The minister of waterworks had the formal duty of planning all water related infrastructure.

It wasn't a serious position. The goblins were playing at being civilized, and the humans that needed them were expected to humor them. Under this reasoning Aimone dismissively and in few words layed out the policy proposal.

"A round base, brick, with silver lining the inside."

The goblin nodded with an earnest expression, while drawing the proposed water tower on the back of an old envelope.

The two had been given what Scratch had referred to as a "conference room". An as of yet unoccupied storage room in a newly erected shack. The walls were thin planks and light poured in from an unfinished roof. It felt like hiding out in an unfinished house, which was exactly what it was. But it was better than the tribal mud huts in front of the cave. They sat on and around empty crates from smuggled wares.

"And there's an opening at the bottom for the water to be retrieved from. That's it. Just a water tower." Aimone concluded.

"I see." The goblin let his tongue out of his mind drawing the plan. "And the opening is to a basin for washing in."

"No! You-!" He held in an angry outburst. "What do you think happens to the water if you leave it open, huh? This is useless, where's your boss?"

The goblin looked a little hurt, but responded to the question. "Uh, Scratch is feeding the birds."

"Not the goblin! The- Never mind. Basta! Hand it over." He snatched the re-purposed paper and the charcoal out of the assistent's hand and began to draw for him.

The human's drawing was a lot more lifelike, if less instructive. He incorporated perspective and shadows to sketch a pretty stone tower with a round base and decorative battlements. "Like this, see this? A faucet. The water will want to flow down, but you do not want it to, so you block it off until you need it. A. Fau. Cet. Every child knows this."

"Oooh." The kid cooed with acceptance of the lesson and appreciation for the artwork.

"Don't blame Patrick too much." A women's voice came from the door opening. "He *was* born yesterday. Or was it the day before?"

The little Patrick held up three fingers.

"Really?" She entered the room to stroke his head. "Time flies. Did Scratch put you two up to this?"

"We're a ministry." The goblin puffed up his chest. "Look, Aimone drew a water tower."

Aimone leaned back and looked away. "We're spending our time entertaining your spawn until we're allowed to go back and live our lives again. Mannaggia."

"And what's so bad about that?" She wanted to know.

He didn't respond.

She looked at the paper again. "I heard something about an underground sewer."

Aimone waved his hand. "It can't be done, not without earth magic."

After that, they didn't make much more progress. The instructions to the water tower were given to the construction teams late in the day, so that it couldn't really be started until the next.

"So... you guys from the republic?" Huckabee brought up tentatively.

Audace slowly nodded.

The two were strolling around the outside of the wall. Lately there had been complaints about wild animals, and they were drafted as scarecrows to scare them off.

"I always wanted to visit Grienice as a kid." Huckabee stubbornly tried to invigorate some conversation. "They say the canals and aqueducts are the mightiest man-made structures in the world."

"Yup..."

There fell an awkward silence while the two slumped over the bright green grass.

"You don't talk much do you?"

"Nope..."

Huckabee sighed. It was troublesome having to work with these foreigners. He hadn't had time to properly mourn his former colleagues when the guild staff attacked, and now he wasn't quite sure how to do it. It was like the moment had past or something, Harkness certainly seemed to have forgotten them. No, that wasn't fair, Harkness was always the stoic. Then again, Huckabee disagreed with himself for the third time in a single train of thought, she had been more emotive lately. In fact, she seemed outri-

"Oof! Hey!" The large foreigner rudely interrupted Huckabee's thought process by slapping his chest with the back of his hand. "What's that for? You-"

"Mira." The man pointed at a quadruped silhouette in the distance.

"A wolf?"

"Warg."

Huckabee scratched the back of his head. Warg wolves meant trouble, where there was one, there were more, and they weren't easily intimidated like normal beasts. If their population had really shrunk so much that the wargs thought it safe to attack, they could be in serious trouble.

"Are there warg wolves where you're from?" He whispered to Audace.

"Everywhere."

"Let's back out and tell the boss."

"Uh-huh."

The two began to move towards the gate, keeping their eyes on the distant enemy. When the wolf eventually dashed away they turned around and started running.

-

Harkness wasn't in her tent, but she wasn't hard to find. In the middle of the town, between the platform and the mud huts, the goblins had cleared a large area and dumped a small mountain of wet clay on the ground. From this material they were sculpting brick. Large bricks, each the size of a dog. The bandit boss, along with several others, was observing.

When the two had ran up to their leader, they were out of breath. Huckabee more so than Audace.

Without looking at them she acknowledged their presence. "Have you seen this Huckabee? Goblins do everything without magic, fire, water, and now earth. When you think..." A fascinated smile visited her lips. Then she sobered up and turned to face them. "You've taken care of the animals have you."

Huckabee panted. "No... Wargs...."

"Wargs? Did you see them?"

"Well... one."

"I understand. I must discuss this with Scratch."

Huckabee raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

The question stumped her. "Why? Wha- He needs to know, wargs are a threat to all of us."

"But why him specifically though?"

"Because... because I just want to. You two, go stand guard at the gate, I don't want any sneaking in."

"And the other two?" Huckabee inquired.

She looked over her shoulder. The minister of waterworks himself stood with rolled up sleeves between the goblins, having to manage them into sculpting the materials and cussing loudly all the while. His friend stood at the sidelines, highly amused. "Hold fast Aimone," he laughed, "envision the water tower when this is all over!"

"Aimone is occupied," she said, "but I think Gildo has some time to be standing guard."

Scratch was conferring with Barbara. They were having a discussion on smuggling partners.

"The real problem are the messenger pigeons." She explained. "The bandits get theirs from Fyro, and to Fyro they will return when released."

"So you can give me names, but you can't give me contacts." Scratch sighed, exhaling a plume of smoke from his pipe.

The two were seated in the underground cave. Barbara's candlelight spell lit up the cavern in a clinical white light, softened by Scratch's smoke. The dogs were laying by the gently rippling river, and the birds were strutting about on the fenced off hay that hid Cyclophan's shard.

"There has to be a way..." Barbara wrinkled her mind. She didn't intend on living in a cave for the rest of her life. If she helped Scratch in his ambition, he would reward her with Eston's thieves' guild. But for that to happen, they needed to be independent of Fyro's monopsony. She knew plenty of guild members that would be eager to go behind his back, but no way to make an agreement with them.

"You're persona non grata, Lydia and her boys can't be seen anywhere near civilized society..." Scratch pondered, "maybe some adventurer... no."

-

As they were discussing their options they suddenly became aware of Quiet, who was hiding in the cavern entrance.

"Uh, hey buddy. You got something for us?" Scratch asked him.

Quiet nodded, and pointed to behind his back. "-wants to talk to y-"

"What was that?"

"Lady. The lady wants to..."

Eventually Scratch gave up making the boy speak out loud. Quiet had picked up a nervous tick somewhere and would forever be a shrinking violet.

The party climbed up the tunnel to meet Harkness at the foyer, the best looking room of the cave.

-

"Lydia. How is it going girl?" The goblin greeted her, his pipe still in hand.

She came right to business. "I have grave news. My men have spotted warg wolves outside the perimeter."

"Wargs?" Barbara scoffed. "So what? How do they rank among adventurers? E?"

"That may be so, Barbara," the bandit leader explained patiently, "but my men are not adventurers, rank E or otherwise. Wargs are known for their pack tactics, they only come close to populations if they have the numbers to overtake them." She turned to the goblin. "What do you think?"

He scratched his chin. "What would you have done if wargs had been spotted outside your camp, half a year ago?"

She lowered herself on one of the pelts. "It's hard to say, they've never done before. We would sometimes move if our territory became too dangerous, but wargs, they pursue... I suppose I would have urged Fyro to help us, perhaps through adventurer requests, perhaps by sending equipment."

Scratch clasped his hands. "Then that's what we will do!"

"What?" Barbara reacted. "You said you wanted to be less dependent on Fyro, not more!"

He shrugged. "You've got to pick your battles. We can focus on independence some more once we've avoided being torn apart by oversized canines."

"I think it's high time for the gate to get some doors in it." Barbara stated. "Wolves can't climb after all." Then she had an epiphany. "Hey! What about this tamer person you told the others about. Warg wolves have got to be easy for someone like that, right?"

"Yeah, what about him..." Scratch puffed on his pipe pensively. "I don't think Beatty will be in the region anytime soon."

Between him an Harkness, both knew about the bluff. But neither was prepared to call the other out, so the lie remained in effect.

In the end, a strongly worded plea to the thief leader was all they could muster.

Warg wolves....

Is this your doing?

Not directly. You've got two of them running around in your camp, howling at the wild, it stands to reason that a passing pack would be curious.

It stands to reason does it?! You could have warned me! Are the colonies in danger?

Hhmm. That depends on how many there are. Wargs will feed on goblin tribes if wildlife runs out.

Can you see where they are?

No. Beasts are not my specialty. Rather than think about your empire project, concern yourself with my dungeon, this will be the fort protecting you from outside threats. I've almost drilled down into a new cavern.

You didn't set this up on purpose, did you?

I have no need. All wildlife is a threat to you, building a dungeon to defend yourself is your only recourse.

Scratch's shoulders dropped. The evil god had strongly internalized his speech about dependency and was more confident than ever making demands.

Can I make these wild creatures part of the dungeon then?

You can try.

No, I mean, will your dungeon magic pacify them like you did the geese?

That... no. I told you before I have no power over any creature that's protected by a god's aegis.

What? What god could a bunch of wolves ever be protected by?

Who else? The god of beasts, Noruk.

Just how many of these gods are there exactly?

Good gods? Twelve. Evil gods? Innumerable.

The dogs weren't protected by any god. Are they not beasts?

Dogs aren't intelligent, they can not worship a god. Are these things not obvious to you?

Of course they aren't! Okay, okay. So these are intelligent wolves, does that mean they can be negotiated with?

They can not speak, so...

That's not a concern to me. What matters is: what do they want? Food?

That I do not know. Go find yourself a ranger if that's what you want to know.

A lot of help you are. Scratch dropped the pipe and went on to help with the brick sculpting effort.

-

Half a minute later he came running back and picked the still smoldering implement up. What do you mean "drilled down into a new cavern"? We didn't discuss that.

Currently in front of me are a number of underground veins. You've made the river a home, you can leave it like that. This new room will be much more suitable for a boss monster.

I didn't agree to more tunnels, the last one had a reptile that ate my nephew.

A dungeon must grow. I will reward you by summoning demonic entities.

"That's the opposite of a reward!" Scratch blurted out loud.

No more discussion. You're my dungeon keeper, you must tend to my dungeon, not direct it.

Scratch grumbled. It seemed like Cyclophan would continue to be no quite an ally and not quite an enemy.

Aimone grumbled as he attempted to get the clay out from under his nails in the goblin's basin.

"Are we keeping you occupied?" Scratch asked as he walked up next to him.

"Mannaggia! Digging in the dirt with goblins! I knew banditry would be low living, but this..."

Scratch looked at the clear blue water in the homemade pool. "Did you use magic on this?"

Aimone glanced up from his cleaning. "Si, so what?"

"I would like for you to demonstrate the process for a bit, we've got a special location."

Aimone's hands dropped, "it is you who is really in charge here, is it not?"

"I speak for the-"

"Basta! No Beatty has been appointing anybody for anything, that was you."

Scratch tapped the side of his nose. "You're too clever for your own good, you know that? Is that why you were banished?"

"Nah, blood feud."

"I see... do you know what this place is?"

Aimone looked around, taking it all in as if it was his first time looking at it. "A landfill?"

Scratch shook his head. "This is Fyro's work camp. Nobody has been able to leave the Eston bandit camp for more than a decade, other than by dying I mean. Did you know that?"

Aimone scratched his stubble. He didn't answer.

"Recently more than half of all bandits died to adventurers. They'd been waiting to re-enter society for years, hoping with each month it'd be their last, until..." Scratch made a throat slitting sound and moved his thumb across his own throat.

"And puts you in charge?" Aimone brought the conversation back to the original point with brutish directness.

"That means Lydia and I have the same idea. No more blind allegiance. We're making our own society now."

"Mannaggia." Aimone stood up, shaking his hands to dry them. "If you want to defy your master, that's fine by me. Heh, why not, we are free men. But I will not take responsibility for your actions."

"Likewise. Come, our project is outside the gate."

The two left, Aimone stepping ahead when Scratch was stopped by George, who gave him a questioning look.

"Two reasons," Scratch whispered in response to the unspoken question, "first of all, I would rather admit some independence than all of it, the tamer's fiction and all, and secondly, if the Grienicians are going to pick a side, I'd rather they do it soon. Before it can cause too much problems."

"Be careful, Scratch, they're larger than us..." George whispered back.

"Hey," Scratch grasped him by the side of the head, "I saw your iron hoes. They're really good. You're shaping up to be a real blacksmith you know?"

After the compliment the two parted again and Scratch hobbled after the human.

-

What he had wanted Aimone to see was a stone water trough, filled with unfiltered well water, that had been installed outside the perimeter, squarely in view of the developing watchtower. In front of the tub were some warm blankets taken without permission from the bandits, and above the assortment stood a log canopy to protect from rain and wind.

"What is this?" The water mage wanted to know.

"It's our new dog home." Scratch declared.

"Audace sees wolves and the first thing you want to do is make the dogs sleep outside?" Aimone put on a disgusted expression.

"Not for our dogs, for the wolves."

"Why."

"Why not? I'm sure they'll appreciate it."

"They're wolves."

"Uhm... yes."

Aimone put his hands over the water and closed his eyes. "Histolf's gift." A green light emanated from his palms, permeated the water, and left it clear and pure.

"Is this what you will be doing to the water tower?" Scratch asked.

"Me and some others will use our magic routinely to fill the tower and purify it."

"Doesn't eat up your mana?"

"It does. Though I find my mana replenishes quickly as of late."

"But you will not have any left for combat magic."

"...No."

"Then clean water is a luxury we must forego in times of crisis."

Aimone stared at the green earth in front of him. "If you would would properly dispose of all this merde, that wouldn't concern me as much."

The eldest suppressed her heavy breathing. She wanted to avoid alarming the pups by showing weakness.

Their pack was barely twenty strong, and most of them were younglings.

On her back she carried a biped. The only one kept by their community, the fact that she carried it marked her as strongest among them and the defacto leader.

Yet over the past years, the creature had felt increasingly heavy.

In these parts it seemed all turfs were occupied by untamed, feral bipeds. They stuck together, wielding sticks and throwing weapons in their hands, leaving precious little ground for nomadic warg wolves to spend the night. No safe place to drink water.

For that reason, the pack had dangerously veered into the silent turf.

There were no rules for what separated turfs, but it was intuitively obvious. A stream, a gulley, the trees changing species. When a turf smelled of foreign wolves, or off wild bipeds, then it wasn't safe, not unless you had the numbers to scare them off.

But the silent turf gave no intuition. There were no animal smells, or sounds. It was a large area of nothingness, only a faint smell of bipeds on the other side. Such a place scared them, they would say that Noruk had forbidden entry.

-

Eventually, she could no longer continue. A small clearing of soft grass had to do. Such places held an unobstructed view of possible intruders.

She darted to the side towards the inviting spot, body languages was all the pack needed and they swerved to the side as if the place had been pointed out to them.

When she reached the middle of the patch she leaned to a side to command the biped to dismount, then she trotted a circle to point out the spot as their home for the day.

The pups began to smell at the soil, testing the dirt, and trying to find an optimal sleeping location.

But an adult male approached her and began to speak. They didn't usually employ speech, for everyday business body language and routine was enough. Only complex concepts required words.

"This place is not safe." He growled.

"I will protected you." It was a passive aggressive response at the questioning of her decision, but it was also true.

"Will you protect us against thirst? Starvation?" He pressed on. "The silent turf is taboo. Nothing of value can be found here."

She raised her head, signaling the biped to comb her graying fur and remove the accumulating mites. "We shall move on in the evening, when you're rested."

He barked. "Where will we go? To more dead lands!?"

She jumped up and growled at him, throwing her little groomer to the ground. "Watch your throat, boy, before I rip it out!"

Some of the others began to loudly whine, urging them to calm down.

"There are others here." One of the younger ones mentioned. "At the circle of cut logs."

"Enemies." The adult growled.

"Survivors." The eldest insisted. "There must be food and shelter there."

"There are bipeds there." Someone else said. "Two kinds."

If they would have to deal with bipeds, then they'd prefer the small green kind. Those were weak and made for good servants, or food in a pinch. But the tall orange ones were stronger. At least they weren't the long-eared kind, that so persistently hunted them.

"We will find these two males, kill them or join them, and we will make these lands our home. That I promise." She said.

A promise was sacred, and it pacified the pack. Now she only had to make it true.

-

That evening one of the pups was running up and down the clearing excitedly.

"Man-things. I've seen them! Man-things! At the circle of cut logs!"

"Are you certain?" Another asked. Man-things were similar to the long-eared bipeds, but frightfully more alien. They build things, structures, cages, fire...

"It's a trap!" An adult barked angrily. "You've let us into a trap!"

"Nobody is trapped." The eldest scoffed. "You and I will go ahead, and we shall see for ourselves if the call of these strangers is a lure into the cages of men."

-

The sun had set when they approached the home of the man-things. It was an imposing wall of altered trees.

Right in front of them stood a structure, an overhang of wood from which a freshly killed deer bungled. Behind that, clean water!

"How obvious must bait be?" He scoffed.

But she left the shelter of the tree and approached the gifts.

"What are you-"

She sniffed the colorful material on the ground and then stepped around it, extending her neck to lap up the water in the trough.

She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until she had started drinking. She forgot herself and landed with her front paws on the material. It was harmless.

Eagerly she kept lapping up the liquid with her tongue, until her comrade joined in too. Only once they were sated did they look at the meat.

"Shall we eat from it?" He suggested.

"Better not," she warned, "if anything is trapped, it's the meat. Poison."

The younger wolf didn't know what poison was, but he knew not to eat anything the elder warned of.

The two stalked the surroundings, getting a clear image of the area. After a distance man-things could be seen, but they did not stray from their position. Guards.

There was a patch of tilled earth, which man-things were known to leave behind. And a strong stench of overfed slimes.

Other than that, the area outside the walls seemed safe, they went back to retrieve the rest.

-

The pups were eager to dance around the peculiar shed. They had never seen such a thing before.

But they did not drink from the water until they had seen their leader partake, and innate wolves instinct.

"What do you suppose this construction is for?" One of the pups asked.

"The clean water could be bait, to convince us to eat poison meat," the eldest speculated, "or the water could be poisoned too, and all of us will die."

The young creature made a concerned sound.

"Or, these are gifts to a beast mightier than man-things. To appease him."

"If that is so, eldest, I would like to believe it over the alternative, I propose that we do not linger. I do not wish to meet such a creature."

"You have a sound mind youngling, let the biped quench its first after we have finished, then we shall retreat into the woods. The night is halfway finished, and we have not yet eaten."

-

It took three days for the wolves to try the meat. Three days of traveling back and forth between their hiding place and the shed to drink.

Over that time they grew more hungry, as the silent turf was devoid of wildlife.

The eldest, hiding the tithes of her age, and carrying the biped, collapsed one morning on the soft blankets.

"Eldest, it is time to leave." A pup insisted.

She panted, her limbs simply refusing to obey her. "I am sorry, little one, I have broken my promise to all of you. We will starve in this part of the world."

"Do not say such a thing." The creature whined.

"You-" the eldest turned her head to the dark skinned adult, her rival for leadership. "Take my biped. He should serve you well, as leader."

The male shook his head morosely. "Your biped is worse off than you, eldest. It will starve before any of us. It is fitting that it should follow you to the afterlife, you've carried it all your life."

The biped, though it could not speak, understood their words, lying beside the wolf it stroked her fur.

The others were about to leave, bidding their leader a last farewell. When the servant reached up and sunk his teeth in the deer's ankle. It drew stale blood, and he kept on biting and tearing at the opening until he managed to pry loose a piece of chewable skin. Then he sat down to munch on it.

The wolves looked at the performance, stayed still for a moment, and then tore into the carcass all at the same time. The meat fell off its hook in their wild thrashing. They no longer cared about poison, when starvation was around the corner.

Half an hour later, all of them were fed, though not full, and none were feeling the effects of poison.

After that they came back every night, and were treated to a new carcass every night.

After three more nights they had visitors. Long legged, short-snouted, and with pure black fur, but clearly warg wolves.

The two creatures were darting around the area unconcerned, brushing up to the man-things at the other side of the circle without fear. When the pack came to pull down the meat the two sat down a few paces away to watch them.

The eldest cautiously approached them. "Was it you that called out to us?"

Both strangers tilted their heads.

"Was this meat left here for you? We apologize, but we were nearing death."

The wolves simply didn't understand. One stood up and lowered the front of its body, its front legs stretched forwards. The other quickly copied it.

"You... want to play?"

Some of the pups copied the creatures and they began chasing each other.

"They know body language, but they do not understand speech." Someone said.

"They're like pups," the eldest commented, "simple, stupid. What has been done to them?"

Beast Magic

Magic provided to humanity by the beast god Noruk is called beast magic. It is considered an advanced element.

The shaman mages in the yellow wastes teach beast magic to mages that have mastered the fundamentals of earth magic.

Beast magic allows the user to speak with animals, to control them, or how to change shape into an animal.

Notable heroes in the past that used beast magic include Bjorn, the bloodroot hero, who regularly turned into a bear.