MBGSP Chpt 38 thru 41

Yes, you read that right! Chapters up through 41 of MBGSP.

But Scott, you might say, We're only on chapter 32 on Royal Road.

Well, with today's update, the announcement is going out that the Patreon chapter lead is doubling from 4 chapters to 8 as part of a reward for MBGSP cracking the top 100 stories on Royal Road and hitting 20 paid subscribers. So, sink your teeth into some bonus chapters, goblin fans! You've earned it!

Also, in case you've stopped following on Royal Road, you can get your claws on the official MBGSP print-to-order t-shirt over at Redbubble! They've got different colors and cuts, but I'd personally recommend going with either black or navy. Anyway, enjoy the chapters!

Chapter 38 - On the Wing

<Your tribe has reduced to 121 members>

The wind blew through my fur as Eileen turned us into a bank. I had to be the one to hold Taquoho’s bottle with its tiny questing flame cupped in my hand against the gale. Rufus was holding on for dear life.

“This model is just a glider. But I hope to have powered versions soon using that propeller assembly you just saw.”

We flew south from the village over the grasslands were thermals were plentiful. Below us, the savannah stretched, and just beyond I could see the transition into a red, sandy desert. Could I make out a faint glimmer on the horizon? Was that the city of ifrits or just a mirage?

“How curious. How does it fly when its wings are stationary? What mechanism keeps this sky-craft aloft? Is it magic?”

“Aerodynamics,” I said. I pointed to the wings. “It’s all about airflow over that surface creating a negative pressure area above the wing, which pulls the glider upwards against gravity. The more air over the wing, the more lift. Right now, the only way we can get airspeed is by trading altitude. That’s why powered flight is so effective.”

“We are not familiar with this science. And it is controlled by pushing and pulling on those cords?”

I nodded. “Raising the aileron puts us in a bank, changing the thrust vector of the lifting surface.”

“I’m going to pretend I understand all this!” said Rufus. “In hopes that understanding it will make it less terrifying!”

I laughed. “Believe it or not, in my world, flying is one of the safest forms of travel.”

“And how many gliders have crashed as a result of your attempts in Rava?” he asked.

I grit my teeth. That question depended on whether he meant the refined glider attempts, or the small single-goblin hanging gliders that were more like jumping off a cliff with an umbrella than soaring.

“We take it your attempts to harness the meager might of goblin-kind was unsuccessful in this endeavor, and you are seeking alternate means.”

“That’s right,” I said. God, it was nice to talk shop to people who could follow, even if they didn’t quite understand (at least, in Rufus’ case). “There are two main ways to get powered fixed-wing flight—electric motors and internal combustion engines.”

“Have you not considered clockwork?”

“Too heavy. It’s not an efficient store of potential energy in terms of strength-to-weight ratio for flight. Unless you guys are way better at it here. No. I could make a basic internal combustion engine with more metal and a fuel source. But I can also make a basic electric motor with the magnets and copper wire you sent with Rufus. Except, you also need a battery to power an electric motor.”

“It harnesses the elemental primal of linear lightning to spin a shaft? How curious.”

Sounded reductive and crude. But of course, I didn’t say that. “Close enough. Batteries are chemical and mechanical in nature. I know of several types, and how to build battery cells. But I have no way of finding the chemicals in question without an online order—erm, without a chemist. That would be lithium, nickel-cadmium, or lead and copper and an electrolyte like…”

I trailed off. Sulfuric acid. This whole time, I’d had a viable electrolyte in the sodium and sulphur-rich water at the hotsprings. My heart began to beat faster. Rechargeable batteries were in sight if I could secure more lead and copper. That meant electricity. It meant propulsion. It meant I could save more tribes from the javeline rutters.

Taquoho had gotten more comfortable on the flight, and his questing tendril stretched downward. I lowered the jar, and he began to flow out of the jar and into the glider.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Pilot flames>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Fly-by-fire controls>

Really? Back to back puns? He’s not even a goblin.

“We can feel it. The air, the… lift. It is exhilarating. This new type of body fascinates us. So few moving parts, and yet such freedom of movement. The Spirit is querying—it has given us new skills.”

New type of body? Huh. I guess for ifrit, it sort of was. I could see why primitive humans would consider them demons bewitching objects and devices. The glider shuddered and rocked gently from side to side as the flight control surfaces worked on their own. Eileen started hurling abuse and threats at her crew, but I raised a hand to her.

“Let him cook,” I said. She calmed down, and her crew backed off their control surfaces.

In a few moments, Taquoho infused the entirety of the glider. He may not have been strong enough to spin a heavy propeller, but he could certainly move ailerons and elevators. He brought us into a gentle bank, entering a thermal. The upward momentum pushed me down against the frame as we rose in a slow, wide loiter. It seemed ifrits, with their inclination to inhabit mechanical devices, were natural pilots. Pale, blue flame trailed behind the craft at wingtips and tail.

Rufus was squeezing his crossbar so hard I thought the wood might shatter under his claws. Eileen looked more snubbed. She was the flight captain, after all, and she’d just turned her machine over to a lamp flame.

We flew for almost twenty minutes before I heard Taquoho’s voice again.

“We tire.”

I signaled Eileen, who pretended not to notice at first, feet kicked up at the fore end of her captain’s station at the nose of the craft. But eventually she shot me a grudging glare and moved her crew back in place to take over the flight.

“Tired of being an airplane?” I asked.

“Only in the sense that we require recuperation. But I do not know that we could ever tire of flight.”

You’re not the only one, I thought to myself. As every time I flew, the System focused on our endeavors to such a degree that the attention was palpable. What made it so curious about flight in particular?

Maybe it was just the strain of simulating complex flight physics. I still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that this was all an elaborate computer program and that my existence was some cruel code base in an alien computer. Maybe I could crash the System by forcing it to simulate too many aircraft flying at once. If I somehow did do that, what would happen to me?

<Your tribe has reduced to 119 members.>

But then, the complex physics that governed every perceivable part of this world were much more complicated than aerodynamics over an airfoil. Hell, you could make a basic flight simulator to calculate lift over a wing in a few days with a decent knowledge of Python or C++. Maybe the system simply was curious. I had no idea why such a thing might spark the intrigue of a world-wide computer, but then I had no idea why the System had been programmed with such a petulant sense of humor.

<You try listening to the inane babble in the head of every megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur.>

Case in point.

Hey, wait a minute.

I narrowed my eyes and waited to see if the System had anything else to add. It refrained.

Taquoho poured himself back into the bottle in my lap while Eileen and her crew resumed their positions.

<Your tribe has decreased to 115 members.>

What the hell?

“Back to, erm, the village now, I presume?” asked Rufus, hopefully. While the Ifrit seemed to enjoy the flight, Rufus clearly preferred solid ground.

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. I was losing goblins with the sun still out, so it would probably be smart to make sure they weren’t getting into trouble. Within a few minutes, we were off the plain and back to the forest with Village Apollo in sight. They already had the dinner’s cookfires going. I could smell the smoke drifting on the air.

Then I heard the pop pop of explosions, and I realized it wasn’t cookfires I smelled. It was  fire fires. Several of the thatch roofs were burning, and I could see a flurry of activity on the northern wall.

“Eileen, bring us around to the north,” I said.

Eileen dipped the aircraft around, taking us in a wide circle around the bluff. As we got to the north side, the scene at the wall came into view. A small army of 8 or 12 javeline were at the brick wall with pikes, torches, heavy hammers, and crossbows. These ones weren’t bare-chested and garbed for scouting like the rutters. These had armor across their shoulders, torso, and flanks that worked moderately well against even the ceramic tips, and more than a few chipped spears and cleavers were being swung down or waved about. They were more like, I don’t know, maulers.

<Your tribe has decreased to 112 members>

The maulers managed to pull down a few of the wall’s defenders with long, hooked polearms, which accounted for the deaths. But they were having trouble getting close enough to hammer down the wall with 40 some goblins on the ramparts hurling stones, grenades, and abuse down at them. In the forest below, I caught flashes of red among the trees as Chuck and his wranglers harried them from behind with slingers and thrown spears. It was a difficult position for the javeline, but they were tough, hardy creatures, and difficult to deter.

What finally broke them was sight of the aircraft, and its silhouette casting a large shadow over their formation. Some of them pointed skyward with weapons or fingers, and a pair of bolts punched up through the left wing from javeline crossbows. Yikes. I held Taquoho’s bottle close, so as not to drop it as Eileen maneuvered.

With our appearance, the javeline maulers made themselves scarce. They withdrew down the steep slope on the north side of the village, leaving two of their own number dead on the slope.

We’d won the battle. But it didn’t feel like a victory. In fact, I felt more vulnerable than ever. Eileen brought us around and into the wind. We set down on the cleared and level landing strip, and I jumped out, shouting for Armstrong.

My scrapper taskmaster, Armstrong, appeared, with a cut above his right eye and, despite everything, a grin on his face.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Ah, well, ye know,” he said, working his shoulders. “Bit o’ a scrap, boss. Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Yeah? And what if they come back at night?”

Armstrong had nothing to say to that.

“Neil!” I shouted.

The leader of the hunters stepped out of the crowd. He was cleaning his cleavers. “Boss?”

“Take every bomb fruit we have. Bury them on the northern slope. Before nightfall. If those armored javaline come back, I want to introduce pork rinds to the ionosphere.”

“Trust.”

“Good. Buzz, Sally!”

My OG taskmasters appeared.

“Wall, thicker and higher. I want a trench in front of it, and I want some scaled-up slingers on top of it, something that can launch a basket full of rocks.”

Buzz glanced at Sally and then back to me. “She’s already drawn up plans for it while we was scrapping. Tribe Apollo is onnit, boss. We know what to do,”

“Good,” I said. I looked around. Despite the deaths and the chaos, the village wasn’t in a state of panic. Just me, really. My lieutenants gathered around me were calm—at least, calm for goblins. It struck me, then, that they really did know what to do. I’d set this village up to function without my direct intervention. If I’d been ten minutes later flying back, maybe those javaline would be inside the wall, and maybe they’d still be getting shoved off by Armstrong’s boys. But I was in danger of becoming the very type of micromanaging supervisor dreaded by the engineers at NuEarth. “Very good. Carry on, then. I’ve got some negotiations to return to. I trust you all to do what needs doing.”

And I did. I think my taskmasters picked up on that, because they left with chests just a little bit puffier than they’d arrived.

Chapter 39 - Bodies of Brass

“A most unfortunate situation, King Apollo. We detest and dislike the javeline almost as much as we detest and dislike the newcomers. I am pleased to see that your town was not overrun.”

Town. I looked around the central common area at the buildings rising from the bluff. I guess with all the wooden and adobe construction with clay roofing tiles, it was starting to look less like a primitive village and more like a town. The goblin-powered cranes only added to that aesthetic. There was also a chance Taquoho was playing to my ego. In which case, it was working.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry you got caught up in the middle of that. I know you took a risk in coming here.

“A risk well worth it,” the ifrit insisted, bowing in his gauze wraps. “Our friend Rufus did not exaggerate the marvels he beheld. This… aerodynamics. This rocketry. Your ceramic components. Your flying bodies. We are joyed to have found a one with such a love for natural philosophies and artifice. The City will be joyed. There is much to gain from friendship.”

“Not least of all, new friends,” I said.

The Ifrit seemed to burn just a little brighter.

Rufus uncorked his bottle and opened his journal. “I’ll drink to that. Shall we get down to brass tacks? Emotional gain from friends is all well and good, but I believe there’s also much to gain, physically, from trade.

“Yes, we forget ourselves,” said Taquoho. “We were sent to evaluate the truth of your production and have seen it—and more—for ourselves. It is not mere bearings you can offer, but these flying bodies, this icky-sicky fuel which burns fast and hot. And your work area and tools and materials. It would be wise for our people to use them here.”

Rufus nearly choked on his bottle.

“I…” I started. I glanced over at the badger. “You… want to move some of the Ifrit to Village Apollo?”

“On a temporary basis, only, I assure you. To ensure parts and components are produced to specification and perhaps negotiate for winged bodies. Once we inform our king of what we have seen here we are sure they will agree. We will require only minimal space and account for our own sustenance. In return, as fair rents, we can offer more than simple wire and lodestones. We can offer zinc, brass, piping, cog-work, springs, clockwork bodies, time-keepers, and bells. We can also provide goods from the newcomers at the southern shore, who we have brokered with on occasion through our friend Rufus.”

I glanced at Rufus, who nodded enthusiastically. And I could think of a million uses for all of that stuff. Brass had its limits as a metal—it was useless for things like spears and knives, what with its softness. But pipes, springs, gears? Ho boy. We were talking about some pretty advanced mechanical possibilities. But that wasn’t what interested me most. The most intriguing part of the offer was the possibility of having the ifrit themselves take up residence in Village Apollo. It would give the city a vested interest in the security of Village Apollo. But that wasn’t all. These were beings that could possess and manipulate mechanical objects in a completely alien method without adding weight or drag. They could analyze and manipulate devices from the inside.

You know what else could do that? Computers and complex wiring through servos, solenoids, and hydraulics. The Ifrit were like walking, talking machine souls. And I wanted to get every single one of them so hooked on goblin engineering that they never wanted to leave.

“I think we can support an arrangement like that,” I said, carefully.

“We are pleased. But we are also tired from our journey and our learning of the flight body. I will trust our friend Rufus to compile the fine details of your prospective arrangement with our king of The City.”

Sleep well,” I said. I uncapped Taquoho’s bottle and held the mouth up for him.

The Ifrit emptied his gauze wraps and funneled back into his bottle. Rufus carefully folded the gauze while I threaded the cap back on the bottle and set it on the workbench, looking at the colored brass. I ran my hand through the fur on top of my head and considered.

“You mentioned that Taquoho traveled only at great risk. I take it that it’s very rare for an Ifrit to leave the City of Brass,” I said.

“Extremely rare,” said Rufus. He opened his bag and replaced both bottle and gauze. “While they welcome visitors, it is seldom that they travel beyond the safety of their walls. The insistence upon sending a representative with me—even one so low-ranking as Tabun’ Quo’Horal—impressed upon me that I am perhaps caught up in affairs far beyond my station. The ifrit are well-regarded for their wisdom and far-sight among the natives of Lanclova, if not for their physical prowess.”

“So when he said their King would want to send several of them here to oversee their materials and components orders…”

Rufus offered a toothy grin. “I nearly fell out of my chair. I could not have known the ifrit had records of previous goblin kings because they keep no written records, or how much your, what were they called?”

“Ball bearings,” I supplied.

“Yes, ball bearings, would impress them. They are not a people known for being easily impressed by artifice. In truth I had thought they might find your ceramics and flying machines an interesting novelty. Not so compelling as to leave the safety of the Brass City, and move several of their unions here.”

“You say union,” I said. “I’m still not sure I understand the Ifrit social-family structure.”

“And it’s likely you never will,” said Rufus. He licked the tip of his quill and smoothed his journal pages. “Raphina has watched my dealings with them for years, and she knows that I don’t understand them, either. If there are guiding codices or taboos, they are unique to each Ifrit. What custom one union might insist upon, another might find…”

“Crude and reductive?” I asked.

Rufus roared with laughter. “Just so! A uniquely frustrating people. But fascinating, and earnest. As long as you learn to spot the ones with the penchant for trickery, there’s profit to be had.”

“Speaking of profit. I’m wondering how you get your take in all this.”

The quill began to scratch across the journal. “Simple. I’ll mediate all trade between your kingdom and the King of the City of Brass. In exchange, I’ll take 1% of the value of all trade in precious metals or trade goods, to be provided by the Ifrit.”

“In both directions?”

“Yes. I don’t know what value they will place on your ceramics or other technology. But the King is nothing, if not fair. He won’t cheat me because it’s not in his nature, and you will not cheat me because I’m not charging you commission. Not that I think you would, but there is no one to hold you accountable if you reneged, you see.”

“Savvy planning for a trader. What’s to stop me from visiting the City of Brass on my own to broker deals?”

“High-level monsters in the desert, mostly. Even your gliders wouldn’t be safe from the sand storms and the terrors that prowl the skies. The ground is even more fraught with danger if you don’t know the ways. You could take a thousand goblins and you would lose a thousand goblins.”

I tilted my head. “How do you manage it so easily?”

“Badger,” answered Rufus, as if that continued to explain everything. “But you should absolutely visit the city once it’s safe to do so. It’s a wonderful marvel. Now, what should I tell the King of the Ifrit that you would like delivered when his people arrive?”

“Canvas sailcloth,” I said without hesitation.

“Making ships, are we?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” I said. Textiles were still in short supply, and if the Ifrit were bringing a convoy, I didn’t have to worry about making sure I brought something small enough for one half-badger to transport. “And brass piping. And sealed brass casks, if they have them. Big ones” I held my arms as wide as they could go. “Plus nuts, bolts, a few hundred kilos of coal, And springs of all sizes.”

Rufus scratched my words into the journal. “Oh, is that all?”

“Why, did I forget something?”

Rufus laughed. “Curious. I would have bet anything you would want their tiny cogs and clockworks for your artifice. You continue to confound me at each turn. Very well.” He blew on the pages of his journal to dry the ink.

I stood and stretched. “Micro-engineering doesn’t get me to my goals right now. I need quick, dirty solutions to technological leaps in the Goblin Tech Tree, not refined, furnished aesthetic solutions. The ifrit themselves are part of those technological leaps.

“That sounds ominous,” said Rufus.

I shook my head. “I don’t think they’ll see it like that.”

“Oh?” asked Rufus, “How will they see it?”

“As a wide menagerie of new and wondrous bodies, I hope.”

Rufus stowed his journal and sighed. “I suppose I won’t be staying the night this time, either.”

“At least stay for dinner,” I said. Across the square, the hunters were dragging the javaline that had been killed in the battle while the cooks cleaned their cleavers with greedy eyes. “Looks like pork ribs, tonight.”

“I suppose it would be rude to refuse.”

Chapter 40 - Caravan

<1 Hobgoblin scrapper has been added to your tribe.>

<2 Hobgoblin wranglers have been added to your tribe>

<Your tribe has increased to 133 members>

I walked the north wall, surveying the upgraded fortifications following the javeline attack. Sally already had two of the scaled-up slingers on heightened mounts provided by Buzz. What was more, I saw several rockets, as well, angled down toward the slope on pintle mounts. The work crews were already up digging the trench at the base of the wall by the time I awoke, and they’d made a decent bite in the terrain. It would be a multi-day effort—made worse by the fact I was taking half of his construction goblins with me today. This was the day we’d be making the trek to the bog to set up the remote iron operation.

Even with the javeline at the gates, though they hadn’t attempted a second attack during the night, I couldn’t keep preparing for this. Steel was a critical resource—possibly the most important resource we lacked, now that I had sent goblins to collect spring-water for the battery project on the regular sulphur run. I intended to make our first battery-powered motor as soon as I got back. I’d soon have everything I needed.

The carts down near the paddocks had been strapped up to cliffords, who struggled to move the loads of adobe bricks and lumber that would form the base of the artificial bluff. With nearly thirty goblins assembled at the base of the cliff, not including Chuck and his clifford-riding escorts, we set off west toward the bog in a massed whirlwind of cleavers, claws, and paving stones.

I rode with Chuck on the back of his clifford, holding tight to the saddle as the forest flew by. We passed the river where two of our flex-a-pult fishing boats were casting off, goblins furiously cranking on the outboard impellers. We ranged ahead of the trailblazers, but never lost their bearing, as you could hear the frantic assault on the forest from hundreds of meters away. We ranged most of the morning and into the afternoon, until we hit the first roadblock.

“There he is!” said Chuck, pointing one of his throwing spears. I spotted the stone-sloth we’d found on our first trip to the bog. He was a few kilometers outside the camp to the northwest, and we’d run through his riverside clearing so fast the first time that the beast barely had time to give chase. This time, it had ample warning that goblins were in the vicinity, and it wasn’t shy. Stone-sloths were incredibly territorial, in addition to being carnivorous goblin predators.

Chuck angled the wedge of 7 wranglers in, and we spread out as the stone-sloth charged. It was a big’un, with claws that would have been too large to use as prosthetics unless I really did want stilts. It was level 23, higher than even the patriarch of the family group we’d fought. How many goblins had it eaten to get that big?

I scanned the ground as we moved and spotted two clay deposits near the river. Perfect. We were running low on the clay we’d extracted from the den to the northeast, and another source was paramount to meeting the orders of ceramic the ifrit were going to put in.

Chuck, of course, was focused on more pressing matters—like not dying. He yanked his clifford into a tight turn to avoid the grasping claws, not that his mount needed much encouragement. He tossed his spear at the same time, ceramic tip piercing the thick hide of the beast. A volley of clay poppers followed, popping against the thick, clay reinforced armor on its back. It roared and gave chase.

We held off on further provoking the creature. It chased us nearly a half a kilometer before it finally slowed, winded, and returned to its den to lick the few wounds we’d managed to inflict.

“That good, boss?” asked Chuck.

“Yep. Let’s tell the group: We’re camping here, tonight.”

It took until the eclipse finished for the main convoy to reach the rest of us. But when I looked back on their progress I saw a wonderful sight: a road lined with, admittedly uneven, patchy stones. It was far from straight, as well, having picked up the goblin’s customary windy pathing. But it was a road that could be traversed much faster the next time.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Rocky roads>

We began to set up the night shelter—which probably belonged in a circus act. I tied the longest rope we’d made yet to the corner of a pair of stacked wooden lattices, and then put the rock into the sled of a slinger and fired it up through the trees. Two goblins dove out of the way as it came crashing back down, but it still bounced off one of their skulls as neither actually looked at where it was coming back down. After recovering, both goblins immediately jumped on the rope and began trying to climb it, which had the opposite effect of pulling the rope—and the corner of the lattice—up into the canopy. I repeated trick on the three other corners, and soon the whole structure was hoisted up about 15 meters off the ground. All four corners were tied off, and then the second, smaller lattice dangled underneath.

Once that was done, a handful more goblins scrambled up a rope ladder and began installing some bearings at strategic locations. With that complete, ropes were fitted to the bearings and they began hoisting up food and provisions for the night, along with weapons, bedding, and slingers. The whole process took about an hour. All in all, we’d made good progress on the first day. The sloth-bear den was about a third of the way to the bog, which meant that we stood a good chance of making it before nightfall the next night if we pressed hard. Most of the goblins were tired from the journey before they even ate their trail provisions, but once they stuffed their little, blue faces, they passed out harder than ever.

The hobgoblins stayed on the ground with the tied-up pack cliffords. They’d be the night guards in two specially built armored wagons that would alert the rest of us if something attacked. I was willing to risk losing out on the reproduction of the sleeping mounds in the lattice if it meant maintaining the integrity of the caravan. But all that happened was a few of the fat forest fowl tried to make nests in the upper lattice.

                            *

<Your tribe has decreased to 129 members.>

<2 Hobgoblin Scrappers have been added to your tribe.>

<1 Hobgoblin wrangler has been added to your tribe.>

<Your tribe has increased to 138 members.>

I woke up to bird poop splashing on the top of the goblin mound. So a low roll for goblin reproduction, and that happened. But there were nests with eggs in them on the upper lattice, so that was breakfast sorted. A totally added and unexpected element of the mobile temporary goblin bluff.

The goblins at the bottom of the pile had matted fur in a cross pattern, making them look a bit like they’d been grilled. But at least they avoided the night droppings. The cliffords and the hobbies slept below with just enough goblins to make an effective pile.

Things were quiet. Well, quiet for a goblin morning. And it took me a few minutes to figure out why. This was the first morning I’d woken up in Rava without a pow-wow with my lieutenants. Buzz and Sally were back at the bluff with Neil and Yuri (our clothier). Armstrong would be heading back to Canaveral to relieve John. Chuck would come once he and the other wranglers awoke, but for now, it was me and my silent (relatively speaking) partners. And it was going to be a busy morning.

“Alright, gang. Unpack the RPP’s,” I said. “Let’s go get that clay.”

The goblins scrambled to the back of a wagon set a decent way away from the others. They opened the back of it and withdrew several long, wooden tubes. It took 2 goblins to carry each one, which meant we could bring 13 of them between the goblins we had currently awake. We also passed out special vests and the first of the ceramic skull masks.

We hauled them to the edge of the stone-sloth territory, and each pair planted the end in the ground while the other balanced a yoke on their shoulder while I surveyed the area and placed a few specialized slingers. I noticed more than a few wobbly knees and nervous, twitching ears as goblins cast looks toward the stone-sloth den beyond the trees. We weren’t bothering with the skinny sneakers this time. No stone-sloth hide infiltration. I needed to show these goblins that their strength in numbers could take out much larger threats, even without the hobgoblins helping. That their power lay not in the individual, but en masse.

Of course, that was little help to the goblins sent to poke the bear—or, sloth, as it were. They were wearing the first of Yuri’s custom armor. It was more like modern ballistic armor than a suit of medieval armor, in that he’d made a vest with a front and back pocket, into which slid a single ceramic tile. We were actually able to use the roofing tile mold to make them. The goblins already wore skull masks, which were a bit like helmets. From what I’d observed, things that hit goblins with enough force to crack the masks generally killed the goblin, as well. So it had been a simple matter to upgrade the material—though the awkward shape took up a lot of space in the kiln. They shrugged off losing limbs almost as fast as you could produce prosthetics for them. So, I’d focused on vital organ protection in the chest, instead to keep the tribe numbers high. An armless, legless goblin could still sleep in a mound.

In effect, the whole getup made them look like pint-size video game characters with skull-faces and tactical armor. Something you’d see in a shooter game, maybe, more than something like a fantasy—except for the blue, furry, straw-thin arms and legs sticking out. Special forces Muppets. Sesame Team Six, maybe.

The slingers were a bit short range, so the bear-pokers had miniature versions of the larger wooden tubes clutched in their claws. Time to go to war.

Chapter 41 - World War Clay

I’d consulted the bestiary on the desert monsters Rufus claimed were so dangerous, and it said that some of them could get up as high as level 40 or 50. There were dragons in the area that were in the high 60’s. Plus some sort of ancient skyborne predator that didn’t leave witnesses, but was presumed to be somewhere in the 90’s.

Eventually, we would have to face monsters like that. And the majority of the fighting force would be Goblins. Goblins, as the System was often quick to remind me with floating numbers superimposed on my vision, were perpetually level 1. The Rava creature at the ultimate disadvantage individually, incapable of speech, and completely unable to pull in the same direction. Until I arrived. The first stone-sloth we’d killed had been a happy accident, and it had killed a third of my tribe at the time. For the second, we’d had to rig a minefield of bomb-fruits, and even trying to avoid conflict all-together, we’d lost the entirety of our bomb-fruit stock and a half-dozen goblins—albeit, technically entirely to friendly fire.

We were iterating. The goblins were adapting. They were constantly developing. And so was I. When I’d arrived on Rava, I spent most of the early days flailing like a newborn. But I was learning how to effectively apply what resources I had, and my lieutenants had given me new confidence in the ability for the entire system to function. And it didn’t function because of the taskmasters. It functioned because at the lowest common denominator, the common, non-variant goblin, was still as competent as the average government worker. Hell, if my local DMV had been staffed entirely by goblins (maybe one taskmaster in the back office), my license might not have had my name misspelled as Julia, the wrong street address, and a picture of a middle-aged woman from the booth next to me.

You might think to yourself that the people running the local licensing office aren’t the same ones responsible for overseeing the projects going at NASA, and by extension, their sometimes private-sector space partners like NuEarth. You’d be wrong. It’s exactly the same people. Only, they’re in charge of engineers and scientists instead of fax machines and twelve-year old web cameras. Really, I wasn’t even re-inventing the National Air and Space Administration. I was just recreating it.

I won’t go so far as to say I didn’t think we would lose any goblins today. Hell, we’d probably lose a few just to misfires and the unpredictable nature of the Goblin Tech Tree. But we’d also not attempted to take on anything above level 20 before, and I had to believe that monsters in the bog were at least that tough.

“Prodders forward,” I ordered.

The armored goblins hefted their devices and trotted toward the stone-sloth’s den by the river. The other goblins waited, and I had to maintain discipline as some of them got bored or simply forgot what they were trying to do. Others had begun to play with the RPP’s, or start chewing on the housing.

All the levity ceased when I heard a pair of shrill whistles, followed by a pair of distant pops, and then an enraged roar. Shock and alarm rippled up and down the line, and I marched back and forth offering encouragement in the language of the goblins, which mostly consisted of shouting and physical blows where necessary.

A few moments later, a pair of armored goblins ran, screaming, back toward the caravan.

“eeeeeEEEEE!”

Hot on their heels trundled the enormous sloth monster, digging deep furrows in the turf as it gave chase. It was truly massive when seen from the ground, and not the back of a clifford. It was at least the size of a horse, and probably twice as heavy. It’s claws alone were nearly as long as a goblin was tall, and  they looked razor sharp. The stone-sloth took a swing, which cut cleanly through a sapling and skipped off the ceramic back plate in the slower prodder’s vest. The impact knocked him forward, and he tumbled like a wheel back toward our line while his partner squawked and ran even faster, knowing he was now the closest goblin to our foe.

“Hold!” I said.

One of the goblins must have thought I meant fire, because he ignited the sulfur striker on the end of his RPP, and smoke and flame gouted out the back end. The rocket-propelled popper launched out of the tube, streaking across the intervening distance, split the difference between the two prodders, and veered off hard to the right where it exploded against an old stump in a spray of clay shards and ceramic bearings that pierced the canopy above. The Stone sloth barely flinched. It had eyes only for the arses of the goblins who had struck it with the smaller versions.

“It’s still too far!” I warned, holding up my hand. “Hold!”

The rolling prodder reached our minimum safe area, and I dropped my hand once the second one crossed out of the killbox.

“Now!”

The rest of the goblins held tight to the housings as the gunners struck the rockets alight. Up and down the line, primitive rocket motors kicked to life, joining in a roaring crescendo. Only two exploded in the tube.

<Your tribe has decreased to 131 members>

10 rockets streaked out, with 10 heavy poppers on the front. They exploded around, under, and against the stone-sloth. It blasted the heavy creature off its feet, tumbling it to the side as the fragmentation warheads peppered it with shards of clay and ceramic. But the thing was tough, armored, and wasn’t about to be brought down by just a few goblin-sized rockets. Still, when it climbed to its feet, it was bleeding and disoriented.

“Stage 1 complete! Proceed to stage 2.”

The rocketeers dropped the empty RPP tubes and most picked up spears, huddling shoulder to shoulder as they leveled the ceramic-tipped business ends toward the sloth. The rest picked up slingers and fanned out. It began to approach, but having its momentum killed made it less willing to charge directly into the wall of spears that had caused its predecessor to accidentally discover the flex-a-pult. It couldn’t just bulldoze over the formation. The goblins squawked and menaced it, standing in close ranks to present a thicket of razor-sharp spearheads that began to circle up into a half-moon around the stone-sloth, even as they gave ground toward an area marked on the forest floor.

“Work him back!” I ordered.

My goblins eased back. The monster struck out with its longe claws, unable to get past the thicket of spears, though it did manage to tangle a few of them and yank a couple goblins out of the formation. It opened its mouth wide and crunched down on one while the other was smart enough to drop its spear and crawl back under the phalanx. I had another spear waiting for him, and he took his place again.

<Your tribe has decreased to 130 members>

Any time the sloth tried to move back toward its den, the slinger goblins that had circled around fired a volley of poppers into it, discouraging retreat. Its only avenue of movement was toward the phalanx.

“Good!” I said. “Now, begin stage 3.”

three of the goblins at the rear of the formation backed out, gladly putting more distance between themselves and the large predator. Instead, they picked up a trio of slingers that had been positioned earlier, loaded with rocks attached to cords, which were themselves attached to corners of a net.

The longest, most arduous part of this expedition wasn’t creating the tools, or the mobile bluff, or the wagons. It was simply manufacturing enough cordage to make a net capable of holding such a large stone-sloth.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Springy-stringy trap>

Each of the slingers angled their crossbows up and fired. The net sprung up from where we’d laid it out near the rockets. The launched slinger anchors drew the net taut against the wooden stakes holding it in the ground, and then draped it over the bulk of the sloth. It roared in confusion, pulling against the net.

“Stakers!”

The slinger goblins on the other side of the sloth dropped their bows and unslung mallets from their backs. They ran up and placed more wooden stakes on the far-side of the net, hammering them down into the ground to secure the trap. We’d done it.

Shouts of alarm drew my attention, and I thought the straining sloth-bear might be strong enough to rip through the net. But what I saw was something else entirely. Several of the goblins had spotted forms in the trees across the river: a squad of javeline maulers, watching us with their thick arms crossed.

“Stay focused!” I shouted. “Stage 4. Finish the job!”

I picked up one of the discarded slingers as the phalanx fanned out. I held it low, crooked in the corner of my arm as I made my way to the near side of the riverbank across from the armored maulers. Behind me, the stone-sloth roared as the goblins pressed in from all sides and delivered death from a thousand cuts to the restrained monster.

The javeline prodded each other and pointed to my prosthetic legs. The largest among them, a level 18–nearly strong enough to challenge the stone-sloth in his own right—stepped forward with his heavy spear and pointed it at me.

“You are talking goblin, yes? You make big fire and wooden bird and ride dog? Do not die?”

“That’s right,” I shouted back. “I’m the talking goblin. Who are you?”

“I am Hrott, brother of Rotte.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you come to take my tongue and my ears, too?”

Hrott thumped the butt of his spear into the turf. “I am a taker only of life, little goblin. prince of Habber men make demand you come. So, you come talk man prince.”

A few goblins ran to join me, spears in hand that were tipped in blood. A glance behind told me the fight was reaching its end, and the clay deposit was as good as ours. The goblins at my side hooted, squawked, and hissed at the javeline, jumping up and down. A few pointed their own slingers.

I put on my best deep-southern drawl. “So what yer sayin’ is, ya’ll are with the gov’ment?”

“What you say, little talk-goblin?”

I leveled the slinger. “Folk ‘round these parts don’t care fer gov’ment types. Ya’ll need to be movin’ on.”

“I not understand small goblin voice. Speak you me clear.”

“This clear enough for you?” I asked as I pulled the trigger on my slinger. The jar shot out, arcing over to the other side of the bank, where it fell short. It was not a precision instrument, after all. But it made a nice little bang and covered the trio in mud. Hrott shied back, and then roared in rage and what must have been profanities in his native language. One of the others leveled a crossbow at me, but Hrott pushed it down. Not only did he want me alive, but he knew something kept me from dying anyway. A few other goblins let loose with rocks from their slingers, and one even threw his spear, which fell woefully short and splashed into the river. The spearman’s compatriots rained blows on him by way of admonishment.

“This is being mistake, little talk-goblin!”

I yanked the crank on the slinger to reset the sled and held out my hand, palm up. Another goblin dropped a new popper into it, and I fit it to the slinger and brought my sights up. “My only mistake was missing your head, javellero. And I’m not in the habit of repeating my mistakes.”

The boar-dwarf growled within his helmet. But the goblins had finished off the stone-sloth and were starting to bring more of their own slingers over. Maybe taunting them was an error. But the sensation of Rotte’s spear punching through my chest was still fresh in my memory, called to the surface with a visceral, sharp phantom. The most efficient way to wipe out Tribe Apollo would be to capture me again and then stab me 130 times until I was the only one left. For the sake of the tribe, I couldn’t put myself in position to be captured again. And I would have to be a damn fool to give my well-being over to the care of these cruel brutes.

If this human prince wanted me, he could come out here and talk to me himself.