(Discretion advised: Contains questionable/retroactive consent, deliberately disgusting and disturbing imagery)
There was a bitter taste in Leigh's mouth as she realized she was awake, sitting on her bedspread and holding an emptied bottle of amnesia potion. Oh well, there was something that yesterday's self didn't want her to know, not that uncommon.
There was a subtle hum in the air as Leigh warmed up the mana reactor for the morning as she always did. The thing, which sieved the more energetic particles of mana out of the air throughout the night and stored them to be directed throughout her tower's systems, had cost a pretty penny which she did not in fact have to pay back just yet, sinking a whole year's proceeds from adventuring into the principal on the loan for the parcel of land her tower was on and the reactor, which at the moment had been used only for lighting and appliances. The savings in time for not having to employ servants or worse, use her own magic to make daily chores acceptably easy, had been spent in the preparations toward executing on the work which she would set about doing this day.
She had purchased this parcel from a local lord who apparently did not see the same value in it that she did and she felt no need to inform him of his mistake. Not that he would be able to eke the same value out of this thick, hilly forest without destroying the very thing she'd sought it out for. It was just her good fortune that mages in good standing often chose to set up out in the wilderness in order to pursue their studies of magic away from the distractions of society. Leigh herself at the tender age of twenty-two was perhaps a little too young for this approach to make sense, but anyone who had been in an adventuring party and split up the horde of a dragon could be expected to use up their share of gold right away on frivolity.
Stepping into the dressing room, she spied that her curly, chestnut hair was again falling over her ears and she considered summoning up an imp to take it down a few inches. She'd gotten used to a boyish cut during her adventures after an incident while clearing out a tomb had burnt off a large portion while it hung to her hips and the party's rogue had taken the initiative to chop the rest roughly off. It wouldn't be that bad as it was, even as something to potentially be grabbed by a monster, so she just ran a brush through it until her tangled bedhead was relieved.
Breakfast was already cooking when she stepped into the dining room, made by an imp whose summoning circle was built into the kitchen counter and activated upon the opening of her bedroom door, one use of thaumaturgy Leigh was particularly proud of.
Her other little point of pride brought the platter holding breakfast into the room, his green head bobbing as he walked. The goblin slipped his delivery of sausages and an omelette into her space at the table and calmly walked to his own where his own serving already sat. Timmie was rather well behaved for one of that hateful little breed, even spreading a handkerchief over his bony lap, though Leigh had spent months of conditioning to get his manners to this height.
"Washed your hands, did you?" she said.
Timmie flipped up his hands, showing that indeed he had even taken care to get the dirt from beneath his claws. Trimming those would be important in the future, but for her plan to bear fruit, the little man would need to resemble his near-animal brethren to a large enough degree to pass without notice in their home.
Something she found humorous, washing a goblin left its chronically filth-covered green skin two or three shades lighter, not quite minty.
"Once we have finished our meal, the two of us will be going out for a walk to the hole you found for me last week." Leigh extended an ethereal hand into the space above Timmie's head and gave it a brief pat as a reward. The sparse, stringy hair she felt under the magic hand's fingers would be another bit of grotesquerie to be ameliorated in the days to come. "Prepare rations for a half day and a coat. We wouldn't want you to come down with something, would we?"
He flopped his head back and forward in a mock nod, his long ears nearly slapping against the side of his cheeks. The creature was still an imbecile after all, but the ears were oddly endearing, almost elfin if it weren't for the nibbles his mates had taken out of them before Leigh caught him.
They ate in silence, as though goblins technically had the capacity and anatomy for speech, one from an area like this with a dismal human population and outside the domain of any demonic lords looking for cheap cannon fodder would not have the need for it. In fact, it had been a major difficulty in studying the damnable creature's history as they did not have a tradition of oral storytelling, Leigh had never heard of a goblin writing a single thing down, and they rarely made artifacts beyond a thing tied to another thing. Piecing together a history had taken a great deal of crystal gazing and then had only revealed that they were goblins now as they were goblins millennia before, wallowing in the wading pool of evolution. From the garbage heap of creation, the ravening creatures could perhaps call Timmie over there, stuffing his face with sausage, the peak of their culture.
Yes, Timmie, the one who, upon Leigh leaving her tower, it was discovered failed to properly pack the rations and was in fact simply holding them in the crook of his elbow, one bar of oats and dried berries clenched between his gnarly teeth. And, seeing her disappointment, spat the remaining half in with the rest of them, contrived to look apologetic.
No matter, she thought as they walked; she'd made sure to have enough for herself in her own bag along with her potions and varied pouches of supplies. It was hard enough to bear eating off a plate one of these monsters had touched, when her years of adventuring had shown it necessary after finishing an extermination to have oneself cleansed at a nearby church or shrine to ensure one didn't come down with a pox. These days, knowing that she would have to interact with the disgusting creatures on a regular basis, Leigh carried always an ampoule which would do the same and not incur an offering to whatever backwater god happened to be worshiped locally.
While she kept an eye out on the way, following Timmie, Leigh knew very well that there wouldn't be much in the way of herbs to collect. If there had been anything worth taking away from this land, she wouldn't have gotten it at such a premium, now would she? Pallswort, every once in a while she could spot peeking out of the underbrush, but those small, brownish flowers were only really good for chewing to get rid of bad breath. And one would think that she would grab this up to have Timmie gnawing at all times, but while it did effectively clear up the sour, rotting-meat smell, its taste was so repulsive that she didn't even feel right making the goblin chew it.
And anyway, teaching him to brush his damn horrible teeth was working well enough at the moment.
Timmie stopped suddenly and sniffed the air, they were close. He received his head-pats for being a good boy and Leigh pulled out a collapsible spyglass to scout ahead.
Sure enough, there was the hole into the goblin tribe's warren, set into the side of a small hill, and a couple of the males were dragging inside the carcass of a boar that they had taken down that night. It was apparent that they hadn't been able to do so without taking their share and more already, gouges in the poor animal's flesh correlating to the hunters' bulging bellies. Hard to blame them for indulging when they brought home the prize, and would get a similarly small portion as they left behind when it was one of their fellows bringing it in, as was more than evident as goblins were endemically starving at almost all times.
Welp, time to get to the point. Leigh pressed a bottle of purplish liquid into Timmie's hand and he went along with the plan, dashing into the warren to find his way down into the deepest depth and once there, pull the cork.
A minute later, there was a poof of purple gas from the entrance and Leigh strolled to it with the certainty of one who had herself created the sleeping potion, earning herself a day and a half nap on her lab's floor when her glassware had turned out not to be completely air-tight. A slumbering goblin by the hole's entrance, the furthest point from the epicenter of the effect, further assured her sense of safety as she bent double to half-crawl inside.
Only a few steps inside, the light from the outside was entirely cut off. At this point, her former adventuring party would have broken out the torches, but Leigh had been at work even then to make something which would make the smoking, choking things obsolete: a salve she slipped out of her pocket and swiped across her eyelids, granting her perfect vision in this underground space as though the ceiling was open to the sky without drawing attention to herself with the glow of firelight.
Not that it made the structure of these tunnels that much easier to navigate. The tunnel to the surface was itself straight but there were branching tunnels coming off it and obscuring where each path might have led. In soft clay like this, Leigh assumed each member of the pack would feel comfortable digging out their own space and thus complicate it beyond reason. But goblins were, as a rule, moronic, so the main chamber would be predictably beneath the root system of the tree on the hill where the structural integrity was best.
Brushing her shoulders against the walls, Leigh tried her best to make her way forward without falling to her knees. Cave systems were better or worse than this and she didn't feel like complaining, but hoped she would have to go inside herself minimally in the years to come.
Down here there was a stench like rancid meat and body odor, not to mention the... waste... Her nose would eventually grow numb to the smell, experience said, so Leigh continued, swallowing the beginnings of vomit and waiting for her brain to get it done.
As predicted, the primary nest was right where the roots stabilized the ceiling, a bit of taproot poking through the dirt. It was finally large enough for Leigh to stand and stretch, grateful and pushing the incipience of back pain out of her mind.
