“Evening, Drusk,” I said, pulling the basket of silk scraps free with us. “We’ve come to see if any silk is available for sale.”

The mordren grunted and continued on along his way. Once he reached the populated portion of our spider forest, he began taking strips of the flesh-tape from his box and laying them out around the base of each tree. He used the curved tip of his hook to manipulate the disgusting stuff, and the formation around the trees was not perfect.

Dro’erja approached next. His bucket and sponge-on-a-stick were resting at the base of a nearby tree, and he smiled as he walked over to us.

“Thank you, Tyson Dawes, for access to this paradise,” he said, sweeping his arms to indicate the enclosed spider forest. His gaze fell on Shela, casually playing with the water in her pond, and his smile grew warmer.

“She seems happy,” I said. The cover above us was extended from each of the walls, on long, thin metal poles, and we were protected from prying aerial eyes.

“I have not seen her happier in recent memory,” Dro’erja said, still smiling.

“Good!” I said. I smiled too, watching the strange, oversized spider.

“She has produced some webbing for you, as have the others,” he said, gesturing with one hand down the row of trees. The new walls had been installed outside the range of the small fence Rayna and Tollya had put in, and the spiders were using the fencing to build webbing.

I started walking, with Dro’erja leading the way. He pointed to various trees as we moved a little deeper into the spider forest. “I’m applying Shela’s pheromonal secretions to some of these trees. It should encourage hatchlings to migrate to these unpopulated trees, instead of staying and being devoured by their parents. General forest growth will increase dramatically, and aid recovery chances overall.”

Drusk dumped the last of his box, and turned to the storage barn. “These were all the hobbs brought me. We could use more. I’ll leave the box outside, don’t want the stink in there anyway.”

“Thank you, Drusk!” I said, waving. He stared back at me, before blinking his remaining eye and walking away.

Dro’erja stepped in and got my attention. “Ah, he means well, and has been quite helpful. I suspect he and I are master and fresh pupil in handling experience, but I assure you I will treat him as an equal in rank.”

“Well, I appreciate you showing him the ropes, so to speak,” I said.

Dro’erja laughed once, little more than a tilted grunt in the back of his throat. “Heh, ropes. Yes, I am showing him the ropes. Human phrases are so colorful. At any rate, the flesh-tape will draw winged insects, increase the food supply, and encourage breeding.”

I narrowed my eyes and watched the dark elf gazing over my little forest. “What are the odds of recovery for the ranch?” I asked, after a few moments.

“Good. Excellent, if conditions remain. The back area was the most heavily populated. When your predecessor took their webbing, he managed to leave a healthy portion of your clutter’s population. Enough that most of them survived, even without their webbing for a day. Your orb weavers are especially vigorous, several eggs have been laid already, and I expect hatchlings soon.” He nodded to finish, hands on his hips. “I think this ranch will recover quite nicely. There is already some webbing you can claim, though I would leave the trees, if I were to be asked.”

“You can offer advice like that any time, Dro, it’s most welcome. Just the stuff on the fencing?” I asked.

“Yes, that would be acceptable. Most of that is exploratory, or spent hunting webs,” he said with a smile. “And Shela’s supply is in the storage shed already, in baskets.

“Is he my boss now?” Drusk grunted, from his position on the porch across the pond from us.

I looked over, and for a moment, was reminded that an eleven foot tall dragon wanna-be was behind a giant hairy water spider, and at my back was Spider City, the worst, most terrifying part of my campground. I shuddered and shook my head at Drusk, moving briskly away from the crawly section of the ranch.

The trees Mr. Sada had sold really opened up the place. Made the open area more spacious, less creepy to be in.

“I’ll just make the sale, shall I?” Axle asked. I nodded happily, turning back to Drusk.

“No, he’s not your boss. But from what I just heard, it sounds like you’d be smart to try and learn as much about spider ranching from him as you can, while you have the opportunity,” I said, shrugging. “Think of it as free training. Spider ranching must be valid work in BuyMort.”

Drusk scowled and nodded, slowly. “It is. What makes you think I would want that skillset?”

“I dunno, it’s just the silver lining I can see in your situation.”

“Silver?” He blinked and looked around the compound, scanning the walls, and glancing overhead at the cover.

“It’s a phrase here, on Nu-Earth. We say there’s a silver lining behind every dark cloud because if you look at them during the day, you can typically see the sun shining around them.” I shrugged.

“And at night?” He grunted. “Or what if the sky is all clouds, so the sun cannot get around their sides?”

“Uhh . . . yeah it’s not a great saying. Supposed to promote optimism.” I blinked rapidly.

“What good does the silver lining of a cloud do for someone?” He asked.

I puffed out my cheeks. “Well, not much, when you put it that way. Kinda looks pretty, I guess. Maybe that’s a morale boost.”

Drusk nodded slowly again, staring at me with narrowed eye.

I raised my hands in surrender. “Yeah, I know. Stupid humans.”

“Stupid Nu-Earth humans,” he corrected. “Nothing wrong with humans, some of my best friends are human.”

“Aw, shucks, I like you too Drusk,” I chirped.

He gaped at me for a moment before the laughter wheezed out of him. I smiled and watched as the huge reptilian man laughed until he choked. He retched violently and shook his head. “You are funny, stupid aggressive Nu-Earth human. I will give you that.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, turning back to Axle. He had finished with the sales and was returning as the BuyMort pod whistled into the distance.

I pulled up the BuyMort page and checked our sales account information. We had five million and four thousand morties.

Purchase: Textiles, Nu-Earth Orb Weaver spider silk. Rarity, common. Condition, good. 913 Morties dispensed.

Purchase: Textiles, Nu-Earth Black Widow spider silk. Rarity, rare. Condition, excellent. 19,348 Morties dispensed.

Purchase: Textiles, Exadark Swamp Spinner spider silk. Rarity, uncommon. Condition, excellent. 34,986 Morties dispensed.

Purchase: Scrap, silk. Rarity, common. Condition, good. 45,875 Morties dispensed.

The silk had put us over the edge, even with the percentages we needed to pay out to Dro’erja, Drusk, and BlueCleave. Dro’erja was staring at his own BuyMort screen with wide open eyes. As I watched, tears formed in the corners of his bright red eyes and slid down to his smile, vanishing at the corners of his mouth.

“Thank you,” he whispered, as he turned to look at Shela. “Thank you so much.”

I narrowed my eyes and shrugged, suddenly intensely uncomfortable. “You earned it, Dro. Just, uh . . . keep the ranch doing good, you’ll definitely get more.”

Axle nodded as he arrived, clapping me on the shoulder from behind. “We should go, the new arrival is here. Our hobbs are detaining him, he’s apparently caused an altercation already.”

“Oh good! I was hoping for a problem employee, the place wouldn’t feel like home without one,” I sighed. “Let’s go meet the new guy.”

I waved my goodbyes to Dro’erja and Drusk, who ignored me for the most part. Dro’erja raised a hand in acknowledgement, but I could see he was clearly in his BuyMort menu, and was focused on that. Drusk merely narrowed his eye at me, and stared at us until the gate closed behind us.

“The delf has likely never seen that amount of morties in his account before,” Axle said as we walked toward the parking lot. “The House of None are very tightly controlled, usually.”

“So I freed a slave.” I said, shrugging. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”

“For the slave, certainly. For your fledgling affiliate, it seems so. His expertise has already increased the value of our webbing, simply by how he encourages them to spin it,” Axle murmured, almost talking to himself. “For the House of None, and the delves who control it? Not so much. I will endeavor to keep his presence here restricted knowledge.”

“Hey, that reminds me, you took a bunch of scans of the delves' silks for your library. Won’t that expose us?” I asked. Ahead of us, in the parking lot, I could see a crowd of hobbs surrounding something small.

Axle smiled and nodded. “It would indeed, if not for my restrictions. The library’s primary stock will be free access, but I now have a restricted section. Perhaps one day the scans of their silks will be free knowledge again, but for the moment our security outweighs any other concerns.”

I nodded. “Okay, good, thank you.”

We arrived at the parking lot, walking single file through two parked, heavily vandalized pick-up trucks.

A two foot tall bat creature was encased in a ring of armed hobbs, his oversized wings tucked neatly into his torso. Morbin, the new sonar guy, had arrived.

“C’mon? C’mon?” he asked. “One of you knows where the bar is.” His voice tilted in false friendship, and he looked between each of the hobbs. “Morbin thirsty!”

Ordo was leading the group of hobbs, and he saluted me with a thump to his chest as I approached, breaking off from the group to come speak with me. In a low voice near my ear he said, “He drunk already. Harassed family in their apartment, looking for drink. Says you owe him five million morties.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, he’s not wrong there. Axle? Pay the man please, that may get his attention.”

“Nobody has drink? You there, hobb! What you got in that flask?” Morbin poked at one of the hobbs, who neatly dodged his clumsy attempt, before stepping back into place. “Ohh, funny! Funny hobbs here! I like it!” The little alien bat giggled and belched.

“This must be what he meant by Morbin time,” I muttered. “Is his home built?”

Axle nodded and pointed over one shoulder to the residential row. Suspended over the main walkway was an oversized bat box, its support legs built into the rooftops of the apartment buildings on either side. It looked simple but had a small metal door that could be closed to block out all sunlight. A ladder had been crafted from shaped rebar, on each leg, and a human sized porch was visible around each wall.

The entire arrangement looked like they had built a solid flat platform first, then just poured the mud-crete structure on it when it was ready.

I saw a trio of undersized duffle bags behind Morbin on the pavement and gestured to them, facing Ordo. “Can we get his bags put up there? I don’t think he’s up to the task.”

Morbin spun around and glared at me, then hiccupped and lost his balance. “You speak critical truth, Nu-Earth-man. I am far too thirsty to go to bed! Flights always make me thirsty,” he said from the ground. Finally, his eyes crossed in his little snouted face as he saw something on his BuyMort interface.

“Woo! Morbin buying rounds all night!” He suddenly cheered, raising both wings directly overhead. When fully extended, they reached higher than the hobbs' heads.

“What is this?” He asked when no one responded. “Is my first night on new world, and rich from new job, I want to party!”

“Morbin!” I said, loudly. “I think you’ve partied enough. You seem pretty wasted, friend.”

“Oh this the new boss, I must be respectful,” he muttered to himself, pushing his way between the hobbs. He staggered up to me and stared up into my face. “I seem drunk, huh? What you basing that on? You ever seen a Natbakkan before? For all you know this is just my personality,” he finished with a huff.

I scowled. “You were sober when we talked earlier. You’re drunk now, very drunk.”

“Oh we talked on mobile, dammit, I forgot,” he muttered. “Very well, yes, I am drunk. I would like to get more drunk! To celebrate my arrival on Nu-Earth!”

I took a deep breath and stared down at the tiny bat creature. He was making me want a drink, it’d been days since I’d had any kind of intoxicant beside the suit’s painkiller. I turned to Axle.

“Do we have any booze?” I asked, under my breath. Morbin’s oversized ears twitched.

Axle shrugged. “The hobbs were putting together a still this afternoon.”

“Bah! Hobb swill is no drink!” Morbin huffed. His long arms crossed and folded in over his chest, giving him the impression of pouting.

“Can we build a bar?” I asked with a sigh.

Axle narrowed his eyes and licked his nose. “I mean, yes? A bar is not a difficult structure.”

I pointed at the far end of the residential complex. “Well, add it to the to-do list, please. We need the docs office and more housing again anyway.” I pointed at Morbin. “I want a drink now too, so best I can do for ya, Morb, is share a drink with you right now. Unless you want me to introduce you to granny Phill, and you do not want me to introduce you to granny Phill. She’s liable to kill you on accident, the stuff she drinks.”

He nodded as I spoke and then opened his long bat wing arms to embrace me. “Yes! Yes, a bar will be built in my honor, and I will share a drink with you to celebrate!”

I pulled up BuyMort and started searching. “Fine, but I choose what we’re drinking.” Some booze was surprisingly affordable on BuyMort, and I ordered a bottle of mid-shelf tequila.

“So long as it is made with alcohol, I am sure I will love it!” Morbin said, slightly too loud.

“You’re a bad influence, Morbin. Welcome to Silken Sands.” I smiled down at him.

The bat creature looked up and grinned, his mouth full of uneven fangs.