Lily
“Good morning, ambassador Jeffreys.” Lily said, holding out her hand to the middle-aged human man. His protruding belly was well hidden under lavish robes of deepest purple, and his balding head, with its fringe of grey hair was equally well hidden beneath a similarly colored hat. The man didn’t, quite, waddle over to her, but the walk wasn’t far off. Lily bit back the distaste she felt at the feel of the man’s sweaty hand, but she didn’t let any of that displeasure show on her face.
“Counselor Lily, I take it?” Jeffreys asked, with a smile that held surprisingly white teeth.
“I am, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Lily said with a nod. “Please, have a seat. I thought we could meet over breakfast this morning. Then later, I will show you around the city before we make our way to see the queen and the rest of the council.” She motioned to a beautifully carved and stained wood table while she spoke. In an equally beautifully carved and stained room that was entirely paneled in rare woods.
“Thank you,” ambassador Jeffreys said as he took a seat on the padded chair. “I have actually heard of this restaurant. The ‘Goblin’s retreat’ restaurant is widely spoken of as the best restaurant in the kingdom. The chef was apparently the personal cook of your late husband, was he not? I have to say, the furnishings are beautiful. But why is the place filled with armor?” Lily ground her teeth together so hard she feared they might crack under the pressure.
“Ambassador,” she began with as pleasant a voice as she could manage. “Yes, the ‘Goblin’s retreat’ is the best restaurant in the whole of Undercity. Though, as I discussed with your predecessor, we aren’t in the Mountain’s embrace kingdom. We are an independent, self-governing, city-state. My lord husband isn’t dead, he is merely on campaign, and the armor…” Here Lily paused, to take in the restaurant as a whole.
The wood paneled walls had been carved with murals depicting all the battles The White flame had been in, during the brief time he had ruled them. Lining all the walls, in small alcoves that had been purpose built to hold them, were several statues, wearing armor. Every suit of armor that Ronin had fought with or against was represented here. From a suit of Owl team scout armor to the final reproduction of his own battle armor, and everything in-between. Lily’s eye caught on a set of leather and steel that had been worn by her old clan a decade dead. So much different than the spider silk dresses she now wore for her counselor’s position.
“They are a tribute to my husband. He once told the owner of this establishment that he wanted to create a museum of all the armor he fought against in his battle. These are but the ones we know about before he left us.” Some days, Lily wasn’t sure why she’d become a counselor in the first place. It was getting harder and harder for her to tolerate the foolish behavior of the people she needed to deal with on a daily basis. Perhaps she should retire. Her, Halikor, and their two sons could move away from here, start over somewhere else. A silly dream.
“Yes… independent, is that why you haven’t been paying the king’s taxes? Oh, the food… We’ll have to discuss that after the meal. I would also like to know why I had to pass through a valley filled to the mountain peaks with monsters on my way here.” The fat man’s attention was arrested by the many dishes being wheeled out on carts by several goblins. The food corps were no more, but all the goblin men still lived to cook. Guts himself even came out, holding the main course in his still strong arms.
“They’ve taken the goblin theme a little too far I’d say,” the ambassador muttered, looking up at Guts with a scowl. “Would it hurt to have the chef himself deliver my meal? Instead, he has the help doing it for him, not very impressive councilor Lily. The goblins all around gasped and bared their teeth at the fat man, and Lily looked at Guts worriedly to see his reaction.
The still strong if aging goblin didn’t react in any visible manner. Only setting the dish down on the table and bowing deeply. Lily took the opportunity to look over the best cook in Undercity. He was somewhere around fifteen years old. An unheard-of age for a normal goblin. Thanks to his hobgoblin blood, and the nanites that the White flame had given him, the aging process had slowed down considerably. The flame red hair that once adorned his head in a tangled mop was now streaked with silver, and the muscles that covered his body were beginning to slack. He wouldn’t die any time soon. But Lily doubted the man would be around another decade from now.
“Please enjoy your meal, ambassador Jeffreys.” Guts said, coming up from his bow and shooing the remaining staff from the room. Normally, someone would have been left to wait on the table, but with Jeffreys poor reaction to the goblins, Lily thought Guts had been wise to remove them all.
“Would you like to try some of our signature mushroom steak, ambassador?” Lily asked, rising from her chair to serve the dishes herself.
“Mmuum this is delicious. Say what you will about the wait staff, the cook here is definitely talented. Perhaps I’ll take him with me when I return to the capital. The king would be pleased to have such a cook in the castle.” Lily just stared at the man as he stuffed his face. Had he done no research on the land he was sent to treat with?
“Ambassador, perhaps we should…”
“Lady Lily,” Andessa said, interrupting her as she stepped into the room. “Sorry to interrupt my lady, but there is a call for you, from the castle.” Lily wanted to curse at her bodyguard. It was considered extremely bad form for the help to interrupt a meeting in the Mountain’s embrace court. Still, it would get her away from this pudgy dolt for a few minutes.
“Thank you, Andessa,” she said, rising to her feet, and curtsying to the still eating Jeffreys, who was glaring daggers at the intrusion. “Please excuse me, Ambassador. I have to take this.”
Ignoring his grumbling over bad manners, Lily walked to a small land line telephone set up near a statue wearing locust lamellar, and answered the phone with a short, ‘hello.’
“Lily, sorry to interrupt your meal with the ambassador,” said none other than the queen herself. “But Owl Two called. He said we all need to gather at the castle in an hour for an emergency meeting. He didn’t give details, but he said it had to do with Lord Ronin.” Hunter sounded both excited and agitated as she spoke. She still held a great deal of respect for the White flame, but she’d worked for him for less than half a year. She’d been a queen for ten, an entire goblin lifetime.
“Thank you, your majesty.” Lily said quietly, “I will wrap things up and head to the castle.” They wrapped the conversation up quickly after that, and Lily moved back to the table.
“I am sorry for the interruption, once more ambassador Jeffreys. Unfortunately, something urgent has come up at the castle and my presence was requested. So, I will have to take my leave shortly and we will do our tour of the city and the castle another time.”
“Horse shit,” Jeffreys said, as he continued to stuff his face. “If you want to blow off our meeting, then you will have to come up with something better than talking to a metal box.” Lily barely restrained herself from leaping over the table at this fool of a man.
“I was talking on the telephone. An invention my husband’s head researcher came up with a few years ago. It works on the same power that runs the cities lights.” She said, gesturing around the room at all the LED’s that lit the room.
“I’m sure.” The ambassador said with a snort. “Though these lights are rather remarkable, I will be taking several of them with me when I leave. I have to say, when I took over this post from my predecessor, I knew you Undercity dwellers were an odd bunch. But I never thought you were this strange. No, Lily. I don’t think we will be rescheduling. I will accompany you to this ‘meeting’ and if it doesn’t exist, then believe it will go in my report.” Lily tried to argue for a time, but in the end gave up. If Owl two was calling the meeting, then some of the attendees might just kill this man for her and put him out of her misery.
“This is the library.” Lily said, giving a rushed version of the tour as they made their way towards the castle. “And that is, ah… One moment ambassador, it seems my consort and our children were at the library.” Knowing the fat man would grumble at her, she walked quickly away from him anyway, leaving him behind with his guard detail of six heavily built human men and her detail of Andessa and Tupelo, while Vara and Syl followed her. The pair had become her personal guard ten years ago and had been with her ever since. A pair of more loyal followers she couldn’t hope to have found.
“Halikor,” Lily said, reaching the tall bugbear man whom she’d taken on as her consort almost seven years ago. Getting up on her toes, she kissed him on the side of his face. The long shaggy black fur that covered his body was well groomed, and only the lightest touch of silver marred his coat. “You brought the boys out to the library I see.” She said, kneeling to rub the heads of their two sons. They were only five and six years old. Pain shot through her soul as she remembered another baby. One that would have been ten by now, if… she shook her head, plastering on a huge smile for her boys.
“Get anything good in there, Harknor?” She asked her oldest boy, who nodded and showed her his book. It was titled ‘the Prince’s adventure.’ A book Lily was told had been her husband’s favorite. She didn’t understand why, but her sons loved it. “Very nice, how about you, Halican?” She asked, turning to her other son. He too showed her his book, before their father ushered them away so she could return to work.
“I thought you were the lord’s wife… White fire or something, why were you kissing another man?” Jeffreys asked her with disdain when she returned to him. The question causing her guards to shift angrily, and the ambassador’s guards to eye them warily. They were large, and well armored, but few could stand up to these four.
“My husband is the lord of the White flame syndicate.” Lily said, her soul filled with hate for this insensitive man. “The Undercity split with the syndicate nearly ten years ago. My husband gave his blessing to those who wished to leave the syndicate to live here instead. What remains of the syndicate live above ground in the valley you passed through on your way here. The monsters, you mentioned earlier.” Lily knew they had stretched his words to the breaking point when they’d withdrawn from the syndicate. Still, they hadn’t gone against anything he’d said before he’d left them.
“Your ‘city-state’ is very convoluted.” He said, with another disdainful look. “The library at least looks nice. It was your people who did the carvings was it? I’ve heard the bugbear are second to none when it comes to stonework.” He said, pointing towards the square building that had been repurposed as a library. The carvings on this building all displayed knights fighting with dragons, warriors rescuing maidens, and other such nonsense.
“I’m afraid Owl Two was responsible for this,” she said, some distaste entering her own voice. “He said his lord would have wanted the children to be able to read the tales he enjoyed so much as a child and decorated the structure accordingly.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I see… you mentioned this Owl Two before. Who is he? I don’t remember his name coming up in your town’s leadership documentation.” The man had started walking again, apparently not overly interested in the art anymore.
“That’s because he isn’t a member of the Undercity.” Lily said, trailing behind him. “He stayed with the syndicate and is in a very real sense, its leader. At least until my husband returns.”
“What is wrong with your queen? She actually let a separate power set on your very doorstep?” Jeffreys scoffed. “It’s bad enough that we’ve allowed you to get away with living in our lands without paying your taxes. But how are you even still around, with an army camped right outside?” What was with this man, did he have a death wish?
He talked down everything he saw. When they passed marvels that Lily hadn’t even believed possible ten years ago, like the electric light posts, or the few cars Owl Two had given them, he pretended like they were some kind of trick.
“The White flame syndicate are continually active in the fight against the invaders. It was largely them who defeated the locust threat. Even now, whenever we get an invader ship, it is them who go to fight them off.” She didn’t know why she was defending them, honestly, she agreed with him. The syndicate had outlived its usefulness. Turning a corner, she saw a pair of blue skinned men with white hair, talking to a crowd of young boys near a bakery. Turning to her guest she said.
“Parden me for another moment.” Before she walked away from him yet again.
“What are you doing?” She asked angrily, “you kids get out of here, don’t listen to whatever they have to say.” Lily waited until the kids had run off before turning back to the well-muscled men. They were easily recognizable as the goblin oni blends that Owl Two had settled on as his favorite hybrid. He’d largely given up on the others. Though there were plenty of half breeds up in the valley, continuing to cross breed with each other. It was sickening, and there were so many different flavors that everyone had just taken to calling them yokai, since they were all demons.
“Lady Lily,” one of the yokai said with a bow. He stood a little over six feet tall, so he was of a height with Lily herself. “We are on Owl two’s escort detail. The boys had some questions about our armor.” He said gesturing down at the black armor he wore with the grey flames licking his body from his boots up.
“Don’t.” She said simply. “You have been banned from recruiting in the city. You know that. If I see something like this again, we’ll take steps to ban you from the city.” They didn’t argue or get visibly mad. The oni yokai were like that, like Staz in how they stayed completely calm… right up until it was time to start killing. Lily sighed when she thought of Staz. The giant had been one of her closest friends, right up until she’d lost the baby. So much had changed after that, and they’d drifted apart.
Leaving the pair, who could have passed for human if it weren’t for their white hair and blue skin, behind, Lily returned to the ambassador once again.
“Is this going to be a regular occurrence?” He asked, looking down his nose at the yokai. “Because I would like to request a palanquin if so. These stone streets are awfully hard on a man who’s used to more, sophisticated roads. And what is that incessant buzzing?” Lily knew full well that was a lie. She’d been to the capital, and their streets had nothing on the flat, slightly textured for grip, stone of the Undercity.
“That is our generator. It is responsible for the telephones, the lights, the running water, the cars, and several other inventions that make our life easier. And no need for a palanquin, we are almost there.” Lily was glad about that; she didn’t want to have to deal with this for much longer. At this rate, they would arrive just before the meeting was due to start. She breathed deeply, thinking about retirement again.
The castle, once a boring square slab of stone, had been engraved with myriad scenes of both bravery and beauty, elegance, and flowing lines. The bugbear craftsmen, so despised during their time as refugees had really come into their own, and in the years since the wars ended, they had become the dominant faction inside Undercity. Turning the boring cubes that served as buildings into wondrous works of art. They were even now, building a trade network with the Mountain’s embrace kingdom, the elves, and what was left of the honeycomb.
That trade network was the reason for the ambassador’s visit. Undercity had declared itself neutral in all conflicts and retreated into the mountains after the locusts had been defeated. Unconcerned with the affairs of those on the surface, focusing only on the vast network of underground caves filled with farms, underground livestock areas, and largely unexplored areas that were rife with raw materials that could be mined. There was no need to go outside, except to trade their crafted goods for things that could only be found on the surface.
They had only recently gone outside again, starting a trade caravan that hit many of the larger cities in the local kingdom. As well as renting one of the kaldarr dropships from the White flame syndicate to do trade runs with the bugbear clans who had survived the locust war. The trade, going so well that the kingdom their mountain home was in, decided it wanted its cut of the profits, although they had done nothing to earn it. Unless one counted owning the dirt above their heads.
“Hello, lady Lily,” said one of four human guards when they reached the castle gate. “Looks like it’s going to be a busy day, with all the higher ups gathering inside.” Lily recognized the guard, who looked rather dapper in his gold enameled lamellar Undercity armor, with its black stenciling of a city in a cave. Lamellar armor had become the staple in Undercity. Gold was chosen as their city colors to represent the golden age they were entering. Most everyone wore locust lamellar, because they had mountains of the carapace piled up in spare caves, but it was slowly being replaced with underground lizard scale, or steel, depending on one’s budget.
“Hello, Frank.” Lily said with a genuine smile. The middle-aged human had apparently once been a guard captain for Benjamin’s brother, Charles. Back before the White flame captured him anyway, now he served as a city guard, and by all accounts an exceptionally good one. “Yes, I believe it will be an interesting day to say the least… This is ambassador Jeffreys, he will be accompanying me to the meeting today.” Lily said, trying to keep the smile in place when the fat man was mentioned.
“I see,” Frank said. "Very well then, head on in. You are expected in the council chambers.” Lily noted the cooling of Franks expression when he saw the luxuriously dressed fat man. She wondered about it for a second, but now was not the time to pry. Instead, she just nodded her thanks and proceeded to lead Jeffreys into the castle.
“Why are all the statues in this chamber of goblins? And why are they all wearing battered armor? Is this another memento to your not dead husband?” Jeffreys asked when they entered the hall of remembrance. It was a vary sacred room to the goblins of Undercity, and the few goblin guards at the doors bristled in anger at the disrespect in the man’s voice.
“This is the hall of remembrance, ambassador.” Lily said patiently, “When we were all under the White flame’s banner, he gathered up all the goblins and formed them into three groups. The workers, the scouts, and the food corps. This room is dedicated to all the original members of the food corps and the scouts. Due to goblin life spans, almost none of them are around anymore. Our queen valued them highly, however, so she had this hall commissioned to honor them.”
That was a highly abbreviated version of the story. It also left out many of the key details. Like how all the scouts and food corps members had been of mixed goblin and hobgoblin blood. When Undercity had been founded, the original hobgoblin owners had been looked down on. To the last one, the war loving race migrated to the surface and joined the White flame syndicate. Without any new cross species pairing, that left the original scouts and food corps as the only ones who could pass on the bloodlines. Except they hadn’t realized that, until many of them had reached old age. Thanks to the sexual inhibitors that let them function in society, they had been unwilling, or unable, to breed.
It hadn’t even taken ten years for the majority of the mixed goblin population to die. When the council had gone to Owl two with it, he told them he’d seen the problem coming from the start, but since they’d parted ways with the White flame syndicate, he had no interest in helping them. A large part of why there was so much hatred for the syndicate in the Undercity. The goblin paradise that lord White flame had handed to Hunter, Guts, and Brie, had nearly ended in a single generation.
There were still several dozen cross blooded goblins in the city, guts had fathered nearly one hundred children himself, at the orders of the queen. That hadn’t made Brie happy, but it had helped a little. Lily bit the inside of her lip in frustration as she remembered the events of the past ten years. They had accomplished so much but lost so much more in the doing.
“I see,” Jeffreys said, bringing her back to the present. He’d unknowingly mirrored the words and expression of distaste that Frank had worn when looking at him. “Your queen seems to have an unhealthy fascination with goblins… your late husband as well. Once we take back this small city for the kingdom, we will have to put an end to the practice.”
“Ambassador Jeffreys,” Lily snapped as they walked together through the doors of the council chamber, reaching the limit of her patience. “You are out of line. This city is a home for goblins. I have been tolerant of your blatant racism because we wish to have healthy relations with your kingdom, but I will not tolerate your disrespect of my queen.”
“You ungrateful wench,” Jeffreys said, spitting the words back in her face angrily. “I have given you more than enough chances to come clean with me on why you haven’t paid your taxes. Yet all I ever hear from you is horse shit about goblins and you being independent. I have half a mind to have my guards str…” he didn’t get farther, because a strong hand wrapped itself around his neck.
“Lily,” the owner of that voice said. The words were so cold Lily shivered. “Who might this… person be?”
“I apologize for my outburst. He is the new ambassador from the Mountain’s embrace kingdom, your majesty.” Lily said, going into a deep bow.
“A damned goblin, you’re the queen? Guards… Aaarrgghhh.” His words were choked out by Hunter’s fist, squeezing tighter. His guards took a step forward but were stopped when Vara and Syl drew their blades, and Tupelo raised a rifle to his shoulder. Andessa didn’t move to engage, instead, she took a step in front of Lily, bringing her shield up to guard her charge.
“Enough of this farse.” Hunter said, shoving the spluttering ambassador into a corner with more strength than any goblin should have. “You will stay put down there, with your guards. Or I will have you fed to the trogs, alive. Do not speak until this meeting has ended, if you can manage that, then I will listen to the message you have brought from your king. Do you understand?” The trembling man looked like he was going to argue, to scream, to threaten. When he turned to his six burly guards, however, he saw they had meekly handed over their weapons, and much of the wind seemed to leave his sails. Turning back to the queen he gave a silent nod, a wet spot seeping out around his crotch. That minor matter handled, Hunter turned to the still bowing Lily and lifted her head.
“None of that Lily,” she said, smiling up at the taller woman. “This is the first time we’ve had all of Undercity’s leaders together in one place for what feels like years. let’s set the formalities aside and treat this like the reunion it is. Now come and say high to all our old friends.”
“Of course, your majesty.” Lily said, with a dip of her head, as Hunter moved back to the small circle she had been speaking with. Lily recognized all of them at once. There was the queen, Hunter. Brie and her husband Guts, and their oldest child, Robert. They had more than twenty children together, all of whom had been blessed with the sense of reason that only goblins with something else mixed in could obtain.
Lily eyed Brie for a second before she moved her gaze along. The half goblin, half human woman had aged just as much as Guts. Her years were numbered if the silver in her fire red hair was any indication. It was a sad thing, to watch friends of shorter-lived races grow old and die while she was still in the prime of her life. Hunter thankfully was immortal, as long as she sat on the throne.
Then, there was Benjamin. The general was well into his fifties now and looked his age. Standing beside him was the spitfire Rachel, now in her late twenties. The girl had come a long way since she’d murdered a bugbear man who’d tried to steal her food. Now, she led an entire company of Undercity’s soldiers.
That just left Vasylia and her cousin Halikor. The large framed and shaggy furred bugbear woman formerly of the white mane clan had stayed in power. Thanks in no small part because Halikor, the only remaining male member of the clan’s main family, had become Lily’s consort, and had children with her.
Lily sighed at just how few remained. The melting pot of races that was the White flame syndicate had split up. Only the goblins, bugbear, and the majority of the humans had stayed in the city they’d all fought so hard to conquer.
“The elven delegation has arrived,” called an announcer at the chamber’s main entrance. It was much larger than the small back door Lily had taken with Jeffreys and led outside. She grimaced as she watched the elves troop in. Knowing that the cursed android wouldn’t be far behind.