MBGSP - Chpt 67 thru 70

Hey there, goblin fans! Before we get into the chapters, I wanted to ask if ya'll had any opinions: Do you prefer getting the week's worth of chapters all at once like this? Or would you prefer daily updates like Royal Road gets? Let me know in the comments or the discord.

In any case, we're picking up right where we left off with last week's update, wherein Apollo learns that an extra 'N' can make a big, big difference. We also get our first look at one of the most dangerous creatures on Rava in this update!

Enjoy!

Chapter 67 – Fun with Homophones

<6 hobgoblin scrappers have been added to your tribe.>

<5 hobgoblin wranglers have been added to your tribe.>

<2 noblin igni have been added to your tribe.>

<3 noblin canoneers have been added to your tribe.>

<1 noblin canoneer has been promoted to taskmaster.>

<Your tribe has increased to 226 members.>

<Unlocking noblin canoneers has automatically unlocked several technologies of the Goblin Tech Tree.>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Deification>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Idolotry>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Downy-scratchers>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Sequential scratchings>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Iconography>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked:…>

What the hell?

I groaned at the bright sunlight stabbing my retinas through the slit windows, already high in the sky, and rolled off the cuddle puddle. My mouth was dry and I was definitely not prepared for a deluge of System notifications. I dismissed them without reading most of them. The new noblins had come with some pretty bizarre technologies. I struggled to the nearest rain cistern and washed the fur out of my mouth, then stood under the water for a minute as the cool spray ran through my matted fur. This hangover wasn’t as bad as the times on Rava that I’d missed a full night of sleep. But it wasn’t far off.

When I turned around, I was surprised to see Sally, agitated and fidgeting, waiting for my attention. While technically verbal, my lead engineer almost never spoke. Once she was convinced she had got her point across, she turned and moved to the corner of the bluff where we’d made our first paper mill. She pointed at a blank spot on a table nearby and began to chitter.

I looked at her. “You… want another table?” I guessed.

She made a frustrated squawk and stamped her feet. I sighed. But I’d rarely seen the shy taskmaster so animated with me, so I concentrated.

“Something isn’t on the table that ought be?”

She waved her arms, and then made a square in the air, and then a crinkling noise as she balled her fists.

“Is this where you keep the paper?” I asked.

She nodded, exasperated.

“So, where’s all the paper gone?”

Sally howled, having finally gotten her point across. She turned and stamped off to another corner of the bluff where a trio of pot-bellied noblins were leaning over a work bench Dozens of discarded sheets of paper littered the ground around them, representing hours of work for Javier and his clothiers/paper makers.

“What’s all this?” I demanded.

The noblins looked up, blinked, and squinted at me.

“Whossat?” one asked. “Issit morning already?”

“Your king,” I said.

One of the noblins sniffed. “Well I didn’t vote for ye!”

The largest one reached over and slapped the dissident, who squawked and acted appropriately chagrinned.

<Goblin Technology Restricted: Democracy>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Percussive reeducation>

“Sorrys ‘bout that, King. I’ll keep ‘im in line.” he squinted. “You sure you’re Apollo? I thought ye’d be bigger.”

I glanced at Sally, who practically vibrated with impatience.

“Look, I said. “I get that you guys are eager, but the engineers need paper, too. We’re working on engines, motors, and batteries today and we can’t scribble everything on bark.”

One of the noblins snorted. “What we’re workin on is way more great than whatever engines are, king!”

“Designs for new guns?”

“Wot? No! Way better.”

“Artillery? Missiles?”

“Nothing like that!”

I marched up to the table and pulled over one of the wide sheets of paper, looking at the noblin’s work.

“That’s not finished, boss!”

I squinted down at the page where rough squares had been drawn—in some sort of sticky ink. I didn’t even know we had ink. And inside the squares… “Are these… comics?” I asked.

“It’s Histry,” said the largest of the pack. Record of your kicking porkbelly butt wot at the battle of the bluff! How’s folk gonna remember it?”

“It was yesterday,” I said. I looked down at a crude drawing of a tall, muscled goblin atop a rough sloth. It was musclebound, with a large gun in each hand, and a crown. “Is this supposed to be me?” I asked. I shook my head. “I’m so confused. I thought you guys were supposed to be cannoneers, but you’ve got terrible eyesight and you’re sitting here making cartoons.”

“But this is your canon we’s workin’ on,” one of them protested. “I don’t see wot the problem is.”

“My… oh no. No, no, no.”

I walked away from the group. System!

<Awaiting query.>

Did you give me comic book nerd goblins?!

<Your selection of noblin canoneers was confirmed and granted.>

I tried to keep my teeth from grinding. Show me the details of the noblin canoneer.

<Noblin canoneer

Noblin - this advanced goblin variant is capable of speech and reaching level 6.

Short-sighted - Noblin canoneers cannot see far ahead.

Canon keeper - Noblins are skilled at keeping written records and maintaining information integrity. Note - conflicting canon can lead to strife within the tribe.

Porcine - Noblins consume an extra choom of food per day.

Scratchy specialist - Canoneers are exceptionally skilled at crafts involving writing or paper.

Codex Chaplains - Adding noblin canoneers to your tribe unlocks the Religion sub-tree of the Goblin Tech Tree and the Tribal Canon sub-system.

Big-mouthed - Canoneers are adept at negotiations and swaying the opinions of other goblins - often through sheer volume.>

I fell onto my backside, dizzy, and not just from the hangover. What had I done? The potential destructive force of firearms to the goblin species as bad enough, now I’d gone and given them religion! And judging by the comic panels squeezed in my hand, they were making me out to be some sort of war god. I felt sick.

System, can I go back and choose the partizans instead?

<All variant choices are permanent and binding.>

I rolled over, stomach heaving, and threw up.

When I looked up, Sally stood, little arms crossed and nose in the air. She sniffed loudly, and then stomped off. Couldn’t blame her. Alright. I guess we were doing this. Noblin canoneers were now and forever a permanent part of Tribe Apollo. Unless I had them all killed as soon as they were born, which was unconscionable. After all, I’d been raised Lutheran, and even though for many years I had no longer believed in an omniscient supreme being—ironic, I know—I was pretty sure murder still equalled bad. Especially when the canoneers hadn’t done anything wrong and it was my fault they were here. Unless…

System, did you take advantage of me while I was drunk and trick me?

<Denied. Timing of new variant selection was based on your victory over a formidable enemy and your inebriation was coincidental. Tip: large decisions made while intoxicated can lead to regret.>

No kidding. Not like it would have admitted it anyway. I should have known this all-powerful calculator with a penchant for puns would eventually pull something like this. Alright. Alright. Think, Apollo. This was happening, and it was time to adapt and iterate. I was witnessing the literal birth of the very concept of religion among a growing civilization whose primary means of communication had, up til now, been chirps, screams, and physical assault.

Maybe this wasn’t a disaster. Historically on Earth, religion had done just as much good as bad. Mesopotamian religions kept track of seasons, written records of crop yields, and animal husbandry guides. Christian Churches in Europe had been instrumental in the distribution of the printing press and increasing literacy rates. The Islamic Golden Age had given us algebra, astrophysics, and coffee.

God, I missed coffee.

Chapter 68 - Praise the Standard

I needed to clear my head and work on something sane for a while. I left the noblins to their own devices, for now, taking a few of the less scribbled-on sheets of paper as a peace offering for the engineers. As I walked through the village I could already see goblins alone or in pairs, tucked into corners, squawking over little paper pamphlets with crude drawings. Just how early had the canoneers started working? Couldn’t find fault with that ethic, at least.

I found Sally embedded with her fellow engineers, assembling the first test crank case for a primitive rotary engine out of ceramic parts. I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up to tests, but since every scrap of iron we had went into musket barrels, this was our second resort. I could have those guns melted down, and part of me still wanted to. But keeping them for the next time a threat faced us was a no-brainer, even if it did put a strain on raw iron.

Huntsville was producing about 22 chooms of raw iron a day, which melted down into about 13 chooms of bar steel at the furnaces and anvils. Not a lot, by industrial measure. We didn’t even need wagons for it, yet. It could be brought on the backs of cliffords (as long as they didn’t stay after nightfall). But just the fact that we had it was nothing short of a monumental leap. That the pigs had forced me to divert almost everything we had into weapons of war just…

Ugh. Damage done. Neil’s hunters at least were very fond of those rifles. I could hear the pop pop of them test firing even over the noise of igni hammering away at a rotor on the other side of the bluff. I’m just glad the piggies didn’t know about Huntsville, because hitting that would have really crippled our progress, not just our food supply.

Huntsville also supplied us with fuel. The icky-slicky oil I’d used to fry a few boglins and escape King Ringo’s island didn’t burn quite as cleanly as kerosene, but rotary engines are notoriously robust when it comes to burning even the worst bunker fuel sludge. It would do. The boglins were eager to trade it for meat that didn’t taste like the bog until we could get well pumps up and running, and with the Canaveral goblins going back to retake the bluff to the southeast, we should have steady lizard meat again.

Between that and the leftovers from the battle, we’d bought some wiggle room to address the looming food shortage. Ideally we’d get agriculture going—and we’d already started planting some fruit and nut seeds to form orchards near the base of the bluff. But that would take years to pay off. Livestock and herd animals, that was the fast solution. But we needed the tools for it. And that… was proving to be an obstacle.

Sally’s engineers held up the two halves of the engine case and tried to get the uneven parts to marry up. I sighed. I’d measured them both before they’d gone into the kiln, and they’d both had molds. Yet, the Goblin Tech Tree made them come out uneven. How would this thing ever run if it didn’t even have a sealed combustion chamber?

I came closer an inspected the joining as the engineers chittered excitedly If the shapes were at least similar, we maybe could have sealed the gaps and re-fired it in the kiln. But I could see daylight through gaps that shouldn’t have even been there, and it was beyond fixing. That meant another firing, another waste of clay and charcoal. Even this was frustrating me this morning.

Trying to explain standards and tolerances to the goblins was like speaking to a brick wall. I just don’t think their brains were wired that way. And non-verbal as they were, most of them couldn’t ask questions to better understand. Sure, they could grasp the basic technology—and the variants had an even better understanding where their specialities were concerned—but your average forest goblin learned primarily by osmosis and experimentation, not lecture.

“Sorry,” I said, letting the engine prototype tip over. “Won’t work. Let’s iterate and try again. Maybe check the molds and see if we can’t get the ratios closer.

Sally’s goblins all sighed with dejected slumps to their shoulders, until Sally started laying into them with angry chirps and flying fists. Then, they hopped-to.

The timer may have been ticking slower, but it still ticked. We needed to figure this out.

I ran my hands through the fur on my face. The system provides.

I grabbed the nearest goblin. “Go get me the canoneers.”

It jumped and chittered, and took off in the direction of the central pavilion. I watched the blue furry streak disappear around a bend and then set to work helping Sally’s team with the molds until the noblins arrived. It took them a while. Apparently, they weren’t exactly coordinated, and bumped into a lot on the way over. I made a mental note to invent spectacles once we got some high quality silica.

The taskmaster came up to me with an armful of papers wedged against his side. “Boss! We chronicled your escape from King Ringo, want to see it?”

“How?” I asked. “The only witness to that event is a dead scrapper.”

“We might have, um, filled in some blanks,” he said. He stuck the back end of his charcoal pencil up his nose and scratched it around. “Ya know, where details was light.”

“You know what? No.” I shook my head. “I won’t be deified. I’m not God, I don’t speak to any gods, and I certainly don’t want to risk being smited if this world has one that’s a little more active than the one I’m used to.”

The taskmaster nudged one of the others. “Write that down!”

I snapped my fingers to turn his attention back towards me. “Doesn’t mean I ain’t the boss. Now, I need something to call you.” I didn’t add that I’d be damned before I named him after an astronaut like the other taskmasters. Well, work with what you know. “Luther. Your name is Luther. We’re going to set some ground rules.”

Seems equal parts blasphemous and appropriate.

Luther nodded. “I like it. So then, king, what’s your decree?”

I considered. System, how does codification of goblin religion work?

<You can institute a wide range of theological philosophies, beliefs, permissive and forbidden activities, belief in deific figures, symbology, spiritualism, methods of worship, litanies, mealtime prayers, ritualistic sacrif—>

Ok, I get the picture. But how best to use this to my advantage.

“Let’s start with some commandments,” I said.

Luther and the other canoneers listened raptly.

“First, thou shalt be excellent to each other.”

<Good start.>

I considered, running a hand through my fur. Religion was hard.

“Thou shalt maintain proper version control.”

The canoneers started scribbling—doodling, I should say. Written language was still a foreign concept, it seemed, despite my attempts to introduce it. The goblin tech tree had no place for syllabic language. Which made a certain sort of sense, since non-variant goblins couldn’t speak. Symbols and representational symbology was a different story.

“The scientific method is this: Question, research, hypothesize, experiment, analyze, and communicate.”

We’d started to draw a crowd as goblins gathered to listen to our new religious edicts.

“Uh… To measure twice before cutting once is holy.”

<You’re reaching>

It’s important!

“When in doubt, thou shalt iterate and try again.”

I looked around at the goblins nodding and chittering to each other. I was good at this. I held up my hands.

“Questioning work hours or safety standards is heresy.”

The goblins cheered.

I briefly entertained the idea of introducing a paradoxical commandment just for fun. But I didn’t want to cause little blue heads to explode. That was enough for now.

I clapped my hands and grinned at Luther. “Alright. Let’s thinking about some religious iconography. Bring over that engine case and some paper.

Chapter 69 - The Cult of the Right Angle

Personally, I thought it quite clever making the schematics for a basic rotary engine our first religious symbol. Drawn on blue-tinted paper from the accidental goblin pulping at the paper press even gave me the feeling of working with actual blueprints—albeit ones with an unpleasant, fuzzy texture. Codifying schematics gave the goblins working on it a religious incentive to create careful reproductions. The canoneers proved deft hands with their quills and charcoal sticks and faithfully reproduced drawings as if they’d been sketching them their entire lives. Which, I suppose, technically, they had.

Within a few hours we had a functional manual for a hydrocarbon-powered motor, though entirely pictographic with representational iconography and all measurements in relation to the rough size and shape of a goblin head. But what was really wild, was that Sally’s engineers finally seemed to understand the more complex relationships between the various dimensions of the drawings when the canoneers canonized them. It was like a shortcut to introducing complex ideas for undeveloped technology through the goblin tech tree.

New molds were hammered out for the various parts and fixtures of the engine and sent to the kiln. In the meantime, I also codified smithing and made sure taskmasters were revered figures in the new doctrine. Like village elders. Not that they needed any help. The various divisions of the labor pool already treated their respective taskmasters like rock stars.

Feeling quite satisfied with the day’s work, I called a halt for dinner and joined the rest of the goblins in the central square for the communal mealtime. The igni were still working through the javeline meat and had repurposed the crank and impeller technology to invent sausage-making. All we needed was a little wheat flower and yeast and we could start having brats and buns.

It took me a moment to realize that all the goblins were looking at me before touching their food, which was a completely new phenomenon. I looked around, and spotted Luther waving for my attention.

“What is it?” I asked the lead canoneer.

“They want you to recite a meal-time litany, o’ King.”

“I’m not a religious figure,” I said. “You do it.”

Luther bowed low. “That right is reserved for you alone.”

I sat back, sighing. As if being king wasn’t enough. Now I had to be pope, too. I raised my hands overhead and made a circle. “Ever higher. Ad Luna per aspera.”

The goblins aped my hand signal and then dug into dinner. I leaned back in my spot and considered. It’s not every day you get to design a science-based religion.

                          *

<Your tribe has decreased to 221 members.>

<Your tribe has increased to 256 members.>

I woke up with the excitement of a kid at Christmas, pulling myself from the bottom of the goblin mound and jogging to the kilns. Having cooled overnight, I opened the hatch on the kiln and pulled out the still-warm crank case halves built to religious precision, excitement growing. Neither looked to be deformed or misshapen—at least not to the degree I expected of goblin-manufactured parts. They were still a bit wonky and oblong, but they were consistently wonky and oblong. The two halves married up in a way that they could be sealed and bolted with a rotor and crankshaft in place. This was an engine that could potentially be fired up. And once this tribe had access to the power of angular momentum… the sky really would be the limit. The igni could use this as an example to hammer more—many more, hopefully—out of metal. Sally could make powered airplanes instead of just rocket-assisted gliders.

I was so excited I completely missed when Eileen ran up to me with a report and had to be shaken out of my fervor.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The Ifrit are on their way!” she exclaimed. “Caravan spotted coming off the plain. Scout just told me.”

“Make sure we’re there to greet them,” I said. “And get the Canaveral convoy on the move. We need to make some room.”

System, how much clay do we still have?

<32 chooms, with an additional 43 chooms in discovered nodes.>

Excellent.

New technologies and new friends. This was going to be a big, big day.

I explained the next steps and then worked on my electric motor project until Chuck woke up, at which point I had the cliffords saddled up, and I mounted up on the back of Chuck’s doggo with a few of my bodyguards. I felt bad for the poor clifford trying to hold Armstrong up. The scrapper taskmaster was almost as big as a noblin.

“Eileen says they found the road markings and they’re following it north. Small group, three or four wagons,” I told Chuck.

“Alright, let’s go bring ‘em in,” said Chuck, pulling his clifford around. He thumped its side with his palm and it took off, yapping and slobbering as it dug its claws into the turf. As we rode, I remarked at the road.

“Buzz did a good job clearing a path here,” I said.

“Makes it easier to bring in beasties,” said Chuck. “But we’re still eatin’ em faster than my lads can rustle ‘em up—at least the ones we can catch on the cliffords. They’re not mean to hunt things that can run, not while carrying goblins, anyway. They get tired. Most of what we chase out here gives us the slip, even working together.”

“You need something that doesn’t get tired,” I said.

“Got plans for somethin’ like that, boss?”

“The boss has got plans fer everything,” said Armstrong.

I grinned. “Just wait and see.”

We rode in (relative) silence for the kilometer or so of rough road before a hulking figure in black cloth wraps leapt out of the woods in our path. It was twice my height at least, enough to make the javeline look small, despite having its legs in a wide stance. It was broad across the shoulders and wore a brass, horned mask that triggered the same part of my goblin brain as the night haunts. Its hand rested on the hilt of a curved sword at its hip, as long as I was tall, and—holy hell. Was this a human?

If it was, it was level 35. Chuck pulled the cliffords up and every rifle and slinger with the welcome party was aimed at the new arrival. The brass mask scanned across our collected group and several centimeters worth of steel slid from scabbard.

“Boss, get behind me!” said Armstrong, stepping forward with his rifle—the same one I’d used to kill Hrott.

“Hold!” I said as the goblins around me tensed up. “We’re expecting company, remember?”

“Yeah, little flame guys, not… this,” growled Chuck. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like them,” growled Armstrong.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to like it,” I said. Then, raising my voice, “You speak? Are you with Taquoho?”

After a few more seconds of hesitation, during which I hoped none of my goblins would get trigger happy, the masked man took his hand from the hilt of his sword and relaxed out of his readied stance. He moved to the side, and beyond him, two more like him flanked what I can only describe as a walking wagon, striding up the road on six spindly brass legs. I could hear the rhythmic whirring of gears and clockwork and the apparatus glowed with a pale blue flame. The Ifrit were walking.

Several smaller clockwork creatures walked alongside, or tended to parcels stacked high on the flat bed of the wagons that teetered dangerously on the ungainly gait of the heavy brass artifice. Each of them no doubt had an Ifrit pulling its strings, and they ranged from a dozen centimeters across to half the height of a goblin. Some had four legs, some six. But no two were the same size or proportion. Each of them made a bowing gesture as they passed me by spreading their front two legs on the ground, though none spoke.

The goblins chittered and pointed—fingers, not guns—at the convoy. For my part, I wondered what was in the packages. Hopefully the raw materials I’d asked for. I scanned the convoy and the other wagons but didn’t see the familiar face I was looking for.

“Is Rufus not with you?”

“Ah, King Apollo,” said a familiar, whispering voice. I turned and looked at the small brass quadruped scuttling toward me. It was about the size of a cat, and radially symmetrical with no front of back that I could determine. The first thing I noticed about his vessel was that the joint for his front right foreleg had been replaced with a ceramic bearing. Huh.

“Taquoho,” I said.

“Our friend Rufus continued on to the coast in effort to secure more of the canvas you requested and pass on some of your ceramic tools. But we have brought additional supplies and Ifrit as we had discussed and agreed.”

“You’ve brought more than that,” I said, eyeing the security detail. Seeing humans from this perspective… man, there’s no other word for it but terrifying. I looked at one of my wranglers, trembling in the human’s shadow with his rifle clutched in his fists. If the human held it, it would look like a child’s toy gun—too small for him or her to even operate effectively. “You didn’t say there were humans coming with you.”

“Did Rufus not explain? Apologies, King Apollo, I am truly embarrassed. The humans are our paladin. We could not have crossed the desert without them and they shall be staying with us at the town. I trust this presents no problem?”

I bared my teeth in what I hoped was a friendly manner. “None at all,” I said.

Chapter 70 - No Problem At All

“It strikes me as odd that you would trust human security, with your dislike of the newcomers,” I said. I glanced up at one of the humans walking beside a trundling cart. They gave no indication of having heard me. All of them were between level 25 and 30 according to the System, except for the leader, who was all the way up at 35. I wondered what had triggered the ability to be able to see that high a level now. When I’d been able to see the croc levels it was because we’d defeated the stone sloth alpha. But neither Rotte nor Hrott had been higher level. Was it because we’d defeated the javeline as an organization? Because I’d invented guns? Or was it simply at the System’s discretion?

<Yes>

So helpful.

The artifice on the back of the clifford beside me twisted, though it had no eyes that I could see. I wasn’t sure how creatures of smokeless fire interpreted visual animation, but clearly they could. “Herein lies the error of your assessment, o’ king. The paladin are not new to Lanclova. They are descendants of the first men to try to settle the land beneath Raphina’s watchful eye. All that is left of them, in fact. Their camps and ports and cities lay in ruins—taken by disaster, disease, and desertion. This land is not kind to outsiders. These humans have lived in the City of Brass for seven generations. Their loyalty to the King of the Ifrit is as unwavering as their bravery is resolute.”

“It would have to be, to willingly ascend and stay in a village of carnivorous goblins,” I said. “Why don’t they speak?”

“They remove their tongues as secondary sexual characteristics begin to appear.”

“That’s barbaric!” I said.

“Is it?” asked Taquoho. “I find that to be a crude and reductive description. They seem no worse for wear because of it, nor does it turn them to savages. I do not know why it is done, but they persist in the ritual.”

“They do it to themselves?”

“A keepsake of their previous culture—one of the few remaining traditions they observe that did not originate in the City of Brass. Along with their martial regimen and sword forms. But even without it, they could not speak to you. They do not learn the voice of the newcomers. Tabun is one of the few who take this leap.”

So those brass masks were hiding mutilated-mouthed life-long warriors. Even if I could get a word out of them, they were probably too loyal to the Ifrit to learn anything useful.

We reached the bottom of the bluff and Taquoho stretched his legs to their full extent. “The jungle has been pushed back. What are those towers at the corner of the fenced areas?”

“Stationary defenses,” I said. “We recently finished our war with the javeline. They attacked our livestock. It was the last time they’ll attack us.”

“Curious. It is fortuitous that they did not exterminate you.”

“I’d like to think so, too,” I said, sliding down off the clifford. “We have a freight elevator cleared to bring your wagons up.

“There is no need,” said Taquoho. “Observe.”

The walking wagons moved to the base of the bluff and put their spiked legs up, slowly transitioning to a vertical climb. Their security hooked small brass loops onto the sides of the wagons and allowed themselves to be lifted. The smaller spider-bot Ifrit shifted to the front of the cargo as the orientation shifted.

I grunted. “Huh. That’s a lot of power in those walkers. Is it Ifrit moving them or are they getting energy from some other method?”

I moved over to the freight elevator with Taquoho and my goblin guards. A goblin counterweight of a half-dozen furry blue menaces descended, pulling us up level with the walkers. They had a drum built into the back of each one.

“The Ifrit only directs the movement, energy to move the limbs is stored in wound springs and must be re-wound periodically.”

“Clockwork, then. Is that how yours works, too?”

Taquoho lifted one of its legs. “This form is small enough that we can manipulate it at will. We are used to it.”

The elevator reached the top of the bluff and two of Buzz’ builders hooked us and pulled the boom over the ground. The first of the Ifrit walkers reached the top of the cliff and pulled itself over. The goblins started to take notice, and a rising tide of chittering brought a decent portion of the tribe running—until they saw the humans.

Their reaction was much the same as mine had been: visceral fear and panic, causing a surging tide of goblins to flee as far from the southern elevator as they could. In many cases, that meant flinging themselves from the top of the bluff.

“What an unfortunate degree of friction,” observed Taquoho.

“They’ll come around,” I said, hoping I was telling the truth. Still, it made me nervous having humans at Village Apollo. Part of me felt it was like inviting night haunts to roost in the eves of the buildings. I had wondered how I’d feel when I encountered humans here. Would I feel a sense of camaraderie? Maybe loss or longing? I hadn’t been long in this goblin body. Though the days ran together without my cell phone keeping the date for me, it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks? A month? Two? And unlike Ringo, who’d apparently gone native quite quickly, I still felt that my mind was mostly human. But this pint-sized perspective and innate fear of what were, ultimately, the apex predators of my old world, put into no uncertain terms that any vestiges of my humanity would most likely matter little to actual humans.

I was a blue, fuzzy goblin. Not a man. A level 1 nuisance at best. Humans were tall, strong, agile, and didn’t fall over if a predator looked at them funny. They had hands that could break as easily as build, and how many of my tribe could this handful of warriors cut down before they were stopped? More than a javeline mauler, or even a croc-knocker, I was sure.

“I wasn’t prepared to host humans,” I said. “I’ll have to have some larger quarters arranged. If you’d like to rest, we can carry on later.”

I whistled for some of Buzz’ builders, at least the ones who hadn’t flung themselves off the cliff. They returned with the taskmaster who took one look at the masked humans and shook so bad that his knees clacking together sounded like a woodpecker going to town on some pine.

“Buzz, they’re going to need somewhere to sleep,” I said. “Dry and warm. Presumably a latrine, as well, and maybe facilities to cook and wash.”

Buzz just stared at the humans. I snapped my fingers in front of his face, and when that didn’t work I gave him a solid smack. He squawked, and finally turned my direction.

“Buzz! They’re guests.”

My lead builder considered. “We could knock in a few walls what to make rooms longer. I’ll get the lads onnit, boss.”

Buzz beat a hasty retreat, casting the human warriors a fearful look over his shoulder. But a moment later, I saw several of his builders with flint saws and mallets.

“Buzz is the one to talk to if you need any kind of facilities managed or constructed.”

“We are humbled by your accommodation,” said Taquoho. “However, my kin are eager to see the village I’ve described—though it has changed much from my description. I believe, even, that I hear the ring of a steel hammer. And do not think I failed to observe that several of your tribe now carry metal tools.”

I grinned. “What can I say? We’ve been busy.”

Taquoho tried to keep his excitement under wraps, but apparently Ifrit get the tippy-taps and it wasn’t exactly subtle. “The speed at which you have progressed through the rudimentary sciences continues to impress. May we see the work area, and perhaps the artifice you’re working on?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” I said. “We’ll get your people and gear situated soon enough. I—” I stopped as a group of shouts drew my attention to a building that had slumped over. It fell in on itself as a handful of builders scattered for cover.

<Your tribe has decreased to 254 members>

I caught some of the paladins exchanging what I imagine were nervous glances underneath those masks.

“Not there, obviously. Someplace still standing. Shall we, Taquoho?”