Sailing Ether Tides

Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance

To Be A Goblin King Ch: 15

Barry woke up feeling good, really, really good. Like he could take on the world… Once he had breakfast. He wriggled free of the lanky, clinging girl and her warm insistent cuddling with some regret, but he needed the jakes.

It was still dark out and the houses were mostly dark, so he gently bundled Lindsey up in her blankets and carried her inside. He laid her on the sofa by Wilf’s fireside and started working in the kitchen.

#

I’m gonna make some cinnamon rolls,

Buttery, flakey too damn tasty rolls

Cinnamon, sugar, butter and salt,

Flour and cream, brown sugar…

Barry stopped singing his nonsense song when he noticed Lindsey watching and smiling from her place by the fire. He had a rolling pin in his hands, flour on his nose and in his hair and the most divine smell wafting from the oven.

“Uh…” He stammered, in a way she was really beginning to enjoy. Causing Barry to step on his own tongue gave her quite a thrill.

She yawned, stretched and let the top of her pajamas ride a little higher… Since the bottoms were slung so low on her hips, he got an eyeful of golden tanned tummy and wink from her cute little belly button. Shai had suggested that one… bless her.

Barry nearly fell on his face when he briefly forgot where his feet were and what he was doing. He recovered after his stumble by getting tangled up in a chair and sitting down forcefully. He felt a fool, but it was all in the interest of letting his eyes linger on the languid, slender girl on the sofa, bathed in morning sunshine just as birdsong started greeting the day.

#

Ghnash yawned, stretched and looked up at the endless sky of limitless stars, with neat constellations of ribbons and bubbles floating transparently above and among the lights.

He licked his lips and his tongue found sharp, even teeth and smooth skin. The confused goblin scratched his balls with blunt, human fingernails and stared down at his body. He was still green… and packing, but the sharp, dangerous claws and snaggle teeth were simply gone.

“Weird… but weirdly… not weird…” He whispered, as he took in the meadow and standing stones and the wide endless forest of darkness, starlight, moonlight and sunlight, all at once.

Ghnash stood on the edge of a wilderness of dark and shady trees, briars and underbrush, filled with the soft rustlings and bustling of a healthy forest’s small life. He looked out on the endless, almost sunlit, almost dark meadow of flowers and soft breezes.

Somehow it was everything, all the time… even his natural gobbo fear of open places and wide plains was quiet under this sky.

“That is because that is what you should be… save for the curse you were born under. That curse is a matter I plan to address immediately, if you allow it.” A gigantic, shining white jumping spider whispered from her perch on the trunk of a nearby oak.

She hopped and bobbed on her many knees in excitement, when he approached her of his own will and out of simple curiosity.

“Oh, yes, excellent… I am Thirp, goddess of Weavers, Spinners, Traps, Venoms and Secrets, including and especially, Sexy Underthings… Would you care to partake of my mysteries, my new, dear old friend?”

“Goddess, Thirp… I dreamed of you… SpiderBoobs?” He whispered. “Is that you, goddess SpiderBoobs?”

He gasped and fell into her very complicated embrace.

“Yes dear, yes, I will be able to take that form once we have you put right…” She whispered as she combed his wild and messy hair with her chelicerae and fangs. “I’ll let you motorboat the sacred spider boobs, as my high priest in your world.”

“Ok…” He blubbered into her furry and abundant shoulders. “What’s a motorboat?”

“Oh, my poor dear, what have they done to you?” She asked softly as her fangs sank into his neck.

“That really should be worrying…” The king mumbled as he fell into warm and comfy mortal sleep.

#

Ghnash woke up feeling… good… Great! He yawned carefully and… his lips remained un-torn. This was going to be a good day. He grabbed the coarse wallowbear bristle brush he scrubbed his fangs with, morning and night… and found smooth, sharp, even teeth; like in his crazy SpiderBoob dream. He brought up his hands and saw smooth, rounded fingernails rather than claws on his green skinned digits.

“Crazy…”

On instinct his hand found his flute, so familiar, but suddenly so strange, and also familiar… like these were his real hands all along and he’d somehow forgotten them. Like when you sit on your hand till it goes numb and have a wank…

The king’s scepter twitched and shifted, as always, when his thoughts turned to… well, most things, really. He brought his flute to his intact lips and gave it a go.

Sweet and easy, the music sprang forth and sang in his blood, lifting high into the afternoon sky.

A moment later, something twangy, metallic and bright joined in, playing a free form counterpoint to his improvisational air.

“Is that a Jugulele? Or a four string canjo?” He asked himself, in clear, un-slurred speech, without even biting his tongue!

Ghnash looked himself all over, just to get the lay of the new land and found a small tattoo of a spider high on his inner thigh. Lady Thirp sat there, bright silver, white and golden, against his healthy verdigris skin, looking just a little smug.

“Okies, lady SpiderBoobs… You’ve got yourself a goblin king.”

He smiled wide and free, as he went in search of the person playing those strings, somewhere in his garden.

#

Daisybelle was curled up in his arms when he woke in a willow bower in the garden, they’d been strolling in the predawn hours and fallen asleep, talking under the tree as the sun rose…

Out of long habit, he’d awakened at some point and found his way into the kitchen; barely aware that he was not in his strange, portable home, but someone else’s home, which happened to be eerily similar.

He brewed coffee and tea, made pastry crusts and stuffed them with both sweet and savory fillings, from the stores hidden in his shadow. All as if this were his own house after all.

A number of curious goblin girls and a lone, older goblin woman came sniffing about, either up too early or awake too late, they only helped themselves to the pies and departed, without speaking to him at all or meeting his eyes.

He began to feel a little of that familiar unwanted feeling, so he sat out on the far side of the garden wall, overlooking the town below to think, while most of the castle and town slept.

As early afternoon shadows were just crawling across the valley floor, sweet, melodious and unstructured melody began pouring down from the high peaked house behind him. On a whim he pulled his trusty shovulele out of his shadow, gave it a quick tune and joined the improv sesh, without thinking, not even once.

The second time he played music with another person, it was even better… The unseen flautist was skilled and sensitive, a keen listener and ready to swing in any direction. He almost wondered for a moment if it was the king, playing that remarkable, long, bone flute, but the tone was too sweet and clear. That poor creature’s lips would never be able to kiss such sweet sounds from the instrument.

After a few, wonderful, soaring minutes, the song ended as Daisybelle came stomping up with a whole squadron of shapely green, gray and greenish gray girls in tow. Some were taller, long and lithe, others were muscular, curvaceous and perhaps even a little plump.

Each was a smiling delight, peeking from behind their sister, in their varied and colorful, sexy uniforms.

“Sit down boy, and play your tuneful toilet tool for my sisters.” She ordered him imperiously, with a sneaky wink just for him. “Let me introduce you! You met Roxanne and the others last night…” She began, while he struck up a tune he’d picked up in the lightless caverns below dwarfhold, while Daisibelle carried on.

“... Rosanna, Layla, Lola, Maggie-Mae, Valerie…”

Several were familiar from his shifty and odd breakfast misadventure, but now they met his eyes and smiled with welcome.

He began to sing softly, strumming the tune and watching Daisybelle’s face, while she introduced nearly a dozen cute, giggly girls.

Every honey bee fills with jealousy.

When they see you out with me…

I don't blame them, goodness knows,

My honey-suckle rose!

Giggles and titters rose from the crowd of green beauties, as he watched Daisybelle blush and start to get nervous and fidgety, which only increased, the longer he sang directly at her.

Oh, flowers droop and sigh when you're passing by,

And I know the reason why;

You're much sweeter, goodness knows,

You're my honey-suckle rose!

When that flute joined back in, playing the tune with easy familiarity, Gandree followed the superior player into some interesting variations on the theme. It took a long time to notice the handsome, green skinned, smiling man with the flute was the goblin king, without the talons and… The contents of his mouth were even, sharp, white teeth now; previously tusks or fangs would have described them better.

“King papa?” At least one of the gathered girls asked, confused and surprised in equal measures.

“Yes, babies… It’s me!” The king dove into the crowd of uniformed beauties, kissing and hugging without fear he might wound, blind or gouge one of them with his claws or fangs. Gandree watched a tender and joyous moment, and one filled with mysteries.

Eventually the king broke free of the gathered cuties; with the very sexy, older goblin woman seated on his lap, wrapped in his arms, listening to the dwarf lad. He was still strumming away in the melody of ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ on his shitter digger.

“He really did have a goddess in his pocket, Daze…” Ghnash murmured. “She came to me in my dreams and made me… whole?”

“Goddess SmileyFace?” Daisy asked cheerfully. “SmartyPants?”

“SpiderBoobs.” He sighed just as blissfully. “I learned about motorboats… Sabrina, hold still!”

He grinned and dove face first into the mature goblin Dame’s overflowing top and made happy sputtering sounds, while bobbling his head about madly.

“That would have been super deadly dangerous before I got SpiderKissed!” He giggled madly when he emerged from the bushing lady’s green tinted gobbo knobbos.

She boxed his ears and scolded him, while wriggling closer into his lap for more. She went on to complain at length about the indignity of the whole thing; while tugging his long, green ears to pull his face back into the valley of queenly delights.

Daisybelle found Gandree’s blushes and embarrassed faces delightful, so she shoved her less fulsome bosom into his face for a trial run. Sadly, that ended the music, as a string snapped with a sour twang, snagged away on one of her coat buttons, in her play.

“Oh, no!” She gasped. “Sorry sorry! Oh, I’m so double dumb!”

“Daisybelle, shush, it’s just a length of trashworm guts, washed out and dried.” He whispered into the disconsolate little terror’s long, pointed green ear. “I have plenty more.”

“Really?” She whispered tearfully, looking up at him from their embrace.

“Really.” He leaned down and stole a long kiss from her, just because it felt like all the right answers to a whole bunch of questions were right there for the taking.

#

Rolf Belen, ducal heir to Wheatford and the surrounding counties sat astride his silvery and majestic unicorn and smiled down on the busy work crews below. He had two steady young knights at his stirrups, watching the work camp from a nearby vantage point.

Another trio of armored and mounted warriors stood at the other end of the road, alert and ready. There were a few teams of armored foot among the road and bridge crews as well, but trouble seldom announced itself before landing on the workers.

So far it had been minor nuisances; a small nest of stinkroaches had tried to raid their supplies, drawn by the food and human activity.

A small cave crawler briefly scouted the horse lines the night before and got firmly trampled by mighty Annie for its temerity.

Master Khan was still down at the stream, trying to get the stench washed off the giant warhorse’s hooves. She was super upset about the whole thing and made her dissatisfaction obvious.

“I’m sorry, dear… this is just plain old soap and water, we can’t go all the way back to Gary and Shai’s bath for this…”

Ester the unicorn was enjoying her friend’s discomfort, since she didn’t have any of that stuff on her hooves.

“Don’t get too smug, dear… We might be the next to have to smash something nasty.” Rolf whispered with a smile; he was busy watching his wife bustle about in the administration tent with the construction teams’ foreman. The poor fellow was having a hard time padding his requisitions and expenses under Angie’s watchful gaze.

The ridiculous highline crossing those fools had created was gone, replaced by a nearly complete wooden trestle bridge, soon they would be on to the next challenge. Another week and the new road would be below the perilous final climb.

Cutting a road over that was going to be challenging, especially with the monster bugs still thrashing each other and anything else that emerged into their domain, far below.

The two giants were in separate corners of the valley now, munching on the remains of a strange, slimy, tentacled… something that had fallen from the waterfall and splattered onto the broken stones and filthy mud of the ravaged vale in the night.

“Any idea what that was?” Jacob asked quietly, looking faintly green at the noisome spectacle.

“Some kind of cave kraken…? Gods and spirits, I don’t know.” Rolf sighed, disgusted by the scene himself. “We’ll learn more when we get a delve team inside. “There’s no telling…”

The sound of Bannock’s warhorn rang out, as her three person squad wheeled and charged from their hilltop.

“One short, one long… They need backup. Stay here and keep alert.”

Six light armored warriors were leaping into their saddles and riding out of the camp, as Rolf and Ester ran up the road, calling the alarm. They joined the squad of light, mounted foot; falling into formation with the Adventurer irregulars with nods of greeting all around.

“Your lancers won’t be winning this one, sir Rolf.” Colette sighed. “Take our mounts and back us up please, my lord. This is a matter for us.”

She turned to her team and started calling out orders. “Ascots, dismount! Issac,Sam, Mustafa, on me. We’re going in. Penz, take the archers up that rise and keep it off the horses while we move in.”

The beast was heavily armored in dark and mottled overlapping chitinous plates, to better hide among the stones and wastelands and stalk its prey. The humble vinegaroon was a nasty looking, unpleasant but largely harmless insect predator that preyed on other small crawlers in the desert wastes.

Giant varieties were much more troublesome and dangerous. The day’s trouble was just over ten feet long from the tips of its massive, crushing claws to the long, whiplike tail, the armored bug was a thorny, spiky mess of exoskeleton armored nasty. It was using those heavy, spiked pincers to fend off the three knights that were harassing it on the road.

The thing took a swipe at Herlick, easy to spot in her red heavy plate, as she rode by just out of range. Her partner, Bannock sped by and plunged a slender lance into a gap in the thing’s armor that only appeared for a moment.

Both riders withdrew, while the enraged creature raised its long whiptail and sprayed a thick, dark liquid everywhere.

Pools of dark, reeking acid showed where it had tried before and missed the mark, but those hazardous, slippery puddles remained. Rolf blew the withdrawal in order on his horn, as he and Ester cantered over. No horse, no matter how well trained, was equipped to deal with an acid spraying, gigantic, spiny land lobster.

Colette held a heavy warspear, almost an axe, not quite a shovel and much more robust and hefty than a standard spear. She circled right, while Sam and Mustafa went left.

Sam’s heavy maul paired well with Mustafa’s dual handaxes, a pair of nasty, short hafted choppers that were ideal for hard shells and tough joints, once there were a few cracks in the armor.

That was Issac’s job, to linger on the sidelines, looking for an opportunity to bring his massive ‘hammer’ into play. The eight pound sledge had conical, bluntly pointed faces, with wide shoulders of steel after the short, rounded points, on the end of a four foot haft of turned ironwood. It was finely wrought, unsubtle and definitely not a construction tool.

The light armored Adventurers moved carefully into position, as the cavalry withdrew, under the cover of a flurry of stones from the archers.

Her team kept the barrage up even during the ascent to their overlook, each one taking a moment to give the thing some love. They whirled their slings and pelted the beast with the local geology, since arrows would just be waste on that beastie.

With Penz, Liz and Tamra safely up on a rocky prominence that supplied all the ammunition and cover they could hope for, the melee team started angling for an advantage.

The thing was quick in short sprints, but not nimble, or clever.

The huge, almost comically large claws were a real threat to slow moving or unwary prey, but in a fight against a team of wary, experienced and determined warriors it was no sure thing for either side. The thing’s rushing charge attacks and pinchy grabs could be evaded, not blocked, mass was definitely on its side, as were a terrifying number of thorny spikes, jutting out from its armor and claws…

With the lancers out of the fray, but still posing a threat up the road, the Red Ascots moved in with careful aggression. The archers had their choice of stones and a good vantage even if their weapons were unlikely to do any real damage. Liz and Tamara focused on pitching stones at the thing’s only real vulnerable point, the whip tail’s awful, waxy yellow and cartilaginous juncture with the monster’s arse.

Striking that organ sent the dangerous acid spurting harmlessly onto the monster’s own back, which seemed to be unaffected by the awful sludge. The two women worked hard to bash that rancid gland, whenever they had a shot.

Penz got a lucky cast and burst one of the thing’s eyes, blinding it for a few precious seconds on one side. It would regenerate quickly, as with most monsters that reached threat level A.

Sam and Mustafa pressed in on the thing’s sites side, waving their weapons and putting on a show, while Collete and Issac moved in. The big man rushed forward on the creature’s blindside and stuck hard for the first joint before that awful right hand claw.

The crunch of tool steel hitting carapace with all the force the very large, very muscular man had was shockingly loud across the highland roadway

Collete followed on, driving the wide, chopping blade of her ‘spear’ right into the shattered mess her husband was busy wrenching his hammer out of. The thing whirled about in fury, pain and a sudden loss of balance, as the hefty, armored claw dragged behind the beast, attached by only a thin strip of gristle.

Acid spurted and dribbled from the monster’s sprayer, as Mustafa and Sam closed in on the monster’s legs, hewing and smashing those much lighter armored limbs, as they moved on the creature’s whip end.

Left claw was still in business but the outlook was not good. The two humans slipped back out of range as it stumbled over and became slightly entangled with its own spiked appendage.

#

“They aren’t cheap, but the Ascots really know how to throw a party.” Herlick grunted as the cavalry watched the team of foot work from a slight rise in the road seventy yards away. “Speaking of, who’s our delve team, any word yet?”

Mustafa and Sam had severed the thing’s whip, taking the awful gland with it… Which unstoppered the monster’s back end in some really unpleasant ways.

Colette and Issac began to withdraw, leading the desperate beastie over its own spiky claw; which became entangled in its own entrails and slowly pulled the monster’s insides into the bright summer sun.

“Oh… very efficient.” Bannock muttered, while lowering their visor to conceal the disgusted pallor on their fine, high cheekbones.

“Commendable work…” The tall, silvery armored knight muttered, as they began tending to a very important saddle girth adjustment. An adjustment that totally prevented the knight from watching the monster’s sad and pitiful end, beneath Issac’s hammer.

“We had a call out to the Fist, but they are already abroad; in Port Erasmus, delving a new dungeon there.” Rolf grumbled. “The Hammers are on contract with my house, but they have declined… They aren’t a dedicated delve team and this one seems… odd.”

“Will you call for volunteers?” Herlick asked eagerly. “There are enough veterans with delve experience around to form a pickup team, if the rewards are rich enough.”

“Would you consider it, sir Herlick? I have been toying with the idea of forming an exploratory party.” Rolf’s smile wasn’t exactly eager, but it was excited. “I’ve always wondered…”

“I’m telling Angie.” Ester murmured cheekily, by twitching her ears and shaking her mane at him. “That does sound like more fun than we’ve had in years.”

“Perhaps… Life has gotten stranger and more… magical?” She paused and considered, while Bannock found more reasons to not watch the kids topple that gigantic bug corpse off the side of the mountain, to crash down on the stony wilderness below. “Yes, more magical, I’d say. Perhaps I should ‘Expand My Mind’ as the dirt divers always say.”

“Gods… They do all say that, don’t they…?” Rolf muttered, thinking back on the few times he’d met professional dungeon delvers. “They always seem to stare beyond whoever they are talking to… The veterans, anyway.”

“It’s the mushrooms they consume, before entering the void maw. They are said to buffer the psychic shock of… whatever happens between leaving here and arriving there.” Bannock offered, while scraping her mount’s hooves. “Many retire with my order, they find our meditations soothing on their troubled minds. Working with horses also helps with the… after effects. My groom, Ramon, is one such.”

“Really…” Rolf muttered. “Interesting, do you think he would share his knowledge with us?”

“He’lll never delve again, my lord. His memories of his journey are disjointed and confused, when he can bear to speak of it.” The tall knight murmured.

“I will relate what I know, in confidence, please, my lord. The man has suffered enough without starting tongues wagging.”

Rolf nodded soberly, which was as good as a temple sworn oath from the serious young lord. Bannock nodded in reply and spoke quietly.

“His team was wiped out by a force of armored human knights, shortly after encamping on the other side. He alone escaped and was forced to return without his mushroom drug. The poor man suffers from the effects to this day.” The knight whispered.

“He spoke of men hurling balls of fire and bolts of eldritch force… many thought him simply mindbroken and mad…” They paused to reflect for a moment. “Perhaps a madman is what we need.”

“What are you suggesting, sir Bannock?” Rolf asked carefully.

“We have seen other wonders… That man’s hammer is no natural working of human crafts, any fool can guess who gave it to him. We have seen magical arrows conjured from will, houses that dissolve into mist and demons snuffed out before our very eyes…” Bannock set a sober and serious gaze on the young lord’s face before they spoke again.

“My man Ramon traveled beyond and returned broken… We both know another such, perhaps we should approach…”

“Denied. You’ve seen…what he’s like. There’s not enough left of him, we can’t ask any more.” The young lord answered firmly, as master Khan rode up on his enormous destrier. Annie chuffed and huffed at Ester and the others, in friendly horsie greeting.

“Annie says to leave the Shadowmounted alone, he is in a delicate phase of his development.” Khan grumbled at the lord and the pair of knights. “I don’t know what that means, I was just instructed to tell you.”

He sighed so hard it ruffled his mustache, a disappointed glare directed at the mounted knights and lord.

“If you are going to plot and scheme around that poor boy, don’t do it where your horses can hear… or any spiders either, I suppose.”

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