Scott Warren (books)

MBGSP Chpt 18 thru 22

Added 2024-06-22 21:24:38 +0000 UTC

Update to keep the advanced chapters ahead of the daily run. I ended up extending daily updates for MBGSP on Royal Road, so I'm scrambling a bit to make sure the Patreon stays ahead. Hope ya'll enjoy!

Chapter 18 - Apex Predator

I jolted awake. It was still dark, and not the dark of the bottom of the sleeping mound. It was the dark of full night. The first time I’d woken up at night after eating since coming into this new goblin body.

I felt an immediate sense of danger. We’d completed the wall and closed up the shelters. There shouldn’t have been anything able to get in and trouble us in the night this time, but something wasn’t right.

I pulled myself to the top of the pile and looked around. Plenty of light from the moon bathed the hilltop well enough to see most of the village through the slats in the shelter. I couldn’t see any movement. I rolled down from the pile and pressed up against the poles that comprised the shelter’s wall for a better view.

A scraping noise behind me drew my attention, and I whipped around to the other side. I scrambled back up onto the pile, disturbing a few of my mound-mates in the process. I looked through the poles on that side. I could see the sloth cub’s enclosure, still undisturbed, and the curled form of the infant inside, dozing off its dinner of scraps from the fish and fowl.

The scraping, again, behind me.

This time, I looked up.

Bright yellow eyes stared down at me through a hole in the roof of the shelter. A long, hooked beak worried at the opening, prying loose the weave to enlarge the hole. Whatever it was, it was big enough to block out the moon, and had small hands at the ends of bat-like wings.

I won’t lie, I screamed. The goblins below me rolled over, annoyed, saw the bat-thing and also screamed.

Then the beaked creature screeched in alarm at having been caught out, and that woke up the rest of the goblins. It beat its wings against the cage, enraged, as the group inside became a hive of frenzied activity.

“Kill it!” I shouted, horrified. The silhouette of this creature, the light of its eyes, and the curve of its beak all triggered very deep, primal fear responses in my goblin brain that my human mind was powerless to stand against.

“Kill it, kill it, kill it!”

The shelter capsized as most of the mound threw themselves at the far wall to get as far from the creature as possible. This thing had already been responsible for at least five goblin deaths, coming to haunt the tribe night after night. I’d never considered that it might be something that could fly. The wall was useless, and our shelters were only marginally better. What was worse, the System superimposed the level over its head. 18.

The night haunt thing’s wide tail lashed at the air as it flapped backwards. The entire hilltop was awake now. All forty-five members of the tribe pushing out of their shelters and running for crossbows and spears, or even just simple clubs.

Now open, the creature dove in among the goblins from my shelter, snapping one up in its beak and shaking its head violently. It flung the goblin away.

<Your tribe has decreased to 44 members.”

It pounced on another as it tried to flee, pinning the unfortunate goblin to the ground with its hands and digging its hooked beak into my tribemate’s back.

<Your tribe has decreased to 43 members>

This high-level creature was swatting down goblins like we would swat down flies. It turned its eyes. I followed its gaze and saw Buzz coming with a spear. He raised it high, but the thing pounced again, sweeping aside the stone spearpoint.

“No!” I shouted and threw myself at it.

Its head snapped to the side, and its beak caught me around the middle. It squeezed. It squeezed so hard I thought I would pop.

<Your tribe has decreased to 42 members>

I screamed from the pressure and pain of the fatal blow that had passed to another goblin. It readjusted its bite, and the pressure tightened around my chest. I couldn’t inhale. Claws raked at me. Hateful yellow eyes stared down, confused at why I was still alive. It let go of my chest and drove its beak into my midsection.

<Your tribe has decreased to 41 members>

Buzz was up, and Neil with him. Fitting, I suppose. They both had spears, and they drove them into the creature. Neil put his spear into its side, while Buzz pinned one of its wings to the dirt. It shrieked with pain, so loud half the goblins on the hilltop dropped and pressed their ears flat against their skulls.

Neil dropped the spear, still in the thing’s gut, and pulled out two flint cleavers. He jumped up, and then rolled as the nighttime terror of my tribe snapped at him. He lashed out, and the creature recoiled, blood spurting from two jagged cuts.

“Boss!”

I turned, and scrambled out of the way as Sally and her team of engineers readied their crossbows. The crack of 15 bows going off at once sounded more like a gunshot than a bowstring. Several shots went wide, and one bow exploded in its owner’s hands. But the majority of the stones struck home on the bat-thing’s side and head. It staggered, hurt and clearly dizzy. Neil saw his opportunity and dove in, driving both cleavers into the creature. By this time, most of his hunters had found their courage and their spears and menaced the thing from a distance. The night haunt curled around Neil, claws raking and beak snapping.

“No!” I yelled. I bounded in on my prosthetics, pulling the knife from my belt. One of those big yellow eyes was in front of me, and I drove the tip of my knife straight through it. The creature tensed, shrieking. It tried to pull back, but I leaned in and pushed harder, wrapping my hands around its head. My prosthetics slid through the mud as it thrashed and pulled at me. But it slowed, stilled, and then went limp.

“Get off him!” I shouted, beating at its side. I turned to the rest of the tribe. “Help me!”

Several goblins came over, and together we rolled the carcass of the flying creature off of Neil, who was curled in a ball, bloody from several deep scratches, missing an arm, but alive. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d never gotten the notification of another death.

I sent goblins for mud and moss to pack the wounds and staunch the bleeding while I tied a tourniquet with cordage. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about infection.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Stringy tourniquet>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Dirt-daub poultice>

That arm would mean he’d never again use a spear or fire a bow. But Neil was a hero. Even when I’d cowered in fear, he’d leapt in without hesitation. The rest of the tribe seemed to recognize his bravery too, because they hoisted him up and carried him in a lap around the village, cheering and hooting.

I didn’t join them. I was watching the sky, where I saw other winged forms circling, along with the glint of moonlight off yellow eyes.

This was just the beginning.

Chapter 19 - Compound Penalty

The cost of the night-haunt’s attack was much more than just the multiple goblins it had killed in its rampage. It had also prevented the birth of at minimum 4 more, and as many as 12.

In a cold sort of calculus, it might have been better to let the monster take 1 or 2 goblins if it meant the strange goblin reproduction cycle continued uninterrupted. I’d hoped to have more than 50 goblins at the start of the next day. Now, we were even further from that goal than we had been yesterday.

And to top it all off, a goblin who hasn’t slept is a pretty useless goblin, it turns out. I was no exception. The tribe’s lethargy resulted in almost no work being completed, other than processing the night-haunt and laying its meat among the smoldering coals. Neil claimed the skull, which he’d taken as his new mask. But no hunting party went out, no wood was chopped, and Sally’s team barely formed a handful of adobe bricks.

I didn’t blame them. It was like a veneer of grey film had been pulled across my eyes and leaden weights attached at ankles and wrists. My head hurt like I’d gone on a three-day bender. I barely mustered the strength to pull open the door of the kiln and remove the trays of fired ceramic parts.

About a dozen more notifications flooded past too fast for me to read them. It was the single largest influx of new goblin technology that I’d seen, and I could barely even read half of it. The ripple of the rest of the tribe internalizing the new technology was like a slow breeze rippling across the surface of a still pond, but forcing them to think in this state seemed to cause tangible physical discomfort as many of them clutched their heads and moaned like a horde of living dead. Having only seen these goblins in a state of either frenetic energy or deep slumber, this malaise was almost hard to bear.

The fact was, I was very attached to my goblins. Expendable as this world may have conditioned them to be, they were diligent, creative, energetic, and possessed of a strange sort of optimism. Every task was a new adventure, every new technology a world of possibilities.

I hated the night haunts from stealing that from them. But there was no denying that the day was ultimately a wash. At least we had food in our bellies from the night haunt itself. Maybe the others that I’d seen circling would be wary of approaching after the last one they sent didn’t return.

The evening lethargy came swiftly and suddenly as soon as the sun passed behind the moon for the daily eclipse. We barely had time to pull the shelters together before the entire tribe passed out.

<Your tribe has increased to 47 members>

I woke up to the morning sun peeking over the horizon. We’d slept at least 75% of the previous day, but no attacks during the night. Maybe the carcass of the night haunt had been enough to deter any other would-be visitors looking to make a snack of goblins. Maybe they’d tried their luck at another village.

Buzz didn’t even come to the morning staff meeting. He just took his crew and set them to task with renewed vigor. A few of his goblins went around to the shelters, retrofitting roofs with sharpened poles to discourage night-time visitors from above. The majority of his workers immediately started making as many bricks as they could. Buzz had expressed interest in the ones we made for the kiln, and he was smart enough to realize the scale of production we’d need for actual construction with the things—but that raised a problem. The pond was our primary drinking water supply. But it was rain-supplied. It couldn’t also be our primary source of water for forming earthen bricks. There was also limited space atop the bluff to lay out the drying mud.

Sally, surprisingly enough, had already come up with a solution. Apparently, she’d been teaching herself to draw. She grasped the possibilities of the ceramic ball bearings immediately in multiple applications—the most practical of which was a goblin-powered freight lift.

Granted, goblin engineering sketches aren’t exactly easy to parse—their linework is akin to their bushcraft in that it simply goes wherever it wants. But a log hanging over the edge of the cliff with a larger ring around it and a load slung opposite several stick-figure goblins wasn’t exactly difficult to divine the purpose of. If we had heavy lift capabilities, we could form and dry the bricks down at the river where there was more space and more material, and then bring them up to the village.

“Nice work, Sally. Add some grease to the moving parts, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.” I called Buzz over. “Buzz, go ahead and move the brick-making operation to the river. We’ll have a way to bring them up soon.

My chief engineer beamed and ran off. I’ve said it before, but these creatures aren’t dumb. Sally especially was starting to show a propensity for anticipating problems and implementing solutions.

Neil had fit most of his hunters’ spears with the new ceramic tips from the first batch in the kiln. As an experiment, he drove the end one through the stone-sloth’s hide. It stuck into it, rather than simply deflecting off as the stone spearpoints had. He nodded his appreciation.

“Got one thing before you go,” I said.

I had some of the goblins bring over the head of the night haunt we’d killed the night before, beak and all, and they lifted it on a pole atop the largest of our wooden shelters. I got a hoist up on the edge of the roof with a sheaf of bark under my arm and whistled for attention.

The goblins stopped what they were doing for a moment and gathered around, pointing up at the totem and clacking their jaws in a reasonable approximation of the night haunt’s beak snapping.

I held the bark over my head and raised my voice. “This is a symbol of defiance and resistance! We will not surrender to creatures of the night, no matter how hideous or hungry. No one is hungrier than a goblin! Let any monster who looks upon this cower in fear!”

The goblins cheered. Now, admittedly, I’m not much of an artist. I’d drawn a simple, circular frowny face with goblin ears and angry eyes. I looped it around the skull pole.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Totems. Erecting totems will convey temporary skill bonuses to goblins who admire them.>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Night haunt totem – enhances goblin skill with piercing weapons and slightly increases night-time vision quality.>

Interesting. I would need to build more totems. I looked over at Neil. “Jab that carcass again.”

Neil pulled back, leapt with a war-cry, and thrust his spear again. This time, it went entirely through the outer-most layer of the carcass hide. I grunted. Even the hook hand didn’t seem to slow him down. The totem really did work.

Neil pulled it out and examined the tip with a critical eye. “Good stuff, boss.”

“Be safe!” I called, as the hunters took a running leap off the side of the bluff. “Or, well. Never mind.”

As for me, I had another project. The goblins mostly gave me space as I worked on things by myself. They’d come to realize that when I got to tinkering, it translated to a significant leap forward for them. Or I thought as I looked down at my prosthetics, for me. Though, I didn’t know what progress or technology level any of the other goblins tribes in the region had made on their own. For all I knew, each one had a rival king that had taken their tribe to metallurgy and steam-power already and we could soon be facing goblins with firearms or dirt bikes or what have you. I had seen smoke rising from one or two bluffs in the distance, so at least a couple of them had discovered the secrets of fire-making. Were other goblin kings common? I had to think not, since Rufus had commented how we were almost a mythical creature in this world. But there was a chance I wouldn’t be unique.

Well, if he thought we were mythical before, wait until he saw what I was cooking up now. I took the lightest, most flexible poles in the stockpile and the sturdiest cord. I began sketching out a design, and then shaping the poles. I also collected the rest of the stone-sloth claws, and some of the bones from the night haunt, as well as its hide. The wings were a fleshy membrane that had cured quickly, and it was both light and durable. But we lost two more goblins out in the world while I worked. I didn’t know if they belonged to Buzz or Neil.

I don’t know if the hide was worth all the goblins the night haunt had killed, but I was going to do my best to make sure it didn’t go to work. The stone-sloth claws I had marked immediately for their light weight and steep front curve leading into a shallow back curve. I stole a few of Sally’s engineers to help with the droll work of securing them to the wooden frame. Then, we stretched the thin night haunt hide over both claws and frame and used ceramic needles to sew it in place.

By the time the hunters returned, we had a reasonable frame and the sloth bones created the perfect rigid structure for the top of my new device. But it still needed work. The next few days would be quite interesting, indeed.

Chapter 20 - Speed Freaks

<Your tribe has decreased to 51 members.>

<Your tribe has increased to 59 members.>

It had taken another three days to get the tribe up to the point where the system had given me a second variant. If anything, this decision was harder than the first. Tunneling and excavation meant we’d be able to mine ore and quarry stone. It would make developing engines and power generation easier. Eventually it was critical to devise a source of copper and iron.

But before that, the tribe’s security was compromised. The night haunts had returned. It seemed the larger the tribe grew, the more of the nocturnal predators took notice. We’d lost out on another night of sleep and growth due to one attack, and in turn a day of productivity. Despite my earlier promise, I’d had to ensure the night haunts had access to the tribe in order to continue growing it. But the act of setting up my goblins for sacrifice wore on my conscience. As much as we needed metallurgy, I had to put the security of the tribe first.

I chose the Hobgoblins. Even if they weren’t going to jump-start my tribe’s animal husbandry (which I hoped they would), having nocturnal sentries might deter the night haunts from breaking into the shelters at night.

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

<1 hobgoblin wrangler has been promoted to taskmaster.>

Show me the hobgoblin wrangler skills

I watched as the window populated with the list of capabilities my new hobgoblins were born with. During the malaise brought on by the second sleepless night in a week, I’d been too disoriented to complete the fine work required for my glider. I’d taken the opportunity to interrogate the system and see what it could and couldn’t show me. It seemed this world ran on a hyper-specific set of governing rules, much more high-conceptual in nature than the fundamental physics that ruled earth. The system could show me the stats and specialties of every goblin in my tribe, if I asked it. I used it to move several of the members around to better suit the talents of my individual taskmasters.

<Hobgoblin Wranglers

Hobgoblin - This advanced goblin can speak and reach level 3.

Nocturnal - These bad-boys like to stay up late and get into trouble. Their eyes are tuned for low-light. The downside is that they sleep until mid-day.

Thick Skinned - Whether teeth, claws, or harsh language, Wranglers will shrug off slashing damage from creatures.

Animal Kinship - Not much better than animals themselves, Wranglers share a sort of understanding with the beasts of the world.

Daredevils - Wranglers love anything that gets the blood pumping and the wind through their specially tuned hair. Wrangler senses and reflexes are increased at high speeds.>

The new wranglers had better vision at night, skin naturally resistant to biting and scratching, and a love for all things fast. Not only that, but the affinity for animals stood a solid chance of kick-start our animal husbandry program. We were growing as a village, and there’s only so much hunting, fishing, and foraging could do to support a population. It was simply an issue of the resources in a given area being able to provide for X goblins, and the difficulty of traveling further from a central hub growing less efficient without effective means of transportation. We were going to need a cultivated food source almost as much as we were going to need metal and electricity.

With 4 taskmasters, the tribe could be split almost completely evenly at just under 15 goblins per. The only problem was, my fourth taskmaster was sleeping in, so his goblins would spend a good deal of the morning idle or working on their own tasks.

That was fine. Let them. I didn’t need to be a slave driver, and the wranglers and their assigned goblins were going to be our first line of defense against the nocturnal night haunts. I wanted to make sure they had every advantage.

Neil took the hunters northwest. They had the dual objective of watching for Rufus’ return and making sure the javeline rutters didn’t find him first. I don’t know that they’d have attacked him on sight, seeing as both he and they were part dwarf. But I didn’t want my first friend in this world falling afoul of them. I worked on the control surfaces of the version 1 glider.

The design wasn’t all that dissimilar to an ornithopter concept I’d submitted to a NASA design contest in college, oddly enough. The controls allowed the user to subtly change the shape and angle of the wing in order to modify the glider on the fly (no pun intended) for high-speed and slow speed flight. This was the design I’d had in mind when I fired up the first batch of ceramics, and the design used bearings and flanged joints that wouldn’t have been possible with wood or stone.

As the sun reached its zenith, a quartet of shadows approached from my rear.

“Watcha’ got there, boss?”

I turned. All four of the new wranglers had gotten up, finally. They all had the customary goblin trousers, but these each had a patched vest, as well. They also each had a wedge of longer hair along the top of their skull, like natural mohawks. Unlike the other goblins who wore a skull half-mask over their eyes and crown, these ones opted to tie loose jawbones from the bone pit on over their mouths like old-west outlaws. One of them had also apparently liberated the stone-sloth cub from its enclosure and was tickling its belly.

“Flying machine,” I said. Then thought a moment. “Well, gliding machine. Flying comes later.”

“Sounds swell. Can I try it?”

I had expected these guys to have the thick cockney accents like Buzz and Neil, but these sounded more like they were from the American Southwest. Though, I read a long time ago that the southern American accent is actually closer to what Shakespearean English should have sounded like.

“Slow down, Chuck Yeager,” I said. I cocked my head. Hmm. Good a name as any for a natural-born would-be flying speed freak. “It’s not quite ready yet. I’m trying to finish it today.”

“Just so long as I get one.”

I stood and dusted off my sloth-claw legs. “Make you a deal, Chuck. I’ll make sure you get to fly through the air, but you’ve got to figure out some way to cover terrain faster and fight a four-legged foe.”

Chuck grinned. “Give me some of the lads to work with and a few hours daylight to burn. We’ll do you proud.”

“Take ten goblins with you,” I said.

My newest taskmaster whistled, getting the attention of several of the idle goblins in the village. “You lot, you, and you. With me. Grab your kit. We’re headed south.”

South. Out of the woods and onto the plains, then. I looked out over the bluff. “You want to jump down? Or would you prefer to try the new launcher?”

“You have to ask?”

I led Chuck and his new cronies to the southeast side of the bluff, where Sally had erected, of her own accord, a flex-a-pult to, as Buzz put it, not waste time falling straight down. We had two, so far, and she was working on a third, as well as a second freight lift. Even as I watched, two of her engineers were pulling a load of bricks onto the bluff with hooked poles while a handful of goblins balanced on the beam as a counter-weight.

“The big reason you’re here,” I explained to Chuck, “is the night haunts. They’re eating goblins at night, and worse, disrupting sleep for the whole tribe. Whatever you need to deal with them; spears, crossbows, axes, nets. It’s yours. They’re the biggest threat we face.”

“Leave it to the Hobbies, boss-man.” He winked at me. “Hobgoblins own the night.”

I liked Chuck already. And I’m pretty sure when he saw the flex-a-pult, he fell in love. He stopped and stared at the contraption. We’d unlocked the technology the day we’d fought the first stone-sloth, but I hadn’t thought much of it at the time on account of we were in the middle of a pitched battle. But my chief engineer hadn’t let it go. She’d made an arrangement of poles that could be weighed down by her engineers, until the poles bowed, and then released to fling an impressive load. Usually, that load was goblins.

Ordinarily, you’d need a lot of goblins to generate the mass in order to bend such a thick pole. But Sally had also combined the flex-a-pult with the ceramic pulleys I’d made in the first firing and the ceramic gears. We’d managed to get it to the point where two goblins could crank the whole thing down. Sally was turning into an ace at seeing applications for simpler parts to service compound machines. Honestly, I think she’d have fit right at home in the robotics lab at grad school. Chuck climbed into the basket along with five others, and I stood clear.

Everyone still in the village took a break to watch the flex-a-pult launch. It was basically Apollo Tribe’s national sport. The goblins lined up and hooted and hollered as Sally’s operators finished cranking and transitioned to the release lever. I’d tried to teach the tribe to do a joint count-down, but goblins were numerically challenged as well as verbally. What I had been able to teach them, was the wave. From one end of the cliff to the other, my entire tribe screamed at the top of their lungs and threw their hands in the air.

“THREE!” I shouted.

The wave started at one end, hit the other end, and started coming back.

“TWO!”

The tribe had practically worked itself into a frenzy. Two of the goblins couldn’t take the anticipation and leapt over the edge themselves. There was always at least one, where the flex-a-pult was involved.

“ONE!”

The wave reached a crescendo and lost complete coherence as my tribe lost their collective minds. Sally’s operators put their weight into the lever, and the mechanism released. Chuck and a half dozen other goblins went airborne, EEEEeeeeing out over the southern forest toward the plains. The rest of the goblins assigned to Chuck scrambled to reset the flex-a-pult for their turn.

All in all, if I couldn’t prevent goblins from simply jumping off the side of the bluff, I could at least help them along their way. Thanks to the height of the bluff, the flex-a-pult sent goblins at least a kilometer horizontally, depending on the position of the moon. That was one of the other things about this world I’d noticed. Gravity was definitely not accelerating all objects at 9.8 meters per second per second.

Plus, the little daredevils just loved being launched. They wanted to be airborn. I could relate. Who was I to deny them the simple pleasures in life?

<Your tribe has decreased to 58 members>

Yikes. Well, maybe there was such thing as too much pleasure.

Chapter 21 - Rufus Returns

“Ahoy, Apollo! You’d not believe the journey I’ve had!”

That was a voice I hadn’t heard in almost 10 days. While I wasn’t terminally lonely anymore, thanks to the company of some goblins with a capacity for speech that had joined my tribe, Rufus also brought knowledge of the outside world.

I put down the finished glider and went to the north slope, where Rufus was ascending in one of the freight baskets. The operators for the lift hooked the rope and pulled it over to the bluff where I helped Rufus from the basket. He looked down at my new legs. “His highness is a good deal more mobile than last we spoke. I see the stone-hides live on with you. But I hope this was not meant to be your idea for trade for salt and tools.”

“Just the appetizer,” I said. “Come on, let me show you around the new and improved Tribe Apollo Village.”

He marveled at the crane for a moment before we walked through the woods to the rest of the village, where he froze. “I say, you’ve certainly been busy these last 10 days.”

<Your tribe has decreased to 57 members.>

The sticky shelters had been replaced by mostly adobe huts made from dried bricks—though we still had night haunts coming in through the thatch roofs. Several miniature versions of the lifts were also present, with Buzz’ goblins scrambling back and forth along the top arm to act as counterweights to lift the building materials. It was actually a fascinating thing to watch a glorified goblin see-saw used to perform heavy construction. I had joked about it, but goblins really did make fantastic counterweights thanks to their climbing abilities, their keen sense of balance, and their immunity to falling damage when both of those qualities inevitably and spectacularly failed. We had started to develop multi-level structures with wood floors creating discrete levels for sleeping mounds. Which was good, because space atop the bluff wasn’t infinite and I wasn’t ready to risk housing goblins down at the base of the bluff. That would be just as bad as offering them up to the night haunts.

Beyond that, we’d been drying more pottery to store things like raw clay, oils, grease, and even grubs for the fishermen. Rope of various thickness and material sat in coils under a rain shelter, and next to that an assortment of other raw materials. Goblins took what they needed, and other goblins replaced the stockpiles. It was becoming a neat little operation, though not without systematic deficiencies that needed to be addressed.

“Yeah, we’ve been getting after it,” I said.

“Quite the feat,” said Rufus.

He caught sight of one of the flex-a-pults and went to examine it. He must have surmised its purpose fairly quickly, because he immediately retreated to a safe distance. “You know, the humans use a device like that to throw rocks, not themselves. I think you’ll need more than that to reach the moon, my friend.”

“That?” I said, waving him off. “That’s just a time-saver. Besides, I have no humans I need to throw rocks at. Come on, take a load off and let’s catch up.”

Rufus allowed me to take him to what had become something of the village square, where most of the goblins gathered for dinner at night around the primary firepit. The trader eyed the kiln curiously as we passed it, still smoldering from its second firing. Not all the parts we’d tried to make the first time had survived the process, after all. And not all of the ones that had, had worked. Ceramics were an exercise in persistence and the law of averages.

At the square, I’d had a squat bench made with Rufus’ rough proportions in mind, and he dropped onto it with a sigh and a creak of distressed wood. “Your tribe found me several leagues north of here and were quite insistent that I come from the west. Why is that?”

<Your tribe has decreased to 56 members.>

I poked at the coals for a moment wondering if I was losing hunters, speed freaks, or both. Hell, even being in the village wasn’t particularly safe. Several goblins had been squashed in construction over the past few days, while Sally’s engineers often fell victim to catastrophic failures. Sometimes it seemed like a race between the two factions on who could accumulate more peg legs and hook hands. But prosthetics didn’t seem to hamper their productivity, nor their spirit. I don’t think ‘rehabilitation’ was a word anywhere in the Goblin Tech Tree. “We’ve been tracking a clan of javelines that don’t seem friendly. I didn’t want you to run into them by misfortune.”

“I see.” Rufus sat pensive for a moment and poked at the old coals from the fire. “Misfortune would be the correct word, when it comes to their ilk. I wish you well. I take it they are the reason for the fortifications?”

“Not exactly,” I said, glancing at the night haunt totem. “In fact, we’ve had no direct contact. But I did see that they have metal tools, so I had considered trying to offer a trade.”

“I would advise against such an act. And not simply because I stand to profit greatly from my exclusive friendship and monopolistic trade policy with your majesty, mind.”

“Of course not. But speaking of profit. Did you bring things to trade?”

“But of course,” said Rufus, swinging his large pack down and opening the top of the ruck. He pulled out a bottle and passed it over. “That’s not to trade, o’ king, but to lubricate the negotiations.”

I unstoppered the bottle and pressed it to my lips, taking a swallow. I pulled it away, coughing. “Stout.”

Rufus grinned his badger grin and took a sip of his own before stopping the bottle and wiping his muzzle on the back of his arm. “Blackberry wine. Cheap and strong, and easily able to survive sea voyages thanks to its foul taste and tendency to remain at the bottom of cabin chests. Now, let’s see what I have for you…”

He reached back into his bag and pulled out a small, bound book. “I thought I might pack heavy, this trip, with the weight of knowledge. There are few things a learned creature seeks more than more learning.” He handed it over, and I opened it at random, not even sure I’d be able to read the words. But they appeared clear as day, and I flipped back to the introduction and read it out loud.

“A treatise on the practice of identifying and harvesting of iron nodules in peat bogs in northern Baleron.” I looked up. “Where’s Baleron?”

“About 1500 miles east as the crow flies, across the sea and up in the foothills.” said Rufus. “That’s why I got such a good deal on it in Hobbesport.”

“I didn’t know you could find iron in bogs,” I said. “I thought you mined it.”

“Ah-ha! We find another fact the goblin king did not already know! We’re off to a much better start today.” Rufus slapped his thigh and laughed. “It can be mined as well. Harvesting it from bogs is a somewhat antiquated method, but quite effective. Would you like to see the others?”

“You brought more books?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.

“These are quite heavy, you know. I hope you have something good to trade.”

I barked a laugh. “There’s always these,” I said, unlacing the prosthetic and handing it over for Rufus’ inspection. He turned them about. “Or at least the designs for them. These ones are fitted to me. They’re stronger and more flexible than wood. You can run, jump, and climb in them. I assume this world has soldiers, or those who were victims of illness or accidents that lost limbs.”

“And what would you want in return for such a remedy?” asked Rufus. “A book? A tool? A sack of pepper?”

“Just knowledge, and the promise that you’ll share this with those who need it. I’m not ready for the world to know who I am, but I won’t sit on the knowledge of advanced prosthetics, either.”

Rufus reached into his bag and withdrew a journal. “Kindness, then, is what you offer. Will you draw and describe them in here in exchange for a local bestiary?”

I accepted the journal, as well as my leg back and sketched a few diagrams of the simple mechanics of the prosthetic. I tried not to let it show on my face how valuable a bestiary would actually be. It might hold secrets to defeating the night haunts, or a creature that would be useful livestock. It might even tell me more about the javeline rutters. I’m pretty sure Rufus saw through me instantly. He did have skills for that, after all. Which I needed to ask him about, later. I pulled the bladed prosthetic back on and reached into my own bag that I kept tied at my hip. “I have something else for you,” I said. I pulled out a small palm full of the ceramic balls we’d fired and handed them over. Rufus held it close to his eye and rolled it between his fingers.

“This is quite round. I may not know artifice, but I know perfectly smooth spheres are of some rarity and value. Is it clay?”

“Not quite. Try to break it.”

Rufus squeezed the bearing between his fingers, then pressed it between his palms. Finally, he got to his feet, put the bearing on the log bench, and ground at it with his boot heel. He picked it back up and furrowed his brow. “Not a scratch!?”

“We can make them by the dozens, all as strong, smooth, and as round as that.” I whistled to get my tribes’ attention. “Hey Sally! Bring over one of those bearings,” I said. I waited for her to bring over the small device, before casting a shy glance at Rufus and making herself scarce. I held the ball bearing out for Rufus to see. As he watched, I spun the outer part of the bearing, which rode smoothly on the ceramic balls inside. “And from what you’ve told me, I don’t think there’s many people in this land creating these.”

Rufus took the bearing, twisting the outer layer back and forth. “I’m afraid I’m not a… what would you call someone who uses these?”

“A machinist,” I said. “Sally uses them to operate the lift that brought you up to the village.”

“That, a machinist,” said Rufus. “I can’t tell you what the true value of this is. But I know artificers who might be similar to your machinists. There are those in a city to the south, beyond the plains, who create metal marvels and brook with strange contraptions such as these. If anyone will recognize the use for such a trinket, it is they.”

I was sure they would. Ball bearings were only the fundamental development that enabled complex moving parts for the entirety of the modern world—arguably one of the most important inventions in history. Along with gunpowder, internal combustion, and electric power generation.

“Keep that one, then. You don’t have to trade me anything for it, just find me a customer who will trade for more.”

Rufus tucked it into a pocket on his coat. “And what would you want in exchange for more, should I come with an order?” he asked.

I thought about it. “Copper wire,” I said.

“Not silver or gold?”

“Just copper. And magnets, if you can find them. I imagine these artificers might have some.”

“Magnets?”

I put my palms together. “Special stones that push or pull on each other from a distance.”

“Ah, lodestones.”

I unrolled a set of precision ceramic instruments next and laid them out for Rufus to examine. “Doctors and artificers might both find use in these.”

The half-badger picked up one of the small knives and tested the edge. He hissed when his finger came away with a spot of blood and stuck the digit in his mouth.

“Ah, yes, should have warned you,” I said. “That scalpel is sharp.”

“Sharp, he says. It sliced through fur and skin as though they weren’t even there! Is this the same material as the spinning ring?”

I nodded. “It’s a hard material, difficult to scratch. But it can be brittle, especially large pieces. They used it for armor where I came from. A plate of this will stop a crossbow bolt.”

“Indeed!” said Rufus. “That I could He pulled out a small pack that turned out to contain the jewelers tools I mentioned I wanted. I’d completely forgotten that I asked for them, and I felt a bit guilty when i saw them.

“Ah, I, uh, yeah….” I said, running a hand through my blue fur at the top of my head. “Yeah, I suppose I don’t really need those, now.”

“And after I hauled them all this way,” Rufus chided, winking. “Though, others will certainly want your version. I know several chiurgeons and a dentist in Bale’s Landing who came to Lanclova in search of exotic medicinals. They surely have contacts on the mainland who could move these. Make more, and I will sell them for you.”

I smiled. Despite his animalistic appearance, Rufus was an easy-going fellow with an easy-to-like attitude. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him after our first meeting. “I’m glad you came back,” I said, surprising even myself.

“A unique oddity such as yourself certainly brooks a second visit, I should say,” said Rufus. “Begging your pardon at referring to you as odd. That aside, we had a wager. And despite the curiosities you’ve shown me, I feel as though I’m going to win it.”

I grinned up. “That’s because I saved the best for last. This one isn’t up for trade. Follow me.”

Chapter 22 - Maiden Flight

“Are you tanning a skyena hide?” asked Rufus, which he saw the prototype glider sitting on the launch rails. “We’ve been calling them night haunts,” I said. “And, no. This is something I guarantee you’ve never seen before, no matter how far you’ve traveled.” I checked the frame, the membrane, the connections, and the security of the wicker cradle before settling down into it on my belly. I worked the left wing and the right, making sure the surfaces had free movement and no binding. Thanks to the ceramic bearings from the second kiln firing and some fish oil, everything slid with minimal friction.

“Attention!” I shouted out. “Operation: GERONIMO!”

A wave of excitement coursed through the village. Almost everyone dropped what they were doing and came over. Several goblins fought over the ropes that had been laid out next to the simple wooden rails, but realized the lines were long enough to share. That was fine. The more goblins on the ropes, the better this would work. Hopefully.

Rufus watched, perplexed but polite, as I ran through my final checks and looped the line around the hook on the nose of my improvised aircraft. If there was one thing they drilled into us during my private pilot training, it was to always check your aircraft before a flight.

I’d never gotten the technology unlock for the glider, so I had to assume the System was also watching in suspense to see if it worked. Which reminded me.

“Hey Rufus. You’re able to converse with the System too, right? The thing that tells you your skills and abilities?”

“Of course,” he said. “Everyone can hear the voice of the Empowering Spirit.”

“Interesting.”

“Do you not have them where you’re from?”

I shook my head.

Rufus crossed his arms and nodded. “My grandfather told me, though, he said that his grandfather remembered life before they began to speak and show visions. Before that, skills were something you built, not something that granted you power when given. The voice began as a pale whisper that has grown louder over the years. For as long as I’ve been alive, the spirit has spoken to everyone and its will shapes the very fabric of the world according to its own patterns. But it also empowers monsters and various evils. To what end, only the Gods know.”

“You don’t consider the System itself to be a god?”

“It insists that it is not and punishes those who persist in worshiping it. What god would insist upon its own disbelief contrary to clear evidence of its presence?”

“I suppose I see your point,” I said. So, it hadn’t been here forever and seemed to be gaining ubiquity over time. That was an interesting development. I had to wonder what Earth would have been like if there was an all-powerful, semi-sentient program that both empowered and was accessible to its users. If Simulation Theory was correct, and it seemed at least plausible, given recent events, then somehow this simulation must be breaking down and showing the man behind the curtain, as it were. The locals interpreted it as a spirit speaking to them. But they’d never seen a computer program. Or The Matrix, for that matter.

<Were you going to launch that death trap or not?>

Right. I suppose I’d better get back to it. I secured myself in the glider and looked up at Rufus. “I hate to leave you like this, my friend. But if all goes well, I should be back before dinner.”

<Your tribe has reduced to 56 members.>

“As long as enough hunters are still alive to bring it back.”

Most of my goblins were at the end of their patience anyway. The ones on the ropes had been edging closer to the cliff face the whole time, and I was actually a little surprised that none of them had just flung themselves over early. Goblins must have evolved from lemmings, because there were few things they enjoyed more than a good cliff and a sudden drop.

“Hold on, Apollo. This is a jest, yes? You can’t possibly mean to—”

The goblins, no longer content to weight, took a swan dive off the edge of the cliff with the rope. Oops. The others, not to be outdone, followed suit, and suddenly the weight of a dozen of my tribe mates was pulling against the hook at the nose of my glider. With a jerk, the whole contraption slid forward on the greased rails, building speed alarmingly fast. My stomach jumped up into my throat as I hit the ramp, pulled by the tow line. The hook slipped, and before I even had time to register what had happened, I was soaring through the afternoon sky.

I’d always loved flying. I’d built a kit ultralight together with my roommate in college and been part of the soaring club at the local airfield since my 16th birthday. I can’t describe to you how it felt being back in the air, wind blowing across my face as the airfoil rippled overhead. The sky was in my blood, and my tribe had just given it back to me.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Sticky skinny airy-wing thing.>

Oh ye of little faith, I thought to the System. As though chagrinned, a list of notifications began to scroll across my window.

Technically, I feel like most of the unlocked individual concepts and components that had gone into the glider should have unlocked as I was building the thing. The principles were sound from the get-go. Rava’s governing System just wouldn’t admit that it didn’t think I’d actually be able to fly. It did, conveniently, bring up a small window that displayed my current airspeed and altitude. Ok, I take back some of the mean things I thought about it. Today, anyway.

I did a quick control check to make sure all my surfaces were articulating correctly. My left wing flex was a bit soft, but nothing I couldn’t compensate for by shifting my weight in the cradle. I leaned into a shallow bank and verified my target to the east-northeast.

Today was about more than just flying for fun. Those other bluffs I’d seen in the distance were nearly insurmountable journeys for someone of a goblin’s stature on the ground. But as the crow flies? Well, that was another matter. I just had to make sure I was back before the night haunts (skyenas?) started coming out.

The goblin counterweight launch system had given me a huge boost in speed, but now I needed one in altitude. Gliders can fly for hours by catching thermals and updrafts, and I made sure to prepare one ahead of time. Sally had fired up the kiln with the third batch of ceramics, but that waste heat all rose. I was able to angle into it, and I felt myself grow heavier in the cradle as the hot air caught the underside of the glider’s wings and my altitude figure started to climb. Once I leveled off again, the bluff looked more like a small rock hundreds of feet below me. I couldn’t even see individual goblins anymore.

Even with the reduced gravity of Rava, that kiln had lifted me far more effectively than it should have been able. The Goblin Tech Tree must have been greasing the wheels in my favor. Well, any advantage I could get, these guys needed.

With my course set and my altitude stable, I relaxed for a bit. For the first time since I’d come to Rava, I was completely alone. Rufus had said the human name of the world meant skyclad. Well now I was part of that sky. One with the winds, and riding on the gentle currents swirling across the horizon. I had brought this with me. I had brought flight. And it was one of the critical stepping stones to reaching Raphina.

On Earth, it only took 70 years between the first powered flight and the first moon landing. And NASA never even had the loyalty of a goblin tribe or the absurdity that was the enigmatic internal logic of the Goblin Tech Tree. I didn’t plan on taking 70 years. I didn’t even plan on taking 7 if I could keep iterating through the ages and skipping the biggest technological pitfalls and dead ends. But for the moment, I put all that aside and simply reveled in being wrapped in the sky.