Without looking back, the metal-clad swordsman slid his weapon out of the broken ribcage of the remains of the tallest of the green-skinned, freshly-made corpses cluttering the damp cave floor. One of his companions, wearing dark, tight-fitting cloth, stepped forward, wiping his daggers on his trousers. “So this was it? That was their [Goblin King] already? Bit of a disappointment, if you ask me,” he complained while checking the gleam of the torchlight reflecting from his provisionally cleaned killing instruments.
Taking out a pristine cloth, the knight in blood-splattered mail wiped his arming sword tenderly as if cleaning a baby’s face. “This is a [Quest of the Crown], Maxim. We’re not here for entertainment,” the knight stated sternly. “We’re here for the king, for all that is good, for truth, for real—”
“No cap— I mean, no, Sir Captain Hartmuth, sir,” Maxim interrupted, “but I don’t think I got a single [Achievement] in my [OS] from this whole shitty goblin cave affair.” With a bit more force than needed, he sheathed his daggers at his side and intoned “[Wake from Standby]”. A hand-sized dark grey screen materialized in front of him as if coalesced from the surrounding shadows.
The other man watched him scroll through it with a disappointed face for a while before commenting. “Wasting energy on such a frivolous effect in your [OS], typical.”
“Hey, where I’m from, you’ve got to have a certain kind of flair to be taken serious. And the ladies love it,” Maxim shrugged while dismissing his [Divine Ordinance System] in a similarly swirly shadow sequence. “But really, I didn’t get anything. Not even any advancement in any of my [Apps].”
“Maybe if you would stop checking your thing every—”
A flash of blue light followed by the smell of rain interrupted the two in their profound discussion. Both turned towards their third companion, a rather nicely dressed woman walking leisurely through the goblin corpse garden the three of them had created over the past half hour or so. Her fancy blue-white petticoat looked very out of place here, even now that it was sprayed with the dark, dried blood of their victims. Without looking back towards them she explained, “They’re just too weak. That’s the reason why no one at our [Quality] ever bothers working as pest control like this.” She paused and tilted her head in a particular manner before blueish white lettering appeared on the inside of her large glasses in cursive. After a second, she confirmed, “Nothing either. As expected.” Maxim was sure Hartmuth would now berate her for the even fancier style of her [OS], but the knight just silently watched as the woman pointed her copper-wrapped oaken staff at the next corpse, making it spasm violently with another electrical discharge. From her carefree demeanour, she seemed wholly unaffected by the carnage that even made the hardened member of the capitals seedy underbelly wince a little, the only reaction to each buzzing blast being her chin-length hair standing on end for a moment. Turning around to a particularly badly-mangled corpse she muttered, “At least this gives me some resources for experiments. Maybe if I—”, trailing off while prodding the limbless goblin with her pumps.
“Damn, Gal really makes me cringe sometimes with her whole emotionless violence shtick. How can she be so hot at the same time though, man? Just makes it worse, if you ask me,” Maxim whispered while leaning over to his captain, but never taking his eyes of the feminine form continuing to deface the dead.
It shouldn’t have surprised him, when he didn’t get an equally conspiratorial reply back from the other man. “Hold your foul tongue, lowlife. That is no way to talk about a team mate, especially not someone so accomplished, so respectable! So graceful! These foul creatures deserve none of our pity, none! Not only do they attack any and all human that wander too close to their lairs, they also kidnap our wives and daughters to—it hurts my soul to even say it out loud—to procreate their filthy kind! You just follow the example of your betters here. There simply is too large a gap between someone like her and someone like you that you shall never cross. Do you even know how traumatic a childhood poor Ms. Gal had? No, I didn’t think so, so don’t blame her for being a bit,” the slightly red-faced Hartmuth paused, “a bit special. Yes, that’s what she is. Special!”
“Wow, alright, no need to blow up on me over a question of taste here,” Maxim tried to appease the apparent fanatic. He didn’t need to keep watching Hartmuth’s gaze directed at the special woman, for the chastised cad to understand just how special she apparently was to his otherwise stoic captain. Traumatic childhood though? Yeah, he had gotten plenty of that himself. Wait, maybe the two of them weren’t so different after all?
Anyway, with the romantic knight in that kind of state, he needed to change the topic and, thinking about interpersonal relationships, he remembered the usual bounty awaiting as the final stop in a goblin extermination task. He quickly started looking around the room. “Incidentally, any idea where they’ve got the women in this dump? We’re here for the women after all, right? Mightn’t even have come, otherwise.”
“Stopping the filthy creatures from further laying their disgusting little hands on any of our property, children and women, permanently,” Hartmuth corrected him, “That is the goal, Maxim. But I’m not surprised you failed to listen correctly, even to the [King] himself. And that you have already forgotten that you are obliged to help us on this quest as part of the terms of your pardon. Not that we needed it.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, but they do have some women right now, probably, don’t they? Since no one ever saw no hot goblins, some poor girlie must’ve pushed all these creepy buggers out of their c—” Maxim stopped himself at the Captain’s glare. “Okay, anyway, I just mean, with our dear lightning friend occupied here at the moment, we two lads could spread some humane love when we find them, couldn’t we? Make them feel all better and stuff?”
Hartmuth slowly unsheathed his sword that he had put away only shortly before. The large piece of clean metal had a foreboding sheen to it, making Maxim gulp as he stepped back. “No, Maxim. No, we couldn’t. We are heroes here. We’re cleansing the world from a blight that has been going on for way too long. And heroes save, they don’t savage.” Having started to rant on this particular topic, Hartmuth seemed to pick up pace. “Anything a hero does is for the good of others. Heroes must be the shining example, the figure in the bards stories that everyone looks up to. Beacons of light! Paragons of virtue! Raise yourself into the heavens themselves!”
He caught himself, turning his gaze from the imaginary heavens, currently blocked from view by at least twenty klafter of rock and earth, back down towards Maxim who caught a sigh before being noticed. “Maybe I should make it simple for you, knave” he said while stepping closer to the man now lightly sweating under his black wrappings as if standing in the full midday sun instead of a cave. “You’re a father, right? At least you’re old enough in body to be one,” the knight said while putting an armoured fist on the taller but much lither man’s shoulder. Maxim felt his hair start to grey by the minute as he nodded, a bit unsure of where this was going. His captain, full of heroic virtue, looked him into his dark brown eyes and explained, “A hero should only ever do things he would have absolutely no qualms about later retelling as his daughter’s bedtime story.”
“Eh? Oh, ah, I mean, I understand,” Maxim nodded, trying his best not to look around at their butcher’s work, “no problem at all, was simply asking is all, everything good and all. I’ll be a proper hero, sir.”
“Good,” the Sir Captain grunted, squeezing the shoulder he had still seized in his grip. “And to help you with your base desires, I’ll remind you that the oracle’s prophecy, as interpreted by the [King]’s most wise aides, commands us to kill everyone we find in a goblin’s den, anyway. No exceptions.” Leaving Maxim stand stunned at that revelation, the knight turned around and started walking towards the end of the room.
“What? Wait, really? Including the kidnapped women, too?” he called after him in disarray. But he had already learned over the past few hours that the captain hated repeating himself, and there was no further comment to be had by him.
Instead of Hartmuth, who was now almost at the end of the cave room, it was Gal’s surprisingly calm voice that confirmed their superior’s statement. “Yes, it’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” she said in a tone surprisingly, for her, actually carrying some tragic notes. “The Consortium of the Divine sacrificed a lot of human resources to finally find a solution to the goblin pest, and the oracle only told them to either find a ’sage of the green tide’ or to ’let burrows turn to graves for all within, no matter how deep’, or something like that. So naturally, we’re trying the latter first.”
“Or something like that? Isn’t the way these oracle things are worded always super important to get it right?” Maxim asked back while starting to follow his leader, but the woman just shrugged. “Well whatever, that’s what the consortium got from it, so were doing it. I don’t care as long as things are interesting anyway. But I’m sure you would come to a much more well-founded conclusion though, Mr. Dagger-for-brains.”
“Okay, fine, no need for insults. Damn, you do have some fire after all, eh lady?”
“I like to leave people shocked, after all. Usually gets them some burns,” she said in a flat voice while unsubtly waving her staff around. The older man groaned while slowly melting into the deep shadows of the torch-lit cave. Was the captain actually chuckling at that?
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“Damn, but you two comedians are both not even flinching at that execution order. I thought I was supposed to be the bad guy criminal here,” Maxim grouched as he almost invisibly positioned himself behind the broad-shouldered knight, who was investigating a door that the three of them hadn’t entered before.
Maxim immediately noticed that this door looked slightly more cared for than the ones they had kicked open before. Nicer, even. Not caring, the knight took a step back, without waiting to check with the other two, and used his heavy boot to force open the apparently rather flimsy door, scattering the dried flower decorations someone had attached at head height. Through a rain of broken leafs and dead petals, they entered the goblin bower.
† † †
After all this time, I’ll finally be back on topside, back in the sun! That is going to be such a treat for my joints, I can feel them rejoice already! Sure, there was always some good old fun to be had down here in the [Underdeeps] as the young folk call them. But, even though it don’t like to admit it, in the past few years my eyes do have become a little less clear in the absolute dark. So back into the light it is for me!
Heh, maybe some of my grandchildren are still running around up there and I could give them a little nudging to help them get out of any too serious trouble they might have stumbled into, the little idiots. Oh, or would there be great-grandchildren now? Great-great-grandchildren? How long have I been down here again?
Well, no matter what, I am tired of many-eyed meatballs and scalp-scrubbing squids. Cuddling some cute green gamins will be a healing salve for my old heart. Luckily the tunnels below my erstwhile entrance to this dark little fun house are only occupied by a rather playful sort of giant bug and a little knocking on their hard-shelled heads quickly gets it into their ganglia that I don’t have time for their tickling experiments. So I make good time through the winding tunnels. I don’t even lose my way once, since firstly I remember everything vividly from the first time I came through here, and secondly because I know up-slope is always the right direction. And I bought some useful trinkets to determine which direction that is.
So I feel very good when I arrive at the entry point I recall using back when I started my explorations here, only a few decades ago at most I think. With a frown, I notice that some vandals have stolen the step ladder that used to be installed in the vertical tunnel leading up to the surface. You really can’t let anything lie around any more nowadays. I sigh and with a small creaking noise I do some knee bends in preparation for a little hop. If my memory serves, the way up is blocked by a trapdoor of the revolving kind. Aiming well, I should be able to just smoothly jump through it. And if I’m wrong, well, nothing that a skilled goblin handywoman can’t fix later.
I check that my beautifully large ears are tucked neatly under my helmet. Next, I properly tighten all the straps on my armour, made by one of these very polite gals with the white hair and dark purplish skin, and brush some dust off of my shoulders. Good, now I should be presentable to whoever of my progeny I’m going to surprise visit up there. I hope they have some good cake prepared, preferably with some fresh fruit. They don’t really have any of that down here. With sunny thoughts like these in my heart, I leap up.
† † †
Maxim watched the joy and relief on the faces of the captive women turn into incomprehension, then alarm, and finally terror as Hartmuth, the zealous knight, drew his sword and declared they’d all have to die. It made his stomach turn. There were some really good-looking ones here!
“No, no please,” they pleaded, “why would you want kill us? We’ll do anything, we’ll be your wives, your mistresses, your harem, you’ll be the happiest men on earth!” one of the raggedly-looking women declared, completely debasing herself in front of them. It really hit Maxim deep in the heart. And not just there.
“Sir, look at them. Couldn’t we at least—”, he started, but the hard stare of the swordsman held him back. No, wait, was he actually wavering, too?
“Gods, men really are simple, aren’t they?”, Gal sighed. “ No, it’s actually amusing that because you’ve got too much of your gonads, you don’t have enough of them to do it.” She walked towards the women, positioning herself in the middle of the room. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, power began to be sucked into her staff. The copper wire glowed red hot and Maxim could smell the storm coming.
“We can also work hard, some of us even know some enchanting or woodworking. Please give us a chance, miss”, a panicking woman on her knees begged the cold-eyed mage.
“Enchanting and woodworking, you say—”
“Gal, I know your mercy is boundless, but the [Quest] says to let no one survive, so they all have to die”, Hartmuth told the wavering woman, as if he hadn’t been on the edge about it before as well. Heh, softy still, the man.
“Ah that’s right, sorry.” She did look a little sorry, Maxim thought. Though he wasn’t sure what exactly about. “Also, I really want to finish this new spell of mine now. It’s going to be quite interesting and should not hurt. For long.”
The rising energy crescendoed in a low hum and Maxim turned around, not wanting to see this waste of beauty. The women screamed and Hartmuth positioned himself in front of the mage to prevent any desperate, if most likely futile, attacks on the pitiless target of his amour courtois.
The following explosion was loud enough to shred unprotected eardrums and made everyone standing stagger or fall to the ground. As the dust began to clear, Maxim hesitantly turned back towards the epicentre of this deadly power, only for absolute horror to overcome him.
† † †
Oh, no! I’ve interrupted a precious moment here. Three humans, in a most romantic pursuit of love, have braved the challenges of the drones to find their one-and-only under the gathered beauties here. Well, one of them is a women, and I would’ve thought it strange in the past, but I learned a lot of things in the [Underdeep]. They’re not just good at forging armour there! That would be nice in a little riddle actually, armour without the r? Well, maybe not.
The horrified reactions of these three to my intrusion are showing me unmistakably how much I’ve wronged them by being a typical overprotective (grand-)parent and intruding where I’m least wanted. And I had always hated that when I was their age! Why, the woman of the trio, poor dear, had immediately jumped down the opening trapdoor as if she wanted to sink into the floor out of shame or rage or both. Quite the fast reaction, actually. The other two took a moment longer to notice, probably because of all the dust in the air (what is going on with housekeeping nowadays? Do they not have enough drones for that right now?). But then roguishly handsome one to my left basically jumped backwards and tried to hide in the dark like a scared baby wraith.
The blonde knight in shining armour, dream of any impressionable young girl, turned around only a bit later and he was furious. “What are you? What did you do with Gal? Speak, fiend, or I shall vanquish you were you stand!”
My, my, not very polite this man. But I accept that I’m in the wrong here. Before I’m able to come up with a proper apology though, the one in the black clothes raises his voice. I think he was actually whispering, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. Not that I would tell him that, self-concious as he seems already. “No wait, Captain. Maybe, I know it sounds crazy, but maybe the spell went wrong and Gal got changed into that thing? She did say it was a new one, after all.”
That thing? Now the two of them were starting to wear on my nerves I was about to admonish them for their bad upbringing when the, outwardly, knightly fellow, obviously completely incoherent in his anger, charged at me. “No way my sweet flower was changed into this ugly monster! Die! Die!”
Oh. Oh, that was a bit much. Quite the big splash on the cave wall. And I only tapped him a little with my walking cane, too. Really, it seems that today’s humans are rather fragile. But I’m sure he’ll get right back up with a little bit of bandaging and a nice kiss by his sweetheart from my goblin girls here. If they can get his face back together first, that is.
Ow, and here goes the other one. Tried to sneak up on me it seems, that trickster. Endearing, but he’ll need to sneak around his parents larder for a few more decades before he catches dear old me unawares, the lummox. As soon as walking becomes option for him again, at least. But with his youth, I’m sure he’ll do fine in a short while.
Having put the overeager womanisers on hold for the moment, I check once more if I’m still presentable. Some more dust needs to be brushed off, but that is mostly not my own fault, is it? Such an untidy place, really. I turn towards the nearest of the women, who seem to be still in shock from the interruption of their romance session. It must have been quite advanced already, judging from the state of their clothes. But I must say, back in my time we at least got washed up a little before accepting guests of that kind. These young ladies look positively grimy!
“Good morning or evening, my girls. Any of you able to speak? Or have you all lost a staring contest with a basilisk in here?” I try to break the ice with a bit of a joke I learned a while back in a deepdwarf tavern. From the lack of smiles though, I can assume humour isn’t what it used to be, either. “You poor things, I’m terribly sorry I interrupted your fun time today, but I’m sure there will be others! And now that your granny Grethi is back with you, everything will turn out fine. Come here!” I try consoling them, opening my arms wide for any that need a hug.
When there is finally some movement in the group, it’s not a general rush into my waiting bosom, surprisingly. I furrow my already slightly wrinkly brows as I watch them drop to their knees in front of me, one after the other. The least unkempt of them looks at something glowing faintly in her hand, her eyes widening so much I fear for the muscles in her eyelids. I almost think she’s about to keel over, but then she finally gathers enough courage to say something. She must be completely out of her mind though, because the words she produces, while shivering like she’s been walked through by a ghost, are utter nonsense.
“Welcome! Welcome our saviour! We are not worthy to stand before your greatness, [Eldest of Goblinkind], [The Green Pearl], [The Emareseeay, The Grandmother], Grethi of the [Deep Wisdom], we have not deserved but are forever thankful for your fortuitous return!”
Oh dear.