It wasn’t hard to pry more stories from the hunters. Just like hunters back home, the ones here love their stories, and nothing gets them going more than a tall tale about an unkillable beast in the forest. According to legend and a slightly drunk man named Sammy who is one eye short of pair, there are plenty of Djun-Rog in the forest—likely on account of them being apex predators who cannot be killed—and they congregate by a waterfall only a few miles from the Gnomeslayer Estate. The trick is, they only go to the waterfall at midnight, and only during a full moon. The last bit I wasn’t too keen to believe.
Regardless, I have the better part of a day to hike through the forest to reach the waterfall and then lie in wait. I’m fortunate for the time, because it is certainly no small distance. The forest, like most forests, is beyond vast. Again, the scale on my map is terrible. Following Sammy’s less-than-reliable directions, I make my path along the river until I reach a bend with an abandoned dock, and then I cut directly away from the water and toward the suns. I tried to pry the cardinal directions from Sammy, but the concept was lost on him. The people of Inktown, or at least the hunters, operate on a system of ‘toward the suns’ or ‘away from the suns.’ That’s when I also learned that the suns do not set or rise, but rather they dim and then brighten with each day-night cycle. Odd, but also kind of fascinating.
Finally, around dusk, I reach a small waterfall. It really isn’t much. The forest gives way to a clearing, and in the center of a clearing is a large boulder probably forty feet in height. From the top of the boulder, a spring gushes up and pours over the side where it pools at the bottom and then runs off in a little creek to join the river.
The top of the boulder would make the perfect hiding place. I move to the back and find enough protrusions to make my ascent… and it doesn’t work. I get halfway up, and my muscles simply stop working. I’m essentially out of physique stat to make the climb. It seems that fourteen points in it is only enough to climb about twenty feet, even though on Earth I could have made the climb with ease. I’m pretty fit, after all.
Finally, I settle for climbing a nearby tree and hoping I blend into the otherworldly green and blue leaves. Then I wait. I do my counting exercises to keep my thoughts at bay, and I smile when I realize I’ve gone the whole day without anything intrusive. My shrink would be proud. But if I ever make it back to Earth, I can never tell her. A story like this would earn me a one way ticket to no shoelaces, socks with grippy pads, and cushioned walls dressed in sterile off-white.
By nightfall—or… that isn’t the right term. No, the suns simply dim here. They don’t ‘fall.’ Whatever. That’ll take some time to get used to for sure. Anyway, by dark, I hear a few creatures large enough to be rhinos heading for the small clearing. They lumber through the trees, slowly slamming into branches and trunks with little concern. The smaller trees give way under their mass, and the larger ones bend and strain but ultimately survive.
“Yup, damned rhinoceros…” I mutter. The people of Inktown are apparently afraid of a rhino. And honestly, I would be too, except for the rifle. In reality, a nice fifty cal rifle would be much more effective, and though I’ve never been on an African safari, I know they don’t use .45 ACP. The round is actually fairly small as far as rifles go. Technically, the round is a pistol cartridge, but it still packs a respectable punch, especially at close range. With the right shot, any bullet can be lethal.
I watch as a pair of hulking rhinos saunter up to the spring, and they waste no time lowering their mighty heads to get a drink. I can’t be more than thirty feet away, and rhinos present a fairly large target. I snug the rifle into my shoulder and ease my finger onto the trigger. I pick the smaller of the two beasts and align my optic’s reticle over its eye. I have to disable the zoom on the optic to get a clear picture, though that only takes a single button press.
I exhale and rattle off three shots.
All three are hits, and all in the head. The rhino doesn’t drop immediately, but I can tell the wounds are fatal. It staggers, making an awful noise that spooks its companion, and then it surges forward, slashing its pair of ivory horns at nothing. Then it shudders, rears back, and collapses, its head slamming into the cool water below.
“Well… that was fairly easy.”
It takes another twenty minutes for the second rhino to finally leave the clearing, and then I shimmy down the tree and switch my rifle for the knife I pocketed earlier.
Cutting the head from a rhino is not easy. Actually, it’s fucking hard. Damn near impossible. The task nets me another point of physique, however, so maybe all the sweat and tired muscles will be worth it. Then comes the task of moving the thing. I cut as little of the head as I thought necessary in an effort to keep the weight manageable, but it still has to be two or three hundred pounds.
I don’t have rope for a proper hunter’s dragline, just sticks. Using a pair of long sticks salvaged from the forest floor, I keep my rifle slung around my chest and use the duffle bag to get the bloody head off the ground.
The suns are quite bright by the time I emerge from the forest in sight of Gnomeslayer Estate. My physique hits sixteen, bringing my progress to level five at thirty-eight out of forty. I still don’t know exactly what will happen when I level up, though I suspect that I need to confirm my class first before it will matter. Luckily, that should be coming up soon.
For now, I have to rest. There’s no way I can keep dragging the head all the way to the manor without at least a few hours of sleep. I pick a somewhat secluded spot at the forest’s edge, and I’m not even particularly situated before sleep takes over.
I wake with a start. Taking a lightning quick survey of the surroundings, I breathe a quick sigh of relief when the head is still there and my rifle is still in my hands and laying across my chest. A few feet away, I catch sight of what roused me: gnomes. A trio of them, snickering and laughing behind their hands, are jumping from foot to foot as though they’re children who just played a stupid prank.
They don’t strike me as a threat, so I take my time rubbing my eyes and fully coming to my senses.
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“Hey. What do you want?” I call in their direction.
One of the greasy little gnomes points a nubby finger at me. It looks like they only have three fingers and a thumb on each hand. Curious.
“Uh, hello? You speak English? Or whatever this language is called here?” That’s a conundrum for another time. My working theory is that being summoned by a wizard means I would naturally understand the wizard—I’d need to take commands, after all—and that I’m really just speaking the native language without realizing it. Good enough for me.
The gnomes still don’t respond.
“Alright, I need to get some sleep, so… go away? Please? Or at least shut up?” The little buggers are only a foot or two tall, and with such tiny limbs, they wouldn’t be able to do much more damage than a golden retriever puppy, so I don’t have much reservation about closing my eyes again.
As much as I desperately need a few more hours of sleep, the fuckers simply do not stop. They refuse to leave, and they also refuse to quiet down. Whatever it is they’re snickering about, it must be the funniest thing in the world, and it is happening right under my nose.
Seeing no other option, I clamber to my feet, stretch my back as best I can, and then take a step forward. Or I try to step, but I quickly lose my balance and awkwardly fall back on my ass.
The gnomes double over in laughter. The point and howl, clearly making fun of me as the butt of their joke.
“Really? Tied my shoes together? Come on.” I shake my head and reach down to undo the knot. It isn’t even a particularly good knot, nor is it a decent prank. Just childish nonsense.
One of the gnomes, at the apparent urging of its companions, dares to take a step closer to me. I hold out my hand like I might for a stray neighborhood cat, though I have no idea what to expect. The gnome, shaking with trepidation, darts forward and pokes my hand before retreating back to its fellows.
“Whatever. You lot are weird.”
My shoes once more properly tied, I lean back against my tree and close my eyes again. My whole body aches. My arms feel like jelly. I’m getting hungry, and the gnomes don’t look edible. At least not without a fire.
One of them pokes me in the ribs. “Oh, come on! Leave me alone!” I yell.
The gnomes are unperturbed by the noise. I really don’t want to use another precious round of ammunition just to scare away a pack of noisy gnomes, but I do need to rest…
I decide on the knife. If they aren’t going to speak to me and they aren’t going to leave me alone, maybe brandishing a weapon they actually understand will do the trick. My knife is still lodged in the side of the rhino head to keep it from falling out of the bag during my trek, and I rip it free with a spurt of foul blood.
“You understand this shit?” I taunt, waving the weapon side to side. I make a motion with my hands that hopefully conveys my desire to be left alone. “Shoo! Go on, get! Scram!”
No luck.
I mime running the blade over my neck, then point it at the nearest gnome. That at least gets two of them to show what I assume is fear, but not the third. It seems going for my hand and giving it a poke has bolstered the tiny being with a fresh wave of confidence. Just my luck.
The gnomes saunters forward again, and I wait until it is just within range before lashing out and nicking the side of its arm. The gnome’s jovial laughing instantly transforms into a sickening howl, and the other two immediately abandon their comrade with all possible haste.
Much to my disbelief, the gnome clutches at its chest and promptly dies. It just… keels over and dies. Just like that.
“Well fuck. Now what?” I replace the knife in the rhino head and climb once more to my feet. Dusting off my pants, I poke at the gnome twice to confirm the casualty, then bend over and lift the creature from the ground. It can’t weigh more than twenty pounds. Up close, the gnome’s features are decidedly androgynous. I have no idea if gnomes even have male and female, and I quickly decide that I don’t care.
“Do I bury you? Is that a thing here?”
The corpse refuses to respond.
I decide to place the corpse a few yards into the trees. I make it as somber as I can, shutting its little eyes and crossing its arms. Before I leave it there, I give one last look at the fatal wound. It’s barely a scratch. I’ve seen more blood from an IV removal. Actually, I’ve spat out more blood after vigorously brushing my teeth. It just doesn’t make sense.
“More questions for the great Sir Vasily,” I tell the trees, shaking my head. I leave the makeshift grave and return to the rhino head. If the gnomes are intent on revenge and bring back a couple hundred of their closest friends, I could be in trouble. No more sleep for me…
I start the awful trek back to Gnomeslayer Estate with a sinking feeling in my stomach. What if killing a gnome, even by accident, is some kind of forbidden taboo? Will I be arrested? Condemned to death? Not likely, given the weighty hardware against my chest.
And come to think of it, I’m headed toward Gnomeslayer Estate. If Sir Vasily Gnomeslayer is the most famous wizard in all of Inktown, and he’s quite literally known for butchering the creatures, I should be fine. Then I remember a few things the VA shrink tried to teach me: Just because there are no immediate consequences doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have guilt. Killing is bad, even in war. ‘Not always wrong, but bad,’ the shrink used to say. I hate that line. It doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t feel any guilt for the little gnome. Not yet, at least. It was harassing me, and I didn’t intend to kill it. I didn’t know. Would a rhino feel guilt for trampling an anthill? Absolutely not, and it must happen every day. Today I was the rhino, and the gnome was an ant. Tomorrow might be different. That’s life.
When I finally arrive at the manor, my head still swimming with philosophical conundrums, I’m downright drenched in sweat. My back feels like a tank ran over it, and my legs blaze with acidic fire after every step. But I did it.
Fortunately, a few servants are quick to attend to my trophy, and I expend every last ounce of energy in my soul climbing the stairs back to my room and collapsing facedown on the bed.