“You tell some mighty tall tales, dwarf.”

Doetrieve drew back, leaning against an elven made chair within the dwarf’s suite. The dwarf, seated across, shifted uncomfortably. He reaffirmed his explanation.

“But such a t’ing don’t make sense. Yer saying the captain came to this fungus boy’s base and leaves payment fer--fer an accusation of really quite some grounds, little guy. And jus’ ‘ow d’ya know The Ponderous? Ain’t never seen you round here, no elf has, tha’s for certain. But I’ll tell you, dwarf, it scares me yer story lines up with ‘is itinerary. I ‘member ‘im puttin’ me on guard duty ‘round ‘is place fer ‘e ‘ad somethin’ proper, as ‘e put it, to attend to outside the settlement. That was strange but Locust’s cappan, ain’t got no interest contestin’ that no more. If ‘e wants to stroll out in the night, damn ‘im, ‘e can. But ‘im goin’ out yesterday, takin’ Sow an’ Gilt--’e said ‘e wuz goin’ out to Nasteze. But yer tellin’ me if I go over to this cottage you describe, I’m gonna find the cappan trapped in the cellar? Is that right?”

The dwarf continued to shift in his seat. Having just come out the bath, he dried as best as the given towels could provide--what could not be gotten rid of soaked the seat beneath him. Rising up from his seat suddenly, the dwarf crouched and Doetrieve’s hand half went to his bow, but the elf thought better of it. The dwarf took a cushion from the pile beside the bed and reseated himself across Doetrieve, reiterating once more the truthfulness of his words.

“But yer not answerin’ what I’m really after, dwarf. Put me straight. ‘Ow do ya know all this? ‘Ow do you know our names, e’en the Ponderous--just ‘oo are you?”

The dwarf shrugged. Doetrieve smiled and shook his head, hair to the shoulder shaking.

“Well sit tight, dwarf. Ya get to be privy. See, we gots this thing in lockup. ‘E di’n’t come an’ collapse a’fore’r front lawn like you, mind ya. Naw, we find the freak in the cappan’s quarters. Dunno ‘ow ‘e got in fer certain, but we’ve some theories... Anyway, ‘e apparently confesses to our cappan some terrible crime. Couldn’t get Locust to let on what ‘fore ‘e left in the hurry ‘e did. But ‘e ‘as me lock the girl scarin’ beast up in the meantime. Obviously it’s guilty of trespassin’, breakin’ an’ enterin’, sure. But what’s got Locust all stirred? Ah, shouldn’t be pontificatin’ in front of ya, dwarf. But that’s jus’ the thing--the freak warned us of you.”

As the elf ceased his speech, the dwarf realized an opportunity to ask concerning the subject of thing, freak, and beast.

“Right. Well don’t go round scarin’ folk, cuz ‘e ain’t feral, I guarantee ya that. But still. Anyway, it’s a funguay. Dunno if ya know, but air’s mushroom zombies ‘ere to there on the island, so you best be careful outside our walls. Well, sure ya know that already. Anyway, ‘ere’s what I’m thinkin’. You come with me, huh? Let’s go see that shroom. ‘E ain’t talked since we put ‘im ‘hind bars, but I reckon...”

Doetrieve trailed off, lazily stood, and slid the suite door open. Gesturing towards his guest, the dwarf followed the lieutenant out the hotel and into the early afternoon of another day, thin rays sweeping through foliage above lighting vast sugarcane stalks rising so high along the lake shore, sugarcane houses towering. Elfs in various colored gis--for those that wore them--traveled all throughout the walled settlement, some passing the dwarf and Doetrieve, a few breaking trances to glance at the short, bald oddity stopping through. The two went by several dining halls, the dwarf remembering his soured experience at one and pondering their extravagance. Eventually the two came to a dome of wood, rock, and bamboo all smattered in runes. It wasn’t a wonder the dwarf had overlooked such a cramped building--it blended well with the surrounding bark and other various construction. Doetrieve turned to the bearded below.

“This place’s a bit odd, ya might say. It’s somewhat a barracks, somewhat a prison, as well as the cappan’s quarters, and...”

The dwarf noticed the elf trail off again. Regaining command of himself, Doetrieve turned and wordlessly traveled through one of two doors, curiosity dangling from the handle of the untraveled. Inside the dome, just as many runes decorated the sloped ceiling, cots and buckets bathed in harsh light. Taking the dwarf down a set of stairs, the two traveled through halls on halls of composition many differing material to at once straight rock, and the dwarf thought it interesting he’d not actually seen the outside of where once imprisoned before. Lost in his thoughts, he did not notice the stopped Doetrieve ahead, bumping carelessly into his robes and raising an arch to elfen eyebrows.

“You right, dwarf? Gather yerself. Beast’s in ‘ere. Lessee if we get a rise out of it.”

And sliding the prison entrance back, the dwarf indeed recognized, in a sad cell of cot, bucket, hay, and three glass legged chair, in the corner with its cap lowered, Doctor Mallow.

“Up an at’em, shroom boy. Ya got a visitor.”

The doctor barely stirred. Without paying attention, the dwarf would have not noticed its sullen eyes lift to scan past translucent bars.

“WHO DARES TRESPASS INTO CELL OF DISGRACED... Dwarf?”

The two’s gazes locked, and the shriveled funguay sprang as if watered, its multiple grips on glass, its eyes full of fire. It raged.

“PILFERER... SCOUNDREL! SUCH A LOWLY CREATURE IS OF WHO I WARNED, AND HAD I BEEN HEEDED...”

Doctor Mallow suddenly appeared confused.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Are we to share a cell?”

But Doetrieve shook in the negative, multitude of golden strands along with.

“‘E’s a guest. You could say ‘e’s the star witness.”

“What do you blather about, knife ear?”

“Is ‘at whaddya think? Then why would ya go an’ do business wit’ one?”

Mallow’s grips loosened, and its long arms went limp.

“Locust told you...? No... the dwarf?”

“So it’s fine fer ya to poison our Ponderous so long as ya get paid, is that it?”

“What--what?”

“Dwarf, I ain’t allowed this--no elf’s s’posed to but the cappan--but I’m off for the Ponderous’ chamber--I’m to see this for myself. You get ‘im to fess up to a formula that undoes this mess. Break!”

Before the dwarf realized his sudden saddling of a task, the lieutenant dashed out from the prison, taking another flight of stairs down, the dwarf heard. The dwarf considered the multiple varying entrances to the Ponderous Tree. He wondered if a cure could exist at all. He turned to the doctor, it once again clutching the bars.

“YOU... damned me, dwarf. What did I do to you, dwarf? I’ve not seen your kind in centuries. How am I to reason out this treatment? Attacked in His own house. Despicable. And there is no cure. The elf can choke on the diamonds, what do they matter now? Locust has reneged. A fool to trust a sharp ear for their stab in the back comes extra deep. I thought I was to die in that hole, dwarf. Near blackness I lived in. Near. The rune. You fool. You’ve no idea what was down there, do you? But neither had I. Given the dust, the webs, the lightly tread stone--I might’ve been the first to set foot in such a place in thousands of years. You do not yet follow? And damn your hog, dwarf. Do you squat in my home or His now? And just what are you doing here behind elf walls? Don’t tell me...”

Doctor Mallow grew silent and still.

“You intercepted the reward, is that it? Answer, dwarf, answer!”

The dwarf vigorously nodded.

“And brought it here... you brought it here... why would you possibly bring it here? I am damned. I crawl from one hole and lie in another. You’ve sentenced me to two prisons, dwarf. Have you any idea what it’s like to be trapped in a cage like a hog? Like a lowly beast God made for men like you and me. I halfway kid, we know we are neither. But we are, dwarf. And you cannot trust that elf, or any for the matter. I am living such proof. But you owe me, dwarf, do not look away--face me, little bearded bastard. I am here because of you. Release me. No, swallow this sullen look--later. I must plan. I’ve escaped grimmer situations. And you plan as well, if a brain swells in that cold skull God gave you. No, first you must reconnect with your own kind. Down several halls away from this cell are a set of stairs that lead to Locust’s chambers. And beside them is a door. It opens from the inside, but we aren’t that. Locust has the key, I know this much, too. He doesn’t keep it on his person, so naturally there is one another possibility... and a guarded one at that. Greens patrol. Where I ‘trespassed’. Elfen trash. I knocked. Well, it’s your problem now. Remember, you owe me, dwarf. Find the key. Open the door. And once you understand what’s behind it... then we must think of a plan. Go. Go! Go! GO!--”

Doctor Mallow utilized full use of its hands as those not clutching glass swung about wildly, thrashing in between bars out towards the dwarf. The shorter of the two received a sense of urgency clear. He bolted from the prison and began stumbling through half-remembered halls. He found himself running loops as if he once chasing objectives beneath a mossy roof. But soon the dwarf did arrive to an annex, a sort of underground cavern half modeled, its ceiling in fact near identical to that found within Mallow’s home allowing a view into the elfen village from below, its sunlight leeched without warmth. He became conscious of the views from beneath gis the room offered. The nude that passed after only served to confuse him. The dwarf spied, across the annex, a massive door stretching from tall roof to floor, tile between it and he as well as two guards in green who patrolled in a line, they walking wall to wall and back to each other before beginning again. Many pillars broke up the room--and lines of sight.

The dwarf reached behind himself and became surprised to tug at his bag, never realizing he’d ever looped its strings round his arms as he followed Doetrieve out his suite. He glanced at the remaining two apples.

“STEALTH SKILL INCREASED TO 8”

An apple skirted by one pillar and bounced off another. To the dwarf’s delight, one guard noticed even if the other did not. This allowed for the break the burglar needed, feet slapping noiselessly as he made his way from one side of the room to the other.

“STEALTH SKILL INCREASED TO 9”

The guard who’d noticed the fruit’s intrusion caught the attention of his patrolling partner, and the two studied the thing intensely. They hardly noticed the second object that shot past them. But they did, and the guards were off, and the dwarf snuck into the unguarded quarters, a much smaller entrance to the side of the massive gate, and slid the door shut behind. He was in darkness. He fumbled against the walls for a light switch before catching himself. He bumbled over a table and crushed it under his weight. The dwarf groaned. And suddenly, as if waiting for any excuse to activate, runes in corners of the quarters shot light down spaces in long blasts that further cemented the darkness untouchable, crisscrossed into several dark triangles.

The dwarf did not find the task of key-finding difficult. In fact, he found too many, and he wasn’t sure which would actually work on the massive gate outside, berating himself for not observing its lock. He found some in fancy wardrobes and dressers, designs so bizarrely unlike that of his home’s farm he found their presence, together with the light, disorienting. It wasn’t until tripping over a black metal box tucked halfway beneath Locust’s unmade bed that the dwarf became certain of the right tool for the job. Before exiting the room, he made a quick scan for another apple or any sort of object alike--he settled on a thick glass orb, really the only found item capable of noise, quarters so oddly barren otherwise. And the dwarf immediately regret its tossing, a horrific shattering spinning both the elves on their heels to face the dwarf in clear view. Baffled, their legs shifted into action and their mouths ran mixtures of threat and surprise. The dwarf shot over to the towering gate, meanwhile, and immediately beheld a small padlock-like object, keyhole obvious. He shot inside what had been discovered within the black box, and the gate creaked open in response. Still charging, the elves encouraged the dwarf to resist loitering and persist forward, and only as he stood in the middle of a strange emerald room of oblong pillars and construction did he understand he had altogether set foot on entirely different design philosophies, and as the elves approached, the dwarf barely, but nonetheless, noticed a humming begin and blue glow from the floor. And all bathed in light. And the dwarf was gone.