When Derrin of Drizzle finally trudged back into the village bearing the scars of misadventure from an over-warm mug of destiny tea, and a possibly divine muffin with judgmental crumbs, he did not expect a parade. He did, however, expect to still have his stall. It was not a high expectation. Just a little straw. A few loose boards. A roof that only leaked when the clouds felt particularly vindictive. But when he pushed open the door to the barn, something very large, very orange, and very musical blinked back at him from a nest of repurposed hymnals and fermented turnip rinds. It was a llama. Wearing spectacles. And playing what might once have been a harpsichord, or possibly a wardrobe with a tuning fork shoved inside.

  A sign hung around its neck: “Barn Now Rented. Do Not Disturb: Mid-Sabbatical.” Underneath, in smaller print: “Talk to Carol in Accounts if you object.” Derrin blinked. The llama played a slow, jazzy chord, then delicately turned the page of its sheet music using a hoof and deep resentment.

  He backed out.

  “Well, Morinxandar,” he muttered to his ever-crumbing muffin companion, “I suppose we’ve been evicted by a quadrupedal musical intern.”

  Morinxandar offered no comment. But a crumb slid loose and hit the floor with all the weight of ecclesiastical disappointment. Plan B, as always, was the Temple of Dampened Spirits—once a place of quiet reflection, now more of a community warning. The heavy stone doors creaked open with all the enthusiasm of a minor deity being asked to work overtime. The air inside smelled of wax, dust, and onions that had seen things.

  “Hello?” Derrin called, voice echoing down the gloom like a forgotten sermon.

  Something stirred near the altar. Out from behind the half-collapsed font staggered Father Whifflepence, former spiritual guide, current part-time ale sampler. His robe was stained with mysteries best left to speculation, and his breath could melt brass.

  “Ah, Thibault, m’lad,” the priest slurred, mistaking Derrin for someone with better odds and a more symmetrical face. “Good to see you taking initiative. Or fleeing something. Either’s fine. Life’s just regret wearing shoes, after all.”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t interrupt your blessings, boy.” He raised a finger with dramatic wobble. “Remember: never trust a frog with opinions, always pack an extra sock for journeys of the heart, and for the love of the pantheon, don’t eat pickled anything after dark.”

  Derrin opened his mouth. Father Whifflepence narrowed his eyes.

  “…oh no. Wait. You’re Derrin.” He staggered back two paces as if the very aura of persistent bad luck had just headbutted his liver. “Forget all that. Ignore everything I said. Go. Shoo. The temple’s not safe for you. Not since the... incident.”

  “You mean the—”

  “The Great Effervescent Allium Event,” the priest intoned, crossing himself in three pantheons. “Or as the commoners call it, The Foamening.”

  Derrin flinched. He remembered it too well. The unintended divine intervention. The onion-scented foam. The Goat.

  “He’s claimed the sanctuary,” Father Whifflepence whispered. “He is now known as Sanctus Bleatimus, Herald of the Wellspring. He blesses passersby. Sometimes twice. You don’t want to be around for the second one.”

  From deeper within the temple came a loud baaah, followed by the distinct sound of something being anointed against its will.

  “I should go,” Derrin said quietly.

  “Yes. Do.”

  Outside again, he sat on a rock and sulked. The kind of sulk that was so heavy it made clouds above him form tiny question marks of pity. He looked around for something to pack, realized he owned exactly two tunics (both with questionable seams) and a holy symbol that doubled as a turnip scraper. He had nothing. Not even a bag to throw dramatically over his shoulder.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “We leave. We become wanderers. Vagabonds. Crusaders of destiny and divine nonsense.”

  Morinxandar gave no rebuttal. So he left. Again. He’d only made it halfway out of Drizzle when the sky hiccupped. It wasn’t thunder. Thunder was confident. This was more of a bureaucratic burp. A moment later, a weather-beaten umbrella fell from the sky. Not opened. Just dropped. Attached to it via twine, gum, and a suspicious amount of sticky toffee was a jarred message.

  The jar said:

  “URGENT QUEST REQUEST: FOR CLERIC-LIKE INDIVIDUAL.”

  “From: CRISPIN THE UNPRESSED, LAUNDERER OF MYSTIC GARMENTS”

  “Location: GRUMBLESHIRE (Regrettably)”

  “Details: Laundry. Sentient. Missing. Possibly forming government.”

  Inside was a note scribbled in panic and detergent:

  "Please help. Union must not find out. Sentient laundry loose.

  Socks negotiating. Towels sulking. Undergarments organizing.

  Will pay in soap and semi-legal favors."

  It was sealed with lint. Derrin sighed. He turned to Morinxandar. “Well,” he said. “Could be worse.”

  The umbrella, struck by sudden wind, twitched violently and smacked him in the shin.

  Derrin nodded. “Of course. Now it feels familiar.”

  And with that, he limped toward Grumbleshire—a place where hope was an afterthought, and complaints were legal tender.

  ****

  Derrin crested the last hill of the complaint-rutted road with the wide-eyed awe of someone who had never seen more than twenty people in one place without a livestock auction involved. Before him stretched Grumbleshire—not quite a city, certainly not a village, but a sprawl of clanking carts, muttering shopkeepers, and suspiciously sentient weather.

  Every building leaned slightly. Some inward, some outward, some in ways that architecture students would later describe as "emotionally unstable." The cobbled streets were filled with critical foot traffic: people bumping into one another, sighing heavily, and then writing it down in official Grievance Notebooks, which were required by local law and often used as both legal records and passive-aggressive coasters. The air buzzed with the gentle hum of civic dissatisfaction. Bells chimed in the distance—though each one rang about three seconds late and just off-key enough to annoy trained ears. Overhead, banners fluttered:

  “WELCOME TO GRUMBLSHIRE – PLEASE FORM A SINGLE LINE FOR COMPLAINTS.”

  “VOTE NO ON HAPPY TUESDAYS.”

  “NOW FEATURING: THE NEW SIGHSTONE ANNEX – COMPLAIN IN STYLE!”

  Derrin took a single step into the city square and was nearly knocked flat by a bustling grandpa wielding a cane and a strong opinion on public seating.

  “Excuse me,” Derrin muttered, dodging a young couple deep in a heated argument about the emotional weight of scones.

  He clutched his satchel tighter, as though the crumb-coated form of Morinxandar inside might offer more than existential companionship. And strangely… he did. With the faint rustle of muffin on paper, Morinxandar shifted—his presence, though entirely static, had weight. Not physical. Not spiritual. Just… familiar. Grounding. Derrin took a breath. The panic inside his chest slowed. The air still felt like judgment, but at least now it was a silent judgment. Morinxandar had that effect.

  Derrin whispered, “Thanks, friend,” and received no response, as per muffin protocol. Still, the crumbs of calm settled around his thoughts like comforting lint.

  The noise, the sheer population, the swirl of conversation—it was too much. Derrin had grown up in Drizzle, where crowds consisted of three people and a sheep. Here, even the ducks traveled in coordinated clusters, honking grievances in harmony.

  “Pardon, sir!” he finally said to a hunched figure leaning against a crooked fountain shaped like an exasperated badger.

  The figure turned. Long, wind-withered beard. Eyes full of time. Cloak of uncertain material. A staff. It looked promising. Very sage-like.

  Derrin took hope in both hands. “Excuse me, great one… I’m looking for the launderer known as Crispin the Unpressed. I was summoned.”

  The sage nodded, solemnly. “Aye. Summoned, you say? By the Sudsy One.”

  Derrin blinked. “That’s… yes?”

  The man leaned closer, whispered, “You got a clean pair of socks, lad?”

  “I—what?”

  “I’m asking,” the man said with all the gravity of prophecy, “because the last time someone asked for Crispin, they were wearing ill-fitted stockings, and that started a feud that ended with ducks in wigs taking over the town council.”

  A pause. Then: “Wait,” Derrin said slowly. “Are you a sage?”

  The man leaned back, revealing a bottle labeled Elixir of Remembrance (which, upon closer inspection, was actually vinegar). “No. Duck herder.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I remember things.” The herder nodded. “Like where the laundromat is. Head down Remorse Lane, take a right at the Sighstone, past the stall that sells emotionally unstable lemons, then two lefts and a bribe.”

  “A bribe?”

  “Standard Grumbleshire directions.”

  “Right,” Derrin said, adjusting his muffin. “Thanks.”

  The herder grinned. “Tell Crispin his enchanted socks owe me rent.”

  And with that, the man wandered off, trailing breadcrumbs, laughter, and one suspiciously coordinated duck. Derrin looked down the crooked lane. Shops blinked at odd intervals. A squirrel with a monocle was lecturing a bagel. A complaint about cloud formations was being lodged with a passing weather warden.

  He sighed. “Morinxandar,” he said softly, stepping forward, “we’ve arrived.”

  A single crumb fell in quiet solidarity.

  The road to Crispin’s Laundro-Magica was not so much a road as it was a suggestion. The cobblestones were laid out in what could charitably be called an emotional spiral, leading Derrin down twisting alleys, judgmental cul-de-sacs, and one particularly aggressive hedge maze labeled “Definitely Not A Trap” (which was, of course, very much a trap—it just led back to the same alley but slightly wetter). A carved stone near the village square announced the town motto in six languages, none of which were spoken fluently here:

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Grumbleshire – Where the Grass is Greener, But Only Because Everyone Complains About It Constantly.”

  Below that, in much smaller lettering:

  (Population: 832. Mood: 5/10, trending down.)

  Derrin tiptoed past a group of retirees having an enthusiastic debate over whether clouds should be allowed to loiter without permits. They waved protest signs reading “Down With Cumulus Entitlement” and “Bring Back Honest Downpours!” He nodded politely. One of them nodded back with suspicion so sharp it could skin a pear.

  Down Remorse Lane, he dodged a flock of parrots trained to critique fashion choices (“CLOAK TOO DULL!” squawked one, “SUSPICIOUS MUFFIN ENERGY DETECTED!” screamed another). A nearby kiosk sold Complaints in Jars, though the vendor muttered that business was down because people preferred artisanal dissatisfaction these days.

  At a corner stood a small kiosk with a blinking rune that occasionally sparked and said:

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  > [SYSTEM NOTICE]

  > Shardlands Regional Stability: 52%

  > Local Reality Seam: Threadbare

  > Current Threat Level: Moody with a chance of collapse

  > Note: Someone named “Derrin” may or may not be involved

  Derrin flinched. Morinxandar, nestled in his satchel like a judgemental pastry pope, remained resolutely crumb-faced. He didn’t have much to say, but his silence now felt heavier. Across the plaza, a man with wild eyes, a chicken on each shoulder, and three more tethered to a belt made entirely of egg cartons was screaming atop a barrel.

  “The signs are clear!” he bellowed. “The Poultry-Pocalypse is upon us! Chickens in every cupboard! Feathered doom! The coop shall rise!”

  Passersby ignored him with the focused apathy of people who had seen far, far weirder. Derrin considered asking for directions, then remembered the last time someone gave him advice, he ended up hexed into tasting cardamom for two weeks. He spotted a wooden building leaning heroically to the left, its faded sign reading:

  “Crispin’s Laundro-Magica: For Laundry That Knows What It Did.”

  Below it was a hand-painted board stating:

  “Yes, We’re Open. No, We Don’t Accept Cursed Underwear Without Prior Notice.”

  A sock fluttered from the eaves like a flag of surrender. Derrin stood before the door, adjusted his pack, gave Morinxandar a reverent pat, and whispered, “Well, friend. This is either the beginning of something important… or we're about to be pantsed by sentient trousers.” A single crumb fell from the muffin like a benediction. The door creaked open with the reluctant groan of wood that had seen too much—tax notices, poorly folded bedsheets, one minor haunting—and still hadn’t been properly oiled. Derrin stepped inside, blinking against the shifting light. The laundromat smelled faintly of lavender, ozone, and dismay.

  To his left: rows of arcane washer-dryer hybrids, humming with magical static and old curses that had apparently survived three rinse cycles and a full tumble dry. To his right: a folding table with a large dent that looked suspiciously fist-shaped, surrounded by empty coffee cups and one cup that growled softly.

  “Hello?” Derrin called into the dim space.

  The lights flickered. The humming stopped. Silence settled like an old robe. Then something moved. At first, he thought it was just a draft. Then he realized the draft was wearing socks. The laundry bin in the corner shuddered—not in fear, but with malicious enthusiasm. And then, as if summoned by fate, chaos, or a particularly rebellious dryer cycle, it began.

  A towel launched from the bin with the speed and grace of a vengeful stingray, slapping Derrin full across the face. He staggered back, arms flailing, as a trio of socks—all mismatched, all oddly damp—swarmed his ankles with coordinated malice.

  “NOPE,” Derrin barked, trying to hop away. One sock bit him. Bit. Him.

  “System!” he gasped, shaking a possessed pair of boxer shorts off his arm. “Combat? Combat tutorial?! Anything?!”

  The system responded with all the urgency of a tax office on a holiday:

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  > [SYSTEM RESPONSE]

  > Threat Level: 3/10 (Domestic Menace)

  > Suggestion: Tidy Your Soul Before Your Laundry

  > Spell Suggestion: [Grumble of Healing] — May mildly annoy hostile linens

  “Great,” Derrin muttered, retreating toward the folding table. “That’s helpful. Maybe I’ll soothe the sock swarm with healing and disappointment.”

  Morinxandar was hurled into a laundry basket for safety, emerging moments later crowned in a tangled brassiere and glaring as only a sacred muffin could. Another towel came at him, attempting what Derrin was reasonably certain was a flying clothesline chokehold. He ducked, tripped over a washbucket, and collided with the shelf labeled “Experimental Bleach – Do Not Sniff.” A shirt floated ominously from a nearby hanger. It was a polo. Horizontal stripes.

  “Oh no,” Derrin breathed. “This isn’t just possessed… this is retail hostile.”

  And then, as all hope seemed lost beneath a flurry of sentient fabric…

  CRASH.

  The back door of the laundromat burst open with a swirl of steam and scented detergent. Entering like a low-budget storm god in slippers was a tall, wiry wizard in a wine-stained robe and a deeply unearned air of casual confidence. His beard was streaked with dryer lint. His eyes were bagged but blazing.

  “You absolute wrinkled idiots!” he bellowed, brandishing a plunger inscribed with softly glowing runes. “I told you—NO SENTIENCE UNTIL AFTER FINAL RINSE!”

  The socks froze. The towels shivered. The polo shirt attempted to apologize, then combusted into tasteful ash. With a flick of his wrist, the wizard launched a wave of soapy, magical energy through the room. The sentient laundry shrieked, fizzled, and folded itself neatly into submission. The silence returned, this time accompanied by the scent of lemon balm and muted embarrassment. Derrin, tangled in a pair of enchanted long johns, blinked up from the floor.

  The wizard adjusted his glasses. “You must be Derrin. I’m Crispin. I think I owe you tea, an apology, and possibly hazard pay.”

  A beat. Then: “…Can the tea be slightly too hot?” Derrin asked, rubbing his bruised temple.

  Crispin paused, looked him over, then cracked a grin. “You’re going to fit in here just fine.”

  ****

  The laundromat’s back room was much nicer than the front, if only because the linens in it weren’t actively attempting mutiny. It had a low ceiling, hung with drying herbs, fraying parchments, and what might have been a decorative sock chandelier. A kettle whistled from a crooked stovetop in the corner, and a mismatched set of porcelain cups were already half-filled with Crispin’s Mildly Regretful Black Tea (Now With Hints of Cinnamon and Existential Doubt). Derrin nursed his cup carefully. The tea was, of course, just a little too hot—which gave him a strange, comforting feeling. Familiar discomfort was his emotional baseline. Crispin flopped into a chair across from him, sending a small avalanche of laundry receipts tumbling from the desk to the floor.

  “I do apologize for the earlier scuffle,” Crispin said, casually gesturing toward the singed corner of Derrin’s robe. “That batch of towels was supposed to have only temporary self-awareness. Long enough to fold themselves and reflect briefly on their purpose in the universe. Unfortunately, they started asking questions. That’s never good.”

  “I… noticed,” Derrin said, glancing warily at a hamper that might have winked at him.

  The wizard sighed and sipped his tea—without flinching. Clearly a veteran.

  “The truth is,” Crispin began, in the tone of someone who loved explaining things but never quite finished doing so, “this isn’t just about uppity socks. The Shardlands are… fraying. Threads unraveling. Seams going loose. It’s all very metaphorically textile, which I suppose is why I get a lot of the academic papers.”

  He pulled a scroll from the shelf behind him labeled DO NOT UNROLL IN HUMID CONDITIONS, spread it flat anyway, and pointed to a complex diagram that looked like a doily trying to escape.

  “You see these? These are the Realmatic Seams. Once quite snug. But now? Puckering. Bunching. Some of the outer threads are coming undone entirely, and we’ve had at least two minor pocket-plane implosions in the last fiscal quarter.”

  Derrin blinked. “That… sounds bad.”

  “Oh, it is,” Crispin agreed cheerfully. “Textile metaphysics always sounds silly right up until your underwear develops a god-complex and eats your neighbor.”

  He leaned forward.

  “Now, I’m not a practitioner, mind you. I’m more of a theoretical folder. I write papers. Present at conferences. Host mildly successful workshops on Mystical Laundry: Ethics & Efficiency. I don’t do fieldwork.”

  Derrin tilted his head. “So who does?”

  Crispin’s teacup paused halfway to his mouth. “Well,” he said slowly, “someone must. Stitchers, weavers, rebinders… the old texts mention them, though never clearly. Some say there are orders scattered across the seams. But no names. No maps. Bureaucracy got involved.”

  Derrin nodded solemnly. “That’ll do it.”

  “Which brings us,” Crispin said, snapping back to the immediate disaster, “to your reason for being here. The towels.”

  He flicked a parchment across the table. On it was a crude drawing of what appeared to be a very smug bath towel wearing a monocle and wielding a lint roller like a weapon.

  “They’ve grown too self-aware. They’ve organized. They’ve taken over the North Drying Annex and declared it a sovereign territory. One of them gave an impromptu lecture on lint-based civil rights last Tuesday. I was impressed. Alarmed, but impressed.”

  Derrin glanced at Morinxandar, who had been placed gently on the table like a silent judge of the universe. The muffin remained stoically uncrumbed, though Derrin could’ve sworn it radiated judgment.

  “And the union?” Derrin asked carefully.

  Crispin grimaced. “The Guild of Laundrical Integrity and Towelkind. Powerful lot. If they find out I’ve been experimenting with autonomous fabric without a proper enchantment disclosure permit—well, let’s just say I’ll be spinning in more than circles.”

  Derrin frowned. “So what exactly do you need from me?”

  “Negotiation,” Crispin said, as if it were obvious. “Possibly cleansing. Possibly minor exorcism. At the very least, someone not me to walk into the Annex of Free Linens and convince them to stand down before this escalates to the Great Softener War of ’26 again.”

  He leaned forward and patted Derrin’s hand.

  “You’re a cleric. You understand morality. Persuasion. Consequence. You're… what’s the word…” he paused, searching the air for inspiration, “...insured.”

  Derrin sighed. He wasn’t sure if he was insured. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been insured. He wasn’t even sure he was real some mornings until the system glitched at him. But he was certain of one thing: the towels had gone too far.

  Crispin had been pacing for some time now, which was impressive given how many precariously stacked baskets of semi-conscious hosiery he had to avoid. He waved one hand vaguely in the air, the gesture of a man trying to untangle an idea from a ball of metaphysical yarn—and finding it full of static cling.

  “It’s just laundry,” he muttered. “Simple, enchanted, union-agnostic laundry. I’ve cast more dangerous spells trying to keep scones fresh on a humid day.”

  Derrin raised a brow. “The napkins tried to strangle me.”

  “Well, yes, there’s that,” Crispin admitted with a nervous laugh that didn’t make it past his throat. “But isolated incidents happen in every revolution. I mean, rotation. Spin cycle. Look, I assure you, it’s all very—very minor.” He hesitated for precisely one heartbeat too long.

  Derrin crossed his arms. “Minor like a wrinkle or minor like a collapsing seam in the fabric of reality?”

  Crispin froze. His eyes flicked to the shelf behind him—specifically to the thick, worn ledger wedged between The Pocket Guide to Practical Rebinding and Dryer Beasts and How to Reason With Them. The spine of the ledger was cracked and patched with three kinds of tape. Gold lettering, faded and slightly singed, read:

  

  Derrin followed his gaze. His eyes narrowed.

  Crispin cleared his throat, loudly. “It’s… theoretical.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I mean yes, technically the Clause applies, but only in cases where animated cloth exceeds self-awareness thresholds and begins to form collective bargaining units.”

  “Which they have.”

  “Yes, well. Rapidly.” Crispin fidgeted with the corner of a towel manifesto someone had slipped under his door that morning. “You see, this isn't just about rogue linens. It’s a symptom, dear boy. A soft, fluffy symptom of a larger problem. The Shardlands are fraying. Seamlines thinning. Anchors loosening. Threads of fate—splitting at the hem.”

  Derrin tried to process that sentence and found his thoughts snarled like a load of socks in a top-loader without a mesh bag.

  “The world,” Crispin finished with a sigh, “is unraveling.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then a faint chime echoed in the room, like a spoon politely dinging the edge of a mug of cosmic tea.

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  > SYSTEM UPDATE

  > New Title Assigned: “Cleric: Temporary Fabric Chaplain”

  > Responsibilities May Include:

  > - Negotiating with self-aware linens

  > - Preventing dimensional lint-fire

  > - Folding with both mercy and precision

  > Warning: This title is temporary. Like trust. Or warm socks.

  Derrin blinked. “Fabric Chaplain?”

  Crispin beamed with sudden relief. “See? The System believes in you. That’s rare! The last time it updated me, it deleted my laundry forecast and replaced it with the phrase ‘NOPE.’”

  He reached beneath the table and handed Derrin a small tin badge. It was shaped like a clothes peg and smelled faintly of burnt lavender and heroic resignation. Derrin took it without a word. Morinxandar, from his pouch, remained stoically silent, possibly because muffins don’t speak, but more likely because no crumb in the world was prepared for this kind of assignment. And deep beneath the floorboards, a sock muttered something in protest and began organizing a vote.

  Derrin thought about it for a few minutes then with a look toward Morinxandar he set his jaw and said, “I’ll do it!”

  Morinxandar, if not proud, was at least quietly resigned.