The morning devolved into a community cooking event. They had enough food to last them a week with my contribution and what they could forage and hunt in the Whitewood Cave. They only needed to prepare it. Most of the meat was cooked properly and stored in clay bowls. The temperatures were not too high, it should easily hold. Chef took what was left after and set up a slowly simmering stew for lunch.

Other goblins got busy picking up the bones, skins and other indigestible parts and got started on working them. They had some weird way to tan their leather that used a poison mix Roguk made. It was far easier and less smelly than using the standard options.

While almost everyone was working, some of the goblins I knew a little closer came up to me. I recognized Luk and Grag immediately. The hunter and scout were fussing over my new looks.

“You’re actually Fio? I can’t believe it! How’d you change this much? Were you still growing?”

Luk kept quiet but I could see his finger twitching with the desire to touch me. This time, I connected to both of them. Grag fell over and faceplanted on the stone while Luk shook his head with displeasure.

“Hello, guys. It’s me.”

The groaning greenskin on the ground turned to me.

“What the shit… Is that your voice?”

I nodded.

“Kinda hurts my head…”

“It’ll get better as you get used to it. Don’t worry.”

“It will”, Roguk butted in, “But I also want to know. How’d you change so much?”

“It’s called evolution. You get to major vis enrichment and adulthood and you can evolve or get an Affinity.”

The goblin chief blinked.

“That stuff’s real?”

“What stuff?”, Grag asked.

“It’s like… a secret thing that ork talked about sometimes. He said something about why goblins would evolve from orks and stuff like that.”

“Goblins from orks? I only know the felt-ear-dwarves in the west evolved from goblins.”

They stared at me.

“What?”

“Dwarves?”, Luk asked with a pointed look.

“The terrors that can hold back an ork army?”

“They got a big wall.”

“That’s…”

He trailed off.

“Why don’t you tell us how and why you met them?”, Roguk asked.

“Okay. So… after I left, I got in a bit of trouble with some orks. I ended up killing a thaumaturge that had taken interest in me. After that, I decided to find my way somewhere else and I flew west. At some point, I reached the Dwarven Hills. I made a bunch of friends. Sapient animals and dwarves. That’s about it?”

Obviously, such a haphazard explanation was not enough for the goblins. They started asking questions about the details and I told them about my adventures. Roguk and Grag mostly, Luk was just sitting there, listening. We had just reached the part where I was talking about the ork thaumaturge when someone else approached our group. Someone I was not too fond of.

“Uhm. Hey…”, Meeny greeted. She could not meet my eyes, nor any of the goblins.

“I’m… Uhm. Sorry. I guess? I was a bit of an ass to you, last time. I…”

Finally, she turned her eyes to me.

“Ugh. I can’t do this. That’s like… so off. You’re just so strange to talk to…”

I separated the others from my connection. It would make it easier on their flux. Then I connected to the girl. She took half a step back and her eyes widened.

“No… no… I’m really sorry. Please…!”

“Can you shut up?”, I demanded.

“Wh…at?”

“Yes, you were an ass. Doesn’t mean I’ll hurt you. Just… stay away, I guess? I don’t want to deal with you.”

“You… can talk?”

I huffed.

“Since when?”

“I had to make a complicated thaumaturgical artefact to send my words to others but I was always able to understand everything.”

Her green skin turned a deep brown at her cheeks.

“Oh no… I… didn’t know.”

“Of course, I gathered that much. But I don’t get why you wouldn’t know. You even talked to me, didn’t you?”

“I thought you only knew a few words. I’m so sorry. Really. Let me make it up to you. Okay?”

Her panicked face was honestly kind of cute.

“She’s been punished already. Since then, she’s behaved a lot better.”

Roguk gave me a meaningful glance.

I nodded.

“Just… keep a bit of distance? I don’t know. I haven’t really forgiven you. But I don’t see a reason to escalate. Just do your community stuff.”

Her lips pulled tight. It almost looked like she would cry any moment. Then she took a deep breath and was able to talk again.

“Right. I can do that. I’m sorry. I’ll be out of your way, then.”

She left and as I reconnected with the others, Roguk asked what I had told her. He thanked me for not pushing her any more. After that, we got back to our talk.

“So you are a thaumaturge, now?”, the chief asked.

“Not in Class but I can do thaumaturgy. I could even get you a Thaumonomicon if you want. You’ll just need to be careful with warp and flux.”

“No need. We’re fine as is.”

I looked around.

“You sure are.”

“Just because we have thaumaturgy, doesn’t mean our problems suddenly vanish. I’d rather we find a safer place to live but there’s not much we can do with the storm passing this close already.”

“Stormbringer? Yeah, that’d be a problem. But there’s places to the east and west that might be more suitable. Maybe something to consider after the snow’s gone.”

“We can hardly pass by the orks without being noticed. And we’d need a ton of resources as well as a better place to move to. No, this is fine.”

I nodded.

“Your decision. I’m still gonna keep an eye out for a better place.”

Another hour later, I had told them most of my adventures. It was lunchtime so everyone got together once again. The after-midnight turned into a fancy party with lots of simple singing, dancing and food. The goblins thoroughly enjoyed themselves and I joined in hooting some of the melodies.

Towards the morning, as everyone was starting to move towards their huts, Roguk once again found me.

“So. How long do you plan to stay?”

He fiddled with his thumbs in front of his chest.

“I’m gonna leave when everyone’s asleep. Or something like that. It’d be good if the outside is still dark or at least twilight.”

The goblin nodded.

“And you’re really willing to bring us food?”

“Buy and bring. I’ll just take like three or four decent crystals from the node to cover the costs.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Fio. As far as I’m concerned, that node is yours. If you want to use all of it, just say the word and I’ll tell everyone to stay away.”

“Nonsense. I had it as part of my territory while staying here. It’s no longer mine. I found bigger places to drain power from. Try to get everyone as high of an enrichment as they can. If you can find where the mana goes into you, you can figure out how to guide most of it there. It’s gonna be much more effective to get stronger.”

Roguk blinked.

“Really? Well, I don’t really get much more from it. I’m at minor enrichment already.”

“That’s a medium node. And it’s on the larger end. You can get at least medium from it. The aspects are also decent for hiding if you can integrate them into your Skills. Just go for it.”

“Okay. I’ll… try. It’s really unpleasant, though. And risky.”

“You can do it. I know it.”

My encouragement seemed to lighten his mood. He was getting sleepy so we said our goodbyes and soon I found myself down in the Whitewood Cave. It was largely as I remembered it with just one stark difference. There were two huts close to the tunnel going to the village. One of them was filled with a bunch of wood, the other with bone and stone tools. The trees had been pushed back a little but I could already see some new saplings grow. The goblins were making sure to forest responsibly.

The node looked much the same. It still sat in a separate cave, a huge crystal sitting in the middle over a crack at its bottom. Only, my new and upgrade senses found something very interesting. There was no node in the room. There was a strong flow of energy coming up from below which had to be feeding the crystal but the node was not in my sight. Judging from what I learned these last few months, a node should not send all of its energy towards a single crystal. Unless this was the only exit from wherever it was positioned, it might actually be a major node. Or one even bigger.

While interested in the secrets of the goblins’ node, today was not the time to solve them. The giant crystal forming on top of the rift was of such enormous size, I was confident not a single dwarf had seen something like it. Still, they would be the best people to approach about how to harvest it. Maybe I could make something amazing with it.

I turned around and picked half a dozen ‘large’ vis crystals from the trees close to the cave entrance. Now that I thought about it, this place had to have been undisturbed for centuries to have grown this many resources. The goblins were actually super-rich by dwarven standards. I would have to see if they could move to the outskirts of the Dwarven Hills. That would be great for them. From what I knew about this tribe, they acted very socially. It might actually be possible to get them citizenship with a little bit of effort. And surely Borsdown would need new settlers for its expansion? I could not wait to see the results. For now, it was time to get them some extra food. If they made it through the winter a little more comfortably, they might have enough trust in me to follow to a new place. Though I might have to clear the way of orks a little.