, though he had thought that the owners of the rights to the invention would have made tweaks to the design by then.

“I don’t know why, I just know.” She said smiling sweetly.

Scitus clears his throat. ”What about your brother.”, She looked off into the direction she last saw her brother, west, near a different plain, he had been training goblins in combat. “yes, he is also like me, I think we gained sentience at the same time.” Scitus was about to ask another question, but before he could speak, Echo two answered, “yes, it was the effects of this world that gave us sentience. ”

“Actually I was going to ask what you would like to be called from now on.” She awkwardly laughs as she rubs the back of her head. “If I may choose my name, from this point forward, I wish to be known as Hera!!” She loudly announced to the world.

"The goddess of love and marriage?" She smiled from ear to ear as she looked at her creator, "O-okay." Something about her smile chilled his spine. "I'm going to go see your brother." He had quickly become uncomfortable with her mischievous smile and quickly headed to meet echo one to hear his desired name.

“Okay, I’ll go back to teaching classes.”

Scitus left, still slightly uncomfortable at Hera’s naming choice, but he abided by her wishes and would call her Hera from that point forward.

“My name, father?” So he too sees me as his father, he thought. “Well if I had to choose a name; I would like if you referred to me as Thoth from now on.”

Thoth, The Egyptian god of science, magic, and knowledge." Very well, Thoth. Your sister has also chosen a name, Hera. " Thoth laughed so loudly that the goblins in training were turned to look at their ordinarily stern teacher. "Yeah, that's appropriate" His response worried Scitus.

The day had come and gone and it was finally time for the final event of the day. The Goblins had been ordered to enter the fort for a speech. Scitus had been wanting to make this speech for a very long time, but he knew that with the goblins limited language, he would never be able to get his thoughts across. But the times had changed, all the goblins had been taught English and even though it wasn’t perfect, Scitus felt that he would be able to convey his meaning.

The goblins stood side by side, like a small army, waiting for the speech, many were filled with excitement, the few corrupted were terrified that it would be their end soon and Kaya was more curious at this point than afraid.

“We have come a long way since my arrival.” The goblins cheered, yelling out master and great god in their native tongue.

"I didn't do this alone, I gave all of you guidance and you gave me your trust." Scitus wanted to make it clear that their relationship was not entirely that of a ruler and ruled, it was also a relationship of trust and respect. He explained that he gave them guidance the best he could and in doing so, he too would learn from them. The goblins grew quiet, while the original 30 had grown accustomed to their god's way of leading, the others did not. They had always seen gods as being that demanded absolute obedience. They thought they would have to sacrifice their freedom for safety, the goblins didn't mind surrendering their freedoms, it was many times better than being hunted or killed, but now they were awestruck to discover that their god didn't want to be that for them.

Instead, Scitus’ seemed to desire a day in which the goblins would be self-sufficient and grow on their own. He did this for two reasons. The first is in the case of his death, if he were to die, the colony would quickly fall into disorder and the goblins would return to their old lives of living day to day. The second is so that the goblins do not become complacent with their lives. He wanted the goblins to create and destroy as they wished, to invent to think, to write. Without freedom, none of this was possible, they would simply be his puppets to rule for all time.

He continued, "I won't always be able to save you, so from this point forward, I promise to give you the skills to survive. Even if I were to die, all of you will have the ability to be great." They wondered to themselves if it was true if their god was going to teach them how to be great. Some felt fear at the thought while others felt excitement, and the few who had been near him the longest, Seresa and Robin being two of these, felt that it was simply inevitable.

At the end of his speech, he said something perhaps unwise or perhaps the wisest thing a king could say to his subjects. "Remember, that I too am replaceable." Scitus hoped that this would inspire them to continue forward even after his death, rather than inspire rebellion while he still lived,

Perhaps it would do both, he thought. “Though I hope it only does one.”

His worries may have been legitimate in any other circumstance but to the goblins before him it not only inspired hope, it also inspired total loyalty. The goblins had been beaten for generations, they were always the weakest of monsters, their hope had only ever extended to living another day. But now they were being told that every single one of them could be part of something great and be great themselves. They thought not of taking Scitus’s place, but rather they thought of striving to be as great as him. To them, he was the greatest God to have ever existed. Even the corrupted goblins were swayed by his speech. They Watched Scitus from the furthest end of the crowd and looked in awe and respect, even though they had done terrible things to their own, the thought of seeing another goblin on par with a human lit the fire of their imagination. They saw a world in which Goblins were not in constant fear of being killed by a human. Some of them even felt repentant for their crimes and thought back to the days before their corruption.

Then, their admiration was quickly replaced by fear, once Scitus moved onto the topic of dealing with the prisoners. Scitus brought Hera to his stand, formally the archer platform. Hera than projected words onto the night sky.

"These are laws, these are the reason humans have been able to advance so quickly with large numbers of them living so closely together," Scitus told the goblins all about the uses of laws and that with them, no one would be treated unfairly. What Scitus didn't tell them was that he was going to incorporate Psychology into his rules, specifically positive and negative reinforcement. In his world, the laws focused itself on punishment a less effective version of reinforcement. He would have explained it to them, but he didn't think they would understand it yet.

His plan consisted of letting the prisoners do more less what they wished, knowing that they could not hurt or even think of hurting others. That in itself was already positive reinforcement. The prisoners that contributed the most to the colony would be given more privileges and after a certain point, they would be given the same privileges that all citizens could have. It would be barbaric at first, but in time the laws would be refined into something more appropriate.

The speech ended, and the goblins went to their tents for sleep. All but one.

"Seresa" Scitus had asked Seresa to stay up later to answer a few of his questions, the most pressing one being. "How did you find out about the god ritual." It had been nagging at him for a long time. How did the goblins learn and obtain the ingredients for the summoning of a god ritual? Some of the ingredients were things the goblins would never be able to obtain, such as the tears of a basilisk. The most difficult one to obtain would be a dragon's scale.

“ah, it was the red Witch” The red witch? Who could that be? “Okay, thanks, you can go to bed now.” Seresa nodded before heading off to bed.

"Hey, wake up." Scitus lightly slapped Kaya's face to one side, beside her, like always, was a sleeping Arisa.

"stop that!" Kaya shouted and barred her teeth at Scitus. "Tell me,", "go fuck yourself" she interrupted. , "who's the Red Witch.". She grew silent, she hadn't expected to hear those words. "It seems like you know something, is she a friend."

“No.” Her face grew bleak. “The Red Witch is a fickle woman, not exactly something you want in a person capable of eradicating an entire battalion. Though I hear she helps you out if you don’t piss her off.”

“So she’s famous around these parts.”

“We met her on our way here, to the oasis, we were being chased by Mern’s army when she just popped out of nowhere and killed all of them in an instant, I can’t get rid of the words she told us before she entered the oasis,”

“now you owe me.”

“thank you.” Scitus left, contemplating on how to deal with the red witch when the time came, and scitus was sure the time would come.

“Hey!!! Don’t think you’ll be safe forever. I’ll be sure to kill all you gods one day!! you hear me!!”

"Yeah I hear you," Scitus snaps his fingers and burns Kaya's restraints off.

“Now, go tell your friends that if they want you free, that they should wait till morning. Because I don’t want to deal with them right now.”