Of course setting out right then for Yhrack wasn't doable for me; the day had more than half passed already. Instead they brought me up to the circumstances of their battle plan. I, Vamp, and a few other elites would run with the warg riders. Yhrack and Oirk were relatively close, and for that distance elites might be able to push themselves to keep up, and the warg riders would be going at more of a trot than a charge.

Warg riders were cavalry, doing massive damage to regular infantry goblins. The only way the Uhkhjk forces would be able to counter from their army would be to send out their own wargs. That’s where Vamp and I, a class of elites above the rest, would upset the Uhkhjk wargs.

We weren't exactly polearm users, though I did have an abundance of spears. The reason for this is because as Khtraal described it, goblin power levels went ‘hero’ >’king’ >’prince’ >’lord’ >’chief’ >’pre-hero’ >’warg riders’ >’elites’ >’warriors’ >’scouts’ and then newly born goblins. Generally speaking.

Okay, what was that? How many rankings are there? And why does are there so many ranks between hero and pre-hero?

Khtraal and Ychk pushed past my questions of goblin social structure, and only assured my that Vamp and I were around Chief level, which with two of us would certainly be able to disrupt the Uhkhjk charge enough for our mounted unit to descend on them. Then after a brief skirmish, the wargs would go full speed to cause damage at Yhrack, returning to the main battle as they started to retaliate. Vamp and I were to be the caltrops in their chase scene basically.

Before leaving I wanted a look at the wargs, not wanting to be surprised. I wouldn't have been, as their image matched the one in my head almost exactly. Varying shades of charcoal black, they looked like wolves that stood three to four feet high and five to seven feet from snout to hindquarters. Wargs really were massive, but prodding one, its body didn't seem particularly strong. When fed up with being poked, it finally snapped.

“Whatch yourz-elf.” Vamp was accompanying me on my tour, narrowing his eyes at the close call between my hand and the canines. I didn't turn to look at him, swiftly gripping the warg’s muzzle, holding it shut.

“This thing has a bite almost as good as yours.” I joked. Feeling its face and the pull of muscles as it attempted to shake me off, around 13 strength was starting to get high for a baseline mortal, and Stamina expenditure gave me the upper hand. Whipping about, my large frame made it much easier to get and maintain a hold, and the beast started calming down.

Staring into its eyes as we wrestled, I confirmed that physical ability here was the same as the old world. The body strengthened at different rates, although it was usually around the same level, according to exercise and apparently diet. Despite my training when I arrived, I experienced not one point of increase, however my body improved as a whole. This Arbitrary Body left me with an incredible decrease in the vulnerability of my weak points, and realizing the extent to which muscle power and resilience could differ revealed a weakness in others.

So when the warg ended its feint, growling twice as vicious as before; I knew exactly where to kick it, bringing it down. Holding its head in an armlock, the warg’s neck craned up painfully from its collapsed body. With a little more Stamina, I lifted the head up a bit more, scooting the whole body closer; then getting down and placing the limp head on my knee.

The beast actually went and gave me puppy dog eyes, which at the same time looked dead inside. Predator? More like pathetic-er.

“Hkejk! Nevr see warg clawed before.” Vamp got in close like I did, giving the thing an eyeful of his serrated mouth. “Easzy to khill. Will be easy.”

“Yeah, but there will probably be a lot.” Looking around, the warg’s ‘pen’ was actually an open area separated from Oirk by a rather lacking fence. Constantly patrolled by a lineup of warg riders, any rogue untamed wargs that tried to find a meal in the settlement found themselves hunted and killed. Being mildly intelligent, and having already dead goblins tossed to them on occasion; warg populations existed alongside goblin settlements, the larger ones giving away more dead to their mounts. In Oirk, that came to around ten dozen unclaimed wargs. To contrast, Khtraal only has two dozen warg riders. An easier number to take care of, but even if there were fewer Uhkhjk, that didn't sound like a very fun number to tango with.

With the warg no longer giving any resistance, I got bored and let it go. Predictably attacking after a small delay, since it was expected, I landed a heavy smack atop the snout. Whimpering, it looked properly defeated as I got up. Giving it a glare, committing the darker forelegs to memory, if it tried attacking me later, I would definitely teach it who was dominant between us.

Having no further business with the goblins, I departed. Ychk saw me off, and said to expect the battle to take place five days hence, or Thursday. I felt a bit antsy about it, as having foolishly allied myself with the Khtraal, I could no longer farm them for experience points and soul power. Even if they were only goblins, I couldn't backstab my allies.

Instead, the five days could focus on improving my magic. So lacking goblins to kill, I made do with the already dead; processing the wastes to bones. Vamp accompanied me back to the battlefield. It turned out he was interested in the hand spiders and Zog; if not undead himself, his affinity for them at least was strong. Since the hand spiders needed to work in pairs for optimal efficiency in this task, I made a seventh one to hang out him.

I too was curious if the reaction with another sentient would be substantially different from actions with myself, but Rosie didn't act any different than the other hand spiders. Well, she acted within the expected range of behaviors which was still weird for ‘classical’ undead creatures. Eventually, the lack of light became due to the sun’s diminishing presence, as opposed to the thick trees. Those hours were mightily productive though, my Inventory became a boneyard by mass; and there were still branches and a few forgotten trunks left in there competing for the title of lumberyard.

Departing for the village, I threw Vamp another corpse from my Inventory. Deciding that the act would be our little parting ritual, he tossed me another of his innumerable teeth. The thought process seemed a bit strange, but whatever. Storing all the minnies in Inventory, I jogged home.

Another late night out, looking at the sky I noticed more moons than before. The large white one and the blue one from before were joined by a green moon and a red moon. There were more moons than could be reasonably predicted; and not only their colors, but their paths through the sky seemed to intersect. How did those orbits even work?

In fact, how did gravity work? Derriad matched the size of Earth, and Kallahall was double that size, and there were numerous other countries of incredible scale. Whatever planet we were on should not produce so little gravity, and the short period of the day...all of it together, it made one wonder if I'd actually landed on a flat, or dare I say, disk-like world.

Nothing to be done about it at the moment; realizing I yet again began pondering a path I couldn't possible explore, I threw my hands up in exasperation. Let's just finish up tonight’s duties.

Time for our daily sentence with Ria! Last time, I introduced myself as a mage of Braan, and told her she suffered from a magical ailment! Adding another sentence to this synopsis make it longer than our conversation!

“Wbyu…” Ria tried to say after becoming aware of my presence. Despite my excellent mumblese, she was mumbling in Derrish, so I should be excused from not understanding once or twice. Or any time, really.

“Alrighty,” Slightly filled by the busy events of the day, the usual introduction was skipped for a more expedient poke to the horns.

“Ee—don—don't! Why do you keep doing that?” Ria pulled away, covering her horns.

“That’s how you wake up; if we keep at it, it will start working better. Any real questions?”

“Umm, can I talk to my father?”

“10 seconds left; I'll bring him tomorrow morning. Question for you, does your skin still feel normal? Itching, numb, anything?”

“It’s uh, it feels like there might be some...thing….missing?” Ria started lolling about, so I set her down. Something missing, eh? That's plenty of information for a diagnosis; I wasn't a doctor, so it's not like I could get any worse, right?

I only thought such things in jest. As everything I worked with was essentially assumptions and guesswork based on observation; observing was the foundation of my worldly knowledge. Before trying to integrate this new information into theories, more data had to be collected.

Luckily, I had some time to work. Those next three days might have been dreary to some, but for me it was finally a chance to grind my skill affinities. Learning a new technique every day or two is fantastic, but given the lull in leveling, every hour could still be made use of. Instead of broadening my horizons, I deepened my foundations.

On Monday morning, as promised, I brought Pan to Ria. Such a tearjerking scene worth its weight in gold has been skipped, because I know some moments are supposed to be between family members. I stepped out as they were reunited; which given I had to touch Ria’s horns before leaving meant I stepped outside for about a breath of time.

Relatedly, Rion came with his father on Tuesday and Walphaday mornings. When I first arrived, he acted a bit leery of Ria, but after the phony Disciples came, the responsibility foisted on him rekindled his brotherly spirit. Good, you're finally taking interest in your Onee-san’s affairs!

Tagalong Girl accompanied Rion, and was now capable of storming right up to Ria—right up to just outside arm’s reach. Well, it was progress of a sort, and under a bit of encouragement it became less draining for her to use her Alpha Stigma of whatever. Since other than the odd period of worrying or pondering a upon her freedom she acted like a normal kid, I let her make the most of her childhood with the little ones her age. Even if she didn't get along as well as the others, when it's gone it's gone. She still didn't really seem to know what she wanted; I realized I would be leading her about on a Bildungsroman, what a heavy responsibility.

For the time being, I just did a lot of rote practice, sunup to sundown. Control of Negative Energy in the forest, practicing my attacks and enhancements. Hours of practice whittled the cost of creating Negative Energy to lower to 8 mana per second; and the cost to improve Zog and Hans decreased to 60 and 25 respectively. Every day I would boost them, at the same time digging around my spiritual connections, trying to understand them more reflexively.

On top of {Negative Energy} abilities, I doubled down on practicing my spells, in particular. Almost by necessity, I reached the point where I no longer needed any real motion or speech to cast the spell, saying and pointing my hand out over a hundred times in a row really wore out my tongue. For some reason, forming two spellshapes at the same time still couldn't be done despite the practice, but the time drew closer.

Busily grinding away, the approach of Thursday morning kept me burning. Frenetic energy filling every hour of the day, I made sure to put myself to sleep early the night before. Gotta rest up before the big day!

A/N:AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I read someone's something on one of these threads, and I wanted to mention it to thank them or something, but I can't recall what it was....oh well.

I Think I Saw this at #8 Weekly? Good job reading guys! Go tell all your friends to read this too! I want to be the very best!