Mike’s landing hadn’t gone well. The twenty foot arc had him crashing to the ground amidst the stumps that littered the area immediately surrounding the mine. He hadn’t been hurt by virtue of Unflinching Meteor, but the poor hobgoblins who had been attached to him had been severely hurt. One had been knocked unconscious, a terrifying silence compared to the wail of his other passenger whose head was locked unfortunately close to his immobile ear.

His annoyance at the noise soon turned to alarm when Unflinching Meteor wore off and he was able to get a better look at the screaming creature. His leg had been smashed from the knee down, visible bone stood in stark contrast to the brown mud and rocks that had been forced into the limb. Mike silently cursed his rash use of Hands of Healing to silence the hobgoblin in the cave as he stared at the 23 hour cooldown time on the ability. Knowing that the hobgoblin would bleed out if he didn’t act soon, his persona exuded resolve and competence as he knocked the hobgoblin out with a blow to the head and began the grisly process of amputating the damaged member. This wasn’t the first time he had performed surgery. As a seal he had several encounters with emergent procedures in unideal locations. But this was definitely the most in depth healing he had ever tried.

He had a decision to make as he wrapped up the procedure: Should he cauterize the wound or stitch it? His fear was that Hands of Healing might bring back the limb if he simply stitched it closed, but cauterizing would help fight off bacteria. As he inspected his suboptimal work, he decided he had to cauterize it. It was the hobgoblin’s best chance at surviving.

He quickly lit a fire and heated up his ax blade, blowing into the flames until the temperature brought the metal to a low glow. As the skin sizzled and the flesh closed, the hobgoblin suddenly convulsed and began screaming. Fearing that the procedure would be botched, he used his off hand to send the hobgoblin back to sleep.

The amputation complete, Mike took a closer look at the other injured hobgoblin, who’s head had swelled up since he had first seen him. That was more than a little troubling. It was quite possible that this hobgoblin was even more grievously injured than the one who had just lost half his leg. The bark of a White Willow tree was known to reduce swelling based on his reading of “How to Survive in Montana: Plants and Wildlife”. Knowing he had some back at the base camp, he was plagued by the second choice of this experience: Should he move the body or risk leaving the body? He wasn’t worried about an animal or something getting the hobgoblin. He was more worried that the crowd of hobgoblins gathered at the scene would try to help in his absence and end up doing more harm than good.

Deciding it was best to stay with the hobgoblin, whose name he analyzed to be Creekeedie, he quickly formed a stable platform with some nearby branches and used his shirt to put both hobgoblins on the stretcher. Easily bearing the burden of the stretcher and two small bodies, he quickly made his way to camp, using every ounce of his concentrated Dexterity to move surely and smoothly back to the base camp. Once there, he mixed willow bark with some water and brought it to a boil, then carefully spooned it into the hobgoblins mouth.

All night, he cared for the hobgoblin, plagued by the knowledge that his actions had led to this trauma. He should have been more careful in his execution of escaping the mine. He should have thought harder. Ultimately, he realized that he had done his best and needed to just keep doing what he could to help, but he was worried how the hobgoblins would react to the previous day's events. His fears were assuaged, late that night, when a steady stream of notifications announced his growing pool of Veneration. This awakened him from his stupor and began to review notifications while he quietly wiped Creekeedie’s brow with a wet piece of cloth.

[Congratulations! You have leveled up your skill First Aid, now level 4.

+2 to Intelligence

Healing activities will be 50% more effective and 50% less painful.]

His first skill to reach Level 4. It didn’t feel right to celebrate in the face of so much pain. He did notice that the rewards had doubled with the latest level, previously each level had given his +1 Intelligence and a 10% increase to his healing activities. Not that that would be helpful. The requirements to further level up the skill had reached a new standard of impossibility: Transplant an organ. Try as he might, he couldn’t concoct a scenario where he would ever need to do that short of transplanting an organ for the fun of it, especially with his ability to heal any injury.

The head remained bloated and slowly developed red lines extending out from the site of impact. By midmorning, delirium had set in, and the small creature mumbled and squirmed uncomfortably. The whole of the camp stopped to bear witness to the suffering of one of their own. Finally, 23 hours later, Hands of Healing came off of cooldown and he was able to completely heal the hobgoblin. This prompted another slew of Veneration notifications, which when he checked, had reached over 200.

Drained from the experiences of the previous 48 hours, Mike laid down and immediately fell asleep.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Another day passed and Mike used Hands of Healing on the amputee. The swelling and all signs of infection immediately cleared up, but to his chagrin, the leg didn’t grow back. He had been friends with a couple of war vets that had lost a limb and had fallen into a deep state of depression after recovering. To prevent this, Mike took to carrying the small hobgoblin, named Creecheh, around on his back. Over the next few weeks, the small creature began to adapt to his life, even as the camp developed into a small town.

The group of hobgoblins he had assigned to dig 4x4 holes finished about 12 of them in the following weeks, and eventually they understood his instructions about building a ramp down and properly setting up bait, and they caught a wild turkey. Mike came upon the scene as the large bird threw the hobgoblins bodies in every direction, clearly more powerful than the small creatures. It had taken about a week before he had properly domesticated the bird and was able to turn its care back over to the hobgoblins, showing them how to cut flight feathers and cover the head to ensure that the bird was docile.

Under Mike’s directions, the hobgoblins built 20 longhouses. With their increasing numbers being almost up to 3000, this made for somewhat cramped quarters. After the first longhouses had been inhabited Mike had gone in a few days later to find that the insides were a complete wreck. And so began his never ending quest for a tidy camp, starting with latrine duty as punishment–which often came in response to the hobgoblins not using the latrines. Daily inspections of the main cooking area and log cabins were also enforced, which duties he was able to pass off to some of the hobgoblins who hadn’t developed any skills yet. This allowed them to develop skills such as Organizer, Leader, and Enforcer.

On one particular morning, about two weeks after the mining incident, Mike ordered his small scouting squadron to each find 6 followers and have them join them in their morning jog, which took much longer than the group had become accustomed to. Once out of the valley, he gave directions to Creeanth, who was almost on the verge of being able to speak English, to have the scouts trained by him help train the new blood. The teams set off in different directions and he stealthily moved from group to group, watching how his training was being passed down.To his surprise, all of the team leaders stayed on task and he felt optimistic about being able to have regular scouting partied to help keep the valley apprised of the adventurers movements.

Also around the two week mark, thanks in no small part to wearing a hobgoblin 24/7, his Beast of Burden ability advanced to Level 3, giving him a new Skill Ability:

[Congratulations! New skill ability unlocked: Undeviating Juggernaut

Gain extra Strength and Toughness while carrying or attempting to move heavy objects

Stats increase with the item being moved, up to 300% of base stats.]

It definitely wasn’t as good as some of the other Skill Abilities he had seen stemming from Beast of Burden. He had been hoping for Bulwark after seeing the way Creencheez had been unaffected by his explosion from the mine.

Creencheez added another color to the camp. As his Veneration levels continued to rise, he began curiously investigating the cause. One day he came across the small hobgobliness as she stood in front of a group of several hundred hobgoblins, gesturing up in the air in wonder. Though he couldn’t understand her, her gestures were such that he knew she was recounting the mine incident. This made him feel uncomfortable, both because he didn’t like the attention and also because he didn’t want people to keep remembering what had been a horrible experience for all involved. He had instructed Creeagle to put a stop to the teachings, which had initially led to a halt in his Veneration counts, but eventually they started trickling back in.

With an increase in his supervision, the mining picked back up, and the camp soon had a fairly large pile of blasting rock. As of yet though, there was still no iron. The lack of new tools forced Mike to move onto other projects, which meant turning his sights onto securing the valley further.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

System Leader lost control, the dam that had been holding in a slew of expletives broke and his outrage cry echoed through the chamber. Junior Administrator’s neck tentacles lost hold of the struggling space jelly that was meant to be his dinner at the shocking display the entirety of the flight crew members currently on the flight deck stopped to stare in amazement.

System Leader’s tentacles flared in frustration at his lack of decorum as he watched the small valley continue to make steps to becoming an actual stronghold. Somehow, the anomaly had cowed off the other humans with the help of hobgoblins, of all creatures. Hobgoblins were widely known for their uselessness throughout the multiverse, and it was unfathomable that any human actually feared approaching them. The rest of the world was easily transitioning to the System, but this single anomaly was proving more difficult than anticipated.

In all of his years of integrating planets, the number of times he had initiated phase 2 could be counted on his tentacles. Still, it was better to stop this now before things got worse. At phase 3, he would have to notify his superiors. He had never had to initiate phase 3.

“System, roll out the phase 2 anomaly message to all assimlants in Noob Zone AA12.”