“What kind of ficked up question is that?”
“It’s a logical question,” she told him.
“Goblins don’t do logic,” said Aya with an eye roll. “I have learned this the hard way, time and time again.”
“Yeah? Well at least I’m not a fickered lizard…” Spew started to say, his hand falling on his dagger.
“Easy, guys,” I told them as a cloaked form pushed through the door. It was another goblin, and as soon as he threw his hood back, Spew Gorge shrieked.
“Hiccup?”
“Fick, fick, fick… Fick! Fick? Spewy? Fick!” The goblin had a pink topknot with bits of white in it. He was severely overweight, with what looked like barbecue sauce (or blood) smeared across his face. “Fick me, kid, you’re friends with the band? Fick yeah, Spewy!”
“This is who I was telling you about,” Spew Gorge said, looking at his relative suspiciously.
“Jeebus fick, Spewester, easy with the hangry eyes. And fick whatever you’re already accusing me of!”
Spew Gorge squinted at his uncle. “I’m not fickin’ accusing you of anything, except for barging in here un-fickin’-announced!”
“Un-fickin’-announced? What kind of ficker going around in a fickin’ cloak wants to be announced? Fick! I know it wasn’t me who dropped you on your head back in Jatla when you were a little fickster. Well, it could have been. But truth be told, I never really held you that much when you were a baby. You fickin’ shit your pants too much.”
“Fick you, Hiccup!” Spew said, raising his fist.
“Let’s not get too irritable with each other,” Iris said, stepping between them.
“Who the fick is the lady with glasses?” Hiccup asked, his voice lowering. “Also, why in the fick are you hanging out with a buttfickered ink shadow? You know a shadow took my arm, right?”
The goblin beat on his arm, a metallic sound discernible even under his cloak.
“If an ink shadow took your arm, why do you have an arm now?” Lady C. asked.
Hiccup growled. “Listen here, Warrior Barbie, if it wasn’t for this Swedish fickster named Twixy, I wouldn’t have this damn mechanical contraption. Fick! He hooked me up, and believe you me, this arm has gotten me out of several sticky situations, but it’s fickin’ terrible for yanking your chalupa.”
“Hold on, hold on…” Iris looked to me for confirmation, and I shrugged. I had no idea who the goblin was talking about. “Did you say FeeTwix? As in FeeTwix Fajer, the famous Swedish gamer and founding member of the Mitherfickers?”
Hiccup snorted, his eyes narrowing on Iris. “Founding ficking member? Twixy? Can you fickin’ believe this shit, Spewy?”
“Fick you, Hiccup!”
“Who the fick told you Twixy was a founding member? I’m the one that founded the Mitherfickers, and hell, I’m the one that recruited his huckster ass!”
“Who are the Mitherfickers again?” I asked, looking to anyone for support, and getting absolutely none. Aya still had her hand on the hilt of her sword, ready to cut the goblin down if he tried anything funny. Altsoba was no longer interested in the goblin, taking a rip of Dalton’s bong instead. Lady C. seemed interested, albeit slightly confused.
“Who are the Mitherfickers? Pfft!” Hiccup stomped his feet against the ground. “I swear to Busty Gazongas that revisionist history is going to be the fickin’ death of the Proxima Galaxy. For your information… Not Marbles, yes, I’ll call you Not Marbles.”
“Why?”
“Because you aren’t Marbles, you fickered dotard turd-fickin’ ficktard. Fick me to tears, how did I end up here?” Hiccup shook his head with disdain. “Anyway, if you must know, the Mitherfickers are probably the most famous guild ever to exist in the Proxima Galaxy, blah, blah, blah, save the fickin’ galaxy, best guild ever, blah, blah, what-the-fick-ever, blah, blah, make Tritania great again. You get the fickin’ idea. P.S. I’m including the Knights of Non Compos Mentis in my statement. Those fickers only wish they could be as cool as we were. Totally cool and totally legal, I just want to add that part too. Fick!”
“Okay, this is all starting to make sense to me now,” Iris said with a smile. “Nice to meet you, Hiccup, and I’m glad your cousin… Or was it nephew?”
“Son.”
“I’m not your fickin’ son, Hiccup!”
“Spewy, you and I both know I banged my aunt, who happens to be your mom. That makes you my fickin’ son, and sure, chalk it up to some Lannister fanfic, but fick, that’s what fickin’ happened. And as your father, I think you should speak with respect when you talk to your fickin’ elders.”
“Fick you! I knew this was a bad idea…”
“You and me both, Spewy.” Hiccup burped, and when he was finished doing that, he scratched his ass. “You know, I have a scratch somewhere on my left ass cheek that just never goes away. Might be an infection. Fickin’ eczema is a possible explanation as well. I still don’t have healthcare. And you are right, Not Marbles, the Mitherfickers are a shit guild for not giving me fickin’ healthcare. I hope your banjo-playing ass has some healthcare in this dojo. Fick. The Mitherfickers tried to offer me an FSA account, but the rules for that were too fickin’ confusing, so I told them to fick off. Their high-deductible plan can eat a chalupa too!”
“Well, like I was saying, it is been nice to meet you,” I offered my hand to the goblin, who looked at it suspiciously.
“Say, you guys aren’t getting paid for this gig, are you?”
“That we are, goblin,” said Dalton on the tail end of a bong cough.
“The goblin has a fickin’ name, you octopus ink-gasm mitherfickered shit dollop!” Hiccup grunted, and after settling his nerves, he looked to me with big, puppy dog eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to have some money I could borrow, would you?”
“Hiccup!” Spew Gorge hissed. If Dalton was offended by the goblin, he didn’t show it. The ink shadow moved back to his bong and took another long rip off it before handing it off to Altsoba.
“Listen, Spewy,” Hiccup said under his breath, “if you have rich friends, it’s important for you to introduce those rich friends to me. Would I do the same for you? Fick no. But I might. No, I wouldn’t. But I would at least fickin’ think about it. And you should show me the same fickin’ hospitality!”
“Of course the goblin needs money,” said Aya.
“Goblins always need money,” Altsoba added.
“Not in Unigaea they didn’t,” Lady C. chimed in. “The goblins there were pretty successful, especially when it came to craft arts.”
“Unigaea?” Hiccup shook his head at the Metican warrior. “Don’t you dare compare a Tritanian goblin to a Unigaean goblin, Warrior Barbie! That’s like comparing a field of wet virgins to a field of fickin’ corpses. But I appreciate your support. It’s good to know that there is at least one NPC in your little group here who isn’t a racist.”
“Why do you need money again?” I asked.
“What the fick kind of question is that? I need money because I made a couple of bets with a few local ink shadows, and they are all joining together to collect on my fickered ass. Kingdom Ignis is pretty serious about debt collection. They will let those fickers fillet me just to get a few measly Proxima dollars, roast me up good too. It’s fickin’ cruel. I tells ya!”
“And how many Proxima dollars do you owe?” Iris asked.
“Maybe twenty thousand, thirty? You know what, how about you just lend me forty thousand and we will fickin’ call it even?”
“Do not lend the goblin money,” Aya said, “unless you understand that you are not lending, you are giving. Goblins do not repay their debts.”
“These fickin’ lizards,” Hiccup said, glaring at Aya and looking to Spew Gorge for support. “Sure, I may not repay my debt, but I can do you one better.”
“What’s that?” I asked him.
Hiccup offered her a shit-eating grin. “I can join you. I’m sick of this kingdom anyway. Too many hot-fickered ficktwats running around with fir
e dicks. Hell, one of the orc chippies I recently had the displeasure of meeting shot fire out of her nipples. Almost burnt my eyebrows off. It was fickin’ terrible.”
I glanced at Iris skeptically and noticed that she was nodding, an intrigued look on her face.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“Yes, you can join us,” Iris said.
Aya scoffed. “We are allowing another goblin into our group?”
“Not just any goblin, Uncle Goblin, and we all know why you want me in the group,” Hiccup said, turning and pointing at himself with both thumbs.
“He’s not wrong,” said Iris. “Check out his stats. Aside from that, he is a Mitherficker, and as someone who has been following FeeTwix for years, I know better than to turn away a Mitherficker.”
“Well, well, well, I see who the smart one in the group is,” Hiccup said, making a ‘gimme gimme’ gesture with his fingers. “Now if you don’t mind, please transfer that fickin’ cashola to me so I can get these ink shadows off my ass. Seriously, these guys are some real twisted ficks. One of them threatened to peel my skin off with a hot butter knife and stuff it up my own arsehole while he let a bunch of ghosts shove their pencil dicks in my ears.” Hiccup shuttered. “Fick. Seriously, fick.”
As I looked from Iris to the goblin, Hiccup’s stats appeared before me.
She wasn’t lying, this one was definitely one of the rarer mythcrea, and we would all level up by allowing him to join our group.
“Damn,” I said as I looked as his stat sheet. With thirty-five tokens, Spew Gorge’s Uncle (or father?) would push Iris and me up to Level Five, it would also up the Huntresses’ levels.
“Stop staring, you fickered pedo,” he told me with a grunt. “Now, let’s get the fick out of here; I’m so sick of being in this fickin’ musician’s closet.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
With the addition of Hiccup, Iris and I had gained a level, which of course, spawned a level gain for Aya and Lady C.
All in all, a good “capture,” even if Hiccup came with some baggage. I had waited until we rode our lightning steeds back to the dojo to officially bring Hiccup into the group, which only took a moment.
Basically, he stood before me with a disgruntled look on his face as he turned into a burst of light, only to reappear in the same space.
According to Iris, it was a miracle in itself that we had been able to take such a high level mythcrea, at which point Hiccup claimed he wasn’t some “fickin’ mythological creature,” and went on to ramble about racism, classism and windmill cancer in Kingdom Ventus.
“I’m fickin’ hungry,” he said mid rant, looking to Spew Gorge.
“Don’t fickin’ look at me!”
“Who else am I supposed to fickin’ look at? It’s clear no one is pointing me toward the buffet, and I figured if anyone here knew where to re-up my carbs, it would be a fickin’ goblin.”
“There’s a cafeteria of sorts in the dojo,” Iris told me. “Some of the other mythcrea take turns making meals. I’m sure Sun Wukong has whipped something up.”
“Sun Wu-fick, eh?” Hiccup snorted. “Fick, as long as it’s dragon wings, we’re good. If he tries to feed me anything vegan, there’s going to be hell to pay. Mark my word, fickers. Peace out.”
And with that, the cantankerous goblin was gone, but not before letting off a parting poot that lingered long enough for us to actively move away. Spew Gorge eventually followed, cursing under his breath as he caught up to his… relative.
“We really need to reconsider who we let into our guild,” Aya said. Altsoba stood next to her, nodding in agreement, her eyes a bit glazed over from whatever Dalton had in his bong.
“It gained us all a level,” I reminded them.
“But at what cost, Chase?” The Thulean yawned. “It has been a long day, and long days deserve long nights. I guess it doesn’t translate as well as I would like it to. But you know what I’m saying. Until we hunt again.”
Aya headed to her cabin, her big sword clinking against her back as she walked.
“What about you?” Iris asked me.
“I was planning on sleeping in my hotel in New York. I think I’ll check out tomorrow.”
“That’s probably a good idea. That place has to be expensive.”
“I also wanted to possibly check out the Steeple. And…” I looked across the field to see the mythcrea Cloning Pen. “I want to see how our Mitchell clones are doing as well.”
“Yes, I was meaning to ask you about that…” Iris said as she followed me toward the Cloning Pen. Lady C. walked alongside Iris, as did Altsoba, the strange woman not saying a word.
“And to recap, your plan is to just continually attack his dojo, right?”
“Not me, the trolls,” I told Iris.
“And they are all being kept in that building?”
“Actually, I never really thought about that part…”
We stepped inside and I saw that the machine had naturally consolidated the clones. The main Mitchell was still there, as well as a test replicant, and there was now a green number floating in the air letting us know how many clones had been made.
“Just hit the seventy-five-mark, boss,” Mitchell said. “I wish this thing was faster.” The troll lightly kicked the machine.
“Easy with the merchandise,” I told him.
“We will have an army soon though,” he said, flashing a devious grin at us.
“I will lead the charge,” said Altsoba, who had morphed into a female version of Mitchell. “It would be my pleasure to lead this battle.”
“I can fight my own battles!” Mitchell said, his pinky finger in his nose as he dug around for treasure.
“I still don’t know if this is the best way to handle William,” Iris started to say, “but we have bigger things to deal with, like the fact that the tournament starts tomorrow. And you’re going to be there, right?”
“I told you I was,” I said. “I can’t let you win this thing alone…”
She smiled, her cheeks pressing against the bottom of her glasses. “Good, because I will need your help. And don’t be so certain that we will win. Just because we have done relatively well so far, does not mean our luck will continue.”
“Luck is a bitch and a half,” Mitchell said, with his pinky finger still in his nose. “At least that is something my mom used to say. She was a gambler. Not a very good one either.”
A ding indicated that another clone had been produced, the green number in front of us moving up by one.
“I suppose the Steeple can wait,” I told Iris with a yawn. “We have already done a lot of riding today. I’m actually experiencing a little pain on the inside of my thighs.”
“Horses will do that to you.”
“We should’ve stayed in Kingdom Ignis with Dalton and his drows,” said Lady C. “That would have been a crazy time.”
I looked to see if she was actually being serious. Before leaving the club, Dalton had rounded up several women with fiery red hair, two of them drows and the third a woman with ram’s horns.
“I was surprised that Hiccup didn’t join him,” the Metican warrior said. “He seemed interested.”
Iris laughed as we stepped out of the Cloning Pen. “He almost did, but then he kept rambling about how we shouldn’t trust ink shadows. What’s with goblins and ink shadows anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Lady C. said. “I never noticed that problem in Unigaea. But there really weren’t many ink shadows. I think the only ones known to exist lived on the coastline near Drachma. I never really went over there. though.”
I turned to see if Altsoba was going to follow us out.
“Looks like our shifter is already going over invasion plans with Mitchell,” Iris said as she stretched her hands over her head.
I nodded as I looked out to the meadow, and from there to the Steeple, the top of which was currently green.
And to think I owned that property…
“So tomorrow, you ready?�
��
“Definitely,” I said. “It starts in the late afternoon, right?”
“It does. And I have class in the morning, so I’ll get done with that, and then I’ll log in to start training.”
“Got it,” I told her as I raised my hand, the logout button appearing. “See you in a bit.”
Chapter Six: Growing Pains
“Yes, that’s right, I’m checking out,” I told the humandroid hotel clerk. After a good night’s sleep, and a sizable breakfast, I was ready to return to my own bed for the night.
“Great, and did you enjoy your stay?” the humandroid female asked. She was thin, with her hair combed over to one side and shaved on the other.
“It was great,” I told her.
“I can see that,” she said, her eyes dilating some.
It had happened to me once or twice before, but it definitely wasn’t a normal occurrence. A flashing indicator on my iNet screen told me that the humandroid woman wanted to connect.
Seriously? I thought, smiling at her nervously.
I ignored the message for now.
My life was already about to get complicated enough without adding another droid to the mix.
It did feel good to be wanted, though, and I offered her a little wave as I stepped into the elevator. Once again, strange circus music met my ears as the doors shut, my attention shifting to another pair of travelers inside the elevator with me.
“Weird music, huh?” a guy who I assumed was from the south asked. He had sort of a country look going on with his plaid shirt and jeans; the woman next to him also wore a similar outfit, although hers was more form-fitting.
“I swear,” she said, “they’re always playing some kind of crazy music in the elevator.”
I simply shrugged, waiting for the door to open.
The music wasn’t that crazy.
It was a bit of a walk, but I figured a stroll through Midtown would be nice for me, and besides, I wanted to get a little exercise before I spent the next twelve hours of my life logged in to the Proxima Galaxy.
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