Sheets and Thoughts

Lifting himself off of Pixie, Grim refrained from reactivating incorporeal immediately. He had a lot to do and the feeling of danger might drive him to act more quickly than usual. First was Loretta, she appeared too experienced to leave unattended. Checking that those that had chosen to enjoy her were mostly done, he wasted no time in casting Grant Release.

She was just starting to recover when it hit, and her white streaked face smiled at the feeling of his spell. Her exposed body relaxed and went limp. The evidence of the goblins’ short engagement with her was obvious by her torn shirt, rolled down leggings, and the white streaks across parts of her lightly tanned body. Whoever witnessed her respawn would see it all. The thought almost reignited his own receding feelings.

A few moments later, after the last two touching Loretta realized their time was up, her body faded from sight.

Now they should probably head back to camp. The ambush had been successful, but now they were standing around on a relatively exposed mountain path. He didn’t particularly want to show Pixie the camp, but he didn’t want to kill her either, especially since he couldn’t use Grant Release twice in a row. For now he would bring her back and figure out what to do with her later. She wasn’t going to escape easily, being a similar size to the goblins and apparently having no significant physical abilities.

Having decided on a course of action, he switched to Grim Visage and directed the goblins to carry Pixie’s lyre and lead Pixie herself back to camp. He also directed the raven to scout around and notify the goblins of any dangers. The best the raven could do was provide a warning, but even the information that something was approaching would be more useful than nothing. It might prevent another wolffish surprise.

A short time later, they were back to camp and Pixie was asking what he was doing. It was obvious Grim was the leader, but she seemed to want to know what would happen to her. Receiving no answer, she soon went inactive, leaving her alternate to figure out what was happening to her. The difference between active and inactive was less noticeable on Pixie than on other adventurers, Marie’s confused terror being the most recent example. Pixie got over being topless in the woods and surrounded by goblins remarkably fast. Within minutes, she was trying to converse with the goblins, though they were definitely not conversationalists.

Meanwhile, Grim was checking the latest updates to his character sheets.

Grim, Level 3 Lesser Reaper
Monster, Shadow, Explicit, Micro-Boss
Experience to level up - 220
Attributes:
Strength 6 {+1}
Dexterity 12 {+1}
Stamina 8 {+2}
Charisma 19 {+1}
Intelligence 20 {+2}
Wisdom 15 {+3}
Skills:
Construction Planning 1 {+1}
Feats:
Incorporeal -
Possession (character) -
Grim Visage -
Liegelord 2/10 -
Spells:
Grant Release -

His stats had risen again, as expected. His stamina in particular had gone up, which until recently seemed like a useless stat for a shadow. Now he was glad for every bit of its improvement. The most peculiar thing however, was his new skill: Construction Planning 1. That hardly seemed like a skill worthy activity, but if it gave him more options, he wouldn’t complain.

Fame: 99
Defeated an adventurer +14
Killed (+4)
Shamed (+4) + Naked (+4) + Bound (+2)
Defeated an adventurer +9
Captured (+4)
Shamed (+2) + Naked (+2) + Bound (+1)
People are talking about you +16
Perks: 69
Liegelord (3/10) - Cost: 40
Summon tireless worker (0/1) - Cost: 50

He was happy to see that he could now afford the tireless worker, but that final statement was even more ominous than before. People, probably adventurers, were taking notice of his actions. From his short interactions with adventurers, he knew they probably were not talking about him positively. The best he could hope for was for that number to go down. He could live without much fame if it meant he and his charges lived long enough to establish something like an actual domain.

It was now past time to summon that tireless worker. Trusting the menu, he bought it. He waited for a few seconds before anything seemed to happen. A small mound of dirt began to rise in front of him, just inside the camp’s entrance. It grew a bit, rising an inch or two before cracking open as something pushed its way out of the dirt and into the light.

A reddish brown hand emerged first. The thick stone-like fingers grasping at the soil and helping to pull up the rest of its body. Another hand broke the surface next doing the same as the first. Next was a solid, hairless head, eyes seemingly carved out of it. All of its face appeared carved, like a symmetrical stone had been carved and shaped into the basic structure of a face. It was all the same shade of brown, with no difference whatsoever between its hands, face, and its now surfaced body.

Level 2 Clay Doll
Elemental, Domain-bound

It stood 2’ tall in front of Grim, arms at its sides and head slowly swiveling to take in its surroundings. The doll looked like a scaled down adult dwarf, stocky and powerfully built. Its whole body was that reddish brown that must be clay, with no defining characteristics beyond the androgynous shape. Its joints looked solid aside from grooves around them that might be the dividing lines between body parts, allowing the doll to move.

Wanting to speed up construction of the walls, he directed the doll to work on the stone portions which the goblins had ignored. It took a minute for the doll to walk that short distance across the camp and another minute for it to find a scraping, tapping rhythm. Once its fingers found a consistent pattern to follow, its construction speed became much faster. Watching it for a minute, it was going through the stone at the same speed as the goblins were going through the dirt, if not faster. The racket it made was significantly louder though, probably echoing at least a hundred feet or more into the forest.

Watching the Clay Doll move was a strange sight. Every motion it made seemed to take a deep amount of thought. Every step looked careful, intentional, and solid. It was practically rooted to the ground. Its arms moved the same way until it established a rhythm. Following pre-planned arcs and always ending in a stable position. He would be surprised if its dexterity was higher than his own.

He couldn’t tell exactly how long the doll would take to finish building the wall, but it could be before sundown. That meant the next most important task would be hunting. The goblins were probably out of food by now. Looking around for Charms, he saw her walking around, checking on various small injuries. The entertaining part was how she had made sure Pixie couldn’t run away.

Pixie’s arm bindings had been adjusted to connect to a makeshift harness around her waist, with one taught rope between her legs. The rope between her legs went over the waist rope in back and stretched some 6’ or so to a loop that was held firmly in Charms’ hand. Pixie still had her ruffled white pants on, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it could be, but she was still **** to follow Charms pretty closely to avoid tugging on her leash of sorts. She hadn’t been gagged and she was still trying to talk to Charms some but not getting much response from her. The sight of her being that helpless certainly made him consider fooling around with her more, but the goblins needed orders first.

“Nice setup.” He commented as he floated towards Charms. He noticed that her own chest covering had been adjusted to try and make her own sizable chest seem larger. However, there wasn’t much that the long cloth strips could do.

“Tits no run now.” She replied with an impish grin.

“Really? They are great, but I have a name.” Pixie retorted. It was apparent that this was something they had already argued.

“We need food. So could you handle that?” He phrased it as a question, but between them it had the weight of an order. “I believe that new um, worker doll thing can handle the wall on its own, at least for now.”

Charms looked at him for a moment, considering.

“Okay.” She responded at last. “I tell others. They hunt and find plants.”

With that she turned and strode away with as much purpose as a goblin could convey. Pixie glanced between them before seeming to remember her own position, walking quickly to catch up. Seeing as her arms were still tied, she needed to walk carefully as well. Her stride still had some bounce in it, which he appreciated considering her bare breasts. If anything could revive him quickly, her jiggling tits and exposed hard nipples would be enough.

He couldn’t keep her like this forever though, someone strong enough was bound to take an interest in her plight soon. Even if no adventurers came for her, other more powerful monsters would figure out she was here. Adventurers would be unpredictable in a rescue, they might ignore enemies in favor of freeing an ally. Some monsters might hunt the goblins and possibly their leader for sport, not unlike the most ferocious adventurers. Having Pixie around was still a big positive, but the longer she stayed, the greater the danger to Grim and his adopted goblin tribe.

As most of the goblins began to form groups and set out in search of food, Grim pondered their collective situation. He hadn’t thought of them in exactly that way before, as being similar to children, or important in any emotional way. They were a means to an end for him and he still considered them that way, but they were not disposable. Either he couldn’t deny it or he didn’t want to deny it, but they were growing on him now that their fates were so intertwined. He felt some of the same even for Pixie. He could use them all with little remorse, but he would never throw them away like he might have in the past. Something had changed in his mind, without his knowledge until now. For one, he didn’t used to be so aware of himself as far as he remembered.

Looking over at Pixie and Charms, then Block, then the raven and the doll, he needed more in the way of defense.

The first place he looked at was the entrance opposite the cliff. It was the front of the camp now, with the earthen walls covering the sides. The camp needed a gate, something to allow travel while still providing some barrier to entry. Currently that entrance was planned to be a flat area about 4’ wide with 8’ high, 4’ wide slops adjacent to it. The inside slopes would lead onto the top of the wall and the outside slopes would lead into the trench.

To modify that, he took the center of those slopes and placed half walls instead. Now the path would be 8’ wide between the trenches, 6’ wide between the walls, and 4’ wide between the huts. The gate could go just inside the 6’ potion, in line with the highest part of the wall. The only problem now would be making the gate. The simplest gates and doors he could see all required at least one thing they didn’t have: metal. Sure they had some metal weapons, but the blueprints needed raw metal, in either ingots or scrap. Besides, sacrificing daggers to build a gate would be like an adventurer melting down their only sword to make a shield.

He knew that there was ore somewhere on the mountain, but not where. Maybe the raven could find some, but it might be a risk to take it away from scouting for intruders. Considering it, he decided to have it switch tasks anyway. Hunting and gathering were two things the goblins should have plenty of experience with, considering they had to eat every single day. They hopefully wouldn’t be exposed for too long anyway.

He called out to the raven the next time it flew by the camp, and it turned towards him. Landing on a railing again, it gave a short caw that sounded almost questioning, tilting its head back and forth as it waited and listened. He described what he was looking for as best he could, until the raven seemed to understand. It nodded emphatically, laughed once, and took off again, heading around the mountain.

Surveying the camp again, everyone looked to be busy with something now. Even Charms was doing something, messing with the lyre that Pixie had been relieved of. Pixie was somewhere between objecting and trying to tell her how to not make the discordant sounds the lyre was currently producing. For a big-titted girl in bondage, Pixie was surprisingly confident and decidedly not unhappy, having gotten over the whole captive thing remarkably quickly. Now the lack of arm movement only limited how she could and couldn’t react to Charms, particularly when Charms poked her in her protruding chest.