MBGSP Chpt 44 - 46

Happy weekend, goblin fans! Here are the next three advance chapters for My Big Goblin Space Program!

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Chapter 44 – Get Me Out of This Jungle

Believe it or not, the French invented hot-air ballooning several years before Orville and Wilbur launched the Kitty-hawk. While they were futzing with engines, French aeronauts were floating over Burgundy under colorful canopies. But the Wright brothers had better marketing, so everyone remembers them.

The balloon lifted, and none too soon as the first daily scout glider appeared in the air. It caught the glint of the reflective lizard skin and swooped down close enough to see the goblin frantically waving the red banner back and forth before turning back to the southeast toward the bluff.

We had four color codes. White meant the operation was continuing. Blue meant we were continuing and would need an air delivery. Red meant immediate reinforcement in the form of hobgoblins. Black meant the mission was scrubbed. I didn’t want to have to heft the black banner.

“Alright,” I said the the assembled goblins. “They saw it. Start pulling him down.”

“eeeeeeEEEEE!”

Our aeronaut thumped head-first into the ground and rolled to a sitting position, rubbing the top of his head and grinning. The rest of the goblins cheered, and then looked at me expectedly.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Skinny-floaty diving board>

I sighed. “Ok. One jump each, and then back to work. The tribe cheered and shoved and pushed to each be the first to shimmy up the rope for their turn at a swan dive. Some of them ran to the wagons for personal gliders to prolong their air time. I shook my head. Then I stopped and considered. I borrowed one of the gliders and shimmied up the rope myself. Climbing came naturally to me as a goblin. Even without legs, goblins could climb extraordinarily well. Climbing had never been my thing on Earth since I figured if I wanted to go high I should work harder to become an astronaut.

One I reached the top, I swung out onto the narrow platform under the balloon and unfurled the personal glider. The hide canopy caught the wind almost immediately and nearly pulled me off the platform. But I got the glider overhead, gripped the two poles underneath, and tossed myself down.

The personal gliders the goblins fashioned for themselves weren’t like the night haunt soaring aircraft. They were somewhere between parasails and umbrellas in effectiveness. But it still let me get enough air time to make a decent circuit of our immediate surroundings. The bog due north about a kilometer as seen from the air actually stretched west and then south, as well, making our tower location something of a peninsula intruding into the marsh. The marsh itself was much bigger than I’d initially expected, as well, stretching further west where another river emptied into it.

One positive aspect, I didn’t expect we’d get attacked from this angle. If humans wanted to come down from Habberport, they’d have to either come through the foothills to the northeast, or trek further south to avoid the marsh and come in from the southwest by skirting the edge of the plains south of the bluff land. The bog would slow down any force, and they’d be inundated with hostile fauna the entire way.

I circled west as I descended, careful to allow myself enough altitude to get back. Getting lower in altitude let me resolve a bit through the canopy, and I spotted an island in the bog with several crock-knockers basking in the mid-day sun through a break in the trees. If they knew we were here, they weren’t making any effort to leave the bog to pursue us.

As I circled south, I caught a flash of red in the trees. I drifted closer, and realized it was some of our missing cliffords running through the bog, I angled toward them for a closer look. If they hadn’t been eaten, it meant they’d just gotten loose and Chuck might be able to round them up. That was good news, as these ones were all trained up. Hell, maybe they’d just gotten spooked when something attacked the hobbies and I could lead them back to the camp.

<Careful>

My breath caught. The System was not often quick to warn me of danger. I angled away, just in time for the cliffords to look back at me and open their mouths. A black shadow shadow, or mist, or swarm of something flooded out of them and resolved into a vaguely dog-like shape that was about five times the size of the cliffords. A low, reverberating growl filtered up from the canopy. I would have thought I was seeing things, except that the system was very quick to put an XX level above it, which was System’s way of saying not a chance in hell.

Nope, nope, nope. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I turned the glider all the way around and made for the tower construction as a spine-chilling howl rolled after me. Friggen bestiary was apparently right on the money. I looked back to make sure the weird shadow wolf thing wasn’t following me. But it, and the cliffords, were gone. Somehow, that was more worrying. Something hadn’t eaten our animals. Something had apparently possessed them.

<Your tribe has decreased to 144 members>

It wasn’t just us having problems. I had to remember that the bog expedition was just one arm of a multi-faceted plan to grow and advance the tribe. With the sun slipping behind Raphina, Village Canaveral would be fighting off lizards for the next few hours. The problems in the bog weren’t insurmountable. Sure, the ghost-cloud-wolf-swarm-thing was an issue. But it hadn’t affected any of the goblins on the lattice. In another day or two, we’d be off the ground and in a permanent tower.

I made a small circle of the camp before I landed. Sure, the bog seemed to be fraught with peril. But where wasn’t? Maybe the Ifrit had more information about the dangers of the swamp. Once they made their way to Apollo, I could ask them. And I had my motor project, generator parts, rotary engine, and batteries to look forward to, as well. We were going to eat this elephant, one bite at a time. But it all hinged on success harvesting iron from this bog. And that was the next step.

I helped with the tower construction throughout the rest of the evening, which seemed mostly about keeping the goblins from sneaking away for more jumps on the balloon. It was almost a blessing when it ran out of gas (literally) towards sunset and began to sag back down to the ground. Chuck and his wranglers arrived not long after and swung out of their saddles.

“You sure you don’t want me to stay overnight, boss?” he asked after I explained the situation to him. He ran a hand through his clifford’s fur, almost protectively.

“I’m sure,” I said. We’ll have the sappers in the temporary lattice in case anything goes wrong. I don’t want to risk more cliffords.”

Chuck relaxed and patted his mount on its muzzle. Despite his offer, it wasn’t difficult to see he was relieved about not putting his personal good boy on the line.

“Besides, I need you keeping tabs on the javeline movements. How are things at Apollo?” I asked.

Chuck grinned. “They tried again, but they broke quick when they hit the buried poppers.” He made and explosion noise and laughed, which spread throughout the village like a verbal meme. “Don’t think they’ll be back soon. Easier to hit other tribes.”

I nodded. It was troubling that the javeline knew where our bluff was. But at least it was well-fortified. We had explosives as long as we had regular access to the bomb fruit orchards and the hot springs—at least until we stopped being able to collect sulfur.

System?

<You have approximately 4 chooms of sulfur, and scouted nodes have 12 potential chooms of harvestable sulfur.>

It was a finite resource, and we were burning through it quick with daily air delivery flights. I could allievate the need for it somewhat with rechargeable batteries. “We need to get to those villages first. Any sign of our ifrit friends?”

“Not yet.”

I hadn’t expected there to be. It was likely Rufus wouldn’t even reach the city of brass for at least another day or two.

“Alright,” I said. “Best head back. Thanks for the supplies.”

Chuck glanced at the rear seat on his saddle. “I could take you back, if you want. Sleep safe at the village.”

I shook my head. “No. I’ll turn the camp over to Hadfield once things are running. But I need to be here to deal with the challenges of the bog.”

“Just keep a couple scrappers close,” said Chuck, swinging back up into his saddle. He looked around, somewhat nervous. “Unnatural fer a goblin to nest on the ground, like this.”

The wranglers left. I had the expedition goblins drag the bags over to the lattice lift to haul anything edible up the lattice lift. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 45 - Ignis

<Your tribe as decreased to 139 members.>

<2 hobgoblin scrappers have been added to your tribe.>

<3 hobgoblin wranglers have been added to your tribe.>

<Your tribe has increased to 155 members.>

 <Increasing your tribe size has unlocked a new Goblin Variant. You may select one of the following: Hobgoblin Hawkeye - A larger, stronger, nocturnal goblin skilled with ranged weaponry, or: Noblin Ignis - a larger, stronger goblin skilled in fire-based applications>

I sat up on the top of the sleeping pile. Noblins. I’d never heard of that before. System, do fire-based applications include things like internal combustion engines?

<Additional information available upon selection of variant goblin.>

Does said information pertain to internal combustion?

There was a pause. <Additional information available upon selection of variant goblin.>

C’mon, System. Give me something, here.

<References to unresearched technologies in the Goblin Tech Tree do not appear in variant skills.>

Ah-ha! That was almost as good as an admission—not specifically about the variants, but that internal combustion was possible on Rava, despite the differences in the makeup of the world and its elements. If it was an unresearched technology, it was still present in the tree.

Show me the tree.

A wide window expanded in front of me, showing a vast amount of interconnected nodes—a visual representation of the entire goblin tech tree. Most of it, at least 95%, was still dark, and would likely remain so. I had very little desire to explore, for example, the flatula-horn rhythms technology path. Other illuminated systems were their own little islands, like the glider technology and ceramics where I’d skipped a number of interim steps by applying modern knowledge to take advantage of primitive resources.

The fire-making tree had quite a few branches coming off of it, very few of which had been discovered. I assumed that section contained a large amount of power-creation technology like steam, internal combustion, possibly even nuclear fusion or fission (which was a terrifying thought, goblins with the power of the atom).

The igni were quite possibly some type of engineer-specialized goblin—what I’d originally thought the scrappers would be before they turned out to be commando goblins. If so, then they’d be important to breaking into the industrial age.

But hawkeyes… goblins specialized in ranged combat. Iron and steel would mean firearms. Even if I didn’t do it for them, the ingredients would be there and the goblins would eventually figure out how to make this world’s version of a matchlock. Making sure those weapons were in the hands of goblins who actually knew how to use them might help secure the tribe when someone more powerful than a handful of javeline came knocking at the gates.

But, who was I kidding? We were goblins. Accuracy was a metric of overwhelming volume, as far as I was concerned. The slingers already functioned in volleys, and how precise did explosives really need to be?

Give me the ignis, please.

<Good thing you replaced the wooden structures with brick.>

<5 noblin igni have been added to your tribe.>

<1 noblin ignis has been promoted to taskmaster.>

I crawled out out of the sleeping pile and looked around, excited. But my excitement waned when I realized none of the new noblins were with us. They must have been split between Apollo and Canaveral.

Just as well. I didn’t need a pyromaniac setting fire to the wooden lattice that kept us off the ground while the tower was being finished.

Give me the deets, System.

<Goblin Ignis

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

Flame retardant - Igni are resistant to heat damage.

Armor pro  - noblins are not encumbered by heavy armor.

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

Hot Hands - Igni gain a bonus to crafting speed and quality when using heat elements. The hotter the element, the higher the bonus.

Pyro - Igni gain a bonus to heat element weapons and rocketry.>

I considered. System. Does heat-based weaponry include rocketry and firearms?

<Rockets are considered heat-based. Details on undiscovered Goblin Technologies are not reflected in current bonuses.

Fantastic. Heat-based crafting. That was as close as the System could get to screaming that these guys were natural blacksmiths and steel-smelters. And they could aim a rocket. And might not burst into flame the moment a spark looked at them.

I tapped Hadfield awake. He moaned, rolled over, and yawned. Then he sat up, clacking his teeth.

“Let’s get a move on, comrade.”

Hadfield kicked one of the goblins over the edge of the lattice, and we waited to see if he would be eaten. After a few minutes—well, moments, really. Goblins aren’t the most patient. After a few moments, the rest of the goblins bailed out of the lattice.

The first thing I noticed was one of the wagons had been tampered with. Not by a wild animal or a shade wolf. Something had jimmied open a latch and rifled through the contents. Several clay jars were gone that had held fish oil. A bundle of rope was missing as well, along with a basket of spare ceramic spear tips and other ceramic parts.

The hominids had paid us a visit during the night, clearly. I could see their webbed footprints, but they must have been pretty quiet to get in under the hobgoblin noses. Great. We were already at war with night haunts, javeline, and eclipse lizards. I didn’t need to battle swamp people, too. Especially ones that had just armed themselves with ceramic spearpoints. Well, at least we had ceramic plate vests. But there’d be no more thieving. I had the goblins unload the wagons and pack everything into the tower while the builders kept stacking bricks higher and higher.

Well, we did have something that might show them that we weren’t a tribe to be trifled with. I had the head of the large stone-sloth brought out. The goblins had already processed the skin, brain, and tongue, but it left a rather impressive skull that the builders hoisted up onto the side of the tower, along with feathers and other assorted bones.

<Goblin totem unlocked: Stone-sloth alpha - goblins who appreciate this totem gain a moderate bonus to piercing and impact damage reduction.>

Most of the goblins stopped and took a few minutes to perform their version of ooh-ing and aah-ing. In this case it was holding up three fingers in the shape of the long sloth claws and making a reasonable attempt at its roar, when multiplied by thirty goblins. Excellent. By the end of the day, the top of the tower base would be as tall as the lattice platform, and my tribe could finally feel secure in their home away from home. Mid-morning brought a rainstorm, so the oil-cloaks went on and work continued. No slacking today.

But we weren’t in this bog just to build towers. We were here to harvest iron. I took twenty standard goblins, plus all the hobbies, and headed for the peat bog.

Chapter 46 - Peaty-prilling

When we got to the water’s edge, the designated collectors swapped their skull masks for ones of reinforced ceramic, in addition to donning their plate carriers. We had spears, slingers, poppers, and even a few of the RPPs left over from the stone sloth alpha battle. This was everything I had to bring to bear against the dangers of the bog.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

I’d brought enough bricks for the tower, but the tower wasn’t the only thing I intended to build here. Mud and grass was in ample supply, and I wanted anyone not working on the tower or geared for battle to be manufacturing additional bricks on the shore of the bog. We needed a bunker on the waterfront, storage, and room to expand as the expedition grew. Builders started hacking at the reeds with flint cleavers as others turned out mud with spades to be mixed and molded. Strangely, even though the goblins all used the same size molds (which I’d measured and double-checked), no two bricks came out the same size or shape. This contributed somewhat to the lumpy, uneven construction of the goblin structures that made them always look as though they were tired of staying upright.

The expedition had no guarantees, though. There was still a chance that all of this ended in disaster. We crept through the reeds at the bog’s edge. I poked my head up enough to take a look down the shore to see if I could spot any larger predators. Waterfowl and bugs dotted the surface of the bog, and the goblins flushed out the occasional frog which would try to hop for its life only to end up stuffed down a goblin gullet. Perks of being on the work detail, I suppose. Until one of the goblins didn’t bother to chew, and started to ribbit every time his mouth was open—much to the other goblins’ delight.

I spotted two of the crocodilians sunning on an island out in the bog, but there was no telling how many lurked beneath the surface. Surprisingly, I could now see the levels above them. 25 and 26.

System, are these ones smaller than the one that attacked us the first time?

<Adversary level display threshold increases as stronger foes are vanquished.>

Interesting. Taking out the stone-sloth alpha must have bumped up that threshold high enough for the crock-knockers. They were only a few levels above the alpha—still much stronger than goblins, but stronger than how many goblins? Hopefully, we wouldn’t find out today.

I ducked back behind the reeds and gathered the three scrappers I had with me. All of them had loose-weave net cloaks on, and I had one hold still while I stuffed reeds, grass, and moss through the netting until each hobgoblin resembled little more than a lump of peat themselves.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Beguiling cloaks>

“Alright. Keep an eye on those crocs. They started headed this way, you give the signal.”

“Onnit,” whispered one of the scrappers. “Trust.”

The sneaky commando goblins melted back into the reeds, and I actually had a hard time tracking them even further than just a few meters away. They made barely a ripple in the water as they slid into the bog and slowly became one with their environment.

I had a couple wranglers similarly outfitted, except those I had in reserve with their snatchers ready, to hopefully loop around predators and give the other goblins time to flee.

Now it was time to get the rest of the goblins to work. They went out in pairs. One armored goblin with a slinger and spear for each harvesting goblin with a basket and peat knife. The book had described a fairly simple process of carving the iron nodules off the bottom of the masses. They accumulated over time and could grow anywhere from the size of a pea to the size of a fist.

I sent them out onesie-twosie at 20-meter intervals so that a large congregation wouldn’t draw the predators out. Non-variant goblins aren’t known for their stealth, but they at least sloshed more carefully than normal, knowing there were predators in the bog. This wasn’t the natural habitat for base goblins the way the forest was. They meandered around, looking uncertain even though I’d explained what to do in advance. It took me a moment to realize, this was something I’d have to demonstrate myself. Well, any good leader should never ask their workers to do something they’re not willing to do themselves, right? Otherwise I’d be no better than the useless middle-managers at NuEarth that bossed the engineers around while not knowing the difference between a servo and a solenoid.

I kept an eye on the crocs as I waded out with two of the goblins closest to me, blade in hand. I ended up in the team with the goblin who had swallowed the live frog, so I got to listen to the distressed ribits from one of my partners. So far, neither of them had stirred from their basking and the surface of the water was disturbed only by fish, frogs, and the large, blue wading birds spearing them that looked like a heron with a row of hedgehog spikes down its back.

We headed toward a concentration of peat on the surface, and I slipped my hands underneath to feel for the presence of iron. Goblin hands are extremely dextrous—maybe even more so than human hands. I ran my fingers through the tight woven plant matter until they lit on something small and hard. Pay dirt—er, bog. I slipped the knife underneath and carefully cut the nodule free. The other goblin held out his sticky-wicky basket and I dropped the piece of ore into it.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Peaty-prilling>

A shudder ran across the surface of the water as the concept propagated through the present goblins. I still didn’t know the mechanism by which technology transferred between goblins—whether it was an aspect of the System itself bestowing skills to creatures, or some sort of goblin gestalt consciousness. They did have much bigger heads than their rudimentary intelligence would require. I’d chalked it up to a protective layer of internal fluid to allow deformation in the event of a fall, but maybe part of it was some sort of psychic lobe? Who knew.

Either way, the rest of the harvesters snapped out of their stupor and looked at the knives in their hands with new light. Teams began to get to work, fishing underneath for iron. I kept at it, pulling two more small nodules off the mass of peat.

It was working. The iron was in our grasp. So many applications that required metallurgy were going to open up because of this. I went back to work, feeling for iron and pulling off another several nodules off the next three peat masses.

I got so absorbed in the work that I didn’t notice the dark shadow that had crept up behind us until I felt something hard and sharp nudge me in the back of the head.