I was becoming vegetarian under BuyMort, but not by choice. The hobbs had brought a hearty amount of the yarsp steaks from the morning’s breakfast feast, clearly intending them for lunch as well. The way Axle tore into them, slobbering and moaning with pleasure finally got to me.

Rayna’s words about my revulsion toward eating bugs being all in my head rang clearly, and I asked for a small yarsp steak. One of the hobbs who knew me laughed and happily shared one of his extras.

It was a small chunk of seared white flesh, and when he plopped it on my empty plate, my nostrils filled with the smell of fresh cooked bacon. It wasn’t exactly right, but it was so close it couldn’t be compared to any other smell.

The meat even looked appetizing, like fresh caught, pan cooked fish. I lifted it gently with my fingers, sniffing closer. A droplet of grease fell back to the plate, and everything in my brain screamed bacon from the close-up smell. Slightly wrong bacon.

I took a bite. A nibble really, just a little flake to taste. The flavor was simple, but strong and familiar. Space bacon. It wasn’t exactly like bacon, to be fair, that was just the first thing that popped in my head. The flavor was much more akin to a salt pork steak, with the full robust smoke of the sear burnt in perfectly.

My head filled with thoughts of the angry insects charging me at the gate, tearing parts out of me and swallowing them in front of my eyes, and I grimaced, taking a bigger bite and chewing. Dammit, these violent bugs were delicious.

With a shake of my head, I had to admit that I had been wrong about bugs. My stomach still wasn’t thrilled when I swallowed the flakey treat, but it didn’t come back up, and I genuinely wanted more.

The entire steak went down the hatch, and I nodded at the hobb who had given it to me. He grinned wide and gave me a double thumbs up.

Axle and I finished our meal and the whole crew got to work, after I slipped away to provide Dro’erja some food. He gratefully accepted, and shared a portion of the yarsp meat I gave him with Shela before I left.

Stringing our new lights was easier than I had expected. If you held the cave-kelp just right to the wall, it would attach itself. Most of our work went by quickly, and by the time we were finished, we had lighting in the entirety of the medical wing.

Each strand of lichen clung to a corner of the ceiling, running down both sides of the halls from the entrance of the facility all the way through medical and down the hallway to residential. I was happy to leave the soft lighting that the delves had left behind in residential. However it was charged, Axle would figure it out.

Not like we could sell that stuff anyway. May as well use it.

The only area left in the dark was our Sleem farm, which Axle and the work crew went to get started as I left to go meet with Lee. By the time I stepped back out into the sunshine, it was eight AM.

The lot was mostly empty, with a few loaded vehicles still in place. Most of the plants and growing gear had been unloaded and staked down beneath tarps to protect them from too much direct sunlight. Lee and Suzanne were seated on a pile of overturned pots, eating breakfast silently.

“Hi guys,” I said as I approached. I stopped and took my helmet off, tucking it into my satchel. “Glad you made it.”

Lee nodded, without looking up at me.

Suzanne squinted in the morning light, shielding her eyes. “Thanks to you and yours, Tyson. I sure am glad we met.”

Lee blinked, and his mustache twitched as he sniffed and looked up at me finally. “Yes, thank you for your charity.”

I chuckled and pulled out a stack of pots for myself to sit on. “Yeah, about that.”

Lee looked up at me, the early stages of a scowl forming on his forehead.

“It’s not charity. We’ve got a space set up for you to get some stuff growing, underground.”

I looked around again.

“We can also rally some volunteers to get all this down there, get it protected.”

Lee sighed, rubbing at one knee with a hand. “That’s appreciated. Any place for us to sleep?”

I grimaced. “Yeah, that part should be available by nightfall, but there’s a bunch of construction about to happen all day to make it possible. I suggest a nap down below, it’s much cooler down there. Just, don’t go in the residential section just yet please. It’s still a mess from this morning, and my ops manager is going to be working down there a lot today.”

They both nodded in understanding.

“There’s some tents, air mattresses, and basic bedding in the main storage barn, I can get some of those brought over if you want,” I offered.

Lee straightened and took in a long breath. “No, thank you, Tyson, I believe we shall be alright on our own. We still have a considerable stash of morties, and I want to set up an office down below anyway, for the grow.”

Suzanne clapped her hands. “Oh that reminds me.” She began playing with the air in front of her, before poking repeatedly at the upper right corner. When she finished what she was doing, she turned back to me and smiled.

I glanced at my affiliate screen to see a transfer of two million morties from Sundew Valley, our newest associated affiliate. “Oh, wow! Thank you!” I said, happily swiping half of it into Axle’s build fund. That would buy us a lot of goblin construction.

“Least we can do, you taking us in,” Lee grumbled.

I shook my head. “Wasn’t an option to leave you out there to die, Lee. For more reasons than one.”

His mustache raised in a smile. “Ah yep, I get your meaning.”

“The grow you set up in our basement is going to be critical for this place, we have so many mouths to feed already. But I was hoping you would sit in on a quick meeting with our scouts before you go get some rest, would you be up for that?” I asked.

Lee nodded and pressed hard on one knee as he stood. “If it's right now, I’ll be happy to attend.”

I stood and indicated the gate with one hand. “Right this way.”

Lee set a slower pace, which helped me take in the carnage of our hallway. The hobbs had been hard at work already, using smaller pickup trucks to haul away the dead yarsps.

I noticed one of the vehicles was being hand pushed by a team of hobbs and realized we would need to acquire fuel soon as well as everything else on my list of very important things we couldn’t do without.

The yarsps had been piled and crushed into corners, clearing a path in the center for free movement. There were hundreds of them in the hallway alone, and I could see beyond the destroyed gate that there was even more outside.

An area had been cleared around the gate, and a large group of hobbs was working on repairing it. Part of the metal slab had been hung already, and I saw welding tools at work in large gray hands.

As we walked, the sun gleamed against something shiny. The blade of Falcor, my supposedly magic sword, was jutting part way out of the mud-crete wall, beneath a mostly cleared away pile of dead yarsps.

I hauled it out of the wall and inspected the blade. Portions of it were different. Dull.

The sword looked like plain dull iron across part of the edge in bands, and blurred into its magic level of sharpness across the rest of it. The areas affected seemed mostly close to the handle, but dull patches were visible along the entire length of the blade. I shook my head and fought the weapon back into its sheath, struggling with each portion of visibly dull iron.

A flurry of ads swarmed my vision. I sighed. Of course my trusty friend BuyMort was right here to help, living alongside me in my noggin.

The tiny boxes jostled each other for position and I chose the first one I could.

A video popped up. An orc with a receding hairline wearing a business suit faced me.

Are you struggling to make money in the new BuyMort Multiverse? I've got three words for you. Advanced Affiliate Marketing.

Oh fuck off I thought, throwing away the ad and selecting another one.

This one was all texts and pictures, unlike the rest of the lot. Those video and audio ones would probably get me killed someday.

When the stars were blue and giant, Xurthak was there. From before the first black hole, at the inception of life itself, Xurthak was there.

Xurthak has seen all. Xurthak has lived all. Xurthak, the all-wise, prophet of his people, keeper of the knowledge.

And now, Xurthak is using his uncountable eons of existence to help you!

Need advice? Ask Xurthak? Need something forged? Ask Xurthak! Repair, assembly, disassembly, the meaning of life . . . nothing is unknown to Xurthak for he has seen all.

Check out Xurthak's Affiliate page for more details!

I gaped. About the only honest response anybody could have to this ad. Especially since it was backed by pictures of a being that looked almost exactly like Cthulhu. Really just missing an eye or two.

Now was not the time to be looking at another new hire, unfortunately. But still, it was something else to ask Axle about later. I’d hate to lose the weapon, but I still had the highwater blaster, the plasma falchion, and my fists. And, let's face it. That ad was fire! Fucking Xurthak. I'd have to ask about him as well.

We entered the main campground through a carefully controlled gate and headed toward the raven’s nest. The triangular plot of land had been built up on again, with the addition of long canes covered in berry vines. The birds had filled every inch of unused space inside their fencing with the vines, and plump, vibrant colored berries grew on each.

Yellow berries were most prominent, fat, and bulbous on their vines. But bright greens and purples accompanied the more standard colors of raspberries and blackberries. Several of the canes near the back supported webbing that crawled with unusual looking insects.

They scuttled along the tall poles and buzzed between them with short, fat wings that barely covered their bulbous red bodies. In several places I could see the insects eating from mechanical feeders on the canes, and they extruded webbing from their hind ends as they crawled or flew.

As I watched, one of the ravens emerged from their miniature structure and hopped along the tops of the canes, until arriving near me and snapping up two of the plump, red flies. It wasn’t Darclau, but I had seen this raven before, and the bird seemed to be in a good mood.

The raven hung upside down, grasping the tops of the canes with their feet as they snapped at more of the insects. The red flies had the good sense to flee the bird’s beak, but they were so numerous that another four were devoured before I turned back to Lee.

Lee was staring, hands behind his back. “This is our scout?”

“Ahh, yeah. One of em, I think,” I said.

“And how do we get the information from them?” Lee asked.

I bit my lower lip, nodding as I stared at the playful raven. The bird had decided it was full enough for the time being and hopped from cane-top to cane-top, scaring the insects and cackling as they scrambled between nests in fluttering clouds.

“Good question. There’s this translator we can call. Dunno how much she costs, Darclau paid for her last time. I cannot for the life of me find a good, affordable universal translation device, gotta ask Axle about that,” I said.

For the next few minutes, I dug around in my bag for her card. There was no way I was going to remember the bird lady’s name, let alone what her face looked like. When I tried, I just got a mildly sexy, scary dinosaur lady, in a black feather theme.

Thankfully, I still had it, tucked away in the bottom corner of the bag. I pulled the wrinkled item out and read it over.

“Sheena Rapatore, multidimensional translator. Fluent in most forms of avian communication.”

I pulled up my psychic phone and gave her a call. The screen filled with her face, and she blinked at me.

“How is Darclau?” Sheena immediately asked.

“I haven’t seen him this morning, but I was hoping to have you come for a visit, help me talk to him a little bit,” I offered.

The woman’s beak clicked, and her feathers ruffled. “Of course.” She began swiping at a device in her lap before she looked back up to me. “I have sent you my page. Choose your services, and I’ll be there via pod in no time.”

I nodded and pulled up my BuyMort screens again. This time, the services were listed, and affordable. She would only charge ten thousand morties an hour for the translation services, which included her bodyguard escort.

The transport charge was enormous, however. Four-hundred-and seventy three thousand morties for BuyMort to beam her to me.

“Woah! That’s expensive,” I exclaimed. When she narrowed her eyes and cocked her head sideways at me, I shook my head. “Oh, not you, the transport fee. It’s ridiculous.”

“Ah, yes. That is because my ship has left the orbit of your planet. My services are not exactly in demand on Nu-Earth, most of the intelligent avian species have already been killed,” she said, with a sad shrug. “We must seek morties for our services elsewhere and are en-route to the Sol gate now.”

“They’ve been killed? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Your ravens are some of the last corvids on Nu-Earth, Tyson. Most of them immediately went to war with their neighboring humans, and the new arrivals, and met with predictable fates,” she said, clucking her tongue as she finished.

“It is strange. Corvids fared so much better in BuyMort the last time an Earth was absorbed. Of course, there were so many more of them at that time.”

I scowled and nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll protect my flock if I can, but they fly free in the area.”

Sheena thrust her neck forward and back quickly, chattering her beak. Then she sighed. “Bright lives can be more meaningful than long lives.”

“Oh that reminds me!” I said, snapping my fingers. “I made suet cake.”

Sheena cocked her head sideways and peered at me with one eye in the phone, before she pulled away and shrugged. “I will see you soon.”

I nodded, disconnected my phone, and paid the exorbitant fee for her to come translate for us.

Everything was coming together.