Naivety

"..."

The two stared at each other before the stone wolf sighed, its carved raised fur returning to normal.

'𝘐 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘢𝘤𝘵.'

Mustering a commanding tone, it spoke. "This region is my territory, meaning those in the city belong to me. But I will forgive you, if you show me your 'stock'." It says, trying to act more like a monster than a person. It's efforts pay off, as the Elder goblin nods, sweating a little.

"You want women? This way." He states, leading Omni out of the side chamber and deeper into the burrow. It looks around as they walk, observing the makeshift forge and the goblins carrying ores from a hole angling down into the earth. A larger goblin who looks a bit better fed is hammering away at a red hot piece of metal, but is making little progress.

'𝘛𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴? 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦?'

Omni shakes its head, deciding to leave judgement until it has seen everything. It begins letting out wisps of energy to probe the various pathways they pass by and trying to get an idea on how many of these things are around. The large rabbits it had delivered were already being cut apart and put on a spit above a bonfire in a room with a small hole to let the smoke out above ground.

A foul smell begins to make itself apparent, causing Omni's stone nose to wrinkle thanks to its manipulation working off of instinct at this point. The elder shows the stone wolf to shoddily made cells, poorly forged metal bars dug in deep enough that most people would be unable to budge them. The light is low, but what can be seen causes the stone wolf to grit its teeth.

"Heehee, want trade for women? More hunt?" The elder goblin asks, oblivious to the sensation of energy suffusing the air and the burrow.

"... Huh?" One of the conscious women look out at the sight of the massive stone wolf with fright, but as soon as her eyes land on the wolf's left ear, hope shines in her eyes. "That's... Krave's?"

The elder scowls, not understanding what she means. "Quiet you!"

Omni takes a step forward. "... 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐈 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠." With a swipe of its paw, the elder goblin is knocked into the wall, barely managing to stay conscious. He screeches, and the sound of screeching fills the burrow, the rest of the goblins being alerted to the hostility. A cracking noise comes from the wolf, hairline fractures forming and fixing themselves repeatedly as Omni begins subconsciously using its huge energy pool.

The first thing it does is use earth magic to seal the cages, preventing the goblins from having the chance of using the pitiful women as hostages. The woman who recognized Krave's golden badge on the wolf's ear calls out. "There are dozens of goblins, please be careful!"

'𝘎𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘴...?'

Omni freezes, the things it had read in the World Library flooding back. Yes, they were goblins, filthy monsters who resort to vile tactics, causing anger from the soul just from reading about them. As soon as Omni had first seen them, it should have recognized them, the images in the book the exact same as the ones it had seen... So why couldn't it? Its thoughts are interrupted as the elder gets up, seething in rage and trying to cast magic while the footsteps of swarming goblins get closer.

Stone teeth bared, Omni's anger flares as it utters its own magic before the elder can finish his.

"☝︎☼︎✌︎✞︎✋︎❄︎✡︎📪︎ 👍︎⚐︎☹︎☹︎✌︎🏱︎💧︎☜︎📬︎" The structure of the spell was simple, just two words, but the high element spell more than enough. As commanded, the gravity surrounding the elder collapses, quickly turning him into little more than blood splattered on the wall as his core falls to the ground.

'𝘈 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦... 𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴.' The wolf coldly sighs. The elder was the only goblin in the burrow capable of magic, and with all the goblins trying to get revenge for the death of the elder, the 'fight' ends rather quickly. Exactly two minutes after the elder fell, the burrow had fallen completely silent. Omni takes a few moments to calm itself and collect its thoughts. None of the other goblins had cores, so it buries them all deep underground and cleaning the blood before heading back to the cells.

Removing the earth wall it had put up, it sees the woman who spoke has already gathered up everyone, counting a total of 9 women and one man. All of them were awake now, hope glimmering in their eyes, especially after the screams of the goblins had vanished. Omni realizes it is still in control of most of the burrow thanks to its outburst and begins slowly manipulating the bars before pulling them into its body. The more metal it had the better.

'𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴... 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘐 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘵?' It pauses, realizing it had forgotten about Domain as well. It spends a few seconds trying to remember the name, but comes up blank. It is shaken out of its thoughts by the woman who first talked.

"Excuse me, sir wolf?" She asks. Looking closer she seemed to be a type of therian beast-folk it couldn't place. All these different forms of beast-folk had already begun to bleed together to Omni.

"I do not have a gender." Omni responds flatly on reflex.

"Oh, umm, right." She nods and points to the hexagonal golden badge decorating its left ear. "That is one of Krave's things, right? Did he send you here?"

It shakes its head. "No. I came upon this place by chance. All you need to know is I am a sentient golem, if that wasn't obvious already. Can all of you walk? I will escort you back to the city."

The woman breathes a sigh of relief. "Not yet, can you give us a few minutes?" She motions to the more weak-willed of the prisoners who were still trying to come to terms that they were getting out untouched.

The stone wolf nods. "Very well. Then I will be dismantling this place so it cannot be used again by monsters." It says. With that, it heads back to the forge area, grabbing everything that isn't nailed down, and then the stuff that is nailed down, pulling it all into its stone body and storing what it could in Hazard Storage.

While it was able to manipulate the bars to the point of making them not stick out of its body, the purer ores that it had received from the 'trade' along with the rest of the ores gathered from the pit they were mining from was harder to shape with earth magic. It thought about implementing its earlier train of thought using each element to fulfill a different role in forging, but taking the survivors back to the city took priority, so it settled with excavating the small vein the goblins had found and lining its body with the metal, causing it to look a bit more bulky.

It resigned to making its body bigger using the stone in the makeshift mining pit, which served a double purpose in case any of the people were unable to walk and it had to carry them. Once everything useful and useless had been taken, it practices molding the metal bars while it waits for the group to be ready to move out.