The Maid and Her Princess

Tritorjan, Desecrated Town (Goblin Eschaton 5)

V.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Audrey urged Madoka to follow. "Don't wanna have the guild people after us!"

"Why don't we just stay put, then?" Madoka grumbled. She smoothed her clothes and peeked over her shoulders but only saw the dead ogre's lumpy toes. She groaned but hurried after Audrey over the moat of dead bodies.

"'Cause that's boring!" Audrey moved deeper in. Madoka sighed, since deep down she was bored and itching for action.

Or, she just liked only being near her princess.

"Kind gods," she breathed. "There's nothing left, isn't there?"

"Nuttin' but the rocks and the dead, amen," Audrey spoke in that odd accent of hers. She called it a Southerner's accent dismissively like a joke, but to Madoka it sounded like another way to use the language of the Gods. "Like destruction from the Almighty, all hands are feeble, buildings are rubble, and hearts are dismayed... or something like that. Never liked that book."

The street was broken up as if a giant descended down and battered through it with his fists, or like frozen ice sheets breaking off into individual dangerous islands floating down a river. The few skeletons of buildings that still stood were coated and smeared by a mysterious brown substance that the maid did not dare to touch.

What secret could they find here? Madoka wondered. Audrey suddenly grew silent as they approached a building. There were still goblins roaming around in this place, she realized. A humming noise could be heard on the inside. They crept along the rundown walls when she noticed the purple mist slithering through its destroyed windows.

Grant us ears.
To hear our enemies crushed.
Come to us.
O, come to us and speak your tall form into our new ears.

Prayer? Madoka deciphered the odd thoughts. Someone, or something, was heard struggling through the burnt walls. She peeked quietly above a shattered window to investigate. Audrey's body crept close beside hers.

The sight almost made her gasp. Bodies were strewn about of unknown origins and piles of frozen severed ears were in the room's center amidst the rubble. Madoka averted her gaze from the messes and maintained her composure, only to find the source of those odd prayers. There were four goblins wearing robes and seemed to be taller than the normal ones she destroyed last night. They were dragging a sack that contained someone struggling inside it.

She moved to attack but Audrey stopped her. Madoka gave her a look but the princess simply nodded back at the sack. A green hand wriggled through a hole.

"Chanting?" Audrey whispered. "A sacrifice?"

"Quiet," Madoka warned her. They watched the creature struggle in the sack until the taller goblins hurled it brutally overhead and she heard the floorboards splinter under its impact. It shrieked in pain while the others chattered strange vocalizations but she had trouble hearing them clearly.

The goblin inside the sack tore at the others, but they were too strong for its weak arms. One of the tall goblins lowered its hood and revealed multiple Sovos ears grafted on the sides of its head, much to the girls' horror. The three other tall goblins then dumped the struggling one in the center out of the bag. Its head rocked against the ground and revealed that it did not have any eyes unlike the tall goblins.

Eyes and ears, Madoka pondered grimly. These creatures seemed at odds against each other based off of their odd fetishes. The eared goblin drew a staff and pointed it at the eyeless one. It screamed in an odd language, but Knotting strands pushed themselves towards Madoka's own ears. She plucked at the chains and rotated her arms in an arc to both sides of her head, then watched the amber magic copy her movements. After the strands attached to her ears, she realized she could understand them.