I sat up in the cuddle puddle. A new variant? What was the milestone?
Why 942? Why not 1,000?
Fair point. What are the choices?
Are you serious! Now you’re offering me agriculture? After I traipsed up and down the badlands?! Literally days after I’ve already solved the food crisis? Now I know you’re doing this on purpose.
I groaned and rubbed my face. This was typical of System. Though, agriculture was still useful even with hunting rights, even if it didn’t pay off for months. Just how many variants are in this pool?
Ok. Rephrasing the question, then. I knew there were variant triggers based on both tribe size and accomplishments. The choice for canoneers or partizans had come from beating the javeline, and the choice for zealots had come from forcefully assimilating a tribe using a lieutenant instead of my natural goblin king mojo.
What triggered the taskmaster option?
And the wranglers?
The Igni were obviously from the furnaces. What about Scrappers? We’ve seen them in other tribes as well.
What if tribes don’t have a king to choose?
Interesting. Explained why scrappers were so common. I bet the other tribes got them from brushing up against the javeline. There were definitely rutters and maulers above level 10.
What’s my other choice?
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I straightened. Friggen radio goblins? You enjoy making these choices as difficult as possible, don’t you?
Ugh. This was agonizing. But at least System hadn’t sprung the choice on me while I was drunk again. Mushrooms as a staple food source made a lot of sense—they could grow vertically, thrived in forests, and didn’t need tilled land. All the timber near the village would potentially turn into food-producing resource. But that was also timber we were chopping as fast as Buzz’ axe and saw teams could cut and strip.
Still, nearly every aspect of equipment in the industrial revolution and beyond required electrical components. The ifrit could fill some shortfalls where computing power would have bridged gaps on earth, but the ifrit couldn’t make a transistor. The goblins could blow glass for bulbs, but only a select few of Sally’s engineers actually understood that the wires hooked to a generator were making them glow. The tech tree was simply becoming beyond the grasp of non-variants.
At the end of the day, we’ve solved (or at least deferred) our food problem. What we suffered from right now was a communication gap to communicate between both long and short distances. A variant specialized in electricity with some built-in radio functionality would help us cover that and be critical when it came to actually putting together the compressors needed for jet and rocket aircraft—plus everything else that relied on electricity.
I rubbed my eyes. Give me the sparkers.
<21 goblin sparkers have been added to your tribe>
I pulled myself from the sleeping mound and made my way out to the main courtyard at Huntsville. The airship, Gemini, gently swayed in the tower mooring. The yard was otherwise quiet, except the scrappers and wranglers on the night watch, making sure bog creatures, or now elves, didn’t come over or through the walls. I thought about what Sourtooth said—that they’d be looking for flying creatures. Hawks and bats and such. I was just glad the night haunts hadn’t followed us west.
Slowly, the tribe came awake, stumbling out of the sleeping towers and flopping onto the ground, where they picked themselves up and wandered to a scat pile to relieve themselves of what remained of dinner. It wasn’t long before I saw my first sparker make an appearance. They were wide-eyed, with tufts of long white fur at the tops of their heads and a thicket of whiskers on their cheeks. With those tufts, they looked a little as though they’d been struck by lightning, themselves.
I called one over, and her eyes lit up as she recognized me.
“Welcome to the tribe,” I said. “Are you ready to get to work?”
She chittered excitedly in place.
“Do you understand the relationships behind electromagnets and current generation?”
The sparker thought for a moment, then opened her mouth. She ran her claws across her whiskers, and a sound like an electric guitar riff issued out.
“I…” I just stopped and stared. “That’s amazing. But can you speak?”
The sparker tilted her head at me, uncomprehending.
Uh oh.
System! You said this variant was speech-capable!”
What good is a radio goblin that can’t relay messages?
Is there even a taskmaster chief for these guys?
I knew what I’d find there. Damn, damn, damn. System was definitely doing this on purpose. And enjoying every second of it.
I ran my hands over my face and stalked over to the cistern to stand under the cold water for a minute. Behind me, I could hear more strumming, with a few answering calls here and there. I’d created metal-head goblins that brought their own instruments. And I’d given up agriculture to do it.
Shut it, System!
Still, it wasn’t a complete disaster. They were skilled at working with electricity and that was a critical ability for the future of the tribe.
I walked back to the base of the sleeping tower, where several of the sparkers had joined an impromptu concert of sorts. They swayed back and forth as they strummed whiskers at each other. Other goblins were starting to gather around and make their best impression, though it sounded more like a bunch of cats in heat.
The wave of understanding swept quickly through the crowd. I saw several glistening eyes. Natural metal-heads. Even the orcs were nodding and stomping along to the beat.
“Listen up,” I said, cutting off the musicians. “We’ve still got boglins to find, and elves to fight. And a day’s worth of light to work by. Let’s get cracking.”
A cheer went up in the camp, backed by a wicked guitar riff.