{Alex}

Back at home, I sat the girls down in the kitchen to talk to them. “We are going to have a guest for the next few nights. Gorloth will be watching over us. Ogra, you are free to be with anyone you want. That being said, please be nice to your roommate.” Lily blushed and looked away.

“Does that apply to me too?” she said softly under her breath. I nodded.

“Yes, you have free will and can be with anyone you want.” She blushed and refused to look up. It was cute. For the first time in my life, I felt a heartwarming feeling. It felt nice. I understood what people were talking about when a spark happened between them or that could just be the blue lightning moving around my hand. What the hell? My mana is going out of control. I would have to talk to a mage about this. Maybe Battery would know something? “What happened yesterday?” Ogra looked at me blankly.

“They asked to come in and we are under orders to let them in and do anything they said.”

“I never gave you that order.” I frowned at her.

“Gerold Helttom did.” Orga replied.

“Who the hell is that?”

“Our last master.” I sighed. I had fucked up badly.

“You still have to follow orders of master's you’ve had in the past?” She nodded. “Do not follow any orders that anyone aside from me has given you in the past.” Both collars started to glow. Lily looked at me blankly. “Look I fucked this up. Let’s start over. I have a proposal for the two of you. If you know something that could screw things up or put any of us in trouble, let me know. In exchange, I will set you free in one year. Deal?” Orga gave me an odd look and slight smile. Lily started crying. What did I do wrong now? Why was she crying? Someone make it stop. I stood and went to my room saying over my shoulder at the two. “Orga please make sure you make enough for Gorloth so he can join us tonight.” I went to my desk and started tinkering until dinner. There was a knock at the door, and I turned to see my orc buddy. He smiled at me.

“Runt, ready the food is.” I nodded. He looked at the bookshelf and froze. “You make these?”

“It is my hobby.”

“Good at making things. I hear about fighting in drinking place. Lots fight over your things.”

“Yeah.” I said with a sigh. “Come on, let’s eat.” the girls had set the table and were waiting behind their chairs. I went to take my seat. Gorloth walked to where Orga was standing, and she stepped back. He pulled out her chair, said something in orc. She nodded, blushed and sat down. He pushed it in and then did the same thing for Lily. Lily looked at me blankly and I nodded. She let him help her and took his own seat. He started to mumble some pray in orc and Orga bowed her head. It didn’t take too long and soon he clapped his hands and tried to take my plate. “No, fix your own.” I said.

“Runt is master, Master is highest, Master eats first.”

“Nope. Not here. Here you and I are the same.” He tilted his head sideways thinking hard. Orga said something in orc, and he nodded. He filled his own plate and passed the spoon and bowl to me. It was an amazing stew and rice with a side salad. Orga had outdone herself. Gorloth surprised the living hell out of me as he had impeccable table manners. I mean he could eat soup with a fork and not spill a drop on himself. He didn’t make a sound when he ate except to have a conversation with us. Even then he made sure his mouth was empty before talking. When done he made sure to place his spoon and fork on the plate facing ten and two. There had to be something to all this, but it just raised my view of the man. Lily picked up the dishes and started cleaning them. Orga just looked across the table at Gorloth. He said something to her in orc and stood, pulling her chair out. He helped her up. It was sweet. I got up myself and went back to tinkering. It was a peaceful evening. When the sun had started to set, I stood cracking my back and went out into the living room to see the two orcs sitting and talking.

“Good night, all. Let me know if you need anything.” He smiled at me.

“Good night, friend Runt.” Orga just nodded. Lily was sitting and looking out the window at the sunset. I just smiled at the full house and went to bed.

{Lily Cottontail}

Orga turned to Gorloth and spoke in orc. “He is a weird one.” Gorloth smiled.

“Yes, Runt is weird, but he is a war chief.” she blinked at him.

“What do you mean?”

“He saved this town and you two. He is nice to me even though he does not have to be. He reminds me of some of my siblings.” She smiled at him. “Does little Rabbit sleep deeply?” he asked with his eyebrow raised at her. She blushed and looked away.

“You tease me too much, Blood Blade.” He took her chin and turned it to face him.

“I do not tease Wildflower.” She blushed looking into his eyes.

“I am broken.” He laughed lightly.

“I only see beauty.” He stood kissing her forehead softly. He said in common. “I go for walk. Tonight, I sleep on couch. Rest well rabbit friend. Rest well Orga.” She stood and looked at the ground.

“I may get some air too.” She said walking to the door. Lily jumped up, blushed and went to the bedroom. Gorloth chuckled and held the door open for Orga.

Lily looked after them with a spark of jealousy. She wished she was as strong as Orga was. Orga was going after what she wanted. She changed into her nightgown and jumped into her own bed. Master had not locked his door tonight. She could easily join him again. Last night was the best night sleep she had since her sister had been taken away. She didn’t want to think of that night right now. She reached under her bed and pulled out a pair of his underwear. It was wrong for her to have these. It was worse that she sniffed them. They smelled like the best part of him. She brought them closer and flicked out her tongue. With a shudder she put them back under her bed, blushing all the way to the tips of her ears. She was being a very bad bunny. Master was starting to snore. It would be so easy to join him. He said she could. “No. Lily, no bad bunny.” The moon was going to be full tonight. Is that why she felt frisky? The taste was still on her tongue as she lay her head back and tried to get some sleep. His words from the night before still in her mind. (Don’t… hurt… her) He cared about her. Could he love her? Did she want his love? She blushed even brighter and tossed in her bed.

{Alex}

I woke early and came out to find Orga resting her head on Gorloth’s shoulder, both fast asleep. The two made a cute couple. Love who you love for those of us who can find it or even feel it. What would it look like if that were Lily and me? I blushed. Why did I blush? What was this world doing to me? I tried that thought with others and nothing. Then Yen crossed my mind. I thought of her laying her head in my lap, me petting her hair. I blushed again. It was only beast women. Something about them made me feel something. I left without waking them. My head was all over the place and I couldn’t focus. Is it an issue that I can’t relate to humans. Why beast women then? Was it mostly the slaves? I would have to test this later. Right now, I needed to find Battery and talk to him. The sparking last night was unnerving. What if it went wild and I did something I didn’t want to. What if I hurt Lily or my orc friends? Wait what do I mean by friends? I’ve never had or needed friends in the past. Why do I care about them? My head is all over the place today. I walked into the shop and found Battery waiting for me. He bounced up to me smiling like a happy little puppy. “Yes Battery?” He beamed at me and handed me a sheet of paper. I looked at it and smiled. Neatly sketched was a diagram for a rune set. “Neat looking bomb.” He frowned and his face fell. “What did you think this was going to do?” He looked dejected as he answered.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“I like how Vondos puts the beer out in winter. It tastes better cold. I was thinking of a mana cooling device.” I froze and looked at him, my eyes wide and an evil smile on my face. He backed off as I clawed for my pencil and paper.

“Fucking hell man.” I cried out, he looked scared and worried. “No. You have done something interesting here.” I repeated his drawing and started changing things. “Shorten this line. Replace this rune with this one. Take this one out altogether. Now connect this line.” He was nodding looking over my shoulder.

“Won’t that one interact with that one?” he said poking my drawing.

“Yes, yes. You’re right. How about this one?” The two of us were poking and picking at his diagram until we were both happy. “There and if we flip this rune it will heat. Do you know what you have done?” He shook his head looking blankly at me. “You have made not only a freezer, but a mana stove too. FUCK!” He jumped back a little. “Now I need a bigger house.”

“Why is that Master?”

“This can be used to make a bath. Why are you calling me Master?”

“You are my master. I see that now. You know more about runes than I could ever hope to learn.” That should be okay.

“Hell, this diagram can even be used to,” I froze and tore out the diagram, handing it to him. “Test it. I have something to play with.” This could change everything. “Show it to Boss and see if he can build us a bath house. Oh, and Jordean, Good work.” He jumped up and down and started hugging me. I did not like this. I do not consent to this. I just stood there awkwardly until he calmed down and ran off.

“Thank you, Master. Thank you, Master.” Was he crying? Back to it. I needed to play with this new idea. He had given me a huge key.

{Lily Cottontail}

Lily was walking around outside. She was trying not to notice the sounds coming from their bedroom. The two orcs were together in their room. They had been at it since Master had left. The sound of the door closing had woken all three. Ogra had asked her to let them know when it was mid-morning so Gorloth could go into work and be there when Master had to go home. He should had gone in with Master this morning, but the two of them wanted some time together. She didn’t blame them. If she had a chance with Master last night… What was she thinking? She started blushing all the way to the tips of her ears and walked around the house, pulling them down to hide her eyes. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She wanted him and yet she hated humans. Why did he have to be human? All humans are evil, and he had to be evil for making her feel this way.

{Alex}

I watched Gorloth run into the shop and up to me. “Good morning, friend Runt.”

“Morning Gorloth. Did you sleep well?” He nodded and beamed at me; it made his tusks stand out. I wondered if he had a little fun with Ogra given the slight green blush to his face. I laughed and he joined me. “You are just in time. I need some help with this.” He looked down at a weird triangle with three trays that had clamps to hold cores.

“What it do?” I stood proudly.

“This is a new engine prototype. It should hold three medium size cores and turns them into mana. It does the same thing as a normal engine for a knight but should be smaller and more powerful.” Gorloth stepped back a little.

“Wiser to use small core first.” I looked at him blankly. If my back of the napkin math was wrong, I might have just died here.

“Good call.” I slapped him on the back and started a smaller model. As I was doing this, I noticed my bracelet with its goblin cores. I wondered if I could link the cores there to improve the mana capacity. I almost reached for it and then had to stop. It wouldn’t be a good thing if I blew off my own arm. Safely test first then I can wear my new toys. Once the smaller prototype was ready, I pulled out my bag of smaller cores. I placed three Roll Rat cores in the device and powered the runes. It started to hum and spark lightly. Something was wrong with the cores though. I stopped it and started with two. The same thing happened. “What is going wrong with this?” Gorloth looked down at it, puzzled.”

“Looks like little cores fighting.” I stood looking at him closely. He was a genius.

“You are right. They are fighting. Fucking amazing. We have to go talk with some people. Boss I’m heading out.” I called out as I ran, Gorloth at my heels. He had quickly become Watson to my Sherlock. We ran to the Inn. A group was gathered around the table cheering as two people were fighting with dolls. Innkeeper was watching them passing out drinks for coins. He waved at us.

“Alex, what can I do for you?” Innkeeper asked me.

“Is there someone who knows about cores and the monsters they come from?”

“We have a summoner in this town. They can appraise the cores and tell you all about the monsters. Past that you may want to talk to Hank. He only reads monster books.”

“Where is the Summoner?” I asked quickly. He looked at me worried, but I was on the path of something, something big. He pointed to a man watching the game. I ran up to him and tapped his shoulder. He turned to look at me. “When you look at a core, can you tell if the core is male or female?” He blinked at me.

“Yeah, if they have a gender. Some monsters don't have the parts we do. What do you need to know for?”

“I’m working on something big, and it matters a lot to me.” He stood quickly and headed over to a table.

“If it is big to you, it will mean the world to this town. Let me see if I can help.” we started appraising them. It quickly became an assembly line. Gorloth would pull out a stone, label it, Summoner would tell me everything about it and I would write everything down. It didn’t take us too long. After a while one of the townsfolk came up to us and looked at the pile of cores.

“Got any gnole cores?” I looked at him getting slightly mad. He had the nerve to interrupt us when I was working on this.

“Why?” He rubbed the back of his head.

“Well, it just seems easier to control if you use a humanoid core and I know you have a thing for goblin cores.” My eyes went wide. Something in the core interacted with the Knights and dolls. I reached out to one of six gnole cores and handed it to him. “Thank you so much. How much do I owe you?” I just looked at him smiling.

“Nothing” I quickly wrote it down the information. This was amazing. Everything seemed to be clicking today. My mind was racing. I needed to find this Hank now. “Who is Hank?” We were done sorting and cataloging. One of the watchers made his way over and looked at us with a question in his eyes.

“I’m Hank. What do you need, Alex?”

“Sit. I need to know everything about Roll Rats.” He beamed at me happy to share his knowledge with someone.” I wrote down every word and soon had an idea why the three cores had started fighting. All three were males and male Roll Rats fight for dominance. My mind was racing as he went through every creature I had. Goblins seemed to delight in working together so long as there was a pecking order. If I chained my cores together, I would have to do it from strongest to weakest. I could test it now but wait Alex. Wait for a better Lego kit. Gorloth seemed to delight in everything I was doing and all we were learning. I ran back to the shop and quickly selected three small slime cores. If I was right, they should eat each other growing larger. I powered on my device and this time watched them hum and move to the middle. There was a small spark and when I looked back one larger core was rolling in the tray. I jumped up and down clapping and dancing. I tried again. This time with one male Roll Rat and two female Roll Rats. They should work together. I powered it on and took a step back. It hummed and sparked only slightly at first. I looked closer to see the cores dancing together like a heartbeat. It worked. It fucking worked. I looked over at the output and saw the rune slowly lighting up. I quickly powered it off and sat on the floor screaming with joy. Boss came over to look at me grinning like a mad man.

“What is this all about?” He asked worried about me. I was on the edge of crying with sheer joy.

“It is fucking works. I had expected it to be additive. It’s not. They multiply, this is three times as strong.” he looked puzzled and worried.

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t just as powerful as three Roll Rats. It’s nine Roll Rats strong. A factor of three. Do you know what this means?” I laughed. He started laughing with me.

“No fucking clue.” he said grinning at me. “My office now.”