Still, the Collector did note, it would have to further experiment with this Blessing, for though it could grasp a basic understanding of what the ability was capable of, the exact parameters of its functioning had to be parsed with direct experimentation.

For now, there was the matter of understanding the nature of this biome and its threats.

"Gobb…Gobb, is he safe? Did he make it back from the Shadows?" said the elder with worry.

The Collector surmised that 'Gobb' was the name of the champion that existed in the tribe prior to the Collector's arrival. The one that had foolishly challenged the Collector while being unworthy to evolve.

"Gobb fell in ignoble altercation against myself," said the Collector.

"Ah, treason, then," said the elder. He nodded and bowed his head. "None should challenge the will of the king. Forgive me, my king, it has been so very long since any of our old blood, our old royalty, let alone a king, has emerged.

Gobb disrespected the call of the lord, and I tried to tell him of the error of his ways, but it seems he was stubborn enough to vie against your will too."

The elder shook his head. "You must be disappointed in us. Even I know so little of the old age when the kings and lords of our kind still ruled. All I have heard are tales from my elder, and he from the elder before him.

But even I know that we pale in comparison to the old age.

None of us alive know anything of the old age, and we have grown so very far apart from it. Those that are not elders learn nothing of the old age and care not of it.

They cannot even speak our tongue properly. They only care for their next meal and warmth and safety, and I cannot blame them.

We have no power as a people. We are nothing. Scattered and weak and hunted."

The elder hung his head in shame.

"Survival is one of the primary goals of evolution. That this social unit has continued on despite continual surrounding turmoil is a sign of adaptability. Take note of this survival and find pride within it, for no matter the degradation of culture or peoples or larger social organization, that there is survival is what alone matters," said the Collector.

"Yes, my king," said the elder with a nod. By now, the Collector had gained a greater grasp of what Higher Calling was doing to the mental processes of the elder.

The elder might not have fallen into the effects of Higher Calling completely, losing all sense of self, but in effect, he might as well have. His mind was conditioned to perceive of the Collector as a 'king' essentially no matter what, regardless of any potential inconsistences with a true goblin king and the Collector.

As a result, the elder would still exhibit unyielding loyalty, merely in a more individualized manner than the rest of the tribe.

"Then…if it is not Gobb that stepped outside, then who among us was it?" said the elder.

The Collector did not know the evolved champion's name. It did not see the use of names, nor did it care to ever learn them. It remembered the evolved champion and any distinguishing features about him.

"A specimen possessing a healed laceration over the left eye," said the Collector.

"Ah, Rogg. I remember when he was a boy. Always a fighter. He must have found the will within himself to become a champion. When will he return?"

"This 'Rogg' will not return, for he has expired on account of engaging with these 'Shadows'."

The elder nodded simply. He sighed heavily, his ribs poking through his thin, wrinkled flesh with the movement. "Death is never far here. I am sure Rogg was ready for it, and I am sure his death will serve a greater good."

"Yes," said the Collector.

A pause. A pause the Collector would not have given even just a day prior. But a pause that felt right in the same way that it had felt right to grant the female daemon specimen her time.

But a pause the Collector broke after three seconds, for information was of urgent importance.

"Now, tell me of this land-," began the Collector, and from there, it imbibed information from the elder.

==

The next three hours involved the Collector assimilating information from the elder. The elder was not as efficient an information provider as the female daemon was for his information was that learned primarily through experience and with a mind that was not as gifted as the female daemon's was in sheer memorization.

Yet, there were some benefits to the elder's information sharing process as well. Because the elder had lived and thoroughly understood the information it possessed, he was able to better answer any questioning on part of the Collector and provide his own thoughts and opinions on certain matters.

Regardless, the information sharing process ended when the elder became too tired to stay awake, for age had rendered his attention and energy limited in their spans.

As the elder slept upon a bed of skin blankets and rags, none of which possessed genetic samples of note worth in terms of power or physicality, the Collector pondered the information it possessed and formulated a course of action.

The Collector desired primarily two short term objectives.

The first was to become stronger. Strong enough at the very least to ensure that the Collector could survive through escalating responses from tinkerers when they came to recognize the Collector's existence and threat to their way of being.

To accomplish this goal, the Collector had to hunt powerful quarry without evoking the notice of tinkerers.

The second was to master this Higher Calling power and potentially render it into something akin to what the Dominator-class Collectors were capable of. First, improving it in such a way that the Collector could remove the mana cost restrictions that made harnessing a multitude of units untenable and then further tuning it so that it could work on species other than goblins.

To accomplish these tasks, the Collector had to spend time utilizing its power on the goblin tribe to tune it and then obtain samples from different sapient species to work with cross-species application.

The long-term goal of the Collector was to still bring the Collective upon this world, for it had not yet found beyond a reasonable doubt that the Collective was not present. Already, it could be that the Collective had received its signal and was on its way.

Or it could be that the Collector simply did not possess a vessel sufficiently powerful enough to process the Collector's connection to the Collective or project a powerful enough signal.

Regardless, the Collector still had to set out on what it was created for: to bring upon the Great Purpose of the Collective.

Some stray, foreign feelings, doubt, worry – a feeling the Collector had felt intensely when it had linked with the female daemon specimen in the moments before her expiry, stirred within the Collector, influencing its mind inefficiently into stray thoughts.

What if the Collective did not possess any measurable level of existence within this area? Perhaps this truly was an entirely new universe, in which case, the Collector would never establish a connection with the Collective again.

These thoughts and feelings, the Collector suppressed, for it knew that without the Great Purpose, the purpose that it had solely been created for, there was no meaning to its existence.

The Collector clicked the mandibles on its main skull and fluxed mana throughout its being, imbibing it and releasing it in a manner similar to the processes of inhalation and exhalation. This made it far easier to clear the mental processing unit of any of these stray thoughts and suppress them.

The Collector did not know it, but it had grasped the rudimentary basics of mana-based meditation meant to regulate the emotions and render the volatile self more capable of channeling the emotion heavy nature of magic.

Regardless of what was or could be, the Collector knew that it had to focus on the tangible goals in front of it.

The entities known as the 'Shadows' were exceedingly unlikely to appear before the Collector again, for the hivemind entity that controlled these 'shadows' now knew the Collector's psionic energy signature and would never test it again.

This meant that the Collector's access to this mana rich Snowmound was, as of now, uncontested.

However, the elder had noted a few threats that could emerge in times to come.