“LOADING... LOADED.”

The message disappeared. Rain poured through a gaping wound in the ceiling of the steeple, down into the depths of a hole crawled out from some time ago. But, blinking, the dwarf realized his skewed sense of time had spirited away. The flesh he awoke to, though bruised and wrought with burst veins aplenty, bore not the wounds endured of a cottage, of a dense forest and elfen cruelty. Thunder clapped unavoidably audibly, maw so gaped. Stained glass smeared with the wet brush strokes of rain illuminated before darkening, ebbing and flowing.

The dwarf had died. The dwarf lived again. Once more he died, and once more he breathed--not an experience any of his kind could relate to.

Waspig grunted, its limbs set firm, tusks poised to pierce. At once a flood burst from the dwarf’s eyes, and he knelt to sob into his creature.

“WHO DARES SET SUCH... SIN...?”

Caught off guard, the pigsect shrugged its master away respectfully, firing air out towards the tall figure shouting from the doorway, hatchet in its hands of many. The dwarf snorted and struggled to regain himself, overwhelmed with grief and relief and wanting little else than to bounce out into the rain with his pet and play. But, wide mushroom headed silhouette blocking the sole entrance and exit to the chapel--its cap as crisp as the carpet--the dwarf understood an immediate responsibility. Steadying himself and scratching behind Waspig’s ears, the dwarf staggered over to a standing candelabra and gripped it tightly in his palms. He centered himself between the creature and the funguay, pitchfork poised.

“ASSAULT GOD’S DOORS? THREATEN HIS PEOPLE...?”

The funguay advanced carefully, hatchet bobbing, torch flaring, parasol quietly disposed, all other arms writhing. At once the dwarf burst from his pose and sprinted across singed carpet to needle the quickly raised ax and puncture with three prongs the underside of a flared cap, fungus of God pinned against His walls. Its many appendages lunged for the dwarf, some pulling at his beard, but few could grip else but desperate air. No wriggle freed its capturing.

“RELEASE ME, STOUT HERETIC...! RELEASE...”

The trapped teetered into silence--solely staring. What it did and did not understand about him, the dwarf could not identify. It merely blankly looked. Guilt chilled the dwarf’s spine. Waspig lived. In fact, somewhere, Bathiel and Pistol and the rest did, too--somewhere. Were his actions now a necessary defense or a dispensing of anger? But before he could reflect further, the funguay writhed its bored head as aggressively and erratically as the candelabra allowed, bleeding where it didn’t, hundreds of spores sent sailing around the room in a haphazard vortex. They settled like snow. The dwarf could taste it. Seizing the enormous blossoming of rage within him, the dwarf squeezed prints into the pitchfork raising the funguay up off the wall and into the air. Its dozens of arms protested vigorously, the thing gruesomely shrieking. But summoning the fresh reserves of a timeline lost and rediscovered, the dwarf stomped his legs to the once-climbed cliffside and, with a final effort, thrust the candelabra out, entangled contents and all, hurtling down into the abyssal deepness punctured by rain. The funguay’s noises faded as fast as its color. The dwarf staggered backwards before crashing down onto tile.

Arms and legs splayed, the dwarf allowed his pet to wander over and curl up against him.

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 10”...

“SAVING... SAVED.”

With Waspig in tow, the dwarf exited past the thin smoldering smoke up from the ashes of the church’s double doors into blasts of sunshine, puddles alight, sounds buzzing with ostensibly a refreshing evening. At this moment in a life lost, the dwarf drowned under heavy blankets and mushroom loaves. He thought about where the funguay’s cottage might be, realizing he held no recollection of here to there. But the dwarf shut his eyes, his recollection of yesterday’s gaze from the plains strained. Blink finished, he set out in his best guessed direction.

A mushroom headed toad croaked. It hopped twice before becoming swallowed by a larger one, and this--the dwarf broke off from the cycle with disgust. He fully understood what grew atop his and Waspig’s heads even if they physically yet presented themselves, and he dreaded Funguayou’s imminent return. In the meantime, the dwarf set his mind to the positives of his trot, to the revived companionship of Waspig, to the defeat of the funguay, to even the possibility of rescuing the other hogsects. But his sole focus seemed most pressing: secure shelter. He reasoned, stepping over and around obstacles in the road--debris from mountains above--the cottage within this seemingly abandoned stretch of land so securely separated by thick elfen populated woods could be the perfect plunder. And he could not help thinking of the funguay’s home in any other way, knowing he’d sentenced its master to either death or imprisonment within once his own cell. But the dwarf was not going to allow shame rot the cottage.

Waspig buzzed happily by its master’s pace. The two followed the remains of what once was a trail connecting the steeple to mankind--if they were, for the funguay suggested altogether a different presence. But surely it was just him and his now? The dwarf shuddered considering the framed photographs once observed atop a mantle. While feral beings seemed to lurk within the dark to prey upon creatures like Waspig, their more communicative variation too populated this world. Did the latter lurk as well? The dwarf did not wish for the funguay’s forced experimentation to color those like it. But how could he bring himself to trust another of its kind--or anyone, really? Perhaps Doetrieve, responsible guard he seemed, could present as a beacon of sensibility--but not while the elfen administration continued in its reverted, perverted rule under Captain Locust and an infected Ponderous. And beyond the elvish, bandits of the dwarf’s own former species operated in plain sight, gutting cruelly and decorating ruthlessly. But perhaps, the dwarf posited, his treading nearly interrupted by twigs, that he was a bandit as well.

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As the moss smothered home came into view, its path having forked off the main road leading elsewhere, the dwarf could not shake his sense of degrading morals. And yet the walk soon reminded the bones of the dwarf they tired. He recalled his initial meeting of the funguay, how he fell asleep so soon after--no doubt the culmination of weary--and drifted in and out under its care. Guilt once again wracked the dwarf’s nerves, and he silently advised himself to shut out reason and act in his best interest. And the dwarf tired tremendously. He put his quivering hand to the knob of the cottage’s front door and turned. Unexpectedly, it clicked right open. A parlor revealed and remembered welcomed its two new guests, one of which pushing the door back into place and the other seizing carpet. The dwarf rushed to the back exit--this too had been left unlocked. Perhaps the discovery confirmed a general theory of abandonment in the area, that the funguay needed not bother with safeguards when already surrounded in such natural safety and comfort. But the dwarf wondered as well if the funguay ignored its cottage’s locking out of arrogance, and perhaps others dwelling in the area stayed away from fear. The dwarf attempted to place himself behind the eyes of fungus, remembering indeed he’d burned down the church’s entrance. Despite the downpour, the smoke produced must have frightened the funguay to remove itself so fast from its home to investigate--but was ‘frightened’ correct? Wouldn’t confidence have driven the shroom from its home with ax in hand--hands?

The dwarf wondered if the funguay was okay. He then collapsed onto bristles before cold logs and glossy frames...

Awake to raps, the dwarf’s body reacted as if Waspig knocked at the cottage door. And, blinking around, he could not spy the pigsect in the bleak dark. Shuffling emanated from the cellar--surely his pet. But the knocking continued. The dwarf kept his body still and rested his neck, eyes closed. Following a brief pause, a third round came and went, and boots shuffled. The dwarf maintained his pose, neck wet with sweat. Then came a voice.

“Doctor Mallow, you rest?”

The dwarf could not believe the speaker, and he restrained a fit having immediately understood the danger he and his pet were in. Captain Locust’s elfen knuckles knocked a fourth tune. Only with this performance did the dwarf realized the unsecured lock. He silently cursed himself. The dwarf dared barely breathe. Air drifted lazily into his hung gape and flowed out the same. His limbs began to cry out from discomfort, but the dwarf would chance no single movement. And, remaining still, the rapping discontinued, the weight against the doorstep creaked away, and the captain’s tread faded into the night. Some moments passed. Down the cellar glass crashed. The dwarf let loose the longest exhale he’d ever uttered. Cautious to his feet, the dwarf crept with care minutes at a time towards the front door miles ahead. His mind raced to compensate, the illusion of moss topped safety shattered. Captain Locust? Here? How, and the why as well, the dwarf desperately sought answers to, clammy grip fumbling on the funguay’s knob. He stiffly turned the thing and received a kiss of night time air.

Below the dwarf laid a lumpy package of gold and black paper bound in twine. His dwarfen eyes scanned the dark but could make nothing out and did not wish to look for much longer. So the dwarf drew the strange reflective gift in and clicked the door shut gently, twisting the lock after. He hesitated. More ostensibly fragile objects shattered below in the myriad of tunnels beneath the cottage the dwarf did not anticipate enjoying a second traversing of. Putting off the task of retrieving Waspig from its redecorating, the dwarf tore gently into the gold and revealed purple and, peeling away this, produced reflective multicolored gems and monocolored coins. The dwarf stared at the treasure blankly. Sheet metal squealed and wobbled below. The dwarf decided he could stave off his responsibility no longer.

Only a few hour passed, and the night continued. In the interim, the dwarf rescued what remained of the cottage’s laboratory from the destructive curiosity of Waspig, it happily munching on failed experiments aplenty. Jerking the creature out from the lab and back towards resurfacing, the dwarf raided the kitchen and loaded up a knapsack with mushroom bread--begrudgingly, for the stores offered little else. He identified the fireplace’s poker and jabbed it through the sack, then looping its strings around his broad arms. Before departing, the dwarf scooped the various mantle portraits off and into a second wrapping of cloth. The dwarf and his pet exited, the front door non-negotiably left unlocked, and the two swooped back up the path to the horseshoe nestled steeple.

There, the dwarf dropped the second bag of memorabilia down the church’s hole.

“SAVING... SAVED.”

And the two turned round and out back into the black night. Although shaken by the sudden appearance of Locust and the strange connection between he and the funguay, a point in positive’s favor dawned on the dwarf in the dark. In another continuity of time, he had wavered between sleep and wakefulness under the weight of blankets. But now he dashed, and Waspig fluttered, towards the forest slowly coming into view, its thick tanglings daring re-entry. While fear gripped his shoulders the dwarf realized another responsibility owed: to Pistol, to Bathiel, to all that likely huddled together in the bleakness of a pen while feral funguay anticipated hearty meals in the safety of their cavern.

This is why, against all preservation for the self, the dwarf flung his weary form forward into the forest before the cliffs before the plains before the shrouded city on the shoreline.