(Also Titled: The Ongoing Diary of Thppgrg, Goblin Minion)

As ever, readers who are new to the diary, please scroll down a bit to where you see the Thppgrg tag. Click on it. Yeah, that’s right. Otherwise, if you missed part eight, you can just click here. (Art by Chris McFann.)

DAY THIRTY-FIVE

Pretty darn good day today. Apparently, my new frost-elf baby has warmed the spectral heart of my horrible, racist, strategically important-fountain-room-haunting apparition.

Also, he felt just super, SUPER guilty about waking the kid up when he phased through my wall screaming hideously about filthy gobos in the middle of the night with his rotten, partially severed and now-eyeless head flopping around and his blood-stained dungeon-themed adventure pajamas all fluttering in the noiseless wind of the void.

She cried a lot.

Like, a LOT lot. I was not previously aware that babies were capable of quite that much crying; thus, I am already a significantly better semi-adoptive parent than I was only 24 hours ago. In addition, I now know how to change a diaper, how to make farting noises with my mouth while making her favorite stuffed toy (a plush half-fiend cyborg-cyclops/ettin dressed like a doctor, whom she calls “Nursie Flap-Flap”) dance amusingly to make her stop crying temporarily, how to sneak around with nearly supernatural silence once the filthy puke-and-tears-encrusted-monster has finally fallen asleep, and have learned the important lesson that babies greatly enjoy gnawing on my ears. Feeling really good about the odds of me being a totally great dad to my own biological warren of gobo-dwarf children someday.

Also: starting to worry that I might be becoming racist against goblins—I’m pretty sure “gobo-dwarf” is not the preferred nomenclature in this instance, but for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what the correct terminology would be. Wondering where I could look that one up, actually.

If my new Assistant Manager hires a few more goblins, must remember to ask them if there’s a better turn of phrase for that.

ALSO: will have to subtly check to see if they think I’m racist.

Not sure how to go about that. With a little luck, there’s a book from that dwarven publisher on exactly that topic. Seems to be the sort of thing that dwarves would need a book about.

Not to sound racist, of course.

Anyway: the upshot here is that we have agreed, as gentlemen, that from now on Dead-Neck McGee, stupid cleric ghost, will no longer haunt me quite so loudly. He seems to have taken a shine to the Princess, which is good—and he knows several only-mildly racist lullabys, which is great. I tend to think that back when he was alive, he might have had kids, or at the very least a few younger siblings.

I did not bother to ask.

Anyway, with him being less horrible than usual, Jimbo and I were able to have a strategically important poker night, which was super-awesome and much needed.

He brought a new dish: rat-based fondue. Quite the guilty pleasure.

The two of us talked at length about my semi-adoptive role with Princess Leafirellha; she will, in effect, be sleeping (read as: screaming, puking, and fitfully snoring on some rare, blessed occasions) at my place but will continue to work with Jimbo, and he will have her during all other hours.

Yes, she is a full-time employee in his semi-sentient toxic-slime-mold-related acquisitions, funding, and development business. I am not certain how. I do not want to know.

Jimbo was very keen on explaining how clever it was of him to make his adopted daughter an employee; the tax-break was exceptional, apparently. Something to do with very odd, loophole-ridden local/municipal payroll/non-business-deduction expenditure/deduction-statutes; he also very proudly explained that he can keep her on as a dependent while also paying her salary because Princess Leafirellha might APPEAR to be about 8 months old in human years, but she’s actually 35.

Frost-elves age very slowly, apparently.

ALSO: the tax-laws around here are very strange. That surprises me more than it probably should.

Anyway, he then proceeded to tell me how he came to have an adopted infant frost-elven daughter in the first place, but since it involved a lot of people I’ve never heard of, took place of a continent I am still not entirely certain is on this planet —or even in this solar-system—and involved several complex, internicine, generation-spanning plots within the courts, back halls, drawing rooms and courts-in-exile of frost-elven mage-royalty, I did not follow much of it.

Jimbo is not very good at telling stories, sadly.

He is, however, getting very good at poker. May soon have to institute a rule limiting the betting to smaller amounts, or I will never be able to afford a copy of Lord Marcus Arvidson’s book, “Better Adventuring … To a Better YOU!”,  which I’m really looking forward to—as it is, I have now lost all of the money that I previously stole from those adventurers I killed, and also the stuff I looted from Sigvald.

May consider seeing if “he” can borrow some money from Shaendralya in “his” next note to her.

Which reminds me: must write her another note.

Not tonight. Too tired. And tomorrow is Monday.

But yeah, pretty darn good day. Looking forward to a really great week.