Alim bent to look at the golden flower that he had noticed Jin looking towards as they had ferried across the moat with Liraz manifesting her box Familiar to use its plethora of legs in the water to propel them across at an impressive speed. Eventually, he hoped they could make a proper bridge, not just for them to cross quickly but also to funnel potential enemies through. He had a couple of Rituals now that could serve as suitable traps.

He pushed those plans to the back of his mind for the morning and picked up the flower. It looked like some kind of lotus and had probably been floating at the edge of their moat. He wondered if the monster had tried swimming across, looking for these first, or if it had been on this side of the moat originally, and the creature just happened to get knocked back into it.

Turning back to ask Jin to analyze the item with her Talent, he was surprised to see Jin and Hadia glaring and probably yelling at each other by the looks of it, while Karam and Liraz both glanced from one to the other, clearly uncomfortable with whatever was happening now.

He wasn't sure if he should try to intervene when he obviously was lacking context or if he could just turn back around and pretend he hadn't seen anything… They wouldn't get mad at him for not hearing the shouts, after all.

With a soft sigh, he resigned himself to trying to get back to the base faster and stepped towards the two women who might actually punch each other. Just to be on the safe side, he recast his [Mana Barrier] on himself and tried to step between them to at least get their attention. "What's wrong?" he quickly signed before one of them could swing a fist.

"She's getting all upset about killing a monster! It's ridiculous!" Hadia angrily signed at him.

At the same time, Jin signed, "She won't listen to me about these goblins not just being regular monsters!"

Alim raised a brow and asked, "What do you mean by 'not regular' monsters?"

"It talked!" Jin replied with sharp hand movements that made her agitation palpable. "It had a name! It obviously has more intelligence than the other monsters we fought!"

He looked at her blankly for a moment before calmly signing, "Of course, the monsters are smarter. They're Crystal Caste. They'll have more Mind by default, but are usually still below average for a Caster. While talking isn't exactly common at Crystal, it'll become more common the higher Caste they get. We could run into a monster version of your Jade Dragon, and you already know those can talk." He hesitated for a moment at her frustrated face, then added, "Look. I know they might seem like… people. But they're not. They're monsters. They don't have souls. They have Monster Seeds that try and fail to mimic a soul. Monsters are driven to devour Caster souls. If you didn't kill it, it definitely would have tried to kill and eat us, Jin."

The Wayfarer ran a hand through her green hair, glancing down at the goblin that still hadn't been looted, apparently, since it wasn't ashes already.

Alim let out another small sigh and held out the golden flower while writing in the air with his free hand, "Can you at least confirm this is one of the items we need to collect for more tribute points?" She nodded, but he quickly added, "And loot the goblin. We need anything that'll help us survive, Jin—not be merciful to monsters who won't hesitate to slaughter us."

Jin shot him a small glare, but it relaxed a moment later as she reluctantly nodded. The goblin began to instantly dissolve into ash, but Jin didn't take the flower. Instead, she stepped closer and bent slightly to get a closer look before signing, "It's a Divine Tower Lotus. Looks the same as the egg, but this time it has the effect saying it grants tribute points for the base. Apparently, I had to discover the base to get the effects revealed."

"Great, let's look around a little to see if there's any more, since the eggs had more than one grouped together, and also be on alert for any more goblins with this one."

"It said it was a Bog Goblin Scout, so I think it was alone, but if they're anything like the goblins from some of the stories back on my old world, it definitely has friends camped out somewhere," Jin signed with an annoyed expression that he couldn't really tell the exact reason for.

"Were goblins good and not monsters in those stories?" Alim hesitantly asked.

He could see her chest rise and fall with an exasperated huff before she reluctantly signed, "No. They were obnoxious little bastards you'd need to slaughter practical hordes of otherwise they would create a shit-ton more… usually through disgusting acts that I really don't want to see happen in this particular case."

"Then why in the abyss were you trying to defend it?" Hadia angrily signed.

"Hey! I was just thrown off by the name, okay! I didn't think about what goblins normally do, and we don't know they'll be the same as those stories!" Jin retorted.

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Alim rolled his eyes at their bickering and simply signed, "I'm going to look for more golden things," before turning away from the group to do just that.

He continued scanning the area, looking for hints of gold or some idea of where the monster had come from. If Jin was right and these were actually a swarm type of monster that manifested in larger groups, they wouldn't want to be caught by surprise if the monsters came looking for their missing scout.

Quickly finding some undisturbed tracks from the goblin's tiny humanoid feet, Alim conjured his wand from his Passive [Wand Wielder] ability and cast a cantrip he had learned for following the magic signature left behind by things—including creatures. It had been useful when Lady Shahara continued misplacing things and expected him to find them for her.

A faint thread of glowing blue mana appeared in the air for him to follow as he traced back the direction the monster had come from. It wasn't very long before he found a large basket by the shoreline. It seemed woven from reeds and had braided vines for straps to carry on the goblin's back. It was also half-full of glittering golden resources: flowers, seeds, polished stones, large pieces of fruit, even what looked like a small fish skeleton that had been dipped in gold.

Alim glanced back towards where the group had been, starting to split up and look around the area themselves, but not going out of eyesight. His brow furrowed in thought, and when Jin glanced his way, he waved her over.

When she was only a few yards away, he signed quicker than usual, knowing he wouldn't need to slow down with her Talent making her fluent. "In the stories of your old world, did goblins hoard things like dragons are known to do?"

Jin scratched the back of her head for a moment as she thought before replying with hands just as fast as his, "Sometimes, but they didn't really keep things; they consumed them. Raiders by nature. These seriously look like how I would picture one, but I can't guarantee they behave the same."

"I've just been thinking about the floor clue we got earlier," Alim continued, showing her the basket full of golden tribute points just waiting to be eaten by a base. "Remember what it said: He who gathers last gathers least. Where envy walks barefoot, only the bold will eat. When no sunshine warms the roots, steal what they steal, or starve beside them," he recited. Then he gestured to the loot, "I think we have to fight the goblins for the resources we need. That's the floor challenge. We'll be fighting scarcity."

Jin nodded along with his explanation. After a moment of thinking, she asked, "Do you think they'll try to raid us for whatever tribute points we've gained? Can they even claim the points once the tree has eaten them? Or will it just be a race to gather out here? Also, something else I was wondering after seeing the flower, do you think we could grow more?"

Alim blinked in surprise at that idea. Looking down at the basket, where he saw a few large seeds that looked like they might be for trees, he slowly nodded and signed, "Potentially. I can definitely try, but I think Scarlet with the Workers might do better with that kind of thing. It might be worth going back to the first floor, where they'll probably stay for a while, to see if she'd be willing to help us grow a better garden. We should probably wait a week or two, though; the Fighters like to camp the floor portals to either kill or toll other Champions."

"The Workers staying behind makes sense," Jin agreed with a nod. "If I were part of a group of crafters, I wouldn't see a need to move to a more dangerous area if others are willing to bring them materials to work with at a place they've already established."

"They might change their minds in this particular instance, though," Alim interjected, looking back across the moat to the base. "If everyone gets a Cultivating Guardian Home like ours, its configurable rooms and growth potential are something they'll want to start building up sooner rather than later once they learn about it."

"Lots of crafting room options?" Jin asked with a small smile.

Alim nodded. "Many. And the buyable upgrades would help them with materials that simply aren't available on the floors normally. An actual functional forge would be a huge advantage for them. For us, though, I'm leaning towards a greenhouse and more defenses to start with."

He glanced down again at the basket, contemplating it for a moment, then bent to pick it up and sling it over his shoulder. "Let's take this back and go through it all in the safety of the base. We can convert most of it into tribute points and set the seeds aside to plant after we finish resting. Does that work for you?"

Jin nodded in agreement, but her gaze drifted back towards the location where she had killed the goblin. When she turned back to him, she signed, "That last line in the clue: 'steal what they steal, or starve beside them.' We're going to have to raid the goblins, too, aren't we?"

Alim let a soft sigh escape before nodding in return. "Yeah. Probably. Honestly, it would be a tactical advantage for us to let them do the scavenging first, and we simply take the spoils like we did with this scout. It would have probably taken us hours to collect this much ourselves."

"Yeah… You're probably right," Jin reluctantly agreed before moving to return to the others. Alim could see her yell out to the others and wave them down, pointing towards the massive tree that served as their new home.

As he followed after the Wayfarer, he was fairly certain he wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep before obsessively cataloging all these new Divine Tower items and figuring out if there was a point difference at all, or looking through more of their upgrade options and costs. Not to mention, where he might be able to save them tribute points by just doing the rituals himself if they had the materials for them. His frown deepened at that thought. Material scarcity was usually the biggest problem in the Tower for things like Rituals or Enchantments, or even some abilities like summoning their Familiars.

This base could potentially circumvent that problem. It could grow with them. He had never seen this kind of base before in past Seasons, and he wondered if it was meant to be a prominent feature of the Season itself as a whole this time around.

The Right Tool for the Job, he thought. That was the theme Keeper Nell had said within the very first minute of them stepping into the Tower. Perhaps that wasn't just for their Aspects, but for the Season. Because this tree… this Mister Snuggleroot, had the potential to be one of their greatest tools for survival.

And Alim was determined to hone that tool into both a weapon and shield for his friends.

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