Dulled footsteps echoed inside the huge cavern as leather heels clicked against the roughly cut stone covered lightly by thin white strands of mushroom mycelia. The undead goblin led the strange assortment of women through the deserted city, his knowledge of the meandering roads was invaluable to the women as they meandered chaotically between derelict piles of rocks. Walking a couple of steps behind the goblin, Iris was trying to map out their every step.
At first, the risen had no problem with imaging the path they took even when all of the goblin houses around her looked like one another. Instead of looking at the barely standing hovels, the elf's amethyst eyes went upwards, focusing on the empty walkways above her. Goblins have an odd sense of esthetics as she found hanging from ropes tied to the suspended walkways trinkets of all sorts. Shamanic charms, coins, polished ores, gems, skulls and patchy flags with child-like designs emblazoned on them. She was fully willing to bet all the coins she had that given enough time she could find two platinum coins worth of stuff just hanging above them as decoration.
Eventually trying to map the path they took became as hard as seeing a mule breaking water. The goblin Kia had raised turned out to be too knowledgeable in traversing the city for Iris to keep up as he began to lead them through the buildings, seeming to choose the buildings easiest for the tall elf to walk through. She hummed quietly from behind the groups as she thought to which of the undead should she offer her gratitude.
The goblin city was made out of huge irregular city blocks which climbed upwards as the titanic pillars holding up the ceiling both made it hard for buildings to sprawl outwards and easier to build vertically. It also didn't hurt the goblins that their entire city acted as a wall keeping out the great beast of the Underdark which might wander into their secluded cavern. Each of the blocks they went through felt like a separate city, with internal corridors feeling no different than the tight roads outside.
"Two hundred goblins just in the rooms we passed." Iris said as they stepped outside.
"I noticed this too." Shiro responded.
"How many... h-how would they even manage to have so many goblins," Nakatei weakly whispered. "This city must have been huge, I don't understand how." A gloomy expression tainted the fox's face as her head dropped down and she stared at the ground underneath her.
"I also don't know," Shiro stepped closer to the fox and rested her hand on Nakatei's shoulder in reassurance. "We are quite deep under the ground maybe the cave goblins pop into existence, you know like insects or monsters."
The young beast woman sheepishly shook her head in agreement. " They are monsters." She clenched her fist and muttered darkly as her guard stepped away.
"Iris you probably better in this than I am. What do you think the population of this city was." Shiro turned toward the elf.
"Maybe eighty thousand goblins I would guess." Iris said after a short pause as she looked around her. If her answer was remotely close to the truth that would put this infested pile of hovels as a rival to many regional capitols in Western Edor.
In the corner of her eye, Iris saw Kia staring at her as she spoke. Her golden and blue eyes twinkled with a spark of curiosity before she turned forward toward her goblin familiar.
"More..." The undead's abrasive voice suddenly rang from the front.
"More of what?" Iris asked.
"More... goblins."
"Are there smaller lairs in the surrounding caverns?" The goblin didn't say anything in response, he simply nodded his skull-shaped head. "One hundred and forty thousand goblins?" She guessed not believing in the words she was saying. That would put this goblin city would dwarf cities like Sargos, Severin and Rogburg which are the three largest cities in the Fertile Pass and the most influential of the Minor Kingdoms.
"More..." The goblin croaked. Iris couldn't comprehend the goblin's words. He was just a lowly goblin so how could he know how many goblins lived in this city overall but his words did send a shiver down her spine. Anything more than half a million people would leave only cities of Anglas, Catalina and Havenfall as more populace than this single goblin city and for some reason something thug on Iris's mind telling her that she was still underestimating the population of goblins.
Stepping out of another complex, they were unexpectedly greeted with a sight, unlike anything they had seen after falling from the upper strata. A building which resembled a palace was built into the side of the cavern wall. The style was nothing like any of them had ever seen but the cave goblins seemed to try emulating the masonry of the cyclopean ruin above them.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Aren't we going the opposite way to where we are supposed to go?" Shiro asked as they followed the undead goblin into the palace.
"Glob knows...boss... tunnel... escape." Glob explained after Kia tapped his shoulder.
With a groan, the stone slabs slowly moved out of the way as Glob sluggishly turned a crank wheel beside them. Stepping through the door, the area around them glowed brighter than before as more glowing white orbs appeared around Kia. The ghostly white orbs fanned out through the empty palace, fitting remarkably well.
Whoever made this throne room possessed far more skill than whoever had built the buildings outside as the yellowish-grey walls didn't look like they were about to collapse. They had also made the relatively cramped space look far more impressive than it actually was by dividing the throne room into three parts. They were currently walking down a set of stairs into an empty square. Overseeing the square from both sides were balconies which caused the women to feel trapped as in front of them, on a separate platform was an empty throne.
The pale light bleached the bones which decorated the simple stone armchair. Shiny ores, glass beads and golden coins littered the room in small piles as if something had blasted the once neatly stacked pile of valuables with tremendous force.
Iris stepped away from the group as she noticed that in many places the brickwork appeared cracked and dented. She turned around and saw that the demi-humans stopped to collect the valuables scattered around giving the curious elf time to walk around.
"What are you doing?" An enchanting voice came from behind the hoplite as she was opening another side room.
"I guess I got that from you." Iris turned her head toward Kia flashing a small smile before stepping inside with the petite mage and her undead minion following behind.
"Looks fun." Kia's voice broke into an excited screech at the end as they seemed to have walked into an alchemical laboratory.
"I guess goblin shamans can also do some alchemy in their free time." Iris commented as she looked at the corner behind her and saw a staff with an animal skull mounted on top and decorated with bibs and bobs used by goblin shamans, although this one was far better crafted than the sticks used by the goblins on the surface.
The room with thick walls was divided in two, on the left were tables with sealed clay jars on top with perstil and mortar not far away. Iris picked up a jar closest to her and ripped away the untreated clay lid. Inside she saw blue mushroom caps which had a slightly oily smell to them. She opened another jar on the opposite side of the workstation as she slowly made her way into the other side of the room. Iris looked inside the newly open jar and saw mummified maggots. Along their backs, two rows of spikes jutted out. Her pale fingers grabbed one of the maggots whose skin had been caught on its fellow's spines and had ripped away completely on one side.
"What are these?" Iris asked the goblin as she noticed that the maggot possessed a miniature skeleton inside of it.
"Young..."
"What did you say?" Iris blinked as the goblin's words reached her ears.
"Young..." The zombie repeated himself. "And... snacks."
"Is this what comes out when you are done with women?" Iris didn't think her opinion of goblins could have gone lower but as she stared at the zombie she felt like smashing its skull would be a nice thing to do. In the end, her foot didn't come crashing down on Glob's skull as she was trying to recall something. From what she could recall goblins were birth as just a smaller version of the adults and nothing she had overheard while with Brad would mention goblins young resembling maggots.
"No..." Somehow the zombie mustered enough of its soul to express disgust. "Dumb clean... sun gobbos need slime pockets... Glob cave gobbo cave gobbo." The zombie hit his chest in pride or at least attempted to do that as something snapped in him and his voice returned to monotone.
Iris ignored the goblin and put down the jar back on the table before walking toward Kia who was now inside the other part of the room. The right side of the room resembled animal pens as low walls barely approaching Iris's knees separated the right side into five separate pens. Inside the small square cells, various skeletons lay underneath something organic which resembled hay but wasn't as no normal hay was faded blue with large oval spots all along its length. The first four cells had animal-like skeletons with the third one being some kind of armoured spider. When she looked into the final pen she saw Kia standing there seeming listening to something even Iris's enhanced hearing couldn't detect.
"Kia, something happened?" The elf walked up to the silent girl, she noticed that a skeleton resembling that of a human was lying in the corner, covered thickly in mycelium which had dried out a long time ago. Looking further down she saw progressively smaller bones snaking their way between the skeleton's legs.
"He is in dire need of his deserved rest." Kia finally said after a moment of silence.
"I don't think I know how to help with that." Iris explained as to her only the sound of the beast women in the neighbouring room filled the otherwise silent atmosphere.
"But you can help." Kia said before her eyes flashed with power. Suddenly the skeleton moved as blue flames began to burn inside its skull. Unlike the goblin, the ghoulish flame burning inside the skeleton mellowed down into smooth blue orbs which settled themselves where one's actual eyes should be.
A gasp filled the room as the blue orbs came to life. They now resembled clay balls on which something or someone was carving out eyes into their surface as the rest of the skeleton was surrounded by a thin and mostly transparent layer in the shape of a man with a great deal of fur. The man looked to have been in the dawn of his life, with many wrinkles on his face. His nose appeared to have been squashed and his face was round with all the fur growing on him.
[Inspect]
[Vestigial Banshee Level 26]
{Tortured soul which was too weak to manifest itself into the material world.}
Iris didn't learn the beast man's race but he looked a little bit like a bear to the elf. As she read the description of the soul she was staring at more questions appeared inside her head.
"Ahhhhh," The man let out a banshee-like scream as he wrapped his arms around himself and began to convulse. Starting just below the man's armpits, clusters of holes went down all the way to the man's thighs. Occasionally a maggot would appear at the entrance of one of the holes causing the man to roll from side to side. "Let me die, let me die! Spirits I beg you! Kill me, kill me!"
Even when the elf knew it was just a spector and there was little she could do to help the man, she pitied him. Looking beside her, she saw Kia standing there, watching the man and scratching her head in confusion.
"I don't understand how this even happened," The necromancer said. "There are no other souls that are tormenting him, these insects are part of him but why is he hurting himself? I don't understand."
"Couldn't you just order him to stop?"
"I could but then after my influence would wain he would wake up from his rest."
"We heard screams, are you two alright!" Shiro and Nakatei burst into the room. As soon as they saw what was happening confusion appeared on their faces.
"We might need some help." Iris turned toward the two covering her long ears.