Chapter 14

Underleaf had become... calm.

Which, if you've spent any amount of time living among goblins, is usually the calm right before someone lights a mushroom on fire just to "see what happens."

We were rebuilding at full speed. Roofs patched, wells reinforced, paths dug out and packed firm with gravel and clay. Gresh ran patrol drills. Riri organized grain records. Guk was alive—still bandaged, still grumbling—and Bonk had started carving his face into everything that stood still for more than five minutes.

By all accounts, we were stable.

And I was losing my mind.

Not in a panic sense. Just... mentally itchy. You know that feeling when everything's fine, but your brain won't shut up? Like it's pacing in circles, looking for a problem to solve. That was me.

Until one afternoon, while sketching irrigation layouts on a bark tablet, I dropped my charcoal and stared into the dirt.

I remembered something.

Not from this world—but the one I left behind. Something that used to keep my mind sharp when I had no cities to build. When all I had were flashing screens and AIs that cheated by teleporting enemy cavalry.

A game.

A strategy game.

...

I didn't have a name for it anymore. Not exactly. But I remembered how it worked. A grid. Different types of pieces. Rules about movement. Protection. Sacrifice. Victory through foresight, not strength.

That night, I etched the first board into the dirt beside the firepit. An 8-by-8 square, lined with stones and bone shards. Bonk wandered over, curious.

"Whatcha drawin'? Some kinda weird goblin trap?"

"It's a game," I said. "A thinking game."

He crouched down, sniffed a pebble, then plopped across from me. "How do I win?"

"You capture the other side's king."

"Sounds easy," he grinned.

He lost five times in a row.

"Okay," he muttered after the fifth match, scratching his head. "Maybe not easy. But fun."

...

Over the next few days, I carved real pieces: pawns from nut shells, knights from curled twigs, and kings from smooth stones painted black and white.

I added little carvings to distinguish them. Riri gave each a name:

Crown (the king)

Warden (the queen)

Fangs (knights)

Towers (rooks)

Eyes (bishops)

Striders (pawns)

Soon, every goblin in Underleaf wanted to play "the warboard."

They watched games like theater. They cheered when someone pulled off a clever trap. They gasped when a "Crown" fell.

Gresh became terrifyingly good at it.

Even Guk, propped up on a bedroll, challenged me nightly. He claimed the pain in his shoulder helped him think better. (It didn't. He still lost. But only just.)

...

Then came the real surprise.

Elena returned.

She stepped out of the woods one morning, cloak dusted in pollen, a satchel slung across her back. Her eyes swept the camp, noting the new tents, the defensive trenches... and a group of goblins arguing loudly over whether pawns could promote to Towers.

She raised an eyebrow. "What... is this?"

"Strategy training," I said with a straight face.

Riri giggled. Bonk flexed and declared himself "Commander of the Pointy Horses."

Elena watched two full games before speaking again. "You made this?"

I shrugged. "It's based on something from... before. But yeah. No one here's ever seen it. Not even the humans, right?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. And I think you've just invented something dangerous."

...

A few days later, she left again—taking a polished set with her, carved lovingly by Bonk, who insisted on adding a "signed" mushroom piece.

She returned a week later with a sealed scroll and a stunned expression.

"This came from Valorhollow," she said, handing me the scroll. "From Lady Selvi herself."

I blinked. "Who?"

"Military noble. Strategist. Responsible for wiping out two orc armies and capturing a fortress without bloodshed. She's... intense."

I opened the scroll and read:

'The Warboard is unlike anything I've seen. Elegant, brutal, precise. If your monsters made this, they are no mere monsters. They are minds worthy of the field. I demand a match.'

Elena looked at me like I'd just set fire to the political map. "She thinks it's a military training tool."

"It kind of is," I admitted. "All warfare is deception, movement, position."

"And you just handed that to a human noble."

"Well," I said, "maybe we'll finally get taken seriously."

Bonk leaned in. "Does this make me famous?"

"No," I muttered.

...

That night, I sat by the fire and watched Gresh destroy a mountain goblin elder with a classic fork maneuver.

The village buzzed with life. Goblins debated strategy. Scouts used game terms to describe patrol routes. One of the builders started carving a giant warboard into the training yard floor.

I hadn't planned it. Not exactly.

But this game—my game—was no longer just a pastime.

It was becoming a symbol.

A message.

That we weren't savages. We weren't wild beasts.

We could think. We could plan. And most dangerously of all... we could teach.

And as I watched Bonk try to castle through a Tower, I smiled to myself.

Checkmate, world.

You just met Underleaf.