Shanahan watched the factions gather. The Wu Chi and Grandview took spots close to each other at the giant table. He supposed that made sense since they had called the meeting.

He and Wyndham stood off behind those places. They had no standing and the Shapers looked like they wanted to press the issue of their dead members. He was fine with that if they wanted to do something after the talk.

He had already killed two of their number, doing away with the rest would just be more of the same to him. He just didn't have a handle on how the others would react if he started mowing down one of the ruling factions as an example of how much he hated all of them.

Grandview would probably intercede at some point, and he didn't have anything to handle the living weapon. His combination of natural powers could put down most of the threats he encountered in this world.

And Shanahan probably didn't rank as much of a threat to anyone who was ready for his own combination of abilities.

The Shapers took the opposite side of the table from Grandview and his allies. Some of them had their hands on their totems. They weren't ready to lose two more of their members to their supposed allies.

The Masks assembled between the Shapers and the Wu Chi. Each of the representatives wore a full face covering with decorations. It looked like they had combined a wrestler's mask with decorations like feathers, or jewelry, or anything else to Shanahan. It reminded him of luchadores he had seen at the Garden back home.

The other factions filled in the rest of the seating arrangements. Grandview stood, hands behind his back. He smiled at his guests, nodding at them as he seemed to think about what he wanted to say.

“Thank you for answering my request,” said Grandview. “It has come to my attention that my plateau is honeycombed with tunnels leading down to where dragons were being grown and sent after the Wu Chi's people here at the edge of their mesa. The Wu Chi and I contracted this problem out with a former associate to find the cause.”

“Master Yuen,” said Grandmaster Bao. He gestured for the paper master to show the representatives of the other factions the model he had built with his powers.

Yuen took a ream of paper from the bag hanging at his waist. He unrolled it on the table. A model of the tunnel system they had traversed came into being.

“This city of goblins was at the bottom of the mesa as far as we could determine,” said the map maker. “We found trees producing the beasts here.”

He indicated the dent in the center of the city with a finger.

“We set fire to the fuel for the dragons to stop the production of more,” said Yuen. “Further investigation revealed a similar tunnel set up under our mesa.”

“Yuri,” said the leader of the Shapers. “Show them what you saw.”

Yuri stood he placed three of the stones he used on the table by the model. Light turned into an image of amphibian warriors running into the tunnels with someone in pursuit.

“We don't know how many groups are under us,” said Yuri. “I would have said they were stories. I haven't dealt with anything like this before we went down to look at the mesas.”

“Is this a real threat?,” asked one of the Animals. His hand covered a wrist band of bones tied together with leather strips. Dark hair curled around his head as he looked at the image of the goblins getting away.

“We don't know how extensive the threat is, but they consider any who enter their domain as food,” said Bao. “It's not a big gap to think they would consider us food if they came to the top of the mesas to hunt us.”

“Are you talking about declaring war on these frogs?,” asked one of the other factions. “Is that what I am hearing?”

“We think that if we don't take some kind of preventive measures, they will only escalate until we have to do something drastic,” said Bao.

“We might have to clear them out,” said Grandview. “The damage from their tunneling will only get worse if nothing is done.”

“You're talking about a total collapse of one of our mesas if you are right,” said one of the Masks.

“We don't know how extensive they can tunnel,” said Grandview. “From what my associate reported, their dragons can melt stone with their breath.”

“Did anyone see any of these dragons?,” asked the Mask.

“I killed one with my sword,” said Grandview. “They are heavy flying lizards.”

“You can kill them with fire if you can get the fire inside of them,” said Shanahan. “It can create a backlash if you time it just right.”

“How did you do that?,” asked the Animal.

“I waited for the thing to open its mouth to set me on fire, or whatever its vomit did, and then I threw a flame producing box in its mouth,” said Shanahan. “It exploded.”

“Do you have any more of these flame producing boxes?,” asked the Animal. Disbelief covered his face despite whatever ability he possessed that wasn't considered normal by the residents of the mesa, or his peers.

“Sure,” said Shanahan. He pulled a grenade from the bag he had strapped to his equipment belt. He held it up for all of them to look at it. “Do you want to see what it does?”

“Do not kill anyone,” said Grandview.

“You pull the pin,” said Shanahan. He demonstrated. “You count to three, then throw it at the target.”

He lofted it high over the gap toward the other mesa that was in view. The grenade blew up before it could start descending. Some of the representatives nodded since the grenade worked similar to their own abilities.

“These dragons should be easy for us to kill,” said one of the Masks.

“They seemed fragile, but we only saw fresh ones,” said Shanahan. “Some that had been around might be tougher.”

“There might be tunnels under all our mesas,” said Bao. “We need to make sure that we are at peace with these goblins, or ready to move against them if they come to the surface. My feeling is they will be overwhelmingly hostile if they do come out of their caverns.”

“We represent a source of food for them,” said one of the Shapers. “They will raid if they are as hostile as you have said.”

“And they might have more than these dragons to use against us,” said Grandview. “If they are as flammable as we think, do we dare let them get close to our cities?”

“I don't think that is something we can afford,” said Bao.

“What do you suggest?,” asked the senior Mask in attendance.

“Mistress Wyndham and Master Shanahan can find these tunnels with little effort,” said the paper master. “We let them do that with an escort. If we find entrances, we close, or guard them until we decide what to do.”

“Guarding them might be easier because if we close them, the goblins will just open a door somewhere else,” said the Mask. “How dangerous are these goblins?”

“They like to fight in groups, and they like to rush whatever they are chasing from what we saw,” said Shanahan. “They didn't seem to have any special abilities.”

“We need to capture one and question him about his people,” said one of the other factions. “We can use that intelligence to make our next move against them if we have to upgrade to open war.”

“I think the goblins will tell us nothing,” said Bao. “But that is reasonable enough on the face of it.”

“So we ask for these outsiders to gather information?,” said the eldest Shaper. He didn't seem pleased by that prospect.

“We are for hire,” said Wyndham, forestalling Shanahan expressing his disapproval. “But we have other jobs we have to do. I think some of you are more suited for this than we are.”

“No one here is as expendable as you are,” said Grandview.

“Can I have a minute to confer with my partner?,” asked Wyndham. She held out a hand for Shanahan to come closer to her so they could move away from the table before violence broke out.

She didn't want him trying to figure out how many he could kill before he was put down, and then trying to find out.

“I think we can spare you some time,” said Grandview. He stood. He shook his head at the model of the cavern system under his mesa.

Wyndham and Shanahan walked away far enough to talk without being heard, but still be seen by the gathered masters. The marine eyed the attendees with a scowl on his bearded face but said nothing.

“What do you want to do?,” Wyndham asked. She kept her face averted in case one of the masters could read her expression, or hear better than what she thought.

“Go home,” said Shanahan. “This is turning into a chain of deals and I don't like that at all. Everything we do about this will keep them wanting us to do more to fix their problem and I don't want to do that.”

“So we tell them no?,” said Wyndham.

“Our options are go along, fight these people and try to kill as many as we can, or go home and hope they don't follow us,” said Shanahan. His grim expression told her which option he preferred even if he couldn't win in the long run.

“What do we get if we help them?,” asked Wyndham.

“Maybe some more gold for you, and my kids,” said Shanahan. “More aggravation having to deal with these people. Some of them have to have a talent that equals to yours.”

“None of them are as good as me,” said Wyndham.

“You want to go all in on this?,” asked Shanahan.

“I think we should resupply and do the bare minimum to fulfill our contract so they won't follow us on Earth,” said Wyndham.

“All right,” said Shanahan. He didn't have to say he didn't approve, but she knew that when they started talking.