Howls woke the dwarf. His back against the flat pit of the ravine, his view abyssal, the dwarf’s prone form ached top to bottom. The blood in his temples pulsed and the dwarf drew his hand towards for comfort, absentmindedly brushing the fur of his beast--Waspig’s flank. He grew to notice the flanks of others as well, realizing he was guarded in all directions by an army of swinesects. The crackling of the fire that endured boosted his morale, long shadows cast from his buzzing warriors.
Another great howl and the dwarf understood the company they shared. Coyokes--the smooth dogs that dripped mud--gathered around the gathering around the dwarf. Even with the slight aid of the burning of light, he could not ascertain their numbers, their growls blending into one another, their steps mixing into the same broth his animals contributed spice, huffs of air so consistent the dwarf swore he was protected by an engine. It roared to meet the dogs’ noises that grew and all the dwarf did, he did so laying still, his head barely cocking, each movement grinding his bones. He realized he could really not move at all. It wasn’t poison, he was sure, but pure exhaustion. The dwarf had contributed so few hours of sleep to his mission and so little nutrients his body rebelled and stayed his limbs from further action.
Why weren’t the vegetables cooked before heading in, the dwarf wondered, the boiling point of the animals’ aggression seemingly imminent. Just eating the sole chunk of bread he had had been a critical mistake, only reinforcing his hunger. His fire crackled so loudly it made the dwarf salivate. A particularly loud whip of fire rang through the air and a sludge drenched animal cried. Its siblings advanced, and the hogsects round the dwarf leapt..
The dwarf’s glossy eyes gave view to a brutal fight. Chef Girlodee dove its stinger forward, a coyoke slipping by easily and spinning the cook into the air as wildly as Waspig had suffered before. Waspig himself charged the same dog with tremendous force, its tusk goring the creature, Girlodee fluttering away doggedly. Pistol, so large and remarkably thin, dodged a swipe and another but could not escape all claws that came, a scar embedding itself down at an angle. Its tiger stripes bleeding, Bathiel rushed to Pistol’s defense, its wild mane whipping round smacking the assailant off its balance. Girlodee came down upon another fast and unsuspectingly, its prey immediately stagnant without a sound. Pistol oinked in a manner the dwarf thought considerate. And then, to his horror, he watched a mudkip leap from the shadows atop the celebrating chef, its fangs deep into its neck. It--Girlodee--howled in agony running into a gallop, the two crashing into carts, wheels dispersing. Cath--wild as hair as Bath with eyes more almond--and Bathiel sprinted to the incident, dodging obstacles and assailants alike. Mustard and Blissey, their appearances barely distinguishable from Girlodee, both contended with their own fights meanwhile. Waspig broke from the scene heading fast in the dwarf’s direction, Pistol quick to join. He wondered why, craned his neck, and met the eery pulsing eyes fixed above fangs that drooled over. Before the dwarf could scream, but before the wolf could act, a creature utilizing the shadows as well as Girlodee’s vampire sprung and sailed a hoof kicking the brains of the wolf out from its skull and into another corpse of its kind.
The dwarf’s savior, now that the still burning embers brought clarity, was a bugsect all the same as Waspig and the others. But its fur dismissed the ragged brown that defined his others, pinkish properties and all replaced blinding albino white. Its dozen eyes as red as its stinger, below it sported no tusk to speak of. This, he realized, must have been the eighth addition to the party that fled the cavern--that which had been destined for the fire. His dwarfen heart beat with gratitude. He chose ‘Joshua’...
The dwarf awoke to the forgotten health potions first thing on his mind. The second notion he had was another round of gratitude for being alive, for his trusting these animals so. Their insectoid properties, in truth, still brought out terrible anxieties--but he suppressed it with love. So his dwarfen heart came to shudder as he realized Blissey and Mustard as well as Waspig had gathered around one of their own fallen. Chef Girlodee laid dead.
The dwarf put the back of his head back to the earth and shut his eyes for a moment, thinking. He opened them again to understand Pistol, Bathiel, Cath, and Joshua all walked, roaming the canyon. Their party had suffered one loss--the enemy had lost all. To roll the dice again in pursuit of no casualty weighed heavily on the dwarf. But he could not validate the decision. It was a wonder he’d survived the prison break, and only this success was what brought the survival of the coyokes. And despite the tiredness so thoroughly felt, the dwarf was not dying. He knew this. There was no ‘HEALTH LOW’. And in addition to vegetables, they all now had plenty of meat. He would not suicide. But he would not dishonor the chef either. So, gritting his teeth, the dwarf wedged himself up off the ground (to the notice of his Waspig) and shambled towards the collapsed ruin of once a cavern entrance, the funguay inside forever sealed God willing there was no second cave. Laying against pebbles was the rusted pick the dwarf had swung in a demonstration worthy of any demolition. He took the tool, dragged it, and began hurling its end into the earth. With bone clenched he rose the thing and brought it down again. Meanwhile the lazy blue above began its transition to proper, golden dawn.
“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 4”
At last the dwarf had his hole. He came over to Waspig with careful movements chosen however likeliest to least induce pain. His hands ran through its fur. Blissey and Mustard both received slow strokes across their heads, the dwarf’s forehead brought slowly against theirs. Pain now inevitable, he nonetheless dragged (not for a lack of trying otherwise) Chef Girlodee to his dig site and rolled the corpse in. The weight of sheepdogs past--chickens, cows, hogs--made the burial a mechanical operation in all but sight. The dwarf relied on this to carry him forward the final mile, bringing his dogged form over to the first coyoke he could find. He cleansed it in the flowing pool. He drank from the spring. He stripped the flesh. The kill came upon a stick, vegetables too ran through, and the fire became fed and the dwarf’s kitchen was complete. Some hogsects, meanwhile, tended to their meals raw. Others, catching on to the wonderfully commanding scent, brought their captures to the dwarf who, fueled by the sense of repayment, once more willed his tired form to clean and cook more corpses. And by prenoon, the fissure filling slow with light, the dwarf feasted with tears in his eyes. It was not sympathy. It was the bliss of gratitude.
But next meal, he’d find some rocks to rub together.
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“COOKING SKILL XP GAINED”
“COOKING SKILL INCREASED TO 2”
Full, the dwarf rested by the fire he nursed and intended to continue well into the next night. Though he had not run the rounds he wished to to properly inspect the canyon walls, he seriously doubted a second opening he would not already have found before. And even if such a path existed... the dwarf’s confidence in his pets brimmed. Waspig, on cue, curled up beside its master. The dwarf would love them all, he knew--but there was no bond that could be tighter knit, than that between he and his Waspig. He drifted, content...
Only a few hours were granted to the dwarf whose eyes whipped open at the sound of further growls. But, he quickly realized, they all emitted from his own. From a distance, he unfortunately realized. His body begged for more rest, but the dwarf shrugged off the suggestion, rising to a hobbled stance, forcing his way forward towards the crowd gathered around more shattered carts. Drawing close, the dwarf pushed aside Blissey and Pistol, entering the situation to find Waspig having cornered a coyoke pup. Terrified, it had wedged itself as far into the cart as possible, avoiding Waspig’s stinger. It at once struck the dwarf this scared creature looked the same as that which had fled in his previous lifetime. He ran his hands along his pet’s wild locks and convinced it down, the obeying creature soon sitting polite. The dwarf unslung his bag and took a handful of crisped translucent peppers, his unoccupied palm at once gesturing his party back. With the pup somewhat calmer, the dwarf offered the intoxicating scent of his food and found it unreceptive, so he settled for rolling the vegetable--after some pause, the creature leapt upon the offering in a fervor. Of course it did, the dwarf realized. No wonder both trips to the ravine had led to encountering these same dogs--they starved. The dwarf was thankful for his choice in company. And to this he wished to add one more, another pepper withdrawn and dangled. The pup wisened, accepting the prize before anticipating another. So it was with the passing of the remaining vegetables did the dwarf’s band gain its first mudkip.
The matter settled and cleared with the group of swinesects, Waspig certainly aware now of the status swapping from foe to friend, the dwarf expected his pet to keep the others in line. He really had no choice, the dwarf felt, for he staggered only a few steps in the direction of the waning fire before collapsing...
Evening was well under way by the time the dwarf regained consciousness. The unnamed coyoke had yet been digested by any of his pets, mud dripping wildly from the pup happily chasing around Bathiel and Cath. He realized the familiarity of a curled up Waspig and, in fact, a few more additions to the slumbering pile in the pit of the ravine. But one member settled in isolation under heavy shadows cast by overhanging rock: Joshua. Its albino fur visibly stirred with the coming of wind. The dwarf’s cheeks cold, the rest of his aching form found warmth. And while the lonesome nature of the tuskless hog troubled him, the dwarf could not entertain his thoughts for long...
Night came and went, clearly, the hazy blue dawn of another day greeting the dwarf’s slow blinks. Still the grainy, dark swaths of mist that settled at the ravine’s pit continued, but there was no light like that of which traveled in cycles above, of which he was became aware he’d taken for granted, the sun and moon--sans planet--stirring as they did on Earth. The dwarf had not given the matter of the alien world he clearly inhabited much thought in terms of his placement--he only thought of taking the tree to task, it who damned him, and escape could come after. But these thought processes created splintering problems. What did escape mean to the dwarf now? Was he to return to Earth, to his father, to his familial indentured servitude to crop and seed? But it was safer--unbelievably safer no matter the drudgery. The dwarf, though it had not happened this lifetime, knew now the specific pain of a spear wedged into his shoulder. He’d received his own pet’s stinger straight through. And a blade. He lived now. But such feelings were not so easily forgotten. And another trouble set itself in the dwarf’s mind: was it better the tree knew nothing of his survival, of his climb up from his hole? Could he be damned to a deeper one, more inescapable, treacherous, taxing, without his steeds? He thought of The Ponderous’ last words, its desperate advice to seek out others of its kind without so much as a single direction. He thought of The Ponderous now--alive, suffering. But the dwarf reminded himself: he did not come to liberate the elves...
Prenoon basked the great ditch in light, the dwarf’s slumber having yet once more come to an end. Despite seemingly hurtling in and out of consciousness, he felt surprisingly refreshed. Rising, he stretched his dwarfen limbs, cracked his dwarfen neck, stroked his long beard. It brought great satisfaction to see, nestled in the white fur of Joshua, the unnamed pup. Though he regretted the mud staining of the carpet, such surely necessitating a dive through the pool. But he wouldn’t interrupt their sleep yet--the dwarf could use a walk, he thought, vaguely tossing a coin through his imagination on whether he’d stop to pick up the gold pieces where he knew they laid. But the dwarf wondered what good the effort would amount to, what shops he stood a chance of visiting; that city on the shore may never be visited. Such thoughts clouded the otherwise cheerful start to his day. He wondered of the package Captain Locust had left at the mossy cottage, such intricate, fancy wrapping it was, such treasure it contained. Any gold scavenged surely paled in comparison to the hoard awaiting he and his.
Of course, now that the dwarf had regained some strength and felt abler to walk about, it dawned on him he’d somehow have to conduct a venture back up and out of the ravine. Though the dwarf considered other options: plenty of meat remained. Perhaps venturing down one of the directions of the ditch might lead to the discovery of a knife--a very necessary tool if the dwarf intended on slicing the meat thin for hanging and drying. And the pickaxe, its days of glory a distant day ago indeed, did not inspire confidence in including the tool in the dwarf’s kitchen--not in this manner. With such a large supply of food remaining, the dwarf felt doubly inspired in his idea. He went about and confiscated the netting he knew remained in this pit; he wrapped the raw meat tight in it and brought the contents up to the small waterfall that allowed such a pool to exist in otherwise inhospitable depths. Affixing the stuff just below where water pounded--many rocks’ weight utilized accordingly--the dwarf figured his game could keep cool while he would assign guards to stand watch. Yes, he decided he could trust Waspig with the task, navigating over to his beloved pet and gently scratching its ragged fur to awakening. His creatures’ dozen eyes slowly flickered open to meet its owner--and at once, Waspig leapt to its feet, snarling. The others awoke and too gathered around the dwarf, each huffing in aggression, tusks bobbing, snorts emitting.
The dwarf swore on the atmosphere’s familiarity. The sudden turned nature of his animals frightened him, but something stranger struck the dwarf as a particular known horror. And then he could feel the blood drain from his face in realization, eyes widening, eyebrows raising, spacing apart. Cautiously, as if he were to disarm a bomb, the dwarf’s shaking hand crept up to the top of the dwarf’s bald dome.
Atop, thick fingers met unexpected resistance. Along the base of his bald, the dwarf’s hand slid up the cylindrical tube of a mushroom.