( John POV )

A couple of seconds of unexpected sensory deprivation does weird shit to your head, and it takes a moment for my brain to stop screaming once the world of Throughout the Ages materialises around me.

“Ah! Jade! What the hell! I know I said that I wanted to be in as soon as the server was back online, but a moment of warning would have been nice! Or, you know, not giving me sudden full sensory interrupt!”

Jade ignores me. Dammit, this is the problem with human-level AIs; once they develop wills of their own, they start adopting the flaws of real people - including impulsiveness. And, in Jade’s case, a rare streak of callousness.

Still, it’s not worth making a big deal out of - there’s work to do! I survey the village below me, the now-familiar medley of huts and tents, now joined by a new structure taking root on the side of the encampment furthest from the river.

This novel development catches my eye immediately. It’s noticeably larger than anything else the tribe has built so far, and seems to represent a significant step forward in building technology. Up until now, even our best efforts have been barely more than static yurts, weather-hardened leather and primitive thatch hung from crude wooden lattices. This is different, though; weeks of research into primitive tech lets me immediately identify it as a serviceable mud-brick hut, using straw to rigidify the walls like rebar, roofed with what looks like beetle-chitin.

It is, to my eye, the first true building I’ve seen in Throughout the Ages, and I immediately love every filthy, manure-filled brick of it!

After the initial moment of excitement, however, some questions start to percolate. Firstly, building something like this must be a huge burden on the tribe - the clay for the walls would take plenty of man-hours to carry, shape, and lay, but the real investment is the beetle-carapace roofing. How many days, weeks of hunting did it take to assemble that array? For one building!

And… it looks like it’s mostly being worked on by goblins? If it’s to house goblins then the project makes a little more sense - they are quite small, after all, and you could probably fit ten or twelve of them in a building that size. But… even so…

I put my reservations from my mind for the time being. One of the things I’ve come to really enjoy from TtA is that, most of the time, my minions don’t act like complete idiots. Actually, occasionally they do something that I wish I’d thought of, which is a bit creepy from units in a videogame. Now, Jade’s had plenty of time to catch up, time for a sitrep.

“Right. What’s happened in our absence? And what did we get for winning?”

“Shh. I’m not finished. Give me a moment.”

“You’ve had a moment! You’re always telling me how bloody wonderful you are, now give me an overview!”

She grumbles for a moment, and brings up a couple of popup windows with distracted flick of the wrist.

Unlocked Skills

Mundane skills

Magical skills

- Intermediate Bone Carving

- Primitive Fishing

- Primitive Leatherworking

- Simple Stoneworking

- Simple Woodworking

- Advanced Chitinworking

- Simple Foraging

- Simple Tracking

- Primitive Leadership

- Simple Construction

- Primitive Weaving

- Simple Ropemaking

- Primitive Herbalism

- Primitive Channeling

- Primitive Charmongery

Unlocked Magical Affinities

- Lesser Nature Affinity

I peruse for a while, trying to think through the consequences of our new acquisitions.

“Well, we finally got that herbalism skill. Bit late, now, given we’ve just finished off the biggest threat in our vicinity, but nevermind. Still, it seems kinda of… meh? Given that we have access to actual magic now…”

“Hah! One small victory and a miniscule leap up the tech-tree, and the power’s gone straight to your head! Honestly, I reckon herbalism’s still the most useful skill of the bunch. Remember, the magic skills rely on magical affinity in order to be used. Well, channeling does, anyway, which is the relevant bit to healing. And I suspect that getting tribe members with magical affinity is going to be a lot harder than it sounds.”

“Wait… channelling requires it, but what about charmongery?”

Jade grunts and shrugs half-heartedly.

“No, seems that charmongery is different. The gamepedia says it’s “the art of using the lingering magical affinities of an item’s materials to create magical effects”. Or, to cut through the bullshit, it’s a slightly more advanced crafting system with resource-based stat buffs, I think. Which is useful and all, but it’s hardly going to be game-changing at this point.”

“Hey, hey, I wouldn’t write it off so fast. What kind of effects can we get?”

“No idea. Got no data to analyze.”

I nod in understanding, brow furrowed as I reread the the popups.

“Hmm. I guess so. Also, something’s bothering me about the skill tiers. What’s the progression, again?”

“Oh, right. Here.”

Skill levels

primitive

simple

intermediate

adept

advanced

master

“Yeah, I knew I remembered something like that! How the hell did we get chitinworking up to advanced?!

Actually… what even is ‘chitinworking’? It’s beetle-shell, what are we going to do, make shellac records out of it?! And what distinguishes intermediate chitinworking from advanced chitinworking?!”

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t come up with this stuff! It’s a made-up fantasy world! Basic logic and common sense don’t apply! The developers said they wanted chitin as a crafting material, so now we’re making our rooves out of reconstituted insect! I DON’T WRITE THE RULES, JOHN! I JUST READ THE GODDAMN WIKI!”

She clears her throat, and we avoid one-another’s gazes for a moment, mutually embarrassed by our respective outbursts. It’s weird - although I’ve known Jade since I was a teenager and I consider her my closest friend, our relationship is still a vaguely professional one. Friendly sniping and the occasional rebuke are all par for the course, but actually shouting at one another is not. The tension of the last few days has been getting to both of us.

“Anyway. As for how we got it… I’ll just check.

Oh! Straightforward enough: one of the goblins we assimilated is blessed. In summary, looks like he was being built as a kind of tech-leap specialist, with lots of buffs for faster learning and toolmaking. Interestingly, though, one of his buffs stops him from teaching others, so it’s not like he can boot-strap us to the medieval era or something. We get to use him while we’ve got him, but when he dies we’ll probably lose access to the stuff he unlocks.

Hmm. It’s useful, but not quite as broken as it seems. Yeah, he can access an advanced tech, but chitinworking seems to be a very short tree compared to most other skills. It’s an early-era specialisation, but there’s not a lot of synergy with other skills, and it relies on materials which can only be hunted for. Unless we can work out how to farm giant rhino-beetles.”

“OK. So... what’s next? We’ve actually accomplished most of our current strategic goals. We’ve managed to get a herbalist, which should cut down on our attrition, and we’ve eliminated our biggest threat. What’s our next move? Magic?”

“Magic?! Are you kidding?! We still haven’t developed agriculture! We have no knowledge whatsoever of the system, except that it has something to do with elemental affinities! Do you seriously think that’s a sensible goal?”

When she puts it like that, it does seem a bit over-ambitious. Still, I can’t help but suspect that magic’s going to be the key to the early-game, and that whoever gets there first is going to have a huge advantage. And it seems like a bad sign that so far we’ve had contact with three tribes, all of whom have been more advanced in its use than us.

“I suppose. We’re going to have to start working on it sooner rather than later, though. Anyway, what do you advise we prioritise?”

“Agriculture. It’s not glamorous or exciting, but we need a reliable, stable food source. Fruit orchards will be a good start - they’re relatively low maintenance thanks to dev meddling. Ideally, though, it’d be nice to also domesticate some livestock. I joked about it earlier, but trying to tame those Bok-Tars wouldn’t be the stupidest thing in the world.”

“The what? Oh, you mean the giant beetle things! I swear, you are not gonna make me learn all of the species, I refuse!”

Jade grins as we begin this argument for the hundredth time. I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste valuable brain-space on ridiculous names for made-up fantasy creatures. After all, some of us can’t just plug in another hard-drive when we run out of memory. I try to head the familiar bickering off before it can get started in earnest.

“Anyway. How would that work? They don’t seem very… tamable.”

( Gordune POV )

I spend a few moments hanging the last of the day’s harvest on the rack, fiddling with the cut plants to position them evenly for faster drying. I straighten, wincing as my back makes alarming creaking sounds, and shuffle back to where I left Nym working on pre-prepared herb mixtures. When did this goblin get so old, eh? I swear my spine didn’t ache this badly last week.

There’s far worse places to grow old. Oh, but how quickly this place has grown on me. It took but a few months from arriving to finish a nice, safe underground nursery, and there’s nothing like the skitter-skratch of anklebiter feet to make an Elder feel at home. Already, the family has eight new members! It’s more than that, though. This is a place to live, not just survive. Here, in the clay of the riverbank, we can build the real foundations of a goblin tribe!

And humans, too, I suppose. Our builders have been experimenting with higher ceilings. So far, their success has been limited, but they do keep trying, ever so persistent. Yor seems to like testing their work, and gains great enjoyment from the inevitable collapse that follows the collision of a roof-beam with his forehead.

With a shake of the head I return my thoughts to the present, wherein Nym has been slaving away at the mortal and pestle for what seems like rather too long. Indeed, she too seems rather lost in her thoughts. Ah, of course! The dust from the narcotics! Well, it’s hardly dangerous in such minute quantities. I clear my throat, and watches as she, too, snaps from her own reverie.

“I think that you can stop now. Ground up and crushed, yes, but I don’t think they need be rendered into dust, eh? You never know, though.”

“Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry Elder! I was, uh, lost into thought…”

“Oh yes?”

Nym seems startled for a second, and avoids my gaze. When it becomes clear I’m waiting for an answer, she blushes and evades.

“Oh, nothing in particular. Nothing interesting!”

Hah! Youth! Gangly and ever-unaware of their tells. As her words avoid answering, her hand moves unconsciously to the bracelet on her arm. One of Kali’s works, if I’m not mistaken, and this old goblin isn’t. It’s a fine piece of work, too, displaying the four jade shards I gave her. The bracelet’s made from some kind of leather made from fish hides, or so Kali said. Fishskin bracelets. He’s a strange one, that grandson. Pretty, though, especially with how he’s trimmed the edges with Difian teeth. A good eye for a cracked mind.

So, why would she reach for it and blush? Perhaps this old goblin is a cynic, and elder Gordune’s been called that often enough, but I doubt she was thinking of Kali. No, that usually entails a different reaction.

Ah, yes, that was it. Jormund, ‘t’was he who suggested she go to Kali to have It made. Yes, a rather more probable tale. And, although it saddens me to say it of my own grandson, perhaps a better choice of reveries.

“You miss him, eh?”

“Huh? Um… What?”

“Jormund. You miss him.”

“I… I do. Sort of. But I’m also just so angry! He leave without telling me! I mean… he left with without telling anyone. But… he left without telling… me.”

She finishes in a small, sad voice. Oh, youth. It’s so much more fun once they’ve grown a brain, but one has to put up with their foolishness.

“Actually, not quite true. I knew he was leaving. So did his mother.”

“And… and you didn’t stop him?! He was the hero of the village! Everyone was already saying that he could take on the mantle of tribe leader! He should have stayed! He should have stayed… with me.”

Perhaps I shall just pretend that I didn’t hear that last part. Judging by her mortified expression, I don’t think she intended to say it out loud.

“Ah… Listen, Nym. Jormund is special. Everyone knows that - even the wolfkin respect him - but rather fewer understand that. Understand what it means. To be… special, well, it’s a burden as well as a blessing. Such people have to have to find their place in the world, and often that means searching beyond their tribe. There are others, others you know, who’ve done the same. Kali, for instance. And… others, who I shan’t name, but who you’ve known your whole life. Jormund is not the first, and he will not be the last, to hear that call.”

“But… Kali’s here? What do you mean?”

“Exactly. Kali left, to seek his destiny. He found it, when he met Jormund in the Wolfkin camp. And, once fulfilled, he returned, and in doing so made the world better for those he loved. More interesting, too, but better.”

“And… and you’re saying Jormund will return, too? But… how do you know? What if he’s aband-... left… forever?”

All the while, we’ve been in movement, grinding herbs and packing pouches in the evening routine that I’ve followed for decades, and Nym for months. Now, I pause and turn to her, and she stares back with desperate, yearning eyes.

“He promised his mother that he would be back. I didn’t know him for very long, but... I could see the determination in his eyes. He meant that promise.”

Nym nods, hesitantly, her face slowly reflecting the rekindling of faint hope. As she returns to her work, she is not happy, but she’s resolute.

Ah, young love…

( John POV )

“Jade, are you kidding me?! Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. First off, the medicine man is going to wonder off into the forest and find as many of the strongest narcotics he can possibly get his hands on, in the largest quantities he can, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, our poor wretched hunters are going to sneak out across the savannah, track down these huge, armoured, incredibly dangerous beetles, and somehow try and get them to eat these narcotics, preferably without being bloodily dismembered, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though we don’t even know if these narcotics will work on beetles?!”

“It’ll be fine. Something’s bound to work.”

“Well, I admire your optimism! Alright, so, once we’ve drugged up the giant, murderous, unstoppable insect killing machines to the point of docility, we’re going to lasso them?”

“Yeah.”

“And then take them back to our village?!”

“Yeah.”

“Where they can sober up and go on a slaughterous rampage?!”

Jade rolls her eyes, theatrically.

“Oh, get on with it. It’ll be fine.”

“Right. I’m sure it’ll be just peachy. So, having implanted a beetley fifth-column in the heart of our populace, we’re going to farm them for beetle eggs. Then we’re going to take these disgusting, blobby beetle eggs down into the goblin hollow, and raise them into giant, repulsive larvae.”

“Yup.”

“And then, once they’ve matured to their juiciest and most magottey, the villagers will eat them?!”

“Exactly. A renewable source of protein. And it’s no worse than veal.”

“Well. At least I won’t have to eat them. Or, worse, taste them.”

A thought occurs.

“Actually, this incredibly dangerous task… It’d certainly be for the good of the tribe. Just the ticket for someone who can come back from the dead. We’ll send Jormund!”

“Ah. I’ve some bad news about that.”