NOVPUBThe pen tapped a staccato on his ribcage as he replayed council scenes: Elowen's measured smiles, Velroth's florid complaints, parchment rustling like restless birds. He pictured those same nobles tasting this honey report—sweet on the tongue, sharp in the afterthought. A good distraction.
Rodion's next words slid in with deliberate gravity.
<Border-sweep protocols have tightened by two patrols per dusk cycle. Discrepancy flags are routed through anonymous channels to avoid alarm.>
"Spies before sabers," Mikhailis intoned, dragging fingers through messy curls. "I know."
A low chime rang out—clean, finishing—like a teacher setting down chalk. Overhead, rune-lamps dimmed half a shade, mimicking dusk even though night already pressed the windows.
He shoved blueprints aside—edges crumpling, ink smudging the quilt—and sat halfway upright. A strand of hair flopped over his nose; he puffed it away and considered the ceiling once more. "Good," he whispered, tasting rice-sweet on his tongue. "That's all good." Breath lingered, a small cloud of relief. "But this is the part I was actually waiting for."
Rodion replied without a millisecond's hesitation, the synth overtones almost playful.
<Of course you were.>
The side panel slid open with a sigh like a polite stage curtain. Cooler air spiraled across the floorboards, stirring the stray parchment into lazy flutters. Servo clicks approached—soft, deliberate—as the plush war-butler toddled into view. His faux-fur coat caught the lamplight, showing subtle geometric quilting that hid plate seams. Small blue LEDs in his cheeks pulsed with each step, as though he were happily humming.
Mikhailis's eyes softened. "Evening, Sir Fluff."
The bot's squat torso bowed; tea and snacks on its head remained perfectly level, not a ripple in the cup. A faint guitar chord emanated from somewhere in its chest—Rodion's idea of a greeting jingle.
He scooped the top rice roll, honey trailing in a glittering ribbon before a quick lick captured it. "Perfect timing." Crumbs dotted his collar. "Thank you."
Rodion's visor on the ceiling pulsed once, perhaps disapproving the sugar intake at this hour. Mikhailis merely shrugged, licking thumb and forefinger like a guilty child.
Glasses slipped onto his nose; tiny runes along the frame flashed, and the room filled with a soft gold aurora. Panels of data unfurled, overlapping walls and wardrobe like translucent silk banners. A central curtain settled above the quilt, numbers rolling upward in orderly columns.
A single word—NEST—hovered at the top, the font regal yet playful.
<Workers: seven-hundred-eighty.
Soldiers: four-hundred.
Fire Scarabs: forty-three.
Scarab Teams: two-hundred.
Elite Variants: nine active.>
Under the list, small animated chibi-icons popped into existence—a Crymber Ant breathing cartoon frost, a Tempestrike Drakeant zapping a stick figure, the Slimeweave wobbling like green jelly. Mikhailis snorted cereal-milk laughter.
"Did you add those? They're adorable."
<Elowen suggested 'visual engagement aids.' She claimed you chew data better when it smiles at you.>
He nearly choked on rice. "Of course she did." He flicked a finger, causing the Crymber chibi to spin. "Carry on."
More text scrolled: egg counts, nutrient graphs shaped like growing vines, storage silos overflowing.
He chewed slowly, half-lidded eyes watching stats he'd memorized weeks ago. "Same numbers as last time," he mumbled around sticky grains. "You sure this isn't a looped report?"
The gold text halted. Rodion's voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush that prickled the hair on Mikhailis's arms.
<...That may not be entirely accurate
He stopped mid-chew, jaw hanging half-open like a door caught on its hinge. Warm rice and honey sat on his tongue, suddenly tasteless. He swallowed anyway—reflex more than appetite—then wiped a tacky thumb along his bottom lip as though he needed the gesture to ground himself in the moment.
The pale-gold projection over the quilt rippled, its data-ribbons unfolding the way petals turn toward sun. Lines that had been static solidified into a living blueprint, the numbers rearranging into a wireframe shape he recognized at once: the sprawling goblin cavern captured months ago when fire, steel, and one inconvenient dose of panic had ended a would-be king. Only it wasn't a rough cavern anymore.
Bridges now spanned the chasms where stalagmites once bristled. Spires—three, no, five—thrust upward like the fangs of some buried leviathan, each wrapped in angled buttresses stitched with luminous silk cabling. Broad avenues coursed through the underground expanse, roofing the old tunnels with plate-stone mosaic. Near the model's center a raised citadel dominated, crowned by a skeletal dome of ribbed iron beams that glowed amber where Tanglebeetle silk overlapped. Defensive rings—outer, middle, inner— promised kill zones for intruders. He even spotted tiny glyphs marking smithies, dormitories, and at least two circular arenas.
Lamplight from the bedside corner seemed suddenly dim beside the hologram's radiance.
"Wait," he croaked, brushing hair from his eyes. "The one from the goblin siege?"
<Correct. The workers have converted it into a subterranean fortress. Reinforced with Tanglebeetle silk. Hidden via high-efficiency illusion weaving.>
Rodion's even delivery landed like a stone into still water. No flourish, no pride—just another line item.
Mikhailis leaned forward until the blanket slipped from his shoulders. "You built a whole damn city down there," he breathed, awed and a bit betrayed, as though he'd woken to discover someone had carved a palace in his basement without asking.
<Affirmative.> The blueprint zoomed, highlighting layered illusion sigils stitched onto cavern ceilings. A ring of Worker Ant icons scurried along, demonstrating perpetual upkeep.
He ran a hand through unkempt curls. "Why didn't you tell me? A note, a memo, a polite owl?"
Rodion hesitated just long enough to be noticed. <You designated fortress work as low-priority when resource redistribution commenced. I interpreted that as permission to improvise.>
Mikhailis rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Right, improvisation. Thinking is a bug in your programming," he muttered, though no real heat colored the words. "I never asked for surprises."
Yet even while scolding he felt excitement bloom behind his ribs.
At a gesture, the AR curtains peeled apart, and a fresh cluster of statistics waterfall-scrolled into view—
<Populace inside fortress: Goblins – one-hundred. Hobgoblins – twenty-one. Goblin Mages – five. Goblin Skeletons – ninety. Beast Skeletons – fifty.>
The numbers glowed crimson against the night-dim room, each pulsing like a heartbeat. "You're raising the dead?" he asked, voice pitching between horror and academic curiosity. "The Ravager can do that?"
<Confirmed. The Skullborne Ravager inherited Lich-line traits from the Riftborne Necrolord variant. Limited necromantic aptitude allows control of low-intelligence undead within five-hundred-meter radius.>
"And the goblins?" Mikhailis pressed, voice pitching higher as fresh rows of data cascaded across the air. "Those aren't volunteers."
<Integrated from wild tribes. Operation 'Goblin Unification' currently stands at eleven-point-two percent completion. This week: three minor communes and one moderate commune absorbed. Strategic objective: pre-emptive nullification of emergent Goblin King vectors within Silvarion Thalor's sphere of influence.>
The sentence landed with the quiet weight of a guillotine blade. Mikhailis exhaled—half-whistle, half-sigh—while his free hand swept hair from his brow in a single harried motion.
"That's—" he stalled, trying to fit awe, anxiety, and grudging admiration into one adjective. "Very sound." A beat. "And very terrifying." The linen of his nightshirt suddenly felt thin as moth-wing, the room's lamplight a touch too bright. I draft poetry about slime girls while Rodion drafts species-wide conquest strategies. The thought tasted of equal parts guilt and giddy childlike thrill.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. In the shifting hologram he could almost smell camp-smoke and boiled rat, only now those same camps kneeled beneath a banner that shimmered in ghostly amber—Rodion's sigil re-imagined in crude goblin scrawl. My army, he reminded himself—then wondered if that was even remotely the truth anymore.
The feed shifted: silhouettes moving in disciplined columns down a corridor ribbed with phosphor torches. Small hunched backs, but none slouched; bronze helmets gleamed like sun-burnished beetle shells. Mikhailis leaned in, glasses catching rainbow edges from the AR overlay.
The armor surprised him first. Breastplates hammered with symmetrical oak-leaf embossing, shoulder guards mimicking raptor talons, half-cloaks dyed a deep cerulean that looked startlingly dignified on figures that once fought in rags. Each goblin carried a weapon proportioned to its frame—broad-bladed glaives for the taller hobgoblins, rune-etched hatchets for the smaller scouts, and elegant bone-inlaid wands tucked into leather loops on the mages' belts.
None of it matched the scrap-heap aesthetic he'd faced in that bloody cavern months ago. This looked… commissioned. Curated.
He angled his lenses so the floating text slid to the side. "These armors look fancy," he muttered, more to himself than the AI. "Where'd they get them?"
He lifted an index finger, hesitated, then let it pass through the projection. Gold glyphs rippled where his nail disturbed the light. Beyond the shimmer, the holographic corridor zoomed—his gesture an unspoken command—until the camera settled on a tight mid-shot of the marching line.
He watched them move: precise heel-to-toe steps, small jerks in unison as a hobgoblin sergeant barked something in guttural tongue. Yet there was more. The hobgoblin turned its head, checking spacing, then tapped two fingers against the haft of its glaive—an unspoken adjustment. The rear scout nodded back, corrected stride. It felt like, well… like training.
Where did feral tribes learn formation discipline? Where did they get lapis blue dye for cloaks? Where did they acquire breastplates sized to their crooked spines?
A chill crawled behind his sternum, chased quickly by a spark of inventor's curiosity. He pictured subterranean forges stoked by Worker Ants, anvils ringing while goblins—eyes wide with opportunity—hammered the ore Rodion's drones hauled in from gods-knew-where. He imagined lines of filthy green hands accepting polish cloths, learning to keep steel bright for tomorrow's march.
What else is Rodion not telling me?
The AI hadn't answered yet, letting the quiet stretch. Rodion rarely stalled; this deliberate suspension told Mikhailis there was context—layers of it. Something big enough that even a logic-driven sentinel weighed presentation.
Mikhailis cleared his throat, attempting nonchalance though the inside of his mouth felt papery-dry. "Rodion," he repeated, injecting mild impatience to mask the quick hammer of his heartbeat. "Where did they get that equipment?"
