Hours pass in my little hut and I learn nothing about what could have damaged my soul. Even as I leave the mystery to the wayside and continue with my more immediate tasks, the thoughts keep coming back.

After just a few minutes, only the searing memories are left behind, but those memories are more than enough. If I got hit like that during a fight… I can't even properly train my skills and even my magical support will become less reliable if I’m always worried about suddenly becoming useless.

Still, there are no answers within reach for this dilemma. So I go back even more determined than ever to get done with the whole business of acquiring a bunch of gold.

I crowdsource the possible solutions for that project. I could have slowly dug tunnels from the goblin village to the edge of the HLZ, but doing it without Qi or Mana would make the quick endeavor into a long and prolonged trial. A shorter tunnel just so I can move the gold out of their village and then stealthily load it all up in a flying craft or something sounds workable, but that would rely on luck more than I was comfortable.

“I got an idea,” says one of the researchers I invited to my little hut in the middle of the forest.

I jerk my head upward and look at him in a bit of surprise having almost forgotten about them and that is enough for him to continue talking.

“We just need a distraction.”

“Uhmm, but what could be such a good distraction that they would ignore a flying vehicle, even if it is fleeing from them?”

“That I haven’t figured exactly, but it can start with you driving an incursion inside their territory.”

“That won’t be enough, only about 60 percent of the goblins were attacking my roots at a time so assume at least some 30 was back in the village.”

This time a scout volunteers in an easy tone: “Just make a hundred decoys moving around crazily.”

“Uh-hmm,” I say, contemplating the interesting thought. With enough distractions… “It likely wouldn’t work a second time, but… with surprise on our side, we could probably pull off this ‘heist’ once at least.”

“Can’t the HLZ beasts pull them from the sky? Won’t the goblins would be able to do the same?” another researcher volunteers.

“I see just one big problem with it. The distance is about 18 kilometers from the edge of the HLZ if I’m not mistaken.” At a nod. “At that range… we don’t have a craft capable of this level of mana storage and even if we somehow made it through, how much gold ore could we even bring back? Every pound would just tax the limited mana stores of vehicles that can barely even get in range of the village, let alone have enough juice for a return trip. What is the concentration of gold ore… a few grams of gold per kilogram of ore even if we only stick to the high quality and slow regenerating stuff?”

“Can’t we smelt it in place and bring back only the pure gold.” The first researcher asks.

“I could probably work something out to smelt the gold. Gold is one of the easiest metals to work with. Even a wood fire should do the trick but would add complexity we don’t need to the plan and take too long. By that point, I rather just dig a long tunnel with multiple cutouts and bring in the ore stealthy, which may remain an option if we apply enough misdirection. We won’t succeed another time if they take just a few basic precautions, but if they don’t look at the gold mine as our goal, but think that it is an assault, or better yet an attempt to find their village, then they might not post guards inside which would preclude any stealthy mining operations.” I say.

“They can’t get the gold, except for a very small tide that the system allows, but they could post guards inside around the clock.”

“I don’t see why not,” I say.

“I have an idea to avoid the limitations of our current batteries in the flying craft. Solve the mass problem like a rocket. Just drop the useless weight as each battery empties.” The first scout says

To which a researcher spins his head up and continues: “Ohhh and if we could add a few runes to the track that already reaches some ten kilometers inside the HLZ to recharge both the crafts heading inside and the little battery dropouts, they could be fitted to return so we wouldn’t even lose them.”

My mind starts spinning wildly as the idea comes together. Ideas on top of Ideas, each an addition or refinement to the plan. But all of that while it could benefit from my experience, will require a more fundamental job that only I can do.

So I start.

I take a deep breath like I’m heading inside a sewer, reaching to the roots around the village and the gold mine to start to work in earnest.

Hours upon hours drag on together. I sleep eat and take regular breaks that all go into helping mold the next iteration and I almost forget the pain that I was subject to just the past evening.

Another day passes and another until the fourth.

Just when I think everything is going smoothly, preparations are coming to a close and I have gathered enough I fall to the ground. My consciousness is stretched way past my normal limits and I reach for my inner world, trying to get some balance and tuck as much of myself into the little island inside my soul.

The patch of protection is small. Some 3 meters wide and no matter how well I’m tucked under its umbrella, the chilly wind and droplets of razor sharp water still get to me. I fight the pangs of pain from outside remaining calm and slightly detached from the chaos of the world, but instead of just a few 10 meter, longer cracks show up this time.

I see the original place I thought of as my soul and the place where my resource pools sit. Aether constructs from the system and my island, all part of my soul.

Try as I might, I can’t shake off the wrongness, the sense that what is happening should be so and the slight disgust at my failure. I should know what is causing this.

I try to meld together and heal the cracks using all my will to make myself whole again, but the effort is too much. A walling cry hits me in the distance and then it is gone, it is all gone.

The calm after the storm.

The cracks start healing in a process that is nearly as painful as the injuries, but luckily it is focused on only a few spots instead of reverberating all around my being.

“Nash… Nash… are you ok?”

“Don’t worry, I’m back,” I say, but the deep sense of wrongness is left behind. Whose cry is that? It is both like a child's and an old man’s cry. There is something familiar about it, yet so strange and alien and warped from so far away.

Chivers creep down my spine, but I don’t know who is being tortured…

Goddamint, it must be the system’s fault, just about everything else is.

I couch trying to get my bearings again and in minutes I’m back at work like nothing happened. For as painful as that may be, it is over and I got stuff to do. And I have a feeling that it won’t be able to escape.

From the inner world, however, comes a strangled cry.

Pain. The remnants and echoes of pain.

Did you feel that?

Yes.

Though best as we could determine, he only got a whiff of it because of our connection, but I still spend a few minutes reassuring him.

Time waits for no man and I continue with the last preparations for the raid on the HLZ. Especially given that any delay might mean we have to wait for after the end of the month and the village attack to come. Especially as this one is going to be larger than ever.

The next day everything is in place. All the preparations we could accomplish in less than a week. I walk to the central square for the first work of art that is going to make a difference in this endeavor.

The largest flying craft we had designed until now, though that is not for the four high level squads, for they are going to be on the ground. Opening a portal to the inner world, I allow everyone to enter, before turning on the enchantments on the flying craft. The 25 meter long and 6 meter wide smoothly shaped wooden craft slides inside the inner world with no effort. Close to the largest graft, we could have made without having the repulsing rune collapsing on itself. And all of its nearly thousand tons with surprises out of its butt ready to be put to use.

I get in a much sleeker and narrower draft, one that only fits myself and a single pilot as everything and everyone enters the HLZ.

With no good way to connect to the network besides turning on and off connections every couple of seconds, I use the time to go over the plan and that brings a smile to my face. A manic smile at the surprises the goblins are about to have.

Getting in place, only a mile away from the HLZ, we stop. I call out to the inner world.:

“Everybody ready?”

“Yes.” The four squads say in unison ready to drop and give the enemy as little warning as possible.

I stretch my will and a dozen portals form. One for the teams at ground level, one in the sky for the main craft and ten spread out as far as I can reach for the smaller craft meant to be distractions.

I fully encase myself in a cocoon of roots and then use Earth mana to meld with the surroundings sinking into the ground. For as little as that is likely to help given the powers they have demonstrated. Linking the comm runes inside the inner world to the outside directly reduces the minimal chance of something going wrong as the controllers take charge of the swarm of crafts by remote.

Spread over the full distance I can reach with my perception field small craft float out and right on top of the main attraction.

The squads rush forward in formation at just faster than most people sprinting speed back on Earth, with our favorite warrior as the tip of the spear and half of Merlin’s usual retinue as magical support.

I connect the inner world’s batteries to the massive formations underground spreading miles in the HLZ. The prodigious rate of mana consumption of a formation that largely helps keep the crafts aloft dwarfs nearly all our previous efforts and that saves mana from the batteries of those crafts.

The main attraction looms over the sky heading pretty much for the village, though keeping to the line of advancement in that exact direction that the tendril went to not hint we have any prior knowledge of their village.

The entire mass of invasion speeds up to a full sprint, even before entering the HLZ, but the preparations underground have paid off, as the repulsing runes reflecting with much more ease off the formations underground will mean nearly no mana consumption for the first ten kilometers or so.

At over 200 kilometres an hour the main craft rushes along, I send my perception field, and seconds after the craft enters the former border of the HLZ, the goblin village makes an impression of a kicked anthill.

Though in contrast to most of the goblins running like headless chickens are a core of organized warriors.

A minute later they are marching out with a portion of the village in our direction. Two minutes and the expected beasts also stream in and I warn our side. The squads, start retreating closer to the edge as planned. Still deep in the HLZ to attract plenty of attention, but standing atop powerful defenses to delay and make a ruckus while minimizing the chance of someone ending up injured or worse.

A much larger group of beasts run in, 22 of them. A fifth of our squad numbers as expected.

The mass of goblins passes the point of no return given their expected travel speed with the only ones still in play being the 400 remaining in the village.

The main flying craft passes over their heads, imposing, and just as I feel the pull of magic dozens of miles away to strike against it and try to swat our flying craft like a fly. The controller responsible for it hits a single button in his panel and the imposing machine of war becomes a swarm some 500 flying craft strong, as it breaks apart the outer layer, discarding it like an eggshell.

“So, do you like our surprise?”