Husband of the Goblin Tribe

[v2] Chapter Three – In which Ark deals with his PTSD by hiding himself away, inevitably forcing his daughters to mount a small rescue.

I’m… tired.

It’s been three days now since I hid myself away from everyone after what happened with Diana Artemis, and to be honest, having not had anything to eat and drink while expending as much of my mana as I could each day, trying to narrowly avoiding mana fatigue, has left me thinking that maybe kicking the bucket here and now wouldn’t be so shameful a thing.

I’m sure eventually my daughters will figure out how to undo the seal to my room. Mint most likely, unless Button decides to just punch a hole through it, though I doubt she would even though she could. I know that Button isn’t comfortable revealing her true strength to anyone but me and Glace. And right now, Glace must be aware as to how high up on my shit-list as is humanly, or goblinly, possible that she is, and therefore wouldn’t be searching too hard for a way to bring the sleeping bear that she poked back into the proverbial cave, so she isn’t going to be pressuring Button to do anything but be lazy and suck on mushrooms together with her.

Three days ago I started off tunneling through the solid upper area of Goblinhome towards the south where the entrance to the main cave is just below. I made a few small holes for ventilation when I reached the end of the rocky interior before beginning my work on something that I feel is absolutely necessary now for the burgeoning Bloodmaw tribe.

The Goblin’s Guild.

Rather than call it an Adventurer’s Guild, while being pretty much the same thing in application and design, I’m planning on making it something more focused towards corralling my daughters’ excessive energy, lest any more of them get the idea that it’s okay to team up and assault their father.

So far, I’ve managed to build a main avenue mostly parallel to the one below, with the main guild hall being above the main entrance, roughly situated over the front storage caves and both Prima and Stella’s cave holes. It was bigger than it needed to be for now, since future planning intended for it to be occupied by many more goblin daughters than I currently have now.

The main avenue would also be where future cave-holes would be made for my growing daughters to occupy when they become old enough to move into their own private residences. I’ve already built a few new ones near the back of Goblinhome, just past the cave-hole belonging to Old One.

Currently, the only goblins residing in any of those are Ebony who lives with her pet bone-spider Bitey, and Beastie—the reanimated skeleton of what was once Beast-talker—as well as both Button and Glace who share a cave together next door to her. Ebony was living with Vera and I in the breeding room, occupying my bedroom for a while, after an incident where Ebony felt the need to defend herself with near-lethal force from Ivory who had a very hands-on disciplinary style that didn’t… vibe well with Ebony at all.

Is it tragic that there’s a small schism between mother and daughter? Yes. But it’s not like those two don’t interact peacefully when together. Ivory was far more hurt by Ebony’s rejection of her than she cares to let on, meanwhile Ebony is probably more independent a goblin than even Diana Artemis. Though, to say she’s fully independent when she has me, Old One, Button and Truffle actively going out of our way to check on her well-being regularly, just because we love her in our own ways, makes it a bit of an understatement.

As a bonus to being loved by Ebony, in return, I was paid a visit by Bitey, who somehow made its way through one of the exterior ventilation holes and has kept me company from time to time over the last few days. While I can’t expect Bitey to be disloyal and keep my exact location secret from her, Bitey does have a mind of its own, and generally acts in whatever capacity it thinks is in Ebony’s best interest.

But… even with a safe bone-spider companion… I’m still tired.

Not from expending my magic to expand Goblinhome for the inevitable future, but exhausted from the thoughts in my head that I’ve continually failed to compartmentalize.

Thoughts of Diana Artemis.

Which circled back to thoughts of Prima.

Thoughts of how easily I was able to accept Prima while unable to understand her and unable to see a thing at the time. Prima, who didn’t give me any choice in the matter when we first met other than being submissive to her or to expect the worst. I was willing to accept copulating with her for the sake of living… Even enjoy it to a degree by imagining it was someone else. Something else… before I came to know her as a living being with wants, needs, and duties of her own. Before accepting that she was the one keeping me alive as best she could, hunting fresh meat for me to eat every day, listening to my selfishness so that I could give to her sisters, all who became my future wives, the best big-seed for them as well. Never failing in her obligatory duty as the tribe’s Guardian. Their protector, and their eldest sister.

As violent as Prima might be as a Bloodmaw goblin… She had a perfectly reasonable excuse for her actions.

She was a goblin. One who barely avoided being subjugated as a child by humans like me. While she had every reason to hate me and treat me poorly, barring a few situations that she felt put her entire tribe at risk, she hadn’t.

And then there’s Diana Artemis.

She’s known nothing but love and success at all she’s ever done. She’s treasured by both Berry and me. She’s cocky, sure, but she’s blessed with the skills to back it up. Except, to me, she is my daughter. Not a wife, not a lover, just… my little bear-slaying drop-goblin princess.

And that was enough for me. That filled my heart completely.

But for her… I guess it wasn’t enough unless I also filled her small womb with my filth.

I know what an Electra Complex is, even if the exact psychological science behind it was considered somewhat dubious in the modern era of my previous life. However, it might still be relevant in some way. Perhaps, because I was openly intimate with Berry so many times in front of her, she somehow now felt the need to compete with her own mother over me, having finally entered the earliest stages of developing into a goblin woman.

Or was it always in her mind to do this with me, and I was just refusing to see it for what it was?

Is this why she never once called me daddy, when some of my other daughters (in some cases begrudgingly) did?

The worst part is, I can’t forget how it felt with her.

I hate myself for admitting this, but she was a young goblin rapidly maturing thanks to the Blood Fury she was undergoing, and what she had to use on me was ripe. If it wasn’t, I might have somehow found a way to avoid soiling her body.

Alone with these dark and disgusting thoughts for days… knowing I’m already monster and only becoming worse by the day, I could only assume that this must be some kind of divine retribution for what I did to Stella in the past.

Which no doubt contributed to why I felt so tired.

So, I laid down on the cool stone floor and closed my eyes.

Wishing…

Hoping…

That maybe they wouldn’t open again.

~~** Interlude | Lumi **~~

“Nova!”

I woke up sweating, looking around for Nova. But the only goblin in the room besides myself was my half-human mother, Stella, currently asleep.

I had trudged out of our bed carefully. Though I had a room of my own my human father had made for me to sleep in, somehow being held by Stella as I slept gave me a degree of inner peace I might not otherwise have. Aside from the last vestiges of humanity which could be found only in this small hellhole of a cave, there was also Nova who gave me the strength to keep the hope alive that I would someday escape from here.

Nova, my knight.

While she was younger than me, she was also a special goblin in a similar situation to myself. Nova had confided in me one day in the chapel, before the Goddess Elara, that she had memories of another life. That in it, she was a master swordsman. An ally of justice and of all that was good. I also revealed to her that I was once a human Saintess, and upon hearing that, Nova swore an Oath before the Goddess to forever protect me and be my Guardian until such a time came that a way to return to what we were before we were reborn as goblins.

I had a prophetic vision while I slept, and I knew that I had to talk with Nova immediately. I still don’t feel comfortable befriending the other goblin youths who so freely dare to call me their sister. Nova acts as my bridge when it comes to that. And right now, I needed Nova to help me… if what I saw in my vision was currently happening.

Making my way out of my family quarters and into the one across the way, I crept inside, risking the ire of Prima, the true head of this tribe of goblins, to the lackluster bedroom of my Knight, quickly shaking her awake.

“Nova… Nova!”

Bright eyes opened up and regarded me slowly with a couple of blinks.

“Lumi?”

“Nova… I need your help. I think… our father is in danger.”

Nova nodded and sat up slowly.

“What do you need me to do?”

“We have to get into his room.” I explained. “He’s unconscious from having not had anything to eat or drink in a few days. I’m afraid if we don’t rescue him right now, he’ll die.”

“Alright. But didn’t Glace, Ebony, and Mint all try breaking through the stone door with no luck?”

“I can use Aurora to blow it open”

“If you blow it up, won’t that end up hurting him if he’s collapsed inside?”

“No. He’s not in his room. He’s… above it.”

“Above it?”

I nodded. The vision I was shown revealed my human father lying unconscious on the floor of a spacious room only accessible from some passage leading upwards from within his bedroom. Aside from the room that belonged to Diana Artemis and the twins Orchid and Lilac who resided there with her, there was no such thing as a second floor here in this cursed goblin’s cavern.

Nova got up and accompanied me back to my residence where I picked up the staff my human father had made me that projected a powerful magical light, similar to what I could use with my divine power alone, back when I was a proper human Saintess.

As we moved through the main passage of the cave, both Mint and Ebony had run into us just as we went to enter my human father’s residence.

“Lumi? Nova? What are you two doing here?”

“Lumi says the old man’s in trouble, so she’s come to blow open the door to his room.” Nova answered Ebony for me.

Ebony held Bitey in her outstretched hand.

“Bitey just came to tell me that Husband laid down in a hidden cave-hole above us and hasn’t moved in a while, even after Bitey tried to wake Husband up.”

Something fell down from above us, causing all four of us to step back.

“Lumi. Your staff’s magic ray of light won’t break through the formula magic Husband has put up inside his room if Ebony’s wand couldn’t already do it. If you’re determined to use it, it would better to open the way to where he is from outside.”

Ever since being born, Magpie was always hiding herself somewhere and watching everyone, appearing out of nowhere only when she felt like it. She is by far and away the most creepy and unnerving goblin, and I think if one like her existed back when I was a human Saintess, I might have died to a slit throat having never seeing my attacker rather than a spear to the stomach from the ugly one I did.

“Do you know where outside?” Nova asked Magpie.

“Yes. Bitey and I will show Lumi where to aim her magic. Ebony, you should have Beastie come as well, so she can bring Husband out. It’ll be easier than all of us trying to move him.”

“Gwah! Good idea! I’ll tell Beastie to come right now.”

All four of us followed Magpie out of Goblinhome, and along with Bitey, we watched as those two easily scaled the stone exterior of the large cavern I was unfortunate enough to have to call home.

The skeletal abomination known as Beastie had joined us shortly after Magpie marked a certain spot with a Light Rune, same as the one on the tip of my staff, making it easy for me to see the illuminated spot where I needed to aim at.

“Go ahead, Lumi!” Magpie shouted out loud enough for us to hear over the busily chirping nighttime insects hiding all around us in the moonlit grass. Both Magpie and Bitey were on either side of the location I needed to blow a hole into.

“If your magic isn’t enough, Ebony will join in.” Ebony said, standing behind me alongside her creepy skeleton and Mint. Ebony was ever-confident about the strength of her so-called bone-magic.

Meanwhile, Nova remained by my side, trusting in me.

I took a deep breath and readied myself. In order to use the full power of Aurora, my father told me there was an activation chant and set of movements that I absolutely had to do. I didn’t believe him at first, but then again, I wasn’t a magician. All I knew about magicians were that they were all eccentric and superstitious.

“Fabulous secrets were revealed to me when I held aloft my magic staff and said…” I lifted Aurora with one hand high into the air, a surge of magical light began to trace upwards in a spiraling arc along the entire length of the Rune formation etched into the staff as I spoke the ridiculous words, “…For the Honor of Goblinhome!”

Sparks of light burst out from the staff showering me in light, yet they were not hot and did no harm to me or anyone nearby. I then brought the staff downward and held it firmly with both of my hands.

“I AM… LUMI!!”

I then pointed the tip of the staff at the Light Rune which had been carved into the stone face of Goblinhome just above the cave’s entrance and let the otherwise usual golden ray of light that shot forth from it, now bespeckled with rays of blue and silver and far thicker in size than ever before, surge forward to blast open a hole in the stone face of the cavern.

Where the light struck the stone face, the stone there began to glow a violent red but wasn’t quite giving way to the full power of my staff’s magic.

“Gwoh! Ebony’s turn to help now! Iggy even says it knows that spell, too. Husband learned it when he was a strong-one!”

“What?” I croaked out after having had to do something quite embarrassing.

Ebony had stepped up beside me and took out her wand, doing the same thing I did, holding it high above her head.

“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me when I held aloft my magic wand and said… By the Power of Goblinhome!!”

A chilling wave of dark purple energy began to converge from all around Ebony, striking her wand before encompassing her entire body, causing it to radiate with a sinister malevolence. She lowered her wand and held it with both hands, just as I had done moments ago, and said the next part needlessly loud.

“EBONY HAS THE POWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!”

She then pointed her wand towards the same place I was aiming at, and as the beam of pure negative purple energy shot out of her wand, she accidentally aimed a bit far to the right of where she should have, striking Bitey directly who was clinging to the stone face.

But, as Bitey was some kind of undead abomination, the energy beam not only didn’t harm it at all, but it had also caused Bitey to rapidly increase in size manyfold. Until it was easily the same size as any of us five goblins gathered outside.

“GWOH! Mint! Lumi! Are you seeing this!? Look! Bitey became HUGE!!”

She had redirected the wave of purple energy to converge with the beam of light from my staff as she excitedly said that, and no sooner than she had, a loud explosion occurred and a similarly gigantic entrance just above the one that already existed suddenly appeared.

There was no question we had woken everyone up in the cave, and they all would probably think they were under attack now.

Bitey had leapt down from where it was and landed on the ground. Beastie had run over to it and sat on it no differently than an equestrian would a well-trained horse. Bitey then scaled the outside of Goblinhome quickly and vanished with its new skeleton rider into the massive dark hole.

Magpie must have gone inside as well, because she was nowhere to be seen.

Mint had sat down in the grass and simply stared at the new entrance to the now upper level of Goblinhome with her mouth agape. Nothing but incredulity on her face.

Both Ebony and I had ended our magical assault on the cavern we lived in as soon as the explosion happened. Ebony was waving her black-skinned hand in front of Mint who wasn’t even paying attention to it at all.

Nova had placed her hand on my shoulder, pointing at the new entrance, just as Prima, Jewel, Doll, Stella, Diana Artemis, Button, Orchid and Lilac came running out of the main entrance to Goblinhome, all carrying weapons.

Prima, holding a spear made for inflicting even more grievous damage to a living being than the already wicked enough one that killed me back when I was a human Saintess, was visibly unhappy, and began yelling at us once she saw that there was no one out here but Ebony, Mint, Nova, and Me at the moment. Focusing on Nova first, she quickly rushed over to her and demanded an explanation.

Nova calmly explained what she could to her goblin mother from my side, while Ebony explained what she could from her side. While this was going on, Bitey, still massive in size and shape had exited the new upper cave opening with Beastie holding on tightly to my human father as the bone-spider climbed down the stone face of Goblinhome, landing in front of everyone.

Diana Artemis had pushed through, rushing towards Bitey.

“Is Husband okay!?”

Diana had shot me a glance as she asked, and I reluctantly nodded, pointing at the chapel. It was no secret that I had (limited) healing powers, as even though I was a goblin now, I was still a faithful follower of the Goddess Elara.

Button left, saying she’d go ask Melon to make him something to eat and would bring it back as quickly as possible.  While the rest of the goblins who had come outside all followed me into the chapel, where I would see what kind of healing my human father might need, if any at all.

I say might need, only since he was rather resilient for a human.

While I’d never given it much thought until this moment, I wondered how awful things were for him back when he first arrived here? Most humans who wind up captive to a tribe of goblins don’t ever quite return into the folds of civilized society in quite the same capacity as they left it...