Chapter 2: End Game Part 1
Albuquerque was an excellent game to play. It taught some good skills to the young Goomers and built their strength, both magical and mundane, but it was still fun.
Who doesn’t love digging in the dirt?
Its goal was, in the name, to build a warren without taking too many rights. Gomm wasn't sure why that name had that meaning, but it didn't matter to him too much.
Granted, they were smaller than full-grown Goomers and didn’t think or plan for living space or food storage. But, they still would try to use the short posts and plan where the tunnels would go.
The other sessions mainly had been a series of twisting tunnels close to the surface so they could punch a hole here and there for airflow.
Jerry looked at the entrance after setting down a bundle of the short support posts they would use to expand the warren they had been working on for the last few weeks with a slight frown.
“I think we should start a new one.”
Gomm sighed and said,
”Why Jerry?”
“Don’t give me that,”
Jerry replied in a huff,
“You don’t want to have fun with the human dibbun, so we should at least start a new warren for a change.”
Sek chimed in,
”You’re just pissy cause we don't want to start a row with the humans over playing with their dibbun,”
She smoothed the plan sheet on a nearby rock and glanced over it. After nibbling a small stick she would char the tip of it with a weak fire spell to draw out the tunnel paths.
“I think we’ve almost run out of room in this area, though,”
she looked to Gomm,
”I think we need to move to a new place anyway, Gomm,”
She glanced around some more, looking at the various mounds in the area showing where they had dug previously.
”We can come back for the posts we already used and collapse these tunnels later. If we use too many posts, Grand-dam Choch will make us get more from the woods. I don’t want to dull my claws on wood when I could be digging.”
Sek was very proud of her claws. She spent at least an hour or two of everyday maintaining their sharpness and painstakingly cleaning them after she did any digging. Or anything that could mar their shine. Almost all of the younger dibbun liked Sek’s claws, but few spent as much time as she did alone.
Gomm liked the shine of her fur but was having trouble deciding if he liked Sek’s or Gina’s better. But, of course, they all took care of themselves, as did most of the Goomer dibbun. But those two seemed to go the extra mile regarding personal appearances.
“Okay,”
Gomm conceded,
”Where do we want to set up next?”
“Closer to the southern field,”
Jerry said firmly.
“It’s gonna be lunchtime soon, and I don't want to have to go all the way back to the warren to get it.”
“Didn’t you put some food in your pocket?”
Sek asked in a surprised voice. Her face turned suspicious, and her voice accusing,
”Or did you keep those damn marbles in there instead, like usual?”
Jerry abashedly reached into his deep pocket, though it wasn’t profoundly spacious yet, being such a young Goomer. He pulled out a paw full of the shiny marbles he had found in the humans’ play box of sand during their spying sessions.
“They’re pretty!”,
“But you can’t live on them!”
Gomm yelled, frustrated at Jerry’s obsession with the shiny baubles.
They were relatively pretty, he admitted to himself; even Gomm had a small collection of various shines at home. All the Goomers did. If it was valuable enough, eating a small shiny could restore their mana quickly.
“OH YEAH?!”
Jerry confidently threw a few small hard shinies into his mouth and crunched down before Gomm or Sek could say anything to stop him. A weird look crossed his face as he kept crunching slowly until he stopped and took what looked to be a tough swallow.
“Okay,”
he said hoarsely,
”Not gonna lie…that was not very tasty. It didn't fill me up at all, only a little bit of Mana. Must not be very valuable.”
“Of course not, you idiot!”,
Sek said scathingly.
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”They were in the humans’ play box! You think they would leave their more valuable shinies in there? Out in the open like that?
I don't even know why they let their dibbun play in that box of sand where we go boom-boom sometimes to begin with! You’ve eaten boom-boom balls!”
Gomm shook his head. He had a paw full or two of corn stored in his deep pocket, as that was all it would hold, but not enough for him and Jerry.
Gomm knew Sek would be smart enough to pack her lunch as well, but he knew they wouldn't get as much playtime if they had to go back for Jerry to get something to eat for lunch.
It was a little sketchy planning to raid the southern field during the day for a few ears of corn to feed Jerry, but since they would be building the tunnels, they should have a decent escape route if something went wrong.
Sek was laughing at Jerry’s attempts to scrub his tongue off with a handful of gravel and dirt when Gomm spoke up,
“Alright, we’ll start closer to the southern field and burrow under that fence so we can grab a few ears for Jerry’s lunch. Two bids, one stone.”
Jerry bounced happily as Gomm literally narrowed his eyes and glared warningly at the excited Goomer,
”But we are in and out quickly. We don't stick around. Dash and grab? Got it?”
Jerry nodded quickly,
”Two games at once!”
Sek and Gomm grinned at Jerry. He wasn’t really that bad. He just didn’t think through things very well. Letting excitement carry him through his mistakes was somewhat endearing if frustrating for his friends.
The Albuquerque starting point decided; Jerry picked up some of the shorter posts at one end as Gomm took the other, and Sek flipped the planning sheet over for a fresh page to work with.
The original side was almost entirely taken up with their practice warren and a few landmarks to remind them how to get back home. Chittering softly, she followed behind the other two Goomers as they moved closer to the southern field.
It was only a hundred yards closer. They couldn't start too close, or it wouldn’t be a very long game as they would burrow quickly after finishing the entrance and central main planning room.
The tunnels themselves wouldn’t take too long. However, ensuring the support posts were in place properly was essential. If the rooms or tunnels collapsed, it would force them to start over.
Within a few hours, they had dug out a small entrance leading down about three feet which took a sharp turn into the first room. They hollowed out a space almost three feet tall with a small hole in the center for air to circulate.
Enough room for them to stand next to each other without crowding. They then braced the ceiling with the posts along the walls. Their sharp, durable claws made easy work of the hard-packed dirt and a few large rocks.
Since it was only temporary support, they didn't bother with cross braces as they would in a long-term warren. Doing the minimum would keep it from taking forever to start on the smaller tunnels and keep the larger space from collapsing at an inconvenient time.
Stacking the small amount of food and Jerry’s shinies in a shelf cut into the side of the entrance tunnel, they used their deep pockets to move some of the larger rocks out of the hole, one pocket at a time.
The dirt and smaller stones they shoved and pushed out in shifts. The dibbun Goomers were intent on making their internal space a bit bigger. Filling it repeatedly was the best way to increase the capacity.
The elder Goomers could fit a lot more. Moreover, they had years of moving more significant and more considerable amounts of things in and out of the aptly named deep pockets.
They weren’t actual pockets, as none of the Goomers felt the need for additional warmth clothing would bring. With their fur regulating against cold or wetness, it wasn’t needed.
A deep pocket was a storage space within the Goomer’s body that could be expanded with use. Its ability to aid easy transport of pretty much anything was unbelievably convenient. Fortunately, if they started that way, it also prevented warmth from escaping hot foods or keeping things cold.
Grand-dam had warned against trying to fit anything living inside the pocket if they wanted it to keep living, and she seemed oddly serious about this. Gomm had tried it when he was left on his own once.
The feeling of something dying inside him when he tried it on a field mouse had been…disturbing. But, strangely, when he removed the mouse, it was hairless and withered, while his fur had grown softer. He had been subdued for a while after the experience and never tried again.
Thankfully it didn’t seem to alter the taste of the food stored within and even seemed to extend how long food could be kept before it rotted or grew moldy. When Gomm had asked why they didn't just keep all the food in the pockets, his Grand-dam had explained further.
“We can keep some things in there indefinitely with very little cost to our Mana, but large portions of anything take energy to keep inside until we get much older. We would quickly use a lot of the food we kept to refill our Mana to keep the food we need to eat to keep the food,”
She explained in a confusing manner. She laughed at his facial expression and continued
“Eventually, you will need to use less energy to maintain your pocket, and eventually, it will take very little like it does for me,”
She paused and produced several large posts, some very shiny round disks, and three watermelons,
”You’re not there yet, though.”
She laughed at his expression of one eye going wide and the other shrinking in surprise. Gomm pulled his thoughts back to the present, focusing on the game.
Now that they had excavated a decent-sized staging room, they did some quick minor embellishments to the hard-packed walls. For anything they found that might be worth displaying as they dug.
Mostly gleaming rocks, though the occasional rodent skull would also grace their grand hall. Small shelves grew into elaborate trophy displays in their imaginations.
Taking turns, they began tunneling towards the delicious cornfield anticipating a fine repast after expanding their fiefdom. Unfortunately, the tunnel didn’t wind and turn as much as usual since they were trying to break through under the fence line before lunch.
Gomm or Sek would spy how far they had progressed every few yards by popping their heads out of the ventilation holes. These were necessarily quick peaks and only suitable for guesstimating how far they had to go.
With mutual agreement, all three young Goomer decided the last thirty yards would have to lack the air holes for concealment from one of the farmhands or even farmer Jenkins himself.
Jerry was adamant about not returning to the real warren for lunch, so it might have been understandable that he was digging with a little more haste than was a good idea. Finally, he reached the bottom of the posts of the fence underground. It heralded their arrival.
Finally, at the fence line, he excitedly started to dig up toward the surface. He ignored Gomm’s and Sek’s hissing chitter of caution.
A sturdy work boot smashed through the ceiling with a cry of, ”GOTCHA!”
It almost crushed Jerry and caused all three of the Goomer to chitter in panic. Jerry’s panic was tinged with fury. Without thinking, Jerry sank his small fangs into the toe of the work boot, not penetrating very far.
He started to try to shred the foot inside with his claws. This was quite effective on a simple leather boot, as Jerry’s claws could easily dig through stone and dirt. Then, hearing a yelp of surprise and pain, the foot was quickly withdrawn.
Cursing in the human language could be heard slowly fading away as the three Goomers skittered back down the tunnel in a panic.
Jerry had broken one of their only rules: don’t hurt the humans. As they scurried back down the tunnels to safety, the planning sheet outlining their previous week’s play and a rough map leading to the home warren lay at the entrance of the tunnels. Their game was ruined, grand-dam would be furious, and Jerry had royally screwed everyone.
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