Two days later, Rik returned with twelve goblins trailing behind him. They were thinner than his group had been, their skin cracked from hunger, their eyes darting at every sound with haunted wariness. One of them, her face drawn and guarded, carried a child on her back—a small goblin girl with wide yellow eyes who stared at the chapel in silent awe, a mixture of fear and hope in her gaze.
Zarvon met them at the palisade gate. "Welcome."
The lead goblin, a male with a scar across his face, looked at Zarvon's horns and dropped to his knees. "Lord. We heard a demon lord was giving shelter. We came."
"Get up. I'm not a lord yet. Just a demon with a chapel and some food."
The goblin stood slowly, confusion and uncertainty shadowing his face. "You… you don't want us to kneel?" He looked around, uneasy, unsure how to act.
"I want you to eat and help build walls." Zarvon gestured toward the chapel. "Lysara's got stew ready. Go."
The goblins shuffled toward the chapel, their steps hesitant at first, held back by suspicion and hunger. But as the smell of food reached them, their caution broke, and they hurried forward with longing and relief. The child on the mother's back reached out toward the smoke rising from the chimney, her small fingers grabbing at the air, a shy smile flickering across her face.
Lysara appeared at the door, ladle in hand. "There's enough for everyone. Come in, come in."
She guided them inside, her voice soft, her movements calm. The goblins who had been with Zarvon for the past week helped settle the newcomers, showing them where to sleep, how the meals worked, and where the latrine was being dug behind the chapel.
Zarvon stood by the palisade, watching the camp grow. The system updated its population count.
[Population: 18 (3 original goblins + 12 new goblins + Zarvon, Lysara, Nyxara).]
[New arrivals: 12 goblins, 1 child. Housing capacity exceeded. Recommendation: Expand sleeping quarters within 3 days to avoid morale loss.]
"We need more space," he said to Nyxara, who had come up beside him.
Nyxara glanced at the notification on her interface—the system now shared information with her after the bond. She considered the cramped chapel. "The chapel can hold maybe ten more before it's packed. We need to build proper huts."
"The goblins can build. They've been doing it all week." Zarvon looked at their woodpile, which had grown, but not enough. "We need more lumber."
Nyxara pointed toward the forest. "There's an abandoned logging camp two miles east. The owners fled when demon hunters started patrolling the area. Probably still tools there, maybe a cart."
"Show me tomorrow. Today, we build the watchtower."
---
The watchtower went up faster than Zarvon expected. Throughout the days, goblins worked in shifts—some cut logs, others stripped branches, while a few lashed the frame together with bark rope. By the end of the second day, a fifteen-foot tower stood at the north corner of the palisade. Beneath a roof of woven branches, a platform spacious enough for two lookouts perched above, marking the transition from bustling construction to a vigilant outpost.
Rik climbed to the top and sat there for an hour, just staring at the forest. When he came down, his eyes were wet, and his face was open with wonder and something like sorrow.
"Never been above the trees before," he said quietly, voice trembling with awe and disbelief. "Never seen how far the world goes."
Zarvon clapped him on the shoulder. "Now you're the one who sees trouble coming before it gets here. That's important work."
Rik nodded and climbed back up.
The new goblins settled in quickly. The ones who had been hiding in the cave were skilled at weaving and trapping, skills that immediately helped the camp. They set snares in the forest that brought in rabbits and birds, and they wove baskets that Lysara used to organise her herbs. The child, a girl named Mica, followed Lysara everywhere, watching her heal minor injuries with wide eyes.
On the third night, Zarvon and Nyxara sat in the chapel, reports spread before them. News had just arrived from her contacts in the capital: the church was gathering a larger force, but their attention was fixed on the northern territories, where a demon tribe had been raiding villages. For now, the camp had time—two weeks, perhaps three.
"That's not much."
"It's enough." Nyxara unrolled a map on the altar. "There's a fortress on the border, about fifty miles south of here. It used to be a military outpost, but the church took it over five years ago. Now it's a prison for captured demons and a staging ground for hunter squads."
Zarvon studied the map. "You want to take it."
"I want to scout it." Nyxara traced a route through the forest. "If we can get inside, see how many hunters are stationed there, we might find a weakness. The fortress has walls, stone buildings, and a well. If we could take it, we'd have a real base. Not a chapel in the woods."
Zarvon thought about it, tension settling in his chest. The camp was growing, but it was still just a clearing with a wooden fence, fragile and exposed. One serious attack would break them. A stone fortress meant safety, and for the first time, the hope of permanence.
"Who's stationed there now?"
"That's what I don't know." Nyxara folded the map. "I need to go to the capital, talk to my contacts in person. Letters are too slow, and I can't risk sending one of the goblins."
"You want to go back." Zarvon's voice was flat.
"I want to go back alone. Faster that way." She met his eyes. "Three days. I go in, get the information, and come out. The hunters won't be looking for a noble's daughter who's supposed to be dead."
Zarvon didn't like it, but she was right. Frustration tightened his jaw as he nodded. "Three days. If you're not back by then, I'll come looking for you."
Nyxara smiled. "You won't have to."
---
She left before dawn, wearing a travelling dress Lysara had altered to look worn and ordinary, her silver hair dyed brown with crushed walnuts. She took a small bag with coins and a knife hidden in her sleeve, and she walked out of the camp without looking back.
Lysara stood beside Zarvon at the gate, watching her go. "She'll be fine."
"I know." Zarvon's jaw tightened as he watched Nyxara go and did not move until she disappeared into the trees, his shoulders rigid with anxiety.
With Nyxara gone, the days quieted. While goblins cut more logs and raised the first walls for sleeping huts, Lysara showed Mica how to identify healing herbs. The child's gentle hands cradled the plants; her curiosity seemed endless. Twice a day, Zarvon, unseen by hunters thanks to his Shadow of Night ability, slipped through the forest to patrol the perimeter.
On the second day, he found footprints near the creek a mile south of camp—human boots, at least three pairs, maybe four. The tracks looked fresh, perhaps a day old. He followed them for half a mile before they turned toward the main road, heading north. They weren't coming toward the camp, only passing by.
He reported it to Lysara when he returned. "Scouts. Probably looking for the hunters, we drove off. They didn't find us."
"This time." Lysara was feeding Mica a bowl of stew, her expression calm but her hands steady with deliberate control. Her voice hinted at the worry she kept hidden.
"We wait for Nyxara. Then we move."
---
Late on the third evening, the quiet broke as Nyxara returned just before sunset. She walked into camp with a tired smile, relief softening her features, and a satchel full of papers, her brown dye already washing out in streaks of silver. The goblins cheered when they saw her, faces shining with excitement, and Mica ran to grab her hand, her eyes bright with worry and joy.
Zarvon met her at the gate. "You're late."
"By two hours." She let Mica drag her toward the fire. "I had to bribe a guard to look the other way. Cost me twenty silver."
"Worth it?"
She pulled a folded paper from her satchel. "The fortress has forty hunters, a commander, and a stockpile of weapons. But the real prize is underground. There's a holding cell where they keep captured demons. About 30 of them, according to my contact. Strong ones. Demons who've been there for years."
Zarvon took the paper and read it by firelight. "Forty hunters. Stone walls. A gate that closes at dusk."
"There's a weakness." Nyxara sat down on a log, accepting a bowl of stew from Lysara. "The commander is a man named Aldric. He's greedy. Every month, he takes a group of hunters north to raid villages for supplies, and he keeps a quarter of what they take for himself. The church knows but doesn't care because he delivers results."
"When's the next raid?"
"Three days." Nyxara ate a spoonful of stew. "He takes fifteen hunters with him, leaves twenty-five at the fortress. But here's the thing—the fortress has a drainage tunnel that empties into the river. It's old, half-collapsed, but my contact says a small person could get through. A goblin."
Zarvon looked at the goblins around the fire. Rik was listening; his ears perked up.
"If we send a small group through the tunnel at night, they could open the main gate from inside," Nyxara continued. "We hit them when half the garrison is gone. We take the fortress."
"Twenty-five hunters are still a lot," Lysara said.
"But they won't be expecting an attack. They'll be bored, comfortable, not watching the walls." Nyxara looked at Zarvon. "It's risky. But if we pull it off, we have a real stronghold. Stone walls. A well. Space for hundreds."
Zarvon looked at the fire, then at the goblins, then at Lysara and Nyxara. "We do it. But we need more than twenty goblins against twenty-five hunters. We need numbers."
"The goblins in the cave weren't the only ones hiding," Rik said from across the fire. "There are more. Scattered. If I go, I can find them. Bring them here. Maybe ten, maybe twenty."
"How long?" Zarvon asked.
"Five days." Rik stood. "Maybe six. But I bring them."
Zarvon nodded. "Go tonight. Take food, take a knife. Come back with whoever wants to fight."
Rik grabbed a bundle of bread and dried meat from Lysara, tucked a knife into his belt, and slipped out of the camp before the moon rose.
---
The next five days were a blur of preparation. By day, the goblins who stayed worked double shifts, reinforcing the palisade, digging a trench around it, sharpening stakes for the bottom. At dusk, Zarvon trained with his abilities—learning to merge with shadows more quickly and hold the form longer. Meanwhile, within the chapel, Lysara brewed potions from her herbs and lined the altar with clay jars.
On the fourth day, a group of six goblins arrived, led by a female named Kessa who carried a spear made from a sharpened hoe blade. They had been hiding in a cave near the river, and Rik had found them on his second day out.
On the sixth day, Rik returned with fourteen more goblins. Twenty in total. The camp's population swelled to forty-two, and the new arrivals looked at the palisade and the watchtower with open disbelief.
"You built this?" one of them asked, a young male with a scarred ear.
"We built it," Rik said. "And we're going to build more. After we take the fortress."
The goblins gathered around the fire that night, listening as Nyxara laid out the plan. The drainage tunnel, the gate opening, and the attack at midnight when the hunters were asleep. Zarvon would lead the main force through the front, using Shadow of Night to take out the guards on the walls. The goblins would swarm through the gate once it was open.
"We're not just attacking a fortress," Zarvon said when Nyxara finished. "We're taking a home. Somewhere no hunter can reach us. Somewhere we can build something real."
The goblins looked at him, their faces lit by firelight, and for the first time, Zarvon saw something in their eyes that wasn't fear. It was hope.
"We fight," Rik said. "We win."
The goblins echoed him, their voices low and fierce. "We win."
---
The night before they marched, Zarvon stood alone at the watchtower, looking south toward the fortress. The system now clearly showed the mission.
[Main Mission: Capture the Border Fortress. Enemy forces: 25 demon hunters. Allied forces: 1 Demon King, 1 Spy Master, 1 Healer, 38 Goblin Warriors.]
[Reward: New territory (Fortress), +2000 gold, +50 population (freed demons), new construction options unlocked.]
[Risk: High. Recommend full utilisation of skills and terrain.]
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Lysara climbing up, her robe hitched to her knees.
"Can't sleep?" he asked.
"Neither can you." She sat beside him, her legs dangling over the edge. "I'm scared."
"Me too."
She looked at him. "You don't look scared."
"That's because I'm too tired to show it." He put an arm around her. "But I am. I keep thinking about what happens if we lose."
"We won't." Her voice was firm, but her hand was shaking on his arm.
He pulled her closer. "We won't. But I'm still scared."
She leaned into him, her head against his shoulder. "I used to pray before battles. In the village, when the hunters came through, I prayed they would pass us by. It never worked."
"What do you do now?"
She was quiet for a moment. "Now I trust you. And Nyxara. And the goblins who decided to follow a dead office worker with horns."
Zarvon laughed. "That's a lot of trust."
"It's enough."
They sat in silence, watching the stars appear above the forest. Below them, the camp was quiet, the goblins asleep in their new huts, dreaming of walls that wouldn't fall.
[Nymphaearoot the Author]: Hope you enjoy reading! If you like it, please add it to your library and let me know your favorite moments in the comments