As we stepped into the cave, Rukk’s eyes widened, taking in the runes carved into every surface. Traps, stealth arrays, concealment runes. The place was layered in protection.

  “You’ve been living here? Spirits, it’s impossible to find!” His voice carried a mix of awe and irritation, like he was impressed and insulted at the same time.

  “My profession skill helps a lot,” I said with a shrug. “You remember those traps out in the forest?”

  “Those were you?” Rukk stared at me, incredulous. “We thought it was some kind of beast mutation, like the ones that set snares or fake nests.”

  “Nope,” Pointing a thumb at my face, “all this guy.”

  “That’s incredible! How does it work, do you need sacrifices or is it like our innate skills?” He asked, seemingly trying to hold back a flood of questions.

  “It’s just Runes and skills, here let me show you one of the more basic ones before we get to work against Gustav.” I wanted to foster teamwork, an unknown ally is almost as dangerous as a known enemy as they say.

  Drawing out the [Earth Rune], picking the same affinity as my new ally so it wouldn’t be as confusing for him. I channeled my mana into the small carving on the ground, send the nearby pebbles rolling into a small orb above it. The poor goblin looked absolutely flabbergasted at the rune.

  “By the Fangs left canine! You used mana yourself?” he seemed to leap away from the small brown rune, as if scared of its existence. I needed to explain, and quickly so i didn’t lose him.

  “Not exactly,” I began to explain my rune skills. “My mana isn’t actually interacting with the world at all, I’m putting it into the rune to have it interact with the world. I’m just the fuel for it.” Seeing him visibly calm down at the explanation, I couldn’t help but ask my own question.

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  Waiting for the goblin and his rabbits, who had leapt next to him when he saw the rune, to calm down. “Can your tribe… not use mana for yourselves?” the question seemed like an obvious thing, and i mentally chided myself for asking it aloud. Of course they could use mana for themselves, i had seen them cast spells and even now i could see the thin strands of mana connecting Rukk and his rabbit horde.

  “Sorry that was a dumb questi-“ I began, before being abruptly cut off by the small goblin. “We can’t.” He looked at me like i was an idiot, his eyes seeming to bore through me like i was made of air. “We’ve never been able to use mana ourselves, it’s not possible.” I stared at him, blinking slowly as the words processed. “But,” I stuttered in shock, “But the spells, the beasts connected to you with mana, I can see it with my own two eyes. Surely you must be able to sense it yourself, your mana?”

  He looked at me with his goblin mug, the face of exasperation only a human could bring out. “The goblins of the Galefang tribe cannot use our mana ourselves, we sense it, we feel it, heck some of us can even taste it. But! We cannot use it ourselves.”

  Gesturing to the slightly larger, grey furred horned rabbit, he continued. “All mana needs to be fed to another creature. For the Fang goblins, we feed our mana to our tamed creatures, like my rabbits here. The Gale Goblins, those kooky bastards, they’re real secretive with how they use mana.” He made a circling gesture around his head as if to call them crazy.

  “The only reason we all listen to them is because they can talk to the spirits,” He looked off into the distance, A distant gaze as if remembering a simpler time, he quickly refocused his gaze however, “After Gustav performed the ritual, they’ve all gotten a bit more kooky in the noggin, but they all got way stronger.”

  “Focus Rukk, we don’t have that much time before we need to go again. It won’t take long for them to realize there is one less corpse than should be there.” Trying to get him to hurry up his explanation on why his tribe couldn’t use mana felt like pulling teeth from a Rift lupine.

  The goblin seemed annoyed with me but continued his previous explanation, “As I was saying,” He enunciated that last word, “We feed mana to our tamed creatures, and they in turn use that mana for their own abilities.” he pointed to the Grey rabbit again, and i could sense a pulse in the mana thread connecting the two. Suddenly, the bunny turned into steel! Its fur combining and hardening into metal as its horn turned from a rounded nub into a sharpened blade.

  Activating mana sight, i saw the rabbit was now glowing with metal affinity mana, the earthen mana from Rukk bolstering its natural affinity and activating its skill.

  “What’s the skill do?” I needed all the information I could get before we continued with my plan.

  “It turns its fur into steel and turns its horn into a bronze ranked magical dagger?” He looked at me again, that annoyingly familiar look of judgement. Calming myself, I asked more questions, getting the specifics of all his remaining rabbits skills. I had to admit, they were pretty abyssal useful, if minor by comparison to what i’d seen gustav do.

  We talked about our strategy going forward, the ins and outs of the goblin camp, the hierarchy between the shamans and tamers, as well as our plan to get into the shrine to retrieve Rukk’s family. This plan was gonna go perfectly