Chapter 4: He Got Taller!

After days of working in the kitchen and the garden like a garden gnome, Grog lost the beеr belly.

Agatha, who decided that he now looked adorable, made him a costume.

There they were, Grog looking at the thing which had lace on it, and Agatha, who would not accept no as an answer.

"Come now, Grog! It's adorable!"

It was adorable. Grog had to agree.

If he were one of them book fans who went from bookstore to bookstore and did their best to cosplay as their favorite characters, he would have done this.

But…

"This is silly," after the days of non-stop Intermediate English with Duolingo, which Dobri managed to hack for him in unlimited hearts' mode because Grog got frustrated when he lost a lesson, Grog's vocabulary got better and better.

"What do you mean: this is silly?" Agatha was at a loss for words. This costume was blue and not pink. It had lovely fluffy sleeves which had lace at the end.

"I work in the garden, Mistress," the goblin was ready to quit his job, but the witch was someone who had more than one garden gnome walk out on her.

She knew what was to be done.

"Ok, if you stay and put on this costume, Grog, then I will give you a kiss!"

Grog blinked. Dobri did the math for him and sent him pictures. The goblin had been just two days old when he had left the cave.

But even he knew what happened when a female goblin clobbered a male goblin over the head and dragged him to a dark corner.

"A kiss?" Grog began to think about children. But he really didn't want to be clobbered over the head.

He thought about the headache, which a clobbering was going to bring with it. He thought about the possible brain damage.

Yes, Dobri had started to make Grog watch Wellness Videos on MagicY.

And gotten him to listen to a certain podcast which was meant to make neuroscience simple.

Successfully, at that. Seeing as Grog loved it so much, he didn't fall asleep.

"Yes! On the forehead!" Agatha was a young and lonely witch.

Her story began in the witch's academy. She, unlike the other witches, was pants at potions at the start.

Then she was dumped into the potion residue cauldron on its way to the potion dumping site.

They found her on her tenth day in there, her hair a curly mess, her face full of pimples, and with a mad glim in her eyes.

Long story short, she got better at potion brewing and ended up graduating from the class with top honors.

She still had to go to therapy and to drink her pills, though.

"And you won't hit me?" Grog asked, who believed that a hit to the forehead before the kiss might even lead to blindness.

"Hit you?" Agatha asked. Just what sort of society was the goblin one, if one had to hit those they loved?

"Yes. A female goblin hits the male goblin over the head when they want… children," Grog began to get system messages.

"Grog, that was like that only in my dungeon. In all the other dungeons, it is the other way around."

That message shocked Grog to the core. Did that mean that there were ladies being hit over the head?

Ladies like Agatha?

"I must save the ladies! I must save the plants!"

This vow made Agatha so emotional that she took hold of Grog's dirty pillowcase and kissed him senseless on the lips.

She was still emotional. Her last therapy session was two months ago. She was way overdue for a new refill on her prescription.

But her favorite therapist was on vacation. And that… that was how all the good adventures started!

****

They packed their things. Grog put on the costume. Agatha made sure to harvest all of her cultivation plants for the goblin.

She was already imagining him washing the dishes for her until the end of time. Fixing the bathroom's heater when needed, instead of her having to call handymen.

And, of course, scratching a certain itch.

But there was one thing missing for the witch. Grog was bald.

She brewed a potion with the rose petals. Made sure its taste changed from three day old barf to mint tea with honey, and then, without asking, sprayed Grog on the head with it.

Grog got a nice and lovely short green hair.

Now he looked like a gnome, albeit a green-skinned one.

"Mistress?" Grog was confused. He could no longer recognize himself in the mirror.

"Let me style your hair!"

Grog nodded. He was perplexed by that fluffy thing on his head. Soon, he had lovely curls and two braids on each side of his face.

Agatha kissed him on the forehead this time.

Grog found that delightful and heartwarming.

And so, the two of them headed to the nearby dungeon. The Dungeon of Skulls.

A dungeon with a sizable goblin population in need of civilization.

As soon as they neared it, Grog found out just how his brethren lived.

The place was stinky. There were skulls everywhere. The plants were about five meters away from the dungeon so, as if they found the goblins a bad company.

"Brothers! Sisters!" Grog had left Agatha where the treeline ended. He still remembered what his brethren were capable of. "Please! We must change our ways! We must be kind to both the men and women of our tribes! Furthermore, we must tend to the plants!"

"Meat!"

But Grog was speaking to goblins. Agatha stood there, scrolling through MagicY, not realizing that her gardener/househusband was being carted off towards a cauldron.

Grog didn't scream. He didn't beg.

This was a test, he realized.

 If he wasn't good enough to pass this test, then he didn't deserve to live the good life he had with Agatha.

He was carried through dungeon corridors. Through secret tunnels and trap doors.

Grog noted where the murder holes were. Noted how many goblins there were behind them.

When he was placed down before the chief, he bowed.

"I would like to challenge you to an honor duel." The goblin said.

The goblin chief burst out laughing.

But Grog already had a plan…