Chereads / Goblins and Broomsticks / Chapter 13 - Wait, can they clean?

Chapter 13 - Wait, can they clean?

Everything started fine in Grizt's opinion. They started out by getting a bucket and some rags to wipe down the wooden floors and other such spots. Oaguz was pretty good at handling it and helped the others get the hang of it. First was using the brooms to collect dust. Every now and again they'd play a little, but the eventually got done due in large to Oaguz. The second part was actually a little fun to go race each other down the halls as they cleaned the floors with cloth. After all, Oaguz had shown them the best way to handle wooden floor was to take a damp cloth, take a kneeling position and then place your weight on the cloth as you go back and forth down the hall at a good pace. Of course, they weren't exactly skilled at this and tended to be fun loving.

"Hey Oaguz!" Grizt called her friend.

"'Sup Boss?"

"Let's get this done faster, race I'll race ya!"

"Oh really, ya think you can beat the master?" Oaguz answered with a smirk.

"Pfft! Yeah, sure, your ego could take a few lumps!" Grizt replied with a toothy smile.

"And what'll I get when I win?"

"Oh, I say the winner gets... hmm what would be a good prize?" Grizt wondered.

"How about the loser plays a punishment game?" Weye chimed in with a wink to Grizt.

"Now that sounds like fun!" Grizt decided.

"Well, then," Oaguz responded as she took position," On your mark, get set and-"

"Go," Shritoo cut in with a smirk. Her eyes dancing with delight as Oaguz floundered at the surprise interruption as Grizt took off. Not to be out done, Oaguz quickly collected herself and also shot off after Grizt. She had to say the Boss had taken to this pretty quickly. Then again, it was the Boss she was talking about here. Grizt had a tendency to soak physical tasks like no one else. It was maddening to watch her sometimes as she would see you practice something and then try it out only to show you up. It was also a great way to improve yourself as maddening as it was. You could see what was right as well as some of the flaws present. Grizt could pick something up and excel, but the biggest flaws the source showed seem to always stick. Oaguz was thankful for this since it allowed her to better her swordsmanship. However, it was clear detriment at the moment as she was barely making ground on the Boss. The head start had been a little unfair in her opinion, but as the Boss had said many times, its your own fault if you fail to adapt or take an opportunity. Which is exactly why she had taken to dashing on Shritoo's words rather than Oaguz's countdown.

However, Grizt made a mistake at the end of the current hall. She had tried to meet the wall at full speed and was trying to twist about and rebound off the wall, but two things happened at once. One, she realized a little late that she wouldn't finish up to the wall with this stun and went for a belated attempt to abandon the maneuver. The second thing was that she had forgotten that Stranbrai was set up at the end of this straight to start work on another hallway. Though to be more specific, she failed to take the bucket at the end of the hall into account. Her foot went right into it and she slipped, fell, and slid into the wall face first... Still managing to finish her first trip in the race since the cloth had managed to end up on her face. Sadly, Oaguz couldn't quite understand how that bit happened, nor did she care at that moment. Her Boss would be ok. She trusted in this fact and moved on. She gained a good lead by the time Grizt recovered and was back under way. Too bad for the Boss that it would be Oaguz's win in the end. She even had the perfect penalty in mind!

Sadly for Oaguz, she found out a universal truth. Hubris can bring about one's downfall at anytime. In the particular case, she had allowed herself to be too focused on her victory that she didn't notice something important. One of the doors along the hall being thrown open.

"What is the meaning of all this racket!?" The ever annoying Rita, as the goblins now called her, demanded as she flung open the door. Her answer would come in the form of Oaguz slamming into the door and the woman being taken by surprise as it slammed closed on her face. There could be heard the loud sound of a number of things falling over within the room. However, that was none of Oaguz's concern as she was sent careening off course and landing face first in a bucket. By the time she recovered, Grizt was declared the winner.

"So my dear Oaguz, what do you think of that?" She asked with quite a bit of cheek.

"I say you slaves need to get to work! Look at the mess you've caused here. Why are you using rags in the first place!? We have brooms and mops for a reason!" A thoroughly ruffled Rita demanded in a nasally tone as she held her bleeding nose. Her clothes were also now dirty and torn. The goblins looked to Oaguz.

"Mop? What's that? You sweep then wash by cloth." Oaguz stated simply. This sounded right to the others who nodded along.

"Of all the stupid things. I swear you barbarians are worst tha-" Rita growled out as she tried to make her way down the hall only to step on a rag and fall. There was quite a scene after as the woman went off on them about being a bunch of useless barbarians. If it weren't for the tattoos, Grizt and the Violent Blade would have attacked the woman. That being said, they all took a smug satisfaction at her misery and largely ignored her.

Eventually the had cleaned the halls of the first floor. The manor was actually quite small. It was only two stories. There weren't too many rooms and hallways to worry about. That wasn't to say they weren't going to be busy for quite a while cleaning the place up, but since the halls were bare, the biggest concerns were mold and repairs. The repair could wait. The goblins knew they had to deal with the mold. Which was why they were more focused on wiping things down.

In any case, the real problem came when they were faced with carpet. The had entered one of the rooms to find it carpeted. It wasn't that they never heard of it. Some places on their old Continent were known for using such flooring, but by and large, Goblin didn't use such. As such, none of them had the slightest clue on how to handle it.

"Sooo, any ideas on the carpet?" Grizt asked Oaguz, who happened to know a bit about cleaning. She shook her head to this. Grizt then looked to Weye who looked more contemplative.

"Not really? But I think I might have an idea?" Weye answered a little timidly.

"Cut the act, what's your idea?" Grizt pushed. She knew that from time to time Weye liked to slip into one of her roles. One of her favorites was the shy, timid girl act. As much as Grizt wanted to follow along for fun, they had jobs to do if they didn't want to burn later.~Stupid tattoos!~

"Well, they're furry right? So maybe treat them like hair?" She suggested much to their confusion," You know, wash it, brush it, dry it, and cut out any knots?"

So that's what they went along with. First they refilled the buckets with clean water and some soap they managed to find. Then they tried to brush it out with the brooms. This didn't work too well and they went and "borrowed" some things from Rita. They eventually brushed and dried it. All that they needed to do was cut out the knots.

"Where are you thieves!" came the ever obnoxious voice of Rita," I swear I'll have you all sold by the end of the day if you don't come out and return the things you stole!"

"B-but, we o-only borrowed th-them to do our job!" Weye cried out with a stutter, It was a bit too much in Grizt's opinion, but far be it from her to judge an actress's acting. Rita came storming into the room. She looked shocked at the goblins again.

"What are you idiots doing! You were told to clean the manor, not destroy it!"

"B-but!"

"Shut up! I don't care!" Rita cut Weye off. It was then that she paused and started to sniff the room," What in the- GET OUT OF HERE NOW! Go make yourselves useful. Like getting lunch ready!"

Karita was reaching her limit with the idiot shenanigans of these little monsters. She went about opening the windows and collecting and cleaning her things. Those goblins had use a highly flammable cleaner meant for some of her tools. It was not meant for this kind of cleaning. Even worse, the only way to fix it was to leave the windows open and let it evaporate. She'll have to seal off the room for safety until it was all gone. Unfortunately, she'd have to let her few personal tools be until she could afford to replace the cleaner that had been used. At least that wouldn't take too long as she was sure the princess would help in that regard considering they were needed for maintenance. In all honesty she wanted to cry at the unfairness of everything thrown at her. Ever since she met those little cretins, everything had blown up in her-

Her thoughts stopped at this as she realized a little problem. Cooking involved fire. The goblins were likely still soaked in the cleaner. While she'd be perfectly happy to let them fry, she also didn't want to find out what the crown would do if they managed to destroy a government building in under a day of operation. She ran to the Kitchens as fast as she could!