I yawned compulsively as I walked down the hall to the guest room, and by the time I got there Doofus was already asleep. Leaving the light off, I just brushed my teeth and guzzled a bunch of water from the sink. Couldn’t taste any chlorine, so I just trusted to the filter in the pool and drank my fill.

As I curled into a ball in the blankets, my psychic phone went off. I had rescued it, and my other pocket items, from the old pants when I put the anti-Sleem suit on. They were nearly done for, so a transfer to the grenade bag had made sense. My hand clattered through crystalline grenades, clicking them into one another and earning me a dissatisfied groan from Doofus.

When I brought the phone out of the bottom of the bag to my face, I could see that it was Phyllis. I had forgotten about Phyllis. My face went red, and I nodded to the deity in my phone. It raised a single eyebrow at me and turned to connect us.

“Hi, Phil. I am so sorry,” I started, laying back in bed and holding the phone above me. Doofus raised his head to give me a thoroughly disgusted sigh, before flopping back onto the bed.

She frowned and shook her head. “Your girlfriend told me you were okay, and I went home.”

“She’s not my girlfriend and you know it.” I groaned.

Phyllis just nodded, watching her show on the other screen. I could hear it faintly, but it sounded like it was coming from her and not the suit. Then I saw the glowing nub sticking out of her ear and became a little concerned with how much she was integrating into this thing.

“You hurt her tonight, you know.”

Phyllis’ voice snapped me out of it, and I thought back to immediately after the Sleem’s lair.

“Yeah, Phil, I know.” I ran a hand through my hair and grimaced. “I dunno what to do, Phil. She’s great, and terrible at the same time. I just couldn’t deal with it all tonight.”

Phyllis frowned understandingly and nodded. She put a fresh joint between her lips and looked at me while her suit lit it for her with a tiny mechanical extension arm that followed her movement unfailingly. “Oh, I understand. She wasn’t crying or anything, but . . .” There she raised her eyebrows at me and took a long inhale.

“Yeah, Phil. I get it.” I shook my head while she held her breath, then spoke again as she let it out with a puff and filled the screen with smoke. “I’m a little busy getting mutilated and nearly killed over and over for the campground, Phil. Molls can give me a second to breathe here and there.”

The old lady looked me in the eye, frowned again, and nodded. “I’m glad you’re still with us, Tyson. And I forgive you for being rude to me.”

I smiled from one side of my mouth. “Thanks Phil. You’re the best, and you’re right. I should have checked in.” My other hand went behind my head and I finally started to relax as I got the pillow in just the right position. “Shit, I coulda really used you down there. You’d have smoked ‘em all before they became a problem.”

She waved the joint at me, going back to her show. “Next time, dearie. Get some sleep, have a good night.” Phyllis turned back and fixed me with her best glare. “And make it right with that sweet girl. Heaven knows what she sees in you, but you should be nice to her.”

I smiled, wrinkling my nose. “Yes, mom.”

Phyllis choked, coughing out the smoke she had been inhaling. Her hand reached over to the screen and before she could turn it off, I heard her mutter something about having drowned me in the tub before I reached three, but then the psychic deity was back, staring at me.

I frowned at him. “Is that kind of thing ever awkward for you anymore? Or do you become numb to it?”

The face blinked, and his eyes left mine. They looked down. “There isn’t much I’m not numb to at this point.” His eyes flicked back up to mine. “Still. Every so often I’m reminded what ‘surprise’ feels like.” Then he faded away and my shitty plastic phone went dark. I let it flop on the bed beside me and sighed.

Everything swirled in my head. The Sleem horde beneath us, the ravens and their mercenaries, Rayna’s hobbs and their needs, Mr. Sada acting shady, and the question of how I was going to pay for groceries the following day all raced through my head until a single thought drowned them all out.

Doofus had come for me in the dark.

We were family. Pack. He understood what it meant that I didn’t come back with the rest of them, he geared up, and he came for me.

Then another thought crossed my mind, right before I passed out. So had Molls.

I awoke in a blind panic only a few hours later, thrashing and causing Doofus to jump off the bed and bail out the open door. I heard his tags jingle as he descended the stairs and I glanced at the clock beside the bed.

Only four AM.

Shaking off the nightmare, I got up to pee before trying to go back to bed. I couldn’t remember it clearly, the nightmare had been just my mind reliving the awful shit in the basement. After I got another sip of water from the sink, I exited the bathroom to get back in bed, and that’s when I saw the pod enter the room. Silently, it slid into position beside the bed and dazzled me with the light from its rainbow beam.

A Sleem cube oozed forward and the pod turned to leave. My eyes went wide and I took in a deep breath. It turned and burbled at me, then we moved at the same time. I dove for the bed, to get to my bag or falchion, and it dove for me.

The cube caught me as I landed on the bed and rapidly swallowed me whole. For what felt like the fiftieth time, I was engulfed by an aggressive Sleem. This time I had nothing to fight it with, and in my panic I just lunged for the bag again, as hard as I could.

Everything burned, but the Sleem actually moved. My arms erupted from it and grasped wildly for my bag, but the Sleem had moved. My eyes had squeezed shut the instant I had been engulfed, so I was blind and disoriented. I latched onto the only thing I could feel, and the cube hauled in what I recognized as the bedside lamp with me.

In a blind instant of panic, I reached up and crushed the bulb in my hand. Everything lit up and I blacked out for less than a second. I woke up as I was falling from Mr. Sada’s second story window encased in spicy Sleem sauce and couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

Thankfully, I landed in the pool. The water level was lower than it should be, but there was still a solid four or five feet, and the landing instantly helped ease the burning I felt all over my body. There were tendrils reaching out from beneath my armor plating, working on repairing the burn damage. I noticed Sleem juice sloughing off and realized I had just contaminated our water supply.

Better check what that filter actually filtered out of the water before drinking any more of it.

As I climbed, spluttering out of the pool, I noticed the mordren, watching me from his shed. He was sitting up, leaned against a set of shelving, and Doofus was sitting happily at his side. Both of the mordren’s arms were wrapped, and he wore an inflatable cast fitted with braces on the hand I had crushed. The hobb on guard duty was there to help me out of the pool, but I climbed out on my own and raised a chin toward the mordren.

“He’s okay with the dog?” I asked.

The hobb, who’s name I didn’t know yet, nodded. “They good friends. No chance he hurt Doof.”

I nodded at him. “Okay, good. Stay here but watch out. There’s a Sleem cube here somewhere.”

The sliding glass doors behind me shattered, and everyone jumped, turning to look. The cube was sliding around the middle divider, then oozing across the glass toward us. The hobb at my side primed his rifle, but led with his Sleem Stick, which made me think he didn’t have the right ammunition for the fight.

Doofus stepped up on the cube’s side and barked. The cube splattered instantly, striking the mud-crete wall and creating a two-tone Jackson Pollock. I wasn’t sure if that would kill it, but the mess didn’t start putting itself back together. It just made a series of wet plops as parts of it detached from the wall and fell into a growing puddle.

Doofus happily trotted over and struck a pose, pointing at the Sleem cube remains. As he walked back to the mordren in Mr. Sada’s shed, a pod zipped in over the wall and warped away all the dead Sleem glop.

It even got the juice from the doorway and interior of the house.

I could see its beam flickering through the broken upstairs window I had recently crashed through. My starfish suit liked it when that kind of thing happened. I always got damaged, but it always got charged more than enough to fix it. The pod made one final pass over the pool and warped out the remaining Sleem sauce floating in the water, before it flew away over the wall. That made one less concern on my list and brought to mind an excellent tactic for cleaning small bodies of water.

Just ask BuyMort to buy everything in it except the hydrogen and oxygen, leave yourself with clean drinking water.

Rayna and Tollya arrived then, running around the corner with weapons readied until they saw me dripping with broken glass everywhere. Then Tollya started laughing and Rayna shook her head as she turned to leave. I walked inside to find a towel to wrap around myself, being careful to only step through the broken glass using my metal covered heels.

When I glanced back, the mordren had joined them in their laughter, snickering from the side of his mouth that wasn’t wired shut. I couldn’t blame him. At least he didn’t appear inclined to hurt Doofus.

In the downstairs bathroom, I found a terrycloth robe hanging on the back of the door. I grabbed it and a pair of fluffy slippers that almost fit me and headed back outside to try and talk to the mordren. A stench hit me as I exited the building and I recoiled, bathrobe arm over my nostrils.

The smell was clearly rotting meat of some kind, but I couldn’t find a source.

All that was in the backyard was the discarded remains of BuyMort boxes and broken glass. I shrugged and kept going. As I approached the shed, the hobb on guard duty walked a short distance away, to lounge in one of the pool chairs and give us some privacy.

The mordren watched him go, while slowly and carefully dragging his wrist across Doofus’s lower back. The dog appeared to be in heaven. He stretched out and licked his nose, before settling in place with a heavy sigh of contentment. That was his ‘good scratchies’ position. The mordren turned his gaze on me as I approached, and his expression darkened.

“Hi,” I stupidly said. I even raised a hand. Thankfully, I wasn’t stupid enough to smile at him too.

The mordren grunted and looked down at Doofus.

“This your dog?” His voice was stilted, as he spoke from the side of his mouth. The front had been wired shut to allow his welded bones time to heal.

I looked between him and Doofus and shook my head. “No, he’s kind of his own dog. I named him, though. I love him like he is my dog, I’m just starting to understand he has more of a say in that than I thought before. He did lead a rescue mission for me though, to help me escape the Sleem dungeon under our feet.”

“Is that what that was? I could hear the roaring of that bug from here.” He concentrated on scratching Doofus just right and didn’t look at me as he spoke. “Too bad you made it.”

The laugh burst out before I could control it, and several more followed it. He stared at me.

“Sorry. I deserved that, didn’t I?”

The mordren shook his head. “If you died, I would have become Rayna’s problem. She would have sent me to Storage, at least.”

“What the fuck is Storage?” I whispered. Raising my voice, I said, “Never-mind, it sounds awful. Just, what do you think I’m going to do?”

“Kill me and sell my corpse.” He shrugged, then winced. “I knew the risks, taking a mission with my credit score.”

“And you would rather I sent you to Storage, whatever that is?” I asked.

He scowled, then looked away. “No. I can not afford anywhere else. So Storage is where I would go.”

As he spoke, I became horrified and distracted as a spider crawled over the mordren’s forehead and down across his long muzzle. He absently swiped the tip of his tail up to catch the arachnid, and calmly transferred it to the floor, where it crawled away into the pre-dawn shadows.

I shuddered. “Ugh, I am sorry about that. There’s probably a lot of them in there, huh?”

The mordren stared at me for a long moment before he blinked and looked away. “In truth, I do not mind them. To my eyes they are quite beautiful.”

Doofus grunted and pawed at his leg, and he smiled, crookedly. The dog sighed and stretched out again as the scratching resumed. He was using a broad, blunt scale edge to scratch Doofus’ favorite spot at the base of his spine, and the dog began licking his nose and thumping a foot as the mordren found just the right area.

I started to smile, but it faltered as I realized the mordren was looking at me. I blinked and met his eyes. “Sorry, what’s your name?”

“Drusk,” he grunted.

“Okay, thank you Drusk, I’m Tyson.” I hesitated as he stared up at me. “I wanted to apologize for your arm.”

Drusk’s eye narrowed. “Strange to apologize, but shouldn’t it be arms?”

“No,” I said. “I should have stopped before I tore your arm out of the socket. That was uncalled for.”

Drusk nodded slowly, looking back at Doofus. “Understood. You’re a strange human, Tyson. I imagine that you’re not going to kill me and sell my corpse, since you’re apologizing for crippling at least one of my limbs.”

I nodded. “Yeah, no. This is embarrassing, but I didn’t realize you were a person. I thought you were just some monster Dearth had unleashed on us.”

His snort made Doofus jump slightly, but the dog quickly settled back in and closed his eyes with a yawn. “I was.”

A small smile crept on my lips, and I nodded at him. “Right. Well, I’m not going to kill you for morties, at least. I’ll be happy to let you go to Storage, or wherever else you want to. There may even be a place for you here, if you want it. We need a spider rancher of some sort, and you seem to like them.” I shrugged when he glared up at me in surprise. “You’re not a prisoner, I just don’t trust you because you hurt my friends.” There I paused to shrug. “But as I understand it, that can be incredibly impersonal under BuyMort, so I’m happy to go our separate ways. Let me know how to help you get to Storage.”

I turned to leave, but his voice rose behind me. “Wait. I can’t go to Storage like this. I wouldn’t survive my recovery there.”

When I turned to look at him, he was still defiant. His chin was raised, and he was looking at me through the narrowed slit of his remaining eye. I nodded and smiled sadly. “I understand. Do you have a family I can contact? Anyone who could arrange transport for you?”

Drusk shook his head.

“I hate to be rude, but I gotta ask. How are you going to survive with no way to make morties?” I winced as soon as I said it, but he didn’t react.

“There’s a breeding program I can sign up with. It will cover my costs at Storage, at the least. It’s possible to negotiate higher, but my situation is not favorable.”

His long tongue flickered behind his sharp teeth as he spoke in that halting manner, being careful not to apply too much pressure to the front of his wired-shut jaw.

“Wow, that sounds . . . actually I don’t know what that sounds like. Breeding program?” I cocked my head as I asked.

“Once I can no longer fight to earn morties, I can breed. Make more mordren, keep the path of the dragon alive.” He shrugged with a wince and looked away. “All I can do, now.”

“Right.” I flinched at what I was about to say but shook my head and went ahead with it. “Since we’re not taking things personally about the attack, I’m going to offer you a deal.”

Drusk’s eye narrowed again. “I’m listening.”

“If you behave, you can stay here and recover.” I swept a bathrobe covered arm to the shed.

“Yours as long as you want it, and I’ll do my very best to feed you too. Once you’re recovered enough, we can put you to work somehow and get you earning some morties.”

“Behave?” He grunted.

“Don’t hurt anyone. Don’t steal anything. Be polite to the hobbs, don’t be disruptive or super noisy. Normal stuff.” I answered, crossing my arms. It was chilly in the dark. Dawn wouldn’t be for a few hours yet, and I had gotten barely any sleep. I wondered if it was making me cranky when Drusk curled a scaled lip and shook his head.

“Can’t hurt anyone.” He raised the arm that would respond and showed me the cast on his hand, bristling with braces.

I fixed him with a glare. “Yes you could.” When he didn’t immediately respond or react I just stared at him and waited.

He met my eyes a couple of times before blinking and responding. “Yes, I could.”

“But you won’t, right?” I told him. It wasn’t a question, but I added a chance for him to respond as if it was anyway.

Drusk nodded and looked me in the eye. “Right.” Then he looked back down to Doofus snoring at his side. “Why help me?”

I shook my head and sighed. “Because I take responsibility for my actions where I can. Do you have special dietary requirements?”

The mordren looked up and me and slowly shook his head. “Meat and root vegetables are good nutrition for my people.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Remember our deal.” I looked from him down to Doofus at his side. “I’m trusting you.”

Drusk stared at me while I turned and left. I was confident that Doofus was a good judge of character. The hobb still returned to the side of the shed as I left, and I nodded my thanks to him while I waited for a BuyMort pod to come and collect all the broken glass in my way.

I was still angry, which I realized had nothing to do with the mordren who was clearly stealing my spot as Doofus’ number one friend. As I stalked upstairs to fetch my gear, I realized I was angry at Molls. Furious, actually.

A Sleem cube had been laying in wait, in the BuyMort system, for some poor schmuck to have a nightmare about Sleem so it could be teleported in and make that nightmare come true.

This, I decided at that moment, was Molls’ fault for worshiping BuyMort. It didn’t make sense to me how the Church could hold the top slot in BuyMort’s entire system and be completely clueless to what it was, or how it operated.

Once my anti-Sleem boots were on, I marched back out into the early morning air and started the walk to Molls’ Lincoln, since it clearly wasn’t mine anymore.

The goblin work crew had set up the wall stupidly, probably my fault. They had made two walls. One on either side of the road, all the way down to the second gate, where the desert wall just ended. At least it provided defense against a vehicle ramming the gate.

I sighed as I entered the campground, stopping in my tracks on the other side of our second gate.

Realization hit me as the hobb manning that gate stared at me. She looked me up and down before turning away and shaking her head.

Ads for clothing came up and a sudden anger seized me. Honestly, why should I care? My dick was covered up and everything cost morties. Why bother buying clothing at all? The starfish suit was just going to tear them off when I got hurt anyway.

I looked down at myself. A bathrobe and giant floppy boots was more than I needed, if I were being honest. If someone wanted me to wear something else, they could buy it for me for a change.

I kept walking, a shit-eating grin firmly in place. It seemed to unnerve the hobb, who suddenly found her gate very very interesting. So much so that not a single glance more came in my direction.

Yeah. This was going to work really well. I strode forward, a sudden gust of wind rippling my robe up and out, giving any onlooker a good look at my ass cheeks. It was hard to give a shit, though. I had stuff to do and people to meet.

Perhaps life in this BuyMort multiverse didn’t have to be so difficult. To be honest, sometimes the relationship with BuyMort was easy. After all, ultimately it was just an app for selling and shopping. A very intrusive one, but not that much more than what my Earth had already developed by the time BuyMort came. And it was a fantastic app for that task, if only it didn’t come with all the societal complications.

Complications I needed to speak to Molls about.