“Where is he?”

The dwarf, situated on the border between emerald chamber and rocky outcropping, pointed up. The funguay which spoke in turn--Doctor Mallow--folded its several arms.

“Much time has passed since I last raised a son...”

Words fading, the funguay ground at its temples, shutting its eyes thoughtfully. The dwarf, blue legged but in considerably less pain than minutes before, sat, fighting off the growing urge to rest. If he removed himself from the relocator, Mallow would immediately relocate, the dwarf knew. And if he fell asleep, he’d be surely dragged from his place. Alone, the dwarf feared his chances of rescuing Doetrieve and dethroning Locust to be low. Thoughts spilling fast, he blurted to the doctor a need for the recipe for the antidote.

“Antidote? You have been told there is no such thing, dwarf. Now listen, what I can brew will kill The Ponderous’ parasite, make no question of it. But it will kill him soon after. Some lucidity will be granted--and what will you ask of him, dwarf? Do you know he claims to be a deity? Many of these trees do--the aged, I mean to make certain. They carry great wisdom, but do not let them sway you from His word, dwarf.”

The funguay drew up and crouched next to the stout, blue legged dozer.

“You cannot inform me of family so fast and think I care for what else. I will see this child you describe. I will concoct the potion you seek. And I will obtain a greater lotion to assist you with. All this I promise on His good book--but I will not spend another sleepless night in this pit. Roll off with your lame self and allow me travel, little one. Do not forget you can go anywhere you like as well. Why stay here?”

Doctor Mallow’s face came inches closer to the dwarf’s. It read his expression well.

“My God. This cannot be your first... it’s your people’s creation, dwarf. You made this. How can you have visited none other?”

The dwarf, exhausted, shook his beard wordlessly.

“Pitiful wretch. I see why someone so desperate would act as an animal even within His halls. Perhaps you deserve my pity in the end. Very well. Remove yourself from this chamber and I will acquire something worthier of sleeping on. You have my word I’ll return. You’d like a nice pillow, wouldn’t you?”

The dwarf would.

“Scoot, will you?”

The dwarf shifted off the chamber and rolled onto gravel. The chamber bathed quick in light, and Doctor Mallow vanished. Echoes of the traveling reached the great heights of the cavern. All then settled quiet. The dwarf waited an indeterminate amount of time, his vigil in vain...

No light filtered through the enormous space, bottom occupied by solely dwarf. Indeed he blinked and could spy neither ally nor stalagmite. He searched where he lay and came into contact with nothing but rock. The dwarf’s warm ear tinged with the nostalgia of a barn nook comforter. Comfortable luxuries, barn animals, his father: all were a rift away, the dwarf despaired. What was he even doing involving himself in the affairs of otherworldly humanoids? The dwarf saught only home and safety. Defeating Locust would assure the latter, the dwarf seemed sure. But could it also accomplish the former? What did The Ponderous One truly know? The dwarf recalled its dying words merely suggesting the presence of others like itself. With no further direction to work off of, what choice did the dwarf have now? He considered the city on the shore, gleaming jewel he knew it to be. The dwarf struggled with its name, knowing it’d surely been overheard. Nasteze? He couldn’t be certain. All the dwarf knew true was his loneliness and abandonment. Having shared a cell and stood neck to neck towards death, the dwarf assumed a camaraderie would have blossomed--enough to ensure Locust’s downfall, at least. But none materialized, no pillow could be found, and the dwarf had been tricked. The back of his head hit the ground with a thud as the life in him gave out, glossy eyes towards infinite ceiling.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He deserved betrayal, reasoned the dwarf. The actions of an erased past mattered little in the existing present; the dwarf struck first. After, trapped in a hole, the funguay had clawed its way through earth and relocated to find itself sentenced to a death avoided by hairs--whatever grew atop Mallow’s cap. For a fungus of God, pondered the dwarf, it brokered a foul deal with the captain, and he could not reason through the conflictions. It had poisoned a deity--did the doctor not see it this way? Were the gold and gems worth the brain and bark disabling of a higher power? What would Mallow even accomplish with such wealth? Waspig fluttered through the dwarf’s mind atop a sudden gale of wind for all the impact it had on him--the dwarf’s eyes gave way to thin streams. He missed his hog. Waspig would be on the other side and miles upward. And to reconnect, the dwarf’d have to either take the rusted pick into his hands and forge a path through wet mud and packed earth and ascend once more an immense vertical struggle--or kill himself. All considered, the dwarf did not consider having had accomplished much. A redo could help.

The dwarf’s thoughts wove themselves into the complexities of reversing time, and so his mind became overly preoccupied--enough to distract the dwarf away from a noise noticed but unregistered nor identified. In the cave’s near utter lack of visibility, sole light sources atop rocks and across emerald being runes, the dwarf did not wish to contribute much imagination to conjuring up a threat in the dark. But before long he had no choice, his mind attempting to understand the hollow whistling rumbling from the dark silhouettes of laughing stone. There seemed to be a very human quality to the sound, groans and whines thought to be distinguished. A chain, or what sounded to be a chain, rattled. Terror seized the dwarf’s nerves, and he scurried over to the relocator and hid himself in a crevice between ragged architecture and a green of low saturation. He did not know what compelled him to duck his head out nor did he comprehend any new threat: only darkness. Sweat long since perspired, the dwarf’s adrenaline gave out and sent the dwarf back to slumber...

A new day’s light made itself known through cracks and crevices. Yawning, the dwarf made a casual movement to rise from his filthy corner of the cavern and fell soon after with a yelp. The state of his still-purple legs had escaped what the dwarf recalled of the night previous, and he lay in the state braced for agony. But, beside the first poundings of vessels in immediate response, the dull pain making up much of the purple’s power ceded to a thin rhythm, complete escape not yet possible. The dwarf grew curious at the steps of recovery taken while asleep, noting the paste Doctor Mallow had applied surely did work, and perhaps the funguay’s role in this misadventure ended there--he decided to be thankful. He could not help also some confusion--had he sleepwalked?

Regardless, the dwarf was alone. He had no rucksack. He had no pigsect. He’d a pick and an empty stomach. The corner once rounded beckoned the dwarf, crippled he may be. He knew the hole smothered in itself and rain would need be freed if he wished to continue on--or he could kill himself. The thought disturbed the dwarf in how comforting it seemed, like a shield applied to his back in perpetuity--a defense to be relied on. But the consideration of limited lives brought the deadly gesture back down to the unknown--what would really happen next? For the first time in quite some time, he thought of God.

Was who Mallow worshipped He who the dwarf questioned? He’d wondered this before, the dwarf felt, but he couldn’t be sure. What had only been a matter of days had repeated onto themselves, a strip of calendar collapsing in on itself. How much time had he spent in this other world? He couldn’t know. Had he been watched over by Him? Not likely, the dwarf contested--not after all he’d suffered. Another feeling of déjà vu smacked the dwarf following the thought. The dwarf wondered of the trees--not just The Ponderous, but that which damned him to a realm not his own. Did they think of themselves as God? Or did the deities serve? Or rather, were they...

Deitrees?

The dwarf blew a mouthful of air, deflating. The corner unrounded loomed. The pickaxe, rust clear on copper, yearned for his grasp. And the dwarf yearned for it. More than anything, he wished to reunite with his flock. He could solve anything, decided the dwarf, if he could simply be with his animals again. The path ahead would require immense upper arm strength--it was a foul sort of luck the dwarf needed test himself. But, God as witness if He observed, the dwarf echoed the funguay’s words--he would not die in this pit either.

So slowly, the dwarf dragged himself from where he’d lay limply, past runes and the emerald chamber to a weakly dug tunnel visited before. Each forcing forward by way of filthy palms set the dwarf’s teeth into a clench, and having his legs dragged returned unforgotten aches.Towards the darkened back he could make out the wet collapse that filled his way out. The dwarf recalled laying warm next to a rune in the hole moments before the ceiling came down. Now he’d have to dig it all. So, positioned as comfortably as the dwarf could manage (not very at all), he raised his rusted pick and brought the thing down hard.

“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 6”

“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 7”

“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 8”

“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 9”...

Exhausted, arms splayed, the dwarf reserved the last of his strength for the last of his hits. The dirt had become damper deeper in--any one strike could release the valve. But the swinging had summoned burst veins aplenty, many adjacent to scars of the same. And, worse, the dwarf hardly concentrated on the task at hand--he could not shake the feeling of being under watch. The dwarf could realistically do little about the hypothetical, his energy swinging, his legs crying. If someone or something wanted the dwarf, the dwarf could escape only by means of the tunnel he meant to release--it was this or staying for a second execution with the elfs. It seemed only when the pick clashed against earth or rock did simultaneously chains reverberate--he was mad, he knew. And, laying still across the ground, pick silent, cave silent, the dwarf concentrated and heard nothing. He thought he may doze in the position, but the sleep he welcomed did not materialize. So the dwarf sat up, and so he continued his work. And on one particular raise of the tool--on one particular swing--a voice surprised the dwarf from behind.

“Paste helping?”

The earth burst with water.