"What did you see?" Elyra asked as she watched Nysera's ragged breathing.
She could only tell that Nysera had aged, her once beautiful early 60s appearance now closer to someone in their early 70s, with faint wrinkles deepening and becoming more pronounced. She couldn't read Nysera's emotions, however, since her pure black eyes gave away no secrets. Whatever had happened, it was clear she had lost a portion of her lifespan, and her heavy breathing left no doubt that she was exhausted.
Nysera, meanwhile, struggled to regain her composure. The terror of what she had seen was still fresh in her mind. She needed to get out of Gaia as soon as possible; this world was already doomed.
Upon hearing Elyra's question, she considered her answer. Should she tell them the truth that the fate of Gaia rested in the young duke's hands? Should she reveal this secret and scare them away from the planet?
No. They needed to stay and see their fate through. The consequences of their absence were plain to see. Gaia would be swallowed in darkness and consumed. They had to stay and somehow fulfill their destiny.
She regained her composure, took a deep breath, and put on a kind smile.
"I apologize for that. Your Master has quite the great fate attached to him, forcing me to consume my own life force just to peek over the horizon. As for what I saw, you will be glad to know that I only saw happy travels and bountiful harvests. You will live a wonderful life together."
Elyra smiled, appreciating the optimistic vision, before bidding farewell.
"Thank you for the book and the vision. I'll treasure them both."
Elyra walked out of the cabin leaving a smiling Nysera behind.
"Ready to go?" Bastion asked, receiving a nod from Elyra as she sent the contents of the conversation to him through telepathy.
"Fascinating," Bastion said. "She actually lost lifespan when she peeked into our fate. I knew our fate was greater than our rank, but not by this much. She's Rank 3 with a lifespan of 25,000 years, and she's at least 10,000 years old if she was a child when the Demon Lord was sealed. She must have lost at least a thousand years of lifespan to have aged from her early 30s to her mid-30s in normal human terms."
Fate was a very interesting topic of research for Bastion. It was a talent he had unknowingly brought from his old world, and now it seemed the people in this one could do the same. He would have loved to sit down and chat with the old woman to learn more from her, but he was a bit busy at the moment.
"Anyway, we should head back," Bastion said. "We wouldn't want to keep the situation in the Shadowkin Village tense."
He summoned his diamond steed and rode back, taking less than ten minutes on horseback before meeting up with the girls at the command post. He updated Alexander on the terms he had agreed with Nysera, watching as his brother sighed with relief before calling the army back to continue manning the walls.
"What now?" Lilia asked, now that the tense situation was resolved.
"We should probably get back to James and see how he's doing," Bastion said. He turned to Elyra, noticing her furrowed brows, and asked, "What's wrong?"
"He is too far away," Elyra said. "The mark was erased when the distance between us became too great for me to maintain."
"I thought the range of your Shadow Mark could reach the entire kingdom," Seraphina said. "How is it possible for him to get past that distance in such a short time?"
Bastion thought about it and could only come up with one possibility. The distance between the goblin village and their current location at the border of the kingdom wasn't even half the span of the kingdom. It could only mean there was powerful interference between Elyra and her Shadow Mark on James. The only way that was possible was if he was trapped in a magic barrier or…
Bastion stared at the ground and concluded that James had gone to Subterra. With the Chief of the goblin tribe dealt with, James was now free to pursue the reward promised to him by the God of Spores.
"I think he's gone," Bastion said. "He's probably gone underground to Subterra, so there's no point in going back."
"What now?" Lilia asked again.
"Now we go to Aurenthal to submit the information regarding the cavern beneath the Withered Tree," Bastion answered. "As for James, I suppose he's on his own."
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Deep beneath the ground, past miles of twisting tunnels, natural shafts, and narrow passages, James, the hobgoblin, led the hundreds of needy goblins left after the attack through the mysterious tunnels depicted in the murals of the shaman's cave. If the markings on the walls were to be believed, the origin of his tribe came from deep beneath the surface, a place called Subterra, as the God of Spores had said.
With the Chief of the goblin tribe gone in pursuit of the attackers and his army of loyal soldiers consumed by the burning village, James, or Drizzik as he was referred to, became the de facto leader of the tribe when he gathered the survivors who had lived in the caves or managed to escape the flames.
He was, in all honesty, the only choice the goblins had, especially since he was a tall and powerful hobgoblin shaman. None of the survivors dared to challenge him for leadership, as he was known as the most intelligent goblin, one who gave great life advice and shared the same physique as their previous Chief.
As for why he went out of his way to prefer his life as a goblin rather than joining Bastion and living as a human, there were many reasons. Firstly, he was a damn goblin, so of course he would prefer to avoid the life of a subhuman species in the human world. If there was anything he had learned from his previous life, it was that humans were racists.
Secondly, the God of Spores had promised him a reward in Subterra, and he had to admit he had been dreaming about what a literal god would give as a reward. At minimum, it would be some sort of potion to turn him into a human without having to risk his life on the surface. At best, he might even become the king of the Kingdom of Spores to the east of the Great Forest.
Thirdly, he could admit that he was attached to the little goblins who looked up to him as some sort of Great Sage. They were, in his opinion, kind of cute once you got used to their smell, green skin, broken teeth, abnormally large noses, and pot bellies. Okay, maybe they didn't have any redeeming qualities even after a bath. Still, he had grown attached, and that was that.
"How much longer, Great Sage?" one of the goblin shamans asked.
"For the last fucking time, I don't know. We're just supposed to keep going down," James shouted, his voice reverberating off the tunnel walls and letting all the goblins behind him hear. "We'll get there when we get there, so stop complaining."
"But… we're hungry, Great Sage. We haven't eaten anything since you decided to leave all the warhogs behind, other than the piglets. And you've already said that they aren't to be eaten."
"Shut up about that already. We'll eat when some of us start collapsing from exhaustion."
"Oh, that's a great idea, Great Sage. This way, we can eat those who die."
"No, you idiot. We eat the damn piglets when we're too hungry. For now, just shut the fuck up and keep moving."
Goblins were efficient scavengers who didn't require much energy to move and were able to store plenty of fat in their bulbous bellies. Coupled with the prosperity they had enjoyed under the previous Chief due to his suicidal hunts, they were more than fattened up for a month-long journey.
It had only been about a week since they left, and they had already covered plenty of ground. By his estimation, it shouldn't take long to reach their destination. All they had to do was keep going down after all.
After another week of continuous walking, they were on the verge of starvation, having almost completely used up the fat stored in their bellies. They were approaching the point where they would have no choice but to start eating the piglets.
Suddenly, James saw light ahead as the tunnel slowly widened. He rushed forward, eager to finally see the reward he had been promised. When he burst through the cave opening, he was blinded by the light after two weeks spent adjusting to darkness.
Once his vision cleared, he took in the sight of a magnificent tree that glowed with its own radiance, providing light and life to a cavern that stretched for miles, its roots surrounded by fields of softly glowing plants. Herds of gigantic mole rats grazed lazily across the cavern floor, while countless rabbits darted between the foliage, their movements filling the underground world with an unexpected sense of abundance and life.
In the distance, he could see a magnificent castle guarded by soldiers, and below the castle walls was what looked like a bustling medieval town. Only, everywhere he looked, all the people were goblins. It seemed he had found himself in a kingdom of goblins.
"This isn't what I had in mind, but it seems like a pretty good start," James said as he led his people forward.
The guards at the gate took notice of the sudden influx of nearly a thousand goblins emerging from the tunnels. They shouted for their captain, who immediately rode out on a mole rat and addressed James, who was clearly the leader, as he was a hobgoblin.
After a bit of conversation, he was given an audience with the current king, who was himself a hobgoblin. He made his way through the medieval streets, walked past the castle's courtyard, and presented himself to the king in the throne room.
Before he could even introduce himself, he was suddenly kicked to the ground and had his hands and legs shackled in front of the king.
"An usurper has come to claim my throne! Take him to the dungeons!" the king commanded.
"Wait! What about my reward? What about my potion to turn back to human? God of Spores, you damn liar!" James shouted as he was hauled off while the king made a plan to incorporate the goblins under James into his kingdom.
Meanwhile, in the divine realm of the God of Spores, an old man wearing a white lab coat, slacks, and glasses, with short, neatly combed gray hair, watched through a pool atop a mushroom as James was hauled off to the dungeon, shaking his head.
"I know I told him to only go after he defeated his Chief, but who knew a dud would come along and do the job for him? Now the timeline is too early. He should have arrived much later, just after a bloody civil war with enough power and drive to take the kingdom by force," the God of Spores said.
He waved his hand and made the projection on the water fast forward, showing James being tortured, set free by the king's opposition, slowly gaining power, fighting in a bloody civil war, and eventually being crowned king himself with a harem of hobgoblin women. The projection continued, depicting James invading the neighboring kingdoms in Subterra, eventually creating a mighty empire before finally passing it on to his descendants and leaving for a journey to the surface.
"Well, at least he'll still get his reward eventually. It'll just take a few extra steps," the God of Spores said, smiling lightly at the relative success of his summoning.
Now his Kingdom of Spores could enjoy peace and prosperity for the next few thousand years until he could get another summoning quota.
As for James, his story was just beginning, a tale of trials, cunning, and unexpected triumphs that would shape not only his fate but the fate of Subterra.
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