The New Babylon

As he walked out of his tent Nathan was surrounded by the sound of laughter and sex.

‘That snu-snu noise is really terrible, if could forget it I would just laugh it off … Maybe I could, now that I think about it, even if I have a perfect memory it is not like I’m aware of all it at the same time. It’s more like depending on the situations the relevant memories perfectly come back to me.’

As he walked back to his friends, he saw Vorya talking with Sio about muscular training.

“_ Guys !

_ You woke up boss ?

 _  Yeah … actually, I wanted to know how many goblins evolved after this battle “

Hearing Nathan’s question Vorya interrupted Sio and answered concisely

“_ Only one, boss. It’s actually a subordinate of Grom, his mark is also related to scouting.

_ Good, our little merry warband is progressively taking form. I would appreciate if someone evolve with a blessing related to bows, we need someone to teach the goblins after all.”

Vorya just nodded before continuing

“_ By the way boss … In the spoils of war there was some little animals, Mourzuk told us it is some kind of cattle, thought you would be interested.“

Nathan was excited after he heard the news about cattle, he stood up immediately as he raised his voice in excitement.

“_ Show me the way !”

As the trio walked, Nathan saw some relatively small wooden cages, before them was Mourzuk that was dangling some food to the animals inside while laughing like an old lady playing with her cat, Miss whiskers.

“_ Oh Oh Oh, what little cuties you are ! You will make some fine meals for our budding army right !”

Without a word the trio stood there watching Mourzuk, Nathan saw Skeis looking at his mentor with a complicated expression, and even Stevie who was a few meters apart sorting the weapons looked on with a blank face.

‘Dude you are destroying the image they have of you, ay. Not that I care … If those animals can help sustain my troops, I would treat them like treasures too … WAIT ! Isn’t that rats ? Fucking cat sized rats ain’t it ? That will require some mighty cooking skills for it to be appealing. On the other hand I’m French, if snails and frogs are ok , rat may have some potential other than to propagate plagues within my troops’

Nathan’s face crisped for a second before he sighted

“ _ Mourzuk, I want you to resume the trainings, and I want to borrow Skeis, he will come with me to the hunting camp today … Oh and when you cook those things promise me to cook them as much as possible.“

With the assent of everyone present Nathan then excused himself for the rest of the night.

As he exited his tent the next day, Nathan was greeted by the waiting Skeis.

‘Now that I think about it this guy is always wearing a serious face … wonder what he is thinking about. Maybe he is the epitome of a true man, thinking of absolutely nothing, just zoning out with a blank mind, kidding.’

Little did he know that today, he uncovered the truth about Skeis mysterious atmosphere.

The two hobgoblins quickly organised some men to carry some of the stolen goods, particularly old weapons, and the new “livestock”, to the hunting camp.

They quickly reached their destination as Nathan sought out Nubian with a happy face, he quickly informed the old man about the solution to their food problem. Nubian was of course delighted to hear the good news, he even proposed to give the job of breeding it to the disabled goblins, to which Nathan readily agreed.

‘As much as my army is growing the disabled too are growing in numbers, I need to think of more jobs they could take off the hand of the running army.

I also need to think of something to help with the management … Introduce some numerals and basic writing ? But for this I would need paper.’

After coming to a decision Nathan assembled Nubian and some of his aids while he was accompanied by Skeis.

The goal of this little meeting was to explain his goals to them first came the making of paper, then was the introduction of writing and numerals to help the management of the increasing quantities of goods they produce or plunder.

Nathan asked Skeis to stay and learn with the others, when he will have the basics down, he will go back to Alesia to bring back another of his officer to learn in his place.

Meanwhile in the outskirt a hobgoblin followed by 50 goblins was visiting another group, that particular hobgoblin was full of black miasma, his eyes entirely black. It was Frand. After he left Nathan’s group, he recruited some goblins for himself in hope to rise in the rank of the tribe, his ambition led him to think of Nathan’s group as his deadliest enemy and rival. Just after Nathan’s confrontation with the patron god of the tribe, he felt a violent pression threatening to transform his brain into mush, changing his thought process.

Even when the attention of the evil god passed, the  irrational thought of praise and worship developing inside his mind did not. Noticing the newfound power his master, lord and god bestowed on him Frand was given one mission.

‘Get rid of Nathan’s and his group of heretics.’

Inspired by Nathan’s way of doing things Frand decided to go to the closest warband. But no to fight, he wanted to create a coalition with the benediction of the great god above.

While Nathan was teaching his men’s how to write, count and fight.

He was getting all the loose group of hobgoblins into one group destined to fight Nathan.