How the dwarf recovered the package of royal elf colors is no difficult solve: he asked Doetrieve. Why Doetrieve did not remember ever telling the dwarf its hidden location is not inexplicable either: he did not. Or rather, the lieutenant had in fact, once, told the dwarf of the compartment beneath a certain suite, but this was done in a timeline gone to the waters of oblivion. Indeed, only two nights had passed since the dwarf and Paris’ infiltration. But for the dwarf, he lived a dozen.
Thanklessly, the dwarf ‘LOADED’ into a body of fresh pain again and again--following the dwarf’s suicide off the forest’s ravine and an edge gained that same night due to unfair insight, he decided to utilize the strange tool this world gifted him in defeating Locust. What the dwarf realized upon bonding with Paris was the means of doing so. But Paris was a docile, friendly pet domesticated already by Doetrieve. The arachnids beneath the elf’s mountain were freed once before, and they did not run to their captors with open pedipalps. The task ahead of him loomed greatly, which is why he decided to seek out the imprisoned Doetrieve at once for wisdom.
At first, the dwarf considered the graveyard shift guards that had assisted him before. They were not on duty the night he sneaked back to the walls, and so, the next day, after he and Doetrieve’s pet had crawled over into the settlement wasting hours searching within to no avail, the dwarf returned in an afternoon still lacking the desired guards’ presence. it was decided the time from sun up to sun down would best be spent elsewhere. Forced to bide his time until nightfall, the dwarf wandered the forest with Paris skulking behind, hands glad to be free of her reins. On occasion the spider blasted a load onto unsuspecting prey, acts which the dwarf also did not expect. They passed through groves of odd shaped rocks, under awnings of clumped, dead trunks, over fallen stalks and deflated caps. Although he had begun to enjoy the presence of Paris, the time spent together felt hollow--he had made up his mind to collect what information he could and die. What moments he spent with the arachnid would be washed away. It brought a cloud over what was sunny and appreciable. The dwarf wondered of relief were he able to ‘LOAD’ no longer.
It also depressed the dwarf to eat little else but the same apples and terrible bread. Worse, each ‘LOAD’ brought his fungus headed flock to view, and he was forced to endure Doctor Mallow’s betrayal again and again to the same innocent, unknowing creatures. He did not withhold his love from any but Funguayou, for little generated regarding, but the same hollowness suffered during the dwarf’s aimless walk in the woods sounded its cavern in the steeple.
The sun set, and the dwarf--Paris mounted--rode to the front gate to meet exactly who he meaned to see.
“Wuz you?” asked Corporal Deertre.
“‘Is that little feller. Yer memory’s gone,” chirped Corporal Smucker.
“Memory ain’t gone, ‘course I know is the little feller.”
“You don’t know nothin’ cuz you cook ‘at elf brain o’ yers in brandy.”
“I ain’t cook wit’ brandy.”
The dwarf, foreseeing an indefinite continuation, interrupted.
“Wuzzat? Where’s the prisoner? ‘Fraid I can’t tell ye, not mine knowledge to divulge.”
“Suite ‘310’, I believe,” answered Smucker.
Struck dumb, Deertre turned to his companion across the gate.
“’Oo told you?” he asked.
“Some corporals are more equal than others.”
“What...”
Corporal Smucker made a motion as if he were going to have the gates opened. But, hesitating, he turned back to the dwarf.
“Actually, ya might be too late,” he suggested. “It’s the eve of his execution. The lieutenant’s been moved to the captain’s chambers by now. And ‘ole place is locked up tighter ‘an vine. Y’ain’t gettin’ in there, I’m ‘fraid. But I’ll let you in the city all the same if ya like.”
Dejected but determined to make something of the night, he accepted Corporal Smucker’s kindness and entered the settlement, guards on the other side as grave as last he’d come. But the dwarf’s dour mood dissipated on realizing the valuable information just learned, that upon his next ‘LOADING’ he would be able to locate a far less defended Lieutenant Doetrieve. But the dwarf was unwilling to take Corporal Smucker’s word completely--he wished to survey the jail himself.
Barracks, emerald chamber, captain’s quarters, and indeed jail--the great dome of wood and rock, bamboo and runes, housed it all. Arriving there carefully, the dwarf passed through disguising branches and tall stalks of sugarcane undetected, past the lake shore and towering sugarcane homes. But ‘arriving there’ really meant coming within two hundred feet of the dome. He could go no further, dozens of officers (including many seen later on the day of the execution) patrolled or stood vigilant at all entrances. Some wore traditional colors; many royal The doors Paris had irreparably burst apart had been seen to and reinforced with thick, brilliantly gold replacements. The dwarf wondered, comparing the new glimmering doors to the somewhat shanty conditions of several peasant homes, if the poison’s purchase really had or hadn’t come from the captain’s coin. He leaned on the latter.
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Discouraged from attempting any closer distance to Doetrieve, the dwarf’s thoughts trailed off towards The Ponderous One. He already meant to pay a visit to the glass pens which housed ‘livestock’ beneath the elf’s mountain; why not seek Him out for little more effort? The dwarf admitted to himself an intense curiosity to know just how the ‘antidote’ functioned. Injecting the solution would normally be a singular event--but with his trust in ‘LOADING’, the dwarf grew eager at parting the curtains early.
But the dwarf was stopped at the rock face he knew concealed the secret entrance to the spider pens. On the other side of a magically sealed slab once was Waspig and Bathiel, the rest of his recent flock at the time slaughtered. And it was this seal that kept the dwarf sitting in dark bushes for much of the moon’s span. He had never been able to discern what the elfs performed exactly with their handwaving. He wondered if it was ‘FAITH’. He wondered if it was magic. In a world of runes and dream eaters, the pulp notion was not so distant. The dwarf thought of whether or not ‘FAITH’ and magic were the same thing, but the notion seemed sacrilegious enough to offend his father, and the dwarf looked downward at dark leaves, disappointed with himself.
No elf came that night.
As the day began with mist, the dwarf had made his way back to the dome to observe the procession. Soon guards gave way to Captain Locust, Lieutenant Doetrieve, and, to an unsuspecting dwarf’s horror, Corporals Smucker and Deertre. He did not really need to guess at what had happened. But were such lives so dispensable their deaths could be mere add-ons? The dwarf frowned and forced himself to attend the executions from cover, careful to have open two potential exits. Neither were needed in quick evacuation by the end, but the dwarf’s mood was not any more improved by it. He knew very little allies in this world--he watched them all die.
With not much more to accomplish, and with heavier fog rolling in, the dwarf let himself down the elfen wall and back onto the outskirts of the settlement. Paris skittered over to the dwarf from its position, having only then broken its patience and disobeyed its next master. This notion especially depressed the dwarf, hesitating the mount the spider, for a moment only still with his soles to fresh dew.
The dwarf casually brought its trot towards the ravine and stopped some ways before disembarking. Even if his life were going to end, he would not bring any more unnecessary harm to the poor arachnid, memory of its skewered joint solely on the dwarf’s mind as clouded as the forest around him. He stepped to the edge of the ravine unscathed having guessed correctly at the day’s lack of shifts. The dwarf turned back towards the distant arachnid and again at the dark before him and down he plunged.
“LOADING... LOADED.”...
Paris parked, the dwarf made his way to the opulent glass hotel and began crawling a dark section of bamboo wall, movements cautious. He managed himself up a floor and to where he had once exited with the use of his pickaxe. Despite the quick gold readjustment to the building in which Captain Locust slept, the once glass window had been replaced with a wooden barricade. The dwarf, feet cold on the rim of the hotel, inched apprehensively nearer and tested his palm against the pallet. It fell over casually--it had not been fixed in place whatsoever. But to his bare soles the dwarf breathed relief for the sill had been cleaned completely of jagged shards once his bloodletter. Now completely exposed by a lit indoors and glass around him, the lowered dwarf kept his pace atop carpet several degrees quicker than sneaking through the settlement. He abruptly stopped in front of a more traditional door laid open, thin cart its wedge.
At first sweat perspired. But the dwarf considered the late night and, barring unknown customs, no housecleaning team would be active. If for whatever reason he were caught nonetheless, it would not be difficult to spin on his heel and burst out from the open exit his entrance. Lungs swelled, the dwarf crept to the doorway and leaned his beard in. The room--though no suite--was empty. On the tips of his toes he pushed out the cart decorated in toiletries and allowed the door to seal him: he was alone in dark. The dwarf fumbled for the knob again ducking out and in to retrieve a mounted torch. It hurt to hold, the dwarf found, and was only slightly better than the ache brought about by Paris’ reins. But he persisted in unveiling the strangely dark room and discovered a horde of supplies: cleaning, decorating, adjusting, repairing. On one wall lay a ring of two keys; on another hanged parchment. Numbers just as the dwarf had known in a world out of reach went down a list with neighboring check marks in peculiarly different ink. Some numbers bore checks; many did not. So many, in fact, the dwarf again questioned the structure and its purpose in a settlement still beginning. But, gleaming, the list brought some relief to the dwarf--with most suites empty, his chance of being caught were very little. His luck only expanded with the obtaining and likely purpose of the keys.
Night still perceived long to go, the dwarf helped himself to a selfish opening of the suite next door, carefully sliding the door back into place, off to the adjoined bathhouse. He wasted no time in starting a bath and immersing himself within, and he cried--it had been so long. This fact highlighted after by the distinct trail made made in his wake: dark dwarfen footprints through the suite to storage and all down the hall. The dwarf felt his face redden, and knew it took only one pair of eyes and sharp ears to sound alarm. But his further tread would be clean, and he felt the same. To the third floor the dwarf traveled upon locating a spiraling stairwell. To suite ‘317’ the dwarf arrived. There was no soldier present, not a soul in either direction. He slid the key he’d used for the second floor suite and found it did not click. The other key on the ring, then, he slid in, and with satisfaction the door could be pushed aside. And there was Doetrieve shackled to the wall before the bed.
The dwarf creeped towards the chains that bound the sleeping lieutenant, and found locks incompatible with either possessed key. He searched the dim lit room--even its bathhouse--and could find nothing. It was not as if the dwarf were determined to free Doetrieve the very same night--he knew Doetrieve would not flee his execution for there was nowhere for him to go, and justice would be all the harder to prove than in the right moment. But he figured the lieutenant may prefer chatting with arms relaxed. Unable to acquiesce to his assumption, the dwarf elicited water from a fountain not dissimilar to that from his own old home. He splashed it into Doetrieve’s face and immediately the elf sputtered. Alarmed at sudden flights of footsteps, the dwarf dove beneath the bed, and the door slid back as royal boots hit the carpet. But Doetrieve, coughing ceased, continued his same position of silent slumber. Guards satisfied, they returned to their suites. The dwarf heard then a whisper.
“Dwarf?”