Goblore Pt. 02

"Problem?" Huntress asked.

"You can say that. The crash wrecked the engine, the thing that makes it move on its own." He exhaled sharply. How the hell was he going to charge his phone now?

She snorted. "Guess you're people aren't all that advanced. A lansh wouldn't have given itself a crushed head trying to dodge a tree."

"It's not an autonomous car! Which...well, we actually did have. But I'm the one in control. There's this wheel, see?" He moved over to the driver's side and pulled the deflated airbag out of the way.

"So you crashed it into a tree?"

He frowned. "I was driving through a rip in the fabric of reality. I wasn't exactly focused on keeping my hands at 10 and 2."

"The answers you give are meaningless. What do you mean?" Huntress shook her head.

"Well, we have these clocks with arms. The 10 position-"

"No, fool. The hole in reality. What do you mean by that?"

Jesse was about to respond with something snide and cutting that would have surely made her respect him, when a thought occurred to him: Huntress had not seen a lifetime of soft sci-fi and internalized a vocabulary for this kinda thing. He was lucky that they all spoke English. Or his brain had been altered in some way to speak their language. Or...right, internalized vocabulary.

He put his hands vertically in front of him, once inch apart. "My right hand is my universe, the left is yours. What I gathered from the Wall...Guardian person...I feel like that should be a proper noun...what I learned from the Wall Guardian person is that there was some kind of tear in the walls of reality. And for a brief period of time there was this bridge between mine and yours." He reached for his pen and put it between the fingers of either hand, linking them. "Like so."

Huntress' eyes narrowed. But not in a threatening way. She mouthed the beginnings of several syllables before settling on a response to the proposition. "Hrm. An interesting theory."

He raised a brow. "Do you have an alternate explanation?"

"You're a mutant folk with strange ears and pallor. Perhaps from a clan that specialized in metallurgy and alchemy. This is all some kind of absurd diversion to keep your true nature hidden. "

Jesse waited a beat for her to crack a smile, or display any kind of hint that she was joking. When she didn't, he sighed with exasperation. "Honestly, whatever. It's not like I can give you any more proof than I already have with me. You're the philosophy professor. Believe what you want."

Huntress struck flint to one of her daggers, and a shower of sparks caught a carefully arranged pile of kindling alight. Feeding it little sticks at first, it soon became a proper heat source.

"One more question," she began, sitting next to the flames, "If you're from another world, how can you go back?"

"That's what I'd love to know," he said.

***

An hour before night fell, Huntress disappeared into the woods and, true to her name, returned with an animal slung over her shoulder. Jesse didn't get a good look at what the creature looked like before she got to work skinning it, using the trunk of his car as a table.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Grabbit," she replied.

"Is that...like a rabbit?"

She frowned. "Is a rabbit a two legged creature with antlers that feeds on carrion?" Jesse shook his head. "Then it's not like a rabbit."

He was initially hesitant to eat an animal he'd never even seen before in the light. But by the time it was roasting over the fire, covered in a light sprinkle of herbs from a pouch on her belt, he had to at least give it a try. She skewered a portion of the meat and handed it to him, taking another smaller part for herself.

He took a bite. The meat was...fine, but whatever the hell herbs she used tastes almost like spicy fennel. He resisted the urge to gag.

"Wow...this is...good!" he said, mouth mechanically chewing the food. She nodded in agreement, not acknowledging the compliment, merely the fact that it was tasty. He coughed. "Could...could use some salt though."

She snorted. "Good luck with that. We're a long way from Upper Pollix."

That must be a mine or something. A salt plain perhaps. "We could get salt here, y'know. If that ocean you arrived on is a saltwater one, we could-."

"I'm sure you have some brilliant ideas. Save them, I'm tired." She finished off her skewer, tossing the little branch into the fire. "I'll make a tour of the trapline and then sleep. You'd be wise to do the same."

She took off before he got to ask just when she'd put up traps. Instead, he ate as much of the cooked grabbit as he could stand and headed back into his car. The back seat was not the most comfortable place to spend a night, but he'd done worse. The night air was refreshingly cool. He used the old sweater he'd left there as a pillow and brought out the emergency space blanket from the road kit. Wrapping it around himself, he tried to savour this one tiny bubble of his old world.

***

Huntress tapped on the window to wake him at dawn. Jesse packed up everything he cared about, not wanting to leave anything behind that could prove useful. Some of the items he wrapped up in his sweater and made a bindle-shaped package that he could carry on a stick.

Also going with them was just about everything electronic he could pull out of the car. Popping open the front panelling, he yanked out what he could and used Huntress' knife to cut things he couldn't. Most of his focus was around the cigarette lighter port, the one that he could use a USB adapter to charge his phone with. An awkward proposition, using a car battery to charge a phone, considering all the adapters and cables he might need. But if he could get it working, it would exponentially increase the life of the phone and with it, the amount of time he'd be able to read the information off of Quickiepedia.

A problem: batteries were really fucking heavy. Moving it around from the car to the pavement was one thing. Hauling it in his hands for hours through rough terrain? Not practical. He placed it, gently, into Huntress' heavy rucksack, topped by some of the wiring and other lighter items. She was nonplussed at leaving the provisions contained within at the car, but Jesse had a convincing argument that his stuff was more important than some leaf-wrapped berry and nut paste.

His back and shoulders ached by the time he got to the ravine. Huntress to her credit did attempt to take a turn carrying the large black box, but after a valiant effort, she relented. She may have been a nimble fighter, but the battery was almost as heavy as she was.

They walked in silence for the most part. That being Huntress' preferred state, and with the possibility of a return by the wolven who had assailed them before, he kept his trap shut for most of it. He was surprised, therefore, when she spoke up first.

"I misjudged you."

He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn't, he prodded her on with an, "Oh?"

"I thought you'd be totally useless at best, and a liability at worst. It took nerve to stand up to the wolven. It may have been foolishness, or naivete. But I respect that you did not panic in the face of near certain death."

He didn't know what to say. So he punted. "Uhh, thank you? I appreciate you too."

But she wasn't finished. "That's not to say I am entirely at ease around you. Your people, whoever they really are, have craft beyond my understanding. When I saw that car, every part of my mind cried out in alarm. There's a deep unnatural power in that engine you call a 'car'. By all means, use your knowledge to aid our village. But the second I think you're steering us down the dark path to technological enslavement I will end your existence. Understand?"

He didn't. Not really. But he nodded anyway.

***

The rest of the journey was uneventful, and it was with great relief that they spotted the first few huts of the goblin village. A small crowd had gathered to greet them both. More accurately, he supposed, they were there to see if the stranger had come back with anything validating of his outlandish story. Considering what he had said, the burden of proof was high.

"Look, and behold!" he said, lowering the pack to the ground and removing the square of aluminium-covered plastic. "A metal sheet as light as air!"

He handed off the space blanket to one of the more curious locals, and there was some noticeable "ooh"s when they discovered how light it was. Aluminum wasn't an easily extractable metal until the invention of electrolysis in the 19th century, so this would be the first time any of these women would have been a metal that looked like silver but weighed almost nothing. Suitably distracted, Jesse slid past them.

Huntress took her leave and kept walking toward her own cabin, the farthest home in the village from the centre. There was a lot going on with that odd duck. She was clearly intelligent, competent, and brave, but her startlingly Luddite ways of seeing things could get in the way of any plans he might have for making the lives of her kin easier, or at least less terrible. He'd also have to keep an eye on her, and maybe try to include her in the decision processes. If he could get her on side by showing her that his ideas weren't all horrible vectors for technological corruption, he'd have a powerful ally.

Jesse hauled the rest of his goods over to Vee's house. The little alchemist was there in her smock and apron, fresh stains from...hopefully not what he was thinking about on the fabric. He waved, though his arms were fatigued from the hike.

"Did you get it? The library?" Her enthusiasm was barely contained behind her impassive facade.

He nodded. She followed him inside, her steps clearly having more spring than usual. He unpacked what he'd taken from his car onto her examination bed. The last to leave was the battery. He nearly felt his joints giving out when he hauled it out of the bag.

"You carried that thing all the way back?" she asked, "What even is it?"

"It's a battery," he explained, then filled in with some brief information on electrochemistry. That awoke something in Vee. Tales of intelligent bricks were one thing, but primitive batteries were well within her capability had she the materials. She started pouring liquids, but motioned for him to continue.

"So, anyways, yeah, I grabbed my phone. It has a limited battery life, but I'm hoping to extend it with the battery from my car. It works under...similar principles, but the types of energy stored are different. Some of these wires here," he held up the cabling he'd yanked from his car, "Can be used to convert it. But it's going to take a while for me to figure it out."

"Well, I have some news for you as well," Vee said, setting a beaker to a boil over a low flame.

He set down the cables. "Good news or bad?"

She shrugged. "It's a matter of perspective, I guess. Good news for the village."

"Ah." He sank onto her bed. "So I'm...that is, your species and mine are-"

"Able to reproduce," she finished for him, her voice as level and clinical as it always was. "Cross compatibility is something few races possess. The test for it isn't something most alchemists have access to. Luckily for you, one of my students did a full examination on kith/krosen cross-compatibility. Turns out: you're the exception. Now that fertility is established, you're going to need to pick a wife."

"You say that like it's a forgone conclusion," he said.

"Well, I suppose it needn't be a formal arrangement. Just pick one of us and get to work. Presuming she's consenting. I know for a fact that Zixie is."

Jesse rolled his eyes, remembering back to his first night in the village. "A little too eager I think. Though it's nice to know that I'm not entirely repulsive to your people."

"Of course not," she said, then after a moment, "Are we repulsive to you?"

"No! You're all very attractive. I mean, yeah, you're shorter than I'm used to my dates being but you're...I mean...all the parts are there. You're hot, just..." He scrambled for words to fill in his thoughts, "I'm just not used to the idea of having kids. It's not something I thought would be in my future."

"No relationships at home then?" she asked, then held out her hand to the bed for him to sit, "I'll make us some tea. I'm waiting for this reaction to happen anyways. Fill me in."

He took a seat and cobbled together the Spark's Notes version of his life prior to falling through a hole in spacetime. He tried to keep it as general as possible but he ended up explaining a few concepts along the way. High school, for one. Aimless, for another. Eventually got to the point where he schmoozed his way into a job for some startup and made the connections to get into the wide world of market distributables.

After wrapping up the brief biography, the pot of tea was nearly empty. He got back to the original question. "All that to say I don't have a girlfriend back home. Maybe a few friends, a parent maybe. But what about you? You're almost as stranded as I am this far from home."

"It's been...challenging, being so far away from what I'm used to. Not just the conveniences of life in Voxus but. It's also nice to have familiar faces around me. I knew a lot of my colleagues well, though I perhaps was not as friendly as I could have been in the months leading up to our expedition."

He glanced over at the chipped, scratched, and cobbled-together state of her equipment. "An alchemist needs all kinds of supplies to apply her trade. Why were you on the expedition?"

"A few reasons. Voxus, our home, is a place of wonders. And the Academy has some of the finest minds in the entire world there. But it's also set in its ways, in many respects. Established truths that have ossified into dogmas just as implacable as religious text. After some disagreements with my fellow alchemists, I decided to go searching for new information. New ingredients, new processes, new truths. And, if I'm being honest, getting away from stuffy academia didn't sound all that bad." She laughed. "What a fool I was."

"Hey," Jesse said, theatrically showing himself off, "If you hadn't taken that trip, you wouldn't have met me."

She made a face, but eventually dissolved into laughter. "Well, yes, at least there's that. A stranger from another world carrying both knowledge and fertility, just when we needed it the most. I suppose we're lucky to have you just suddenly appear right next to us, rather than in the middle of an ocean or in some folk city."

"You don't sound convinced?"

She shook her head. Pulling down her blouse, she revealed a naked neckline free of any of those metallic icons that Glora sported. And, Jesse couldn't help but notice, surprisingly impressive cleavage. "I'm not a believer. In the natural world, perhaps, and its miracles. But in Gods? No. Still...it's an unusual stroke of luck for us."

"I can't say I believe in miracles either. Still, some kind of cosmic coincidence to end up breaking through the walls of reality to a world so similar to my own."

"Maybe they were adjacent to each other for the very reason that they are so similar?" she ventured.

He shook his head in a noncommittal gesture. There were so many projects to get to, and navel gazing about who he'd ended up in this village of tiny women in the middle of nowhere yet surrounded by deadly foes might need to remain a mystery for now.

He moved to leave. "I'm gonna catch some dinner, then buckle down and start transcribing. In the future, I'll need some lessons in your language. That way, even if I leave, you'll still have the information to start making improvements."

"Agreed! I'll be happy to teach you, once we get all the...other stuff squared away."

He turned. "Other...oh, right, the wife part. Any recommendations?"

Vee's eyes bugged. "You're asking me? Uhh...Miri's a sturdy woman, very caring. Zixie's clearly enthusiastic. Probably not Huntress, she's...a bit intense. And Nell'll be busy trying to keep us all together. Ask around, there's surely to be a few volunteers."

As attractive as all the listed women were, he loathed the idea of just...walking up to someone and asking to put a baby in them. Fooling around, sure, but...

He took his leave to get to work on transcription. Perhaps a few hours of frantic writing will take his mind off the issue of his future as a parent. Or, at least, as a sire.

***

With the phone's access to information finite, he had to make the most of it. Luckily, he'd taken with him the pen and notebook he'd taken from his car! It would help to preserve whatever pages Vee had left. The little booklet was meant for holding recipes or something, so it wasn't the ideal vector for delivering complicated technological information. But it was certainly better than nothing!

He went over the obvious items first. Chemical synthesis was one. Gunpowder of course but also things like soap, lime, ether, vinegar, things one could pull of a shelf at a supermarket or a hardware store at home but could be game changers in a world without that information.

Industrial processes were next, and naturally bled into the topic. How do you make all these products without being able to selectively apply pressure and temperature to force reactions to go one way or another. Likewise he found descriptions of half a dozen types of forges that might interest Kalvis.

Construction methods came next. Concrete was a big one and his hand cramped by the time he got enough detail down about mixing ratios and pour rates. Then onto specific structures and ways to build them. Some of the ideas, like Roman aqueducts, would be well beyond their capacity with the goblinpower on hand at the moment, but he wrote them down anyway, reasoning that it would still be valuable information. If only to sell or trade down the line. He felt like a vulture, picking through entire cultures' architectural history for bullet points on things like flying buttresses. But it was all knowledge, stuff that could make him valuable in an entirely new world. It was either that or get put out to stud.

Biology! He fought through the muscle pain and put everything useful he could find. Anatomy couldn't be too primitive among the goblins, considering Vee didn't cut off a limb or try to balance his humours. But things like germ theory might not be that well known...

"Got time?"

He jolted out of his flow state. The sun had already fallen, daylight slowly replaced by the pair of glowlamps near his desk. He turned to see Vee by the door, half shaded by the night. He turned off the phone and motioned for her to enter.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Come in! I didn't..." She stepped inside, and his voice trailed off as his eyes wandered down from her face to her outfit. Her apron and blouse were gone, replaced by a startling ruby red dress that clung to her body like it had been purposely tailored to do so. Her hair had been tousled and let loose from its ponytail, spilling gently down her shoulders.

"Is this too much?" she asked, holding out the hem of the skirt, "It's the one formal outfit I brought. Haven't put it on since the ball we had the night before taking off. Nell regularly reminded us that we could be the first representatives of our species in this part of the world, and that we might have to dress to impress." Her face turned redder the more she explained, her eyes dipping off to examine the side wall.

"Are you...dressing to impress me?"

She shut the door behind her, pressing her back against the wood. "Look, we all have our obligations. I know the math...I DID the math. Kith don't live as long as folk. If our village is to survive long enough to accumulate enough resources to get back home, we'll need more bodies. Gods it sounds so coarse and self-serving when you say it like that."

Jesse didn't know what to say. He wasn't an awful looking guy, but he'd never had a woman proposition to him. And certainly not to try for a kid.