Undead Astral Golems had very few practical uses — especially out in the open. Working mindlessly in dark secluded mines would certainly fit their purpose, but nobody would want one serving them afternoon tea. Not that they smelled or looked grotesque, Jeremy took pride in the aesthetics and hygiene of his tireless workers.

They already cultivated the fields around the Corner Shop. From one, now he had four dandelion fields. Hopefully, they would yield enough sap to make another ten golems.

The wizard repressed a shudder. Just thinking of the bone sphere gave him the chills. He had to find a better way to fish out the literal backbone of his golems. He also needed a witness, just in case the bony secret of his golems got out.

He didn’t want the city to think he was digging up bodies — but he also didn’t want to reveal where he got his workers. The bone sphere held a temptation that would draw most wizards — especially the stronger ones.

Who wouldn’t want a standing army in an instant? With that big a horde of skeletons, a necromancer could wage a protracted war against most nations — and most likely win.

Jeremy doubted the nobles would let a resource like that remain untouched, even if it meant going a little further into the dark side.

Truth be told, he mostly wanted to keep the skeletons for himself and keep his monopoly of tireless workers — all his other musings were mere justifications of his petty selfishness.

He almost drooled thinking about the gold his workers could earn if he had a mine of his own or a forest to level. He could even make them drudge the bottom of the sea for treasures or fertile sediment. Now, he just wanted them to break rocks.

He asked Shelby to find a place with lots of rocks near their home. She just grabbed him, taking him to some rocky hills south of the marshes.

It wasn’t a gold mine but it had plenty of rocks. Jeremy planned on paving a road from the Corner Shop™ to Bountiful to hasten travel. Maybe a proper road would entice people to settle near his — or even within his domain. The City Lord didn’t give him a large tract of land, but it was large enough for a handful of houses and a few more fields.

He noticed that Shelby seemed agitated as he inspected the hills.

“What is it girl?” he asked. Shelby carried herself rather well for a giant snail. Visible agitation meant she was either scared or raring to go someplace. He didn’t sense fear, so it was probably the latter.

Greenies. Not far.

“Goblins or orcs?”

Shelby seemed confused by his words, not knowing what they meant.

Bigger ones, a few little ones like the ones that hurt Shelby.

Jeremy nodded. He would have to have someone teach Shelby a lot more words — not that anyone understood her apart from him. She knew she was smart, but she lacked the tools to express herself.

“The bigger ones are orcs,” he explained, “the smaller ones are goblins.”

Same taint — not right. She seemed disturbed by their very existence.

Sebas once told him that goblins, orcs, and other greenies could be aliens. He frowned at the word, but his butler explained it meant from another world or plane.

He was inclined to agree. His life ward, even at full force, did little to goblins — what more the larger orcs? He had to resort to hellfire to get rid of the pests — something he didn’t particularly enjoy.

His knowledge of jerms made him realize that smelling burning goblin meant parts of them were entering his nose. It was a good thing his ward affected goblin pollen, as Sebas described the stuff, even if it didn’t affect fully-formed goblins.

Jeremy approached the agitated Shelby, climbing her shell to sit in one of its more comfortable nooks.

“You know what to do.”

Shelby seemingly purred in contentment at his words. She sped west, away from the marshes, heading towards the coast.

Their destination was no cave on a mountain — it was a crevice. Jeremy was hesitant to go down, but Shelby seemed insistent on dealing with the creatures that she found wrong.

They descended on one of the milder slopes. Shelby had no problems sticking to the surface, but Jeremy had to reposition himself on her shell to avoid a sudden plunge.

The crevice was deep, and there were tell-tale signs of habitation once they reached the bottom. A few tunnels led further underground — some of them made more recently.

The sun barely reached the bottom of the crevice and the tunnels were dark as a starless night.

(Note: Can’t say dark as pitch because Jeremy’s world was created by gods, so no dinosaurs or prehistoric forests to make oil, tar, or coal)

Once again, Jeremy activates his chiropteran senses. Shelby had some sort of tremor or earthsense, so the presence or absence of light made little difference to her.

Shelby led the way to one of the tunnels. Jeremy stayed behind, allowing the giant snail to serve as a moving wall to shield him from enemies.

The tunnels were lined with luminescent green mold. The wizard knew that goblins formed from mold, and the deep tunnels could certainly spawn thousands of them.

It didn’t take long for Shelby to find her first targets — goblins seemingly carving up a wall to expand the cavern. The snail barrels into the creatures, crushing a handful with her bulk and pummeling the rest with her flails.

Her sudden charge took Jeremy by surprise. All he managed to do was hurl a few fire bolts at a couple of fleeing goblins — not that it mattered. Shelby’s rampage and the dying screams of the goblins echoed throughout the cave — others would be coming.

***

Sebas was a bit worried. His master left with Shelby to find a suitable place to quarry stones an hour ago — what was taking them so long to get back?

Adventurers coming to the Corner Shop™ talked about strange things brewing in the Great Forest of Dun — there were even sightings of a dragon-like creature that breathed fire but had no wings.

Surely the two didn’t go after that?

Even if they did, the butler could only take pity on the creature. Shelby’s shell was nigh impossible to break, and his master had a multitude of means to literally unleash hell.

He just hoped there would be no collateral damage — or witnesses to his master’s show of force.

He heard voices behind the door before it opened to reveal three people. Two of them were familiar to Sebas. They were the first group to buy Lifesavers™.

He didn’t count Darralath’s party — they were given freebies and stood as test subjects. These two took a chance — even if rumors gave their Lifesavers™ a bad rep.

Along with the two, came a woman — most likely a spellcaster. She seemed uneasy, as if she wanted to ask a question but was hesitant to do so.

“Welcome to the Corner Shop™. How may I serve you?” Sebas spouted familiar lines from a faraway world. He noticed one of the brothers’ left arm seemed a bit paler than the other — probably newly grown.

“The snails,” the woman started, “we wanted to thank the snails.” She reached into her robes, pulling out a card with the Corner Shop™ logo.

“I was wondering where some of those went,” smiled Sebas. “Did the snails pester you into following them here?”

He often wondered what the three did in their travels. Hopefully harassing potential customers was not one of them.

“Nothing of the sort,” Arkos countered. “The snails saved us in the forest. One of them even got injured doing it.”

“Hmmm” Sebas seemed thoughtful. One of the three snails did seem wobbly when they returned yesterday, but the butler wrote it off as exhaustion from playing.

“I will give the snails your regards,” he reassured them. “I’d give them treats — but I’m not sure what they eat.”

“Also a-about the Lifesavers™,” Arkos stutters. “Is it true you can just eat them or put them in a wound?”

The butler repressed a sigh. From a look on their faces — especially the woman’s — he had an idea of what may have occurred.

“Yes, of course,” confirmed Sebas. “They’ll work as long as they’re inside your body.”

His last sentence made the butler cringe — but not visibly. That statement started this whole fiasco, though it did save Siege’s life.

“I take it your arm was severed?” he asked Aiden. “Can I check to see if there are any problems?”

“No problems,” Aiden answered. He reached over the counter to allow the shopkeeper to check his brand-new arm.

“Seems fine,” Sebas reassured the warrior. “Would you be needing a new shield or perhaps armor?”

“Just another Lifesaver.”

It turned out they encountered fomorians — not trolls. Illendra realized this as she was about to burn the one that pummeled Aiden. Fomorian eyes sold for 300 gold each. Each one of them got 400 gold after selling the two sets of eyes — too bad they burned the third one.

“I would advise waiting a week until you get one,” Sebas started to explain. “Lifesavers™ take a snapshot of your body, drawing blood now might not have the best results as your body is still recovering from its use.”

“Snapshot?” Arkos asked. The word sounded like something you did with your bow — a learned skill or maneuver.

“I meant memory,” Sebas corrected. “Lifesavers™ takes your body’s memory, as well as your own, to create an image of the body. Once you take it, it reverts the body into that image.”

“I want one as well,” declared Illendra. “And some of the healing drops. I heard they worked as well as potions — even recovering a bit of mana.”

“Indeed they do,” Sebas smiled. His master made the drops himself — he probably infused infernal mana on the things. “I would need to draw a bit of bleed for the Lifesavers™.”

“That’s fine.” She offered her arm. Seeing the wonders it did to Aiden was more than enough to convince her to buy one. She just hoped the brothers would remember to just feed it to her instead of doing something nasty.

***

How many orcs could there be?

Jeremy expected dozens not hundreds of them. The first batch of goblins proved to be an exception. From then on, they faced a tide of orcs — sometimes fifteen to twenty at a time.

Shelby’s armored body and sheer bulk allowed her to keep the orcs away from him, and Jeremy made sure to make quick work of their enemies.

He remembered Shelby’s woeful cries of pain when the goblins severed all of her flails — he took it to himself not to allow it to happen again.

It seemed like hours (omicron) — an hour and 12 minutes to be exact.

Jeremy felt his body getting heavy — not that he was unfit or anything. Sebas said it was the adren-something pumping in his veins. Either way, he wouldn’t be able to keep up if they had to battle orcs for another hour or so.

Shelby pummeled the last orc into paste. She seemed eager to go deeper — her frantic clicks and whistles adding to her mental urges for him to come.

The two delved into the cave, encountering fewer and fewer orcs. Shelby’s charges gave Jeremy little to do, but it also cost the brave snail. One of her flails was severed by a lucky strike from an orc’s axe. It didn’t seem to daunt the snail, but Jeremy made sure to scold her, making her promise to wait for him to launch the first attacks before she goes off charging their enemies.

It took them another (omicron) 46 minutes before they reached their destination — the source of the taint, or so Shelby said.

It was a green glass-like shard the size of a tower shield.

Motes of green light drifted from the shard — motes that would give rise to goblins and orcs.

Shelby was right, Jeremy noted. The thing felt wrong, out of place, even alien — to use Sebas’ words.

What was troubling was the pedestal beneath the shard. The thing was placed by someone purposefully.