Just before the construction workers had left for the later afternoon, Basil sent them all off with a fresh loaf of bread and a small cup of soup. He even gave one to Earnest and Marigold for the road, but the girl practically inhaled her loaf after just one bite in a not-so-lady-like manner! This caused Basil to watch her in a mix of awe and disgust; even her father looked on in disappointment. With a few more goodbyes, they reattached their horses to the carts and rode off. Once they were gone, Basil went off to make a small thank-you feast for the Bugbears.
Within a few hours and with lots of help from the women, he crafted a feast for all to fill their bellies. A feast that each of them was very thankful for. On top of that, an unusual temporary perk was silently activated while Basil made the food. A perk known as The Harvest Goddesses Blessing; which causes any food produced to be ten times more tasty, filling, and healthy than it usually is. And Basil was utterly unaware of this factor or how he had gotten it.
Even so, after all the Bugbears were satisfied, he decided to do the one thing he had wanted to do for a very long time: take a bath. So he entered his new house, went upstairs to the bathroom, turned on the water, squeezed in some bath soap-courtesy of Earnest-and waited for it to fill before stripping off the clothing he hadn't taken off in a year, all before slowly settling into the hot water. Once fully immersed, he let out a deep sigh of relief. Sitting in the water was like having all the stress, anxiety, and most importantly, filth just melt right off his skin. After soaking for a while, he decided to scrub himself raw!
He scrubbed off his head and body, with a soap bar and a brush. As he scrubbed and washed, he took notice of the slight discoloration in the water around him. It had been such a long time since he was clean. Maybe his sense of smell would return to his nose, being reminded of what Marigold told him.
So, as he scrubbed and washed, Basil found himself idly singing, and as he sang, he swung his body and arms around in a display of fun. When his head turned to one spot, he backtracked to see a pair of beady black eyes staring back at him in the tub! He quickly looked back in a panic and saw Wander standing by the lip of the tub, peeking over at him as he sang and bathed.
Quickly grabbing a towel to cover himself, he yelled, "AH! Wander! What are you doing in here!?"
Over the months spent with the Bugbears, Basil had become something of an Uncle to the young Bugbears, so Wander replied, "Wants to ask yous something, Uncle Basil."
"Whatever it is, can't it wait till I'm outside?", Basil exclaimed, hoping the child would get the picture.
"There's no water pool outside.", Wander argued.
"What do you want?!", Basil yelled.
"Wants to know what yous doing.", he asked while pointing at the tub.
"I'm bathing.", Basil answered with a sigh. But seeing as he still didn't understand, Basil inwardly groaned before explaining, "It is when you use water and a little thing called soap to clean yourself off. It gets rid of grime, dirt, and bad smells."
"Why though? Why get rid of bad smells and replace them with…other smells.", Wander asked him.
"Humans and Bugbears treat smell differently. We humans don't find body odor very appealing, especially our own. So we get rid of it. Also, we like nice smelling things because they make us attractive and pleasant.", Basil explained as best he could.
"Always thought water was for drinking.", Wander questions while trying to drink the water, only to get a mouth full of bubbles and spit them out.
Taking a washcloth and rubbing the goblin's tongue, he explains, "Well, that and cleaning. We use it to clean our bodies, clothes, and food. Something I was intending to do after nearly a year without a proper bath.", he stated firmly, hoping the Bugbear would understand he wasn't welcome.
Only to be unsurprisingly shot down as Wander didn't take the hint and continued to ask, "Is that why yous put the thing-a-ma-jigs in water, and why they taste better?", Wander inquired while taking the washcloth and putting it over his face with head arched back to keep it on.
Pulling the washcloth off his face, Basil affirmed before being more forward, "They're called vegetables, and yes. That gets rid of the dirt. Now go away. You guys may not have any sense of shame or privacy, but we do."
Then Wander made an expression like his brain was buffering. His eyes were wide and vacant as he stared off into the void while Basil looked back in extreme discomfort. Suddenly, the child returned to earth and declared with sparkly eyes, "I wants to do the washing."
Seeing that Wander was doing the "I won't stop till I get what I want" look children give when they've become fixated on something, he quickly relented and told him, "UGH! Fine. But only because you're so cute."
With that, Wander clambered into the tub or...tried to. The young Bugbear only managed to get his upper torso above the lip of the tub before his legs slipped on the tub's slick surface or dangling off the side. Basil rolled his eyes and grabbed him by the scruff before dragging him into the hot water. The moment he splashed in, he ripped towards the surface, thrashing about like a drowning person. Surprised by this, Basil held the young goblin under his arms, causing him to cease his struggle.
Once he stopped, he placed him back on the tub floor, showing him it wasn't that deep. This also let him know that Bugbears don't use water since they can't swim. Once Wander was comfortable enough, he instantly went from a frightened wet cat to a happy child playing with the bubbles and splashing the water. Basil sighs in exasperation before just shrugging his shoulders. Even with so much time spent with the monsters, he still hadn't truly understood their minds' machinations.
So he proceeded to scrub, lather, and rinse the little creature at least five times over. Since every time he tried to run his hands through his fur, he would feel nothing but dirt and stones, and God knows what else! After the sixth time, he was finally clean, and his fur didn't feel like a minefield of disgusting surprises. However, the same couldn't be said of the water, which looked like a muddy river!
So, after jumping right out of it and slapping a towel over himself, he pulled the plug and watched it drain. He tried to pull Wander out, but he fought back, so he let him sit in the tub until it drained out, which seemed to be what he wanted as he watched the goblin float in the water before gently going down with the water level until it was gone. When the last of the water drained out he was finally pulled out and onto the bathroom floor, where he looked like a wet animal with long hair, making Basil snort in amusement at him.
He then threw a towel onto him and rubbed him dry. The young Bugbears struggled under the towel like a dog, refusing to be dried, but Basil wouldn't relent this time. He learned from the adults that the children were far more rambunctious and they had to be disciplined under tough love. Otherwise, they wouldn't respect their elders or learn anything, which leads to them acting more like animals, hence their reputation as mindless brutes.
When he pulled the towel away from the squirming creature, he had to try hard not to laugh at what he saw! But he couldn't and laughed, "Oh my God! You guys do floof!"
As he said, the end result of Bugbears being washed and dried was a big poofy ball of fur with a face. On the other hand, Wander was not so thrilled about being laughed at. But he eventually stopped and wrapped the child up while holding him in his arms. From there, he went down to the kitchen and poured two glasses of water, handing one to the child as he drank his own.
After emptying the cup, he sighed with relief before saying, "A cold cup of milk would go good after a hot bath, but water will do.", he then thought to himself and said aloud, "Maybe I should get a goat for milk. I don't think I'm ready for a cow, of all things.", he shivered at the thought of trying to feed something twice his size on top of keeping it clean and poop free.
Then again, he does the same thing with the Bugbears every day…except for the cleaning and poop part. And now that he thinks about it, he's never once seen the Bugbears poop! Where do they do it anyway? There are over twenty of them so that pile would be pretty big.
But these thoughts don't get the chance to ruminate for long as Burr bursts through the doors and demands firmly, "Man scrimp, yous seen pup?"
"He's right here. Been with me the whole time.", he tells him while placing the balled-up towel down where it runs up to his dad, the towel falling fast to reveal the ball of fur underneath it.
Shock spread across the Bugbear Chief's face as he picked up his son and proclaimed, "What's wrong with him!?"
"I just haven't brushed him out yet.", Basil explained vaguely.
Burr shot him an unamused look over the wiggly child and exclaimed, "He no longer smell. What magics this be!?"
"It's called a bath, Burr.", Basil told him.
"He looks awful.", Burr exclaimed before sniffing him and yelling, "And smells weird!"
"Poopa, Wander likes the bath. Wants to do it more!", Wander happily says to his father, who looks to be on the verge of a heart attack.
Burr stared viciously at Basil, who began to feel his life span shrink to about twenty seconds if he didn't do something and fast! So he shifted blame and insisted, "Don't look at me; it was his idea, and he insisted I do. Besides, I've got laundry to do."
With that, he left, leaving the angry Bugbear to stew in his frustrations with his happy son, who just learned of a whole new world, a world his father wasn't too thrilled about getting ideas about.
After nearly avoiding death itself at the hands of an angry parent, he went outside to wash his clothes. After almost a whole year without washing, his sense of smell returned, and he was horrified to smell his own clothing again! It was so horrible it made his eyes water and his nose curl in! It was like smelling the Bugbears for the first time all over again! Now, he regretted doing this since he'd have to get used to the Bugbear smell by itself.
So, with a deep longing for his blissful ignorance, he washed until the water had turned brown three times over. Adding new water and soap to the wash barrel before scrubbing it with a sponge and scrub wrack with each change. After the fourth change, the water was finally clear again. Then he washed the suds away and hung them on a clothesline with pins.
Stepping back to look at his clothes swaying gently in the breeze, he commented, "Now I just wait for it to dry…while in a towel…I should've gotten a new set of clothes while I was still in town. Guess I'll do that tomorrow.", as he sobbed to himself while mentally hitting himself for his short-sightedness.
Suddenly he saw several Bugbears all run in one direction with weapons drawn! They all looked tense but not in the way of getting ready for a fight; it was more like fearing it was coming.
Grabbing one of the slower ones, he asked, "Hey. What's gotten everyone in such a tizzy?"
"Man scrimp better be ready. Monster in the territory.", The Bugbear told him as he ran off with his friends.
Deciding to check it out, knowing he had the Bugbears and his own Unicorn to back him up even in a towel, he decided to tighten his one form of protection and see this monster. Whatever the Bugbears considered a monster couldn't be that bad, right? So, after following them to another part of his land, he saw how the Bugbears surrounded something he couldn't see in a semicircle.
"So where's the monster?", he asked while poking his head through to see what had gotten them so agitated with fear.
When he did, he was equal parts surprised and unsurprised by what he saw. Instead of something that was probably worse than the Bugbears themselves, he saw something extremely cute!...at least to him. In front of him wasn't something that could gobble a grown Bugbear Chief in seconds, but a large, cute, fluffy spider! Instead of the typical long-legged, naked, dangerous, multi-eyed monster, instead stood an albeit giant but very nice-looking white spider with black markings. It had three sets of red eyes, all different sizes, a coat of thick fluffy fur, legs that weren't long or had many segmented joints, and no visible fangs. In fact, it looked far more like a plush toy than an animal.
Basil just stared at it for several seconds before proclaiming, "That's the monster? Ha! That's just a giant spider! And a real cuddly looking one at that."
As he approached the giant spider, who was standing perfectly still and not reacting in any way, Burr yelled while trying to reach him, "No man scrimp! Not get too close!"
But it was too late as the young man crouched down to the spider's face and began to pet it like a dog while telling it in a baby voice, "Who's a good spider? Who's a good spider? Yes, you are! You're a good big fluffy spider!"
As Basil giggles and fawns over the spider, like some giant weird puppy, the Bugbears all stare back at this scene in a mix of shock, awe, and horror!
"Do you want a potato?", Basil asked out of the blue while pulling a potato from his magic pocket and offering it to the giant insect.
The spider used its feeler-like appendages and felt the root vegetable over before picking it up and placing it under its head, where Basil assumed its mouth was, and began to hear the sound of chewing.
"Hey, he likes it!", Basil exclaimed in joy as the spider used two of its legs to grab Basil in what seemed to be a hug. To which he returned it while squeaking like a child and rubbing his face into his soft body, "And me! Awe, you're so cute and cuddly!"
The Bugbears continued to watch on with mixed emotions while Broomy, who had joined after following Basil, saw the spider getting cuddly with him and was now plotting its demise! Looking over to its side, it noticed Teto also looking at the spider with envy, and quickly, the two came to a mutual agreement.
One of the Bugbears got Burr's attention and asked, "Chiefy, should wes tell the man scrimp?"
Burr thought about it for a moment, watching as the young man tamed this thing like a wild horse, then replied to his subordinate, "Seems to like man scrimp. May help to have monster demon spiders."
As Basil finished his glorification of the spider, he asked it with a glassy-eyed and happy expression, "Where do you live, big guy?", suddenly the spider pointed out an abnormally large tree several dozen yards to the west of him.
With eyes wide and mind blank, Basil asked dumbly, "How have I missed that?"
Changing the subject, Basil asked the spider, "I should give you a name. Would you like that?", the spider appeared to make a nodding gesture, and Basil stood up while thinking, "How about…Myeon."
Congratulations- name successfully imprinted onto the nameless monster.
Monster-Human Bond- successfully linked.
Myeon skills have been added to the stat block.
New skills and traits have been added.
Seeing this and pulling up the window following it, he saw that the following had been added: Poison Resistance, Poison Fangs, Web Production, Web Control, Wall Walk, Web Walk, and Multi-Directional Eye.
Poison Resistance: This grants the ability to resist any sort of poisonous substances.
Poison Fangs: this grants the ability to produce deadly poison from one's teeth.
Web Production: This grants the ability to produce webs from a designated body part.
Web Control: this grants the ability to telepathically control the direction of the webs used from Web Production.
Wall Walk: This grants the ability to scale any vertical or horizontal surface.
Web Walk: This grants the ability to tread upon any surface that is covered in webbing.
Multi-Directional Eye: This grants the ability to look in almost any direction or two directions simultaneously and perceive it as multiple sets of eyes.
The spider appeared to like the name, but the Bugbears seemed confused. So much so that Burr tapped his shoulder and asked, "What does that thing-a-ma-jigs means?"
"It means cotton. Because he is soft and somewhat colored like it…now I wish I had grown or gotten some so I could make some clothes for myself.", Basil explained while crying in self-shame as the wind hit against his bare butt.
Only for Myeon to suddenly start producing a web from its abdomen and spinning it around the boy! As he began to panic amid the web, the spider moved quickly around him in a flash! The Bugbears hesitated to attack for a moment, in case they ended up hurting Basil or the spider pulled a fast one on them! But all at once, the spider stopped, and when Basil opened his closed eyes, he was shocked by what he saw! Instead of standing in nothing but a towel, he was now standing in a nearly exact replica of his first outfit, minus the boots, but it was all white and crafted from spider silk!
Looking over and admiring himself, Basil exclaimed, "Wow! That was amazing, Myeon! Wait…is this for me?", the spider nodded. Basil hugged it while saying in a grateful tone, "You're the best!", he stood back up to admire his new outfit while commenting, "And it even has a new cape!", turning to the stunned Bugbears next, Basil asked like a teenager before prom, "So? How do I look?"
"Man scrimp look…", Burr tried to find the words.
"Different.", one Bugbear offered.
"Silly.", another said.
"Bleck.", coughed another.
"No color.", stated Wander.
"Gee, thanks for the feedback, guys.", Basil groaned in response. Turning back to the spider, he said to it, "Well, Myeon, I hope we can be close neighbors.", to which it replied with a friendly waving gesture with its pedipalps.
xXx
Later on, when things settled down, and the Bugbears went to make supper for the evening, Basil was inside his home, sitting behind the counter of his storefront on a stool, leaning over one of the countertops and feverishly writing with his entire focus down on a notebook. He was so focused on what he was doing, that he didn't even notice when Teto walked into the room. He only brought up his head when he heard one of the doors close behind the bird.
"Oh hey, Teto.", Basil greeted the bird. The Kenku points to his notebook, and Basil replies, "Oh, this? I'm just writing out a recipe I know in case I forget it.", Teto gives him a particular look, glaring at him as Basil rolls his eyes and says, "Yes yes, I know my magic allows me to recall and record all my memories and such. But I can't put it down unless I've made the food first, and I'm afraid I may forget it. Just an old habit, I guess.", he explained with a sweat drop and rubbing his head.
Teto then jumps onto the countertops, looking down at the notepad. Basil explains further, "I'm writing out the ingredients for a chocolate cake. But now that I say it aloud, I wonder if the town even has cocoa and sugar. Guess I'll figure it out in the morning.", he huffs to himself.
xXx
Basil settled in for the night on his brand-new bed when night finally fell. To say that having your own bedroom, bathroom, and privacy was a treat was a true understatement! Though not having electricity was hard to swallow, candles and his light magic would make do. So after brushing his teeth for the first time in forever, how they hadn't rotted in his mouth was beyond him, he changed into a night robe and slipped into bed.
Turning off magic and blowing out his candles, he threw the covers over him before staring up at the ceiling with the only illumination coming from the moon outside as he lay in his bed with nothing but his thoughts. Something he hadn't thought of before suddenly crossed his mind, and he began to pray, saying, "Hey, One Being. I don't know if you can hear me, but I just wanted to say thanks. Thank you for giving me this second chance, this new world, everything. Even though I had to jump through many hoops, I'm glad. It helped me learn and learn a lot. And now I'm finally living my dreams. I have friends, a home, and some land. I have everything I want and need! But I'm still not done! I'm going to live my life to the fullest. So thanks again."
So, after finishing his prayer, he turned over and fell asleep right away. However, he only gets to sleep for a few hours before he is suddenly awoken from a dead sleep as strange noises creak and groan from all around him!
"Huh? Wha-? Who's there?", he asked in a dazed and half-asleep voice while using his light magic to illuminate the area. Only to see nearly all the Bugbear children crowded around his bed. Looking at them individually with a dumbfounded expression, he asks them, "What are you all doing here?"
"Wes miss you.", Wander is the first to answer with tears in his eyes.
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm just sleeping elsewhere.", Basil assured them.
"Wes miss sleeping with you.", Wander argued as all the young Bugbears put on their best puppy dog eyes.
With a tired and aggravated sigh. He tells the kids, "Go back to your parents. You kids gotta learn to sleep on your own.", but they don't listen and instead stay there beside his bed, continuing to assault him with their watery puppy dog eyes. Extremely tired and not in the mood to argue while also being guilt-shamed by their collective eyes, he finally relents and tells them, "Oh, fine. But just for tonight."
Pretty soon, his once extremely large queen-sized bed was overtaken by a hoard of young goblins piled over, on top, or beside one another, with Basil stationary in the middle and reserving himself to just lay there unmoving.
But before he could fall asleep again, the door opened again, and a very jealous and dismayed-looking Teto walked in. Basil groaned at seeing him and griped, "Seriously? You too?", Teto replied by giving him a very slow and very serious head nod. Basil moaned even louder, and seeing he couldn't argue, he agreed while saying, "Fine."
Then the young bird jumped onto the bed and cuddled around his head before falling asleep with the other Bugbears. Basil sighs at his own softness and reserves to accept his fate as he falls asleep again...very, very uncomfortably.