23 - Pride, Prejudice, and Goblins

The All-Seeing Tower, Two Weeks After Festival

Duke stood in front of the broken mirror in his room, dressed only in his knickers. He held an inky black robe to his neck and then switched it out for a crimson one. Fweb stood in the corner with piles of clothes draped on either arm. Its stomach grumbled and its limbs were tired, as they had been at this for hours.

"I can't decide," Duke said. "I like the crimson one, but I always go for a crimson one. Could you get me the maroon one again?"

For the third time that day, Fweb traded out the crimson for the maroon one.

"You exude excellence in any color," Fweb said, and wanted to vomit in its mouth.

"You're no help," Duke said. "I know I'm the most powerful person to walk the planet, but that doesn't mean you can't just talk to me. I'm an approachable guy."

That's because you torture anyone who doesn't agree with everything you say , Fweb didn't say. Instead, it said, "You are the most approachable dark wizard."

"Maybe the midnight black or...I know. The blood-red. Oh, hells, give me both of them."

Fweb dutifully exchanged the garments of clothing. While its own personal beatings were significantly reduced by the presence of the visitor, the nauseating, complicated rituals of human love disgusted it. Goblins were much simpler to court. A suitor would punch their desired mate in the face, and if the potential mate hit back with anything less than steel-knuckled gloves, the making of babies would commence.

Humans had to dance around the issue with innuendo and pretense. Every moment of human courtship was exhausting. The worst part was that Jenny the Moon Mage didn't seem to have the slightest bit of interest in the master. While Duke had insisted that he was merely waiting for Lady Ameria to be returned to his loving embrace, the truth was that the man barely thought of his lost love.

Before Jenny, the necromancer couldn't last a night without conjuring an image of Ameria in the seeing stone. Now the guy futilely attempted to capture looks at Jenny in her room. However, the sorceress had obfuscation magic, so the man got only mist while cradling the seeing stone in bed.

Duke's inability to spy on her was refocused with invitations to dinners, strolls along the tower grounds, and any excuse he could find to be with her. Each time Fweb delivered the message, she almost always found a way to include the Sky Lord's mom in the planned activities, so they would spend as little time alone together as could be managed. It was a vomitus display in a situation that could be resolved with a swift punch to the face.

"Maybe the ash black?" the Sky Lord said, and then laughed. "Oh, Fweb, what am I thinking? The abyss black. That is the one, I'm sure of it."

Once his master was satisfied with the garment woven from the hair of his enemies, he spent the rest of the time on his makeup and hair. Even though the evil overlord's mother would always chide him about a proper dark wizard not needing makeup, the human sought to make his skin even smoother. People skin was so gross.

Once Duke was ready, he ordered his servant to fetch the guest. The goblin nodded and quickly departed from the room. The part about the courtship that it didn't understand was that Jenny had made no attempt to kill the mage king and steal his domain. If she didn't like the guy, then the best course of action seemed that she should just do away with him and take over the place. A powerful wizard like herself would surely know how to disable the magic that would cause the tower to collapse in the event of his death.

If Jenny were the mage queen, Fweb was pretty sure it would enjoy its job as goblin servant. Unlike its boss, she listened to him, did tasks for herself, and lacked the need to torture minions to make herself feel better. It had even gotten a thank you from her once.

Earlier that day, it had been talking to its mate. "You know, in my twenty years serving our master, I haven't gotten one thank you . Not even a ' good job ' or a ' you did all right '."

Grekka had shrugged and plopped the grey globular breakfast on a filthy plate.

"You were dung scraper for most of those years, and he murdered the first thirty-four butlers before you," Grekka had said, as it slopped another one down for itself. The pair had stuck their hands in and licked the goop from their fingers. Food that didn't taste like feces was a perk of being the butler. Dung scrapers spent their days chipping the shit splatter from the latrine walls. Orcs and goblins weren't known for their bathroom manners.

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"I know," Fweb had said. "But I've been running this tower for about a year now, and I'm pretty close to outliving his longest-lived goblin butler."

Due to Duke's propensity for murdering the help, Fweb was an elder by goblin standards at thirty-two winters. With the steel allergy, murderous bosses, and substandard working conditions, goblins rarely reached old age, which for them was about mid-forties. If Duke didn't murder him, Grekka one day would, and if they were lucky enough to ever have children, their offspring would most certainly kill him. Parenticide was a rite of passage for any goblin youth seeking independence from its forebears.

Grekka was barren as the soil around the tower, and goblins needed two fertile partners to impregnate each other. Unless it went to fisticuffs with another mate, there was zero chance that it would fulfill almost every parent's dream of being offed by their own child. It certainly didn't want Duke to have the pleasure of doing the deed, so maybe the time for a new master was at hand.

Even the act of thinking sedition was treason. If full magic were ever restored to the place, the traitorous thought would have brought the wraiths after him. Thankfully, the magic was no longer strong enough to keep the shadowy secret police in Fweb's plane of existence to drag would-be usurpers to the underworld. Still, Fweb couldn't help feeling the way it felt.

After going down several flights of stairs, it finally arrived at the guest quarters. It knocked on a large oak door without the ordinary sense of dread it'd feel about rapping on chamber walls. When there was no answer, it tried something it would never do with Duke. It opened the door to peek inside.

It saw Moon Mage Jenny only half-dressed. She was wearing only her undergarments, though her hair seemed to be done up even though Fweb didn't see the appeal. Mangy, stringy hair was how goblins liked the head. The only thing missing was the dress that the master had the servants weave for her. Grekka had been working on the bodice all day. The moon wizard had a white, flat, shiny stone up to her ear, and she was talking into the strange object. Fweb could hear a female voice emitting from the magic rock.

"What do you mean you're going around the Woods of Volunar?" Jenny said, in exasperation.

The voice on the other end replied. "Our guide was murdered, Mistress of the Moon. A Vampire, I reckon."

"I don't care what it was. I need you to go through those woods."

"But no one's escaped them alive! The detour will only last a few weeks."

"If you had to spend one more week with this lusty bastard, you'd go through the woods, too. Now, you said you are in the body of a necromancer. Figure it out."

"Begging your pardon, but maybe you can teach me some moon magic? One of them almost made me."

"You are not powerful enough yet. Trust me. In the meantime, I cannot stress how important it is that you get to me as soon as possible. He bought me a dress! A dress! The creeper is ready for me to move into his bed chambers!"

"A union between the fell realm and—"

"If you'd like your heart to still be beating when you get here, I suggest you do not finish that thought."

"I'm just saying, marriages during this time were often political."

"First off, you're a history teacher. Earth History. We are in Middle Middle Earth," Jenny said. "I'm not joking either. They call it Middle Middle Earth here."

"Why?"

"I don't know that! I'm only an influencer, not a historian."

Fweb didn't know why it spoke. As miserable as a goblin’s existence could be, it enjoyed being alive, but it was too late as the words came out of its mouth. "Carnt is Middle Middle Earth because it is located in the middle of the Earth plane and not particularly large or small."

To Fweb's surprise, the Moon Mistress did not flay it for speaking out of turn. "Woods of Volunar. Do it," she said, then pressed down on the surface of her stone and shoved it into a hidden pocket on her person.

Fweb didn't know why it continued to talk. Goblins weren't known to be great conversationalists. They were better at following orders and using a minimal amount of speech to get by in life. "The land of the Burning Sun is southeast and vast, so Southeastern Large Earth. Then there’s Earth, the fabled land that’s not thought to exist."

"Are there secret passages in this tower?" she asked.

Once again, Fweb tempted fate. "There were whole networks of magic passageways, spies, and creatures from beyond the Earthly realms when the tower was at full power. However, the magic has dwindled away."

"If a person wanted to move about the tower unnoticed, how would they go about doing that?"

"I do know of a few ways, but there are stairs. Lots of them."

"You're saying that like it's a bad thing! Are you kidding me? My thighs have never been in better shape in my life!"

Fweb didn't know why it kept talking. If the Sky Lord heard any of this, it would be hanging by its entrails for sure. "I suppose I could arrange distractions for you when needed. Careful placement of his mother does the trick. He tries to avoid his mother as much as possible."

"Why do you think I've hung out with her so much since I've gotten here? Thank you, Fweb," she said. "I'll let you know when I need your services. Tell Duke I'm going to be late. Doing my hair or something. You'll figure it out."

Hearing thanks followed by its name was all it took. It was now a loyal servant to the Moon Mage. It would kiss her steel ring if she asked it.

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