The millipede bonfire was bigger than I expected. They dug a lengthy trench in a circle, then laid out the creature’s body in the pit. By the time they were finished, the body was curled three times around the fire. The bonfire itself was composed of dry wood and plant fibers from the immediate area, reinforced with scrap from their scavenging run.

Anything they didn’t immediately need went into feeding the tribe, and soon a towering pillar of flames roasted the millipede from the inside out. Black smoke pooled at the top of the tunnel as the sun passed beyond the range of our windows, and the light faded in a spectacular purple and orange sunset. Great fans kicked on and sucked the smoke out of the area.

Within an hour, a loud crackling noise drew my attention back to the bonfire. The millipede’s exoskeleton ruptured in segments as the meat within swelled from the heat. Many gobbs cheered raucously as they descended on the cooking arthropod with long-bladed scrap knives and began carving it up. Some dug in directly, biting great hunks off the insect and consuming it eagerly, grease running down their green chins.

Others carved off sections and returned to their shelters with heaping loads of meat to feed their families. As segments of the great arthropod were excavated, the gobbs carted away its armor plating and legs, before moving the rest of its body closer to the flames.

By the time the bonfire was coals, the gobbs had stripped the entire thing. Nothing would be wasted. Armor plates became roof tiles and bowls alike, and the legs went into their shelters for structural support, as well as defensive spike arrangements. I even saw a gobb woman wrapping a fire-blackened leg tip in reeds to make a simple knife. When she was done, she tucked it into her waistband and wandered off munching on a segment of the millipede’s flesh.

Near the end of the feast, Nozzle barked a few words in gobb to his tribe members and I was hastily served a portion of millipede on an armor plate. I thanked the gobbs who served it, but they fled from me chittering and went back to their bonfire.

The meat was grainy, and greasy, but tasted like roasted lobster. I ate the entire portion they gave me, quickly realizing how ravenous I really was. By the time I was finished eating, so was the rest of the tribe. They retreated to their structures, making adjustments and reinforcements to them. Some went to sleep, around smaller fires in their huts and tents.

Nozzle stretched and yawned in his saddle.

“You going to sleep?” I asked him.

The gobb shook his head. “No, I want to watch that lake,” he said, pointing to the nearby elevator shaft.

Its bottom was covered in murky water, some of which extended into the nearby tunnels, forming a swamp at the bottom of that particular portion of Storage. The liquid didn’t fluctuate or surge, which told me that the section's baffle was non-functional. With too many millennia of use, even simple machines like it could break down.

“You want to know what’s in it,” I stated.

Nozzle nodded. “Sometimes danger. Sometimes food. Either way, tribe must know, if they are to live on its edge.”

“How did all this come to be?” I asked suddenly, glancing up at Nozzle in his saddle. Babyeater twitched a leg at my attention, and the gobb patted the spider soothingly. “So much water, so much soil.”

Nozzle scoffed and began picking his teeth with a claw. “Hobbs,” he said. “Some gobbs too. Bring dirt back from jobs. Sometimes a pocketful, sometimes a bag. Gobbs smarter. We break into storage pods and steal it. BuyMort stupid, replaces dirt we steal. We steal it again.”

“Of course. BuyMort passes untold tons of soil and earth through Storage. How long have the gobbs been here?” I asked.

“Always,” Nozzle replied immediately. It didn’t tell me much, but it likely meant thousands of years at the least.

The root structures drank from the lake, and flora spread out across dozens of sections. Other stilled baffles were likewise filled with water, creating more pockets of life all across Storage.

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“I’ll check the lake for you,” I offered. “I can go deep, see underwater.”

“Your armor?” Nozzle asked.

I nodded.

He laughed and gestured toward the lake. “Good! Yes, go!”

I floated upward and summoned my armor, drawing a few gasps and shrieks from the gobbs still awake. Ignoring them, I hovered over the murky lake and descended into its center. The water was impenetrable to light, but I began casting fairy fire to find my way.

It glowed softly against the walls around me, outlined the roots that dipped low in the water, and showed me the various creatures that called the lake home. Thousands of tiny shrimp skittered from root to root, feeding on the plant life even as they fed wall-mounted catfish-grubs, which gulped the shrimp by the dozen in sudden, lunging motions.

I descended lower. The walls of the baffle were as I expected, locked closed, the machinery seized and corroded. Forever dead.

From the depths of the baffle rose a familiar horror, something that would definitely threaten the gobbs. A lobtis, using its claws to idly pick catfish-grubs from the walls and consume them, gripping the smooth metal sides with its many small limbs. I frowned and pushed my suit, streaking through the water toward the sparkling outline.

It felt me coming and pushed off from the wall, both scythes reaching back in preparation to strike. I never gave it the chance, punching straight through its carapace and out the other side as it feebly swung its scythe claws.

With a grunt of effort, I caught the dead lobtis’ body as it started to sink and flew upward. Once I cleared the waterline with my burden, I flew over to the gobbs encampment and dropped the dead lobtis off on the shore of the lake nearby.

Nozzle stared at me with wide eyes, then peered down at the giant dead creature. He shrugged and motioned toward the lake again. I chuckled and went diving again.

My efforts only found one more lobtis, which I killed and delivered to the shoreline again. But the rest of the deep lake was filled with less dangerous life, and would be perfect for the gobbs to fish in. Both the catfish grubs and the swarms of tiny shrimp would provide life-sustaining meals for the tribe, and without the threat of the lobtis monsters, the gobbs could even swim in the water if they wanted.

Once I retracted my armor, the awake gobbs all clustered around to gape at the bounty of my hunt. Some of them began carving into the lobtis, finding cracks in the armor to exploit and hauling away chunks of the meat to start cooking. It was a very small scale effort compared to the bonfire they had thrown earlier in the night, but it was clear to me that the tribe was not used to having more food than they needed.

Nozzle approached on Babyeater. “Thank you, Tyson. You not bad for a human. Sure you’re not going to enslave my tribe though?”

I chuckled. “No, that’s not how I do things.”

“You know,” the gobb said carefully. “I know of a Tyson. Big deal human a long time ago, before my time. Heard he enslaved all the hobbs, used them to take over the multiverse, and Storage. My people still dealing with their cities.”

I nodded as he spoke. “Well, I didn’t enslave them, but the rest of that sounds right.”

“You’re that Tyson??” Nozzle asked, eyes wide. “How? Humans not live that long.”

“Yeah, I’m wearing a suit that makes it really hard for me to die,” I told him.

The gobb stared at me for a long moment, then shook his head and looked away. “Wow. You’ve been gone a long time.”

“Yeah, I really have.” I replied. “Not my choice.”

“Well,” Nozzle started, grabbing something from his saddle and dismounting his spider with a graceful leap. He carried the square, flat item under one arm and pointed to a nearby hut. “I’m going to sleep, old human. Thanks for clearing the lake. Tomorrow we range. Come, room for you here.”

He walked into the hut and vanished behind its fern frond door. I followed, pushing aside the frond to peer inside. Aside from being smaller than I would like, the interior was already quite comfortable. Oversized fronds had been layered across the floor, creating a soft rug floor. The walls were composed of classic blue tarp wrapped around small wooden beams driven into the soft loam.

Nozzle’s item turned out to be a folding cot, complete with a silver foil blanket. He set it up on one side of the hut and turned to look at me. “No bed? Might want to sleep in your armor then. Lots of bugs on the ground here.”

“Thanks for the advice, Nozzle,” I said. Then I deployed my armor and laid down on the ground by the door. Within minutes I heard the light snores of my host. The ranger was clearly exhausted; he sank into a deep sleep immediately and did not stir when I shifted around to look at him. He was draped peacefully across the cot, one arm and leg dangling out from beneath his silver blanket.

I smiled inside my helmet and rolled back toward the door, using one metal clad arm as a pillow. Then I sank into thoughts of Molls. The mural I had seen in Prescott weighed on my mind. I had to find out why she had been fighting against BlueCleave. Then I realized that I had to find out what BlueCleave had become in my absence to understand why she had been fighting them.

What could have driven my gentle, fear-filled mate to become a warrior at all? Let alone someone who would fight against the empire I had built.

My mind spun with thoughts of what Axle had turned Silken Sands into. I didn’t know anywhere near enough about it to make any judgments. While I laid on the fern frond rug and worried, sleep crept up on me and I blacked out.