19
Chief Administrator
Handy’s sudden hunt answered a few questions and presented a few more. A quick check with Lilith confirmed that the eighteen… slimes, I guess… had counted for the ten monster invasion requirement for the next tier. Unfortunately, Handy had killed them himself, which meant we still needed trap kills, and that Handy had made a large sum of money for the kills. How the hell beast had dragged so many monsters back to the dungeon, or how it knew doing so would be beneficial, was anyone’s guess.
At least the thing seemed friendly. He continued to pant and wag his tail happily while I stared tiredly. I really couldn’t be bothered to figure this out right now. But I had to do something. It was likely that Derrick, or Squirrely McSquirrel, or whoever, had trained this thing to perform specific tasks. Knowing what I did about those two, the top priority for Handy’s training was probably fulfilling Tier up requirements. That meant if I ignored the problem and went back to my half-sleep, I might wake up to Handy happily awaiting praise over Cynthia’s corpse.
“Any ideas?” I asked Lilith.
“I don’t know… tie it up? Or you could just terminate the minion contract.
“Oh? I thought we couldn’t do that because the system is the contract holder.”
“They are, but we can still end a contract; it is just... rough on the minion’s soul.”
“What do you mean, rough?”
“I would be surprised if anything below level twenty could survive.”
So, tie up or kill Handy. Did I really have to make a decision on this right now… while I was exhausted and mentally drained? The goblins and trolls had been creeping closer, trying to get a look while still relatively safe. Handy finally noticed them and barked again, lowering his head while his tail picked up speed, preparing to chase. He really acted just like a playful dog.
That made me think about Earth dogs. Dogs were animals, just as potentially dangerous as any other. However, humans still kept and trained them. Surely we could do something similar… I entered the construction interface and installed my idea; at the same time, I also cleaned up the slime. Slime looked and smelled nasty… but it was a material, and there was no reason to turn down new material. It was more than likely that the slime had some useful properties that Gale or Gina could use for their various projects.
After restarting time, I made my way outside. Handy followed at my heel… or he would have, but he was just too tall, so he followed at my shoulder. I could feel his razor-sharp teeth, now neck-high, right behind me as I crossed the rock fall room. A spike of panic shot through me when I realized the monster had to cross the tripwire, but as I looked back, I saw him step gingerly over the trap. Handy was definitely smart…
Outside, my changes were immediately apparent. Just inside the border that Mitch the Ditch made, stood a tall fence. I currently had a surplus of funds, so I really went all out. The fence was reminiscent of chain-link fences, with woven and interlocked iron wires. I made a small alteration, though. I added barbs, turning the entire fence into a barbed chain link monstrosity rising eight feet into the air. At the top I had taken inspiration from fences around high-security areas on Earth. Jutting out from the top, pointing inward and outward both, were iron supports. More barbed wire ran along the supports.
Anyone who wanted to get in would have to use a special gate for the purpose, or else cross the highly flammable greasy ditch, climb the barbed fence, and either out and over the overhanging section or through it. I really couldn’t see anyone or anything, Handy included, getting in or out without permission. As the dungeon inhabitants surfaced, two of them rushed off to inspect the new addition. Handy and Gale.
Gale walked the perimeter, examining the fence closely, nodding at times. Handy followed her, stopping when she stopped and nodding when she nodded. Well, at least he seemed gentle enough around the small goblins. As I watched them, the pair circled the entire clearing and reached the gate. The gate was a simple thing. I had made small hinges of interlocking bars and a frame of iron pipe. It was only about ten feet wide and lined up with the ‘bridge’ across Mitch. The bridge would need to be rebuilt at some point. A few goblins had tossed a couple of planks of wood across the gap, which worked well enough for the goblins, but if the humans brought carts of building material in, they would need some way to cross the trap.
Gale reached up to open the latch on the gate, but I had placed it too high. She couldn’t quite reach. Handy watched her struggle for a moment. I was interested in what they would do, so I didn’t interfere. Gale grew increasingly frustrated, letting out tiny grunts and curses. The height of the latch was such that she could just about reach it on her tiptoes. Handy’s animal brain churned as Gale struggled. He looked back and forth between the goblin and the gate several times before approaching.
The hell beast bent down and grabbed Gale’s shirt collar. I thought he was about to lift her to the latch, but instead he backed up a few steps, flailing goblin in tow. Then he leapt, leathery wings snapping out loudly. Two great beats of his surprisingly large wings and the pair had cleared the fence. Once they had gently landed on the outside, Handy gently released Gale on her feet. The goblin brushed imagined dust off herself and nodded to the beast, who happily panted back.
“Hey Rob…”
“Yes, Lilith?”
“Your fence kinda sucks.”
“Yes, Lilith.”
The fence inspection continued for a while longer. Eventually, Gale rode Handy back over the fence, not even attempting the gate a second time.
“Barbara.” She stated plainly.
I raised an eyebrow, “It’s not a trap, though.”
She shrugged, “Close enough; her name is Barbara.”
“I thought you only named traps you had made.” I tried again.
She ignored me and went back into the dungeon, presumably back to working on more traps.
“Well… I’m open to any more ideas on how to keep this thing from running off again.”
Lilith sounded annoyed when she spoke, “I told you, tie it up!”
“Isn’t that kind of cruel?”
“You just tried to cage it.”
“Sure, but he would have had a lot of room to run around.”
“So tie it up with a lot of slack then.”
Wait… that was right. Dogs on Earth often had chains tethering them to their home. Why did I assume Lilith meant something like a hogtie? I quickly had a chain fixed on one end to a bracket on the dungeon entrance and the other to a collar, which I made from more chain for the badass factor. The chain was long enough to reach the fence, but not over it. To keep Handy from getting tangled up and stuck inside the dungeon, I used a little removable gate. It was basically a baby gate, but the fact that it was allowed in the main entrance of the dungeon and didn’t send an error made me think there were probably more loopholes there, if I ever got around to exploring some of them.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
I initially worried the chain collar would be uncomfortable, but Lilith pointed out that Handy was covered in scales and spikes. Once we had it on him, he didn’t seem to mind, so I left it alone. Finally I was able to get some rest. Once again, despite my best efforts, I was last to lie down and last to rise.
Geoff was the first to greet me in the morning. He had apparently raided Gale’s workshop, making off with some paper, and fashioned a clipboard out of bits and pieces. When he noticed I was up and moving about, he flipped to another page and approached.
“Good morning, Mr. Rob. I need to go over a few things with you, if you have a moment.”
“Sure, no problem, buddy. And… just Rob is fine.”
Geoff pulled a face and said, “I would warn you not to say that in front of Gale, sir. Lest you be named ‘Just Rob’ for the rest of your days.”
That sounded like a story, but Geoff continued to talk, checking his notes several times.
“Some of the humans visited this morning; you were asleep, so I handled it.”
“Wait… humans showed up? Here? Which ones?”
“The tall one with the shiny head, I believe you called him Hunter.”
Cynthia’s father then, that was quicker than I had expected. He was supposed to be leading a group that would clear a path between the dungeon and the village, but that should take days. I really just hoped it would be done before the tribute to Kasumi and the trolls was due.
“What brought him here? No… how did you ‘handle it?’ You can't speak to each other... You didn’t kill him, did you?”
Geoff looked at me like I was crazy, “Of course not. We have seen what the humans can do. The dungeon is strong... but we cannot fight that village. No, now that both sides are aware of the cooperation, we don’t immediately resort to violence. There are other forms of communication.”
To prove the point he turned his clipboard around and showed me a drawing of a pile of stone. He flipped to the next page, which showed a pile of scrap metal. Several more drawings showed similar things; all were one general building material or another.
“We worked out a measurement system to nail down the details as well. Gregg will need to build scales of a few different sizes for weighing. He may need your assistance.”
“How did you manage all this just this morning?”
Geoff’s chin rose a bit, his chest puffed out, and his hands went behind his back. He looked very proud of himself.
“I may not be as strong as Tessa, or as skilled as Gregg, or as clever as Gale. But I am no slouch. I will do whatever it takes to protect this place. Even if that means hours of charades with a group of humans.”
“But… why not just get me and have me use the amulet?”
Geoff tilted his head back and forth in thought before answering.
“We all have our jobs. Tessa is a caretaker, Gale is a defender, Gina is a healer, you are the leader, and I deal with people. I need to work out how to communicate and negotiate with outsiders as well as our own people.”
“Hey, Geoff?”
“Yes, Mr. Rob?”
“You’re an idiot. Just ask if you need help in the future… also… thank you.”
I held out the Amulet of Babel, “I want you to have this. I need to think of a proper title for you, but I want you to be my chief administrator.”
Geoff grinned widely as he gently, reverently, took the legendary artifact and placed it on his own neck.
“Thank you, sir. Now back to the humans. They seemed to be asking about the logs. There are apparently going to be a lot of logs cleared between here and the village, so they were asking if we wanted to start our trading by purchasing them.”
“And what did the Chief Administrator decide?”
“I offered tin. They seem to have some use for the coins. I didn’t pry, since it took long enough to understand that they wanted the coins. But it seemed like they were willing to deliver logs for tin coins, fifteen coins for each log.”
It remained to be seen how much value I could get from wood, but this was a start at least. Trade with an outside source was a major step toward good relations. I nodded to Geoff, but he wasn’t finished.
“There is more. I couldn’t properly understand what they were trying to say… but I’m pretty sure they are going to bring people for us to turn into zombies… Humans.”
“I thought they didn’t have criminals needing execution in such a small village?”
“That’s what I thought too. We couldn’t get the point across to each other, so I’m not certain exactly what they were trying to say… But I let them draw a picture themselves… look.”
The drawing on the sheet Geoff showed me next was clearly done by a different, less skilled hand than the others. Stick figures seemed to be carrying other stick figures to a building, where they were then left. A smaller image next to the drawing showed two stickmen; an arrow led from each, one to the building and one back the way the stickmen had come.
It wasn’t surprising that they couldn’t get their point across with this kind of art. Somehow the dead goblins drew better pictures than the humans.
“Alright, well next time they show up, you can talk to them and work out a deal. You know what’s going on, so I trust you to make whatever deal you think is best. If you need me, though, just ask.”
Geoff nodded gratefully, then handed me another sheet of paper. On this one I found writing. Actual writing, but I couldn’t read any of it.
“Writing? You can read?”
“Of course, all goblins spend their first ten years learning everything from hunting to building to reading and writing.”
Was he talking about goblin schools?
“What language is this?”
Geoff looked confused, “Language? What do you mean?”
“Language… like… I guess you can think of it as goblins speaking one language, zombies speaking another, humans speaking a third, and so on. What language is this?”
The goblin didn’t seem any less confused after my explanation, “This is writing, not language.”
We were losing something in translation here. But that made me think of translation itself. On Earth, languages were difficult to learn because there was more difference than just the words. Syntax, grammar, and vocabulary were all things one had to learn in order to properly understand a new language. One for one, word for word, literal translations were often incomprehensible. So how was it then that the Amulet of Babel was able to translate everything in real time flawlessly? Even something that magically translated every single word would be tripped up when words didn’t have an equivalent, or the pacing was too far off. Even slang, different dialects, and accents would probably confuse a real-time translation.
The only way it could work was if everyone and everything spoke the same language, and the only difference was what each individual word meant. The entire world would be speaking substitution variants of one language. There was no way that was possible, right? Even the squirrel was capable of squirrel speech. Surely someone would have noticed it before.
“Geoff… Have you ever seen human writing?”
He furrowed his brow in thought, “Can humans write?”
I was really curious now. The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Multiple dungeons had become capable of communicating with humans, so the idea had some merit. But again, there was no way that no one had figured this out before.
“Next time you meet the humans, ask for them to bring some writing… ask for a book.”
The goblin shrugged, apparently not as interested in the oddity as I was.
“If you say so, boss. We also have some requests from the goblins for supplies…”
The meeting went on long enough that I decided to add an office with a desk and a nice, comfortable spinning chair to my list of things to make. I ended up spending another silver and some change on materials for Gina to make more potions, Gale to make more prototype traps, and Gregg to make tools and weapons for everyone. Just about half of the day had gone before the business was done and Geoff left me alone. I could really see the value in delegation now and silently thanked Tessa for her foresight when assigning jobs to all of the minions.
Even with, or perhaps because of, the time-stopping effect, the work just never seemed to end, and I was fully drained and burnt out by the time I wandered outside. Gerald hadn’t been idle the past few days. The goblin was just as young-looking as Gale, but he took his job of head of entertainment seriously. Various games had been set up, and it was interesting to see how some concepts held across dimensions while others were completely alien to me and my Earth memories.
A game very much like horseshoes had been set up, but instead of horseshoes, the goblins threw rings at a stake in the ground. Someone had found a bucket, and a game that looked suspiciously like a cross between basketball and rugby was being played using a rabbit pelt stuffed with dried grass as a ball. I couldn’t find an Earth equivalent for one game, Tessa, Terry, and Gabe were sprinting from the fence to the dungeon entrance, where they would put a mark on the wall with something like chalk. Then they took their chalk and threw it at one of the other runners, who would either dodge or catch the projectile. I really couldn’t understand the goal, but they were laughing and having fun.
The scene warmed my dead heart. There was a lot going on, but this family was enjoying themselves, and that’s all that really mattered. We probably wouldn’t get many breaks from all of the insanity, so it was important to enjoy them where we could. Handy barreled into me from the side, knocking me over. Several of the goblins and trolls stopped to look and see if I would blow up at the animal. I looked up at the drooling hell beast who wagged his giant bludgeon of a tail.
I roared, grabbing his leg and rolling him over. Time to unwind.