MBGSP 92

Hello, goblin fans!

Sorry for the late upload, I thought I'd be able to get things squared away Friday night, but I had surgery Friday Morning and apparently I don't play well with general anesthesia, so I've spent the weekend in full recovery mode. I hope you enjoy the chapters!

Chapter 92 - Forging Friends

“Make hot the coals and put backs to bellows, my lads!” shouted Sourtooth. The old orc had swapped his blanket for a thick leather apron and a pair of hide gloves. “These metals mine must be shaped with haste, should we wish to be ready whence the Stampede begins to march.”

The old orc strutted through the forge yard, still a bit uncertain on his new spring-steel prosthetic—a larger mirror to my own. But beneath the hangover he’d found his fire. His renewed zeal had trickled down to his smiths. All across the yard, bar stocks and billets were heating up, and goblins were beginning to assemble bricks for kilns to tap the the clay supplies of the Flock. Not only that, but heated vats belched forth black, acrid fumes. The orcs had rubber from trees near the coast. We were going to have actual tires for the second generation orc buggies.

All throughout the yard, Promo worked with his smiths, blending the principles of orc and goblin technology to make our buggies larger and tougher, adding panels and flex-a-pult platforms. Our canoneer scrambled back and forth, transcribing sanctified engineering diagrams onto paper.

As for me? Well, I couldn’t lose sight of my end goal. Simple small-caliber guns weren’t going to cut the mustard when it came to big game. With access to the orcs’ ample stores, I was going to make something that a thundercleave couldn’t shrug off. The orcs had sulfur and charcoal, of course. But they also had bauxite powder, magnesium, grain alcohol, and plenty of old iron parts, rusted beyond use. Trash to them, because they didn’t have an Earth scientist’s understanding on how to properly combine them into something amazing. Since Sally had come in person, I coopted her and the canoneer in order to codify a new set of devices into the Church of the Right Angle, in hopes that would tighten tolerances enough for the igni to produce working designs.

I began sketching out designs for armaments on the new buggies. By the time the wranglers and scrappers started waking up, I had the basic schematics figured out. I found Sourfang once I was ready to start forging components. I showed him what I was working on, and then explained how it would work. Then I pantomimed it. When he still didn’t understand, I appealed to System.

<Try the hand thing again.>

Very funny. But I got the message: it was something we’d have to unlock in order for the tree to translate it to orcish tech through the auxiliary system.

Sourtooth just shrugged. “What more have I to lose? To the forgemasters, get ye.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said.

I made my way over to Promo where he worked with the orc smiths at the forges. An ignis was a new novelty for the orcs of the Flock, and his cooking had ingratiated him with our new hunting team. It didn’t hurt that the orc smiths got a bonus to heat-based crafting through the auxiliary system when he was around.

<You’re welcome.>

I ignored System and presented the designs for the new parts to my forgemaster. “You think we can rig these up?”

He took the vellum (the orcs had no shortage of hides) and turned the drawing about, taking in the drawing. “This will kill goblins.”

“Only if they don’t let go. Think I’ll have a shortage of volunteers?”

Promo emphatically shook his head. “The S&M club’ll be over the moon. Like to try one myself, truth told. How big we talking at this end, boss?”

I made a circle of my finger and thumb. Promo grinned. “No problem. The orc iron isn’t as good as our boom furnace steel, but it will do in a pinch.

I reached up and slapped him on the side of the arm.

We worked well into the evening, the entire contingent of goblins that I’d brought with me into the desert, as well as Sally and the small flight crew she’d brought. I sent her home after lunch, watching as the strange pusher-plane took off in much the same way it had landed.

I had intended to keep working through the evening, as well. But three horn blasts sounded. I looked up from my work as the Stampede camp suddenly buzzed with frenetic activity. Orcs ran this way and that, carrying equipment or bundling up supplies.

“Sourtooth?”

He limped by, stuffing effects into a bag. “The Dawn just signaled their intent to put hoof to turf and the hunt resume.”

I chased after him. “You said the party from a thundercleave would last 3 days.”

“Could last, little brother. Advanced the game, has Lura. She presses us, and answer we must this challenge given.

“But they’re not ready! We haven’t even tested the new modifications!”

“He shaded his eyes against the sun. “Time not to dally and wipe doubts. We must beseech Grandfather Spirit for his blessing, and hope to find his mood not coy. You have until the sun dips a hand’s span from the horizon. As much as I can offer, this.”

“Your hand or mine?”

The sour old orc glared down at me.

“Right. Stop wasting time. We’re going to wing it,” I translated. At the end of the day, this was still Sourtooth’s show, and his traditions and rules that we had to follow in order to be allowed to participate in the Stampede and feed the tribe. Hunting rights were on the line.

Prototype, test, rapid iteration. Combining quick and dirty engineering with monstrous beasts capable of killing dozens of goblins? What could ever go wrong?

I delivered the news to Promo, who offered much the same complaint I did, before supervising the teardown of the forges and the BHR.

Once things were packed up, I climbed up onto my newly-enhanced buggy and dropped a rockette into the starter slot. I pulled out the bestiary as the engine warmed up, trying to get a clue as to what we might be in for. I thumbed through the pages of the plains beasts, but the weight shifted as Sourtooth pulled himself up to the rear position. He eased down into the seat and dropped his bag of forge tools by his feet. He looked over my shoulder.

“What have you there?” he demanded.

I handed the bestiary back, and he flipped through it, scowling. He tossed it over his shoulder in contempt.

“Hey!” I said. “Why did you do that?”

“I can’t read,” he said. “But a book which with four spines a rockscraper presents is worth not the vellum of its pages. Trust that I know the beasts of the land, little brother.” He reached down and rubbed the connection with his new prosthetic. “All too well, some.”

He slapped the side of the buggy.

The gears shifted under my hand and the throttle pedal pulled away from my foot as the Ifrit in the engine revved up. The buggy lurched forward, lurching on its new rubber tires. Not exactly performance nitros, the hard rubber was still leaps and bounds better than the metal-banded wheels as they bit into the badlands turf. Engines across the forge yard roared as the rest of the Flock scrambled to find places on vehicles of their own as my goblins hooted and hollered and waved spears and guns.

I couldn’t help but grin. I lifted my feet entirely and left the controls to the Ifrit, who pulled us out into the mass of orc hunting teams scrambling to quit the camp. The Stampede had sounded like a rolling thunderstorm when we’d been watching from the outside. But now, in its midst? The cacophony of hundreds of mounted orcs pounding across the badlands riding baying beasts of a dozen different sizes was intense. It was infectious. The orcs were trampling, and we were trampling with them. We were part of this dangerous, deadly festival of speed and skill. Maybe it’s the competitor in me talking, but aside from launching the first glider, this was the most excited I’d been since coming to Rava. And I wasn’t the only one.

I felt another subtle pressure mounting, the tell-tale weight of the System’s increased attention on me. Well, we’d give it a show.

I stood up in my chair and looked back at the dozen goblin vehicles arrayed behind me, with goblins in questionable leather garments hanging on by their dozens. Scrappers had their rifles in the air, while wranglers at the controls of the buggies and bikes expertly maneuvered the vehicles. Even the canoneer was furiously scribbling on a piece of paper that flapped so hard in the wind I’m surprised the fibers didn’t come apart.

I put my fingers at the corners of my mouth and whistled. The trill rose above the clamor of the Stampede, soon joined by other goblins who had mastered the trick of whistling. Those who hadn’t simply screamed, and then the orcs of the Flock joined in, and I even caught a half-smile creeping onto Sourtooth’s twisted face. That clarion pierced the wall of sound that was the Stampede, and I saw other hunting teams looking over at us.

I raised my hands above my head, making the circle in the air.

“Ad Luna!” I shouted.

The tribe cheered, mirroring the sign.

“Maybe we won’t all die!” Sourtooth shouted over the cheering. “Who’s Adluna?”

Chapter 93 - Persuasive Unit Conversion

We rode for an hour before Sourtooth whistled and pointed north. The ifrit in the engine pulled the buggy left, leading the convoy away from the main pack of the Stampede. I stood up in my seat and looked out at the main body of orcs as we distanced ourselves from them. The thunder of hooves fell away, leaving only the sound of rough-burning engines on bare rock and scrub.

“We’re not joining them?”

Sourtooth held his hand up to the sun. “We need not follow the Dawn for we aim not to unseat them. Lura possesses skill unmatched, and many would claim glory by knocking down her standing at the fore. We seek only to place. Leave glory to youth, little brother.”

A smaller pack of riders also broke off from the main group, keeping their distance but also clearly following in our trail.

I turned to face the old orc. “We’ve got company,”

He nodded. “Aye, the Blood Gorgers, should my eyes favor me. A complicated dance is the Stampede, with steps aplenty. They will interfere, should it looks as though we may bring down a halting game. Make no mistake, there will be blood on the steppe.”

Yikes. “Is that what happened to you?”

“Aye. Was ruled fair by the keepers, though just. And if tides favor, they may lend aid, instead.”

I wished I had a pair of binoculars so I could get a better look at our pursuers. “Orc games sure are cutthroat,” I said. “What are keepers?”

Sourtooth pointed a couple vehicles back, to where a hooded orc crouched atop a buggy, working beads between her fingers. I hadn’t noticed before that she didn’t have an armband to link her with the Flock. Instead, she had coal-black markings around her eyes and nose, and under her cheeks—giving her a bit of a skull-like appearance. Her eyes being closed only added to the effect.

“The keeper job lets they who have it speak to each other through the elder spirits. They see the Stampede and make rulings, and call halts when confirmed is a kill.” The old orc held up 3 fingers. “But they also tell us the progress of the other teams. There are 15 foes chosen. The festival will end when 3 more totem beasts are killed—monsters of scale and fang, legend they. With the thundercleave claimed, fallen have 12. A third their number to Lura’s spears, and some fewer to our other rivals. But numbers matter little, as weighted points are applied—by level, rarity, ferocity, and and size factored. All you need know is that should 1 more kill the dawn huntress claim, no one may overtake her. Should it look as though she’ll claim it with haste, our company may lend aid to clip her wings and force a stop.”

“I see.” I said, thoroughly confused by the internal orc tournament politics. “So, 3 unique monsters left. I take it one of them is that horn-beast thing?”

“Aye. But, too strong for we. A dart-wing, I think, we should pursue—a day east of us, its lair. With these mounts of iron and flame, she could outrun us not long, and she is much less a foe than a horn-beast if we need only place.”

“Why doesn’t Lura just kill one to end the hunt right away?”

Sourtooth laughed. “Glory, little brother. The reason of her sending you to my side. She seeks to break a standing long-held by my grandfather in points. And she may well do.” Sourtooth spit off the side of the buggy. “Curse his spirit, the foul old orc.”

A bit ironic, coming from him, I thought.

“Asides, tis not a thing so simply done,” said Sourtooth. “Finding the beast is part of the challenge, and so is safeguarding it. Lura’s Dawn's Light are numbered only second to the Blood Gorgers, who will at nothing stop to claim her kills. They follow her just as they stalk our footprints.

We came across a herd of the hoppers, and Sourtooth sent two of our bikes and one trike to wrangle them while we continued on. We rode until the sun slipped behind the horizon and then made camp.

The flock had animals of their own that needed to be fed and watered, even as we topped off fuel bladders for buggies and bikes. I took a walk around the perimeter of the camp with Armstrong.

<Your tribe has decreased to 397 members>

<Your tribe has decreased to 393 members>

Huh? I shared a glance with Armstrong.

<Your tribe has assimilated 25 new members>

<Your tribe has increased to 418 members>

<Congratulations! Assimilating new tribe members through persuasive religious conversion for the first time has unlocked an optional job for non-variant goblins! You may choose between goblin zealots or goblin templar.>

“Nice!” said Armstrong. “Eileen musta got ‘em to a new village.”

I narrowed my eyes. How exactly is this ‘persuasive conversion’ performed?

<Typically by removing elements who are not persuaded from the target audience.>

Great. There was only one thing this could be: Luther reaching another bluff and spreading the doctrine of the Church of the Right Angle had resulted in a significant scuffle, which wouldn’t have lasted long against even superior numbers due to our technology that I had to assume was more advanced than any other tribe in the area.

Did the assimilated tribe even have any variants?

<The tribe had evolved Goblin Flatulators, but they are quite volatile and were all killed during the persuasion, and thus were not assimilated with the remainder of the tribe.>

Volatile gGoblin flatulators… that sounded like a mixed blessing, if I’m being honest.

Tell me about zealots and templar.

<Goblin zealots are especially zealous goblins. They receive bonus combat skills and crafting speed when assigned by a noblin canoneer, and additional bonuses when fighting or working alongside other zealots and canoneers through the Fervor skill. They will also never break morale in combat. Non-variant goblins may occasionally become zealots.>

<Goblin templar are defensive goblins capable of absorbing 1 lethal blow without dying, even if the templar was not the intended target of the attack. This is particularly useful to safeguard rare or important variant goblins through the use of the Ward skill. They will also never break morale in combat. Non-variant goblins may occasionally become templar.>

Get down Mr. President, huh? Alright, let me think.

As much as I liked the idea of extra-life goblins, zealots seemed to have a lot of potential as well. Zealots receiving a bonus for fighting and crafting with other zealots nearby had the potential for limitless scaling. The only problem was, I didn’t know if this bonus scaled with the number of zealots or if it was a binary thing.

<Additional variant information available upon selection.>

Yeah, that’s why I didn’t ask. I sighed, already wondering if I was going to regret this. Give me the zealots.

<Goblin Zealots will now spawn in your tribe. Would you like to automatically assign zealots to canoneers based on spawn location?>

Yes please.

<12 of the newly acquired tribe members have converted to goblin zealots>

<66 other goblins in your tribe have converted to goblin zealots>

Woah, woah! That’s nearly a fifth of the non-variants! You said occasionally!

<Occasionally they will. Now they have.>

I ground my teeth. Friggen System. Give me the deets on the Fervor skill.

<Fervor: Goblin Zealots gain a moderate bonus to tasks directed by a canoneer, and a small bonus for all other zealots assigned to the same task>

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was cumulative scaling, not binary. With some reluctance, I opened up the spawning menu and increased the canoneer priority. Slightly. Confident I’d chosen the right variant, I turned and headed back to camp.

Already, several of the non-variant goblins had switched jobs to Zealots, and they had removed their skull masks in order to carve or draw various religious iconography onto the dry bones. I saw sketches of eccentric shafts, propellers, kilns, starter pistols, regular pistols, and a variety of other technologies we’d canonized as part of the Church of the Right Angle. The most common was simply the circle of Raphina on the forehead. Because festooning one’s self with arcane symbols was a sign of a stable, rational adherent of science. But at least it was a religious devotion to progress and the scientific process, and not to an invisible man in the sky—

<Ahem.>

—no offense to present company.

<None taken.>

Sourtooth limped up, watching the goblins who had so suddenly abandoned their tasks. “I know not what my eyes do see,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “My tribe just unlocked another variant,” I said. “Zealots.”

“And what are they?”

I tilted my head. “Goblins, except even more manic than usual.”

Sourtooth shook his head. “This truly is a land of madness, to have you visited upon its shores.”

“Not going to cull us like you would in Kelem, are you?” I asked cautiously.

“We are on Kelem not, little brother,” said Sourtooth. He glanced at the vehicles and the Ifrit flitting about the camp in their personal vessels. The old orc rubbed at the white stubble on his chin. “The elder spirits are playing at some mischief, mark me. I know not where their twisted plan ends, but be it not upon my spear, little brother. Not when life breathed once more into the Flock.”

He looked back down at me. “Tarry not long. There is work to be done before the fall of night. And we rise with the dawn. Tomorrow we will find a dart-wing, and we will drive it to the ground before Lura takes her next kill, or your people will starve.”

I waved as the old orc trotted off, started to get the hang of his new prosthetic. There was indeed work to be done. The S&M Club had taken to hammering and wrenching on the vehicles to keep them in good working order, so I worked with Promo on the buggies and continued on the modifications.

Chapter 94 - Scaling New Heights

<Your tribe has increased to 431 members>

“I have something for you, Sourtooth,” I said.

The old orc followed me to the temporary motorpool where we had our newest functioning vehicle—mostly cobbled together from the remains of vehicles that had met their untimely end.

As the sun crept over the horizon, the red rays lit on the ape-bars of a brand new chopper, built with the proportions of an orc in mind. Sourtooth circled the machine, eying it suspiciously before climbing up into the seat and wrapping his hairy knuckles around the grips.

“What is the purpose of having so far extended these?” he asked.

“Style, comfort,” I said. I pointed to one of the wrangler bikes, where one of my secretive service hobbies was hunched over. “See how he has to lean forward? Yours is designed to let you lean back, instead. Kick that first pedal.”

Southtooth obliged, and the engine rumbled to life. Much stronger than a goblin, it seemed an orc would have no need for the starter rockettes in order to get a goblin engine to turn over. Figures. Sourtooth’s back straightened as the vibration mounted below him. “Little brother…”

Other orcs took notice of Sourtooth on his new chopper and wandered over, talking amongst themselves and pointing. One came forward with a brace of spears and stuck them into the open holders on the side, then hopped up on the back of the bike, ready to ride.

“Kick that second pedal,” I said.

Sourtooth obliged, and the bike started forward. Unfortunately, without hydraulic oils, I couldn’t do a grip throttle, but the leader of the Flock figured things out quickly enough, making a circuit of the camp. As he came back, I began to worry, assuming the orc was in some sort of pain—until I realized the withered expression on his face was probably the closest he ever got to a smile.

“Truly the elders have outdone their artifice. Much more practical, these, than brass bodies that walk on points.”

Other than supplying some brass and zinc parts, the Ifrit had very little to do with the creation of the vehicles—that was Earth knowhow and goblin tech tree chicanery. But I didn’t see the benefit in revealing that fact to Sourtooth.

“So, we should find that scale wing today, right?”

“If luck rides with us, yes, little brother. Tell me truth, have flying beasts you fought before?”

I nodded. “Night haunts, er, skyenas I think they’re actually called. They try and steal goblins at night on the regular.” I spread my arms wide. “Leathery wings, beaks, claws. We’re getting pretty good at it.”

Soutooth rolled his head back and laughed. “Tis like boasting of skill in killing rats, little brother.”

I’m sure under the blue fuzz on my cheeks, I was blushing furiously. Sure, the night haunts might not be much of an obstacle for a party of leveled-up  orc hunters, but the memory of being a tribe only 10th the size was still fresh on my mind, and I don’t know if I’d ever forget the terror of seeing one for the first time. Still, we’d managed that with little more than sharp sticks and flint cleavers. And since then, we’d only gotten stronger. Sourtooth claimed the dart-wing was easier than a whistler or a thundercleave. In fact, we were going after it specifically because it was weak. How difficult could it be?

The orcs began to ride out, and we followed on our buggies with our lone monocycle rider weaving dangerously  between. Once we got up to speed, I ordered the kites deployed, and goblins on tethered gliders caught the wind and ascended to altitude for scouting. Behind us, the band of rival hunters keeping tabs on our progress mobilized as well. I could see the dust trails rising until we left the hard plate and started to drive over a pinkish gravel field.

The riding oryx our pursuing orcs favored were strong, sturdy animals with good endurance and long legs. They had no trouble keeping pace with us as we rode towards noon. When the rest of the wranglers and scrappers began to wake up from where they dozed in the back of the BHR, we drove close enough for Chuck to climb over. He took my spot at the controls—not that we needed a driver, as Girmaks was proving to be more than deft as a pilot. The Ifrit seemed to have very little learning curve when it came to transitioning from the multi-legged clockwork proxies to internal combustion-driven vehicles with wheels. The buggies had become more than mere extensions of their fiery bodies.

The kite goblins began to squawk a short while after that, and following their direction, we changed course and came up on a dead creature laying on the gravel flat. Sourtooth hopped down from his chopper and probed the beast. I climbed down with Chuck and Armstrong and took a look as well.

The creature on the ground was pretty big—at least twice the size of a stone-sloth. It had been disemboweled so that whatever killed it could get at the soft innards, but there were curious yellow spikes sticking out of it. I waved away the cloud of flies and took hold of a spike. It took both hands to yank it out. It looked like a crossbow bolt, but close inspection revealed it was a feather—albeit one with a barbed quill and symmetrical fringe. I handed it up to Chuck.

He grunted. “Well, they are called dart wings.”

“I thought that just meant they were fast,” I said. “Make sure everyone’s wearing armor before we start up again, yeah?”

“Good as done,” said Chuck. He left to wrangle the rest of the goblins to start putting on their vests.

Sourtooth examined the carcass. “Definitely our girl,” he said. “Good color to these quills, and no maggots. The guts still hold heat. Not yet an hour’s past this feast. Sluggish and heavy, she. Headed to the deep desert to sleep off her dinner. We yet stand to catch her before she makes the dunes.”

Armstrong tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the carcass.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Lotta good eating on there still,” he said.

Admittedly, I was trying to ignore my own mouth watering at the smell of the kill. Funny how quickly I was leaving the old trappings of humanity behind and looking at fly-covered roadkill with hungry eyes, now. As a human the sight would have turned my stomach. I glanced at Sourtooth.

He shrugged. “Haste behooves a hunter, tarry not long.”

I turned back to Armstrong. “Not so much that they get lethargic,”

Armstrong grinned and whistled, and a collective cheer raised from the convoy. The goblins swarmed the remains, and after a few minutes of what sounded like electric saws whining, they were loading cleaned bones onto the back of the buggies for later use.

Sourtooth, again, shook his head.

We got on the move again, but this time I climbed up onto the buggy with the Stampede rule-keeper and sat in front of the orc, facing back. If Sourtooth was old, this orc was ancient, looking more like a gnarled old willow trunk than a hunter. He had deep-lined folds of skin on his face, with closed eyes that sat deep under a ridged brow, which itself rested in the shadows of a deep hooded robe. He’d shrunk in age, little bigger than a hobgoblin now I got close. As he sat cross-legged on the top of the buggy, he worked several sets of beads in his hands made from bones, stones, colored clay, carved wood, and twists of leather or string.

“I’m Apollo,” I said.

“Is that so?” he asked. “Strange thing, a goblin named. A king of the little brothers yet more. Why the elders have blessed you, I know not.”

I waited to see if the orc would say more, but he didn’t. I bit my lip. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Keepers have no names in the Stampede, little brother. To remain neutral, we. Call upon each of us as such, and by nothing other.”

“Alright, Keeper. So, you’re in contact with all the other Keepers, right? Is it a type of magic?”

“A simple spell,” said Keeper. He held up the beads. “Each of these twinned, responds in kind.”

For the first time I noticed several of the beads on the string were spinning on their own. I reached out to touch the beads, but Keeper slapped my hand away. There was no malice in it, and he didn’t even scold me, just kept the same impassive, closed-eyed expression.

“Sorry,” I said, shaking the sting out of my fingers. “Other than the Ifrit, I haven’t seen anything especially magical. I’m just curious. Is this communication spell instant? Or does it have some sort of delay, like a radio transmission? Not that you’d know what that is, I suppose.” I scratched my head. “For that matter, does it go through rock or water as easily as air? If I had a radio tuner, do you think I could I somehow tap into it? What was the bit-rate of information sent through the beads, and could it be optimized with a compression algorithm?”

Keeper opened one eye and regarded me, then closed it again without response.

“Fine,” I said, annoyed. “How are the other teams doing?”

“The Dawn have caught the trail of a Spinesnake and pursue it with all haste. The Blood Gorger scouts have just located the same creature from a different angle. Talon’s Talons have just lost the trail of a Gaiworm, and must circle back. The Hallowed Spears have just been rebuffed by a Vindleclaw, and are licking their wounds before a second attempt they make.”

“Got all that just from twirling some beads?” I asked.

Keeper sighed deeply. I decided to leave well enough alone—and none too soon, as one of the glider goblins raised the alarm, and I shaded my eyes in order to spot a black splotch surging up into the sky.

We’d found the dartwing, and we were gaining on it.