The sounds of battle had peaked, but it still echoed from around the compound, bouncing off of mud-crete efficiently enough to confuse where some of it came from. I followed a nearer and more definite source, rounding the corner of one residential building to find yet another new monster trying to snuff us out.

It was a massive blob of translucent jelly. Several small dots of light raced around the confines of its body, lighting it up within. A group of my campers were fighting it with a variety of makeshift weapons that included a rake and several shovels, and beside them were a trio of hobbs who busily pumped long make-shift spears through its body.

I calmed myself down, examining it for weaknesses. It wasn’t quite a jellyfish, though its upper portion resembled one a great deal. The lower part was a clear skirt of material, that pushed outward along the ground to attack.

Movement caught the side of my eye and a moment later I witnessed a gobb run by. It tried to snatch a holstered weapon from one of the humans in formation but the man kicked out and knocked him to the ground for his efforts.

The jellyskirt glorped out at the little green man and he was enveloped by the monster immediately. He started jerking with motion as electricity coursed through his body. His mouth shot open wide and bubbles gurgled through the monster, even as the gobb’s eyes burst and his still jerking body was drawn deeper into the beast.

The gobb still twitched with electrical activity, he was just clearly no longer alive or fighting to remain that way.

Tollya arrived at my side. “No fight, Tyson?” In her hands she held a pump-action shotgun, well-oiled and pure black. It was up and ready, waiting for a target. “You injured?”

“I was trying to figure out how to kill it. Is it like a sleem? Should we get some fire ready?”

Tollya shook her head. “Sometime forget you so new. Need hit lights.”

I looked more closely and saw rhythm to the battle stance of my people. They’d circled it, pushing and poking, preventing the jellyskirt from effectively moving while the hobbs tried to extinguish the lights within. But the task was clearly not as easy as Tollya had made it sound, for the lights bobbed and weaved, easily avoiding the piercing stabs of my soldiers.

“Good there!” Tollya shouted. She raised a hand, and the combined group of humans and hobbs turned to stare at her. The hobb strolled right up to the circle, squeezed one eye shut, and fired the shotgun.

The buckshot bounced violently from the jellyskirt’s upper body, ricocheting into the mud-crete at my side. I ignored it and produced my plasma falchion, but before I could turn it on, the creature released a rumbling sound and collapsed to the ground.

The gathered defenders stepped back as sparking liquid rushed from the jellyskirt, flooding out toward them. Beneath the surface, one patch of lights had been struck by the buckshot impact and was no longer tightly clustered. Its points of lights flickered and blinked, as each flowed further apart from the point of impact. The lights inside stopped racing, moving slower and slower as the upper half of the creature slumped to the dirt beneath itself.

“It dead boss, it okay!” Tollya shouted as she jogged over. “I hit in nerve cluster. Last bug if you got aggropedes.”

I noticed for the first time that all other nearby sounds of battle had ceased. With the death of the jellyskirt, the immediate area of my village had gone quiet.

“I don’t know, I think so. They killed somebody back in the hall,” I said, pointing over my shoulder.

“Two out here too, boss. We lose three hobbs too,” she said.

“Six down already, that we know about,” I muttered. “Tollya!”

The hobb woman snapped to attention, staring at me.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

She blinked a few times, shook her head, and pointed behind me. “Clear up gobbs. Bonk and send home, then you redo contract.”

I nodded and thwacked my chest to her. “Thank you, lead that effort. I need to check on Molls and Cube!”

She saluted me back, then turned to bark orders at the hobbs behind her. They scattered, running toward the nearest rampaging goblins as I turned and ran for home.

A flash of memory hit me, and I thought of Axle alone with a goblin worker, in the semi-hidden desert space between our parking lot and my home. The fight was mostly over, but not done entirely just yet. I veered that way, storming up the scrub laden dune to get a better look.

Across the campground, people and hobbs chased small green shapes, BuyMort pods swam through the air, and our d’jhz tower plumed black smoke from its partial destruction. The mud-crete was tough, and part of the tower still stood, slowly dripping thick, milky liquid into the fires below. It could be fixed, but the lives lost stung.

I turned and headed into the desert where Axle was building his library. The area was surrounded by scrub and the occasional Joshua tree, so I couldn’t clearly see my operations manager until I entered the small clearing he was using for his library.

The structure had been partially built, simple as it was. A shelving section was worked into the mud-crete walls, from the floor up, surrounding a singular metal and composite kiosk. The kiosk had a screen, but it also had headphones and several other device compatibility jacks. A gobb construction worker was busily trying to saw through them with his knife, while Axle sat on the ground a short distance away, hands raised in surrender.

I walked over, not trying to mask my footsteps, and the gobb noticed me. He turned, needle teeth glinting as he jabbered something while pointing his small knife. It was an industrial box cutter, with the thin blade extended as far as it would go. The gobb already had the headphones loose, but several of the other cables had been giving him a hard time, based on the visibly ragged cuts.

The little green man barked something final and lunged at me. I ignored the knife blade entirely and swatted the gobb aside. His oversized head thunked against the ground and his eyes crossed as he fell unconscious.

Axle took a deep, shaky breath and stood. “Thank you, boss,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes but nodded. “He get you?”

The Knowle shook his head. “No, I am ashamed to say I surrendered the moment he went feral. The knife brought up unpleasant memories, and I froze.” He glanced inside the partial library and whined in the back of his throat. “Aw, my access point!”

Axle grabbed the headphones from the gobb’s still clenched hand and picked up the other end of the cable. “Oh, this can be fixed. Still, it was brand new.” He turned to face me, saying, “we are witnessing the down-side to goblin construction. They are all pirates, if given the chance.”

I pointed at the gobb on the ground and said, “BuyMort, recall.” Then, to Axle, “We’ve lost six already, mostly to bugs. They hit us with a suicide bomber, can you track that back to Dearth? We still have the church tag, if we can prove they attacked our affiliate directly we may get some help from a bigger fish.”

“Perhaps. I will go assess the damage, once the rest of them are rounded up,” Axle said. He reached in his bag and tossed me a fresh pair of silk pants from the delves.

I grabbed them from the air and tossed them on, before I started jogging toward my privacy mound. “Thank you Axle, stay safe!”

As soon as I got close to the mound, I heard the chatter of frustrated gobbs. Cresting the hill, I saw several surrounding Molls’ car, trying to pull various parts off from it, and struggling to open the doors, trunk, and hood. I charged, bellowing at the little green men to ‘get away.’

A couple did, but most turned to face me as I approached, brandishing various construction tools. Most of the gobbs wore simple tool belts, so each of them had a screwdriver, box cutter, or hammer easily at hand, and the old Lincoln town car had suffered for it.

The only thing that had prevented them from selling the whole thing outright was Molls’ presence in the car. BuyMort won’t take sale of something that is in immediate structural use by another customer, even if there is no valid MortBlock claim on it. The only time BuyMort would do that is if the item in question was MortBlock owned.

I swatted aside the first to reach me, using a casual backhand to send him tumbling to the dirt at my feet. The rest took note of that, and I had to chase down the next two I knocked out before I could recall them to BuyMort.

Molls got out of the car then, slithering hurriedly to me. I opened my arms, and she threw herself into them.

“Thank you Tyson! Thank you!” Her scales were vibrant yellow, and the muscles beneath her skin were trembling. “I hate gobbs!” She nuzzled her head against my throat and chin as I held her close.

“I’m sorry, Molls. I should have seen this coming. Gotten the radar faster, maybe.” I sighed, holding onto her lower back. Her muscles rippled wrong, different from human women, but still recognizable as muscle movement.

She pulled back and met my gaze, the yellow fear in her scales slowly receding. “They attack for any reason, or none, I would never blame you. I just don’t enjoy the memories, I was in a fairly major goblin attack as a child once, on a philanthropic trip to Storage with my parents.”

I sighed and changed my grip on her back, raising one hand to lightly press her shoulders in toward me. She accepted the movement and raised her eyes to my own. “You have a wonderful way of distracting me, I’m forgetting all about the bad memories already,” she sighed.

A scream from my house behind us reminded me of what was happening, and I released the curvy snake woman in my arms with an apology. She smiled at me and turned back to her car, and I ran to rescue Hord, Mel, and Cube.

The scream had come from upstairs, and as I rushed in, I saw the state my new home was in. The wicker chairs were missing, as was Cube’s old stand. My jury rigged oven was bent and broken, the special adaptor and propane tank missing. As I watched, a BuyMort pod zipped in and warped away the oven too, whistling a happy tune as it left.

I took the spiral staircase three steps at a time. One gobb was busy tearing up my mattress, checking the innards for any valuables. He stopped as I entered and brandished a curved, stubby linoleum knife at me. As the goblin charged, I deflected the blade with a forearm and shoved the goblin away.

His body bounced once, hit the far wall, and stilled with a groan. He still clutched the knife, but I left him to go around the wall to my bathroom area. It was a small, cramped little room. Axle had designed it to have a box shower at the end of the tiny hallway, with a small toilet and sink installed beside it. The entire arrangement was tucked into a small area behind my bed.

Hord was in the shower, standing in front of Mel. He was holding Mel’s Glock and pointing it at the gobbs but raised the weapon to me as I walked around the corner. Cube was in Mel’s hands, clutched to her chest. A group of four gobbs were crowded in the tiny room, shoving and jabbering as they tried to reach Cube.

The hobb immediately lowered the gun, but I could see the fear reaction on his face. I ignored the weapon and moved to deal with the crowd of gobbs. I walked through the group of gobbs, throwing them backwards by their collars. The last one managed to stab me with his box cutter, but I ignored the wound. It was minor enough that I barely even felt the pain from it through the cloud of painkiller my suit provided.

I turned to make sure the gobbs were no longer a threat and saw a pile of groaning green men blocking the exit to my bathroom. With a sigh, I told BuyMort to recall the goblin workers and turned back to face Hord and Mel.

Hord had quickly handed the gun back to the girl and was standing with Cube in his outstretched arms. “We protect camp’s power.”

“Good work Hord, thank you. Thank you too Mel, I bet you didn’t expect this when you signed up to babysit today, but I really appreciate it,” I said, leaning against the rudimentary sink. Even that simple item the gobbs had tried to pry the metal handles free from, chipping and scratching the surfaces.

The young woman snorted, securing the snap on her holster. “Didn’t sign up for a damned thing, but sure, whatever.”

She pushed her way past us, kicked one of the gobbs on her way by, and went outside on the balcony.