I run.

Look, I’m not proud of it. But Corgis gonna Corgi, even if my newfound abilities do not feel like helping me:

[Doggie Dash]

[Ability Blocked]

Cooldown time remaining: 20 hours

So, I’ll do this on my own. Fine by me.

My little legs carry me past the ragged wolf clan prepping for battle. They follow Witherfang down the North tunnel and I take my chances down the nearest one to my East. With my new eyes, I can see that this tunnel leads to the outside world and possibly, real freedom. So, through the massive headache I’m getting right now, I persist, rolling on towards my escape.

I pass through more dens home to pitiable wolves huddled together – mothers shivering, protecting their newborn pups, and some of the older siblings bark at me as I pass.

“The hero!” one lad shouts. “He’s here! Don’t worry, mama, he’ll protect us. He’ll kill the bad men. He’ll-“

I whimper and run away, continuing my escape route down the length of the tunnel.

Look, don’t judge me! Any Gods watching me down here – this is YOUR fault. YOU let the world get like this. YOU let these creatures suffer. I am NOT responsible for YOUR mess. No I’m not. No I’m not. No I’m…

[Core Skill Increases]

Bad Attitude: LVL 1 -> 2

Effects: Debuff Increased

Chance of reduced by 15% (PASSIVE)

Shut up!

I come to another cross section of tunnels filled with activity – wolves retreating down its length with pups in their mouths. Wounded. Bruised.

Bleeding…

“Flee!” one wolf calls out as they make their retreat. “Into the deeper recesses! Hide your children, brothers and sisters! They come!”

And as the wolf sees me he stops dead in his tracks, panting with vigor, looking at me like he was seeing an angel sent from the heavens.

“Thank Lyca you are here. You must join Witherfang’s muster at the entrance. They can hold them off, but not for long. Eventually they shall break through and take all we have left. Eventually they –“

His plea is cut short when something sharp flies into his throat and he gives a pained yelp. As he falls to the ground I am left panting, speechless, watching as the light dims in his eyes, and something stalks towards us both.

“Please!” the wolf cries out in his death throes. “Please…go!”

I mumble. I yelp. I dance around. But I can’t say anything. I can’t say anything that will make him better, just like the human down in the forest floor that died beside my cage…

All I can do is look up at the hideous abomination creeping towards us, arms outstretched, ready to fire off another round of splinters towards its targets.

It’s another bark-coated goblin, his eyes twitching and legs dragging behind him, each branch covering his body breaking with his every step.

He aims. He fires.

COMBAT ENCOUNTER INITIATED: GOBLIN (SEEDED) VS CORGI

And I have only one thought: escape!

[Core Skill: Dig]

LVL I

ACTIVATED

Effect: you tunnel through mud or dirt, creating a hole 20ft deep and 5ft wide

Duration: Instantaneous

Cooldown: 1 hour

My snouts aims itself at the ground, my eyes go wide, and my paws begin churning away at dirt with the speed of a woodpecker plying its trade. Before I know it I’m surrounded by walls of dirt that I’ve created by tunneling deep into the earth, and watch the splinters tossed at me pass overhead, probably embedding themselves into the cave wall that was once behind me.

What the…

I have little time to ponder. A general scream of rage emanates from above and then I see the face of the zombie-tree-goblin- thing open its twig filled mouth to smile down at me.

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It aims one twitching arm and extends its branch-like fingers, ready to fire.

Dig (LVL I)

Cooldown: 59 minutes

And now, I’ve trapped myself.

“NOW!”

A sudden onrush of movement, and the goblin comes tumbling down into my hole with me, its branch-spine snapping apart in the process.

I back into the mud-caked wall of my little lair and watch the creature scrabble about on its wooden pincers, trying to stand.

“Lightborn!” a voice calls from above. “Take my paw!”

I look up to see the excitable white wolf I’d seen before: the one called ‘Swiftrunner’.

His eyes wide but focused, he is extending one of his long legs towards me as some of his companions steady him above, having helped him reach down by forming a living ladder.

I blink at him, then feel a shot of pain rush up me from my right paw as the zombified goblin slashes at me from his inert position.

Without a second thought I leap to bite down on the white wolf’s paw for dear life and together we are pulled up, each wolf acting in union with its partner, till I am thrown safely from my pit and back into the tunnel I was only moments ago attempting escape through.

I shake myself off and join Switfrunner to look over the lip of the hole.

There’s the goblin jumping around in anger, trying in vain to claw his way up the mud-walls of his new prison, falling each time and snapping more branches and twigs from his corrupted torso.

Swiftrunner looks to me with a grin, and it’s only now that I see the wounds carved into his body – bloodied scars that mar his otherwise pristine white fur.

“I think we both know what we must do,” he says with a cheeky grin.

I look back at him with nothing but horror in my eyes as he signals to the rest of his people around us:

“Brothers and Sisters!” he calls. “The Chosen canine has given us a method by which to defeat this foe! As he has come to destroy our home, let us forever trap him within its innards. Let us bury him in the bowels of our den and leave him for the spirits of our ancestors!”

A general howl of assent went up from all the assembled wolves, and I watch as they go about their duty, kicking up clumps of dirt and mud till the hole was entirely filled, and the screams of the desperate corrupted goblin were heard no more.

COMBAT ENCOUNTER: CORGI VICTORY

[Core Skill Increases]

DIG: LVL I -> II

Marvelous, I think to myself.

Swiftrunner wastes no time in turning back to me and bowing in reverence.

“I – we– knew you’d come through,” he said. “Even Snappingjaw had to admit that your abilities could not be denied or waved away. We knew, of course, that they would come for you. But we would not shirk from our duty. With you here, beside us, I have no doubt that we can push the – hey!”

I’ve already started running down the exit tunnel, intent on nothing but continuing my escape.

Level ups? Great. Destiny? Adventure? Woo-hoo. Yeah. That would be great for the hero of a fantasy story.

Except, guess what?

THAT ISN’T ME.

Why can’t these wolves just admit what their eyes show them? I think to myself as I clear more warrens and nests. They’re the noble ones – the creatures every dog secretly aspires to be. Our ideal, ancestral cousins whose spirits run in our veins. But, come on, deep down us house pets know we can’t ever be like them. That’s not us. It’s not in our nature.

Just show me a couch, or a comfy divan under the bright lights of a chandelier, and I’ll do my job. I’ll lie between the thighs of some spoiled noblewoman and stick my tongue out as she rubs my fluffy belly and do cute little tricks for her friends when she invites them over for tea parties. In other words, I’ll do what I’m supposed to do. What I was made to do.

I’m being truthful, right now. I’m sticking 100% to the laws of nature. I’m…I’m running towards a normal life…

…and I’m looking at them all, lying there, licking their wounds, mewling to their pups, cuddling each other, telling each other that everything’s going to be ok.

Even as I feel the whole tunnel shake and hear pained yelps emanate from the front of the cave.

The eyes of every wolf are on me as I pass them by, boring into me, maybe judging me. And I’m horrified to see some of them incline their heads as though they are praying to me.

I try to ignore it, but how long can you ignore something like that for. How long can you ignore what’s right in front of you?

Eventually I come to a crossroad that finally gives me a vision of the outside world: one tunnel leading to the outside of the cave, and one tunnel where I can hear the thick sounds of combat.

Between them both lies a panting wolf covered in scratches and splinters. As I approach, she gives a weak start before simply slumping back to the ground.

“Heh,” she scoffs. “Look who’s back...the loaf.”

And I now realize that, through all the wounds she’s endured, she is still the same brash female who had mocked me in my cage, and who had swaddled me and kept me warm when I collapsed in the wake of Witherfang’s rescue.

And she stares at me with the same burning hate she did before

“You…coward.”

I bristle, but I don’t raise my voice when I reply,

“I am a Corgi. Not a wolf. Not a warrior.”

She spits blood across the ground.

“I…agree. I…told them…that.”

I didn’t look at her face. Instead, I started hobbling towards the exit tunnel.

“But they believed…” she says. “So…for them…I sucked it up.”

I stop in my tracks.

“I don’t care about…you,” she stutters, every breath becoming a struggle. “But I care about…my home…my tribe. Something…bigger…than me.”

I keep my head down, listening to her words, glancing up at the exit, but also hearing the crashing sounds of battle flare up in the opposing tunnel. More wolfen yelps of pain – male and female…

“So I made…a choice,”... she continues. “To be…greater…than myself.”

Every hair on my little body jumps to then feel her tongue licking at my wounded left paw, doing what she can to cleanse the wound that, honestly, I had forgotten I had even sustained.

“You…you can’t…die. I won’t…let you…”

Her eyes close with those words, and I paw at her snout, sniffing at her face, and start barking at her when I get no response.

“Wake up!” I yelp, turning away from the exit and running around her inert body in panic. “Come on, come on! Come –“

“She’ll be fine.”

The voice that interrupts my panic belongs to noneother than Swiftrunner, standing tall at the edge of the crossroads with a dozen mother wolves of the tribe with him, swaddling their younglings.

“She – she – she – “

“We will take care of her,” Swiftrunner says, breaking through my stuttering. ‘That’s our job.”

I look up at the sorrow-filled eyes of them all, and then return my sad gaze to the inert wolf behind me, giving her a gentle lick that I hope she can feel. I want her to know I didn’t run from her. I didn’t want to. I can’t. I can’t just…

I hear the sound of steel skating across the cave floor before the hilt of a blade hits the back of my feet, and I look down to see the scimitar I had used to fell the goblin leader lying there beneath me.

“We all have our parts to play,” Swiftrunner says, coming forwards to stand tall before me. “But it’s our choices that show who we really are. When a storm comes, some run, and some stay. We all want to run. Some need to run. Sometimes it’s all they can do. But some choose to stay, not because they want to, but because the people who are trying to make this world a worse place to live in don’t ever take a day off. Not unless someone’s there to stop them.”

I look at the sword, then back at his eyes filled with pride, and find that there’s nothing I can really say.

The roar of battle fills one side of my ears, and the calm winds of freedom dominate another.

But right now, the only sound I’m really listening to is the voice of the wolf that’s speaking for all his people:

“The time comes when we all have to make that choice,” he says. “So, what’ll it be?”