Goblins

Two days after the battle, Withil and Roger had finally awoken from their drug induced collapse. The toil on their bodies weren’t small in the least and both found themselves unable to move due to how broken their bodies were. Ecstatic to finally see them awake, the Goblin warrior felt immense joy blossom inside him knowing that his leader had survived and would now become the Village chieftain. However he couldn’t go back as a normal Goblin, no that would be too much of a joke considering the fact that they had all the components needed to forcibly evolve right here. And so he fed Withil and Roger the organs of the Silverback bear and the baby Death worm, before eating some himself.

Unlike the ignorant Damon, he knew how mana dense the parts were and thus made sure that they only ate little pieces, just enough to make sure they would evolve. Otherwise the effect could be catastrophic to the body, most likely leading to a quick death.

Around two days after that, all 3 Goblins had awoken from their evolution. Both Withil and Roger could finally move as the excess mana also had the effect of healing their broken bodies. All three of them had become tier 2 Goblins, now high-variants.

They had kept their unique features such as facial structure and such, but there were also differences. Each one of them had grown by around 20cm, leaving Roger as the tallest at 1.9m and Withil the shortest at 1.8m. Furthermore their torsos had gotten bigger, alongside all their muscles. Their skin was still dark green like the plants found in the forest. Overall they looked similar to how they did before their evolutions, just bigger and stronger looking.

Nevertheless this was to be expected as the jump from tier 1 to tier 2 wasn’t big in terms of physical changes, rather the biggest change came in the form of perception. The reason why none of the warrior Goblins hadn’t been able to naturally evolve despite being fully grown was because of the key element needed in any evolution: mana.

And tier 1s could barely sense mana, nevertheless actually affect it, which is why nearly every single tier 1 monster evolved through forced evolution, despite a forced evolution having worse effects than its counterpart. Needless to say the changes in their senses was paramount, it was like they had been opened up to a whole new sense: a new way of feeling.

For the next day the now-evolved Goblins tested and played around with their new capabilities while waiting for Damon to wake up, who they could tell was alive due to his breathing, and currently in evolution, due to the immense amount of mana breaking out of his body before escaping into the atmosphere.

The moon came up, and was then followed by the sun as a whole day passed. In the end Withil decided they had to move, the parts of the monsters they had collected kept on dissipating into the atmosphere as the mana escaped, meaning the effectiveness of the organs only dropped as time went on. Considering the fact it would take a good part of the day to get back to the village and that the organs would most likely completely expire within 1-2 days meant that they could no longer keep waiting for Damon as they had no idea how long it would take him.

They were received with immense festivity upon their return, the whole village breaking out into celebration in order to congratulate their success. The old-chieftain used this as an opportunity to commemorate Withil as the new chieftain. Withil’s warriors and supporters left in the village revelled in his glory whereas the Raraak’s used this chance to adulate Withil as they changed their allegiance. On the whole the mission ended exactly as the previous-Chieftain had hoped: only one leader coming back from a successful hunt.

Over the next few days, Withil effectively used his new found social powers to introduce new policies to the village. The whole village would experience an upheaval as the whole structure from base to top was re-organised.

For the first week, half the Goblins were made to collect food and resources surrounding the village while a quarter went hunting and the remaining quarter was forced to teach the children how to survive. At first such programmes was met with resistance and minor defiance, although that wasn’t much for the reformed warriors to “fix”.

After a week, half of the Goblins collecting resources were then made to create items with them while the other half was told to keep the input of resources stagnant. The Goblins experienced a change from laissez faire attitude to one centred about the village, it was no longer about them but rather about the village. At first they found such practise hard to adopt as they were simple creatures who had been following a simple system. However they quickly learnt to accept it under “guidance” from the warriors.

It was a month later that the merits of the changes would begin to show as the village began to grow at an exponential rate. Within that short period, the Goblins had established themselves as the powerhouse in the region. This was partly due to the increase in Goblin warriors’ quantity and quality after training, reaching a total of 30 well trained warriors.

However this was more due to the change of leadership in the warriors. Now two high-variant Goblins lead them! One of those leaders was Roger, who everyone in the village knew as Withil’s right man. The second one was the warrior who had returned alongside Withil and Roger. Both of them lead 15 warriors each, and due to their leadership the villages overall fighting power grew.

In fact the village strength could have further increased if there were more high-variants, and there were, only the fact that they didn’t focus on battle. One was Withil who now lead the village and thus didn’t have time to do the actual fighting anymore. The other was Absinthe who acted as the druggist/healer/alchemist in the village. She had been the only Goblin to evolve after eating the rest of the organs as she had received the most potent parts, although even they were nearly expired by then. She was too engrossed with her research to care at all about fighting.

There were two more high-variant Goblins suited for fighting, although neither were in the village. The first was Gregal, the strongest Goblin who had evolved years beforehand and rumoured to be as old as the old-chieftain. He rarely came to the village though, and when he did he only came to talk to the old-chieftain. As for the last high-variant Goblin, he was one that they weren’t even sure about. He was Damon!

After the village had calmed down, Roger had tried to go back to the battle scene to check if Damon was still alive, only to be surprised as he worked out he couldn’t walk a small range within the cave. The mana density surrounding the cave had increased to such an amount that his body threatened to physically break down if he dared walk in. It was with pity that Roger ran back and told Withil. Most likely Damon was dead and if not, only the Gods the old-chieftain rambled on about knew what had happened to him.

A while later Withil came to the conclusion Damon was dead, although not many cared as only Withil, Roger and the warrior Goblin remembered him nevertheless cared about his current status. Most were just joyous that the Goblin village had firmly established themselves in the outskirts of the Great Forest and all clues pointed to them only growing further as time went on…

The further in the cave you got, the higher the density of mana. At its peak, the air was sticky with mana as the ethereal turned physical. The peak was the immediate area around Damon…

Evolving from tier 1 to 2 was simple, the mana just upgraded the functions of your body. But Damon hadn’t evoked a tier 2 evolution… And so mana tore at his body, fully tearing each patch of skin off, before it began its work at his body. It was an understatement to say he was eviscerated, as instead his whole body had been broken down into tiny particles that shone murky in the light. This had been the easy part as breaking was simple and thus this process only took 1 month.

Now came the difficult part: reforming the body. The reason why a tier 3 evolution took so much energy was due to this process, it was the reason why the silverback bear hadn’t been able to commence its evolution until it collected up enough energy to start the destruction of its own body.

Amazingly enough the mana in the air become so thick that it began to form physical specks that shone bright compared to the ones that had made up Damon’s body. Overtime the bright ones began to build up and in the end there were barely more of them than the murky specks. And then the specks began to merge, fusing their contents together into a larger parts as the specks started to become visible.

Damon had been very lucky with his evolution because if the bright specks didn’t at the least equal the murky ones, he would have failed the evolution and faced severe drawbacks up to and including death. It was his luck that he was still a young Goblin as his body was still small compared to others.

Eventually the clumps of specks became as big as a Goblin’s fist before they began to gain colour and tangibility. They layered one over another where Damon had lied, and eventually his body began to reform.

It was a total of 4 months before his body had fully reformed. His green skin was replaced by a murky-red one that seemed plastered over his flesh as there was no fat over his flesh. His muscles were not big but still seemed intimidating due to the high vascularity of his body. Overall his height hadn’t increased much as he had only grown by 20cm to reach 1.5m, but that made sense considering that his evolution was barely a success. He still had the typical Goblin facial features: slanted eyes, large nose, a cavernous mouth filled with knife-like teeth and the pointy ears on the sides. However not all had stayed the same as instead of hair over his head, he had tattoos engraved into his skin. The tattoos themselves were in a tribal pattern as it was filled with swirls and circular shapes with no definitive image.

It wouldn’t be long now till he awoke since his whole body had been reformed by now. Outside the cave waited a Goblin who knew this, as he waited for the mana density to go down. It wouldn’t be too long till the only tier 3 Goblins in the Great Forest met…

Trolls

The Troll chieftain sat in his home, head buried in his arms as his mind raced for an answer. He knew that it was in his body. It was foreign to his body and yet had taken control when his anger had risen. He had been forced to be a passenger in his own body as it fought, watching with his own eyes and yet unable to move whatsoever.

His stress only further exploded as he felt the tug at his soul, it wanted his body again… He somehow instinctively knew he couldn’t fight it, he knew it was stronger than he was. The tugs only increased in frequency and strength as he felt more of himself slipping away from his control. Then the voices started…

“Come on, just go to sleep. I’ll make sure the Trolls prosper if you just let go…”

“NEVER. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, SPIRIT!”

“Don’t push your luck young one. You know you can’t fight me, just let go and I’ll you benefit”

“THIS IS MY BODY AND MINE ALONE. BANISH SPIRIT”

…

The conversation within himself carried on, although the Troll could feel himself losing as the tugs only got more vigorous. He needed to take immediate action!

Using the last ounces of strength available to him, the Troll grabbed the sword that lay next to him, before forcing it into his neck. If he couldn’t have his own body, nor could anyone else…

And yet he felt his own other hand stop him, holding the sharp blade with force as blood slipped down it. His fear reached breakdown point as he realised that the spirit already had control over his body, he needed to end it quick!

He took the handle of the sword before stabbing the handle into the ground. Within the next second he prepared himself as he jumped, positioning his body so that his heart would be pierced through as he landed.

*thud*

His body fell. He could feel the darkness come over his mind as his life drained away. A last smile crept over his face as euphoria filled his mind, just before the darkness took him away. He had won!

And then the Troll got up…

The spirit had taken control of the body during the flight and had made the Troll tilt. And although his ribs were stabbed through with a sword, he didn’t care as the Troll’s smile became his.

He had done it! A second life, it had actually worked…

Next he focused his mind as he immersed himself, causing mana to rapidly speed towards his wound. Within moments it was closed off…

They had usurped his throne…

They had defamed him in front of his people…

And they would feel his wrath!