GOBLORE: Part II (Story) (Patreon)

Wow okay it's been almost literally a year since the first part. Sorry. But we've had some stories in between! At this rate we'll have a book by...2024. Yikes.png

Anyways yeah hey check it out! Another installment (roughly 14k) of my (rough) novel-sized isekai about goblins and the human who loves them. Refresh yourself on the players of this particular escapade HERE. And, for no reason in particular, please enjoy more Vee and Huntress art!

Let me know what you think! Is it fun? Is it sensible? Would you like to read more? 

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“You don’t have to make a big production out of this,” Vee said, her calm demeanour beginning to grate on Jesse. It was, in fact, a big deal to be told to give up a sample of his semen to someone who is effectively a stranger. The nighttime encounter with Zixie was one thing, and he probably shouldn’t have gone through with that, but the premeditated encounter in such a clinical setting almost made it worse.

“I beg to differ. You’re not the one being asked to...well, I guess there’s no real equivalent I can compare this to, but this is weird, Vee.”

“Only if you make it weird. This is purely a medical evaluation. Surely you have these kinds of tests in your own world.”

“Well, yeah, but I’ve never done them. There’s been no need to analyze my...fuck.” He pressed his head into his hands and scavenge his brainspace for an excuse to not do this. But Zixie had determined quite clearly that he could produce. It was only a matter of time before he had to relent. But that didn’t mean he was happy about it. “Alright. If your people’s help is contingent on this. Where can I go?”

Vee raised an eyebrow. “Why? You can do it here, I don’t mind.”

“What if I don’t want to do it here?”

“Well, I’d much rather you perform where I can see. It’ll make for better notes on my part, and I can fill in some of the blanks of your anatomy. Go ahead, I’ll wait until you strip.” She got out a pad and paper and jotted down something preliminary in an indecipherable shorthand. When she looked up again, Jesse had still not lost his clothes. “Well? I don’t have all day, you know.”

Jesse grumbled, but started removing his shirt and pants. He told himself this was just like a Doctor’s visit. A really, really inappropriate Doctor’s visit. Her eyes didn’t waiver when he slid down his underwear, leaving him in his shoes and socks only.

“Fascinating. I was expecting something larger, given your excessive height.”

He scowled through a brush. “It gets bigger! I’m just...it shrinks when I get nervous, or whatever...”

She nodded, though the look on her face told him that she didn’t quite believe the excuse. “Look, I get that it may be difficult to perform in these circumstances. Perhaps I can assist?” Before he could ask her what she meant by that, she took off the messy apron and opened up the buttons on her blouse. Though these goblin creatures, kith he reminded himself, were small, they all had impressive chests. Vee was no exception. She pulled away her shirt to reveal the true size and heft of her breasts. It had a definite effect. “There we go. Hmm...I suppose it does get bigger.”

This was not Jesse’s idea of a proud display of masculinity. He couldn’t deny her attractive appearance, though he didn’t like the idea of it being used against him. Reluctantly, he stroked his growing erection to get this whole display over with.

“Do you normally take this long to get erect?” Vee asked, jotting down more notes.

“I don’t appreciated being viewed like a bug in a jar,” he replied. He worked himself for a while, managing to keep himself erect but not much beyond. It was taking long enough that the goblin woman pushed his hand away and took charge. She produced an oily substance from a jar on her desk that, when dripped onto his erection, caused a gentle warming sensation. She got to work stroking him off, much to Jesse’s restrained delight.

“Let’s see if I can make this go a little faster. This is a sterile lubricating compound which shouldn’t impact my results any,” she said. Her hands, slightly larger than he would have expected from such a small woman but softer than any he’d ever felt on his body pumped his cock with a steady, deliberate rhythm. He didn’t object to this. At some level, getting a clinical handjob was slightly less embarrassing than being forced to perform in front of an audience. “Have you had sexual partners before?”

“I’m not a virgin!” he said, hurt by the suggestion.

“It wasn’t an accusation. I’m sure all the giant women go crazy for you. You’re an attractive man. Mind you, you’re the only human I’ve met, so I could just be drawing conclusions from a lack of data.”

“Thanks.”

She was good. Really good. With every shiver or jerk of his hips, she mouthed words like she was taking notes in her head. His pleasure points were being efficiently analyzed and cataloged by this strange, green woman. And the way he was being treated, like a horny animal whose semen was needed for breeding...he had to admit, it had an appeal.

A drop of clear pre slid from his tip, which Vee’s fingers added to the lubrication she had already applied. “Oh, you’re dripping. This isn’t all you produce, right?”

“Yes, I’m sure. That’s just...ahh...that’s just what comes out before.”

“Ah. I was just making sure. goblin males produce semen throughout stimulation, sometimes when merely aroused. I’ll have to see about finding a way to boost your own production. If you’re going to be the sole fertilizing agent to and entire village, you’ll need all the output you can make.”

Jesse wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about improving his output that much, though an increase to the loads he shot would be a welcome boost to the ego, he didn’t know if he wanted that to happen as the result of drinking some sketchy potion that a woman small enough to fit in a suitcase came up with via a process indistinguishable from alchemy. The point was academic at this point, and he had much more pressing matters to attend to. Namely, the buildup of pressure in his waist. His movements became more jerky and erratic, and he was having trouble standing still.

“Are you close?” she asked. When he nodded, she grabbed an empty beaker and stroked him off with her other hand. The way she said things like ‘there we go’ and ‘let it out’ invoked an unwanted level of arousal that made it far harder to resist his urge than he would have thought possible. It was the twisted parody of a lover’s dirty talk that really twisted him up. He was an instrument for her to adjust, experiment with, and ultimately get the results that she wanted.

His toes curls as he shot his load into the waiting beaker. A trio of reasonably sized ropes, followed by a steady drizzle down into the glass. Not what it could have been, considering his late night encounter, and he almost felt self-conscious about not filling more of the container. Vee milked him to completion, getting every drop she could for her analysis. Then she fetched a towel to clean herself and his cock off.

“Thank you. This should be enough,” she said with her casual dismissal. Jesse took the hint and dried off his dick before putting his clothes back on.

“So what happens now?”

She swirled the beaker. “I’m going to run some tests to make sure you’re fertile enough. I won’t know until later, of course.”

“What if I’m not fertile? Will I get kicked out?”

“Good question! Hopefully, we can find some other use for you. At the very least, you won’t be burned to death. I see this as a step in the right direction.”

Flustered and embarrassed, he bit down a sarcastic response and left Vee’s hut. There seemed to still be light out, and he needed something to eat.

***

Rather than having individual kitchens, the village had a communal area where meals could be prepared and served. Several tables under a simple canopy made of torn and patched white fabric reminded him of concessions tents from music festivals he’d been to. A handful of goblins ate a kind of stew from rough bowls. At the centre, a very top-heavy woman fussed over a black metal pot over smouldering coals. When she saw him approaching, she beamed.

“Well if it isn’t the Shifter! Come to eat us all for dinner, I see,” she said with a gentle laugh. Jesse smiled weakly in return, though he didn’t especially appreciate the reminder of his close encounter with immolation.

“I don’t suppose I could trouble you for some of that? It smells incredible and I haven’t eaten since…yesterday, I guess.” He used to remark that the only reason he stayed vaguely fit was that he’d forget to eat for long periods of time. With all the shock, near death, and sexual escapades, he’d totally skipped out on at least a day’s worth of food.

The chef fetched another bowl and spoon for him, goblin sized of course. “I’m terribly sorry about how you were treated before. Let me make it up to you. Well, I suppose it’s not total recompense, but it’s the least I can do.” She ladled up a hefty bowl of the stew. It was a thick broth with something that looked unlike any animal he’d seen before. There were also cubes of a red potato-like tuber and a dark blue vegetable that landed somewhere between turnip and carrot. A hearty mixture of the strange and familiar, and he thanked her for the bowl.

One glance at the table and chairs available told him he wouldn’t fit. He held the bowl with one hand and took a spoonful with the other. His eyes rolled back as a symphony of spices and salt took him away, reminding him of substantive meals from his mother’s own crockpot.

“Mmm. That is delicious!”

She beamed. “Glad you liked it. I’m Miri, by the way.”

Jesse repeated his name, though he felt a little silly doing it given everyone in the village already knew who he was. “If I might say, you look kinda familiar.”

“It’s the eyes,” she said, pointing briefly to her crimson irises before continuing. “Glora and I shared a womb…and not much else. Again, sorry for the attempted murdering.”

“I’ll admit it wasn’t the best introduction. I get that you’re all scared…but your sister seems like she enjoys stirring people up.”

She grimaced, absently stirring the pot with her ladle. “Yes, she’s been like that ever since we lost the men. Before we left home, she was…well, maybe not rational. But reasonable. This whole mad expedition was her idea. Half the reason I came out on this trip was to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. But when the ship sank, then we lost a lot of our number to the woods…” She trailed off, and Jesse took the hint that it was time to switch topics.

“Are you an academic too? Not that being an excellent cook isn’t a valuable profession.”

She perked back up. “I was the ship’s botanist! We collected seeds and plant cuttings wherever we stopped. And it’s a good thing too; half the food in this stew came from my samples.” She pulled the ladle out, showing off the different vegetable constituents of the stew. “Wild sers, rannics, and a heaping helping of topata roots. The rest is from the local plantlife. Trial and error finding the edible ones! Thankfully Huntress was with us to find the truly poisonous ones or we might have had some real sickness.”

“How did she do that?” Jesse asked.

“She tracked animals in the area, looking for the ones they ate. Had a hunch with the rannics here. Or at least they look like rannics. The peel is poisonous, so you have to boil them first to get all the gunk out.”

Jesse finished his bowl, pondering on the sheer logistics of feeding dozens of people on what you can grow and find, starting from nothing. “Well you’ve done incredible so far. The most I’ve ever grown is some herbs on my windowsill. When I get back, could you give me a tour of what you have so far?”

She beamed. “Of course! Everyone around here has already heard me ramble about gardening. And I miss being a Professor, even if it’s a class of one!”

***

Belly full, the sun had faded by the time he’d finished chatting with Miri. A question loomed: could he go to sleep? Zixie’s late night visit, though not unpleasant, was something he wanted to avoid. It made him feel like a piece of meat. Moreso, given how Vee had asked him to behave earlier.

He returned to the hut that he’d been assigned. Using furniture, he blocked off the points of entry as best he could. It wasn’t exactly palatially appointed; the chairs and table were all rough cuts that looked like they’d be a fountain of splinters if he wasn’t careful. But even putting a token weight against the door made him feel a little more comfortable to spend the night.

He’d just relocated the last of the furniture besides his cot when he heard a knock at the door. Sighing, he reflexively said, “Go away, Zixie. Not tonight.”

“I’m not here to fuck you,” Vee replied through the wood. Jesse shifted off the blockade and opened the door.

“Sorry,” he said, motioning to the tipped over chairs, “Precautions so I can get a night’s worth of sleep. Going to need it.”

She nodded. “I understand. If I had time, which I doubt I will, I’d try to come up with a locking mechanism to keep anyone without a key out. I think I might be able to convert one from a chest I’m not using.”

“Really? I…thanks, that’d be great. Is there anything I can do in return?”

“I suppose. Come back alive. Some of the stuff you’ve described is impossible but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t intriguing. On that subject, I came over to give you this,” she handed over a dozen or so sheets of manila-coloured paper, the same she was using to draft her own notes. On top of the pile was a graphite stylus. “Maybe you can write down what you remember about your world’s technology, in case…it case you can’t get your morgot thing. We only have so much of this stuff, so…write small, I guess?”

He agreed, and she bid him good night. The door closed and he looked at the small stack of paper. Something clicked for him. She’d likely been about to say ‘in case you die’ before correcting herself. It was entirely possible that he might not make it if he left the village on this quest. In that case, these notes would be pointless. The goblins had a completely different written language. If he died, this would just be scribbles.

At first, the sheer fatalism of that idea make him reel. There was no vast operation of state keeping him alive. No cops, no paramedics, just a small village of tiny women who had been within a hair’s breadth of discovering his ignition point. He didn’t know a martial art. He didn’t practice swordfighting in his spare time. He’d done track in high school and even then hadn’t made the cut. He had hazy, nigh inapplicable knowledge of technology’s development from bronze age to the modern era solely through video games, movies, and the occasional nonfiction book that had enough battles to keep his attention.

Rather than shock him into a stupor, however, the lingering thoughts of mortality galvanized him. No. Fuck that dimensional wall guardian lady, and fuck fate. He wasn’t going to just lay down and die, eaten by whatever the hell monsters could lay out there in the woods. And he didn’t want to get rented out like some prize race horse to knock up a whole village of goblins. He’d earn his keep the hard way: by stealing centuries worth of technological innovation from people much smarter than him. He wrote feverishly for hours, bullet points of the last 800 years of technology that he could remember. A shopping list that, if he could pull it off, would get this tiny village up and moving far in advance of anything this world might have to offer.

***

“So? You ready to get going?” Huntress said. He had no idea how long she’d been standing in his doorway. Light had just began to creep into the little village. She was kitted out in the same leathers and pack that she’d been when he’d first seen her, dangling from his feet after falling for a snare trap. He’d barely gotten his clothes on.

“I guess? Do you have some stuff for me? Like, a canteen at least?”

“It’s not that long a walk. I dragged your giant carcass by myself from where I found you, you can make it to there without a refreshing beverage.” She muttered something else under her breath. Before he got a chance to respond, however, she pulled a container off the side of her pack and handed it to him. It was filled with about half a litre of water. Probably a decent size for a goblin, but not great for humans. Regardless, he thanked her.

They walked together to the outskirts of the village. Unlike the previous stroll, Huntress didn’t have an arrow ready to put through his eye. Her bow sat on her shoulder, a quiver on the opposite side ready to be snatched. Though she had the appearance of an experienced woodland hunter, the fact that she was barely over three feet tall did make her look adorable.

“How can you handle yourself in a fight?” she asked.

“Are we expecting a fight?” he replied, thinking back to the ominous comment Vee had almost made the night before.

“I didn’t set that trap for grabbits, human. There are much more dangerous things in the woods.”

He hadn’t seen anything like that on his winding stroll through the woods. It had seemed almost peaceful, in fact. Had he just been lucky? “What kind of dangers?”

“Answer my question first.”

He thought back in his life to times he’d been placed in physical danger. Other than a few elementary school fights and getting robbed at knife-point once, he’d lived a fairly charmed life. “I haven’t been in a real fight before.”

She made a derisive noise. “If you would have said you had, I would have called you a liar. Just stay close to me, then. I’ll do my best to keep you from dying.”

In any other circumstance, he would have taken the comment and been done with it. But…Huntress was a very small woman. Whether it was macho pride or some level of resentment for her treatment, he snapped back. “If we get into a fight, I’m sure you and your tiny arms will keep us safe.”

Jesse almost didn’t feel the kick that took out his left knee from under him. He did, however, feel the knife press against his carotid. It had materialized into her hand in an instant, and in less that two more of those he was one quick motion from being bled out onto the dirt like a stuck pig. There was no fury or outrage in her expression: just a singular determination that scared Jesse more than the blade at his throat.

“You are cargo. I am tolerating your existence because Nell told me to, and I respect her more than you’ll ever know. Understand?”

Jesse almost nodded, but thought better of it. “Yes, I understand.” His vocal cords made the knife vibrate.

“Good.” She walked on without him, sheathing the blade as smoothly as it had slid into her hand. He was left to feel the mark where it had pressed into his skin and stand up. His pace was awkward thanks to the ache in his knee, and the walk away from the village gave him plenty of time to re-examine his preconceptions about these tiny creatures.

***

By the time they reached the place where he’d fallen into her snare trap, it was well into morning. Birds were chirping, just like on Earth. It was an idyllic scene from a nature documentary, which made the tension lurking in Jesse’s gut worse. He started seeing ethereal horrors lurking around every tree.

“What should I be looking for?” he asked, then quickly added, “I might be useless in a fight, but I’m a second pair of eyes. Might help to keep watch.”

Huntress chewed on that. He could tell her natural inclination would be to tell him to shut up, but he was the epitome of a fish out of water. His ignorance of what to look for could get them killed.

“folk. Like that one in the brig.”

“Lial, right. Do they live around here?”

“Used to. Had a whole empire, ruled most of the world. Then they fucked up, whole thing collapsed. Now they want it all back. Them and their beasts killed some of us at the beach earlier on, almost all the men went to fight them. Never returned.”

At least he had a vague shape for what he should be looking for: smug humanoids. He still felt the absence of a weapon.

“You think I could borrow a knife or something?”

“No point. You’d just hurt yourself.”

Jesse frowned. After a few minutes of searching on their path, he found a cane-sized stick. If he couldn’t protect himself, maybe he could inconvenience any attackers. He picked it up and cleaned away the rest of the branches from it. Now he had a means of defence, if a somewhat awkward one.

He kept his mouth shut for at least half an hour of walking. He was beginning to wish he’d worn sneakers to the car. It would be too much to wish for hiking boots. He tried to keep his mind off a growing ache in his feet, which hadn’t healed at all from his last trek through the forest.

“So…Vee told me you were all teachers at some point?” he asked.

Huntress grunted a vague affirmative.

“But now you’re a hunter?”

“Yes.”

“How do you make that transition?”

“Hunger.”

“You don’t talk much, I take it.”

“I only talk when I have things to say.”

“And you don’t right now?”

“No.”

“No questions about where I’m from? What my species is like?”

“Irrelevant.”

That caught his attention. Huntress hadn’t delved into multisyllabic words in their conversation before. “Why is me being a completely alien race irrelevant?”

“You offer no discernible physical skill. Judging by this conversation, the same can be said of your mental capacity. You are an unimportant factor in the continued survival of my village and will likely die in the wilderness. So, I harbour no particular curiosity as to your past or your appearance, any more than the shape of the bark on one of these trees.”

Jesse tried not to look hurt. A pretty cutting, if realistic, assessment. “What did you teach?”

“Philosophy. You have time to think in the wild. Silence is necessary. For instance: right now.”

Huntress held up her hand, but Jesse barely registered it before blundering past her. With surprising strength, she yanked on his belt and stopped him cold.

“Wha-” he said, cut off when she gave him a universal signal to shut his yap: holding his mouth closed with her hand. He nodded, crouching down closer to her level and scanning around them. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. The forest was oddly comforting, given how similar the shapes of the trees were to those of Earth. If he squinted, and ignored the green woman to his right, he could imagine he was back in the woods near his home town.

The illusion melted away in his mind due to a growling noise that sounded like know animal he’d ever heard before. A deep rumble that he could feel in his chest even though the source had to have been several metres away at the very least. Like he was near a speaker at a concert.

His whole body tensed. He thought back to the giant pawprint he’d seen before he was caught. Huntress had her bow ready to fire, but did not apply tension yet.

“Come on out, wolven,” she said in an artificially steady tone, “There’s no point in hiding.”

“Wolven?!” Jesse asked/whispered/screamed, “What the fuck’s a wolven?!”

The entity moved. All Jesse could see was the darkened shape moving through the greenery. He could hear the hustle of leaves and the crack of branches snapping under its feet. The sounds it made made them spin around, searching for its new location.

It was circling them.

Huntress continued. “We don’t have to do this. This giant lump and I are on our way through. There isn’t any-”

A growl shook the very air around them.

“GREEN ONE,” it said. The voice sounded like a bumper dragging on a gravel road. Inhumanly deep, with slurred annunciation and at a pace that made it seem like the effort of speech took intense concentration. “You and your kind are not…not allow in forest.”

“The folk don’t own this forest anymore. Tell your masters we aren’t leaving.”

The haze of black and grey crashed into view from the thicket in front of them. Jesse tumbled backward. He landed hard on his tailbone, dropped the walking stick, then attempted to skitter away on all fours. Huntress held her ground. She didn’t even fire her bow. She was in almost the same stance as she had as before, save for a lot of flexing tension in her muscled arms.

The beast was at least eight feet tall, probably more if it wasn’t slouched over. It had the face and neck of a wolf-like creature, but its body was humanoid…to a point. Digitigrade legs and paws that could grasp yet also had claws added to the incongruity, and dispelled some of the notion that this was merely an elaborate costume rigged up by a charlatan or a Hollywood movie crew. Jesse was wondering when the moment was that deciding that the wolf man in front of him was real became the more practical, realistic option.

“NO MASTERS,” it bellowed. Watching its mouth move to form language was fascinating, like its mouth wasn’t meant to make those kinds of noises. Only one iris stared them down, the other eyelid apparently sealed shut. It didn’t blink or flutter in time with the other eye’s movements, implying the two had become disconnected.

“Alright then,” Huntress said, “No masters. Then why are you here?”

The question seemed to take the creature aback. “I…not sure. Need food, can hunt. Need water, can drink. No pack…no pack. Need purpose…need purpose.” It paced back and forth, emitting grunting and grumbling noises and speaking in inaudible tones.

“Your pack?” Jesse ventured. “Do you…do you hunt in groups?”

Huntress turned to him as if he’d just dared the creature to a fistfight. The wolven snarled, bearing its yellowed fangs.

“Pack Gone. Just Me. Can still hunt. Can Still Hunt!”

“Do you remember the way back to your metal box from here?” Huntress whispered.

He looked around. It all looked the same! But through the circling strides of the wolven, he could hear the distant rush of running water. He could keep that to his right and walk all the way back to where he hung his tie. “I think I can, but-”

“When I say move, run and don’t look back.”

“But I-”

“You idiot,” she snapped. “You’ll be the death of both of us.”

The hairy beast stalked toward them. “CAN STILL HUNT!” it repeated, seemingly intent on proving its ability to catch prey.

Huntress pulled the string back on the bow. One flick and she could put an arrow through the creature’s hide, though judging by the size, Jesse doubted that anything but a killing blow would stop it.

“Last chance, wolven,” she warned, “If you’re not with the folk, we have no quarrel. Metaphorically.”

The one eyed beast snorted. “Green one lies. Everyone lies. Longpelt lies, disgraces One Eye. Maybe if One Eye kill green one and lump and drag back to pack. Show good hunter!” It stepped closer. Jesse stared at its knife-long claws. His blood ran cold.

“RUN!” Huntress screamed. Jesse obeyed, catching the sight of her bringing up the bow on his way toward barrelling through the trees. Soft thwips of bowfire were matched with the sound of meaty impacts as the shafts sunk into the thick flesh of the wolven. Fallen limbs snapped like twigs under the beast’s footfalls, and Jesse didn’t stop running. His mind was still getting around the idea of nonhuman life, and now a monster from a horror movie had come feet from ripping him apart. He felt helpless, frustrated at his lack of ability to even contribute to their defence.

The thick trunks gave way to the open floodplain of the river, gnarled branches from the eroded soil making definite trip hazards if he didn’t watch his step. He paused, looking for sign of Huntress. She said to run, but he needed to know she was okay.

Seconds dragged by. Half of him wanted to charge in with another stick and try to save his short companion, and the other wanted to keep going on to the car. Maybe she’d lost the beastman and would meet him there? He swept a hand through his hair, thinking of his options. He’d just about took off against when he heard the crashing of trees and the howl of the werewolf-like creature. Sprinting out of the forest came the tiny green shape of Huntress, now with a trio of red gouges in the side of her arm.

“I told you to keep moving!” she screamed, then took off down the river bank, hopping and dodging exposed roots like a parkour expert. He took off after her, his longer stride helping him keep pace with a woman who was by all rights much more athletically fit than he was.

Of course, that same quirk of biology worked for their pursuer. A pair of trunks snapped apart as it crashed into the open. Jesse looked back, saw its snarling maw, and found new energy in his stride. He saw it bound on all fours toward them, only the snarls of tree roots keeping it from reaching a terrifying gallop that would quickly run them down.

Finally, he spotted something familiar. It was the edge of a depression running north from the creek. The ravine! The ravine led back to his necktie, the necktie to the arrow, the arrow back to the car. They could make it! He took the turn, and his companion followed close behind.

“How much farther?!” Huntress asked.

“Not long!” he said, then tried to estimate the times. Difficult, given that he hadn’t had a watch on him, and he was travelling at a different speed. And the whole deadly pursuit going on. “Maybe fifteen minutes? Less?”

“We don’t have fifteen minutes!” she screamed, firing another shot off. This one the wolven dodged, careening far to the right, the fletching of the arrow kissing its upper shoulder before it disappeared into the thicket.

“Fuck!” he yelled. With more arrows, more distance, maybe she’d be able to take it down. But they were almost out of both. They were so close! If he stepped on the gas and dived into the thickest part of the woods, heading in the direction of the car, he could probably get there before getting mauled to death. But what then? He rifled through the inventory of his supplies that he’d made in his mind. There had to be something.

His face lit up. There was.

“I have a plan,” he began, though his breathing was getting heavy. This was more cardio than he’d done in a while, and he didn’t actually know how much longer he could go. “It might not work, but it’s all I got. I’ll drag it through the thick greenery, you trail behind it and line up a shot in case I mess up.”

“No dumb sacrifices, human,” she said bluntly. He wanted to laugh, but didn’t have the breath.

“No promises. At the very least, I’ll make him earn this meal.” He peeled off from the ravine to stand at the edge of the dense overgrowth. “Hey!” he shouted, waving his arms. The beast snarled at him, head swivelling in between the two before settling on Jesse, who likely looked like the much more tempting cut of meat. Why settle for an appetizer after all when you can have a main course?

Jesse burned through his remaining stamina, heart pounding as the lept and bounded through trees, ducking to keep from whacking his head one moment, sliding between two split trunks the next. He rode the edge of the clearing where he’d first seen this world’s strange sun, keeping as much growth between him and the wolven as possible. As the ground became more familiar, he readied his terrible, horrible, no good plan.

At last, he could see it.

His car.

Its totally unnatural colour made it easily stand out from the foliage; an off-market brand of blue a previous owner had asked for that was basically begging to peel away at the slightest chance it got. But it was his, and it might very well be his salvation. He fumbled with the keys in his pocket before finding the remote trunk release. Two clicks and the hatch opened. He got there first, with the beast not far behind. He stuffed his hands in the Emergency Kit. Thankfully the zippers were still undone from when he’d took stock, and he knew exactly where the items had been placed.

With moments to spare he yanked out a red tube from the satchel. Looking up at the wolven, he screamed his feral defiance and yanked the cap off the road flare.

Nothing.

“Wait, what?” he asked no one. In the movies they lit up as soon as you took the cap off. Right? He examined the instructions for a fraction of a second before remembering that, yes, there was a giant wolf-like creature about to maul him to death. He half-stumbled, half-fell backward, narrowly avoiding being torn in two. The claws dug deep furrows into the body of his car. Jesse was more scared than any time in his life. Ready to make his peace with whatever god or gods watched over this world, he waited for the second claw to fall.

Instead, the beast howled! Its furry head snapped around, and Jesse got to see another feathered shaft sticking out its back. Finally, she’d hit something sensitive. Blood drizzled down, matting and staining its already knotted hair. Bought a few precious seconds by Huntress’ arrows, Jesse figured out why it hadn’t lit. The cap had a strike point. It was like a match! He aimed the flare, igniting it in a single swift motion.

It exploded to life. Red/white fire shot out the head in a chemical reaction that possibly hadn’t been seen on this planet before. The beast recoiled from the sudden pyrotechnic display. Jesse swung, the flare’s sparks licking at his dark, mottled hair. More of Huntress’ arrows slammed home, burrowing deep. A casual swipe of its clawed hand nearly dismembered Jesse again, but it was striking without thought.

“Go on, leave!” Jesse said, holding the flare out protectively. Huntress circled around until her and the human were only a few metres apart. She kept her bow knocked, but he could see that she only had one more arrow in her quiver. She aimed for its remaining eye.

“Begone,” she hissed.

With a ferocious growl, it bounded away out. Moving on all fours, the wolven’s motions were far from graceful. It howled once more in pain, then disappeared into the trees.

***

“I can’t believe that worked!” the awkward sack of beige meat said, holding his gigantic hands to his knees and catching his breath. Huntress had crossed the same distance he had with little of the preformative displays of physical exertion. Whatever his species, his lack of basic stamina put into question his fitness for survival.

And yet, he’d stood his ground against a wolven, armed with little more than an esoteric torch.

Brave, or stupid.

She bent over, examining the source of their salvation. It burned with a strange, red fire but with such ferocity that it easily outmatched even the most expensive lanterns she’d seen. She held her hand closer, feeling intense heat. Like a campfire with all its energy compacted into a single thin red baton.

“Your people are alchemists?” she asked.

“Of a sort. We have a few centuries of experience on you, but the principles of a road flare aren’t that hard. It’s...actually, I can look it up right now!” He headed around to one of the strange, wing-doors that the metal box had. She was reminded of the carriages that the rich parasites would ride around in back home in Voxus, and her opinion of Jesse dimmed further. He retrieved what looked like a rectangle of black slate, but after only a moment’s pressure, it emitted an alien light totally unlike any she’d ever seen.

She tried to hide her genuine discomfort at such a sight. The “flare” was one thing; it burned like a fire ought to. This was something else. Solid, unwavering, yet totally distinct from the light of the sun or the stars. He rattled off an explanation filled with the nonsensical jargon on the natural sciences that would have interested Vee, but did nothing for her. Huntress’ eyes fixed on the alien rectangle.

“I’ve known magic existed in times past. Logically, it had to. But to see it in person…” She trailed off, and she found her grip tightening on the bow in her hands.

He held up his hands. “Not magic! Just...Sufficiently Advanced Technology,” he said, verbally stressing the capital letters on the last three words, “It’s like a book that stores information in electric signals rather than ink.”

“And the light?” she asked.

He flipped the tablet towards himself, played around with his fingers on its surface, then frowned. “Okay I have no idea how to describe an-” Jesse said a word here that sounded like ‘Eleedee’ but Huntress had no idea what that could mean - “without first describing subatomics. Suffice it to say...metal glows when heated, right? Run a current...current of electricity, not water, through some materials and it will glow in a similar way. My people found a way to control that effect to display information.” He helpfully amended his explanation with a series of hand gestures that in no way aided in her understanding.

One of her many knives appeared in her hand, hidden from view. The philosophy wound deep around the very core of her being told her that this man could be a threat. Advanced metallurgy was one of Glexi’s Seven Signposts to Decay in her treatise ‘On Civilization’. If his people based their lives around such skill, it’s no wonder they were so helpless. He could drag their small village down with them, drowned in a morass of technological convenience.

On the other, his people were clearly masterful artificers. The single carriage he had access to held more contiguous steel than she’d ever seen in a single object. And if his device had more secrets, truths from another world, the others could use them to survive. As much as she wanted to believe in herself and her mastery of the woods, she was but one person. The village needed dozens like her, all armed and trained to fight. Without that, they could get bowled over by any incipient tyrants who traipsed along. She’d used all her arrows and merely wounded a single wolven. If it returned with its pack...

The knife disappeared down her bracer into the hidden sheath within. She’d keep him safe, and guide the development of whatever technology he’d craft for the others. If Jesse proved to be the lurking poison that she feared he might be, he wouldn’t feel a thing when the knife entered his heart.

***

“So do we start heading back?” Jesse asked, pocketing the phone.

Huntress picked up an arrow from the ground. Blood from the creature that had attacked them was already drying on its shaft. “It’s wounded, but I don’t know how badly. It will be dark in a few hours, not enough time to get back at least. I don’t want to get stuck at night with an enraged wolven looking for revenge.”

“So we stay here? We could sleep in my car. It’s...well it has a bunch of windows, but at least it’s out of the elements.”

She looked past him to the metal carriage. “That’s the most unnatural thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m sleeping outside,” she stated flatly.

Both took the remaining hours of daylight to work on their own projects. Huntress set about making camp by constructing a crude lean-to and collecting firewood. Jesse tried his hand examining just how bad the damage to his car had been, and if it was salvageable. He was by no means a handy man, but as a regular driver, he’d encountered the occasional problem and had developed a decent ability change his tires, replenish fluids, and once in a feat of astounding competency, change the oil by himself.

He was, however, likely not going to fix this particular problem. The impact had bent the front of the car inward around a hefty tree that resembled an oak cosplaying as a redwood. Getting the hood itself to lift up was a trial in its own right. He ended up having to use the tire iron in his trunk, something that he might have to add into the inventory he made in his head, along with the pneumatic jack. Jimmying the tool into the bent metal and using it as a prybar, he got the lid loosened enough to lift normally.

“Fuck.”

Part of his engine block had completely folded in, melding with the body of the car in an octopus of bent metal. It was readily apparent that, barring a minor miracle from Hephaestus, God of the Forge, he wasn’t going to be driving anytime soon.

“Problem?” Huntress asked.

“You can say that. The crash wrecked the engine, the thing that makes it move on its own.” He exhaled sharply. How the hell was he going to charge his phone now?

She snorted. “Guess you’re people aren’t all that advanced. A lansh wouldn’t have given itself a crushed head trying to dodge a tree.”

“It’s not an autonomous car! Which...well, we actually did have. But I’m the one in control. There’s this wheel, see?” He moved over to the driver’s side and pulled the deflated airbag out of the way.

“So you crashed it into a tree?”

He frowned. “I was driving through a rip in the fabric of reality. I wasn’t exactly focused on keeping my hands at 10 and 2.”

“The answers you give are meaningless. What do you mean?” Huntress shook her head.

“Well, we have these clocks with arms. The 10 position-“

“No, fool. The hole in reality. What do you mean by that?”

Jesse was about to respond with something snide and cutting that would have surely made her respect him, when a thought occurred to him: Huntress had not seen a lifetime of soft sci-fi and internalized a vocabulary for this kinda thing. He was lucky that they all spoke English. Or his brain had been altered in some way to speak their language. Or...right, internalized vocabulary.

He put his hands vertically in front of him, once inch apart. “My right hand is my universe, the left is yours. What I gathered from the Wall...Guardian person...I feel like that should be a proper noun...what I learned from the Wall Guardian person is that there was some kind of tear in the walls of reality. And for a brief period of time there was this bridge between mine and yours.” He reached for his pen and put it between the fingers of either hand, linking them. “Like so.”

Huntress’ eyes narrowed. But not in a threatening way. She mouthed the beginnings of several syllables before settling on a response to the proposition. “Hrm. An interesting theory.”

He raised a brow. “Do you have an alternate explanation?”

“You’re a mutant folk with strange ears and pallor. Perhaps from a clan that specialized in metallurgy and alchemy. This is all some kind of absurd diversion to keep your true nature hidden. ”

Jesse waited a beat for her to crack a smile, or display any kind of hint that she was joking. When she didn’t, he sighed with exasperation. “Honestly, whatever. It’s not like I can give you any more proof than I already have with me. You’re the philosophy professor. Believe what you want.”

Huntress struck flint to one of her daggers, and a shower of sparks caught a carefully arranged pile of kindling alight. Feeding it little sticks at first, it soon became a proper heat source.

“One more question,” she began, sitting next to the flames, “If you’re from another world, how can you go back?”

“That’s what I’d love to know,” he said.

***

An hour before night fell, Huntress disappeared into the woods and, true to her name, returned with an animal slung over her shoulder. Jesse didn’t get a good look at what the creature looked like before she got to work skinning it, using the trunk of his car as a table.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Grabbit,” she replied.

“Is that...like a rabbit?”

She frowned. “Is a rabbit a two legged creature with antlers that feeds on carrion?” Jesse shook his head. “Then it’s not like a rabbit.”

He was initially hesitant to eat an animal he’d never even seen before in the light. But by the time it was roasting over the fire, covered in a light sprinkle of herbs from a pouch on her belt, he had to at least give it a try. She skewered a portion of the meat and handed it to him, taking another smaller part for herself.

He took a bite. The meat was...fine, but whatever the hell herbs she used tastes almost like spicy fennel. He resisted the urge to gag.

“Wow...this is...good!” he said, mouth mechanically chewing the food. She nodded in agreement, not acknowledging the compliment, merely the fact that it was tasty. He coughed. “Could...could use some salt though.”

She snorted. “Good luck with that. We’re a long way from Upper Pollix.”

That must be a mine or something. A salt plain perhaps. “We could get salt here, y’know. If that ocean you arrived on is a saltwater one, we could-.”

“I’m sure you have some brilliant ideas. Save them, I’m tired.” She finished off her skewer, tossing the little branch into the fire. “I’ll make a tour of the trapline and then sleep. You’d be wise to do the same.”

She took off before he got to ask just when she’d put up traps. Instead, he ate as much of the cooked grabbit as he could stand and headed back into his car. The back seat was not the most comfortable place to spend a night, but he’d done worse. The night air was refreshingly cool. He used the old sweater he’d left there as a pillow and brought out the emergency space blanket from the road kit. Wrapping it around himself, he tried to savour this one tiny bubble of his old world.

***

Huntress tapped on the window to wake him at dawn. Jesse packed up everything he cared about, not wanting to leave anything behind that could prove useful. Some of the items he wrapped up in his sweater and made a bindle-shaped package that he could carry on a stick.

Also going with them was just about everything electronic he could pull out of the car. Popping open the front panelling, he yanked out what he could and used Huntress’ knife to cut things he couldn’t. Most of his focus was around the cigarette lighter port, the one that he could use a USB adapter to charge his phone with. An awkward proposition, using a car battery to charge a phone, considering all the adapters and cables he might need. But if he could get it working, it would exponentially increase the life of the phone and with it, the amount of time he’d be able to read the information off of Quickiepedia.

A problem: batteries were really fucking heavy. Moving it around from the car to the pavement was one thing. Hauling it in his hands for hours through rough terrain? Not practical. He placed it, gently, into Huntress’ heavy rucksack, topped by some of the wiring and other lighter items. She was nonplussed at leaving the provisions contained within at the car, but Jesse had a convincing argument that his stuff was more important than some leaf-wrapped berry and nut paste.

His back and shoulders ached by the time he got to the ravine. Huntress to her credit did attempt to take a turn carrying the large black box, but after a valiant effort, she relented. She may have been a nimble fighter, but the battery was almost as heavy as she was.

They walked in silence for the most part. That being Huntress’ preferred state, and with the possibility of a return by the wolven who had assailed them before, he kept his trap shut for most of it. He was surprised, therefore, when she spoke up first.

“I misjudged you.”

He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he prodded her on with an, “Oh?”

“I thought you’d be totally useless at best, and a liability at worst. It took nerve to stand up to the wolven. It may have been foolishness, or naivete. But I respect that you did not panic in the face of near certain death.”

He didn’t know what to say. So he punted. “Uhh, thank you? I appreciate you too.”

But she wasn’t finished. “That’s not to say I am entirely at ease around you. Your people, whoever they really are, have craft beyond my understanding. When I saw that car, every part of my mind cried out in alarm. There’s a deep unnatural power in that engine you call a ‘car’. By all means, use your knowledge to aid our village. But the second I think you’re steering us down the dark path to technological enslavement I will end your existence. Understand?”

He didn’t. Not really. But he nodded anyway.

***

The rest of the journey was uneventful, and it was with great relief that they spotted the first few huts of the goblin village. A small crowd had gathered to greet them both. More accurately, he supposed, they were there to see if the stranger had come back with anything validating of his outlandish story. Considering what he had said, the burden of proof was high.

“Look, and behold!” he said, lowering the pack to the ground and removing the square of aluminium-covered plastic. “A metal sheet as light as air!”

He handed off the space blanket to one of the more curious locals, and there was some noticeable “ooh”s when they discovered how light it was. Aluminum wasn’t an easily extractable metal until the invention of electrolysis in the 19th century, so this would be the first time any of these women would have been a metal that looked like silver but weighed almost nothing. Suitably distracted, Jesse slid past them.

Huntress took her leave and kept walking toward her own cabin, the farthest home in the village from the centre. There was a lot going on with that odd duck. She was clearly intelligent, competent, and brave, but her startlingly Luddite ways of seeing things could get in the way of any plans he might have for making the lives of her kin easier, or at least less terrible. He’d also have to keep an eye on her, and maybe try to include her in the decision processes. If he could get her on side by showing her that his ideas weren’t all horrible vectors for technological corruption, he’d have a powerful ally.

Jesse hauled the rest of his goods over to Vee’s house. The little alchemist was there in her smock and apron, fresh stains from...hopefully not what he was thinking about on the fabric. He waved, though his arms were fatigued from the hike.

“Did you get it? The library?” Her enthusiasm was barely contained behind her impassive facade.

He nodded. She followed him inside, her steps clearly having more spring than usual. He unpacked what he’d taken from his car onto her examination bed. The last to leave was the battery. He nearly felt his joints giving out when he hauled it out of the bag.

“You carried that thing all the way back?” she asked, “What even is it?”

“It’s a battery,” he explained, then filled in with some brief information on electrochemistry. That awoke something in Vee. Tales of intelligent bricks were one thing, but primitive batteries were well within her capability had she the materials. She started pouring liquids, but motioned for him to continue.

“So, anyways, yeah, I grabbed my phone. It has a limited battery life, but I’m hoping to extend it with the battery from my car. It works under…similar principles, but the types of energy stored are different. Some of these wires here,” he held up the cabling he’d yanked from his car, “Can be used to convert it. But it’s going to take a while for me to figure it out.”

“Well, I have some news for you as well,” Vee said, setting a beaker to a boil over a low flame.

He set down the cables. “Good news or bad?”

She shrugged. “It’s a matter of perspective, I guess. Good news for the village.”

“Ah.” He sank onto her bed. “So I’m…that is, your species and mine are-”

“Able to reproduce,” she finished for him, her voice as level and clinical as it always was. “Cross compatibility is something few races possess. The test for it isn’t something most alchemists have access to. Luckily for you, one of my students did a full examination on kith/krosen cross-compatibility. Turns out: you’re the exception. Now that fertility is established, you’re going to need to pick a wife.”

“You say that like it’s a forgone conclusion,” he said.

“Well, I suppose it needn’t be a formal arrangement. Just pick one of us and get to work. Presuming she’s consenting. I know for a fact that Zixie is.”

Jesse rolled his eyes, remembering back to his first night in the village. “A little too eager I think. Though it’s nice to know that I’m not entirely repulsive to your people.”

“Of course not,” she said, then after a moment, “Are we repulsive to you?”

“No! You’re all very attractive. I mean, yeah, you’re shorter than I’m used to my dates being but you’re…I mean…all the parts are there. You’re hot, just…” He scrambled for words to fill in his thoughts, “I’m just not used to the idea of having kids. It’s not something I thought would be in my future.”

“No relationships at home then?” she asked, then held out her hand to the bed for him to sit, “I’ll make us some tea. I’m waiting for this reaction to happen anyways. Fill me in.”

He took a seat and cobbled together the Spark’s Notes version of his life prior to falling through a hole in spacetime. He tried to keep it as general as possible but he ended up explaining a few concepts along the way. High school, for one. Aimless, for another. Eventually got to the point where he schmoozed his way into a job for some startup and made the connections to get into the wide world of market distributables.

After wrapping up the brief biography, the pot of tea was nearly empty. He got back to the original question. “All that to say I don’t have a girlfriend back home. Maybe a few friends, a parent maybe. But what about you? You’re almost as stranded as I am this far from home.”

“It’s been…challenging, being so far away from what I’m used to. Not just the conveniences of life in Voxus but. It’s also nice to have familiar faces around me. I knew a lot of my colleagues well, though I perhaps was not as friendly as I could have been in the months leading up to our expedition.”

He glanced over at the chipped, scratched, and cobbled-together state of her equipment. “An alchemist needs all kinds of supplies to apply her trade. Why were you on the expedition?”

“A few reasons. Voxus, our home, is a place of wonders. And the Academy has some of the finest minds in the entire world there. But it’s also set in its ways, in many respects. Established truths that have ossified into dogmas just as implacable as religious text. After some disagreements with my fellow alchemists, I decided to go searching for new information. New ingredients, new processes, new truths. And, if I’m being honest, getting away from stuffy academia didn’t sound all that bad.” She laughed. “What a fool I was.”

“Hey,” Jesse said, theatrically showing himself off, “If you hadn’t taken that trip, you wouldn’t have met me.”

She made a face, but eventually dissolved into laughter. “Well, yes, at least there’s that. A stranger from another world carrying both knowledge and fertility, just when we needed it the most. I suppose we’re lucky to have you just suddenly appear right next to us, rather than in the middle of an ocean or in some folk city.”

“You don’t sound convinced?”

She shook her head. Pulling down her blouse, she revealed a naked neckline free of any of those metallic icons that Glora sported. And, Jesse couldn’t help but notice, surprisingly impressive cleavage. “I’m not a believer. In the natural world, perhaps, and its miracles. But in Gods? No. Still…it’s an unusual stroke of luck for us.”

“I can’t say I believe in miracles either. Still, some kind of cosmic coincidence to end up breaking through the walls of reality to a world so similar to my own.”

“Maybe they were adjacent to each other for the very reason that they are so similar?” she ventured.

He shook his head in a noncommittal gesture. There were so many projects to get to, and navel gazing about who he’d ended up in this village of tiny women in the middle of nowhere yet surrounded by deadly foes might need to remain a mystery for now.

He moved to leave. “I’m gonna catch some dinner, then buckle down and start transcribing. In the future, I’ll need some lessons in your language. That way, even if I leave, you’ll still have the information to start making improvements.”

“Agreed! I’ll be happy to teach you, once we get all the…other stuff squared away.”

He turned. “Other…oh, right, the wife part. Any recommendations?”

Vee’s eyes bugged. “You’re asking me? Uhh…Miri’s a sturdy woman, very caring. Zixie’s clearly enthusiastic. Probably not Huntress, she’s…a bit intense. And Nell’ll be busy trying to keep us all together. Ask around, there’s surely to be a few volunteers.”

As attractive as all the listed women were, he loathed the idea of just…walking up to someone and asking to put a baby in them. Fooling around, sure, but…

He took his leave to get to work on transcription. Perhaps a few hours of frantic writing will take his mind off the issue of his future as a parent. Or, at least, as a sire.

***

With the phone’s access to information finite, he had to make the most of it. Luckily, he’d taken with him the pen and notebook he’d taken from his car! It would help to preserve whatever pages Vee had left. The little booklet was meant for holding recipes or something, so it wasn’t the ideal vector for delivering complicated technological information. But it was certainly better than nothing!

He went over the obvious items first. Chemical synthesis was one. Gunpowder of course but also things like soap, lime, ether, vinegar, things one could pull of a shelf at a supermarket or a hardware store at home but could be game changers in a world without that information.

Industrial processes were next, and naturally bled into the topic. How do you make all these products without being able to selectively apply pressure and temperature to force reactions to go one way or another. Likewise he found descriptions of half a dozen types of forges that might interest Kalvis.

Construction methods came next. Concrete was a big one and his hand cramped by the time he got enough detail down about mixing ratios and pour rates. Then onto specific structures and ways to build them. Some of the ideas, like Roman aqueducts, would be well beyond their capacity with the goblinpower on hand at the moment, but he wrote them down anyway, reasoning that it would still be valuable information. If only to sell or trade down the line. He felt like a vulture, picking through entire cultures’ architectural history for bullet points on things like flying buttresses. But it was all knowledge, stuff that could make him valuable in an entirely new world. It was either that or get put out to stud.

Biology! He fought through the muscle pain and put everything useful he could find. Anatomy couldn’t be too primitive among the goblins, considering Vee didn’t cut off a limb or try to balance his humours. But things like germ theory might not be that well known...

“Got time?”

He jolted out of his flow state. The sun had already fallen, daylight slowly replaced by the pair of glowlamps near his desk. He turned to see Vee by the door, half shaded by the night. He turned off the phone and motioned for her to enter.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Come in! I didn’t…” She stepped inside, and his voice trailed off as his eyes wandered down from her face to her outfit. Her apron and blouse were gone, replaced by a startling ruby red dress that clung to her body like it had been purposely tailored to do so. Her hair had been tousled and let loose from its ponytail, spilling gently down her shoulders.

“Is this too much?” she asked, holding out the hem of the skirt, “It’s the one formal outfit I brought. Haven’t put it on since the ball we had the night before taking off. Nell regularly reminded us that we could be the first representatives of our species in this part of the world, and that we might have to dress to impress.” Her face turned redder the more she explained, her eyes dipping off to examine the side wall.

“Are you...dressing to impress me?”

She shut the door behind her, pressing her back against the wood. “Look, we all have our obligations. I know the math...I DID the math. Kith don’t live as long as folk. If our village is to survive long enough to accumulate enough resources to get back home, we’ll need more bodies. Gods it sounds so coarse and self-serving when you say it like that.”

Jesse didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t an awful looking guy, but he’d never had a woman proposition to him. And certainly not to try for a kid.

“Listen, Vee. I appreciate your dilemma. But I’m still not comfortable with this whole idea.”

She nodded. “I get it. Look, the others just want one of us to try, okay? We don’t have to do it very hard.” She reached out to gently brush his arm. “I’m not...unpleasant in bed, I think.” Jesse gulped. Rather than try more justifications, she tried a different tack. “How about this: we sleep in the same house for a while. We don’t have to do anything, just be in proximity. It’ll likely quiet them down, at least for a while.

Jesse nodded, though not entirely put at ease. “At least I can trust you to not do anything at night. Your place or mine?”

“Your bed is bigger than mine, I suspect,” she said. Before he could reply, her hands hooked around her back and began unfastening her dress.

“Wait wait, what are you doing?” he asked, shortly before her dress fell to the floor. The only thing she wore besides shoes is a pair of cute underwear.

“I’m not gonna sleep in that silly thing, are you kidding me?” she asked, shaking her head. “Besides, I’ve seen everything you have to offer. I don’t mind returning the favour.” She hooked her panties with her thumbs and yanked those down too.

Completely naked, he saw that what she lacked in her top assets she more than made up for in thigh and ass. He had trouble dragging his eyes away from the thick cuties as she sauntered across his hut, threw a rag over one of the glow lamps, and crawled up in his bed.

“Come to bed when you’re ready,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. He gawked for a moment at her reclined form, which faced away from him, giving him ample time to admire the curve of her behind. Was she serious? If she wasn’t, he was having a damn hard...difficult time finding the joke.

He tried to work for another half an hour, viewing and reviewing the notes he’d already taken, looking for errors or places where he could elaborate. The knowledge that there was a naked woman eager to sleep in the same bed as him kept his mind off the page. Frustrated, he decided that there wasn’t any work getting done that night. He removed his pants and, with a deep breath, slid into the furry blankets with Vee.

He worked to find a comfortable place to spend the night. He slept on his side as a rule, so he could either face toward or away from Vee. After some awkward attempts to keep himself (and certain body parts) facing away from the goblin in his bed, he relented and tried the other side. As big as the bed was for the kith, there was only so much space. He found his arms wrapping around her. Warm. Soft. He could feel her slow breathing, wondering if she was really asleep. He tried to keep his waist from touching her rear, difficult given how far it pushed out from her diminutive body. Slowly, he got used to the state of near-spooning, and worked to calm himself enough to sleep.

She adjusted under him. At first, he thought it had to be unconscious moves. Her body wriggled in place like it was trying to find optimal comfort mid-sleep. Her plump ass rubbed against his still half-hard cock. His prick strained against his boxers. Deep, instinctual urges grew in his mind to plunge his prick deep into this gob. But he shook it off. This is just a sleepover in the same bed, that’s all.

“Vee?” he asked. She didn’t respond. Maybe she really was asleep. She rubbed up against him again. He bit his lip. Fuck. He fished his cock out of his underwear for this. No sense exploding all over himself. Her thick asscheeks rubbed up and down, hotdogging him. With a sigh, he squeezed her asscheeks together and gently thrust, keeping up with her sleepy rhythm. She wasn’t responding verbally, but there was no way she wasn’t awake. Precum dribbled freely onto her ample green flesh. 

Caught up in the moment, he reached down to feel how she was feeling. Sure enough, her pussy was leaking copious lubrication. He took advantage, switching from using her ass to get himself off to pressing his cock between her plump thighs. Her arousal was inexcapable as he ground himself against her nethers, and soft moans slipped past her lips. Being as small as she was, she was easy to maneuver to drag as much pleasure as he could from the act. In some dark, nefarious part of his mind, the idea of treating Vee like a sex toy caught and wouldn’t let go. She was his plaything. His little green fucktoy.

He erupted over her thighs, cum splattering her skin as he humped himself to completion. Vee’s own noises became quieter, relaxing in time with her breathing until they were one in the same. Had she really been asleep the whole time? He doubted it. But post-coital fatigue was soon upon him. He gripped the goblin like a cushy pillow and dozed off, letting himself grow soft in between her sticky thighs.

***

He awoke with his arms, and his dick, no longer entangled in Vee. Jesse was beginning to feel practically lethargic around these village of perpetual early risers. Maybe they just had less biological need for sleep?

Regardless, he looked down to find that he’d been cleaned up, the cum from the night before nowhere to be found. Handy. He’d have to thank Vee later. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he retrieved his clothes. They were starting to get a little rank. He’d have to ask how they cleaned their stuff around here. Washboards, were those a thing?

The door burst open. A kith form practically rolled to a halt in front of him. He thought it might have been Vee, but not, it was Zixie.

“Goddamnit Zixie, not-” he began, but stopped himself. Rather than the playful, flirty expression, she looked terrified.

“Come quick!” she said, climbing to her feet, “We’re going to need anyone we can get.”

He pulled on his shirt. “What’s up?" Wolven?”

“Yes…and more. Please, hurry, follow me.”

The hair on the back of his head stood up. A dark thought, the idea that the one-eyed creature from before had tailed them back here, made his heart skip a beat. Had they accidentally doomed this entire village? He clenched his fists. Not if he had anything to say about.

Jesse followed the flow of goblins through the village centre and out to the Northern edge. Frantic voices and the clattering of tools joined in a chaotic cacophany. Some rushed past wearing the armour of the guards who had detained him. Now that their weapons weren’t aimed his way, they didn’t look nearly as menacing. Some of the unarmed Gobs grabbed whatever they could: axes, hoes, and backed up the dozen or so ‘soldiers’. They formed a ragged line, two deep, spanning from the farthest of the huts to the edge of their little town hall. Judging by the numbers, maybe a quarter of their number had taken to hiding. After his experience with the wolven, he didn’t blame them for not wanting to fight. A cold sweat made his shirt cling to his body remembering how close those claws had come to rending him apart.

His eyes met Huntress, who was as armed as she could have been. A belt of small knives, a hatchet hanging from a loop at her side, and a bow ready to shoot a quiver full of death at a moment’s notice. She tossed him another hatchet, which he caught by the handle. At nearly six foot, he was the most physically intimidating person in the village. Not that he wouldn’t fall apart like sugar in the rain during a real fight, he thought grimly, but perhaps his very presence could lend the village some clout. 

The village had cleared a hundred metre stretch of woods to the north for timber and firewood. It gave them clear sight of the dozen hirsuit forms standing on their hind legs in a ragged line. He cursed. Of course he hadn’t seen the last of them. Their pelts ranged from an arctic white to black to a dark mahogany brown. Noticeably absent, however, was the salt-and-pepper coat of the one he’d faced before.

“No One-Eye,” he said to Huntress, who grunted in acknowledgement. Perhaps this was the pack he’d said had kicked him out.

The wolven in the centre, a burly creature with shaggy black fur, took of at a quadrupedal gallup. The others followed unison, galloping over the clearcut stumps and leftover deadfall. Like a lycanthropic cavalry charge. goblins screamed. Jesse thought the worst, his grip tightening on the hatchet in his hand. They couldn’t take that many on all at once.

But rather than run them down, they peeled off only fifty metres away, forming a two clusters on opposite sides. They barked and howled and foamed at the mouth, but did not move to pursue.

Following the coordinated chaos of the wolven’s charge, a new group marched in perfect lockstep from the forest. Hundreds of soldiers in mossgreen cloaks and brown/beige armour; if they weren’t moving, they’d be difficult to see against the backdrop of the wood. All had bows of such size that they made Huntress’ look like the kind of archery set you found at the Dollar Store. English longbowmen came to mind; painful death to lightly armoured infantry in ranks. Of course, if they spread out to dodge the arrows, they’d become mincemeat for the wolven.

Flanking the archers on both sides were half as many warriors. Triangular shields, brownish armour with silvery highlights. Studded leather? Options flooded through his thoughts. As any good nerd, he had a passing familiarity with fantasy armour archetypes, though he had no idea how accurate any of them were to medieval history.

“Looks like they’re making a show of it,” Huntress commented. That made sense to Jesse, otherwise why show their hand so openly.

“What’s their game?”

She shrugged. “Maybe we should ask them.”

Jesse looked up to see a pair of figures emerge from the column of warriors. The first could have been any of the archers. The only ornamentation separating them was a pair of gold rings on her bracers. Platinum blonde hair cut close to her scalp, with swirling patterns cut into the stubble. Her facial features were sharp, distinguished, like a bird of prey. He knew he might be making cross cultural judgments too quickly, but Jesse decided that this was a woman who did not take shit.

The second was a much less threatening creature. Shorter than Jesse and wearing a set of garish red robes was a middle aged man. Unarmed, he held his hands in his loose sleeves. Though he didn’t outwardly project menace, Jesse noticed that no matter how rough the terrain got, he always kept his feet. He practically glided over roots and rocks, each step carefully calculated while keeping his eyesight locked to the crowd of goblins.

“Greetings!” the robed man said in a gentle voice, his hands coming out of his sleeves to raise them at his sides. “You all speak Old Imperian, I hope? My name is Sylas of the proud House of Delver, a humble reclaimer in the service of the Restored Imperium. I bring tidings of peace and friendship from the folk.” His eyes glided over the crowd of kith, the little women not offering much of a polite reception. His gaze came to rest on Jesse. “Hello to you too. Do you speak for these creatures?”

“We speak for ourselves,” Nell replied. Working her way to the front, she wore no armour and had no weapon. Nevertheless, she stood side by side with the armed goblins around her.

“Ah, very well,” he said, actually kneeling to talk to her as one might a child. Jesse could practically feel the anger burn in Huntress. “I am here to deliver the demands and requirements of the Restored Imperium as administered by its duly appointed proxy, the Frostfire Acquisitions Group. This is Commander Falan, Frostfire’s atache in this matter.” He held out his hand to the other folk standing beside him, the one with the short hair and bad attitude. “This territory is within 500 marks of the city of Niccos and thus is the claimed land of the Eternal Empire’s successor state. You are in violation of this law. You have two standard weeks, that’s 20 rising suns for anyone curious, to vacate this area. Failure to do so will result in your forcible removal and...relocation.”

Hushed conversation broke out among the goblins. Nell held up a hand, and the talking ceased. “The Empire fell hundreds of years ago. Niccos is a ruin. What gives you the right to kick us out?”

Falan jerked a thumb behind him to the assembled column of soldiers. Sylas shook his head. “What my friend is trying to say, somewhat bluntly, is that in the absence of designated lawkeepers in this region, we have been authorized by the Imperium to exert its authority. But we aren’t unreasonable. We are willing to give your entire community passage on one of our vessels to a point, within reason, outside our territory. Your kind still reside in Voxus, do they not?” After receiving a hesitant nod from Nell, he continued, “I can see our way to giving you safe passage back to your home. But the decision must be made now.”

Nell froze. By putting her on the spot in front of her community, the folk ‘reclaimer’ was skillfully hammering a wedge into their solidarity. If she said no, it could breed resentment and give him an opening for later overtures to a more agreeable leader in the community. If she said yes, she would be putting her people for better or worse in the hands of a group who were willing to march in full arms to serve what is essentially an eviction notice. Jesse had to give him kudos for being an effective prick, and even if Nell saw the same trap he did, she was still stuck in it.

“Tell me,” a voice called from the line of armoured goblins. Deeper than the others, it had to be Kalvis. “You have wolven in your number. Were they the ones responsible for the attack at the beach?” He asked the question but the tone implied he knew the answer.

“I’m not aware of any attack in particular,” Sylas said. “Our wolven auxiliaries were responsible for some reconnaissance activities early in this expedition. Longpelt!”

One of the beastman loped forward. His upper body was a mountain of muscle barely concealed by long, shaggy black fur. Maybe shorter than the wolven who he and Huntress had encountered at his car, but his body lacked the scars of pack combat. Either he’d never encountered mortal violence among his peers like One Eye had, or he’d never encountered a meaningful challenge.

Sylas repeated the question to Longpelt. The wolven sniffed. “Green ones near sea? Yes. Killed some, dragged others to camp.” Sylas blanched, looking at the beastman like he’d just spoiled the end of the movie. Longpelt looked oblivious to the consequence of his words.

Falan rolled his eyes. “This is pointless,” he said, words spilling from him slightly too fast to keep up with his gruff accent, “Yes we captured some greenskins but we sold them weeks ago. We thought they were the only ones around. Sadly, we were mistaken. I could roll you all up like a cheap carpet but…” He trailed off into frustrated grumbling, motioning for Sylas to continue.

“Yes, well...none of us desire violence. And so long as you are not violent yourselves, I don’t see why we can’t see our way to an amicable solution to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed.”

“And at the beach,” Kalvis shot back, “Did you desire peaceful coexistence while you tore apart Lero, or Kobix, or Vern?” He was incandescent. One of the guards pressed a hand against his chest to keep him back in line. The goblin looked like he was one wayway remark from springing out and stabbing as many folk as he could. Sensing this Nell grabbed for the reins again.

“Twenty days, you said?” she asked. “Very well. You’ll have your answer by then. Now pull your forces back and give us some time to prepare; we have a lot of work ahead.”

Sylas beamed. “Of course! We’ll be pulling back immediately. Do tell us of your needs for transit, I’m sure they can be accommodated for. We look forward to your cooperation.”

The folk and the wolven traipsed off, backs to the goblins like they had nothing to fear.

“Just one arrow,” Huntress said under her breath, “I could put down that slimey fuck with a single shot.” Her knuckles were white around her bow. Jesse worried she might be seconds from doing just that.

“Not now. They have us outnumbered, we have no defenses. Attacking now is a death wish, and not just for us. Please,” Jesse said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She was far too fast to actually stop her from doing anything, but he hoped a gentler approach would work better. Visibly swallowing her anger, she relaxed her grip.

The folk in the distance moved back into the forest as quickly as they had appeared. The goal, intimidating the small village of castaways, accomplished. Something about their impossible confidence gnawed at Jesse. Sonsabitches thought they were untouchable. What did they have? Bows? Swords? Giant…werewolf motherfuckers? Medieval junk.

The gobs around him dissolved into groups, talking about what just happened. Still standing on the line were Nell, Huntress, Jesse, and one of the soldiers. When she turned to face them, he was surprised to see it was Glora. She wore the arms and armour just like any other of the armed guards. He exchanged a nod with her.

“So?” Nell asked, hands on her hips, “What do we do now?”

Before anyone else could respond, Huntress spat on the ground. “We fight. We fight these giant bastards and we put them in the ground.”