Swarming Sovereignty

“Which, finally, brings us to the exciting loot.” Lily said.

Lia let out an internal sigh of relief. She hadn’t been expecting the report to be so…thorough. It included things like the number of stalls in the goblin base, an estimation as to the total number of planks used in the wall and the stalls (though Lily admitted that one was likely pretty inaccurate due to the varying construction methods of the stalls), and even an estimation of how much modeling wax could be extracted from the dead bodies of the goblins.

But it appeared that it was finally time for the more interesting things to be listed, something which Lia was looking forward to. Please proceed. She instructed, voice brimming with anticipation.

“I believe it prudent we start with a tally of the goblin cocoons we obtained.” Lily said, pulling her glasses out of her breast pocket and putting them on. “To be precise, we managed to get eight archers, four commanders, forty seven regular goblins, and, of course, the goblin leader. While we were looting the encampment, we finished coating the bodies in modeling wax and are in the process of transferring them back now.”

She pushed up her glasses, despite them not having fallen down in the slightest. “Along with those bodies were thirteen bows and quivers, and the staff and robes of the leader. I took the liberty of appraising the staff and robes, and they seem to give minor bonuses to magic. Nothing fantastic, but serviceable enough for how weak the goblins were.

“And there was some actual dungeon loot in that encampment. There is a set of six weak healing potions, a nonmagical but decent sword, a ring that increases Dexterity by five, and, finally, another staff nearly identical to what the goblin leader was using, if a bit worse.”

Lily took her glasses off and tucked them back into her pocket. “And that concludes the report. What would you have me do now?”

Oversee the organizing of the goods, please. Lia instructed. I want everything you mentioned after the cocoons in a separate pile for me to mess with, and the non-regular goblin cocoons in a pile close to them. Put the goblin cocoons in the general vicinity but not too close. The rest can go wherever you feel is most efficient

“Consider it done.” Lily replied. “I’ll have them placed in the center of camp for your convenience.”

Thank you.

“It is but my duty, my Queen.” Lily replied, giving a little bow before heading back towards where she had come from.

“What now?” Rose asked, an odd tone present in her voice. “Shall we continue, or should we look at our options for conversion first?”

I’ll be honest…well, obviously it’s important to know what we can do, but I get the feeling that the system that’s in place is detailed enough that I could play around with a bunch of different object configurations and get a ton of different results. Especially if I add the Dimension of Discounts to the mix. I’m…well, I’m sort of thinking it might be wise to lay out what I really want for now, and then keep that in mind while I’m looking at my options.

Rose gave her a huge smile. “Excellent decision.” She said. “I was going to suggest the same thing if you didn’t. I’d give you some sort of reward if I had one, but I’m afraid we’re kind of lacking in things I can give you that you couldn’t just…get. So, for now, we’ll have to be satisfied with praise. Good job.”

That…thank you. Lia replied. She was sure a blush would be rising to her cheeks were they not covered in fur, and she was grateful for their help in preventing her emotions from leaking too much.

“So…while they get that set up, what do you want?”

The only thing I know that I want for sure is a scout. Lia said. And, as much as I hate to put another…well, person in danger when we could do things ourselves, I feel it would be best if I enlightened them. It’d just make transferring that information a lot smoother. Then, we can send them out, and, once we get a feel for what sort of monsters are lurking in that area, we can tailor the swarm from there.

“Another sound choice.” Rose agreed. She hesitated, then reached over to Lia’s head and gave it a pat. “Good job.”

The sensation caught Lia off guard, and she flinched a little, causing Rose to draw her hand back quickly. “Was that too much? Sorry, I just thou–”

No, it’s fine. Lia said quickly. You just surprised me. You can…um, do it again, if you want. When I do good, that is.

“Ah, um…good. I’ll…I’ll do that.”

So…what do you think we could combine to make a good scout? Lia asked. I’m at a bit of a loss myself. Like…if we added a bow and maybe like…boots or something? What do you think?

“A bow is good, as are boots, but I’m thinking something like a spyglass and tools to create a map.” Rose said. “That should hopefully get the point across to the system. I don’t see why we shouldn’t just…throw all four in and see what comes out. Well, provided we can get all of that.”

I can maybe make something work with the Dimension of Discounts. Lia said. But I don’t know how expensive this is going to be and I’m kind of strapped for Blood Money right now. I spent a lot to get a search system so I wouldn’t be forced to get lucky in the future.

Rose nodded. “Now that our forces are getting back, I’ll organize some raiding parties and send them out into the market. Hopefully, they’ll be able to catch some stragglers and get you some extra money. We should check and see how much we need, though, just so we know if it’s feasible to even get a spyglass or map. And I’m sure there are some boots lying around in the armor somewhere.”

Yeah, give me a moment to do that…mind carrying me over to the piles while I do?

“Gladly.”

Lia turned her attention away from Rose and opened up the Dimension of Discounts.

Dimensional Search Engine, and in the future, I’d like to use it unless I say otherwise.

Uhhh…I don’t really have a way to enter things, but spyglasses?

Oh, right. Um…scout tools? Is that broad enough?

Sure.

The invisibility cloak alone raised several questions. What was x-ray vision? What did “anomalous” mean? Why were over half of the results way out of budget, even with Dimensional Search Engine?

Fine, fair enough. Still, it was a little disheartening to see how little a difference it seemed to make. Perhaps it would be best to check page two…

 Why is there alcohol on page two? How does that have anything to do with reconnaissance?

How…

Fine. Well, thanks anyway, I don’t…think I can afford any of this, aside from maybe the smoke bomb.

I was? Give me a second. Lia pulled up her status, and, to her surprise, she had just over two hundred Blood Money. When did I get this?

Yeah, I’ll take them, I guess.

A spyglass and a grey ball of sorts popped into existence at Rose’s feet, causing her to stop her walk, then look down at Lia. “You were able to get the spyglass, I see. And what’s this…ball thing?”

Something called a “smoke bomb”, apparently. You throw it at the floor and it makes a ton of smoke so you can get away or something.

“Handy. Think you can get more?”

Probably, they’re pretty cheap. We can do that later, though; I just want to see how that interacts with converting stuff.

“It’s probably a pretty easy way to get smoke magic.” Rose mused. “So it’s got that going for it, if nothing else.”

Yeah, probably. This stuff was all under the umbrella of “reconnaissance” when I searched, so it’ll…hopefully get us a decent enough scout. We should maybe even use one of the goblin commanders to get best results. Not that general or mage or…whatever it actually is, but just one of the “normal” commanders. I want to save the mage to make a magic user.

“Yeah, I think that’s for the best. We could probably get something head and shoulders above the mages we already have, which is something I’m all for.”

Oh, and we need a rat, too. Um…we should probably see if Amelia has an extra somehow…

A moment later, a bound rat appeared on the ground next to the items.

Oh. There we have it, then.

Rose crouched down and picked up the stuff on the floor. “I’m not sure how much attention you were able to pay to where we were while you were browsing, but we only have about a minute until we reach where Lily should be placing the stuff. Hopefully she’ll be there, and we can ask her about boots, but no big deal if she isn’t.”

And, like Rose said, it only took around a minute to get reach the center of camp, where a small pile of stuff and another small pile of cocoons were forming. Rose knelt down and let Lia off of her chest before placing the things she was carrying on the ground, growing a thorn out of one of her hands, and then coating the stuff in modeling wax.

It was…kind of like watching a baker use that thing they used to put icing on a cake, but the thorn looked more…rigid, and the icing was modeling wax. Still, it took hardly any time for everything to be coated, at which point, Rose went over to the second smallest pile of cocoons, grabbed one, and brought it over to the cocoons she had made before combining all three. She then grabbed a bow and put it into the mix as well, before turning back to Lia.

“Would you care to do the honors, Lia?” Rose asked. “Or would you rather wait until we can get some boots?”

Might as well see what we can get first, no sense in waiting for boots if we have something perfectly serviceable now. Lia replied, trotting over and opening up the conversion menu. There were the normal options for goblin commanders, but there were a couple of new ones as well.

Lia didn’t really even need to think about that one. She immediately got the goblin converting into a scoutmaster, then turned to Rose and explained what she had gotten.

“Well, I think that’s…perfect.” Rose said. “Now we just need some other scouts to really get the most out of it.”

We’ll pick them up with time. Lia said. We really only need the one for now, and this one looks like it’ll be more useful in the future. The vanisher was tempting, but…well, that seemed like something that would be good as a scout as a side effect of the other stuff it does, and the scoutmaster is…you know, a scout first.

Rose nodded. “I understand, and likely would have made the same decision were I in your shoes.”

Glad to hear it. Lia said. Now…we really don’t have much to do until the scoutmaster finishes converting and then finishes her scouting mission, so…do you want to go grab something to eat?

“I…am a bit hungry.” Rose admitted. “And I’m curious to see what this food dispenser can do.”

Perfect. Let’s get to it, then!