Home Beneath #5
Added 2018-06-10 03:45:39 +0000 UTCAuthor's Note: Storytime and an unexpected guestuuu.
Character sheet, circa level 3
- Var'veha
[story]
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Finally, you shift onto your side and press your nose softly against Maskki’s, enjoying her warmth for a moment more, before rising to your feet. The sound of other goblins filtering back into the warrens is just exciting enough to rouse you from your barely-conscious stupor, and you quickly start to tug your clothes back on. “Wanna see what they bring?” you chirp over to the priestess, who nods up at you with wide eyes, so innocent-seeming considering what the two of you had just done together.
Your bare feet slap lightly against the cold clay beneath them as you scurry out into the main tunnels, getting your first look at the returned Road-Raiders. A strictly goblin force, they carry their short bows, blades, and spears at their sides, herding the beasts they ride toward the kennels, talk bustling around them as onlookers, patrons, and princes continued to discuss where they’d gone and what they’d found.
“I tell you, best haul in months,” you hear the familiar growl of none other than the Raiders’ captain, Tato Guzzlepuke -- a tall, muscular goblin so riddled with scars that his face was now little more than a maze of mangled yellowish leather. “Man-merchants growing so fat from trade, it takes only one road-hit for the warren to be just as fat with their richness.”
“What bring?” you gasp, holding one hand up in an attempt to catch the goblin’s attention. “What bring? Anything for Var? Ahahaha,” hand still high, you hop up onto your toes -- but are drowned out by the crowd around the raiders. You see Tato glance your way, see you, then look back towards the priestess you’d overheard him already talking with.
Settling back down onto your heels, you let out a short, huffed sigh. “Maybe find someone else who knows?” Maskki says from behind you, one hand laying gently on your shoulder now. She’s back in her own simple robes, though her cheeks remain somewhat flushed from your earlier tryst.
“One day I be raider,” you huff again, glancing back at the priestess before looking forward, not wanting her to see the wounded look you know you must be showing. “Then everyone listen, cha? Get hyena too. Biggest, cutest one.”
“You might be in luck, Var.” Your ears prick up and stand up tall when you hear a familiar voice from above you, though one you’ve not heard in some time. Glancing in the direction the sound is coming from, you see the face of a friend -- if a very tall friend. Tall and red-skinned, she is both goblin and not, a cousin of your people that made only occasional visits to Ghostbite, often to delegate some petty task or squabble. She’s a hobgoblin, and her name is Ixxa... or at least it was, before she left the goblin people behind to infiltrate the underworld of the human city.
“Ix!” you gasp, scrambling over another goblin (who yelps out as he’s send sprawling to the warren floor) to leap into her arms, quickly being caught by the far larger woman. “Or is it still... what was it? Tulip?”
“Orchid,” she smiles down at you, scooping one arm beneath you to hold you up, cupping your butt with one hand and giving it a full, familiar squeeze. “I needed a vacation from the guild.”
“Human tongue weighs heavy on yours,” you tease, playfully chastising Ixxa’s more eloquent grasp on the goblin tongue. “Hope not too heavy to have fun.”
“How quickly your mind wanders to the dirtiest places,” the hobgoblin says, waving down at Maskki before setting you back down. Looking back up, you get a moment to admire her -- nearly twice your height and beautifully built, with pointed ears less bat-like than your own and long, ebony hair, it’s no wonder she was able to infiltrate the human city. The snug black leather she wears now, clinging to her muscular legs and offering a display of tightly-squished ruddy-colored cleavage, doesn’t hurt her darkly predatory beauty either.
“So what were you say? ‘Bout luck?” you blink your big yellow eyes up at the Orchid.
“The Road-Raiders brought two things of note back with them. One was a sacrifice to the Big Bright, a caged elf-maiden. The other... well, turns out one of the riders’ beasts was with pups. Eight of them.” She watches your reaction carefully, a fanged grin slowly spreading across her face as she lowers herself to a crouch, enough to speak face-to-face with you.
And you give her everything she wants to see. Your eyes grow wider and wider, slitted pupils expanding so far they nearly become spheres, as you hear the news. The sacrifice is something you’ll need to think about later, but the puppies... that is important. The raid hyenas gave birth very rarely, as was known -- but when a litter came, it meant a new litter of Road-Raiders, too.
“Where are they!” you shout, eyes still wide, body straightening out like a bolt as you whirl and look around. “Dens? Have to see babies!”
“They’re with the mother still, I think,” Ixxa says thoughtfully. “But if I were you, I’d try to find the Road-Elder first and see if you can get accepted into training. Not many people know about the pups yet, so this could be your best shot at that.
Struck still, you chew your lip anxiously. Ixxa has a point, but at the same time... you want to see the puppies! What if you see the best one and it loves you more than anything? Surely that would matter more than being on the list of new trainees before it fills up? “Eeuuuhh...” you murmur fretfully.
“What you want do, Var?” Maskki says from behind you, her lips pursed together in a thoughtful, inquisitive expression. “Try to find elder, or try to see pups?”
