Chapter 3 - Serene as a scholar, will of the warrior

　　Cedric stood motionless, his heart a tumultuous drumbeat in his chest. He grasped for words... but what could he say without revealing himself to the enemy—at least, he thought Gorkon his enemy; he thought all goblins his enemy, did he not?

　　The wordless moment lingered, swelled to the point of greater suspicion. Gorkon tapped his fingers on the ornate wood of his desk—a testament to his held-back vexation.

　　A moment more passed, forged a further rift between them.

　　"Patience runs thinner than blood in my domain, young one," Gorkon impressed on the hatchling, his voice robbed of its inquisitive tone. There was menace now in the taskmaster`s words, and Cedric`s knees began to shake where he stood, wordless still.

　　"Graa-ahh..." stammered the broken prince finally, his mouth unaccustomed to the coarse texture of goblin speech. Though learned as a scholar and graced ordinarily with a poet`s tongue of silver... even the simplest of words failed now to roll from the prince`s mouth.

　　"Rabble like the rest. Here I half-expected you to exceed expectations," Gorkon cut in, saving Cedric from further wordless anguish. "Born a mute like the common house goblin," the taskmaster went on. "All must bow to nature`s ruling will. Is that not so, Blackrose goblin?"

　　He would have spun and flourished, the man he was or used to be—ripping the beating heart from this old fool`s chest. But now so diminished, Cedric merely nodded, relishing the excuse. He was offered the gift of time, to think of a proper response.

　　"Be certain," the taskmaster went on, "my eye is ever on you. This talk is not the last we have shared on the matter. Now to assign you a place in our ranks..." Gorkon leafed through the disarrayed wealth of tomes on his desk, leaning forward and then back, juggling the plethora of possibilities in his studious mind. The mechanical eye clicked softly as he scrutinized Cedric`s latent talents, its lens adjusting with pinpoint precision. His natural eye, by contrast, was sharp and piercing, darting over Cedric`s form with a discerning gaze that penetrated beyond the merely organic—this was as much a psychological assessment as it was a physical one, balancing wit and desire with innate aptitude.

　　"Average of body and magical endowment... no weakness and no strength..." Gorkon mused, then threw up his hands. He flipped the lorebook so Cedric could see the starting classes. "Which of these strikes nearest to the heart of thee?"

　　--

　　Goblin starting classes

　　Combat branch

　　Warriors (10/100): The backbone of goblin armies, strong and unyielding. With sword and shield in hand, they meet their foes head-on in battle`s dance.

　　Scouts (6/100): Quick and alert, adept at gathering crucial intelligence. Their keen eyes miss nothing. In the labyrinth of the wild, they are the unseen guides.

　　Shieldbearers (5/100): Bulwarks in battle, their duty is to protect and endure. With shields as their ramparts, they turn the tide of combat with unbreakable will.

　　Spearmen (4/100): Melee fighters that keep enemies at a lethal distance. Their dance is one of reach and thrust, a ballet of deadly precision.

　　Hunters (4/100): Silent and deadly, they strike from the shadows with bow and arrow. They move like whispers on the wind, their aim as true as their stealth.

　　Mages (1/100): Channelling the arcane, they weave spells of fire and ice. They stand as beacons of mystical power, their incantations shaping the battlefield.

　　Auxiliary branch

　　Builders (8/100): By crafting the sinews of goblin settlements, their hands shape the tribe`s future. In wood and stone, their legacy is carved.

　　Foragers (7/100): The tribe`s lifeline, skilled in the art of survival. They read the land`s secrets, providing sustenance from nature`s bounty.

　　Tinkerers (5/100): Inventive and ingenious, they turn scraps into tools. In their hands, what was once discarded finds new purpose and life.

　　Healers (3/100): Using herbs and balms to mend flesh and bone, their gentle hands bring relief where there is pain. They are the guardians of health and life.

　　Trappers (3/100): Cunning and resourceful, they secure the tribe`s perimeter with snares and guile. In the art of ambush, they have no equal.

　　Scholars (2/100): Keepers of knowledge and lore, they are the mind behind the muscle. In their scrolls and tomes lie the secrets of ages past and strategies for the future.

　　--

　　Cedric`s eyes brightened with the faint glow of recognition—he had perused an earlier edition of this very lorebook so many summers ago. It was a maverick`s work, poorly received by the magetower scholars of Lothrian, its content dismissed as fanciful conjecture. The author, whose name Cedric could not for the life of him recall, had been stripped from all rank and scholarly standing. This austere work had been the first and final attempt to categorize the internal order of goblin tribes. A shame. A dreadful shame. Cedric winced as he thought back on his own reception of this repository of goblin lore; he had fallen sheepishly in step with academic consensus, renouncing the work as folklore. How wrong he had been. And how much better they could have battered the skulls of these greenskin lowlifes.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

　　Truly, this was a magnificent overview of the rank-and-file goblin troops. The array of starting classes numbered twelve in total, subdivided in a combat branch and an auxiliary branch. All replete with colourful illustrations and appended with text boxes outlining their basic characteristics: action range and attack method, strengths, weaknesses, et cetera. More peculiar still, this rendition was written in the goblin tongue—an infuriatingly elegant script, rife with nuance and meaning, little of which was lost on the new-arisen prince. His eye was drawn to the handwritten notes in the margins, spawned presumably from the taskmaster`s mind and hand... they contained musings on the relative rarity of the classes, with the mage at the far end. This was a class for the illustrious few—those with a natural affinity for the arcane arts, harnessing the raw energies of the world and bending them to their will. Only 1/100 hatchlings were suited to this skilful task. Cedric thought of the accursed rune-bearing girl who had thwarted him, pangs of hate and envy shooting through him.

　　Voracious as a scholar, pupil of the word, Cedric drank in all the information. How crass and how curious, he thought, that this of all things was now foremost on his mind—deciding what flavour of goblin he should be. It was an outrage, an affront to all he was. Or all he had been. Had he given up, then? Accepting the nightmare for the truth it was?

　　Lost in deliberation, the prince noted all of a sudden the cryptic note scrawled in a lilting script, waving and wandering at the page`s frilly edge. The writ was in a different hand—it bore the signature of one `Zenok`, taskmaster emeritus... and the words bespoke a thirteenth class. The prospect.

　　This elusive class was reserved for those of exceedingly rare stock, those bearing the weight of a universal talent—the natural predestiny for leadership. Encumbered with a palpable promise of greatness, the prospect shows an innate understanding of command, along with an unquenchable thirst for domination. They are guides or tyrants to their kin, leading the tribe to greater wealth and to blood-earned victories... against rival tribes or larger foes, be they beast or man.

　　Something dwindled inside at the reading of the final word. Man. Could Cedric count himself among their ranks still? The noble ranks of men, toiling and ruling, made saintly under the eye of the divine—the Lord and the Lady up high, shapers of the forged gods, dwellers in the halls of heaven and the pits of hell. Was it better to be a beast... or to be not at all?

　　Flitting from one frayed part to the next, the prince felt a shaking of the soul he could not place. If green was his skin, and his heart was that of a man no longer... what was it that remained? Did it all ring hollow—thoughts of a kingdom lost to his mind forever? And what of his devotion, his love for a queen who would not be crowned? Gael. Strong and stoic Gael. Was she gone for true and real, her body rotting in the Landsbury ground? The prince could not bear it, wanted to dislodge the thought but cling to it at the same time.

　　If this was not a dream... what was left for him. This was not a question; it was a statement of barren fact.

　　But then the prince`s gaze drifted to the Ancient Blood tome on the taskmaster`s desk, detailing the history of the Lothrian noble lines. Next to the Blackrose noble crest, there was the golden-blue bane of Cedric`s existence—it had become that in a broken-bodied flash of a moment. The crest of the Honikom line, entrusted only to the upper-rank peers of their blood. Gendrin. That rotten oathbreaker Gendrin. Gendrin Honikom.

　　And the fires of vengeance roiled in his gut. If there was nothing more he could do for Gael in his true life... then he would get retribution for her in the next.

　　The prince of the Blackrose was not dead—not if his will went on. A singular will. A will of the sword. Death to the betrayers.

　　He would rise up the ranks and command legions, marshalling them to do his iron bidding. He would raze the Honikom lands, set fire to it all and salt the earth after. Their line would be extinguished. Gendrin himself he would gut like a boar and staunch the bleeding; then he would see him hanged for high treason. And that foul necromancer at his side... the darkmage wielding great Caladbrinn, runesword of the fallen order... she would be bound and hobbled, plucked clean of all her spellpower and cast in the darkest hole to wither.

　　Cedric looked up from the page, broken but with burning resolve. Locking eyes with Gorkon, the prince was undeterred by the taskmaster`s piercing gaze. "Garu.. graahh," Cedric then vocalized to his own resolute disappointment, failing to produce the forceful speech he had envisioned. He pointed a green finger instead at the hand-drawn image of the prospect class.

　　"A heart forged in fire... I see fury in your eyes." Gorkon smiled—a true and actual smile. Then his eyes darkened, and the air became breathless and heavy. Lightning seemed to roll down, weaving in crackling surges around the prince`s small frame, impressing upon him the taskmaster`s ardent will. "Give voice to the fury now, or let it die forever."

　　It was a challenge. And be it to his fault or his favour, Prince Cedric of the Blackrose did not bow down when called to stand up. "P-pro... spect," he laboriously uttered, the blaze of his glare unrelenting. A subtle aura awakened around his fragile form, a faint shimmer that crackled and jolted as he spoke.

　　The brow above Gorkon`s natural eye rose as he observed the hatchling`s emanating aura, his mechanical eye whirring as it adjusted to the subtle display of power. "There is danger in words spoken true... but you are too young to know what is false and what is fact." And with a sudden, resolute motion, the taskmaster slammed the lorebook closed, the sound echoing through the chamber like a verdict. "You wish to lead, but foolhardy men only lead astray. Fortify your body and mind. Foster the flame within, but fan it wisely or it may burn you to a crisp." Gorkon leaned back, resting his hands on the desk in deliberation, augmenting the weight of his contemplative pause. "The path of the prospect is perilous, and you will not walk it. Not yet. I have decided this. We will speak again... about your fury and fate... about the quizzical mark you bear and its greater meaning."

　　There was something fiercely wrong in the tone of this bastard Gorkon... and he was getting away with it. The prince wanted to rip him life from limb but he could not. His body was weak and there was an incursion of sorts against his mind—a hidden trapping to where the words of the taskmaster, and by extension the person of the taskmaster, seemed to brook no counterargument. It was a disgusting thing to a prince of Lothrian to be looked upon by some green animal, and to have no mastery of footing in his own sphere of thought... no ground from where to fight back against this master of tasks. Was it a quaint sort of spell he could not now break, him as a neonate nobody? How utterly ignoble that a royal Blackrose should suffer such indignity. Oh, he would come for Gorkon as well one day. Not yet. He needed his strength, to build it from the ground up once more. But all who opposed him... all who looked down on him... they would have their day. That, he could promise.

　　But it was not today, the time for open rebellion. All the prince could do was nod dimly in acquiescence to Gorkon ridiculing him. Deflated for a time but determined for all time. He would rise again.

　　"You are henceforth as I say. I bestow on you the rank of elite and the class of warrior... and the class of scholar." The taskmaster gave voice to his unusual decision. "You will work twice as hard, and you will earn your keep." Gorkon rummaged through the ornamental clutter on his desk, digging out a rusted-over skullcap that might have served some long-gone footman—that is to say, it was hardly the quality Cedric had grown accustomed to. But it would do. For now.

　　"Keep your wits about you, Blackrose goblin..." Gorkon said, waving Cedric off.

　　The prince put on the pauper`s helm, grasping the veiled implication in Gorkon`s gift. Cedric vowed to safeguard his secret—the Blackrose symbol on his forehead would remain hidden under a coat of rustic bronze.

　　With that, he scampered off into the dark unknown—the narrow corridor leading outside the chamber where, to a promise of vengeance, he had been reborn.

　　Trudging through the snaking passages of the goblin lair, he soon heard a gruff voice up ahead.

　　"Welcome to the rookie games."