*Knock Knock Knock!!!!*
"..."
*Knock Knock Knock!!!!!*
"....."
"Gripgold! Get your smelly ass up! Everyone in this gods-damned complex knows you don't sleep anyway…..up walking all night like a lunatic!"
Grimble Gripgold. The lady outside his door was correct. He didn't sleep much. He wasn't sleeping when she stomped up the wooden steps and tumbled down the greasy hallway to come rap against his door.
He laid in his bed— no sheet and no blanket, the Governing Enclave said it immediately counted as thievery paraphenalia for Goblin-kind. All he had were the clothes on his body, his suitcase covered in anti-theft runes and a pack of fae-woods.
As if the complex-queen wasn't still hammering on his door, he took a long drag of his fae-wood. The burning embers of the lit end screamed with a fiery intensity as the alchemical ingrediant lined smoke filled his lungs.
Low grade psychedelics, neurotrophic herbs and other focus enhancing supplements lit up his insides until he could see every imperfection in the wooden cieling above him.
"Three-thousand and forty six." He counted seriously in several seconds.
"IF YOU DONT GET UP, ILL CALL BROKK!"
"That won't be neccesary….. you old milk-sack." Grimble replied— mumbling the last portion so he didn't have to repeat himself to the complex mercenary— who he'd once gotten arrested for spousal abuse six years prior.
"Yea, I didn't think so. Don't give that sinewy bastard a reason. He's waiting, you know!?"
"Yea. We all know." Grimble said with the fae-wood held between his pursed lips.
He sluggishly sat up in the bed, letting his legs slowly come down to touch the floor. He wore his usual boots. Made of refined leathers and fortified by water-steel. Flowy, flexible, breathable, impenetrable. A gift. Something to be assumed once compared to the rest of his clothing.
He stood up, wiping the dust and grime off of his torn and patch fixed black slacks.
"Might be time for a wash…." He mumbled at the smell before tucking his white tank-top into the belt-line.
At the chair pushed into the desk beside the bed, he grabbed his dark-blue blazer and black trench coat. He put it all on without buttoning or zipping up anything.
His line of work didn't require the most professional of attire. Which explained why he didn't bother much hygiene beyond splashing his face with cold water and brushing his teeth.
Finally, he approached his suitcase, focusing his abysmal mana-flow to activate the runes tied to his arcane-dna signatures so the black box would open.
Inside he had just about everything. All he needed was his cologne. Two sprays. Back in the box. Open and shut case. A dream. Something he hadn't had in years. In both ways.
With that finished, he picked up the suitcase, grabbed his sawed-off shot-gun like it was a crowbar and headed out the door.
As soon as he opened the door, he came face to face with the largest pair of breasts he'd ever seen. The heat of the complex caused sweat beads to roll down the exposed greenish skin and sink into the deep cleavage.
He looked up at the complex-queen. Over sixty based on the faint wrinkles behind the layers of makeup and lipomancer visits, she had long greying black hair, two sleeves of tattoos, a long nose and full black glossed lips. A titanous woman standing at six and a half feet and two hundred and forty pounds on a dieted day. She was half-orc. Apparently on her fathers side. Abusive fathers side. Making her a justified misandrist— aside from her goblin racism.
"Should've used more sprays….." Grimble thought as she peered down at him.
Her nostrils flared.
"Gripgold….." She said firmly.
"Yes?"
"You do know all Goblin-kind are on Schedule-Order's. Once into adulthood, you're scrawny ass is allowed six and a half hours freetime. Anything longer and you're charged for conspiring for theft."
"Mhm." Grimble exhaled smoke out the side of his mouth. The cinder spirits faded in the humid heat.
"You've been locked up in your room for seven hours even, chump."
"Brokk timed me, huh?"
"From the moment you stumbled in last night." The complex-queen said.
"Wonderful." Grimble croaked.
"Now you know, I have to report you to the Enforcment Corps and they'll have to report you to the Goblin-Hunters." The complex-queen said.
"Uh-huh."
"...unless….." The Complex-queen said in a sultry tone as she bit her nail. A reddish tint rose to her cheeks. "You help me."
"Two sprays was enough." Grimble thought back on the cologne.
"It's in your job description to help people, isn't it, Private Investigator Gripgold. Ain't that right?"
"No not really. Not lately. Not directly." Grimble thought before taking another drag of his fae-wood, "Of course. How can I be of service?"
"Follow me. I've got something for you to investigate….. privately."
Grimble watched her walk down the halls. The switch of her hips was like the swing of a wrecking ball.
He sighed, cracked his back and followed.
An hour later and he stepped out of the complex-queens office with his trench coat on backwards and two new holes in his pants.
"I've gotta start getting paid for this." Grimble muttered as he pulled his box of fae-woods out of his pocket and lit up.
"Smoke?" He held the opened box to the man standing at the door into the office beside him.
"No." A booming voice said.
Grimble turned and looked up at the massive orc, squinting due to the sun. A mercenary based on his armored black blazer and sheathed great sword, rifle combo. His skin was grey and covered in runic brand-tattoos and his eyes were orange like focused furnaces.
"Gripgold."
"Brokk." Grimble nodded, "How's the wife." He stuffed away his box of fae-woods.
"I'll kill you were you stand, grass-skin."
"Better me than her." Grimble thought before taking a drag of the stick and looking back at the orc. More so, he studied his knuckles.
"No breakage."
He looked at his nails as he stood holding his crested belt by the buckle.
"No hairs— no skin chunks."
He blew the focus enhancing smoke from his lips and sniffed in Brokk's direction.
"No lilac and wood-raven perfume. Your wife's been wearing it ever since I bought it for her after you lost your case and were charged for aggravated assault. You're respecting your protective order."
Grimble watched the flow of blood pulse in Brokk's impossibly thick neck.
"Forty beats per minute. You're not on any alchemical stimulants. Your Rage-Runes are still six years old. Maybe you'll see your son one day. If he wants to."
"Beat it." Brokk said and leaned over to spit on Grimble's shoes.
The second his thick white snotty spit hit Grimble's shoe, he spun his sawed-off shot-gun out of his coat holster and aimed both barrels at Brokk's temple.
His lips quivered as an old rage reawakened inside of him.
Brokk grinned, highlighting his sanded down bottom incisors. They'd grow into tusks if he got angry enough. And Grimble would get impaled.
He'd risk it.
He'd take it to avenge the shoes.
"Do it. Give me a reason." Brokk huffed.
"Did you need a reason when you beat your wife black and blue?" Grimble spat.
"Don't speak on what you don't know, bastard." Brokk trembled.
Grimble inhaled more fae-wood smoke, letting the focus enhancers overpower his emotional turmoil.
He holstered his gun and walked away.
"Don't spit on what you don't own." He replied, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake.
"I'm with the Morrengrave Mercenary Guild, asshole! I'll do as I please!"
"That's the problem."
Grimble flipped the collar of his trench coat to hide some of his face as he headed deeper into the sprawling tech magic super-city of Dusk-Haven.
It was as he crossed a bridge after paying a city-troll that he noticed a crow circling overhead.
"Duty calls."
He took a seat at the nearest bench, swallowed by the shadows cast by a tavern-mall highrise.
The crow perched on his shoulder. He didn't need to look at it to know it had a necklace bearing the company-crest of—
"Summons from Maleena Morrengrave for PI Grimble Gripgold!" The crow squawked. "A new case is waiting for you. Described as open and shut!"
Grimble raised an eyebrow, "Maybe I can still dream."
He got up and headed to his place of work.