“Oi!” the approaching voice yells up at us, its booming timbre shaking the very leaves on the tree we hide under. “Whit in the name a the Makkar are ye shoutin’ aboot up ‘ere?”

Swiftrunner’s growl becomes the roar of a frenzied beast.

“Human,” he says, almost spitting the syllable.

I can barely lift the lid of my eyes at this point to see the bulky figure of the man that approaches us through the fog, a quilted robe drooping down from his broad shoulders to barely cover his bulging belly and rippling muscles. His face fit the image of a giant more than a man - a chiseled chin framed by a handlebar mustache that spoke of his age, along with the wrinkles that formed an intricate pattern along his pallid jowls and low hanging, full-lipped mouth. At the center of this picture was a nose that looked like it was swelling with bubonic plague, with a pair of cracked spectacles resting on its bridge. Two drowsy eyes peered past these down at us, inspecting our forms which are so incomparably minuscule compared to those of this man. If I’m estimating right (and estimates were never my strong point, mind you) he must be about eight feet tall.

He gives a grunt that befits a hungry walrus, and then barks down at us again.

“Are ye deaf, ya wee hairy creatures o’ the night? Ah said: whit in the name ah the Makkar’s freezin’ ballsack are ye screaming about up ‘ere?”

“Leave us be, man,” Swiftrunner barked. He meant that last word as an insult, I’m sure.

The giant stiffens and cocks his head at us in apparent confusion.

“Oh!” he suddenly exclaims, with a voice liable to deafen every bird nesting above our heads. “Am a dolt, so ah am. Gimmie a wee second.”

Wee? I ponder in the half-sleep of my poisoned state. What is it with this man and everything being small? Then again, that probably wasn’t far off from the truth. For a lumbering oaf like him, perhaps even the concept of time was something he could easily squish under his booted heel.

He reaches into his coat pocket and Swiftrunner backs off instinctively. There was a spring of anticipation in his back legs – I know he was ready to either attack or take flight depending on the weapon the giant revealed.

But the hairy being raises a gloved hand in a gesture of calm, and simply pulls from the pocket a small, labeled bottle.

He unscrews the cork at its apex and took a long, liberal swig of its contents. Through my newfound ability, I decide to get the leg up on our new foe. If he was indeed the assassin who punctured my paw, I needed to learn all I could before this trivial conversation degenerated into combat:

[Penetrating Snoop]

But as I focus, I find that what I was looking for wasn’t quite what reality had in store for me.

What else is new?

Object Identified: Enchanted Alcohol (Steppe-Broth)

Type: Whiskey (Single Malt)

This guy’s no assassin.

He’s a drunk.

(and just fyi, but my x-ray Snooping also shows me he’s got a chest that looks like a frizzled carpet. Not that I’m into that kinda thing – humans, I mean – but when it’s good, it’s good)

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He burps up a storm as the bottle leaves his lips and then wipes his grizzled chops.

“Now – there we go. Should be fixed right up now.”

I feel Swiftrunner’s whole body lurch like he’d just been kicked in his wolven family jewels.

“Wh-what’s up…Swifty?”

I’m almost certain the lights are going out around here…

“I – I can understand him!” he says. “By Lyca, what..?”

“And I you, wee man!” the hulking fur-coated giant exclaims. “That’s whit a swig of good ol’ Klendell's Animal Kinship will do fer ya! Bottled it meself, year of Makkar 281.”

“I never had…any problem…understanding him…” I murmur.

Huh. So that means I’m automatically attuned to humans, I guess. Makes sense. After all, I technically have human blood in my veins now…

“If you mean us harm, man, we shall defend ourselves,” Swiftrunner continues. “You know not who you mess with, here!”

Oh great. Good one, Swifty. If I had the strength to contradict you I would, believe me.

The giant simply laughs, holding his belly like a gelatinous bowl of syrup.

“HAH! Ye got some spunk in ye, little guys! But nah, dinnae worry. Am not here fer yer lives. Am here fer the tree.”

He points a pudgy finger at the flowering birch that stood above us.

“Wan o’ the last of its kind,” he says. “Used ta be the elves would keep the trees ah this area nice and pruned, but…well…time and pressure has pushed ‘em out. Not sayin’ I was an elf lover, mind, but the prudish little lasses did dae ah good job o’ keeping their sprouts.”

He kneels down by the tree as Swiftrunner started to back off, and I saw through my tiny lifted lids that he sighed – a deep, morose sound that spoke of melancholy. His pudgy hand reached out to stroke at the roots of the tree. Then, he produces a small iron spigot from his coat pocket and attaches it to the tree’s bark, twisting the mechanism on the tap and placing a small glass bottle beneath it. Slowly, I see him drain the sap of the tree in small, amber droplets.

“Now, this ol’ gal will join the rest,” he murmurs sadly. “All her sisters twisted by that creepy bitch and her plant monsters. Still though, here she is, eh? Standin’ proud. Even when her caretakers have left her.”

“Come, Raziel,” Swiftrunner whispers. “We shall give this one a wide berth. He is obviously insane.”

But I can’t take my eyes off him. For some reason, as I watch his old, tired features sink into his wrinkled face with each miniscule droplet he draws from the tree, a word comes to my lips without any prompting from my brain:

“You’re…an Alchemist.”

He turns slowly, eyes widened again in excitement, and with the bellow that bursts from his throaty lungs you’d think he’d just struck a gold vein.

“HAR!” he shouts. “A man – or should I say, dug - after me own soul!”

Before I even know it, he’s jumped over Swiftunner, landed in front of me, and is sniffing away at my face with the energy of a well-fed toddler.

“But ye best be gettin’ me title right!” he shouts. “Nay – no alchemist am I. No stuffy, pale, tree-huggin’ elf wumin prancin aboot singing songs and pickin’ daises. Me? I’m a Belchometrist!”

Swiftrunner makes to strike at him and only a calm swipe from my paw stays his fangs.

The man looks at me cock-eyed then, like he’s seeing me for the first time.

“Here, yer no lookin’ too clever, little buddy,” he says with a wet sniff in my face. “Hm.” another sniff. “Ye be smellin’ like – no – Venus Malleus?! Who in the name ah the Makkar would want tae poison a wee dug like you?”

“This is no ordinary dog!” Swiftrunner exclaims. “This is the savior of our world. The Loafblade. The Lightborn!”

Nice one, Swift. So much for secrecy.

The big guy reels back, breathes in, and spits a chunk of tarred saliva at the barren ground.

“Well, ah’ll be a mud-drinkers teat,” he says. “The Lightborn’s up and aboot, is he?”

I feebly try to answer him back, and manage only to paw at the air before me before falling from Swiftrunner’s back.

“Raziel!”

I’m shivering. It’s cold, now. Cold and dark.

Getting darker…

“Hmpf,” I hear the giant snort. “Yer Greycloaks didnae do much ta stop the big green bitch and her top brass. Got yerselves mostly killed off from whit I hear.”

My eyes glaze over. No abilities flash before me. Instead, the futility of the whole sorry start of this journey is all I can think about.

Swiftrunner’s shouting above me, probably it’s his paws, his nose, his teeth I feel trying to nip me back into the waking world.

But it’s not his voice that reaches me through my pain.

The giant uncorks another bottle from his belt, and kneels down beside me.

“Well, everyone deserves a second chance, eh?” I hear him say through the creeping dark. “Even heroes.”

I feel a fuzzy hand grab my neck, open my mouth, and through noisy complaints shouted by Swiftrunner, something is poured down my throat.

[Item Consumed]