Goblins weren't like other races, they weren't sculpted by the gods but instead were crafted by dark wizards. They subjugated the largest band of amazonian orc warriors, and got to work, working in bits and pieces of all the natural races. They were defined by the short stature taken from the dwarves, the long ears of elves, the green skin and tusks from orcs, and the messy dark hair of men. Despite their short size their bodies were magically toughened able to take the members and give birth to them as well, there were well known cases of goblins even giving birth to the children of giants. They were abnormally fertile, but only about one of ten of their children would be another goblin. They were always female.
While the 'more civilized races' pretended to hold sympathies for the goblin's plight, they did little to actually help free them from their roles as breeding slaves. If a goblin was found in a raid on the orc lands they might be brought back into those nations. Usually they would still wind up in the slave trade, but sometimes they would be taken in by a noble house that had pity on them, and educated. It was three such goblins who would change history.
Leelus had wound up in the country of elves, and had been trained in the ways of magic. Insvilda had been taken into the land of the dwarves where she learned the art of weapon crafting and maintenance. Elidna, taken to the land of men, learned the ways of battle and would be the most important of them all.
She convinced a small alliance of lords from the elf, dwarf, and kingdoms of men, to bring together a unified army to claim a patch of land from the orcs. If they made a homeland for the goblins, then orc numbers would drop quickly over the next few generations. The plan was agreed and after an eighteen month campaign a small chunk of land was carved out for the goblins to use as a homeland.
The orcs responded quickly though, charging back with hordes of their berserker soldiers. The monstrous race attacked with new raids every day. Then they were abandoned by the 'more civilized races', the people didn't support a continued war for what they considered to be a race of cattle slaves. The goblins couldn't rely on the cunning of their queen forever, nor could they enlist their citizens as warriors. This was a place for goblins to come and seek out a better life, not fight in an endless war. There had to be a solution, and the mage Leelus had been the one to find it.
Leelus had summoned a creature from the very pits of the infernal realm, a creature born in those fires tough, resilient, and loyal to its masters. She summoned hellhounds. During those dark months she made herself a secret laboratory and got to work on what would be her toughest project.
Three months later, she finished.
Hordes of hellhounds emerged from her lab. They had pitch black fur, and flaming red eyes. They bounded over the walls surrounding the kingdom easily, and drove back the startled orcs. The soldiers at the time dropped their weapons for a moment, completely in shock, and then they cheered. Behind the wolves was Leelus, calm and confident as ever, directed them to victory. No one ever learned what it had cost her.
Elidna III now sat on the throne and the lands were doing well, or at least well enough. New goblins came in every day, brought on by the promise of new lives. They would abandon their old lives often dedicating themselves to farming, mining, fishing, or even skilled labor. Trade routes had been firmly established with the other kingdoms. Not only that, but there were men of other races; men, dwarves, and elves, who came for some reason or another and now stayed with their wives and children. Most importantly, while the orcs had gotten better at fighting off the hellhounds, they still lost land against the hell beasts and never took a bit of it back.
Rea walked through the dirt streets outside the castle. She smiled as she looked between the smiling men and women all around her, in what seemed to be a small bit of heaven. It was hard for her to imagine how hard it was life for goblins outside the country. She was the grand-daughter of Leelus, and there wasn't a single day that went by where she wasn't proud of what her grandmother did.
Every goblin had markings on her stomach, small runes inscribed there. They had changed the biology of every goblin that came to them to be able to only give birth to other goblins, who would also be naturally born with the same runes. Without a skilled mage it couldn't be undone, which meant that even if they were kidnapped they would prove useless as breeding slaves. More importantly it gave them control in a way many of them never had before.
Rea made her way inside the castle, past a group of guards, who wore silver armor perfectly fitted to their curvy bodies. They sat by the gate playing cards with each other, and smiled at her when she passed. Rea raised her own hand to them, as she entered.
She made her way through the castle, it was covered with various arts made by goblins over the passing years, portraits, tapestries and even an elegant statue sitting in the garden in the center of the castle. Rea always went there when she came to the castle, she didn't know why but being summoned always made her just a bit stressed out.
She stopped by a shallow pool of water. She looked out into it, and back at herself. Her body was lithe, at least as lithe as goblin bodies got. She wore long blue robes that covered her body, and her black hair was kept trimmed and short. She gave herself a smile, to take a look at her white teeth and fangs, as well to get her confidence up. After a second she turned away and went through the rest of the castle to the throne room.
The throne room was massive with large banners that hung down from the ceiling. The banners depicted their short history in great detail, and with an artistic flare that left Rea speechless every time she saw them. On either side of the room were benches were different lawyers and duchesses publicly debated the decisions of the kingdom. While she heard the shouting out in the hall, the second she entered they all fell silent. At the end of the hall was Elidna III wearing the silver armor of her grandmother and sitting half-sprawled in her throne. Rea walked up to the throne and kneeled.
"My queen," she said in a hushed tone.
"Stand up, my royal mage," she replied.
Rea turned up to look at the queen. She was taller than Rea, taller and bulkier than most. Her hair seemed almost blue in the light, and it was kept in a long ponytail. Her fangs had two golden rings that ran through them. However, her dark eyes held a spark of compassion and kindness in them.
"Why have you summoned me here?"
"Our spies have reported Orcs consorting with rogue dwarves at the edges of the kingdom. Some of the berserkers are getting equipped with new armors and weapons, and while the line is holding right now, I'm afraid they're going to push the line back once these tougher soldiers get sent out. I know your family has maintained the constant summoning of the hell hounds for years, but I wonder if it would be possible to increase that number slightly, to hold this new threat back?"
Rea considered for less than a second, "it should be no problem, my queen. Is that all?"
"That is it, my loyal servant."
Rea turned and left the throne room, after another bow. She made her way through the castle, to a small building just barely inside the walls. Building perhaps wasn't the right word, it was more a block of pure stone with runes carved in the sides. It was the entrance to her grandmother's old lab.
Rea raised her hand up and closed her eyes. She began to chant in another language, her voice dark and deep as she did. The runes started to glow, and soon the stone started to melt away. A door formed in the stone block, nothing inside it but a stairway that led down into the earth. Rea walked inside and summoned a ball of light in her hands. As she stepped inside the stone closed up behind her.
When the door closed up behind her she was left in silence for a moment. The only sound was her footsteps against the hard stone. She felt her pulse rise as she moved down the stairs, she knew what was coming, and it didn't frighten her. Far from it, her cheeks filled with blush and she felt wetness between her legs.
She entered down into a massive chamber divided into roughly twenty cells. The walls of the cells were made of bright blue magic, though she could easily see inside them. She saw herself in each, a perfect clone of her body, except for four changes. The first one was invisible, their bodies were modified so they would never give birth to another goblin. The second was that they were all naked. The third was their pregnant bellies. And the fourth was the fact they were all currently being mounted by massive dog like creatures, with black fur and flaming eyes.
Rea cleared her throat and took a step deeper into the lab. This was the cost of freedom, a choice her grandmother had made. Then her mother made it, and now it was her. Rea turned to look into one of the magic cells and placed her hand against the bright blue barrier. The clones couldn't see out of their cells, or hear out of their cells. This was to help them lose track of time, get lost in the endless rutting. Rea found her hand drifting south before she shook her head, she was here for a reason.
Rea walked out to the center of the room, as she chanted spells under her breath. The chamber grew wider, the walls simply extended out the dirt and rock that was once there being teleported far away. She figured that five new breeding clones should work for Elidna. The magicals walls rose from the ground to the ceiling, leaving nothing inside. She closed her hands and focused her energy, five hellhounds that had been out on the front lines were teleported inside the cells, she was sure no one would miss them. They paced around inside their new homes for a minute, before they seemed to look at her eagerly, they knew what was about to happen.
Once she was done with that, Rea turned her attention to the center of the room. There was a stone dias and from it rose a translucent white light, runes carved into the rim. She took a step towards it. That was it, the generator for the clones. The runes were carved into that by her grandmother, it was the most important tool inside this whole chamber. Once she took a step inside that, it would create her copy, change its breeding capabilities, and then teleport it to one of the empty cells.
Rea stopped in front of it, her heart threatening to jump out of her throat. Did she really want to do this? The thing had always made her nervous, magic could deteriorate the older it got, and this thing was three times older than her. She always wondered what would happen if something went wrong, what she would do. She shook her head, she was just being paranoid. Probably.
She took a step into the light.
~~~
Rea awoke with a pounding head on the hard packed dirt floor. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, as she blinked. What had happened? Slowly, she looked up, and saw nothing but glowing blue walls, and a massive dog with fur as black as night and flaming red eyes. She pushed herself up onto her feet and looked at the hellhound as it licked its lips and took a step towards her.
"N-no! Stop," she called out as she backed up against the magical shield.
The dog looked almost disappointed for a second, but it stopped where it was. It sat down on its hind legs. It stared at her a moment longer, before it dropped down and rested its head in between its paws.
"Oh," she let out the word more as a sigh of relief than anything else, "loyal."
"Yes, we are. Annoyingly so."
Rea's eyes went wide as she looked around for the source of the voice. It didn't have any sort of source, rather it had seemed to come from within her mind. The voice was masculine, and dark. It reminded her of crackling wood in a fireplace. Her eyes looked down at the hellhound as it yawned from where it lay.
