The Iron Hegemony soldiers were broken. Not by force of arms, but by a masterful campaign of psychological attrition. Without their map or supplies, lost in a forest that seemed actively hostile, their iron discipline rusted into paranoia and infighting. Elias watched with his ravens as their proud expedition devolved into a desperate scramble for survival. They argued over dwindling rations, saw phantoms in every shadow, and cursed the silent, watching woods.
Elias had no intention of killing them all. That would be messy and, more importantly, it would create martyrs. A squad wiped out to the last man invites a legion in retaliation. No, he needed them to return, to carry a specific message back to their masters. He needed them to be witnesses.
He gave them an escape route. His ravens subtly guided them, leading them away from swampy ground and towards game trails, allowing them to stumble westward, away from Sunstone and back towards the edges of the Blackwood where they had entered. He gave them just enough hope to keep them moving, just enough desperation to solidify their terror.
When only three of them remained, their armor scarred, their faces gaunt with hunger and fear, he made his final move.
He chose a clearing for the stage. He had two of his skeletal prowlers lie in wait, partially buried under leaves and soil. Then he, in his full, terrifying regalia, stepped out in front of the soldiers, blocking their path.
The three men stopped dead, their swords scraping from their scabbards with a sound of sheer panic.
"Grave Warden," Captain Borin hissed, his face a mask of hate and exhaustion. "Show yourself for a real fight, you coward!"
Elias said nothing. He simply stamped the butt of his spear on the ground. It was the signal. The earth behind the soldiers erupted as the two skeletal horrors clawed their way out, their bone-claws flashing, their empty sockets glowing with green malice. The soldiers were surrounded.
The fight, if it could be called that, was over before it began. Elias's creations were far stronger and faster than any mortal man. They disarmed the soldiers with contemptuous ease, pinning them to the ground. Elias himself did not move, did not lift a finger. He simply stood, a silent arbiter, letting his monstrous minions do the work. It reinforced the image of a master, a being of command.
With the three soldiers helpless and at his mercy, he walked slowly toward Captain Borin. The man spat at his feet. "Do it, then, demon. Send me to my gods."
Elias looked down at him, his face hidden behind the prowler-skull helmet. This was the nexus of his entire strategy. He could kill them. It would be easy. But he needed Borin to deliver his message.
Then Elias did something no one could have predicted. He reached down, not with a weapon, but with an open hand, and touched Captain Borin's forehead. He channeled a minuscule amount of Soul Essence, just enough to activate a crude, non-verbal Soul Whisper. He didn't project fear or a command. He projected an image. An offering. A bargain.
In Borin's mind, an image bloomed with crystal clarity: the three of them, kneeling, and laying their swords at Elias's feet. In return, a vision of them walking away, unharmed, their path out of the forest clear and safe.
The meaning was unambiguous. Swear fealty. Acknowledge my dominion here, and live. Or refuse, and die.
Borin's eyes went wide, not just with fear, but with dawning comprehension. This was not a mindless beast. This was a political entity. A king making a demand of surrender. The soldier in him understood the language of capitulation.
"What do you want?" Borin choked out.
For the first time, Elias spoke to them, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that seemed to emanate from the earth itself.
"This wood is mine. The people who dwell within are... under my protection. Go back to your Lord of Iron. Tell him to seek his conquests in other lands. This territory has a master. Let there be no more trespass."
His words hung in the clearing. It was an open declaration of sovereignty. He was claiming not just his compound, but the entire forest and its inhabitants—including Sunstone—as his protectorate. He was drawing a line in the sand, not as a spirit, but as a king.
Pride warred with survival on Borin's face. To kneel to this... thing... was an ultimate humiliation. But death was a permanent alternative. He looked at his two terrified men, then back at the silent, implacable figure before him.
With a groan of utter defeat, Captain Borin bowed his head. One by one, he and his men were allowed to rise, place their fine steel swords on the ground before Elias, and then back away. Elias's skeletal hounds watched them go, parting to allow them to pass, then melting back into the forest.
Elias was left alone in the clearing with three high-quality steel swords. A fine addition to his armory.
He had won. He had driven off the invaders, established his dominion, and sent a clear political message, all without revealing his true nature or a hint of his 'good' intentions.
But back in his compound, as he examined the spoils of his victory, a new prompt from the System appeared. It wasn't a reward. It was a notification.
[System Alert: Anomaly Detected.]
[The life signature designated 'Elara' has left the protected zone of 'Sunstone'.]
[Current Location: The Whispering Falls. Proximity to hostile signatures: High.]
[Status: Endangered.]
Elias froze, his hand tightening around the hilt of a captured sword. What? Why would she leave the village? Why would she go to the Falls?
He didn't hesitate. He shot out of his compound using Wraith Walk, his spirit a silent, screaming bullet of pure panic. He flew over the forest, the trees a green blur beneath him.
He arrived at the falls to a scene that made his non-existent heart clench. Elara was there, near the treacherous, slippery ledge behind the waterfall. She wasn't alone. Standing with her were three of the goblin-like creatures he had observed weeks ago. The 'Goblins,' as the System tagged them, were small, vicious, green-skinned humanoids armed with jagged knives and crude clubs.
They weren't threatening her. She was... talking to them. She was holding out her little wooden doll of the Grave Warden. And she was crying.
"Please," she sobbed, her words barely audible over the roar of the water. "You have to take me to him. My Mamma is sick. The healer's herbs aren't working. It's not the Blight, it's something else. Only... only he can help."
The goblins chittered, looking at each other, their beady eyes greedy. One of them pointed at the doll. "Warden-Friend? You take us to Warden? He give gold? Shiny things?"
She was trying to bargain with them. Trying to lead these treacherous creatures to him, believing they could guide her, believing he was the only one who could save her mother from some new, unknown illness.
And then Elias saw it. Wraith Walk allowed him to perceive things beyond the physical. Around Elara, shimmering like heat-haze, was a faint, sickly aura of yellow-green light. It clung to her, a parasitic energy. And when he focused, he saw a similar, stronger aura around one of the Goblins. The creature had a festering, open sore on its arm, and the same aura emanated from it.
It was a contagion. A magical plague. And the goblin had already infected her.
Elias had just fought a war for his kingdom. He had outmaneuvered soldiers and established his reign. He had declared a protectorate over a people. And at the heart of that kingdom, the one variable that truly mattered, the living anchor of his entire morality, was making an unacceptable, fatal bargain with the enemy, already succumbing to a plague he had no idea how to fight. He was a king who had failed his most important subject.