Silently I directed those shadows to make up for the goblin's faults, strangling and carrying off various ranged enemies from the sidelines to alleviate casualties. The goblins themselves were like berserkers in RTS games, once you threw them at the enemy it would be hard to control them. If I actually cared for their lives I might have actually tried to direct them, but their life and death was secondary if I could help them win the war.
Especially this was one of the only ways to get them to evolve how I want as well, care and training would take time and result in an orc. Orcs didn't have any desirable traits that I could think of as they were too human-like, maybe down the line of evolutions but that would be far in the future. Just thinking about the Blend made my stomach lurch for a moment as I shook my head to clear it.
Splitting the Stranglers into two troops I sent one into their rangers that seemed to be panicking already as many of their troops had died from the scattered attacks from the stranglers already. The second group I sent to go after anyone giving out orders or trying to gather together the kobolds. I made sure to keep several bodies in dark corners as I wanted to see if I could create larva here outside.
After ten minutes the battlefield calmed down and only a few stragglers were being killed that were in hiding. The goblins though were cheering, tears in their eyes as they felt more alive than they had been when they were crying in despair. Most of them had actually lived which surprised me, there were those injured but the cleric was going around healing them while giggling.
After the cleric was done I went to him to ask about the giggling and he looked at me with a big smile, "In battles before they never let me fight, I got to smash some kobold heads in! It was so fun, now I see why the others love fighting!"
"So goblin how do you heal people? My friend here uses water and fire to heal." I pointed over to William who was being pestered by five little shadows that were now playing a form of tag with him.
"I take the energy of those dying around us and use their remaining life energy to heal my friends! Fire hurts, how can fire help heal?"
Ignoring his question my eyes sparkled, "Tell me how to do that, I have life affinity and no spells to use with it."
The goblin shrugged and started to explain the process, as he did a screen popped up in front of me.
'Would you like to learn Life Transference, someone is trying to teach you?'
I clicked yes, and saw a bar slowly fill up as the cleric kept talking. If I wasn't paying attention to his words though the progress bar stopped so I paid attention avidly as he spoke. Even making some questions to understand some aspects better. When he was done I saw that the bar had actually reached 120%.
'With your insights into healing you have upgraded the skill into Life Healing.'
To try out the new spell I used the preparation for the spell which was gathering of the life magic in the area and grasped it like a physical orb. When I had the life energy I let it flow into the Goblin Cleric's body making sure that the energy focused on areas where there was injuries. When I was going through his body I noticed many minor injuries and impurities so out of boredom I forced them out of his body to fully heal it.
"Gah! What's this‽" A light appeared around the goblin and he started to enlarge getting two big horns on his body. His short frame filled up with muscles and his hair nearly exploded out of his head falling down to his knees. The last change was his skin that went from a deep green to a bright red like a cooked crab. "I evolved?"
"You evolved," I nodded as if this was all planned out, "You taught me something, so this seems like the best way to repay you."
My eyes sparkled as I stared at him though, this wasn't an orc but a Redskin Shaman the descendants of the redcap goblins. I wasn't sure how a hat ended up changing their skin but redcap goblins were feared much more than orcs.
Orcs would crush you, orcs would eat you, but an orc would never boil you alive with all of your gold and silver making a statue of you. They were much more intelligent and knew how to use it to cause the greatest harm to any enemy. I could already see that the Redskin Shaman was looking over the troops with a hint of understanding.
He rubbed his chin and then nodded, it seemed like he came to the same collusion I would, 'Being used we can both take benefits, fighting me and they'd die.' If it wasn't me who killed them, the Kobolds or the Ratfolk would kill them.
"Are we going to gather more troops now that we've destroyed one of their villages?" The shaman looked to me.
"Yes, now we have a reputation. Now the goblins here know they can trust me."
The shaman nodded agreeing with what I was saying, "Plus you'll have a shaman backing you the whole way so I doubt there will be any resistance except from the Ascension Tribe."
"The one with the orc?"
The shaman nodded, even though I already knew that there would be an orc I wasn't sure if he was evolved yet or if they would evolve during the war. It seemed as though it was the former which would mean I'd have to do much of this without dealing with those in the Ascension Tribe.
"Do goblins have mounts?"
"Some of us ride pigs, but that's so we can eat them on long journeys." The shaman smiled toothfully, "I did however hear that Kobolds have Geckos, a small outpost like this wouldn't have them though."
"Do you think the goblins are up for more killing?"
The shaman laughed and turned to the other goblins raising his fist into the air, "Have you quenched your thirst my brothers‽"
"BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!"
"I guess that means we're going to be getting some geckos soon."