Book 4: The Long Way Home

  Chapter 2

  Over The River And Through The Woods

  Sunset crept up slowly, then pounced on the mountainside camp, much the way Shiro, the spirit kitten dealt with the first few fireflies to drift up among the bushes and weeds. “Come back inside, kitty!” Lindsey cooed at the little white fluffball of death; who meowed happily and bounced over to the lanky, grey eyed teenager, growing vastly larger with each leaping bound.

  “Oh, dear…” She grumbled, when a clouded leopard of terrifying size leaned up against her, purring and demanding pets and ear rubs.

  “You’re a big bully, sometimes!” She complained through a mouthful of white fur. Lindsey knotted her fingers in the giant feline’s red silk ribbon collar, making the iron bell dangling there ring out in a sad, languorous tone. With a few gentle tugs the enormous kitty followed her into the main house, his long tail in amusement at his human friend. “Bad kitty! You should come when Amy calls!”

  “Shiro says he’s not a dog or even a horse. Obedience is not his way.” Mariah declared firmly from her perch above the fireplace, where her tree burned and crackled merrily, giving off a warm, spicy and fruity scent that made the room feel snug, intimate and homey.

  “He will come when it suits and depart as he will… He shares much with the noble dryad race and the mighty hive queens.” She finished, nodding soberly to Kree the hive maiden, perched on the back of Gary’s chair, fanning her stained glass wings in the last of the evening sun, pouring in through the windows. Shimmering jewel tones scattered across the room from the tiny, beautiful wasp-girl.

  In a swirl of cobalt blue coattails, Amy swept Shiro’s massive bulk up into her arms, ending up with a scant handful of fluffy white kitten, wearing a tiny iron bell on a slender collar of red silk ribbon. He gave a murr of mild dissatisfaction, before burrowing into his mistress’ modest bosoms and vanishing from sight. “Kree, Mariah… you two are just too much.” Her attempt to scold the two insect girls failed utterly, as usual.

  While Kree gave off the beautifully dangerous vibes of an alien mind, behind her segmented jeweled eyes and intimidating armor; Mariah’s butterfly wings of smoke and flame awed the viewer with a blend of occult and natural wonders. Simply put, they were just too cute to deal with.

  “All right, settle down…” Becky announced firmly from the big table. “I’m not keen on the whole idea, but tomorrow, you guys are traipsing across the void again… You are all coming back… All of you. You hear me?” She barked, using her ‘High Priestess’ voice on the gathered friends and family.

  “Yes, High Priestess Becky…” They all chanted sullenly, on cue from every corner of the room.

  “You are all annoying and awful… You know that, right?” She demanded archly, a sweet smile spreading across her lips.

  “Yes, High Priestess Becky…” They all answered merrily with bright, beaming smiles all around.

  “In sufferable wretches…” She sighed softly, trusting Amy to carry her words to every ear in the house. Becky sat back down, while the gathered Adventurers tucked into another fine meal at the Ward house.

  “Lindsey…” Amy whispered amidst the tumult, her words climbing into the young Adventurer’s ear from all the way over at the Ragamuffins’ table, borne across the room on winds of magic. “If you don’t feel comfortable coming with us, you can go back with aunt Becky and uncle Kermal. We’ll understand completely… And Barry is completely hooked. No worries there.”

  “Amy!” Lindsey whispered, deeply aghast and blushing bright red from hairline to collar.

  “Lindsey joined our team, Amy… It’s official.” Harry gave his sister a nudge with his elbow and grinned. “Barry tried to get her to stay home last night, she’s still giving him the silent treatment over that.”

  Harry fell silent when Flash slipped around behind him and licked the back of his head, from the nape of his neck to his brow. Horse drool, flecks of hay, grain and a goodly dose of molasses gave the youngest Ward boy a brand new, Flock Of Seagulls hairstyle that resisted any attempts at taming.

  “Good-horsie.” Lindsey and Amy murmured in perfect harmony.

  Gary and Shai staggered up to bed a short while later… Well, Gary staggered, Shai was doing just fine, thank you very much. He dribbled out of his clothes, deeply grateful that his gifts were starting to work again, slowly but surely. He’d deeply missed his ability to change costume in a darkling twinkle of distracting magical tomfoolery; whether into his arms and armor, when things got real, or into something silly, just for laughs. Now he had a shadow of that power back, along with some measure of control over his occult soul-home.

  On his grounds, once again he could conjure simple objects at will, so long as the things stayed on the property and out of the bath, he could create clothes, tools, dishes and other minor comforts from magic, light and shadows… mostly shadows.

  “Ahhh…” He sighed, as Shai tucked her long, warm body in beside him, curling close for a fondle and perhaps a bit more. “That’s nice…”

  “Aye, lad… I worried ye might have spent yerself over-much this afternoon, but yer forge seems still hot enough for a few workings, yet.” She purred, before putting them both to sleep in short order.

  /

  “I guess we were both tired…” Gary remarked through an intolerable smirk, when he appeared in the land of dreams a scant few seconds after Shai found herself in the plush and much less tangled bedding of the dream house, still blushing and gasping with delight.

  “I resent yer assumptions, you vile and despicable… Man!” She spat, with neither heat nor venom behind her words, just a smile.

  Just then, that distant, over-loud, grating voice rang out from the madness inducing, eldritch sky above. “Gary Ward, appear before me, mortal! I command it!”

  “This guy…” Gary grumbled sourly. “He’s been stinking up my dreams, even when I blow my hair back with a big bump of duskmoon pollen.”

  “Fie… I can hear him only just faintly… A distant mumble and rumble.” Shai shook her head and sighed. “Ye have affinity for War’s blood-drenched ways, lad. Ye always have, far more-so than I, or any other of our group.”

  “True, sweet Shai… very true.” Marduk replied from a mushroom-chair in the corner. “Order and Morrigan both cut ties with Gary consciously and deliberately, when their little experiment went off the rails, hurling him out onto that dusty, highland meadow. War never could release him, or anyone, really.”

  The tiny god shrugged his pale shoulders, setting golden, divine ringlets to swaying in the dim, starlit chamber. “That is what allows him to cling desperately to your spiritual coat-tails and slowly drag himself closer to this realm.”

  “You mean my little slice of the ether, right? Not the real world.” Gary grumbled awkwardly, while Shai tensed up beside him.

  “Yes. He clings to both of these realms; yours and the ‘real world’ as you say. Keep in mind, Gary… this place is a real world, in many ways, my friend. It has a logic and laws of its own, as well as a dungeon lord ruling over it, as it struggles to become a manifest and prime reality of its own. You seem to be struggling with that new information.” Marduk shook his head and sighed. “Not that this place conforms to the normal expectations of such a world… You always defy easy answers, my friend.”

  “I gotta be me, Ducks. Now I’m gonna get some normal sleep, cause I’m sick of hearing that loser complain in the distance.” Gary grumbled sourly. “He really rustles my jimmies.”

  “The state of your supposed ‘jimmies’ aside, this matter requires your attention…” Ducky complained as the musician faded from view.

  The Ward family watched Becky, Kermal and a few other friends ride away, down the track they had marched up with so much difficulty yesterday. Of course, the road picked up just a mile from the steep hillside the camp rested on, overlooking the valley. A scant half hour later, they watched their friends depart down the wide, well graded road towards the town, just out of sight.

  “Come come Wards… we travel on now. Be there soon! King-papa gave me a special key! Opens the way straight to home from here! Your valley is riddled with holes…” Daisybelle giggled and sighed with delight. “The Tarots shut the doors behind themselves with seals from great king Ghnash. Too too many holes in the veil here by far.”

  “That’s why we’re going to visit mighty Ghnash at home, Daze.” Gary soothed the merry little goblin girl. “And to be honest, I need a little time away from our pantheon.”

  “You know, papa…” Amy sighed sweetly at her dad, while the inn compound slowly faded from reality behind them. “Most likely, you’ll just bring even more of our divines into the goblin home-world. You’re kinda lousy with gods and spirits.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “That’s fair.” He agreed weakly. “Come on, Daisy is getting upset.”

  The goblin and her wargs led the party off into the rugged hills, down a steep grade, into a narrow box canyon. The sheer granite walls pressed in, closing to within a few yards on either side of the barely visible trail in spots. “Stay close, human friends… We will traverse with little warning.” She called from the head of the line. “Time to string ourselves together for safety.”

  With practiced efficiency, the teams roped themselves together, then passed the ends up the line. In a few short moments all was ready, with a warg following at the tail end of the group to collect any stragglers or slowpokes.

  “Ropes or no, stay close and keep your wits about yourselves…” Daisybelle shouted down the line.

  “The border is slightly unpredictable and almost imposs…” Her voice didn’t end, she just sounded a little farther away, then quite distant and then too far away to be heard at all, in the span of a few heartbeats.

  Moments later the last of the little group disappeared into an unremarkable seeming slice of rugged, mountain trail.

  “...to predict, so be careful!” She was still calling, as the others came back into range, one by one.

  “Oh, that was weird…” Gandree grumbled, as a queasy, lurching sensation gripped his bowels.

  “Yeah… it takes some people that way.” Dannyl soothed the burly dwarf lad, while scraping Gandree’s breakfast off the toes of his boots in a nearby patch of meadow grasses. Ahead, the narrow stone rift opened out onto the valley they had just left… almost. From here, a small palisade town by the lake was visible, beyond that a familiar looking inn stood in a cloud of steam on a lonely prominence of stone that Forest home did not possess.

  “Welcome to Goblinhome, guests of mighty Ghnash.” Barbara-ann announced smoothly, from her perch on a boulder up the hillside. Like Daisybelle she was small, green and adorable in a way that several of the male members of the party found a little alarming. With her green pointed ears and bright, apple cheeks, she was much like her younger sister; save that she was a little taller, leaner and with a gray cast to her skin, under the green.

  Her spear of finely knapped flint and hawthorne leaned casually on her slim shoulder, her arms crossed and a smile of real delight on her slightly angular face. She grinned, showing sharp, pointy teeth to the humans, while doffing her tall cap of brown leather in a low bow. Her uniform of dark brown and green with black piping was not nearly so snugly fitted as Daisy’s green and white livery, but she was just as tidy.

  “I’m Barbara-Ann, princess of Goblinhome and chief of his majesty’s spears.” She piped in a sweet, high voice. As she spoke, two more goblin girls stepped out, dressed in slightly less ornate uniforms of the same cut. “Joanna and Jolene will accompany us to see his majesty at the castle.”

  The trio of cute and undeniably sexy goblins led the way, giggling and chattering with Daisybelle in their nearly impenetrable goblin pidgin dialect as they strolled up to the gate.

  In that wide portal of rough hewn logs, even more small green damsels joined their procession; dazzling the teenage boys with their smiles and laughter… There was a good bit of plumply rounded green skin on display and all of their uniforms were quite well tailored. Rhonda, Maggie-mae, Angie, Rosanna and Maybelline were just the start.

  Some were relatively tall and slimly graceful, others were roundly and delightfully plump, ranging across the whole spectrum, from cute to sexy as hell. In the same way, the girls’ hair varied wildly in color, texture and style; presenting a visual feast of sweet, comely goblin femininity.

  Once they passed through the gates, even more swarmed in, numerous maturely beautiful goblin dames and too many lissome and shyly curious gobbos to even try and count, they were everywhere, peering from upper windows, peeking from awnings and shopfronts or climbing trees and houses for a better look, while more sober goblins silently disapproved.

  Barbara-Ann and Daisybelle led the troupe through town and up to a wide clearing at the foot of the escarpment on which king Ghnash’s castle stood, its red tile roof gleaming in the summer sun under a clear blue sky. With a sweeping and expansive gesture, Daisy waved at the wide expanse of upland grasses. “Encamp here, I go tell mighty King-papa we’ve arrived.” She sang happily. “Come on Gandree! Is just a little father!”

  “Oh, just a little farther you say?” The dwarf lad grumbled, while dutifully following along, up to her father’s Strange High House on the Hill.

  “Hush, boy… great queen Sabbie insists we sleep in her den tonight. That means she accepts you, a stubborn boy with stones in his head!” She crowed happily, while she and her wargs dragged the dwarf lad off to his almost certain doom beneath the king’s high peaked, tile roof.

  Once Daisybelle departed, Barbara-Ann took charge with admirable efficiency. A few swiftly barked commands in the goblin dialect sent the swarm of curious lookie-loos away and established a loose perimeter around the proposed campsite, allowing the family to get to work. Fifteen minutes later, the whole tiny hamlet arrived, conjured from the shade beneath the pines, sunlight and the shadows of the living beings dancing, singing and playing musical instruments in the last remnants of the morning mist as the sun burned it away.

  “Nice one, gang!” Gary called, as the crew began settling into the familiar little township all their own, under a new and alien sky.

  “Thanks to you too, girls!” He told the king’s spears, when they formed up at the garden entrance, peering through the hedge at the houses.

  “Don’t be shy, come on in…” He’d barely finished the last word, when a half dozen goblin damsels swarmed by him, headed for the baths and already stripping completely bare. He stood there for a moment, watching the gobbo bottoms bounce, as they scurried for the big pool, giggling and singing short snippets of familiar songs from a distant time and place.

  “How are they all so cute… and hot?” He wondered aloud, as he strolled for the front door.

  “Curses, my brother.” Necro murmured from the garden gate, in his pallid, undying, almost skeletal form. “The curses used to re-shape goblin men into monsters, also created the lovely, sweet natured and delightful goblin girls you see. Just as the cult wished for fast breeding, savage slave soldiers, a terror weapon to wreak chaos on vulnerable people. They also dearly wished for a race of docile sex slaves, who would be their little naughty secret.” He smiled grimly, showing his sharp, reptilian teeth.

  “They wished to have their cake and eat it too. Careless and amoral wizards craft careless and clumsy magics, often to great sorrow. Eventually, a goblin appeared who could not be used as they wished, an isekai soul in goblin flesh with a man’s mind. Few of us are prone to violence and fits of rage, Ghnash is an outlier in that area, he still has some anger issues. I don’t think you can imagine the foul mood your brother Ghnash was in, when he landed here.”

  “Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.” Gary answered with a tight, cold smile.

  “Perhaps you do… In any case, king Ghnash took this dungeon world from them two hundred years ago and has been working to undo the cult’s influence ever since.”

  The two men fell silent for a moment, as a dozen more small green women scampered by, headed for the baths dancing, whooping and giggling with glee.

  “They really are delightful…” Ward remarked idly, when Amy joined them, holding a thick stack of bright pink slips of paper with goblin idiograms printed in cheerful, baby blue ink.

  “Ames… what are those?” Gary asked as two more goblin girls dashed up, handed her another of the slips, and dashed off for the baths, disrobing and chattering away.

  “Hotsprings inn coupons… Daisybelle had hundreds of them made. She and her team have been running a rigged lottery in the goblin town market.” She answered through a wide, vicious smile. “They’ve been pretty much just passing them out to every-gob, all willy-nilly.”

  “Why? I never turn anyone away from the…” Gary fell silent, when king Ghnash’s wry and evil laugh rang out behind him. The king, Sabrina and Chelsea stood there, arm in arm and smiling happily. His majesty had another of the tickets, and both of his queens looked excited beyond endurance. All three wore simple, well pressed robes and carried towels and small wicker baskets on their arms, clattering along on high platformed wooden sandals. The jerks were dressed in japanese yukata, like they were the protagonists in an anime, redeeming a hotspring inn coupon for sexy fanservice funtimes and steamy hijinks.

  “You…!” Gary grunted, his face twisted in a parody of seething anger, while he struggled to restrain his own giggles. “I’m struggling with real problems here and all you wanna do is make dumb jokes and clown around!” He scolded the grinning goblin monarchs.

  “Yup! Now bring us tea and snacks, innkeeper! The ladies are tired from their long journey!” Ghnash complained eagerly, playing the bigshot to the hilt. “I’m a customer, even if this is just a shabby wayside motel!”

  “You live at the top of the hill, buddy… and you have a hotspring pool of your own.” Gary sighed, surrendering to the foolishness.

  “This is a fine way to introduce you to the goblins, dunk a bunch in your magic baths and have a laugh at your expense!" Amy explained reasonably. “Plus, it’s sexy as hell!”

  “I know, right! It’s a crossover, sexy hotspring inn collab! The ultimate in fanservice!” He gushed excitedly. “The daring, sexy hero of the isekai, goblin harem, onsen anime visits the goofy, fumble-bum clown from the other long running isekai, onsen comedy! That’s you, by the way!” Ghnash agreed eagerly, smiling like a huge asshole at his long suffering brother.

  “Mighty Ghnash will make his silly jokes…” Sabrina sighed from the king’s right elbow.

  “King-husband is a big goof, sometimes.” The shorter, cutely plump, bright green gob with a shocking pink pixie cut nodded and smiled at the taller, elegant lady in her refined and understated garments. “Chelsea just wants to get her guts stirred around again, so whatevers!”

  “Chelsea, be more discreet!” Sabrina scolded the bubbly little goblin, with a pat on her head to take the sting from her sharp words. “We’ll get our tenders smashed into goo once we’re in the royal suite… You did reserve the royal suite, did you not, my husband?”

  “My dear… I’m certain Gary has no ‘Royal Suite’ in his home.” Ghnash tried in vain, but the ladies seemed certain that there was a royal accommodation and that it would be theirs. “Please, try to understand, we are already in extra spicy, double-trope fan-service mode. We can’t go any deeper down this absurd storyline any farther without attracting…”

  “Hello, my sexy darlings…” Ward sang out cheerfully from a fig tree in the garden. He stepped out into the afternoon shade, carrying a round bellied wasp creature on his shoulder. “My darling Fig needs to get dressed, please excuse us for a moment… Gary, where did you leave Fig’s puppet body?”

  “Ward and Fig, together… in proximity to a whole pool full of wet, soapy, goblin girls.” Gary mumbled awkwardly. “I think I need to spend some time cultivating and meditate for a while.” He waved at the grinning goblin monarchs as he left, calling out over his shoulder: “Take the master suite, tell Shai we’re in Amy’s bedroom.”

  “Hey…” The Admiral complained weakly. Her natural authority waned, so far from the sea and her splendid vessels. “Aww, man! I hate trying to sleep in the main house when it’s all freaknasty inside…”

  “Yes, but will not Lindsey and Barry be under that roof as well? My girls have already invaded his house and filled it to bursting.” Ghnash remarked, eyeing the boys’ sturdy inn, standing near their father’s much larger home.

  There were green damsels sprawled out everywhere, in the porch swing, in the rocking chairs and crashed out on the cushions under the bay window. They lay all over the balcony, snoozed under the shrubbery and were generally omnipresent.

  “We are largely nocturnal, so this is very early morning for us.” Ghnash offered with a fond smile. “My wives and daughters are excited for the new people and to greet new members of the tribe. They are a cheerful bunch.”

  “I’ve always wondered… How many of them are really your daughters? Like legit?” The Necromancer asked softly.

  “I’ve brought only twelve daughters into the world, brother. That sounds like a lot, but I’ve been the goblin king for two hundred years and more. I kinda went goblin mode for a few decades or so.” He answered carefully. “Many were stillborn, others perished of illness or predators. Twelve have gone on to live their own lives...” He smiled a little sadly.

  “Of the girls raised under my roof, they are all my beloved daughters, whoever their sire might be.” He grinned and squeezed his two giggling brides closer into his muscular green shoulders.

  “Ghnash has so many wives, a few princesses and so many daughters.” Sabrina said firmly.

  “But only two queens!” Plump and giggling Chelsea agreed, just as firmly as her long, lanky elder. “Now find our room and smash us good, King-husband!”

  “Gods and spirits, both above and below! Aid me in my hour of greatest need…” The mighty king implored the heavens as two women much smaller than he, bullied him into the main house and upstairs.

  “Gods and spirits aid me… You bunch of degenerates…” Amy sighed with no real conviction behind it. “The weird, kinky energy is going to keep me up all night! Having an aura sense gift sucks.”

  “Was this not your prank, sister Amy?” Necro asked awkwardly. “Did you not foresee being hoisted on your own petard?”

  “Petard? Hoisted?” She scoffed. “You even kinda talk like my papa, when he’s trying to sound fancy.”

  “I am a formidable being, sister Amy, I am ancient and feared. Children of the light cult whisper my name in the dark of the night, when their deepest fears stalk the shadows, I am their boogieman. Should I jest and be-clown myself, as the Fool does?”

  “You should try it… You have more in common with my papa than just his face and tendency to be all spooky and weird.” The smiling teenager suggested warmly, taking her uncle’s hand and leading him into the bustling inn. “Hey, girls… Clothing is required outside the baths! There’s teenage boys in the house!” Amy realized her folly a few moments too late, far too late to do anything about it at all.

  “Boys?” A soft chorus of feminine voices cooed, purred and murmured with approval, all around the inn and baths.