“Eighdum, my boy. I didn't think I'd ever see you or your brother again. I really thought you were dead. I figured that's the real reason he was in prison,” Grimbleflork said, working to free himself from the tight hug.
“Wait, Alecks is in prison? Is that what's going on here? This universe was supposed to be off-limits, Grimbleflork. There's a lot I'm gonna have to tell you, and I guess a real lot you're gonna have to tell me,” I replied, letting the Goblin out of the hug.
Every Human face around us was staring at me in complete and utter disbelief. I understood why. I had just said a lot of things that I should not have said. But it was too late to fix that now.
“Wait, you had said something about being through this before. I kinda just thought you'd meant waking up from a dungeon or something. Did you mean the whole planet integration?” Norm asked the first to break the silence.
Not knowing exactly what to say, I just laid it out for them. “Yeah, Norm, and I also said I was still Human. You probably should have questioned me then, but you didn't, and I just went with it. Clearly, this whole interaction here has made it pretty obvious that I'm not from Earth. But I really am Human, just from a different integration. I escaped here and made a family. I'm sure you all have more questions. Ash had a million when she found out, and I'll try to answer them later. Right now, we've got higher priorities.”
“Eighdum, a lot has changed since you've been gone. This time around, though, I've got to ask you for help and shelter. The boys and I are on the run,” Grimbleflork added quietly.
“Of course, no questions asked, but your ships are going down. There's something below those waters, and we can't really risk it,” I answered. “In fact, if we've got everyone, let's get away from this river. I don't want to attract the attention of whatever's in that forest or the things that attacked you from the mountains. We're going to have enough problems with them in the future as it is.”
Despite my recent revelation about my origins, there was a general murmur of agreement. I knew most of them would have more to say on that later, but I was thankful they understood the urgency of getting everyone back to the relative safety of the walls. Even if they were just palisades, I still felt more vulnerable out here than I did within them.
The walls had also become considerably more meaningful now that we were officially a faction and this was our stronghold. It wasn't just my own force of will, or more accurately, the Loamhag's holding the enemies out. Whatever it was she had done hadn't fully vanished either. There was still a residual force in the air, empowering almost all of our abilities.
Sadly, with her having locked herself away, I didn't have a good way of figuring out just what she had done yet. And I wasn't willing to kick down her door to find out. The power of that hag put me and everyone in this valley to shame. What she was doing here, I still had no idea.
“For ease of everyone's mind here, Grimbleflork, could you call me Adam? It's the name I've been using since I came to this world,” I whispered to the Goblin as we passed back into the neighborhood proper.
“Kid, I'll call you whatever you want. You pulled my bacon out of the fire back there, and I'll be damned if I ever expected to see you as the one to do it. Half of me still thinks I died, but that's the stupid half. The smarter one doesn't think your face is the angel I'd see as soon as I woke up dead. At least I hope it wouldn't be. What a goddamned awful thought that is, though,” the Goblin replied.
The years seem to have made him a lot more surly than I remembered. Though I was a kid when we first met, it was possible he'd treated me and Alecks a lot kinder than he did most people. Actually, considering the warnings he had given us over and over, that was almost certainly the case. I owed that man so much. And I finally had a chance to try to repay it.
“Guys, could you welcome the other Goblins and show them around? I'm gonna have a conversation with Grimbleflork, and I promise I'll answer any questions afterwards, okay?” I called everyone else.
“Adam, you're fine. We all knew something was up with you anyway. You're the only reason any of us are alive, so who the hell are we to complain that you're not actually from this planet? Hell, none of us are from whatever this new planet is anyway. From my perspective, this actually explains a lot,” Tom said, calming a lot of my internal worries.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. Norm, could you take the Goblins and get them all checked out for injuries and get some food in them? I’ll get back and catch up with everyone as soon as I can.”
“Can do. None of you happen to know anything about chicken raising, do you? Maybe quail?” Norm asked as he led them away.
“So I take it you're leading this faction? Suppose it's better than how I found you the first time we met,” Grimbleflork said.
“More or less. Come on, there's a quiet place that's half finished over there,” I said, pointing to a small building that jutted out toward the inside of the neighborhood that Tom had started near one of the palisade walls. His goal was to make it a gatehouse so that we could actually more easily control coming and goings. It was probably something he'd mirror in every section of the wall, or at least build something very similar.
“So you were definitely on to something when you noticed the Greel Goblins weren't listed in this integration. There ain't much of a Greel Goblin faction left out there in the wider system space, but that isn't exactly what happened here either,” Grimbleflork said as he plopped down on the ground with a slight grunt.
Immediately, he started rubbing one of his legs. The grimace on his face gave away how bad the pain was. The lines under his eyes were much deeper than the last time I had seen him. I couldn't remember his beard ever being so white. Even for a Goblin to have a beard was a rarity. It took a truly ancient member of their species to be able to grow one, and Grimbleflork had a giant white one.
“Grimbleflork, when I say I have no idea what's going on in the wider system space, I'm probably underselling it. I've been able to learn very little of what's happened. You telling me Alecks is in prison is shocking, to say the least, so anything you can tell me at this point, I will gladly take it.”
Alecks being imprisoned wasn’t exactly shocking in the sense that he was in a jail. I could easily see that happening to him with some of his more interesting choices in life. But I would have assumed he was protected from anything like that. In fact, how had it even occurred, considering we agreed with me leaving? He should have been safe. There was something huge I was missing here.
“Yeah, kind of figured that. Not that I think you'd be panicking if you knew what was going on out there, but probably a bit of a different reaction to seeing your old friend. The integration is out of control, Adam. I don't know what happened, don't know why. Never really been an expert in the System. Though I suppose you certainly know that. But this planet keeps growing.”
I didn't fully understand what he meant. I also didn't understand how that was possible. As far as I knew, the merger phase of integration happened immediately, and it was the only time things were reshuffled and restructured, barring incredibly powerful magic was used. And I'd only ever heard of anything like that in legend.
“What do you mean by growing exactly? Are more planets from the star systems that were integrated being merged in actively still? It certainly can't be merging existing worlds, can it?”
“Neither, I don't think. Although there's been some muttering and fear that it might start grabbing actual System worlds, but it hasn't happened yet. What's going on is that the system just keeps iterating over and over and over without any pause to fully establish the new universe in System-space. But each time it does that, it just keeps merging more and more of those planets into this one here, pulling in more factions that had signed up for spaces in future integrations. Kid, it's a giant damn mess out there. All the smaller factions are terrified they're going to be the next one pulled in. The bigger ones are doing everything they can to cancel any sponsorship.”
“Is that working? I was under the impression it was incredibly difficult to break a System contract once it was in place.” Not that the giants of the multiverse didn't get to do whatever they wanted. But even still, annoying the System is usually a step too far for them. Though with what I had learned about the higher realms, assuming it had been true, I really didn't know how any of this worked at that level.
“No, and no one knows why either. For whatever reason, the System is listening even less than it ever did before. That's how we got pulled in, not that we had the funds to buy our way out anyway. God, am I glad to see you. You're the last thing I ever expected. I honestly figured it was the end for all of us.”
“If what you're saying is true, it still might be. There are some things I've learned here, too, that I don't really want to say out loud yet, but let's just say what you told me lines up a bit with some strangeness that's going on. Damn. This means we're gonna need to expand this stronghold. We really need some privacy rooms. There is so much you and I are going to need to discuss, and we will need to make sure no prying ear is lurking to overhear.”
“Well, I got some good news and some bad news on that front. We're certainly merchants. We do still hold those licenses, but a lot of our good connections that we had left just went down with that ship. That said, we could still set up a relay and get you connected to the wider System markets. It's going to be a fight getting any good deals on anything,” he said, looking increasingly apologetic the longer he spoke.
“I understand. And I wouldn't worry about it. You being here is already more than I expected. You taught me trusting merchants is dangerous, and now I've got the only one I ever actually trusted, so I gotta look at that as a good sign for our future. Somehow, fate decided to reunite us.” And he was only a start.
I needed to find Alecks and get him out of whatever prison he was in. I also needed to track down my sister and have a big conversation with her. If anyone knew the truth of what was going on out there, she would at least have some hints of it. Though getting her to share would probably be easier said than done.
Grimbleflork's information had brought so many new questions. Sadly, they were mostly ones I knew the Goblin couldn't answer. So instead, it meant we had a lot of work to do. It also meant we needed to secure this valley quickly.
If this world was in a constant state of expansion and new factions were constantly pulled in, that meant a war was coming. Eventually, one of the more conquest-oriented ones would make that an inevitability. And whatever resources were tied up here when that expansion eventually stopped will put a huge target on everyone's head.