Monster Empire

by Michael-Scott Earle

“It will be dangerous, Calli,” I told her.

  “I am not afraid of danger.” She searched the room and pointed at a distant corner. “There, that is my trident. No one can survive alone for long down here, but I can defend myself. Let me come with you. I will prove my worth.”

  “I don’t doubt your worth,” I assured her. “We would love to have you, but I don’t know how you can really walk with us because of your fin--”

  “Do you have anything to dry my fins off with?” she interrupted me. “Then my legs will form, and I can walk with you.”

  “Really?” I asked as I looked down at her long green and purple tail.

  “Yes,” she laughed. “That is how sirens work. We prefer the water, but we can walk on land if we need to.”

  “I’ll see if I have anything in my pack for you to wear, but do you have clothes of your own?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, no. I do not like clothes. Too hard to swim with.”

  “Fair enough,” I said as I looked in my pack, but all I could find that would work to dry her off was a spare t-shirt.

  “Well, here,” I said, and handed her my camo t-shirt from my molle pack. “You might as well put this on. We won’t be doing any swimming anytime soon. If we move you closer to the fire, the heat should make the water evaporate quicker.”

  “Good idea,” Calli said and then she wiggled her arms as if she expected me to pick her up and carry her back closer to the pot. Then I realized that she couldn’t really get there without my help, so I cradled her in my arms, stood up from the ground, and then sat back near the cooking fire so that her tail was near the flames. She was kind of in my lap now, and I used my right hand to squeegee water off her scales while I supported her back with my left.

  “He is very enthusiastic,” Calli said as she glanced at Sawsaw, who had taken up her trident and was pretending to stab an enemy.

  “Die, die, die!” he growled.

  “Hey, give Calli her trident, loot all the bodies, and then go keep watch,” I told him.

  “Awww shit,” he said sullenly, and then he set the trident down next to the blonde siren before he shuffled off toward the corpses of the goblins we had just killed.

  Calli dried off her tail with the t-shirt and then pulled it over her head. When she did so, I saw that her scales were starting to turn into human skin, and I caught a glimpse of her tiny pink nipples. She caught me looking at her and grinned devilishly as her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink.

  “I’ve never met a human before,” she admitted as she rested the palm of her hand against my chest. “Are they all as handsome as you?”

  “I don’t know,” I chuckled. “Are all sirens as beautiful as you?”

  “Nope,” she said with a sly grin.

  “I believe it,” I said as I winked at her.

  “After you and your goblin son loot the king’s hoard, where will you go? Where in the underdark is your cove?”

  “We don’t have a cove down here,” I told her. “We live in a house on the surface world.

  “Then it seems that I cannot go with you,” she said sullenly. “I’m sad.”

  “But you can,” I blurted out. “I mean, I have the power to bring monst-- I mean creatures of the underdark up to the surface and into the sunlight.”

  “You do?” she asked as she raised a single blonde eyebrow.

  “Yeah. After we loot the goblin king, you can come with us to the surface. I think that Nika would love to meet you.”

  “Nika?”

  “She’s my wife, and Sawsaw’s mother.”

  “Oh,” Calli said. “But she must be a goblin then.”

  “Yeah, but she’s really nice. Nothing like those stinking little bastards who kidnapped you. She’d love to meet you.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Calli said as she smiled widely. “She sounds very nice. I can’t imagine walking in the sunshine, and swimming in sunlit waters. I have dreamed of it before, but of course I have never done it.”

  Something caught my eye, and I glanced at Calli’s fin. It morphed into two long, slender legs, and my eyes trailed up those long legs to where my t-shirt barely covered up the spot where I assumed her vagina was.

  “Wife, huh?” she asked, and I blinked my eyes a few times as I turned away from her legs to look at her.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Nika actually wanted me to find other women to bring back with us. We are trying to make a big family.”

  “A big family?” she asked as the smile faded from her face, “You don’t want to eat me, do you? A big family needs food.”

  “No,” I laughed. “I was thinking about something more like marriage. I- I mean, we want more kids.” I gestured to where Sawsaw walked in the cavern.

  “With different women?” she asked, and her big blue eyes grew even larger.

  “That’s the plan,” I said, “but ahhh, we can figure that out later. First, we need to get the treasure, and then we have to go back.”

  “Okay,” Calli said, and the smile returned to her face as she gestured down to her legs. “Now I am ready to quest with you. Can you help me stand?”

  “Sure,” I said as I helped her up.

  She went to the corner to grab her trident, and I watched her bend over at the waist to pick up the weapon. The movement showed me the perfect shape of her long legs, the pertness of her ass cheeks, and the shape of her bare vulva. I’d been right with my guess that she had a human looking vagina, and I had trouble tearing my eyes away before she turned around to walk back to me.

  “You see or hear anything, soldier?” I asked Sawsaw when Calli and I walked over to him.

  “Sawsaw,” he said as he shook his head in the negative.

  “Alright, let's get going back to the rail,” I said. “It looks like we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

  The old abandoned mining railroad led through the cavern and then veered right through a narrow passage. I led the way, and Sawsaw took up the rear as we moved quietly through the darkness. When we reached the mining tracks, I reminded them to stay on the tracks like Nika had warned. My flashlight revealed nothing dangerous on the sides of the rail, but I knew that in the underdark, one could never let down their guard.

  About ten minutes into our journey, the narrow tunnel opened up to a massive cavern that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, and I stopped at the entrance and motioned for the others to halt. The rail continued on through the abyss, held up by a shoddy-looking trellis bridge that looked as if it was going to crumble if someone blew on it too hard. Despite my misgivings, I slowly walked out onto the bridge to test its strength, and then sighed with relief when the wood only let out a whisper of a moan with my weight on it.

  I shined my light back on the wall to check for other passages and monsters, but I found nothing besides the stone walls, and then I motioned for the others to follow me across the bridge.

  It took us twenty minutes to reach the other side of the cavern, and when the bridge ended, I let out another sigh of relief. The rail ran past a large pile of discarded mining equipment, continued through the stone and down a wide tunnel, and then twisted around a corner that was flush with a glow of light. It might just be more crystals, but it might also be the goblin city, so I pressed my finger to my lips and glanced back at Calli and Sawsaw. They nodded, and we slowly crept toward the light. When we reached the end, my hunch that it was the city was proven correct, and we got down on all fours and crawled to the end of the tunnel so we could look down upon the city.

  What I saw took my breath away.

  The cavern was perhaps a half mile long and just as wide. Hundreds of stalagmites rose up out of the floor, and in them, dozens of windows glowed with soft light. Nika said that it had once belonged to the dwarves, and I marveled at their clever architecture. Rope bridges and spiraling staircases connected the many stalagmites together like some sort of complicated spiderweb mixed with anthills. There were homes down on the cavern floor as well, a hundred feet bel
ow my perch, but these consisted of shoddy huts and crooked shacks. Nika had explained that the goblins on the bottom lived in squalor while those who were smarter or more cunning lived inside the comfortable earthen towers.

  The largest of all the stalagmites was also the closest to my position, and it sat off to the right. This was the king’s palace, and somewhere in the rooms below the treasure waited. Between the foot of the cliff face below us and the king’s stalagmite. Two twenty foot high boulders created a bit of an alcove that would conceal our descent down the cliff. It meant that we’d probably be able climb up and down the cliff face without being seen by the casual goblin citizenry, but I still didn’t want to do anything that would draw too much attention to our presence.

  I motioned to Calli and Sawsaw, and they joined me on the ridge. As we spied on the city, a loud congregation that looked like a hunting party entered the cavern from the left of our location. As soon as this group entered the city, other goblins emerged from the huts below and rushed out onto the balconies of the stalagmite towers to cheer for them.

  I told the others to stay low and watched as the procession moved through the crowded streets. Some rode giant lizards, and the others marched on each side of the lumbering beasts. One lizard pulled dozens of shackled kobolds behind it, and the pathetic chain gang hung their heads low as they were led into the city. Another lizard dragged a dead spider the size of a VW Beetle behind it, and Sawsaw tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Holy shit,” he said under his breath, and I had to agree.

  The city of goblins greeted the raiders like returning heroes and showered them with puffy moss as they strode through the city streets. Goblin street children rushed up to the spider and tried to hack off a piece of the leg, but were shooed away by the warriors. The other peasants threw rocks and rotten food at the captive kobolds, and I imagined myself, Nika, and Sawsaw receiving the same treatment if we were ever captured.

  I shook the thought from my mind and motioned for Sawsaw and Calli to move back into the tunnel.

  “Alright, here’s the plan,” I told them as I pulled another map out of my pocket. “This is the cliff behind us,” I said and pointed at the map. “That giant stalagmite is the goblin king’s palace. Nika said that the secret passageway is behind the palace, and will lead to the king’s quarters. From there we need to go down this hall here, and down into the vault. Nika told me that there was a minotaur in here, so you two stay back until I give the all clear. Once I kill him, and we get inside, we’ll grab everything we can carry and haul ass back up the cliff. Any questions?”

  “A minotaur?” Calli asked. “But they are some of the fiercest creatures in the underdark, are you sure that you won’t need help?”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said as I reached down to pat the handle of my M17.” I have a magic boomstick.”

  “Ohhhh,” Calli said as her blue eyes grew big.

  “Any other questions?”

  “I have another one,” Calli said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you guys always have this much fun?” she asked excitedly.

  “Sawsaw,” my son told her with a happy nod.

  “Alright,” I said, “Does everyone know the plan?”

  They both nodded.

  “Good, let’s do this.”

  I tied off my rope to a large glowing crystal and peeked over the ledge. The drop was about a hundred feet, and at the bottom there was a small pile of rubble. There were no guards patrolling the perimeter of the king’s palace, so I tossed down the rope.

  Sawsaw went first, but I couldn’t see him as he shimmied down the rope in invisible mode. I went next, and Calli followed close behind. When I glanced up to see how she was doing, I was reminded that she wasn’t wearing any bottoms. It was hard to focus with her cute little ass sticking out as she rappelled down the cliff face, but I managed to make it to the bottom without falling.

  “Where is your trident?” I asked when Calli and I both got to the bottom.

  “I couldn’t carry it down,” she whispered as she pointed up to the top of the cliff. “I’m not used to climbing with my arms. I hope that is okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “You are just going to be carrying treasure.”

  Sawsaw went out of his camouflage mode and excitedly waved us over to where he was peering from behind a boulder.

  “Sawsaw,” he said as he pointed at the gap between the two boulders that concealed our alcove. The passage between the two boulders created a bit of a tunnel, and it seemed to lead right toward the base of the king’s stalactite.

  “Good job, Little Dude,” I said.

  I went into the tunnel first, followed by Sawsaw and Calli. Just as the map said, the secret passage led to a big grate in the floor of the king’s quarters. When we reached a grate in the ceiling of the tunnel, I realized that the tunnel I was in must have been some sort of irrigation trench built by the much cleverer dwarves.

  The three of us waited inside the tunnel and listened. I could hear a loud group of goblins celebrating somewhere in the palace, most likely toasting the king’s birthday, but none of the voices sounded very close.

  “Alright, follow my lead, and be quiet,” I told the other two.

  The grate simply sat on the floor of the room above me, and I had no trouble moving it aside. Then I crawled into the circular room.

  I could hardly see a thing through the gloom, but I could make out some furniture and a big stone bed covered with furs, so I motioned the others to wait as I snuck over to the big wooden door. I opened it up a crack, and I peered out into the hallway. A torch burned on the wall, but aside from that it was empty.

  Music and voices carried from deeper in the structure, but the sounds were far away and muffled. I motioned for Sawsaw and Calli to join me, and together we crept out into the hall. I found the stairwell that Nika had told me about and descended it quietly. The party continued above us, but no sounds came from below.

  At the end of the stairs, there was a big metal door, and to my dismay, I found it locked. I peered through the keyhole and saw light in the room that looked the same shade as the glowing crystals found in other parts of the underdark.

  “We’ve got a problem,” I told the other two. “The door is locked.”

  “Sawsaw,” the half-goblin boy said as he moved around me and set down his molle pack.

  He rummaged through it, pulled out what looked like two tiny shanks, put both of the small metal blades into the keyhole, and then wiggled them around with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. After about ten seconds, there was a click, and Sawsaw turned to grin at me.

  “Where did you get those and just how did you learn how to do that?” I asked with a soft chuckle.

  “Mamma,” he said proudly as he put his tools away.

  “Good job, buddy,” I said as I patted him on the head. Then I took hold of the door handle and took a deep breath. “I’ll let you both know when I’ve taken care of the minotaur?”

  “Do you need any help with your boomstick?” Calli asked, and I saw that her eyes were looking down, but not at my holstered gun.

  “I think I’ve got this, babe,” I said as I pulled my M17 from its holster. In truth, I was a bit worried about taking out a minotaur, since my 9mm bullets had been a bit ineffective against the bugbear earlier, but this time I did have a different strategy.

  I’d aim for the head.

  If the vault door was anything to go by, I guessed that the walls beyond were extremely thick, and with the noise coming from upstairs, I had no worries about someone hearing a gunshot.

  I slowly opened the door, and it swung quietly on its hinges. A quick peek into the room didn’t reveal a minotaur lying in wait, but what I did see took my breath away.

  The vault was at least forty feet in diameter, and it reminded me of Scrooge McDuck’s swimming pool full of money. The vault held thousands upon thousands of gold coins. Stacks of the riches were piled up the sides of the walls, spilled out
of treasure chests, and burst from fat sacks. Aside from the gold, there were diamonds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, and endless varieties of other precious stones. There were weapons and armor as well, along with silver chalices, large statuettes, golden goblets, fine silverware, plates, and mugs.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Nika had said that her father had a lot of treasure, but I had no idea this was what she meant.

  I crossed the threshold and closed the door behind me. The treasure gleamed in the light of the glowing crystals, and I tore my eyes away to search for the minotaur who was supposedly guarding the treasure. I didn’t see any such beast in the chamber, and I wondered if perhaps Nika had been mistaken about the guardian.

  Then I saw that one of the gold statues depicted a ten foot tall man with a bull’s head. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, and even though the statue did look inert, I still pointed my gun at it. There were a dozen or so gilded statues surrounding the minotaur, but they were mostly dwarves, so I crept toward the group of them and watched the bull’s eyes and its chest for movement. As I drew closer, I compared its gilded skin to that of the other statues, but it was buried in gold and treasure up to the ankles just like the others and didn’t seem to be breathing.

  I didn’t think it was real, but I had to make sure, so I grabbed a heavy gold coin and threw it at the statue. The coin hit it in the chest, but it didn’t make a metallic sound.

  It made the sound of a coin thudding against flesh.

  The statue suddenly came alive, tucked its head, and charged horns first.

  I was ready for the attack and took careful aim at its head before I squeezed the trigger. The golden paint was replaced by a gaping red hole as the bullet tore through the monster’s skull and exploded out the back. The monster dropped hard, slid across the gold coins, and then stopped at my feet.

  “There’s a new sheriff in town,” I said in my best cowboy sounding voice, then I aimed my gun at the remaining statues and tossed coins at each of them. A resounding metallic clink told me that they weren’t alive, so I holstered my M17 and looked at the corpse of the golden bull-man. I remembered Nika’s insistence that I get my hands on minotaur balls if I could, and though I didn’t want to perform the dirty deed, I knew that she would be disappointed if I didn’t.