Asher traveled to where his goblins had been slaughtered and took note of his surroundings. Even with the sun shining, in Winterhaven there was always snow falling. Shortly after his minions had arrived, the snow had covered up any footprints left behind. With the frigid temperature, there was no way they were tracking via thermal signatures either, even if they had the ability to see into that visual spectrum. With his keen perception, he couldn't begin to find any evidence of traffic through the area.
The only thing he could figure is it was a special ability of the trackers that allowed them to find the goblins. He'd have to keep that in mind for the future. In the meantime, he would continue into the cave and check the remains of his followers.
As soon as he walked into the chamber where the goblins had been hiding, he felt a sensation vibrating the very core of his being. Asher felt drawn to the shadowy wisps left behind by the dead monsters.
The black wisps looked spirit like in appearance now that he was able to get a better look at them. They danced around themselves over top of each corpse. Asher sighed as he stared at them. He felt like an idiot for sending his goblins to such a high level area and not taking precautions to make sure they weren't spotted.
Asher was curious about something though. He walked over to the goblin that had become incapacitated and inspected it more directly. His suspicions were proven correct, it had been growing. The pain that had brought it down was obviously from it rapidly becoming larger.
The goblin was almost as large as a hobgoblin now. He kissed his teeth as he realized what that meant. His minion had been evolving into a more powerful creature. His next step was going to be collecting more followers and attempting to grow them into the next stage.
Asher wondered though, if he was able to evolve his followers, what came after hobgoblins? He had never heard of anything personally about a variant that was stronger, but that didn't mean anything. The guild was discovering new creatures all the time.
Asher began collecting the shadowy essence after that. He felt some form of energy swelling inside his body. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. After he had finished gathering the essence, he felt stronger than ever before. He didn't know what exactly the essence was doing to him, but it was definitely making him more powerful. He could almost feel chilling breath on his neck from the shadowy being that was seemingly attached to him.
He shuddered slightly, and it wasn't from the cold of the cave itself. Asher moved out shortly after that. He went back into Winterhaven for a short time before moving back towards Imperia. He had a theory and he was very interested in trying it out.
Within a short span of time, he spotted goblins. He went into their midst and killed all but one before dominating it. He couldn't quite tell fully, but it almost seemed as though he hadn't lost as much power as he usually would from dominating the beast.
He began tracking more goblins down and kept dominating increasingly more of them as his forces kept gaining numbers. An even stranger thing was that he felt himself becoming even stronger due to killing the low level monsters, something that he hadn't felt in a long time from something so weak.
Asher continued to experiment with it, continuing to dominate the goblins and kill more of them. He almost laughed out loud as he realized that the shadowy essence was actually strengthening his power of domination. He hardly used any of his own energy to control the monsters now as well as gaining more strength from them than ever before.
The rank B team killing all of his followers had been a blessing in disguise. It had allowed him to discover something that not even the shadowy being seemed to know about. Asher stared at his small army of about thirty goblins and smiled.
He commanded them to gather groups of goblins to him and he used his powers to control them, one by one. When he had about one hundred goblins under his command, he ordered them to go to Winterhaven to hunt in groups of twenty-five each.
After that, Asher looked for hobgoblins and took four of them under his control while slaughtering the rest. He figured those could be his squad leaders. He assigned them to their own groups and reaped the rewards within a couple of days. He felt swells of power constantly. It still wouldn't be enough to boost him past B rank, but it was a start.
Soon after that, several of the goblins were incapacitated by what Asher could only guess was an evolution. A couple of days passed and there were several new hobgoblins in the ranks of his minions. In addition to what his minions had been accomplishing, he received power from everyone he had made a pact with.
Killian had been facing quite a few dangerous foes and had been receiving quite a boost to his strength. In the meantime, Asher had been benefitting as well.
Soon enough, Asher was promoted to rank B and began hunting right away. There was no shortage of jobs available to him as his name was spreading due to his success hunting down beasts on his own at rank C before. Almost everyone at rank B knew him or knew of him.
A group of frost drakes were hunted down and killed with brutal efficiency by the guild with Asher's assistance. They had barely spent any time tracking them, thanks to Asher's many minions across the wintery landscape. He had his very own spy network across the province, allowing him to find any beasts he wanted to.
With Leah partnering up with him, he would tend to let her take any draconic kills she could get. Asher figured he more than made up the difference between a hundred goblins and three pacts with higher rank guild members.
Asher looked at Leah later on and asked, "Do you think I should help Willow to our rank?"
"You can do what you want, Asher, but if she can't keep up on her own, what use is she really?" Leah responded.
"She is the daughter of a noble house that is still standing," Asher explained. "If she is on our side when they accept her back, that's our ticket to a lord being on our side. Do you not realize how big that is?"
Leah frowned. "She may not be able to regain her position though. Are you really willing to drag her along with you when it may be of no gain to either of us?"
Asher sighed at her. "I may not be able to predict the future, but if she gains enough renown as a hunter, she very well may be able to catch the attention of her father once again."
Leah shook her head. "Like I said, do what you want with her. As it is, I feel she is useless. You even offered her a pact to grow her power on her own and she didn't take it. If you feel it's worth trying, I won't attempt to stop you. Just be aware, it may turn out to be nothing more than wasted breath and effort."
Asher left the room after that with his mind reeling. He didn't want to waste his time, but he also didn't want to give up a potential ally. There was so much more on the table than Leah seemed to realize.
He knocked lightly on Willow's door and stepped through as soon as she responded. Asher stated flatly, "I have come to offer you a new deal."