Duval Estate.

Morty awoke with a grunt and tried to, as usual, pry himself from the clutches of the sisters that were intent on being as close to him as possible even when sleeping. At least he wasn't cold, Morty thought as he maneuvered over firm mounds of flesh towards the side of the bed.

The two sisters barely reacted as he crawled over them as he practically threw himself over Orga and landed semi-gracefully onto the floor. With a groan he made his way over to the closet and got dressed for the day. Because, he thought. He had something to do today. Which was go to the halfling colony and find Clive and see if he knew where the hell Jeb went!

He was tempted to go yesterday but thought against it. For one, the seafood pie was getting cold and he wasn't going to waste it. Another was that it was getting late and figured Clive would be going to sleep by the time he got there, and with weird things were getting around here he didn't really wanna chance anything late at night.

But now it was a new day, he thought before leaving the closet and finding the sister waking from their slumber with yawns that would put a lion to shame as they moved lethargically to where their glorified bikinis were tossed aside. He really needed to get them something better, at the very least something that didn't make them look like they were from The Flintstones.

With him dressed to impress and the two ogres covered, somewhat, they made their way down to the garage and sped towards the halfling colony. He passed the semi-constructed barricades along the road and past the spot where the government van used to be with a smile. He doubt it'll keep them from spying on him, but at least he felt a bit of spiteful glee from kicking them off his road.

He passed through town without too much issue, though the sisters still got some looks from everyone. The newcomers especially didn't seem to care for the ogre sisters and many scattered while screaming and yelling and whatever else people easy to panic do. Though they at least got a couple of catcalls from the grunts as they saw the two large ogresses clad in little more than a thong and bikini.

He figured they'd at least put something on with the cold, but they didn't seem at all bothered by it. A bit of cushioning helps keep them insolated, he thought as he passed by cars with scratches in the sides of them with broken mirrors reattached with duct tape and construction vehicles driving this way and that as they transported lumber, which he noted with pride that some bore his brand on the wood, and other materials to construction sites around town. Some were going north and west and he could see along with dozens of pre-fabs being erected the base foundations of new homes being built.

But that wasn't why he came here, he thought as he turned towards the road where Clive and the halflings were supposed to be. If they didn't somehow vanish within the weeks he last saw Clive as well. He did miss the times they'd hang-out together, even if eighty, nighty percent of the time resulted in him poking Jeb's buttons until he threatened him and Clive trying to keep said threats from materializing.

But now Jeb was gone, he was dealing with goblins and town politics and other annoyances, and Clive was living in The Shire. Which wouldn't be too big of an issue if the goddamn phones didn't suddenly decide to take a shit! At least he can order food and pay bills without it, still inconvenient though.

He barely noticed when the paved road turned to dirt and gravel. Sparse trees lined the way to his left before thickening into the woods and hills that bordered his own land, and to his right was rolling hills and fields with the odd spruce or two to break the scenic view that went uninterrupted for miles other than the Greenbrier River that cut through the far end of the valley before hitting the mountains on the other side.

Then he came upon the halflings. Though that wasn't hard to do even with their diminutive sizes as from down the road he could see the tent-town and even hear the sounds of early(ish) morning construction happening as he drew closer.

He pulled up the side of Clive's Honda, or Toyota, or whatever shitty import it was supposed to be. Though he didn't remember there being a decent sized ding in the back of it, Morty thought as he and the sisters got out of the Cadillac and made their way over to the "guards" if they could be called that.

The two guards' eyes went wide when they saw the sisters and one stumbled to collect himself and do his job.

"'Alt! Who goes-"

"Outta the way Frodo." Morty said as he easily pushed aside the munchkin. Literally.

The other finally snapped out of his daze and turned his spear towards Morty, for about half a second before Urga snapped it like a toothpick and glared down at the snack-sized person that promptly went pale and passed out.

After seeing his comrade go down for the count, the other wasn't in any hurry to risk his neck and decided that playing dead was the better part of valor. Not that Morty or the ogresses cared as they were about as threatening and bothersome as gnats. Which funnily enough where the term midget comes from, Morty thought with with a chuckle as he and the sisters made their way unimbedded through the tent-town.

Of course they earned no small amount of stares and gasps as they did so. Some mothers ran as they hid their crying babes while the menfolk either took cover or grabbed whatever they had nearby for improvised weapons. Those few that did quickly formed a sort of battle-line against Morty and the sisters.

Morty rolled his eyes.

"Oooh, scary, buncha munchkins with forks and spoons."

"You shall not pass! You or yer monsters!" One of them called out while holding a platter and a wooden spoon.

"This is fucking embarrassing, girls move them. CLIVE! WHERE ARE YOU!?!" Morty ordered and called out for Clive while the sisters lumbered forwards towards the now decidedly less brave halflings.

As the ogres reached out to part the line of halflings though, a voice called out.

"Morty?! What the fuck are you doing?!"

Morty looked over in the direction of the voice and saw Clive and a halfling woman standing beside him.

"Ah! There you are!"

"Yeah, Morty, here I am. What the fuck are you doing here and why are you attacking the halflings?!" Clive asked accusingly.

"I'm not attacking them! They attacked me! Here I am driving all the way out to a backwater of a backwater and these fucking ankle biters have the cajones to start barking orders and pointing silverware at me! Aren't they supposed to be all about hospitality? Well I don't feel very hospitalized right now." Morty explained as he strode towards Clive.

"We can change tha'." The halfling woman next to Clive muttered.

"Not the point. Where's Jeb?" Morty asked.

"What?"

"Jeb? You know? Our best and only friend we have in this fucking dump we call a town?"

"Yeah I know who he is Morty! Why are you asking where he is though?"

"Because he fucking vanished! I go to his place with a pie to apologize-what are you doing?" Morty asked suddenly when Clive reached out and placed a hand on his forehead.

"I'm sorry, it's just I thought I heard you say you were going to apologize to Jeb."

"I DID say that." Morty said as he swatted away Clive's hand.

"Holy shit. Did Hell finally freeze over then?" Clive asked glibly.

"Ha. Fucking. Ha. Anyway, where's Jeb?"

"That's... complicated. Follow me, and call off your Amazons." Clive said as he pointed to where the ogres were easily swatting away cooking utensils and other improvised weapons.

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Morty rolled his eyes and gave a shrill whistle.

"Come on girls! Ignore the crumb snatchers."

The sisters easily disengaged the halflings that tried, and failed, to stab at their thick hides without much success. They made their way over and Morty gestured to them.

"Happy?"

"Not quite. But since it's you I can only expect so much." Clive said while he and the halfling woman made their way further into the tent city. The halflings, seeing that the ogres weren't going to cause any harm, other than the mental and emotional damage they already caused, gave them a wide berth and wary glances. Even the halfling women beside Clive seemed to be looking Morty and the sisters over like a cut of beef on a butcher's table.

They soon arrived at a tent that was larger than most of the others and Clive stooped to enter it while the halfling woman easily walked into it. Morty however, just looked at the tent and didn't make any move to enter. Clive called from within.

"Come in Morty."

"You've got to be joking?"

"Jesus, can you just cooperate a little?!"

"I am not getting on my hands and fucking knees to crawl into a tent! Just tell me where Jeb is so I can go and make my apologies and feel better about myself, or at least what you keep telling me is how I would feel if I did." Morty stated as he stubbornly refused to enter the tent.

"Like I said, it's a complicated situation. Get inside and I'll explain it."

"What, afraid the fucking Lollypop Guild is going to overhear?"

"Just get in the Goddamn tent Mortimer!!!" Clive snapped from within.

Morty whistled.

"Wow. I didn't used to be able to get you to snap like I could with Jeb."

"Yeah well, it's been one of those weeks."

"Fine. I'll prostrate myself." Morty said as he bent down a little to enter the tent while the sisters remained outside as no amount of bending would allow them entry.

"This place is a fucking dump." Morty stated as he looked around at the mess.

"I'm working on it." Clive said tiredly as he took a seat with the halfling woman standing beside him.

Morty just looked down at the seats that were far too small for him before glancing up at Clive with a questioning brow. Clive sighed.

"Fine. Stand if you want to."

"I don't want to. I want to know where Jeb is so I can get to apologizing and go back home."

Clive took a deep, and calming breath.

"Fine. Jeb left."

"No shit. I coulda fucking told you that much when I went over to his house and found dwarves there tearing what was left of his cabin down."

"Can you let me finish Morty?!" Clive snapped again.

Morty smirked and held up his hands in surrender. Clive continued.

"I'm not entirely sure what went down and why, but it was enough for Jeb to decide that he and the kobolds would be better off elsewhere."

Morty made to comment but stopped when Clive leveled a glare at him.

"Anyway, he took some dwarves hostage and bargained for a train ride out of town."

He glared at Morty even more when he gestured to hurry up. He rolled his eyes and took out a greasy piece of paper from a pile and some quill & ink. He jotted down something on the paper and passed it over to Morty, who grimaced as he took the barely legible paper.

"Trou-"

"Don't fucking say it out loud Morty!" Clive hissed as he looked around.

"Again, why? You think Jeb's worried about the fucking munchkin brigade coming after him?"

"No! The Suits!"

"The what?"

"The Feds, Morty!"

"What would they want with Jeb?" Morty asked as he peered at the words that were already being ruined from the soaked paper before handing the soiled sheet back.

"I don't know. But Jeb said that they were poking around his home and even said that they attacked the kobolds."

"Alright, not like I was going to go blabbing to the Feds anyway, but it's nice to know that I have another reason not to." Morty stated.

"Thanks Morty."

"Yup! What are friends for if they don't lie to the government for you!?" Morty declared.

Clive got a conflicted look on his face though that caused Morty from departing just yet.

"What's wrong?"

Clive sighed.

"If you wanna go see Jeb, then you can go with us and Sam and them."

"Really? What for?"

"We've been talking and Sam wants to do Thanksgiving with Jeb. So we're going to go out Thanksgiving day and do it... there." Clive said as he gestured to the paper that had ink running from it from grease.

"And no-one told me?"

"Wha' a surprise." The halfling women next to Clive said.

"I'm sorry, who're you and why are YOU privy to this conversation?" Morty asked with an accusatory finger point.

Clive sighed again and gestured to the halfling woman.

"This is Kilpa, she's-"

"His lover!" Said halfling proclaimed and got affectionately close to Clive.

Clive glanced at Morty who had a confused look on his face.

"Kilpa? The girl I was telling you about last time?"

"Which one?"

"Which other ones were there?" Kilpa asked as she glanced accusingly at Clive.

Clive sighed.

"Thanks for stopping by Morty."

"Yup!" He said with a shit eating grin and departing the tent and the awkward air that suddenly filled the room.

Well, at least he now knows where Jeb was, Morty thought as he and the sisters made their way back to his car before speeding back home. He had done what he set out to do, and he can apologize to Jeb when they go to see him.

-----

Red Cap Garrison.

The Colonel departed the garrison as the sun began to set. He had been nervous and anxious last night and all day as he prepared himself for the meeting with the Major General. He looked down at the single malt scotch in his hand. After telling Morty of a meeting with the Major General about cooperation, he had been generous enough to provide a bottle of scotch, as requested by the Major General as a condition.

The streets cleared out somewhat as the sky darkened, partly because it got colder and those still without shelter did their best to coalesce around smattered fires for warmth and protection, or because the night around here got particularly dangerous as this was when the ferals became more active.

Hopefully his meeting with the Major General went well enough that the General would allow them to continue to at the very least keep their numbers in check and confined to the sewers beneath them. Even now they were vicious opportunists that had been preying on isolated people that strayed too far from their groups and into the darker corners of the town.

As if that wasn't bad enough, he's gotten reports that people in dark purple robes and hoods have been spotted wandering the night or lurking in the shadows here in town. They haven't done anything, yet, but the Colonel was still worried as he could still recall the attack on their location back when they were still living in the mine and the horrid four-legged beasts with maws like a sand worm that followed them and greedily devoured dozens of goblins during the attack.

He still shivered at the memory. He knew they weren't gone, and that it was a matter of time before they attacked again. But he wasn't a mere goblin anymore and they had more than simple crude weapons to fight back with!

Thoughts for another time, the Colonel thought as he neared City Hall. The lobby was dim and he could see the skittish clerk packing up for the night. He immediately started to stutter as the Colonel entered the building. The grunt wasn't here, though perhaps he saw him through a window and was informing the Major General?

As the clerk continued to stutter as he tried to force out a nervous greeting or any sort of coherent response, the grunt appeared from the hall.

"The Major General will see you."

The Colonel nodded and followed after the grunt, leaving the poor clerk to continue to stutter until he was out of breath and merely gave up trying to speak. The building was less lively but there were still grunts in fatigues walking around with papers and other reports as they moved between the spare rooms and offices provided for them.

The grunt led the Colonel to a unlabeled door and knocked thrice upon it. After a second, the door opened to reveal the Major General still in his officer blue's.

"Colonel."

"Major General." The Colonel returned the short greeting.

"That'll be all, private." The Major General dismissed the grunt, who saluted and marched away, leaving the two of them alone.

"Well come on in."

The Colonel walked into the office. It wasn't as nice as the study back at the manor. But it was still well furnished. The Major General took a seat behind the desk while the Colonel took one opposite of him and placed the bottle of scotch onto the desk. The Major General picked it up with an appraising eye.

"Good choice."

"The General has fine tastes."

"The Duvals? Can say alot of things about them, most of them not good, but they do know their liquor." The Major General stated before pulling out two glasses from the desk.

"Good thing politicians like their drink too or we'd have to be drinkin' straight from the bottle." He said as he slid a glass over towards the Colonel.

They both raised their glasses and downed the smooth whiskey. The glasses were quickly refilled and the Major General spoke.

"So. How long have you been in town?"

"When we were assigned to the town or to the area?"

"Either I suppose."

"We've been in the town since just after the newcomers arrived. We've been in the area a bit longer than that."

"And where did you say you came from?"

"I didn't."

"Would you mind sheddin' some light on that then? Because from where I'm sittin' it doesn't look like you're a local, in more than one sense of the word."

The Colonel cocked a brow before downing the glass.

"How so?"

"Because humans might have different facial features, but none of us have quite so unique a physiology as you and the men you lead do."

The Colonel sighed.

"Because we aren't human."

"I figured as much. So what exactly are you then?"

"We're Red Caps. Though I seem to recall a friend of the General's referring to us as hobgoblins."

"Goblins?" The Major General said with a raised brow.

"No. Not goblins. We USED to be goblins. But we have gone above and beyond to be something more than those weak sniveling creatures." The Colonel proclaimed.

"So where do you come from then?"

"I'm not sure. If we had a name for it we never bothered to learn or remember it if we did. At least I didn't."

"Though I take it that the rest of these newcomers come from the same place?"

"Yes."

"And it probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that if this has happened at least twice now then it'll happen again?"

"More than likely. We've already fought against a group of trolls and an ettin that according to the General most certainly did NOT live here before."

The Major General chuckled and refilled their glasses.

"Goblins, trolls, and I'm guessin' that those are actual elves, dwarves, and gnomes that I saw in town?"

"Indeed."

"Looks like things are a changin'."

"You don't seem too bothered by that fact." The Colonel noted.

"Did you know that pretty much everyone in the Armed Forces has a story? Not just any story, but a story about seein' strange things or strange things happenin' while deployed?"

"I didn't."

"Well now you do. Some pilots have reported seein' angels while they flew threw clouds. There are reports of soldiers being hunted by somethin' that seems inhuman while deployed overseas. Even the Navy boys have their own strange sonar readin's that they dismiss as whales or somethin' more believable."

"And I take it you have a story?" The Colonel asked and earned a snort from the Major General.

"I have quite a few actually. For most, such sightin's or experiences are one-offs. They happen once and then never again. Some even try to repeat them just to experience them a second time and some just chalk it up to dehydration or altitude sickness or something more manageable to comprehend. But for people like me and a handful of others? Well, lets just say that we get a more memorable experience with the weird and strange. An experience that seems to dog us no matter where we go."

"What's yours?" The Colonel asked.

The Major General paused as he went to refill the glass again and his free hand went, almost on instinct, to the pocket on his left breast and his eyes seemed to go foggy as if he was recalling a memory. He blinked and returned to the present and cleared his throat as he resumed pouring.

"That's a story for another time. And somethin' that needs more than a single bottle of scotch to tell."

The Colonel nodded and sipped down his drink as the mood seemed to go sour from the topic and they sat in awkward silence for a moment as they simply sat there and drank. Eventually the Major General cleared his throat.

"Why don't we get back to you. You don't look half bad for someone that's what? Twenties, thirties?"

"I'm four actually." The Colonel stated as he downed his glass.

"Four? As in-"

"Four months since the time I clawed my way out of a spawning pool."

The Major General paused as he was about to pour another round.

"Yeah, I figured this conversation was goin' to be weird but I think this is goin' to be a multi-part session with more than a single bottle of scotch to chase it down with."

"Why don't we set all that aside and discuss what you and your men would be doin' instead?"

"Of course."

So for the remainder of the night, that is what they did. They drank until not a drop remained of the scotch while they went over what and how the Red Caps and Morty's forces in town would be assisting them with. The Colonel wasn't surprised to be appointed as a supporting role among the National Guard. Even after telling the Major General about the ferals and how dangerous they were. But it was a start, the Colonel thought as he said his farewells to the Major General and departed.