Chapter 46: The Goblin Queen Cometh

I spent the last day and a half with my entourage, prioritizing spending the bulk of my time with the marked girls and the elves. We lingered inside Etherea’s cottage, snuggling on the bed in a sweaty cuddle puddle that refused to let me leave for the longest time. That final morning, I didn’t even manage to pry myself out of bed until noon. I stayed hydrated, taking in plenty of milk during that stretch, and by the end of it I felt my bladder ready to burst if I didn’t get up to pee soon.

“Nooo,” May Belle whined as I tried to remove her head delicately from my chest.

Daisy and Autumn uttered similar objections as I peeled my way out of their grips, but Sprinkle was so peacefully asleep that she thankfully didn’t notice. The elves, Etherea and Ivy, were already out and about by the looks of things.

“It’s practically lunch time,” I noted, patting the holstaur's cute head and pointing out the window at the sun where it floated high above us. I put on the same pants I wore the previous day and headed out back to relieve myself.

When I returned to the cottage to finish getting dressed and try to coax my ladies out of bed, I found them all sitting up and stretching, Rainbow Sprinkle included, each of them in various states of undress. In the light of the midday sun as it poured in through the sheer curtains, it was a divine image and a not-so-subtle reminder of just how blessed I was, even to have just enjoyed life up until now.

I spent the day in bliss, being spoiled by each of them again and again as they offered massages, kisses, and competed desperately for my attention. It was cute for a while, but after some time had passed, and the desperation still lingered on their faces, I shuddered quietly as the realization set in as to why they were all behaving this way.

This could be the last time I saw them.

Indeed, Autumn and Ivy, who were going on the mission with me, kept their distance a bit more, allowing the other women of Tater Town and my marked girls to dole out their affections in a constant stream. When I looked around, I realized that Aldon and Winter hadn’t exited the inn yet, and I knew that the goth catgirl was likely saying tentative goodbyes to her lover as well.

The unspoken grimness of it unsettled me, making me shiver as Daisy and Bonny took turns hugging and kissing my neck outside the rabbit girl’s smithy as I ate a late lunch of eggs, veggies, and bread. Other girls were literally waiting in line to do the same.

The fun had faded. Now all I felt was fear.

But I shook it off, staying focused on the mission ahead of me, giving myself permission to enjoy the lavishments of the women who adored me. If it was the last time I’d see them, then I’d make it count.

After an orgiastic afternoon of heartfelt expressions of love and lust, the time however had come for the mission to begin.

We flew out as normal as though we were on patrol–I was suddenly very thankful that we’d established that ritual. Any compromised centaurs that spotted us in that early part of our journey would suspect nothing. We stayed on the flight path we normally took until finally we came upon a long stretch of stream-adjacent plains where no centaurs were scouting or keeping watch.

Landing on a mucky embankment, Autumn and I dismounted Blue, with Ivy and Aldon leaving Blackie behind. The sound of the flowing stream was so oddly peaceful that it made me shudder as I wordlessly looked at each of my companions, our expressions all grave and severe. The serenity of the surroundings contrasted boldly with the worries in our hearts.

We walked directly into the stream with our water-breathing enchantments activated, submerging deeper and deeper with every step until we were up to our necks in the filthy channel.

Thankfully we would be swimming with the current, or the journey would have been impossible. We plunged downward, instinctively taking breaths that we wouldn’t need.

Beneath the water, I could only see a few feet in front of me. It was dark and brown and it was already relatively late in the day and we had a considerable distance to travel, avoiding detection the whole way. One bit of bad luck, and it could all be ruined, so we took each forward stroke seriously.

With my armor on, we could only move slowly, even as strong as we all were. Ivy, of course, had virtually nothing weighing her down. Autumn brought her own dagger and a spare bow, but for armor she borrowed Sprinkle’s chainmail bikini. She looked damn good in it, too–but that thought had to be contained for later exploration, assuming things went to plan. It was a bit loose, but it somehow fit at least well enough for her to benefit from the enchantments. For now, survival was the key, so those buffs would come in handy.

Tiny colorful fish swam past us every few seconds, like little neon tetras, while larger fish occasionally followed in pursuit. I had to duck out of the way of something resembling a catfish–let’s just call it a catfish for the sake of expediency–on at least three occasions in that first stretch of the journey.

I looked up, seeing the ripples overhead glimmering with the light of a dying sun. Soon it would be night, and the journey would be much, much more troublesome. Autumn would have to take the lead, then, as only she could see flawlessly in the murky darkness. Even she, though, would be somewhat disadvantaged by the miry, muddy waters.

Things were going reasonably well, though, for a long time, and for a while I allowed myself to grow optimistic. That optimism was shattered when the darkness ahead gave way to a pair of glowing eyes that hinted at something of a tremendous size.

Aldon acted immediately, blasting first and likely planning to ask questions later. A glowing silver projectile flew past Autumn into the shape of the river monster, lighting up its face for the briefest of moments to reveal a long neck that gave way to an extended jaw with many gnashing teeth. The shot made impact, and the creature was not pleased about it.

It darted toward us with blinding speed, not all that slowed by Aldon’s attack, and it attempted to take a bite out of Ivy, but it missed. It’s jaw clamped down on nothing, the force of it jetting water out from around its maw.

I summoned my lance and thrust it forward, but the feeling of combat in water was alien to me–I only grazed the thing, but I noticed that where Aldon’s dart had struck it on the face, it was now bleeding profusely.

It had a long neck, like a plesiosaur, and Autumn had taken advantage of that, wrapping her legs around it when it made its attack against Ivy. Now entwined with the thing, she laid into it with all the fury of a clawing cat. The dark, brown water was soon more red than anything else as she did immense damage to it, but the beast used the neck to its advantage and reached around, grabbing hold of her in its jaws and clamping down.

More blood. This time, Autumn’s blood.

Aldon and I screamed in rage–I was sure he saw Winter in that moment from the passion in his voice. I connected a mighty Cleaving blow with my lance at the stalk that the thing called a neck, while the sorcerer shot a dozen more projectiles at its massive body, which was largely shrouded in the murky water, but it was easy to guess at.

Each blow struck, and the monster screeched out a terrible sound, releasing Autumn from its jaws. In desperation, it actually attempted to swim past us, going over my head, but I raised my lance just in time to catch its belly, raking the tip of my weapon along its entire underside so that monster entrails rained down upon me in those dark waters.

Without waiting to confirm that the thing had died, I swam toward Autumn, who was thankfully still conscious–and the wounds weren’t half as bad as I thought. The stoneskin enchantments on Sprinkle’s armor did their job–there were a few punctures and a bit of blood, but she would be fine. She had to be.

She winced as she looked disbelievingly at her wounds. I looked at her, waiting for her to give me any sign that she was anything but okay. She only gave me a thumbs up and a kiss on the cheek.

I looked back at Aldon, who had worked with Ivy to finish off the creature behind me. They were both caked in blood and guts, and the sight made me cringe and even triggered my gag reflex for a fleeting instant. When they noticed me looking, Aldon shrugged, asking ‘What next?’ in nonverbal fashion.

I pointed forward–it was the only thing I could think to do. We had gone too far to turn back.

But the rest of the journey was comparatively uneventful. The only alarming thing was that Autumn’s few wounds didn’t seem to be scabbing and closing as I would have expected, and for hours she leaked a tiny trail of blood–and I couldn’t be sure, because of how dark it had grown, but I felt as though she were growing paler.

Still, her sense of loyalty and adherence to the mission didn’t yield, and if she wasn’t feeling well, she showed me nothing. On several occasions, I tried to convince her to go above water so I could take a better look at her wounds, but she refused, shaking her head fervently, even pulling my hands away from her punctures and scowling at me for continuing to pester her over her injuries.

But I still felt uneasy about it, and at the first opportunity, I would make sure that I tended to her–Ivy could even help to heal her, hopefully.

Eventually, though, we knew we had arrived at our goal sometime toward the end of the next day when we noticed figures pacing along the embankment from beneath the waters. We found ourselves in the shadow of the keep, and the time to put our plan into action had come. I looked at each of my companions solemnly, nodding at them, indicating they should follow my lead as planned.

I emerged slowly from the water, my head just barely appearing up to my nose. I was a few feet away from a sentry–an orc on patrol, who was stupidly facing the wall. I grabbed his ankles and tugged him into the depths with me–he didn’t even manage to scream before he was underwater.

From there, Autumn pierced his chest with her claw, going right into his heart. Blood once again muddied the waters, and one guard was down.

Aldon made a gesture that I took to be him asking how many more guards there were, but I could only shrug. I didn’t have time to do a headcount, so instead, I motioned forward, planning to take all the ground guards out before emerging and scaling the walls.

We found and slaughtered two more in similar fashion, and by then I had had enough time to ascertain that there were no more in sight of us once we emerged, but the guards in the tower were perhaps minutes away from noticing their absent allies. Then again, looking up at the steepness of the climb, we could have much more time than that, as we were so close and the turrets so high that it seemed unlikely they could see their sentries below at all.

We slowly emerged from the depths, and Ivy cast a spell she called Breath of Nature which instantly dried us and made me feel as though I had suddenly chugged a double espresso. Feeling invigorated, I quickly ran my fingers over Autumn's wounds as we edged up against the keep walls.

I looked at Ivy. “Can you heal her?”

“I can close the wounds–her body will have to fight the poison off on its own.”

“Poison?!” Autumn said in alarm. Her face was sickly and pale, but she still showed energy and had her wits about her.

Ivy nodded. “There’s definitely some infection teeming inside of you–not deadly, but it could slow you down.”

“How long have you known?” I asked, nearly dumbfounded.

She shrugged. “A while now. But the mission.”

I grimaced. The mission. This fucking mission. I’d only been on it for a short while and already I hated the damn word. Now my catgirl was poisoned–and I was just supposed to accept that? Prioritize the mission? Fuck the mission.

“What can we do to heal the poison?” I asked, ready to put everything on hold.

Aldon put a hand on my shoulder. “Bucky. She’ll be fine. We need to keep moving. We’re so close. Darkmaw needs us to show up.”

I clenched my jaw as Autumn gave me a pleading look not to make a fuss over her. Aldon was right about Darkmaw. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I left her high and dry. Knowing her, she’d probably attempt the assassination without me when it became clear I wasn't showing up–and that wouldn’t go well.

“I feel fine,” she said, smiling feebly at me, grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand away from her wounds. “Just a bit woozy. I think all it did was keep me bleeding.”

Ivy wrapped Autumn's wounds and tenderly provided aid like a skilled field medic. We had no choice but to move forward. The choice was taken away by cruel circumstance.

I pivoted on my heel and gripped the smooth outer wall of the keep. “Autumn, on my back. Ivy, on Aldon’s.”

“I can climb myself,” Autumn said through a wry grin, holding up sharp claws.

“I can use Spider Climb,” Ivy said.

I nodded. “Alright then, let’s–”

“Actually,” Aldon said, raising his hand, “Most of my spells are elemental, or illusion-based. I’m not sure it’ll be an easy climb for me.”

“What’s your strength at?” I asked.

“Eight,” he said meekly.

“Oof. Okay, change of plans. Autumn on Ivy's back, and Aldon, you're with me. You better hold on tight, spider monkey,” I said, thankful that the Twilight reference would go over all their heads.

“Alright, Edward Cullen,” Aldon grunted, and I blushed in grimdark shame.

“What the fuck, are you from my Earth?”

“I guess different dimensions have some overlapping pop culture references,” he shrugged.

“So, like, you know what Lord of the Rings is? And Star Wars?” I asked, suddenly supremely distracted by this new bit of multiverse trivia.

“No. We don’t have those where I come from, I guess.”

I almost threw up on the spot. “What kind of hell dimension has Twi–”

“Bucky! Focus!” Ivy hissed at me, slapping me on the butt. That got my attention for sure.

I paused, still staring at Aldon like I’d suddenly found out that I couldn’t trust him. “We’re circling back to this when we make it out alive.”

“Deal,” he laughed quietly.

We scaled the wall, heading for the closest turret, the southwestern one. I waited until all three of my allies were hanging below the window ledge with me, ready to leap inside when I gave the signal.

I nodded, and we hoisted ourselves up, Aldon tossing a squealing goblin out of the tower as he pulled himself into the room. Ivy killed another in the same way, and soon we were in a small, round chamber with a single door leading into a bridging passage that led to the other turret–and the lower level of the castle.

Breathing heavily, I walked forward, placing my hand on the door handle, giving a quick look back at my allies, and, with their nods, opened the door–

—Only to be greeted to the sight of a seven foot tall musclebound goddess of an orc woman dressed in translucent white robes and a platinum thorny tiara, flanked by two fully armed orc guards. She looked back at me silently with widened yellow and red eyes.

I swallowed hard and waved. “Hi! I’m Bucky. I’m going to guess you’re the Goblin Queen.”