[ The System has noticed you! ]
The words echoed in the silent, analytical chambers of my mind. It was a phrase pregnant with terrifying implications. I was no longer just a user, a player exploiting a set of rules. I was an anomaly, a variable that had drawn the direct, focused attention of the game master. My actions, my theories, my insane plan to uplift an entire species, had triggered a flag in the code. The feeling was not one of pride. It was a cold, sharp spike of fear, the kind a mouse feels when it realizes the owl on the branch above has turned its head.
[ Special requirements must be met for a goblin to advance to the race of Hobgoblin! ]
This second line was the follow-through, the confirmation that I had stumbled upon something significant. It was a warning and an invitation, a door creaking open to reveal a path fraught with both immense opportunity and unimaginable risk.
As if sensing my focused inquiry, the System provided more. A new window, stark and clinical, superimposed itself over my vision, rendering the bloody scene before me a mere backdrop.
[ Racial Evolution Sub-System Unlocked: Goblinoids ]
[ Overview: Certain sentient species possess latent evolutionary potential, allowing for racial advancement under specific conditions. This process is governed by the acquisition and assimilation of Biomass (BM) and the meeting of specific Attribute Thresholds. ]
[ Biomass (BM): A quantifiable measure of consumed life-force. Acquired through the consumption of organic matter. The higher the Level and vitality of the consumed source, the greater the BM yield. Note: Simple sustenance provides negligible BM. True acquisition requires the consumption of a significant portion of a creature's total mass. ]
[ Current Subjects (Guttersnipe Crew) Average BM: 312 / 1000 ]
[ Known Evolutionary Paths for Goblinus Vulgaris: ]
1. Hobgoblin (Warrior Caste):
● Biomass Requirement: 1000 BM
● Attribute Requirements: STR 6, VIT 6, INT 8
● Description: A disciplined and intelligent evolution, forming the strategic backbone of advanced goblin societies. Possesses enhanced physical prowess, natural leadership qualities, and an innate understanding of tactical warfare.
2. Bugbear (Stalker Caste):
● Biomass Requirement: 1200 BM
● Attribute Requirements: STR 10, DEX 10, Stealth Skill (Adept)
● Description: A larger, brutish, and terrifyingly stealthy evolution. Bugbears are ambush predators of legendary repute, capable of moving with impossible silence despite their size. They are the terror in the dark, the silent knife that bleeds a settlement dry.
[ CRUCIAL NOTE: The subject must possess System-Awareness to consciously direct assimilated Biomass towards a chosen evolutionary path. Without conscious direction, accumulated Biomass will only result in minor, undirected mutations and a general increase in size and aggression ]
I dismissed the window, but the information was burned into my memory. The world snapped back into sharp, bloody focus, but my perception of it was forever altered.
The key, the linchpin, the one variable that turned this from a biological process into a strategic tool, was the final, crucial note. System-Awareness.
The goblins didn't have it. They couldn't see their own stats, their own levels, their own potential. They were living in a world of pure, unquantified instinct. They could eat a thousand boars, accumulate ten thousand points of Biomass, and all it would do is make them slightly bigger, meaner, and uglier. It would never trigger the true, fundamental change. It would never allow them to become more.
But I could see it.
I held the key. I was the gatekeeper to their entire racial destiny. I was the priest who could interpret the divine will of the System, the only one who could show them the path to apotheosis. The power of that realization was a heady, intoxicating poison. I could forge these ten miserable, downtrodden creatures into a squad of elite Hobgoblin warriors, my own personal legion. I could create an army. I could build an empire on a foundation of their loyalty and my knowledge.
You have to be realistic about these things. This wasn't altruism. This was an investment. And the first step was to explain the terms of that investment to a business partner who didn't even know he was sitting on a gold mine.
I pushed myself off the tree and walked towards Gnar. He was directing the loading of the meat, huge haunches of boar flesh being tied with vines to be dragged back to camp. He saw me approaching, and the frenzied energy around him quieted. He stood up straighter, his one eye fixing on me with that now-familiar mixture of fear and respect.
I gestured for him to follow me, leading him a short distance away from the others, to the edge of the clearing where the silence of the forest began to press in.
I started with something he could understand. I pointed to the bloody carcass.
"Good meat," I grunted, my clumsy goblin-speak feeling woefully inadequate for the conversation I was about to have.
"Good meat," he agreed, his eye glowing with pride. "Guttersnipes eat for a week. Get strong."
"Strong is good," I said, nodding. "But there is… strong… and there is… deep-strong." I tapped my own chest. "The boar was strong. You eat the meat. The meat makes your arm strong." I flexed my bicep, a pathetic gesture given my noodle-like arms, but he understood the meaning. "But the boar's life… its anger… its strength… that is the deep-meat. You eat that, it makes your soul strong."
Gnar stared at me, his brow furrowed in confusion. I was speaking in metaphors, in concepts that had no place in his world of mud and violence. I was trying to describe quantum physics to a dog.
I had to try a different approach. I pointed at Pip, who was struggling to lift a leg of the boar that was almost as big as he was.
"Pip is small," I stated.
"Pip is a runt," Gnar corrected, a hint of affection in his dismissive tone.
"You eat this boar. Pip eats this boar. You both get full bellies. But you are Gnar. You are strong. The deep-meat listens to you more. It makes you… more Gnar." I then pointed to my own head. "You have clever-head. The deep-meat sees this. It makes your head more clever."
I then pointed to Elara, who was now quietly cleaning her axe on a patch of moss, a silent, bloody specter.
"She has killer-hands," I said. "She eats. The deep-meat sees this. It makes her hands more killer."
A flicker of understanding dawned in Gnar's single eye. It wasn't a full comprehension, but he was beginning to grasp the edges of the concept. He was beginning to understand that the act of eating was more than just filling a void in his stomach. It was an act of assimilation. An act of becoming.
"This boar…" I said, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "It has much deep-meat. Enough for all of you. But it is not enough. You need more. Many more. You eat a hundred boars… you eat a thousand… and you focus your clever-head… your strong-arm… you can have the big change."
"Big change?" he echoed, the words a rough, questioning rasp.
"You stop being goblin," I said, the statement hanging in the air, stark and revolutionary. "You become… more. Like the big ones. The ones who lead. The ones who do not hide in the mud. You become a Hobgoblin."
The word, in his own language, hit him like a physical blow. He flinched, taking a step back. The Hobgoblins were legends, bogeymen, the iron-fisted rulers of the great tribes downriver. They were a different order of being. To suggest that he, Gnar, a lowly Guttersnipe, could become one… it was blasphemy. It was insanity.
"Lies," he hissed, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his knife. "Snake-tongue words. Goblins are goblins. We die in the mud."
"You die in the mud because you think you die in the mud," I countered, my voice sharp, cutting through his fear. "You think like a scavenger, so you are a scavenger. I am showing you the path to think like a king. The deep-meat is the fuel. But your head… your will… that is the fire that forges the new shape."
I could see the war raging in his eye. The ingrained fatalism of his entire existence warring with the seductive, impossible promise I was offering him. He wanted to believe me. Every downtrodden, ambitious fiber of his being screamed at him to believe me. But it was too much. It was too big.
It was time to seal the deal.
"I know the path," I said with absolute, unshakeable confidence. "I can see it. I can guide you. I can show you which deep-meat to eat. I can show you how to think, how to fight, how to become. All I ask for in return… is your trust."
I let that hang in the air for a moment before delivering the final, crucial test.
"My tribe… my people… they wait for me," I said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of our cave. "They worry. Elara and I must go back. We must tell them we are safe. We must tell them we have found… allies."
Gnar's eye narrowed to a suspicious slit. "You leave? You take the killer-woman and you leave?"
"We will return," I promised. "Before the sun sets tomorrow. We will return with a plan to kill Grul. We will return to begin the great work. To begin the forging."
This was the precipice. The entire future of my grand plan rested on this single moment, on the decision of this one-eyed, blood-soaked goblin. If he refused, our alliance was a sham. We were his prisoners, useful tools to be kept under lock and key. But if he agreed… if he trusted me enough to let his two most valuable assets walk away, based on nothing more than a promise… then the pact was real. It was forged in something stronger than fear or utility. It would be forged in faith.
Gnar was silent for a long, agonizing minute. He looked at me, his gaze intense, trying to peel back the layers of my deception and see the truth within. He looked at his crew, now strapping the last of the meat onto makeshift sledges. He looked at the forest, at the world that had done nothing but grind him down his entire life. And then he looked back at me.
He was a gambler. And I had just offered him a chance to bet on a whole new game.
"Go," he grunted finally, the word a stone dropping into a deep well. "Go tell your tribe. But you come back. You come back with your plan. You come back and you show us this… deep-strong."
He took a step closer, his face inches from mine, his breath a foul wave of raw meat and rot.
"You lie…" he whispered, his voice a low, deadly threat. "You snake-tongue me and you do not return… and we will hunt you. We will find your tribe. We will eat their deep-meat. All of it."
"Fair enough," I said, offering a small, grim smile.
I turned and walked back to Elara. She had finished cleaning her axe and was watching the exchange, her expression unreadable.
"We're leaving," I said.
She just nodded, falling into step beside me. She didn't ask what I had said, what promises I had made. She had seen the outcome. That was enough.