Within a chamber of finely chiseled stone and smooth wood--one bolstering a clear moat low and around that which was not the dirt arrived on, a great and mighty tree grew beneath a tall ceiling. Such massive structure fit for more, swaths of elfs exited the cavern tunnels and joined their peers in a place holy and thought never to be seen in their lifetimes. Ahead of them limped Lord Moth, his yukata of royal colors darkening and glinting between runes and shafts of natural light, and beside him Doetrieve patiently maintained pace. Behind both the dwarf found the walk comfortable, especially to be, for once, entering the chamber as guest than interloper--his father would be happy, unless he’d hate the elfs, which the dwarf thought just as likely.

Water burst from mouths of all sizes all round the chamber; the dwarf recognized one. A few steps further and he glanced at spots where Locust had cut hi down At the end of the journey into the chamber, he, as well as every present elf, gazed sadly upon the gnarled bark of The Ponderous. Its face sported ugly splotches; Its branches drooped pathetically, and the trunk featured black and red fungi.

“DDDDWWWAAARRRR...”

Lord Moth had bowed his head by the point of The Ponderous’ mutterings. It rose to meet the dwarf with barely restrained bewilderment. Doetrieve too turned to him.

“AAAAARRRRFFFFFFF...”

The dwarf felt the pangs of sympathy of many lifetimes ago well up. He drew close and, to light whisperings and gasps among the common elf, the dwarf put his palm to bark. This same hand drew eventually towards his cowskin pouch, and from within the dwarf produced a vial of thick purple.

“Stop!”

But as soon as the Lord instructed the dwarf’s halting did The Ponderous muster a gravely command:

“STAND NOT... IN HIS WAY.”

With expressed concern turned away from Moth and Doetrieve and back forward, the dwarf twisted off the cork and dribbled solution onto protruding roots across and up intricate craftsmanship and chisel work. The deitree’s mouth, so unfortunately, lifelessly agape at once sprung to action in heavy, labored gasps. Lord Moth watched carefully. Doetrieve’s eyes betrayed worry. And every other elf held strictly silent. As the color of autumn bled back into The Ponderous One’s face, calm breathing resumed, and it silently surveyed its congregation.

“THANK YOU, ELFS AND DWARF... BUT ARE YOU REALLY?”

The dwarf explained the situation, chaotic and scattered as it was, in as brief a summation possible. The Ponderous’ shut eyes of clamshell bark indeed gave the sense of a great pondering for some time.

“I WORRIED OF HIS MISCHIEVOUS NATURE... AND PAID A DEAR PRICE. HE WAS NEVER FIT FOR THAT TALISMAN...” it said, chewing nothing and squinting at its stout guest. “YOU ARE FAMILIAR, DWARF... DO YOU NOT RECOGNIZE MY BARK?”

But the dwarf could only tilt his head.

“I AM... TREEKIND. A GOD BUT A SERVANT ALL THE SAME. IN MY DAYS I CAUSED MUCH MISCHIEF... FOR MY FINAL DAYS, I UNDERWENT A PILGRIMAGE TO THIS PLACE. TO BE IN PLACE. HOW ABOUT IT, DWARF... MY VOICE CANNOT BE ALIEN TO YOUR EARS.”

Confused, the dwarf attempted to explain ‘SAVING’ and ‘LOADING’, wanting to have avoided unnecessary questions from the elfs gathered but unable to ignore being so directly spoken to over the others. But The Ponderous hushed him and continued:

“I REFER TO A NIGHT... A FOREST... A YOUNG MAN.”

The dwarf’s palms began squeezing and releasing before realizing a command was ever given.

“YOU WOULD DARE... SHOW SUCH DISREGARD... FOR WE WHO RENDER...”

The Ponderous burst into coughs and the color of its face threatened to desaturate. But the dwarf could not process a single hack or utterance, his own ears ringing. He was no longer dwarf--he was the son of a farmer rushing past charcoal green under a starless sky. He had collided with so many trees he lost himself to anger and unwittingly chose treekind as his target. Moonlight witnessed a scene often visited in the dwarf’s dreams, of being lifted into the air and dropped down a sudden made chasm, of becoming dwarf. He returned The Ponderous’ reveal with a look of horror.

“I REGRET IT.”

The dwarf did not know what to say.

“I REGRET IT FAR BEFORE YOU CAME. I REGRET EVER SERVING... TREEKIND DID NOT HAVE A CHOICE. BUT I SHOULD NOT HAVE CHOSEN...”

Once more coughs crept from the twisted bark of The Ponderous. All elfs in attendance expressed concern, and Lord Moth approached the dwarf’s side.

“Please conserve your energy, o Ponderous One,” he advised.

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“THERE IS... NO TIME.”

“O One...” the lord lamented.

“YOU MUST LEAVE THIS ISLAND, DWARF” exclaimed The Ponderous. The dwarf had not known he was on an island to begin with, and carefully heeded its next words. “CROSS THE TURBULENT SEAS TO THE BAY FAR NORTH...” it advised, “AND SEEK THE CAREFUL ONE.”

“The Careful One, my lord?” asked Moth.

“AT ALL COSTS...” warned The Ponderous.

“Our navy is decimated, my lord.”

“AT ALL COSTS,” the deitree repeated.

“Please,” said Doetrieve, fresh tears down his cheeks, “Conserve yer energy, O Ponderous.”

“I AM SORRY, O SON OF MAN” cried The Ponderous.

“Good One,” cried Lord Moth.

The dwarf’s own eyes misted, and he could not properly digest the turn of events, exhausted as he quickly became. He fought unconsciousness to hear The Ponderous’ final declaration.

“I WILL NOT LET HIM ESCAPE JUSTICE...”

Bark writhed and chipped as The Ponderous One bellowed in baritone an exclamation of agony, its roots bursting from the ground and walls, through ancient stone and fresh lain wood. Both Doetrieve and Moth retreated some steps back while the dwarf remained, and only did he run as roots shot into the ceiling freeing large chunks of stone and earth. All elfs ran for the walls for cover, and as the collapsing began and ended, none appeared wounded, and the dwarf himself stood meters from a thick chunk of debris. He turned to what all other elfs gasped at and faced: Captain Locust emerging from above, light spilling and smothering, a tight wound branch on each limb. The captain clearly struggled and fought for freedom but did so as vainly as a farm boy once had at the mercy of the same tree.

“What... is this!” cried Locust, head wildly shifting for slack, long hair whipping a blur. Appearing to pause to recover his breath, the sight of clear terror struck the captain’s glass ravaged features; branches twisted into the form of a noose descended and fit itself around the captain’s neck. “No,” said the condemned, the final words of an elf captain hanged before his people.

First to notice the lifeless expression of The Ponderous, Doetrieve let escape stuttering cries, and Lord Moth too began loosening an elder’s bitter tears. Elfs fell to their knees. Unable to remain awake any longer, the dwarf fell to dirt...

Soaked in sweat, some moments passed before the dwarf knew himself to be within an elfen suite. His immediate impulse was to throw off the blankets, but he couldn’t think of anywhere to run to. The church nestled high in the mountains could surely now be thought of as made safe, and Funguayou watched over his flock. But he thought of mushrooms dotting their heads and frowned, and could only hope no further trickery was exercised upon the defenseless creatures, though stinger tipped many were. And he reflected on the spiders the dwarf had forged such strong overnight bonds with, wondering if Doetrieve had corraled them somewhere else, if they returned to their cages, remained on the wall, returned to the chapel on the plains. Feeling a perpetual worrywart, the dwarf resisted the urge to toss the heavy blankets aside and instead continued his reflections, shifting back and forth to bring about more rest. Yes, he wondered of Doetrieve next and what his fate would be--it did not seem likely the lord would have him executed. He wondered of the corporals last seen plastered to the hanging platform. And Lord Moth again crossed his thoughts. The quick slice seen on the vine that held Doetrieve flashed, and the dwarf tasted a pang of fear. But the lord had stood beside the dwarf with no apparent issue, his bent head the same height as the dwarf’s. And did the lord now believe the dwarf to be what his short bearded self was? The Ponderous confirmed as much, the dwarf remembered. Would he be hanged again, then? The dwarf doubted this, too, and if another ‘SAVE’ needed accessing in the worst case, the dwarf would handle it. But he hated the very idea, truthfully, as soon as it blossomed, that the dwarf would need ‘SAVE’ again. Obviously it would happen. But the dwarf thought of the decayed Ponderous and questioned what else could be asked, learned. A moral complex arrested the dwarf--if he ‘SAVED’, was he killing The Ponderous? If the dwarf ‘LOADED’, was it reanimation? And the sight of the corpse of Locust swaying from the rooftops in sunlight disturbed the dwarf greatly. Desiring the adjoined bathhouse on multiple fronts, the blankets sailed and the door slid.

The Curious One, the dwarf pondered as hot bubbles burst around him, sweat reforming following the beginning of the soak. Long ago, the Ponderous indeed had spoken in terms of ‘we’. What did the tree direct him in its last moments for? The dwarf saw his farm and shed salt into the bath. What would he do if he could go home? All chores would be relinquished, relished the dwarf. He would barber wheat no further. He would plough no fields. If the animals required help, that is as far as he would go. It wasn’t as if his father could force otherwise, accepted he who had endured much suffering in this new world at hands offering no other choices. How much could the cost of a hired hand be compared to liquor corner receipts? And the dwarf would say a proper goodbye one day and leave, travel in one direction as he did through childhood, and work forward from there. No matter what his old world threw at him, it would not be massive divides in the earth, giant egg spawn, prison happy elfs, hulking spiders or swinesects.

The dwarf missed Waspig.

Out the bath, the dwarf could not return to such dirtied sheets, and so his dripping naked self left the suite and traveled down familiar carpet. A receptionist stopped the dwarf just before his exit and informed him of three requests of an audience: one from the corporals, one from the lieutenant, and one from the lord and his, as informed, daughter. The dwarf asked which order he was meant to accept, and the receptionist shrugged and slid a cowskin pouch across the counter as well as what appeared to be a bundle of ocean blue silk.

“I meant to deliver this to your door, sir,” started the clerk, “Forgive me. A gift commissioned by Captain Doetrieve.”

The dwarf repeated the name with alarm.

“Yes, the ceremony was this morning. I thought to wake you but, well, I attended, and forgot. I am sorry.”

The dwarf expressed no real concern, though he would have been happy to have seen Doetrieve crowned. But a smile formed anyway for the acquiring of actual threads. The clerk continued:

“Yes, well, in this town you may walk as you choose, but Nasteze is a different place. You’ll have to charter a ship there if you wish to reach the bay to the north. And you’ll want to do that while wearing something, ideally.”

Given the stark nude the dwarf already offered, he did not really see any reason to duck back into his suite to change, and so he billowed and dawned the robes and tied them together with a golden yellow obi, sliding his massive feet into accommodating sugarcane sandals. They clacked satisfying across tile--the dwarf abandoned his appleseed ways with triumph and exited the hotel with beard held high.