Grendle always dreamed of being an Acquirer. All dwarves did; they’d been raised by their paternal figures on tales of how everything precious the dwarven commune cherished was obtained through the blood and sweat of heroic adventurers. The Ruby Eye. The Emerald Obelisk. Legendary treasures that were enshrined within the deep subterranean halls of Dwarf City. If you could produce a jewel or some other valuable mineral on the level of those, your name would be carved into the bedrock beneath the trophies to be glorified for all eternity.

Dwarves were a race that were… vertically challenged, to say the least. It was out of the question for them to aspire to the skies with their stumpy appendages. But it was also their short stature that led their predecessors to consider instead the unknowns that lay beneath the earth; to dig and scrabble through the soil to discover what secrets were buried there.

As soon as that first chunk of sparkling, brilliant gemstone was excavated, the sheen and glint that it produced after a round of careful polishing entranced all who beheld it. It was at that moment the dwarves knew that they would devote the rest of their lives to amassing these valuable objects. To chase that initial high once more with shinier and shinier baubles.

But long before the evaluation at his adulthood ceremony Grendle had already known what they were going to say. He was the runt of his generation, after all; there was always one every few batches. Arms too frail to even heft up a pickaxe, legs too weak to support the expected lugging back of the spoils of spelunking. He didn’t even get into his second choice. Warriors also generally needed to be physically fit, as you’d expect.

So he ended up here - the farming delegation.

Or as they were mockingly called back in the living quarters: the reject pile. Farmers didn’t need to do anything too intensive or demanding, it was mostly stuff like watering the lichen, feeding the rocktin pigs and keeping an eye out for the occasional downpour, which needed to be reported as soon as possible to prevent cave-ins. There was, of course, some level of risk being up on the surface for extended periods of time – the planet had no neighbouring star to illuminate its surface, so visibility was poor and sandstorms were an inconvenience that swooped in every now and then to handicap productivity. But it was comparatively easier – and safer – than swinging a pickaxe or squeezing through narrow shafts while risking the celling crumbling to pieces over your head.

It wasn’t much consolation that the farmers would likely live longer lives than their miner counterparts, though. Just felt like a whole bunch of sour grapes; jealousy that stemmed from an understanding that the rejects could never become what they yearned for.

“The rocktins are probably starving by now, I should go scatter the feed.” Grendle absentmindedly muttered to himself as he got up from the rock bench. He’d often come up here on the surface at night all by himself (sans sandstorm, of course) to mope about the lot in life he’d been given, and day-dream about what could have been. Looking up into that tapestry of twinkling diamonds in the sky helped put things into perspective for him. So what if he was destined to be a farmer in this life? Dwarves were insignificant lifeforms in the face of the cosmic whole. He’d be an Acquirer in his next life.

Hopefully.

Grendle tapped his lightstone lantern once with the small hammer that was tied to its handle to refuel the diminishing light it was giving off. Dwarves didn’t need these tools; they could generally see in the dark better than most other mortals as they’d evolved to scavenge for food under low visibility conditions. But light was very much appreciated in tasks that required more precise actions.

It was a good thing, then, that lightstone deposits jutted out in abundance across the surface of the planet. When struck, the mineral would absorb the kinetic energy from the hit and convert it to radiant energy – light.

Grendle ambled over to the shed that housed the feed for the pigs. It wasn’t too hard to compound the pellets that would be their meal. One part water and two parts mature lichen. Crush and mix to combine, then roll into balls the size of a fingertip. The task was simply… time-consuming. He had to wave the lantern over the crops, looking to see which presented thickly, then only pluck the shoots that felt spongy to the touch. Immature lichen wouldn’t provide the desired effects of pacifying the rocktin pigs. This particular nugget of wisdom was passed down from unfortunate prior attempts to domesticate the rocktins, as wild rocktins sprouted large, goring tusks and were immediately hostile to any creature they met.

Not that the pigs missing one or two meals would immediately result in them regressing to their previous forms, but Grendle didn’t want to risk it. The general consensus among the Warriors that occasionally scrapped with the wild version of rocktins was that you wouldn’t survive the encounter without sustaining heavy wounds of your own. So he painstakingly sorted through the lichen fronds, picked out the spongiest of the bunch, and went to work smashing and rolling.

And he arrived at his destination not a moment too soon; the pigs were already braying in irritation at their meal being absent from their pens. Grendle scooped out a handful of brown balls from the feed bucket and tossed it into each of the sties, watching to make sure that they were hoovering up the feed with their trunk-snouts.

“You’re late, Grendle.” The disapproving voice came from Terrin, a Farmer acquaintance of his from the immediate generation before.

“Sorry, I was… thinking about the Acquirer thing again. Won’t happen next time.”

Terrin tutted at that admission, sprinkling the lichen with spritzes of water as he walked down the line with a water bucket. “Enough wishful thinking about far-flung fantasies like changing professions. You just aren’t- no, we just aren’t built for that. You should be thanking the gods that the Council hasn’t exiled us all to the wilderness just yet. As you well know, this job could easily be done by any other dwarf! The logical thing would be to cut off the stragglers and reduce the already strained food supplies by a few mouths.”

Grendle sighed, leaning against the wall of the rocktin pen. “It was only a thought, Terrin. No need to grill me over something like that.”

“Well, you better not let one of those nosy Evaluators hear you. I can’t even imagine what worse occupation than Farmer they could downgrade you to. Waste Shoveller? Cave Canary?”

Grendle let his senior ramble on, tipping his head back and choosing instead to return to his hobby of gazing into the night sky. A cool breeze caressing his back as he watched the stars blink and twinkle. Maybe he could bribe an Evaluator with first pick of rocktin milk to let him learn Acquirer techniques in his spare time. If he could prove that he was trying his best, perhaps they’d take pity on him and let him tag along on a mission or two.

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Just as he was staring up into the sky, his eyes locked onto a streak of white that zipped across the black canvas. It was just for a second, but Grendle could have sworn it had landed just a few miles away. Streak of light, landing close-by?

Could it be? The fabled Meteorite?

He’d pushed himself off the wall now, his pulse quickening. The dwarves had heard legends of the space rock before, but there were no known samples of the material in the dwarven halls which held their most valuable acquisitions. If he could successfully bring back a genuine meteorite piece, that could be his ticket out of the reject pile and into the coveted Acquirer group!

“Terrin, I think I just saw a meteorite land – in that direction! I’ll go grab a piece; if you’ll cover for me, I’ll get you one too.”

“A meteorite? Are you alright? I think all this Acquirer talk’s fried your brain, my man.” Terrin chuckled.

“I’ll just pop out real quick. I won’t be long, maybe a couple of minutes.” Grendle took a couple of steps towards the meteorite crash site.

But before he could break off into a sprint, his arm was grabbed by his senior, who was now decidedly a lot sterner than before. “You’re serious? If you’re right, we’ll inform an Acquirer team and they’ll send out a search party as soon as they’re available. But there’s no way a Farmer can go out there by himself. Out there there’s nothing to protect you. Our farm’s two steps from the cave entrance; a scream or two’ll send five Warriors rushing to our aid. But out there? All by yourself? You must be crazy. The wild rocktin’ll rip you to shreds!”

Grendle shrugged off the hand. He knew Terrin was just looking out for his well-being, but the older dwarf had already resigned himself to a simple life of monotonous farming. Grendle didn’t want to end up like that.

“I’m going.”

With those two words, he turned and ran as fast as his short legs could carry him, heading straight for where he’d seen the flash of light land. He ignored the panicked cries from Terrin, not stopping to even look back at the other dwarf. Grendle was as determined as he would ever be in his life. He’d bring back a chunk of Meteorite, or die trying.

“Oof.” About seven minutes into his mad dash, the dwarf had stumbled on something, and was now laying sprawled out on the ground, abrasions adorning both stubby knees. Grendle brought his lightstone lantern to the thing he’d tripped over and tapped the rock once to examine the obstacle. As dull illumination slowly emitted from the mineral, he realised that Terrin was completely, and absolutely right.

For the rock that Grendle had just tripped over was in actuality a wild rocktin that had, up till that point, been fast asleep.

With the kick that had been accidentally delivered to its back, it was now picking itself back up, snorting in annoyance at being rudely awoken. In the dim light Grendle could make out the fully developed tusks growing from the sides of its mouth, perfect for boring holes in a fragile, weak dwarf.

It had now noticed the object of its anger, and the rocktin pawed at the ground with a purposeful hoof. Rearing up to attack.

“No. No! Get away!”

But the beast didn’t acquiesce to his pleas. It continued to scratch menacingly, building up momentum in preparation for the charge. Then it lowered its head, tusks at the ready. At this point, Grendle knew he was screwed. He’d overstepped his boundaries; he should have just been content with his role as a simple farmer! Now he was going to die out here, stabbed to death by a wild rocktin.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to watch the moment of his demise unfold before his eyes; if he had to die, he wanted it to be a quick and sudden one. All he could hear now was the gradual increasing of tempo of the rocktin’s hoofs, and the frenzied thumping of his own heart.

Then he heard the pig charge; and his hands instinctually flew up to shield his chest. A futile act, of course; the tusks would simply burst through the weak bone and tissue and continue on into his body. However, when one was at death’s door, all rationality would have long flown out the window. So he maintained the defensive pose, waiting for the dual points to run him through and end his life.

But when nothing happened for an agonizingly long minute and counting, he realised that the pounding of hoofs against the hard rock ground had mysteriously vanished. Grendle slowly forced his eyes open to see what had happened. And what he saw in front of his eyes made less sense than what he could have ever imagined.

The rocktin laid defeated at the feat of an individual, its head now being ventilated by a hole opened through the skull. However, that wasn't the most surprising part. His saviour was a female; that much Grendle was sure of, but she was unlike any dwarven female he’d ever seen before. She towered over him, her limbs strangely elongated and thin.

And her attire! Strikingly white robes, unlike the tough rocktin leather garb that all dwarves sported.

He continued to look on in awe at this strange individual, who was now crouching down to examine his body with great interest.

Then she opened her mouth to speak.

“Uhng Glorn Gert Bar Pon Trint?”

Grendle stared dumbly back at the female, whose face began to take on signs of confusion. She repeated the nonsensical line.

“Uhng Glorn Gert Bar Pon Trint?”

Grendle didn’t know what to respond to that. Was she… trying to communicate?

“Um, what? I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Oh, for Gods’ sake, I’ll just update the vocabulary.”

The female groaned, muttering a string of similarly strange, but more melodious words; completely unlike the weird noises she had addressed him with. She reached out with a slender palm, and laid it on his chest.

Grendle witnessed something amazing that day; a living being that could make her body glow without the assistance of a lightstone. After a moment of contact, she broke away and opened her mouth once more.

“There. Do you understand me now?”

“Oh. Oh! Yes, yes I do! Thank you for saving my life, miss.” Apparently what the stranger had just done now allowed her to speak fluently in the dwarvish tongue.

“Great.” The lady smiled thinly at him. “Then I’ll repeat my offer.”

“Would you like to transcend your useless body, and become something more?”