My planet is infested with Goblins

Noah woke before the alarm sounded.

For several moments, he remained still beneath the thin blanket, staring at the pale ceiling above his bed while the distant hum of Astralis filtered through the apartment walls. Freight carriers were already moving through the lower transit lanes, their engines producing a low vibration that traveled through the building like the pulse of some enormous sleeping creature.

Somewhere in the corridor, a door opened and closed, followed by the rush of water through the old pipes behind the wall. The city had not yet reached its busiest hours, but Astralis was never truly silent.

On an ordinary morning, Noah would have risen, prepared breakfast, and reviewed his lessons before leaving for school. Today, however, the silver envelope resting on his desk made the familiar apartment feel different.

The Planet Seed Awakening Ceremony would take place in two days, and the time had finally come to open the vault his parents had left behind.

He pushed aside the blanket, washed, dressed, and combed his hair with unusual care, though several stubborn strands refused to remain in place. For a few minutes, he considered wearing the formal coat bearing the silver tree of House Aelwyn but eventually chose his academy uniform instead.

The bank had his identity card. If that was not enough to prove who he was, a family crest would accomplish little. He prepared a simple breakfast of eggs and bread, then forgot about it until the eggs had gone cold. The black identity card and bronze key lay beside the awakening notice on his desk. He had placed them there the previous evening, yet he still checked the locked drawer twice before remembering that he had already taken them out.

The bronze key was heavier than its size suggested. Its surface had darkened around the edges with age, and the silver tree engraved into its handle appeared almost white beneath the morning light. Noah had examined the symbol many times over the past two years, but he had never found a seam, rune, or hidden inscription beyond the Aelwyn crest. The identity card was stranger. Its surface remained perfectly black regardless of the angle from which he viewed it, and it bore no visible name, number, or seal. Whenever he held it near an ordinary reader, the device simply failed to recognize that anything had been presented. His father had told him that the card would verify his identity, and his mother had said that the gift inside the vault was meant for his future world. Neither of them had explained anything more.

Noah slipped both objects into the inner pocket of his uniform jacket, ate half a piece of bread, and left the apartment. The eastern residential district was already coming alive around him. Vendors raised metal shutters from the fronts of narrow shops, filling the streets with the smell of hot oil, baked dough, and bitter morning tea. Workers hurried toward transit stations while schoolchildren gathered around street stalls, spending the last minutes before class arguing over sweets and fried meat skewers. Noah passed the market where he normally purchased vegetables and continued toward the nearest skyrail platform.

He had traveled through Astralis countless times, but the route to the central financial district felt like a journey into another city. The buildings changed first. Crowded apartments and repair shops gave way to broad avenues lined with polished towers, and the advertisements floating above the streets no longer promoted cheap food, clothing, or public services. Instead, they displayed planetary auctions, territorial bonds, military investments, civilization insurance, and divine resource exchanges. Vast projections rotated above the avenues, showing forest worlds, ocean planets, mineral-rich moons, and sealed spatial territories available for purchase.

One advertisement announced the sale of a small iron vein suitable for a developing planetary civilization, with a starting price of three hundred thousand Faith Points.

Another promoted a bundle of drought-resistant crop species for desert worlds, while a third offered long-term financing to young gods seeking to purchase their first planetary defense barrier.

Noah watched the advertisements pass beyond the skyrail window and understood, perhaps for the first time, why his instructors described Faith Points as the lifeblood of the God Civilization. Ordinary citizens used small amounts to purchase goods and services, but gods used them to shape worlds.

With sufficient Faith Points, a planetary god could introduce new animals, alter river systems, purchase mineral deposits, accelerate the development of crops, strengthen the atmosphere, or acquire defensive artifacts capable of protecting an entire civilization. Powerful clans invested sums so immense that Noah struggled to imagine them. Their wars were fought not only with fleets and armies but with economies built across thousands of inhabited worlds.

The skyrail passed through three security gates before entering the central district. Each gate scanned the passengers, checked their identities, and inspected them for prohibited spatial artifacts. Noah felt the black card in his pocket grow faintly warm during the third scan, but no alarms sounded. When he stepped from the train, he found himself beneath a vaulted station ceiling decorated with constellations formed from suspended silver lights.

The surrounding crowd looked very different from those in the eastern district. Men and women in formal robes walked beside armored attendants. Merchant gods carried storage rings whose value likely exceeded the cost of Noah’s entire apartment building. Representatives of noble houses moved in groups, their family crests displayed openly upon their clothing.

Noah lowered his gaze and followed the directions projected by his wrist terminal.

Argent Crown Bank stood at the end of an avenue wide enough for a military parade.

The building was not the tallest in the district, nor was it the most decorated, but it did not need to be. Its dark silver walls rose in smooth, unbroken tiers, narrowing gradually toward a flat crown surrounded by twelve enormous statues. Each statue represented one of the ancient divine beings credited with establishing the laws of trade, ownership, inheritance, and contract within the early God Civilization.

Their stone eyes faced outward in every direction, as though they had guarded the bank since the birth of Astralis itself.

There were no advertisements upon the walls, and no glowing signs announced interest rates or investment opportunities.

Only two words had been carved above the entrance: ARGENT CROWN. Beneath them, in much smaller letters, was the institution’s ancient oath: What is entrusted shall remain.

Noah stopped at the edge of the avenue. For the first time that morning, he wished Steward Corvin had come with him. The feeling lasted only a moment. His father had not told him to bring a steward, a guard, or a clan representative. The vault had been left to him. Whatever waited inside, he was meant to claim it himself.

He crossed the avenue. The bank’s entrance consisted of three towering arches filled not with doors but with translucent barriers.

Customers passed through one at a time while armored constructs stood motionless between the arches. Each construct was nearly four meters tall, with a silver body shaped like an ancient knight and a featureless helm engraved with contract runes. As Noah approached, a line of pale light passed over his body, and the black card warmed again. For a fraction of a second, the nearest construct turned its head toward him. Noah slowed, but then the barrier opened.

The interior of Argent Crown Bank was even larger than the exterior suggested. The main hall extended beneath a ceiling so high that the upper galleries appeared distant and unreal. Hundreds of counters occupied the lower floor, divided according to service, while private chambers lined the outer walls and floating platforms carried customers toward higher levels reserved for wealth management, planetary transactions, and divine contracts.

Despite the number of people present, the hall remained remarkably quiet. Conversations took place in low voices, footsteps disappeared into the polished black floor, and even the movement of the floating platforms produced no sound.

Noah followed the signs toward private vault services. The reception area was less crowded than the main hall, and most customers waited with attendants, guards, or family representatives. Noah was the only student present.

A young woman in a gray uniform stood behind the nearest counter. Her golden identification plate named her as Lysa Venn, Junior Vault Associate. She smiled as Noah approached, though her eyes briefly moved past him as if expecting an adult to follow.

"Good morning," she said. "How may Argent Crown assist you?"

"I need to access a private vault."

The receptionist maintained her professional smile. "Certainly. Is the vault registered under your guardian’s name?"

"I don’t know."

Her smile tightened slightly. "Do you have the account number?"

"No."

"A vault seal?"

Noah reached into his inner pocket and placed the bronze key on the counter. Lysa looked at it. The key seemed almost crude against the polished black surface.

"This is the only key I was given," Noah said.

The receptionist picked it up carefully, examined the silver tree engraved into the handle, and passed it beneath a scanning lens. The lens emitted a soft tone, but nothing appeared on the screen. She tried again, only for the same tone to sound.

"I’m afraid this may not be registered with our current vault system," she said. "Some private family institutions use physical keys that resemble those issued by Argent Crown. Are you certain it belongs to this bank?"

"My father told me it did."

"Do you have any accompanying documentation?"

Noah placed the black identity card beside the key. The receptionist’s expression changed, though only slightly.

"There doesn’t appear to be any information printed on this," she said as she picked it up.

"It’s supposed to verify my identity."

"I see."

Her tone suggested that she did not see at all. Noah could hardly blame her. Had he been standing on the other side of the counter, he would probably have assumed the same thing: that a confused student had arrived carrying an old key and a blank card.

Lysa inserted the card into the reader. The screen immediately went black. Every light beneath the counter extinguished, and the receptionist froze. A second later, silver symbols spread across the dark screen in concentric rings. Noah did not recognize the script, but the receptionist clearly did. Her face lost its practiced calm. The reader emitted a single deep chime, and the sound carried farther than it should have. Two nearby employees looked over.

Lysa removed her hands from the device. "Please remain here."

Before Noah could answer, she stepped away from the counter and disappeared through a door behind the reception area. Noah glanced around. The two employees who had looked over quickly returned their attention to their work, though one of them stole another glance in his direction. A man waiting at the next counter frowned impatiently. His attendant whispered something, and the man’s gaze shifted toward the bronze key.

Less than a minute later, the door behind the counter opened again. Lysa returned with an older man dressed in a black coat trimmed with silver thread. His hair was gray at the temples, and a chain of small metallic seals crossed his chest. Unlike the receptionist, he did not look at Noah’s uniform or age. His attention went directly to the card resting beside the reader.

"Good morning," he said. "My name is Director Vael Ormond. I oversee restricted vault access for this branch."

Noah nodded. "Noah."

The director waited.

"Noah Aelwyn," he added.

Lysa inhaled quietly. The director’s expression did not change, but his posture became more formal.

"Thank you, Lord Aelwyn."

"Noah is fine."

"As you prefer." He picked up the card without inserting it into the reader again. "May I ask who entrusted this to you?"

"My father. Alaric Aelwyn."

At that, the director’s gaze sharpened. "And the key?"

"He gave me both."

"Did he provide any instructions?"

"He told me to come here when I was preparing to awaken my Planet Seed."

The director studied Noah for several seconds. "Your awakening is scheduled soon?"

"In two days."

Director Ormond nodded once, as though a final piece had fallen into place. "Then the conditions have been met."

He turned to Lysa. "Clear the Ancestral Descent chamber."

Her eyes widened. "Director?"

"Immediately."

"Yes, sir."

She hurried away. Noah watched her go. "Did she do something wrong?"

"No."

"She thought I had the wrong bank."

"A reasonable conclusion under the circumstances."

"Then she won’t be punished?"

Director Ormond regarded him with mild surprise. "No. The Argent Crown does not punish employees for following the procedure."

Noah relaxed. The director gestured toward the private door. "Please come with me."

Beyond the reception area lay a narrow corridor of dark stone. The noise of the main hall disappeared the moment the door closed behind them. Silver lines ran through the walls, intersecting at regular intervals to form geometric patterns that shifted as they passed. They entered a circular chamber containing no visible controls, and Director Ormond placed his palm against the wall.

"Restricted vault descent," he said. "Authorization Ormond, seventh seal."

The chamber moved. Noah felt no sudden drop, yet the pressure in his ears told him they were descending quickly.

"Was that card created by the bank?" he asked.

"No."

"Then why did your reader recognize it?"

"It did not recognize the card itself. It recognized the authority bound to it."

"What kind of authority?"

The director glanced at him. "The kind that make sures no security breach happens."

That answer only created more questions. The chamber continued downward, and after several seconds, one section of the wall became transparent. Noah saw layers of the bank passing beyond them: halls filled with sealed doors, chambers containing enormous storage formations, and corridors guarded by constructs far larger than those at the entrance. In one level, he glimpsed a miniature ocean suspended inside a transparent sphere. In another, a black metal door was wrapped in chains of glowing text.

"What do people keep down here?" Noah asked.

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