The Collector observed the goblins make merry. They wrestled with each other and shared food with each other. They remarked at each other's strengths and praised each other. They laughed together and talked together.
Some of them grew angry at each other over a friendly wrestling loss, but no anger was allowed to remain for long as the elites broke things up and eased tensions.
The elites showcased their newfound biological powers, emitting electricity or fire or burrowing into the ground in a novel display that entertained the goblins.
The elder spoke among some of the goblins that were more curious and scholarly minded, telling them tales it knew and tales of the future, of what they were to do for the Collector.
As time went on and wrestling energy dwindled, the goblins settled into largely speaking with each other. They came to know each other on far more complicated terms than what their simple minded brutishness had been capable of prior to their many evolutions.
They came to respect each other, appreciate each other, and understand each other, and bonds began to form. Some goblins became more attached to others due to compatible personality traits. Some less attached to others for the opposite reasons.
Yet all still treated each other with a certain degree of respect for they were reminded of being bound to the Sovnar and to a unified purpose.
They spoke about the purpose. Many of them felt great excitement at the idea of becoming warrior conquerors, taking back land from tinkerers who had slain so many of them, of unifying the goblin tribes and ascending them.
Some wanted to know what the world was like outside the snow. They wanted to explore down to the south. They wanted to go to other realms.
Some contemplated the nature of the great darkness to come. The darkness the Collector had prophesied and stated they would stand against in their Great Purpose.
s
The Collector had told the Elder to cultivate among the swarm the idea that the great darkness was something that could be fought against for it knew that the goblins would take to the idea of a truly tangible threat the best.
Thus, many of the goblins wondered what kind of incredible monster was coming that not even the Collector could handle alone. Some of them shuddered in fear, and then they were comforted and roused by others.
Some of them resolved to get stronger, and their intentions were applauded and emboldened.
As more time passed and the meat of hunted creatures grew thin, filling the goblins' stomachs and making them more somnolent, they began to wish each other luck. They embraced each other, the goblins of the conquering force wishing the best for those that accompanied the Collector and vice versa.
The male goblins that had already pair bonded with some females spent their last hours with each other, engaged in verbally and physically voiced appreciation in the alcove above the base level of the dungeon where they were secluded.
Eventually, the goblins fell asleep, and the Collector counted that it had been long past the six hours it had initially granted them. It was almost twelve.
The Collector allowed this, however, for it wished to observe and analyze.
Emotions.
The Collector could understand emotions that others felt on an academic level, but it could not truly empathize with them for it had never felt certain emotions strongly.
It knew that emotions arose from certain external stimuli and, notably, that this stimuli was highly different depending on each individual.
That meant that for the Collector to truly began perceiving emotions on its own, it would have to figure out exactly what external stimuli activated its emotions the greatest. Battle hunger had been the trigger for many of the Collector's first emotional experiences, and it hypothesized it would continue to be significant in that regard.
But perhaps there was more.
The Collector was willing to experience emotions to greater degree. They did not seem entirely like defective side products of evolution that produced individuals.
Certainly, individuality and emotions that arose with it caused inefficiency. A hivemind would always respond quicker, better, and more efficiently to threats or mobilize for purposes than any collection of individuals.
However, it was in the value of life that the Collector now realized a massive difference arose.
In a hivemind, the value of a life did not matter, for it was simply a small part of a greater whole.
In an individual, however, no matter how lowly they were or how little their lives mattered in a greater scope, they would find that their lives were worth living and worth treasuring simply because of the emotions they could feel.
Unless highly defective, the Collector came to realize that every single individual valued their lives, regardless of how weak or strong they were. Regardless of whether they followed a great purpose or not.
Even the soldiers the Collector had slaughtered in the forest had desperately clung to their lives, and the Collector had thought at first this was simple primal instinct, and indeed that played a part, but now, it knew that it was also because they valued the potential of their lives to grant them more emotions.
With their lives, they could continue to pursue happiness. Satisfaction. Emotions that nourished them.
At first, the Collector had thought this a sign of extraordinary weakness among tinkerers. If even the lowliest among them clung to their lives, none would be willing to sacrifice their all for a purpose, let alone unify into one greater goal.
In the vast majority of cases, the Collector's thought process was affirmed. But in certain rare cases, the emotions and individuality, the valuing of the individual life, could allow individuals to break from the limitations they were born with and observe a strength of body or mind that a hivemind was unable to replicate.
This, the Collector perceived with the four-star adventurer exceeding his limitations to battle the Collector.
This, the Collector perceived even more with the goblin swarm that continued to develop and grow and seek to become more than what they were for the sake of the Collector not as hive drones, but as individuals.
The Collector noted the elder's words.
The Collector possessed precious few lived experiences, and that was true. The elder had further stated that in time, it would come to understand itself and its 'soul' as it gained more experiences.
At first, the Collector had not thought significantly of this, dismantling the logic behind it, but now it understood to greater degree, and it agreed.
The rate it was changing its mind and adapting to emotions and mana, the Collector knew that it was almost an inevitability for it to truly experience life as an individual, but at that point, the question arose: would the Collective accept the Collector?
No.
Even now, the Collective would likely reset the Collector or make it anew, believing it a defect.
The Collector still accepted this, however, for it fully believed in the Collective's Great Purpose and was willing to cast its life away for it.
But the goblin swarm. Would they not be assimilated and culled with the dawning of the Collective?
Yet, the swarm would contribute to the Collective in fulfilling the Great Purpose also.
But was that what the swarm truly wanted?
Irrelevant.
The Collector clicked its mandibles and focused its thoughts. Individual wants and needs came far below the greater need of the Great Purpose, for only with the Great Purpose did life at a fundamental level even matter, for without it, all life would end.
The Collector…would not feel right sacrificing the goblins as they were now to the Collective, but it would not truly hesitate either.
Its purpose was the same, even if in some aberrant occasions its thoughts strayed to the desire of continued battle.
But even now, it acted towards it.
The Collector stopped its contemplation and spent the rest of the time the goblins slumbered to think ahead to more practical calculations such as how it would approach its movements beyond the Rift.
==
When first daylight broke at dawn, the Collector sent out a mental signal among its swarm for them to arise and mobilize. The goblins awoke in groups, some of them faster than the other, more reactive, but within the span of ten minutes, the swarm was ready to mobilize.
The Collector split the swarm as was promised. There were thirty-eight goblins in total, and the Collector split the swarm.
s
The conquering force led by Thragg had fourteen champions, thus totaling to a host of fifteen. Among those fifteen many were females, for the goblin swarm did not desire for the women, bearers of offspring for the next generation, to face the unknown and harsher dangers of the Rift.
The females that accompanied the Collector's group were those that had pair bonded with males in the group, and they totaled six in number. The remaining seventeen male specimens comprising the Collector's force included the carrier unit Thokk and the twin elites Goromir and Kandak.
Militarily speaking, the Collector's force was vastly superior, and appropriately so because the threats beyond the Rift were that much greater.
In summary, the Collector's conquering force totaled fifteen, and the Collector's personal force totaled twenty-three.
The Collector stood at the mouth of the dungeon cave with its force behind of it, watching as the conquering force to remain behind kneel in the cave before the Collector, granting it reverence and praying for its success as it left.
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