Chapter 81: Chapter 77

Rayna nodded slowly, watching me as I spoke. When I finished, she shook her head. “Why decide kill them now?”

“You, Rayna. I didn’t see a way around the beholder before, but as soon as he requested freedom from them, the way forward became obvious. They’re going to start killing us sooner or later. That Taytrinn who leads them is clearly a black widow who wants to kill me. As far as I can see, killing them is the only path to safety and freedom for my people, and our camp. The only way to keep my word to you, Rayna. Hobbs not expendable.”

She nodded. “hobbs not expendable. Thank you Tyson. I will prepare a squad.”

“Two squads, please. I want a forward group with me. We’ll be sneaking in, I know a hidden door that will deposit us in the middle of their territory. But we need a primary group to do a strike from the main entrance as well. While they engage the delves’s security forces, we can enter and cut the heads off their leadership.”

Tollya raised her hand. “I want be on that team.”

I nodded eagerly. “Good, I was hoping you would volunteer. I also want Jada, if she’s willing, and Ordo. I trust him to watch our backs, and he keeps his head when it gets rough.”

Tollya and Rayna both nodded. “Ordo good choice. Good soldier,” Rayna said. “I lead main attack force. We take elevators and stairs on both ends, drive them down while you attack from behind and thin their numbers. Our main job be to hold their attention.”

A whine from the door interrupted us, and I stood with a roll of my eyes. “Doofus, buddy, is that you? Where you been all day?”

When he came in, I noticed he was wearing some new colors. A series of colorful images was drawn across his body, using what looked like watercolor paints. The tufts of hair growing fresh from his naked skin carried color and patterns as well, mostly flowers and small wildlife, like rabbits or squirrels.

He appeared to be happy, wagging his tail as I let him in. He’d been hanging out with kids all day, by the look of him. That made sense, his original family had five. I was sure he missed them, even though he’d only been a puppy at the time.

Doofus immediately went to Tollya and Rayna, after brushing past my legs with a heavy lean.

“I guess Doof wants to come with,” I said with a smile. My initial instinct was to convince the dog to stay behind, but something happened that made me stop.

Tollya thumped her chest at Doofus, the same way she did to me. “His war-paint cute.”

She reached out and lightly scrubbed his head, right between his ears. The dog grunted and hefted himself into Tollya’s lap, flopping out and crushing her against the back of her chair in his quest for physical affection.

She laughed and grinned, stony teeth showing past her broad lips for the first time. Rayna chuckled too, leaning over to scratch Doofus’s chest. He sighed and thumped his tail at them.

“We are fortunate. Doofus lead us to attempt rescue in the Sleem dungeon. He is a mighty warrior, without fear.” Tollya smiled gently as she spoke, reverently rubbing the over-sized dog in her lap.

“Yeah, that’s what worries me. He’s young and reckless.” I snapped my fingers and the malamute’s head shot up, fixated on me. “Hey, Doof. C’mere, I wanna talk to you.”

He grunted and got out of Tollya’s lap, much to her disappointment. With a sauntering gait, he walked around the firepit and sat down in front of me, tongue lolling as he stared at me.

“We’re going back underground, soon. If you come with me, we have to be as quiet as possible, for as long as possible. But I also want you wearing armor, do you have armor yet?” I thought of the rifles the delve security forces had been carrying.

Doofus stopped panting and paid close attention to me as I spoke, and when I was done, he thumped an oversized paw in my lap.

It shimmered where it touched me, and there was a slight field of static around the limb. I looked closer and saw another new attachment to his collar. A solid blue gem was seated in the center of a metal docking port. The port had intricate filigree that ran the length of the collar, and was attached to several other, smaller blue gems in docking ports.

The item covered his collar almost entirely, but left areas open for attachments like his sonic weapon, which was nestled neatly at the front of the whole arrangement. I patted his back and felt the light static push again, but as soon as my fingers slowed, the sensation did as well. There was a light feeling of static cling where my hand rested near his skin, but it wasn’t really present unless I moved.

Doofus had bought a movement activated electromagnetic shield. I briefly wondered how, and then noticed that his nails were all recently trimmed, to a professionally short level. Doofus used to hate getting groomed, but it looked like it was at least profitable for him. I’d have to see about upping his salary on the affiliate page. However the BuyMort app worked for him, he was a smart shopper and spent his morties well.

I patted his back twice, and he turned to go back to Rayna and Tollya. “Good boy, Doof,” I muttered. He wagged his tail at me, before leaning into the good scratching from his new friends. I realized again that I hadn’t seen Doofus since he left earlier in the day. And when he left, he had been mildly wounded.

I smacked my own forehead, unable to believe I had forgotten to treat his glass wound. When I looked, it was clean, and had a small amount of clear, viscous material in it. Somebody had taken care of the wound for me and looking at the way he interacted with the hobbs, I immediately figured they had helped.

It seemed like Doofus was hanging out with anyone he pleased, and with more and more people coming in, I liked the idea of him being around to keep an eye on the place. Doofus was a great judge of character and having him working with Rayna seemed like a good fit to me. If I wanted to treat him like Axle had described, I was right to not limit his movements or interactions.

If he had been a smaller, or less capable dog, I would have been more concerned for his safety. But Doofus had been proving me wrong for thinking of him as lesser in any way, so I shrugged and trusted him.

“Okay, well, that’s the plan sorted. When do we actually do this thing?” I clapped my hands and sat back, noticing the mug Tollya had dropped off for me, and snatching it up to sample.

The liquid inside was hot, and thicker than I had been expecting it to be. It tasted faintly of coffee and chocolate and had a creamy texture and aftertaste. I immediately liked it and took a larger gulp.

Relaxation flowed into my veins from the drink, and I felt the crushing weight of my long, bad day start to lift somewhat. It was like coffee in that it helped sharpen my mind slightly, but it also caused deep relaxation and helped physically clear the stress from my body. 

I happily took another large drink from the mug and set it back down on the edge of the fire-pit.

“Mmm, that is good. What is it?” I licked my lips and leaned back in my chair, enjoying the comforting warmth and relaxation spreading from my stomach.

Tollya nodded, raising her own mug. “Mush-bug tea.”

Rayna nodded and reached for her own mug. Both women took long sips as I stiffened.

“What’s a mush-bug?” I asked, jovially. The nausea swimming up from my stomach didn’t need a visual to go along with what I was thinking, but my idiot mouth went looking for one anyway.

“Mush-bugs nice, good livestock crop. Not too aggressive, easy to handle. BuyMort only sends them against gobs, cause gobs are allergic to their squeezings,” Tollya said, slurping from her own mug. “Puts them to sleep. Just relaxing for everyone else.”

Rayna nodded and took a sip, before looking up to see my face. “Oh, mush-bug like . . . what you call them? Roly-Poly? But with big, spongy outer shell. If you squeeze them daily, it promotes good health and makes for nice drink.”

I vomited, stupidly aiming for the mug. It caught most of it, but the rest cascaded over the sides, and I ended up dropping the thing to shatter against the hardpacked earthen floor. “Oh Pasta! Sorry,” I gasped, thinking of drinking pill bug fluids.

Tollya scowled in confusion, but Rayna nudged her and whispered something I couldn’t hear over the sound of my own gagging. I retched a couple more times, and straightened up, drool hanging from my lip. They both giggled and shrugged at each other.

“How you survive if you no eat bugs, Tyson?” Tollya asked with a straight face. “Weird.” She turned to look at Rayna, who blinked and nodded.

“Very weird,” Rayna agreed. I glared at my captain of the guard, but she shrugged and chuckled. “You thought it was good before you knew it was bug. This in your head.”

The hobb tapped her own temple, before draining the mush-bug drink in her mug and standing up. She moved into the other room, pushed past the privacy drapes, and rummaged around. When the tall hobb woman returned, she tossed a scrap of ratty towel across the fire pit to me.

I nodded and used it to wipe my face off, before getting to work cleaning up my mess. Rayna ignored my discomfort and continued with our meeting.

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“Need more weapons before attack delves. Need more hobbs,” she said.

“I don’t get it. Why do we need so many hobbs to pull this off?” I asked, carefully depositing my used rag into the firepit.

“Need four hobbs for Sada’s compound, including his personal guard, Hord,” she raised a finger to signify those hobbs. “Need another twenty for this camp, to cover all walls. That not include the ten we use for daily patrols. Keep people safe from dream purchases and keep general peace.”

Rayna stopped and took a breath, staring at me across the firepit.

“That only one shift. We run three every day. Most hobbs fine with working extra, but we just no have enough for this kind of fight, while keeping camp safe at same time,” she finished with a shrug. “Just not enough weapons.”

“Getting expensive now too,” Tollya added.

I checked. The general page list for weapons sales in my area had been going up, at a surprising rate. What I paid for my enhanced shotgun earlier in the morning wouldn’t even cover a rusty Kalashnikov anymore, and the prices seemed to be getting higher and higher with each second I watched.

I frowned at the page. “That’s wild, I thought weapons were cheap right now because of how rich our world was with them.”

Tollya nodded. “Still are, some places. When big affiliates like Dearth have a conflict, they can alter prices in zones they control by buying and storing. This probably them.”

The metaphoric ax over my head slipped an inch closer to my neck, and I took a deep breath. “Cheeze, what are they doing, buying every weapon in the southwest? Okay, we really need those militia guns then.”

Rayna nodded. “No raven-scout yet.” She shrugged again, and Tollya mimicked her.

“Okay, so we'll wait, for now,” I said. “Darclau will be back, I have faith. That bird is tougher than I thought at first.”

Rayna and Tollya both nodded, so I yawned and moved on to my other topic. “I need some hobbs, and probably some people to go help Lee move. His people were attacked tonight, and they can’t stay there anymore. If I can round up some volunteers, will you help lead them to Sundew Valley Foods with some vehicles and help them get loaded up and moved over?”

Rayna stood with a nod. She went to another door in the unit and knocked lightly on it. When a hobb poked their head out, she conversed with them in their own guttural language while Tollya stared at me.

Tollya raised her chin at me when I focused back on her. “You should get some sleep, boss. You look tired.”

The mush-bug juice had sunk the concept of relaxation into my bones before I barfed it up, and I couldn’t help but nod at Tollya when she said it.

“I am tired. Right now, we have Lee’s people still coming in, and I should be helping them with their move.” I sighed and stood, turning toward the door. “I’ll try and get some volunteers, in spite of how late it is.”

She nodded slowly, watching me as I slid my helmet back on. Then she stood. “I help.”

With the tall hobb in tow, I left the hut and started walking down the line of huts. Most people were inside at that point, it was nearly ten-o-clock at night. Still, I knocked on each door and asked the occupants for any volunteers, after explaining our task.

The process took me until eleven at night, but I ended up getting a surprising amount of people and plenty of hobbs to help out. Rayna and Tollya managed to convince me to hang back and allow them to run the operation. By eleven-fifteen, we had almost a dozen vehicles with room for cargo heading out in a convoy, bristling with armed guards led by Tollya.

Tollya shouted at me from the truck bed she rode in as the vehicle went past me, “Go get sleep!” and I waved dismissively at her.

Still, my eyes wandered to the storage barn. I had seen bedding in there earlier, when I went digging for my new oven, which was worthless. Another few minutes of digging around, and I had found a queen-size mattress and a massive comforter to spread out across it. I think it was called a ‘duvet’ before the end of my civilization.

I was in the process of carrying my new bed up my road when Axle walked out of my house and waved. He was wearing heavy gloves and had an oversized ratcheting wrench in his paw.

“Hey boss! Got power hooked up.” He pointed to a nearby thick cable jutting from the wall of my house and leading over the privacy hump toward Mr. Sada’s. “Sleem farm is running, should have enough for a sale soon.”

“That’s great Axle, thank you,” I mumbled as I trudged past. Cube looked happy, shifting around to face me as I entered. He purred while I dragged my cargo past. As I walked through the empty room behind him toward my spiral stairs, I noticed that someone had brought the oven back inside.

I dropped my cargo and leaned back to shout, “Axle?” I grabbed the oven and propane tank, sniffing the air around them for leakage. I didn’t smell anything but started hauling the oven outside anyway.

“QUIET!” Cube roared.

I bit my tongue and continued hauling my broken oven outside. A light brightened inside Molls’ car, and I saw her crack a blind to peer at us. I waved.

“Sorry, Molls!” I whisper-shouted. Cube growled but didn’t shriek in protest that time. Axle appeared in the doorway behind me.

“Yes?” He whispered.

“Oh, good, sorry. I just. . . “ I pointed at the oven. “This thing was outside for a reason, it’s dangerous, it leaks.”

Axle nodded. “I know, I fixed it. It was quite simple, the connector you purchased is capable of directing the flow of gasses, so I customized it. The oven should operate, but as a low heat device. You’ll need to use a thermometer to be sure of any temperatures, but the connector is now synched to that dial, it will not leak when turned off.”

I stared. The new dial had a small wire running back to the pipe connection device I had purchased earlier in the day. “Oh. Damn, that’s great. Thanks, Axle!” I offered my hand, and he looked down before smiling and grasping my forearm in his huge fuzzy paw.

Together, we hauled the oven back inside. It was decided that it should be in the room with Cube, where there was better ventilation, and I happily set a batch of fat to render in it before we finished. Axle helped with that too, by running to the storage barn and getting a pan that could hold the grease, and eventually seeds.

It was relatively easy, considering the basic nature of my setup. The yarsp fat had solidified but melted and rendered easily enough in my new low-heat oven. Once it was ready, I just dumped the whole thing in the pan and stirred the seeds to populate them throughout, leaving it to cool on the oven top.

Once it was done, Axle offered to help me get the mattress upstairs and I shook my head. “Thank you, but you can head home and get some rest. I appreciate all you’ve done today.”

He nodded and turned to leave before turning back. “You look exhausted, you should get some sleep.”

“There’s just so much to do, but I intend to. We have raids going on tomorrow, and I gotta try and get some rest before the yarsps come,” I said, shaking my head with a sigh.

“Jada informed me she would be joining you on two actions, yes. I wish you both good hunting, and you some rest, to be sharp for that hunting.” He snapped his clawed fingers. “If you give me directorial control for the Sleem farm, I can set an alarm to make the first sales, get that running.”

I hurriedly swiped through my affiliate screens and did as he asked. That sounded great, and Axle had more than earned my trust already. Once it was done, he confirmed the affiliate action, and turned to leave.

Once he was gone, I returned to the task of dragging my new mattress up the spiral staircase. It bent and twisted without the box spring, so all I had to do was keep dragging, even though it didn’t want to come up.

I flopped it on the floor of my bedroom, far enough away from the staircase hole that I wasn’t at risk of falling in and draped the entire thing in the duvet. Then I collapsed on the duvet and rolled myself in it like a burrito, before passing out on my own bicep. Day five finally ended with me snoring.

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