"Jim?"

"Jim? Are you there? Why don't you answer me?"

"Jim?"

"Jim, I need to talk. Please be there. Okay?"

"Where did he go?", Fred thought. He suddenly felt alone. Like a big cold wave of alone smashed down upon him. He found himself laying down next to Shelly and her family. He knew he didn't have any arms or legs, but he still curled up in the tightest ball he could manage. He knew Jim was just a bunch of green text that appeared in front of his vision. But the sudden loss of that was a gut punch. Was Jim just away from the phone? Perhaps in the shower? When would Jim be back? Would he ever come back at all? Fred realized how little he knew about Jim. Where was he? Was he even a he? Jim did say he wasn't a human.

As Fred sat in his funk, the humans retreated. It was still very early after nightfall. Fred assumed the humans were just waiting til morning before coming back inside. This took a while to work out; Fred felt like he was thinking through molasses, but he also knew he was just scared and worried. Every so often he'd ask Jim to answer him, but no reply appeared.

It was about midnight (but seemed much sooner to Fred) when a new creature showed up. It was… weird. Like an armadillo made of metal, but with large bladed forearms. Bigger than the wolf, but not the bear. It had beady eyes set deep beneath an armored brow, and the sneer of a psycho killer. "That's terrifying", thought Fred. The beast moved confidently into one of the original six lairs, one of the unoccupied ones, sat down, and turned yellow. Fred didn't have energy for this, but he got up anyway and visualized what sort of lair the beast wanted.

What he saw was a deeper lair, so the beast could go all the way to the back and make the attackers come to it. It also wanted its lair to be full of tall grass to hide in. Fred didn't have any tall grass around. He rather listlessly deepened the lair, and added short grass, and watched the beast stalk to the back of the lair and lay down. It kinda turned greenish-yellow, and that was more than Fred could be bothered to care about. He went back to laying down with Shelley's family.

That's when he saw a groundhog leaving. "Wait! Where are you going?", Fred said reflexively. The groundhog didn't heed him, and scrambled up one of the escape tunnels. None of the other groundhogs stirred, or seemed bothered, so Fred decided nothing bad was probably going on, and got back to laying down and trying not to think. After an hour, the groundhog did come back. Fred wondered if he should ask Jim about it, and that plunged him back into his depression, which swirled around him all night.

In the morning, there was a lot of activity outside. Fred was vaguely aware of it. As he idly watched, a couple of the warrior types hefted big sacks into the entrance of his domain, and began to spill the sacks onto the floor. Knives, swords, axes, bits of armor, a few coins, and other things came bouncing out of the sacks. When they were empty, the men left quickly, and dozens of people watched the entrance from a few dozen spans away. The sparkles started accumulating around all the stuff that had been dumped, and when the items dissolved completely, the humans let out a big group cheer.

Fred could see that many new Treasure Sprites had just been formed. "Huh," he idly mused. "I didn't think the humans had figured out that trick yet." He decided to ask Jim about it, then called out to him. Still no response. "What am I gonna do if Jim never comes back? I guess nobody can hurt me, so I'm safe. Do I keep doing the zookeeper thing? That's what I'm made for. That's what Jim said, anyway."

There was still a lot of activity by the humans. Lots of getting ready, forming lines, talking. There was some paperwork, too, and it looked to be annoying everyone, except the few people shaking the paperwork at everyone else. But after another twenty minutes or so, the fighting began.

In groups of two, warrior types started to go inside Fred's domain, and challenge the monsters. It was clearly well planned and organized, so it started out very efficiently. A group rushed into the wolf's lair, and battled quickly before killing it. Simultaneously, another group rushed the bear/boar room, and another group rushed into the lizard room. Fred saw a fourth group of three warriors who stood in the middle of the main hallway, like guards, or backup players. All of Fred's creatures died fairly quickly, but the boar/bear team had turned their attackers into a bloody mess, who had to be drug outside.

Fred looked in on the new metal-armored beast. It hadn't budged from its spot in the far back of the lair, but it was alert to the nearby battle sounds, and it looked decidedly more yellow than last night. Fred felt a bit guilty about not giving it the long grass it wanted. He looked around, but still didn't see anything but short grass within his visible domain. While he thought about it, all the warriors left, and he could see further tumult outside, as wounds were treated and boasts were made.

He had a sudden thought. "Could it be that easy?", he asked rhetorically. He went back to the metal beast room, and simply willed the grass to be taller. It grew bigger. Just like that, he'd made the tall grass the beast wanted, by making the grass bigger as a whole. Big leaves of oversized grass stood as tall as a man in the room. The metal beast was suddenly green, though its amazingly evil sneer was just as scary as ever.

In thirty minutes, Fred's dead creatures were all back to full health. And another wave of humans invaded. It was the same game plan as before, but this time, all four of the teams included some sort of robed human. Fred's createurs were pelted with fireballs and lightning bolts, and no humans seemed seriously hurt. But the fourth group, the backup group, seemed more curious about the lair of the metal beast. "Why not," Fred mused, "The big grass is all new. They gotta be curious." The group of three warriors and a caster-type moved carefully into the grassy lair, and foolishly stepped into the small forest. The metal beast came alert, and crouched waiting.

Fred felt sure that the humans were about to be slaughtered. The metal beast seemed like it knew exactly what it was doing, and the humans hadn't ever seen it before. He worried that they would be chopped up in an instant by those bladed arms, and wondered if giving the beast the lair it wanted was really a good idea. He watched as the beast coiled and sprang into motion like a cat.

The humans were taken by surprise, but the metal beast went for the leader first, and he was amazing. He successfully parried the blades of the beast with his sword and shield, and grunted as the two pressed together. He shouted two words, which Fred assumed were "Get out!", because that's what his team did, running without hesitation all the way out of Fred's domain. Looking closer, Fred saw the man was tall, with blonde hair and a handsome face, that was currently scrunched up as the man fought for his life. The beast kept slamming him with those bladed arms, and the man kept using his shield and sword brilliantly to block and redirect the blows.

The man was being pushed back through the grass to the entrance of the lair, and Fred realised it wasn't an accident. This man was a master-class warrior, knew how dangerous the beast was, and knew that if he turned and ran, the beast would run him down. Grunting (the man) and shrieking (the beast), the two moved to the entrance of the lair, and when the grass was behind it, the beast stopped pressing. The two stared at each other for a second, a big stare-off like in a spaghetti western movie. Then the beast lashed the man's shield with a lightning-quick slice, and retreated through the grass to its resting place. The man (and Fred) looked with amazement as the bottom third of the shield, cut off cleanly, fell to the ground. Leaving it there, the man shuffled cautiously backwards all the way to the exit of the domain. Only then did he turn away from the direction of the beast, and join his group.