Chapter Twelve – In which Ark meets the Great Protector and pleads his case with his life on the line.

Chapter Twelve – In which Ark meets the Great Protector and pleads his case with his life on the line.

~~** Interlude | The Great Protector **~~

For two days, Prima did not move one inch from the entrance to the breeding cavern. For two days she either sat down or stood guard there, not leaving to piss or shit, doing so at the entrance as needs dictated, her strongest spear always ready at her side and a gaze of contempt not at what was she was guarding in the breeding cavern behind her, but for all the goblins who passed by that she could see. For two days not one single goblin was allowed to see Ark. Not even Berry, who came with her newborn strong one, Diana Artemis.

Lily and Jewel’s plan to let him see the stones she had and maybe determine if one of them was a topaz had been shut down entirely. And Ark, aside from getting up once or twice to dig a hole in the corner of the breeding room to relieve himself as necessary, feeling acutely the pangs of hunger and thirst, had not moved much either. It was a stubborn stalemate between him and Prima. Neither of whom showed signs that they were winning their silent battle, or of backing down.

That’s when the trouble started.

It wasn’t anyone from the goblin tribe that caused it exactly, but the one invested in watching over them.

The Great Protector had shown up.

As the Old One who witnessed the chaos taking hold of the goblin tribe thanks to the quiet conflict between the Human and Prima, she was long ago tasked to protect the tribe until they could grow their numbers once more. The Old One had put a special powder in the fire pit early in the morning, the plume of smoke from being burned being magical in nature was sent up into the air and sensed by the Great Protector, who had come in response. To the goblins, the Great Protector appeared as a tall being with ashen skin, horns appearing from the temples, and leathery wings from its back. Its hands and feet all ended in sharp talons, and it exuded power.

When it landed in front of goblin-home, the Old One was quick to show reverence, falling on to her knees at once in front of the mighty being, supplicating for it to help. The Old One told it what it knew of what had happened, and the Great Protector listened, curiously, about the doings of the human it had selected for them to breed with.

The Great Protector had lived for a long time, through eras, knowing all about the races of the mountains, the oceans, the forests, and the plains. It had watched humanity for centuries, and knew what they were capable of, both good and evil. It did not think it was wrong about this one it had meticulously selected, but humans often betrayed expectations, as it very well knew.

Following the Old One into the cave it had given them to live in, the Great Protector needed no light, for its eyes could see better in the dark than the goblins it watched over. It could feel the life force of each being inside the cave, and it saw the ones who had received the human’s seed already as it passed by them. One who clutched a magic stone, another who was a runt, and one who leaned on a spear in front of the very room it carved out for the human to be placed into, suffering from exhaustion and hunger.

“Guardian.” the Great Protector spoke and the single word reverberated power through Prima’s body, jolting her awake to full consciousness.

Prima held the spear firm, falling to one knee.

“Great protector.” She answered in reverence.

“The Old One has told me of the human’s discord. I will see him.”

Prima stayed kneeling, her head bowed. The Great Protector walked past Prima into the cave, telling her to remain where she was as sentry. Prima obeyed, letting no one else in as she had been doing for days. Not even the old one who wanted to follow.

“Human.”

The word thrummed with power, and was not something Ark could readily ignore. Being born to a mother who was an excellent magician, Ark was quick to learn how to sense and cast magic spells once he had been reborn. And what he sensed from the being that just spoke was that his own mana was merely a drop in the ocean compared to it. There were few things that had so much power, enough to make the body want to vacate its bowels just by its presence alone. Ark had an idea of what it was, and ruled out one of the three things it could be almost immediately.

It sure as hell wasn’t divine.

Ark, who had moved little in the last few days, rose with some difficulty and sat on his knees. From the palm of the creature, an orb of light rose and floated overhead, filling the breeding room with profound light, causing Ark to wince for a moment and shielding his eyes with his hand as they quickly dilated to accept the luminescence, restoring his vision to something other than darkness.

Ark lowered his head before the Great Protector, not yet knowing this was the being who was before him. He watched as the very ground rose up underneath the creature and became a throne for the it to sit upon. It stared at Ark for a short while before deciding to speak again.

“It is myself.” Ark said, sitting upright finally and placing his gaze upon the creature of near inestimable power. “I am no less a monster for being powerless to change another monster’s heart.”

The Great Protector stood up and the throne of dirt burst apart.

“What I see is a human child throwing a tantrum before myself. Am I wrong?”

“You are not. I have no qualms living the rest of my life as their so-called Husband. But I will not surrender my humanity in order to do so. Even if my impregnating them produces only more goblins who would harm humans, those goblins have a right to humanity by the very nature of being made from the seed of my loins.”

“What is the crime, then, that you are so prepared to die for, human?” The Great Protector pointed a finger at Ark and demanded to know.

“The future children of the goblin tribe.” Ark said willfully. “I will not sire any child to be raised by those who do not have the capacity for compassion! That is how a monster is made.”

The Great Protector was silent for a moment. It was aware the human was choosing its words carefully.

“Capacity? Is this the same capacity of compassion you planned to show the Guardian of this goblin tribe with your grand human magic? What did you call it... Spite?”

The Great Protector knew all too well of the human trait known as spite. Not that it was a magic spell, for the Great Protector was well versed in magic few humans could even fathom existing. But spite was less of a spell and more of a racial ability mastered by humans from birth. And human spite was powerful, if the will to wield it was strong.

“That is why I have prepared myself for death. I have done enough evil just by mistakenly cooperating up to this point, don’t you think?”

Ark again lowered his head.

The Great Protector looked upon the human and frowned. It was certain it had chosen the right human, but it was like the bright light it had seen in it at first had dimmed. Much like the eyes of the female humans often put in the same situation as this human male was. It was certain the one thing it had not seen manifest in the current female-only goblin tribe it protected was the enjoyment of cruelty, yet just from looking at the human, it almost made it seem the non-existent cruelty palpable enough to hold in the palm of its hand.

The Great Protector thought itself wise and just, and now it felt this was less of a child’s tantrum, and more of a significant problem after all. Not that it expected everything to go smoothly to begin with. That is why it had left the summoning powder with the Old One just in case.

“Mince no words or formality with me, and speak from your heart. I will listen to your grievances.”

“I’d rather make an exchange.”

“What is your offer, then? I may consider it.”

“Down the cave further to the back, in the room before the one used for bodily sewage is a room with a wall that needs to be dug out for a goblin child. Make it as deep as its mother needs, and I will surrender my life to you.”

“You want to trade your life... just to have me dig out part of a... cave wall?”

“There is much more to it than that, but without being able to accomplish that as the first step, or even the only step, there is no point to this whole endeavor.”

The Great Protector placed a clawed hand on Ark’s head and used sleeping magic to put him out cold for the moment. Why was a human throwing away his life for a dirt wall? Humans were stubborn, but that was a bit too much. A wall...?