Kaleb originally thought that having over fifty NPCs searching top to bottom in the enormous hangar would quickly get results. He was rapidly becoming disillusioned with such thoughts. Even the added help of Abby and the others did not speed up finding the little bastards. Every now and again and shout would go out, followed by a cheer or groan of annoyance.

They had killed a few of the damn things. But gremlins were apparently masters of hiding. They were on their third sweep of the hangar when Kaleb finally went looking for Daivor. The gnome had been hunting the tiny creatures with a fervor Kaleb had never seen. In fact, Kaleb was sure Daivor had killed the most gremlins out of everyone. It was during his search that Kaleb bumped into an annoyed looking Abby, Claire, and Vivienne. Immediately, he put his hands up.

“I know. I’m looking for Daivor. Maybe there’s a quicker way to do this.”

Abby sighed. “Sorry. But we’ve been logged in for an hour now and all we’ve done is hunt gremlins.”

“We have several outstanding alerts already, too. We need to get to actual work, or our popularity rating is going to take a hit.” Claire added.

“Maybe you three and Two Gun could…” Kaleb started to say before Two Gun’s rough voice whooped loudly.

“HA! Gotcha, ya little varmint! That’s 8 to 6 now, gnome! I’m gonna catch up to you soon!”

Claire rolled her eyes, and Kaleb amended his statement.

“I mean, maybe you ladies could slip out the side door real quick?”

All three women gave him grateful looks that soured as Daivor’s gruff voice interrupted their discussion. The gnome was sitting on the high wall of Kaleb’s workshop, cleaning his sword.

“They’d have to do it quick. And they won’t be let back in until we’ve dealt with this.”

Abby and Claire shot the gnome dirty looks as Vivienne glanced at Kaleb.

“What did he say?”

“It’ll have to be quick and you probably won’t be let back in.”

Abby scoffed. “That’s fine. I’ll just log out from the street. Anything is better than being cooped up in her for hours.”

“I am in desperate need to punch something, darlings. And I would prefer it were bad guys.”

Kaleb rubbed his eyes and nodded. “Okay, why don’t you three grab some NPCs and have them watch the door as you slip out? We’ve got Wanda on a terminal manning things. Daivor! Is it okay to have the drone operators do their thing?!”

“No! But go ahead. Maybe some bait will draw the little buggers out.”

“What do you mean?” Kaleb asked as he waved goodbye to his friends.

The ladies were quickly gathering NPCs for their escape, and some of them looked happy to be doing anything else. Morale was turning into a huge issue. Few of them appeared to enjoy mindless, repetitious tasks. Aside from himself, Daivor, and Two Gun, it seemed. The gnome swung on to his shoulder as he transformed his sword back into a pipe.

“Gremlins are attracted to technology. Any kind of tech. Computers, gadgets, tablets, or other things of that nature.”

“So why haven’t we been using bait this whole time?”

“What?! And let the filthy buggers ge their mitts on some of our work?! Hell no! The damn things know only how to destroy and that’s all they are good for. But if you want to speed things up, then you can be the one to repair what the little shits break.”

Daivor puffed angrily on his pipe and Kaleb glanced up at the red-face gnome. He seemed both annoyed and angry in equal measure. Clearly, the Builder Gnome had an issue with anything or anyone that was in the business of breaking things. Which made a weird sense to Kaleb. The two species seemed to be opposites. A small part of him wanted to see if he could maybe tame a gremlin. Just to mess with Daivor. But he brushed it off. That would be a dick move and only mildly funny.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking. But somethings tells me I wouldn’t like it.”

Kaleb rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start up a few terminals and you can explain to me what kind of tech gremlins like. Maybe we can create some kind of super-bait that draws them in and we can nab them all at once.”

“And kill them, right?”

“We’ll see how it goes.”

Kaleb smiled as Daivor took off his hat and slapped the side of his head with it. Clearly, the builder gnome had no sense of humor where gremlins were concerned. Kaleb quickly got a team of drone operators up and running and then placed guards around them. Two Gun was still eagerly searching throughout the hangar like he was on safari, so Kaleb made his way to his workshop and opened the door.

Inside, Marie was asleep on her workbench while Roy and Terrance were reading books. Roy had some fantasy novel open on his lap, while Terrance seemed to be nose-deep in a technical manual for a motorcycle. Kaleb scoffed loudly and as he looked around his quiet workshop. Having all the equipment in the room turned off was eerie. Both boys glanced up at him, but Marie merely snored softly.

“Y’know, you three could be out there helping.”

Roy grimaced, but Terrance simply turned a page on his book. “I’m a pacifist.”

Kaleb blinked. “Who builds weapons?!”

Terrance’s face grew three shades of red before he coughed awkwardly. “I mean… I could be a pacifist…”

“Yeah, and I’m a giant talking mouse. Get out of here, the both of you. We need more eyes searching for the damn things. The sooner we find them, the sooner we can get back to actual work.”

Kaleb moved to his workbench as both boys slowly got to their feet and grabbed their gear. Roy tapped his shoulder as he picked up his weapons.

“What about Marie? Why doesn’t she have to go?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Kaleb glanced at the smaller women as she snored peacefully. “You want to wake her up?”

Both boys blanched and quickly fled from the room. Daivor scoffed from Kaleb’s shoulder and activated his harness again. He swung over to Marie’s bench as Kaleb looked down at his own. He needs to create something complex but small. It needed a lot of moving parts. Gremlins seemed to love mucking around with the internals of equipment.

“Maybe something that lit up as well? With a lot of buttons and switches?”

“Hm? Wha? I’m armed!” Marie sputtered as she woke up.

Daivor took a step back on the worktable and glared up at the girl. Immediately upon seeing Daivor, the young woman changed her tune and quickly wiped drool from her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Master Gnome. I was just taking a quick nap. Has the gremlin issue been solved yet?”

Kaleb rolled his eyes. “No. It’s been three hours and we’re still hunting them.”

“What?! Can’t you, like, spray for them or something?”

“Is that what your dad does?”

“No. We don’t have this problem in a standard forge.”

Kaleb fell into thought at that. Meanwhile, Daivor explained what was going on outside to the Marie and then sent her on her way. She didn’t look happy about it, shooting Kaleb all sorts of dirty looks, but she went anyway. A pair of daggers in her hands. Daivor rubbed his eyes and took out his pipe again. He swung to Kaleb’s table and took a long drag before looking up.

“I’ve grown in power again.”

Kaleb quirked an eyebrow. “You can tell?”

“Oh yeah. It’s a hell of a rush. So, are you going to help me with my advancement or what?”

“I was planning on waiting till after the gremlins. Cause I’m pretty sure I know how’d you pick now.”

“What are the options?”

Kaleb blinked in confusion. “You know about this stuff?”

“What stuff? I’m a familiar, you’re my master. So you can guide my advancements easier. Now tell me what you're thinking?”

“Speed, Defense, or Computers.”

“Defense.”

“Now see, would you choose that if we weren’t in the middle of a gremlin infestation?”

“No. I think I’d go Computers in that case. But we are in the middle of an infestation, so I choose Defense. It’ll help prevent this from happening again.”

Kaleb couldn’t argue with that so he brought up the gnome’s level up screen and tapped his choice. Daivor went completely still for a few seconds. Kaleb swore he could see a light blue glow emanating from the gnome before Daivor snapped at out his trance and rubbed his hands together.

“Oh-ho-ho yeah! This is going to be good. I got some ideas now. But I need repulsors.”

The gnome dashed off the side of the table, leaving Kaleb confused.

“Hey what about me? What do I do?”

“Keep doing what you're doing. But make sure you embedded some magic into whatever you build. That’s what brought the little buggers here. They love the taste of magic-infused metals!” Daivor called as he dove head-first into their shelves.

Kaleb shrugged and quickly drew up designs for what he was thinking about. To him, it looked like the mother of all fidget devices. But he was sure it would draw the little gremlins from their holes just as well. Once he fed the design into his workbench, he got to work. The bench summoned what he needed from their nearby stock and he quickly put it all together. Nearby, he could hear Daivor giggling to himself as he worked at Marie’s workbench.

The two worked in relative silence for a short while until Kaleb finally finished his design. It was shoddy and slapped together, but it had all the required parts. The thing was a fist-sized metal cube. Toggles and switches were on one side, a small bulb on the other. Flashing screens and whirring cogs on the other two. Now all he needed to do was jam some Mana down into it. He glanced up to see how his friend was doing, but Daivor was gone. Marie’s workbench was wiped clean and whatever the gnome had been working on had gone with him. Kaleb scowled.

“Could’ve at least shown me what he was…”

He trailed off as he spotted a light blue repulsor disc glowing ominously at the side of his bench. Except it wasn’t given off any propulsion. Instead, it sat there inertly, glowing. He inspected the little device for a few seconds, trying to work out what it did before he reached out for it slowly. AS his hand got closer, a set of red runes around the base of the disc glowed. Kaleb backed his hand away, and the runes disappeared. He smiled as he thought he understood what the gnome had done.

“Ingenious, isn’t it?” Daivor’s voice asked from behind him.

Kaleb spun in his chair to see the tired-looking gnome grinning at him.

“Maybe. But how are they going to get close to the thing if they can see the runes light up? It looks to me like you made a mousetrap that signals to the mice that it’s a trap.”

“Bah!” Daivor waved him off. “You don’t get it. Gremlins are curious creatures. Those runes will just draw them in further and once they touch the thing…”

The gnome tossed a screw at the glowing blue disc. As soon as the screw touched the side of the disc, a large surge of electricity shot upward. The metal screw went sailing away as the modified repulsor burned itself out and started smoking. Daivor sighed as he swung himself up onto Kaleb’s bench.

“Yeah. They’re one-and-dones, but they’ll fry us some gremlins, alright. I got the kids out placing them now.”

“Did you make enough?”

“No way. But with what you’re building, we’ll get the lot of them.”

“Here’s hoping. I was just about to finish, actually.”

“Well, don’t do it here. As soon as you light that sumbitch up, it’s going to bring the horde down on us. I’m sure of it. Go do it near the workout area or something.”

Kaleb glanced at his do-nothing machine and then back at Daivor. “Seriously?”

“Yes! Now git. I’ll tell the others.”

Kaleb shrugged to himself and got up. He double checked his weapons and armor before he swung the door to his workshop open. He hoped this little device would solve the problem. Daivor seemed sure, but Kaleb was having his doubts. It had been well over three hours and they hadn’t seen many gremlins. But maybe the gnome was wrong, and they didn’t have a whole swarm of the things. What if he turned it on and all they got were six gremlins? He supposed that was still a win. But it seemed like a mighty anti-climax after all the buildup Daivor had done.

Kaleb placed the small cube on the work-out mat and closed his eyes. Focusing, he started to push his mana into the device. All he needed was a short rune series that powered the lights and screens of the device. The runes would draw in ambient magic power and use it to light the bulb and flicker the screens. It wasn’t his best work, but it would do for now. As he focused, Kaleb heard the footsteps of the rest of the hangar’s workers as Daivor brought them closer. He really hoped Daivor was right as he pushed more of mana down into the small cube.

“Ho~ly shit…” Kaleb heard Two Gun say as a rumbling sound echoed in his ears.

Initially, he thought it was his imagination. But the sound grew louder and the sounds of alarm coming from the NPCs made the cacophony even louder. Kaleb cracked his eye open as he continued to push his mana down. When he did, he spotted a swirling mass of green, like a green tornado, baring down on them all. He could see sharp teeth and claws swirling in the torrent as it made its way closer to him. Somewhere to his left, Daivor cackled loudly.