Chapter 156: The Unlucky Man’s Plea

The unlucky man found himself mopping the floors of a minor temple in the Commoner District. When Witt had decided to abandon his old life in Dullwater and travel to Hollow Shade he had expected to find a life full of adventure.

“I definitely didn’t expect this,” Witt sighed.

The grey shale floor seemed clean enough, but the head priest, Elm, wanted to see every hair on his beard’s reflection before he would be satisfied with Witt’s work.

Witt had already finished mopping the hallways and the minor rooms, all that was left was finishing up the main worship room, which was, of course, the largest room.

“Fuuuuck,” Witt whined.

He had been mopping this stupid floor for over two hours. He dropped the mop and walked up the central steps to the temple’s altar. He plopped down on the ground and rested his back on the stone altar.

A marble statue sat in each of the room’s four corners. Each statue depicted one of the four ebon gods. Witt glanced at the tall statue of his patron deity, Stjerne, the Traveler, god of human-kind.

“What did I ever do to deserve this?” Witt asked.

The statue said nothing.

Witt raised an eyebrow, “No, nothing? Not gonna send me a sign? Something like, ‘Witt, get up, you are my chosen, destined hero of Dusk Valley.’ Maybe? Okay, I can see you might be busy traveling or whatever else you gods get up to. I’ll settle with only a bag of money.”

The statue said nothing.

"Figures,” Witt sighed.

He glanced at another corner, at the armored statue of the goddess of war, the patron deity of vampires, the Guardian, Bellum. “Any chance you could send me like a magic sword? It doesn’t have to be as cool as yours with black flames and all that. I’d settle with a sword that just makes me a master swordsman, yeah, that would be pretty cool.”

The statue stood still, yet Witt felt like Bellum was looking down on him with disdain.

Witt raised his hands, “Okay, I get it, I do. You want me to prove myself a great hero first. Believe me, I’d love to. I’ve been waiting for my chance, but so far…”

Witt hung his head, “No one’s given me a chance.”

He turned his head to the statue of the Watcher, patron deity of goblins, Lunae. Her crescent mask failed to cover the smirk the sculptor had added to her chiseled face.

“Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t have hated on goblins,” Witt rolled his eyes.

Everything had started that night he had arrived in Hollow Shade. He had visited a rambunctious tavern. The place was so lively and filled with the scent of delicious food and exotic drinks. Everything was great. It was supposed to be the day Witt’s life of adventure started.

Instead, Witt had accidentally insulted a goblin… mage. Everything had gone downhill from there. He had been knocked unconscious by, well, he couldn’t recall. He assumed the mage had casted some mystic arcane spell that had caused him to blackout.

All Witt knew was that he had woken up in the middle of the night, stripped of all his belongings in an empty street. That damn evil mage.

“And my damn big mouth,” Witt groaned.

“Witt, what are you doing? The children will be here soon for their daily lesson,” a young goblin acolyte stood next to the doorway, arms crossed.

“Oh, Karen, hey, I was just praying to the gods for guidance,” Witt smiled coyishly.

“Do that on your own time, you know how Elm gets when you don’t clean the floors properly.”

Witt raised his index finger, “Ah, but you see, the head priest is off attending that annual temple thingamajiggy with all the other temples’ head priests. Elm won’t be back until the end of the week.”

“It’s called a priestly gathering and that doesn’t give you an excuse to shirk your duties,” Karen frowned.

“It does if you don’t tell Elm,” Witt winked.

“Nah, I think I will,” she said calmly.

Witt threw himself to the floor and bowed, his forehead to the floor, “Please, please, please, don’t tell Elm.”

“Ugh, you’re unbelievable, you know that?” Karen shook her head.

“Is that a yes?”

“You’re gonna cook my breakfast for the next two weeks.”

Witt looked up and smiled, “Deal.”

If there was one thing Witt was confident in beside his handsome looks it was his cooking skills.

“You better or Elm’s gonna kick you to the curb. And put away the mop at least. I’m gonna grab my scrolls before the kids get here,” she turned to leave.

“Sure thing, Karen. And thanks, for everything,” Witt grinned.

“Yeah, whatever,” Karen yawned and walked away.

Well, at least not all goblins were bad. That was something Witt had learned. Karen had been the one who had found him naked that first night after the tavern incident. She had saved him from the wandering undead sentinels and had brought him to her temple.

Witt had somehow managed to beg the head priest to let him stay in exchange for his skills and services, which amounted to cooking and cleaning mainly. At first Elm was going to reject him, but Karen had stood up for him.

She was the only person who had been kind to Witt since he had arrived. When he had first met her, all he could see was a goblin, a strange green creature. He had grown up hearing stories of how dumb and barbaric goblins were. Karen was nothing of the sort.

As the days went by Witt’s opinion of the goblin began to change. Karen seemed more sophisticated than anyone back in Dullwater. She had what people here called “street-smarts.”

Karen was the opposite of a dumb loud brute. She was quiet and deft with her hands. Witt had lost track of the number of times she had beaten him in cards.

More than anything, Witt came to realize that Karen was his friend, perhaps the first true friend he ever had. Which made everything more difficult when Witt realized he liked her more than a friend.

Not that it mattered, Karen only saw him as a dumb country bumpkin. She also called him an ugly human on many occasions, but she thought all human men were ugly, so he didn’t take it to heart. Despite her off-ish countenance Witt didn’t stop stealing glances at her.

Sometimes Witt swore he saw a horrible sadness overtake Karen’s yellow eyes for a brief moment, then she was back to her usual self. He wanted her to be happy, he wanted to help, but he didn’t know how.

“Not that she would ever accept my help,” he muttered.

Witt picked up his mop and looked at the last statue, the Mystery, patron of none, Caligo.

“You bless people who chase after mysteries and try to solve puzzles, right? Well, could you lend me a little help? I swear I’m good for it. I just need a chance to prove to Karen, prove to everyone, that I’m not… useless. I wish I was something, I guess? Ugh, I don’t know.”

Witt leaned on his mop, “I just need a chance, just one.”

The front door of the temple creaked open. Thirty-some children ran into the main worship room. The majority of the kids were around the age of 10, the eldest was 16, while the youngest was barely over 6.

Most of the kids were goblins and humans, yet there were a few dwarves and dark elves, and even a vampire child. Several of the children ran past Witt and began poking at the feet of the statues.

“Hey, don’t touch those, I just finished cleaning them,” Witt called out.

The kids ignored him and posed next to Bellum, pretending to be an elite warrior in the goddess’ mythical Ebon Order.

A few goblin children stood quietly off to the side, shivering from the cold they had just left. Their clothes were torn and dirty and they shied away from the other kids. Witt recognized the orphaned goblins, the temple would usually offer food and a place to stay the night for the orphans of the neighborhood, which were many.

A human woman walked in, holding the hand of her young son. The boy hid behind his mother’s skirt while the mother looked at the room of running children with mild disgust.

The mother caught sight of Witt and sighed with exaggerated relief, “Oh good, a human acolyte. Excuse me, my family and I just moved to Hollow Shade from a village in Dusk Valley. We were told this was the temple that served our neighborhood. Clearly, there must have been a mistake. There are so many other species here.”

The few children that heard the woman said nothing and looked away. One little goblin girl walked up to the woman and placed her tiny hands on her hips.

“What’s wrong with that?” The small girl tilted her head to the side.

The child looked mildly familiar to Witt, though he could have sworn he had never seen her before.

The mother held her palm out, “Stay back! Keep your grubby little hands away from me and my son. Acolyte, you are a servant of Stjerne, yes? Please remove these heathens from our sacred temple.”

The little girl bit her bottom lip, her eyes began to water.

“And I thought the Dullwater people were bad,” Witt muttered.

“What was that?” The woman frowned.

Witt crossed his arms, “Ma’am, I think you have me confused. I’m not an acolyte, I just work here. And I don’t know what sort of backwater village you come from, but Hollow Shade is a place where races of all sorts live. Our temple isn’t only dedicated to Stjerne, we worship all four ebon gods, and we provide services to all the races in the neighborhood, get used to it, or go find another temple.”

The mother’s face grew red, “What sort of nonsense is that!? I demand to speak with an actual acolyte!”

“That would be me,” Karen called out from the doorway.

“You!?” The mother froze between an expression of disbelief and horror.

The goblin acolyte held a bundle of scrolls in her arms. When the children saw Karen they all stopped running and quickly gathered into a line.

“Good afternoon, Miss Karen,” the children said in unison.

All except for one child.

The little goblin girl slowly turned to Karen, “Sis?”

“Sophi?” Karen’s voice cracked.