Anastacia and King had started to make their way towards their goblin tribe’s camp fairly late in the evening. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, and it lit the dark clouds in the horizon. It was probably going to rain sooner or later, but Anastacia felt like they owed the tribe a visit, since Gobby had come to get them from the inn on its own. The reason for the sudden visit wasn’t within the creature’s explanation capabilities, but apparently it had something to do with either frogs, giants, pointy rocks or all three of them – or none.

The goblin itself had to be carried by King, since despite being a part of the more able group of the goblin population, Gobby’s walking speed didn’t match up to the considerably longer steps of the tribe’s royalty.

“We might as well stay the night there if this takes long and it starts to rain. Gobby, have you guys made a roof yet?” The goblin queen asked and spun around a stick she had picked up along the way.

“Roof… sky floor?” The critter confirmed.

“Yeah, the sky floor. The one that makes the rain not fall inside.” Anastacia explained.

Gobby shook its head. “Goblin try, won’t stay up. Lost many builders.”

“Well, don’t worry about it. We’ll figure out something once we get there. How hard can it be to make a small shelter from a cloth and a bunch sticks?” The necromancer smiled and took the goblin from King. “Say, you haven’t been approached by some weird looking kid recently, have you? She has long silvery hair and a mean look in her eyes. More than likely going around nude.”

Anastacia could see the gears slowly turning in the critter’s head as its stare turned more and more blank. Suddenly Gobby’s mind returned to the mortal realm and it croaked. “Yes. Yes! Say god but goblin knew better! God not small, all know! Fake-god tell goblin to not dig anymore, but goblin throw stones at fake-god and dig anyway!”

Anastacia sighed. “Don’t throw rocks at people, it’s rude. But why would Vilja tell you guys to not dig? Did you guys find anyt... Was there a treasure buried there?!” She asked and shook the goblin.

“No treasure, goblin find a pointy thing! Too big, can’t move, but pointy! Frog pond still too small, so goblin still dig. Maybe find more pointy?” The goblin theorized.

Anastacia couldn’t wait to find out what the goblins had found. She would have noticed a big skeleton buried in the area, so the pointy thing was unlikely to be a tusk or anything like that. To her, the only thing that made sense was that the goblins had found an ancient artifact or a weapon, she could use to mess with people or sell depending on what it did. Not once did she even consider that it would just be some boring old tool or a weirdly shaped stone. Gobby was quickly caught up in her excitement as well and screamed happily as Anastacia dashed through the fields towards the goblin camp.

They were greeted by a mass of goblins, far larger than what Anastacia remembered leaving behind last time. They piled up on each other to get a better look at their royalty, for the first time for most of them. The stories of Anastacia and King had been passed down from the few original members of the tribe that survived for long enough to tell them, but over time they had changed into something so incomprehensible that no man, woman, goblin or god could actually tell what had happened. Even Gobby, who was somehow still alive, had forgotten most of what happened before the tribe arrived at their current home.

With no consistent reason behind why Anastacia and King were the tribe’s leaders, they were met with varying levels of acceptance from the crowd. Some of the younger goblins doubted the non-goblin royalty, and this caused some minor fighting between them and the loyal, older generations.

Before the situation got out of hands and they would have to deal with dozens of fighting goblins, Anastacia figured it was better to just assert dominance over the critters. She took a better stance and started casting as much fire magic as she could without hurting anyone.

Goblins may have been divided by what they thought was a good way to govern the tribe, but what united them was their love for fire; and surely, someone who could make so much of it so quickly would lead the tribe to glory. With the mutiny stifled, and almost forgotten by most of the goblins, they screeched and danced happily as Anastacia opened fire towards the darkening sky again. The happy cheers were too much for her, and she couldn’t resist showing off some more.

Slowly, the fireworks began dying down as the necromancer began getting tired from all the flailing around. Besides the absurd levels of danger for the caster and everyone around them, and the fact that it had absolutely zero defensive uses, the main drawback of fire magic was the physically taxing nature of the casts, and because of this, it was often considered unfit for long, drawn-out battles against equal numbers. Where it really shined, was the situations where the caster was ridiculously outnumbered. A single skilled but reckless fire mage could lay waste on an entire army before either barely escaping or getting killed by an archer, another mage or sometimes even their own casts. So for an adventurer, it was a tremendous tool, as they often found themselves at a disadvantage when it came to numbers and almost all wildlife feared fire to a degree.

And just as her teacher had predicted, it suited the necromancer almost perfectly: necromancy didn’t require movement from the user and that was almost all fire magic needed to work. With enough practice, she could use necromancy purely on instinct and magic with reflexes or muscle memory, leaving her more time to think about the situation and maybe once in a blue moon, do something smart.

There was one thing that bothered her though: nothing in her skillset would help anyone. She didn’t want to be just a ball of death and destruction. There had to be a single thing she could do that would not kill people. Her desire to help literally anyone with almost anything was the main reason she jumped at the opportunity to build a hand for Yulia so readily.

“Your queen wishes to see the pointy thing!” She declared grandly. Usually she was by far the smallest person in the room, but among goblins she felt like a giant, which boosted her confidence; and that in turn made the goblins listen to her properly.

A path opened in the sea of green, leading towards the spot the goblins had dug for mud and clay for the throne mound. The hole had widened considerably since the last time and the pond at the bottom was now swarming with small, brightly colored frogs.

“Why is there a ton of frogs here?” Anastacia asked, put her gloves on and picked one up. “They’re kind of cute.”

“Tasty! Goblin get bugs, give to frogs, more frogs!” Gobby croaked and licked one.

“I see… You know these look pretty poisonous, right? Gil said the color is like a warning or something…” Anastacia asked and gave the frog a pat before tossing it into the pond.

“Taste like fire! Queen try?” The goblin asked and offered his frog to Anastacia.

“No thanks, I’m not in the mood for being poisoned.” She shrugged and slid down towards the bottom of the muddy hole from a spot that had the least frogs in it.

Poking out from the middle of the pond was about a meter high, slightly curvy sharp object. It looked a lot like a tusk but wasn’t bone or anything like that. “Hmm... There’s like small grooves on it.” She mumbled to herself and traced the grooves with her finger. Whatever it was, it was clearly made by someone and was not just a weird root or a stone. Anastacia leaned on it a bit to see if it would move at all, which it didn’t.

King slid down as well and stared at the strange object.

“Think we should dig more and see what it is?” Anastacia asked and cleaned some dried mud from the spike to get a better look at the surface.

The simulacrum moved her aside and grabbed on to the spike. The light patterns on his armor started to shine brightly before suddenly spreading to the spike and lighting up the grooves in it. The ground began to shake violently, and the goblin crowd screamed in excitement. A loud mechanical wail filled the air as something under their feet started to slowly rise up. Suddenly King pulled on the spike and snapped it off. With an even louder scream, whatever was hidden in the ground under them, died or shut down again.

“What the fuck was that?!” Anastacia screamed and tried to shake King. “What did you do?!”

King stared at her for a few seconds, presumably trying to come up with an explanation. Finally, he pointed at the snapped off spike, then at the ground and then at himself.

“Whatever that was, is one of you guys? Then why did you hurt it?” The necromancer asked and kneeled down to feel the hard surface under a thin layer of water and mud they were standing on.

One of the sides of the hole had split apart when the simulacrum under the surface was woken up, leaving behind a small chasm in the clay. While not terribly deep or wide, the crack in the surface of the ground was at least ten meters long, and based on that, whatever King had briefly activated, was massive.

Knowing that there was no way King could pantomime the answers to her questions, Anastacia figured she would just trust him and see what happens. “Sooo… Want to get them to dig it up?” She suggested and pointed at the cheering goblins. A few of them had thumbed down the muddy slope and were now desperately trying to stay away from the water.

The simulacrum nodded, grabbed the necromancer’s hand and dragged her out from the hole. About eight meters from the edge, he pointed at the ground and started digging with his hands.

Anastacia stopped him. “Nononono… We’re royalty here, we don’t dig. Just let the goblins handle it.” She laughed and nodded at the confused goblins that had no idea what was going on. “Alright lads! Your king demands a new hole to be dug right here! Do this well and I shall gift you fire!” She declared and shot a couple of fireballs over the crowd.

The goblins immediately lost it, the happy screeching became ear-shattering as the critters rushed to start digging. From what Anastacia could make out, they were ‘singing’ about a queen that creates fire and a king that shakes the earth. Half the vocals were just screaming without tone or rhythm, so the song itself wasn’t terribly catchy. It didn’t help that none of the hundreds of goblins sang in synch with each other.

“Come, we have a castle to check out while these guys work.” The necromancer laughed and started pulling the simulacrum towards the thrones.

From distance, she could see that the goblins had built a wall around the throne mound. It was far from being uniform in height, but even the lowest spots were almost three meters high, so it definitely worked as a wall just fine. As they walked around it, the main flaw of the structure started to become apparent: there was no door. They went around the whole thing and didn’t find even a goblin-sized hole anywhere. Being made from stones and mud with surprising amount of skill, the wall had no outcroppings that could be used to climb over it either.

Anastacia grabbed a random goblin that was running around, doing goblin things. She tried to ask it if there was a way to enter the throne room somehow, but the poor goblin was either a special case, or just too overwhelmed by being lifted up, as it began to shake uncontrollably and had to be put back down. The second closest one performed a little dance for the king and queen before running away. The third one they found was busy stuffing pinecones in its mouth and seemed to be able to cooperate at least on some level, since it responded to Anastacia’s waving by offering her a pinecone as well.

She smiled, took the gift and started working on ripping out a few of its scales. “I was wondering if you knew why there is no door in this wall?” She asked and tossed a piece in her mouth, figuring that it probably wouldn’t kill her.

“Must have wall before make hole! Goblin make wall too good and no hole now!” The goblin explained and gave King a pinecone as well.

“Yes, of course… Maybe you could make like a ladder or a ramp over it then?” Anastacia suggested and put the pinecone in her pocket.

The goblin seemed even more confused than usually. “But enemy get in? Why wall if just make a ladder anyway?”

There was clearly no room for debate before the goblin’s flawless logic, so it was allowed to resume whatever it was trying to achieve before being interrupted.

The first drops of rain fell on Anastacia’s face when she was trying to find a good spot for King to punch through the wall. It had also gotten dark without them really noticing it, so it was decided that they would find a way inside their castle after a good night’s sleep. King was tasked to find some firewood while Anastacia prepared a shelter with a roll of tent cloth Gilbert had forced her to take along.

“Right… now how do I set this up?” She muttered and started looking for some long branches. After a few failed attempts, she just leaned one of them against a rock, threw the cloth over it and weighed the corners down with some rocks. It was an objectively terrible shelter, but it was a shelter. Unlike King and the goblins, Anastacia did mind staying in the rain for the night, so it would have to do.

With the campsite ready, Anastacia huddled against King under the shelter and started making coffee over the fire. The screeches of the goblins were still audible despite the shelter being a bit further away from the frog hole and the rain muffling their noises. Occasionally a few curious ones stared at them from the woods before going back to their goblin businesses.

“We have a lot more goblins now… It’s nice. Once the castle has a roof and stuff, we should come spent more time here. We can just walk to Valor for a breakfast and so on.” She said and took a sip. “I’ve always wanted a house, but a castle is way better! We can just hang around and do regular people stuff without a bunch of drunkards around. I like them of course, but you know, sometimes you just need the peace and quiet that only herd of goblins can bring.”