Chapter 15

Gobly thought that Master Divine was the most powerful goblin that had ever lived.

She believed that with all of her heart.

Gobly had given up on going against Master Divine, ever. Her intention was to follow and please him now. All to live the good life.

If you knew and followed the rules, the life as Master Divine's minion was the best.

Gobly cleaned the bowls and kept an eye on the goblings and the minions while Master Divine was sitting in his special pose to the side.

Second Disciple and Third Disciple were harassing Grompy.

The goblings could be real monsters.

They already had repeatedly broken Grompy's nose so that it looked really strange now.

And the next hit on Grompy's nose didn't look too far off.

As long as the goblings didn't disturb Master Divine or tried to leave the cavern they could do whatever they wanted.

Gobly was thankful that the little monsters liked her. Really thankful.

They even looked at Gobly's face like it was completely normal. Because for them it was.

It was the first time she accompanied someone growing up since she got her burn scar.

It felt nice. That is why she liked to pamper the goblings too.

After she was done cleaning the bowls she wiped her hands on her robe. A robe, that's what Master Divine had called it when he had given her his old one, after a new one had already appeared for him.

His magical trick of making fascinating items appear from thin air was really impressive.

She treasured the robe especially because Divine had worn it for quite some time. She could still smell his scent on it.

Gobly went over to the two woodcutter minions that were lazying around.

"Get up. Get wood." Gobly loved bossing around the other goblins.

She knew Master Divine the best. His preferences and dislikes.

She worked the hardest for him. And she was closest to him from all of the minions.

It had been back in winter when Gobly stopped a goblin tit with one ear from going against Master Divine's rules. That stupid tit had tried to shit somewhere else than into the latrine pit.

They had gotten into a fight and Gobly almost lost. A stone thrown by Master Divine had saved her.

It had granted Gobly the opportunity to kill the one-eared tit.

With the knowledge that she enjoyed Master Divine's backing as long as she served him well, she had slowly strengthened her influence over the other minions since then.

The woodcutters grumbled in dissatisfaction about her orders but got up to head outside. They changed out of their dirty robes into their old even more dirty rags and grabbed their tools.

Master Divine had given these two goblin dicks each a small axe that he had made appear and taught them that it was their responsibility to get firewood.

That was the main job of the two and they were very busy since Master Divine disliked making fire with dry goblin waste.

The two of them weren't very bright. They did the work and didn't have much strength left after to make trouble. So they were tolerable in Gobly's mind.

Gobly sent the other three minions out to hunt and gather food.

If they didn't get any it wasn't much of a problem because Master Divine would go if they ran out.

But Master Divine was sometimes happy if he didn't have to, so she sent them.

There wasn't any other work at the moment anyway.

The three of them changed out of their robes into their old rags before they left. Not one of them dared to run around openly dressed this richly.

With the others gone Gobly played with the goblings until Master Divine got up.

The four goblings and Gobly copied Master Divine working through the arduous movements he always did.

Their movements were much stabler and much more flowing than when they tried it the first time. It was nice to see they were getting better.

Afterwards Gobly felt a rewarding exhaustion in her body.

The exercise was followed by some lessons in Master Divine's magical tongue.

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First Disciple was the most inquisitive, but all four disciples asked a lot of questions when they didn't understand.

Gobly didn't dare to ask questions especially because she could only have asked them in Gobble and the goblings wouldn't have understood. It wasn't her lesson. So she just listened silently.

Sometimes she caught herself staring at Master Divine's good looking face.

It was distracting and didn't help her learning. But she would never have tried to learn in the first place if she didn't find Master Divine impressive. So maybe it was a boon to her learning after all.

Later they ran in circles through the cavern. By now it was almost impossible to follow Divine's running speed with their eyes, let alone following him by running.

Whisps of shadows danced around Master Divine's legs while he ran faster and faster.

Gobly just led the goblings running around feeling the breeze created by Master Divine's passing until she lost her breath and the goblings overtook her.

The gobling disciples were quickly growing and getting stronger too. They already had more stamina than Gobly.

The other minions came back together stumbling into the cavern, completely ruffled and injured.

They came back dragging the body of a two tailed fox and one seriously wounded woodcutter with them.

The other woodcutter was panicking out of worry for his friend.

He ran to Master Divine and fell on his knees. "Please save Knorky. Gnocky beg Divine. Gnocky do anything." The woodcutter Gnocky had tears in his bulging eyes.

Gobly stared expectantly at Master Divine. She didn't doubt for a second that Master Divine could save Knorky with his magic.

The only question was if he would use it on a minion like that woodcutter.

Gobly wondered what Master Divine would do if it was her lying there injured.

Master Divine didn't say anything and just calmly walked to the wounded goblin.

Gobly followed behind him.

Close up Knorky really looked terrible. Covered with deep scratches and two dangerous looking bite wounds.

The bite wound on his thigh was still bleeding. Knorky did not look like he would have long.

For a few moments Master Divine did nothing and just watched.

*sigh*

Divine suddenly let a strange little white stone appear in his hand that smelled wonderfully like herbs.

Gobly was already used to Master Divine's magical trick to just let the most wondrous things appear, but she always liked seeing it.

Master Divine stuffed the strange stone into the woodcutter's mouth.

A few moments later Knorky breathed a little easier and gained back some healthy green color. Knorky was recovering visibly fast.

It was real magic.

Master Divine watched Knorky for some time and then left to sit in his special pose.

Gobly was deeply impressed and touched by the Master's actions. The others felt the same. Even the goblings had watched without making a ruckus.

Since Master Divine didn't start to prepare the two tailed fox, Gobly wanted to make herself useful.

She skinned the two tailed fox with her claws trying to save as much from the orange furcoat as she could.

It wasn't easy because the goblins had to attack the fox so many times to finally kill it that the fur was a little shredded.

With a rusty knife that Master Divine had given to her, Gobly butchered the two tailed fox.

It was much easier than she remembered.

Everything was easier these days.

Getting water from the well. Carrying stuff around. Running. Sleeping.

Gobly had never felt like this in all her long four winters before coming to Master Divine's side.

Touching some of the fox's flesh to hold it for cutting, Gobly felt something.

After a little digging she found a fascinating tiny stone.

It felt nicely warm in her hand. Soothing. Gobly enjoyed it.

Suddenly she felt like there was a flame licking her face.

Gobly squeaked before she could suppress it.

She looked around but there was no flame.

No one else had noticed anything.

She looked at the tiny stone in her hand.

It was that thing's fault. She wanted to throw it away out of fear but she was also intrigued.

She thought she had seen such a stone in Master Divine's hand before.

Maybe it was useful for Master Divine?

Maybe it was magic?

Gobly researched the stone with her feelings. The stone was fire. Warming and burning. Soothing and terrifying. Fascinating.

Gobly gazed at the other occupants of the cavern.

The other minions were all sleeping or at least lying down. Recovering from their injuries and exhaustion.

The goblings were throwing stones and hitting each other with bone clubs. While playing they were staying on one side of the cavern and didn't involve anyone else.

Gobly was proud that they were behaving so well at the moment when the other minions had had such a hard time.

Little Fourth Disciple was already hungry again and looked expectantly over, waiting for her to finish preparing the next meal.

Fourth Disciple received a few hits from First Disciple for his carelessness.

Master Divine was still sitting in his pose. Gobly liked looking at him very much.

Suddenly Master Divine opened his piercing eyes and looked directly at her.

Her heart beat like crazy.

Gobly looked down and saw the fire stone in her hand.

She closed her hand and tucked it into her robe.

Gobly continued with the meal preparations and when she looked up again Master Divine had his eyes closed.

Gobly really gave it her all and copied every step of Divine's glowing mushroom and meat soup. Including the herbs.

It was the first time she completed all the steps of the recipe alone.

With some pride and a healthy dose trepidation she presented the first bowl to Master Divine.

Before she dared to feed the goblings with it she had to let Master Divine inspect it.

A former minion had received a harsh beating from Master Divine because he had fed the goblings burned garbage and had eaten their share themselves.

Gobly wouldn't make the same mistake.