World's Worst Roommate

The dungeon smelled… wrong.

Balastar’s nasal cavity (which technically no longer existed) twitched with outrage. Somewhere near the Wretched Stench Fissure—just past the collapsed trapdoor with the bootprint fossilized in it—there wafted the unmistakable aroma of old cheese, pickled meat, and troll feet. It sullied everything. The ambiance, the dread, the echo. Even the bones were absorbing it.

“Greg. Halt,” Balastar commanded, as he floated toward the miasma, suspended inside the slow-gliding gelatinous cube that had been his prison (and only companion) for the past five centuries. “Just, stop gliding. You’ve crossed the line again.”

From the shadows of a lopsided archway, a sluggish voice grumbled.

“It’s a cave. There’s no line, Skull.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Murk. I etched a glyph boundary not two hours past. Phosphorescent lichen, left-hand spiral, very tasteful. You’ve oozed all over it.”

“Looked like a moss frown.”

“IT WAS SYMBOLIC.”

Greg, silent as always, rippled in place. A chunk of bone floated past his translucent innards and bumped the back of Balastar’s skull.

“It represented the Severance of Dominions,” Balastar went on. “A declaration that this quarter of the dungeon is sacred ground—my sanctum. The Heart of Balastar.”

Murk emerged fully now: eight feet of squat, green, and hairy. His gut wobbled with disinterest. “Pretty sure this was the latrine.”

“It was ritualistic! Not all chambers of power smell like juniper and jasmine, you know. Though it did before you moved in. Now everything smells like boiled shame and… lukewarm goat.”

“I like my rot. It’s aged. Like a fine foot.”

“And I like my corridors clean, thank you,” Balastar snapped. “Clean, damp, and echoing with the silent reverence of dread. Not your… your groaning meat sacks hanging from the stalactites.”

“I offered to share,” Murk said with a shrug. “Even hung a curtain. That’s compromise.”

Balastar peered through Greg’s slime at the curtain. “That’s a shower curtain. With ducks.”

“Battle ducks.”

“Greg, cease your relentless scrubbing,” Balastar hissed. “You’re disarming the territorial ward.”

Murk gave the cube a half-smile. “He just made the duck shine. That’s adorable.”

“It’s humiliating.” Balastar quivered inside Greg, hat slightly askew. “I was an archmage! I once ruled this realm.”

“You’re a head in a jelly cube.”

“A celestial archmage! Master of moons, stars, and macrocosmic vibrations! I tutored kings. I invented a seventh season.”

“You invented the mold that grew on your own beard.”

“That mold was sentient. And remarkably polite.”

Murk scratched behind one tusk. “I get it. You had a life. I had one too. Used to sing in a bardcore quartet. Had matching tunics and everything. But things change.”

“Change? CHANGE?” Balastar vibrated with fury. “The only thing that’s changed is you squatting in my vestibule like a bearded fungus!”

“I’m just saying, Skull,” Murk said, gently tugging at the curtain, “you could chill. We’ve got space. I take the western tunnels, you float in your clean puddle and shout at the walls.”

“I do not shout at the walls.”

“You were shouting at a stalagmite for fifteen minutes yesterday.”

“I thought it was a goblin.”

“…Fair.”

“Greg,” Balastar declared, spinning inside the cube with a dramatic flair, “prepare for siege.”

A moment of silence passed.

“Mobilize the coins. Fortify the stalagmites. Rouse the spores!”

“I’m gonna soak my feet,” Murk muttered, and shuffled back toward his half of the dungeon.

From a side passage, flickering light and muttering voices signaled the approach of goblins. Five of them stumbled into view carrying candles, mismatched bones, and a potato impaled on a rusty fork.

“Ooh!” cried one in a theatrical whisper. “Look, brothers! The sacred shimmer!”

Vibble the Unshorn, self-appointed high priest of the Cult of Rebalstarn, held the potato aloft. “Reverence, lads. Think mysterious thoughts. Focus on the aura.”

“Is that the Archmage?” one asked, pointing at Balastar floating within Greg.

“No,” Vibble said. “That’s a potato. The Archmage’s aura would tingle. This one’s… starchy.”

“You!” Balastar bellowed. “You flea-bitten worshippers of incompletion!”

The goblins froze.

“Did the potato just yell at me?” Vibble asked.

“No,” said another. “The slime cube did.”

“No, that’s digestive bubbles,” said Vibble. “Sacred farts. Ignore them.”

“I am Balastar!” the skull howled. “I am your god!”

“Erm,” Vibble said, tilting his head, “we’re pretty sure the Archmage would be taller.”

“I DEMAND TO BE RESURRECTED PROPERLY!”

“We tried last week,” said a goblin. “The potato got bigger.”

“Skull,” Murk called from the other side of the curtain. “You’re yelling at goblins again.”

“They’re supposed to worship me!”

“I think they worship a tuber.”

“That altar is a travesty. Greg, onward! To the altar!”

The cube dutifully drifted forward. Not because Balastar commanded, but because he was already moving that way. One goblin stepped aside just in time to avoid being gently squelched.

“Wait,” said Vibble, eyes narrowing. “The potato glows… brighter…”

“No, no—Greg! Stop licking the altar!”

But it was too late. The cube shimmered with an eerie red light as it absorbed the crude goblin construct. The sweet potato vibrated. Candles flickered. Bones rattled.

Balastar’s eye sockets flared.

“YES!” he roared. “I FEEL IT! MAGIC! REAL MAGIC!”

“Uh-oh,” Vibble whispered.

The cube pulsed. The potato vanished in a fizz of light. Balastar’s skull spun wildly.

“BEHOLD! BALASTAR THE CELESTIAL ARCHMAGE RISES AGAIN!”

“I think he’s having a fit,” murmured one goblin.

“He blinked at me,” whispered another. “I think I’m pregnant.”

Murk returned just in time to see the goblins fall to their knees.

“ALL HAIL THE SALAD SKULL!” they cried.

“ALL HAIL THE CLEANSEBRINGER!”

Balastar glowed with power. “At last! Power! Reverence! Absolute dominion—Greg, no. No! Don’t—stop!”

The cube was absorbing the altar. Again.

“You’re desecrating me!” Balastar screamed. “GREG, BAD SLIME!”

“He’s eating the fan club,” Murk said, folding his arms.

“Skull,” Murk added after a beat, “You did it. You’re a god again.”

“Yes!” Balastar shouted.

“Inside a floor mop.”

There was silence. Then—

“This isn’t what I meant by ascension!”

Later, as the goblins sang hymns to “The Clean One,” and Greg slowly digested the last of the banners, Murk stood at the dungeon’s threshold with a large, sighing sack over his shoulder.

“You’re leaving?” Balastar asked.

“You win,” Murk said. “It’s all yours.”

“Oh. Oh yes. Of course it is. Flee, troll! Flee before the might of Balastar restored!”

“Just do me one favor.”

Balastar tilted. “Anything.”

“Put up a sign. Something clear. For the next guy.”

“Hmm,” the skull mused. “How about: Here Resides Balastar, Cleanser of Corruption, Slayer of Sorrow, Wielder of Windex.”

Murk nodded once. “That’ll do. Beats ‘World’s Worst Roommate.’”

He left, and deep within Greg, Balastar smiled.

Just a little.