Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? Ch: 25
Waking up with Daisybelle in his arms had a whole different feeling, when the evening call of the whippoorwill called them from exhausted slumber.
He stretched languidly against her and had a nibble of her smooth, green shoulder while she grumbled and complained good naturedly and whined for: “Just a few more minutes…!”
He reluctantly left her to wallow in his bed and went down to make breakfast, with a song in his heart that had definitely not been there before.
An hour later he was wearing his traveling clothes, his short ax and long knife at his belt and ready to travel. Daisybelle appraised his gear with a jaundiced eye and huffed. “It’s good for travel in civilized lands and in town…” She shook her head in a way that suggested she was not pleased with his equipment, as she walked all the way around him.
“Best you not wander in the woods alone until we have some forest wisdom in you… Why is your shitter digger slung on your shoulder?”
“You never know when you’ll need a tune, or a toilet.” He replied, with a smile and a wink that she quite liked… a lot.
“Hmph!” The goblin lass sniffed at him, with a smile of her own. “Nightshade will guard you at all all times, Gandree. We have to pass through dangerous places to get to Turtle Island.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask… how far is this Port City?” The lad’s casual shrug said it didn’t matter much.
“Not far… by land. We run to the gateway tonight, sleep well and rise at dawn. We must walk in daylight on Turtle Island. Night is for sleeping, there.” She failed to answer entirely.
“Uh…” He eloquently requested clarification on the matter.
“Far means little, when we travel through the void. Those who know the way and have the keys can get there in a day and a night.” She smiled smugly and swatted him on the shoulder. “You’re with Daisybelle, remember?”
“I remember…” He sighed, as he clambered onto Nightshade and landed on the saddle hidden in his furry ruff. He’d built a new seat that actually fit him; which was better for everyone, including the giant warg.
He snuggled into the warm, doggy scented fur and found the hand grips in the warg’s harness, just as they took off into the narrow forest trails at a loping run.
They ran northeast, up the valley and into the foothills, beyond the furthest limits of Goblin Town and up to a familiar meadow, beneath a high, triangular crag, sheltered from the wind by a pine forest.
“We camp here again. At dawn we become daylight people… to fit in better.” Daisybelle murmured as she dismounted from Petunia. “Port City is… strange. All folk are welcome there, even some very odd beings, only necromancers and necromancy are forbidden there.” She murmured while carefully looking away, so he could pull his guitar from his shadow.
“Lizard, serpent, dog and cat folk you have seen, as well as bat, otter and badger folk… Not all thinking beings are so familiar in form, some may be quite alarming at first sight.” She smiled sadly.
“Port Town is a terrible and wonderful place, where anything can be had for money… Which is why it is so wonderful and terrible at once.”
Gandree listened to her, while he worked his gift in the clearing they would be calling home for what remained of the night.
Bringing his house into being again was even easier in this place… the meadow seemed to welcome and embrace his gift, unfolding and spreading his Will and Animus evenly, drawing his home into reality with almost frightening ease.
“Either I’m getting better at this, or this place… remembers me? Maybe it remembers… us?” He grumbled, when they were all inside and getting settled.
The Wargs took over the living room and fireplace, bedding down and grumbling at any suggestion that they move.
Daisybell was just as intractable.
She flopped her bottom down on the kitchen table and sighed at him dramatically. “A clever boy would have lunch ready for his lady lover, after a hard ride.” She complained merrily. “I’m so hungry, and the foolish boy cooks so slowly…”
She sassed and fussed at him while he worked, slowly reheating yesterday’s stew and gently toasting a loaf of bread with butter and fresh grated garlic in the oven, under low heat.
Whenever he turned around in the kitchen, she was there, standing in the way, leaning in too close and generally being a nuisance. He reached for a drawer to fetch cutlery and there she was, leaning against the counter. He turned to the cooler and she was there, with the door open; only her perky, round bottom sticking out and happily swaying side to side, as she scavenged in his supplies.
Frustrated and amused in equal quantities, the young dwarf delivered a light swat to the snugly uniform clad backside that he adored and smiled when she squeaked in alarm, then giggled.
Rather than vacate the fridge, she stuck her bottom even farther out and waggled it at him… as if daring him to take another swat!
“Gandree is too gentle…Poor wicked Daisybelle will never learn proper manners that way.” She purred, when his hand lingered, cupping her bottom gently. “Gandree must give this naughty girl a proper spanking…”
While she whispered, she backed up at him, wielding her firm, bouncy backside as a weapon and encroaching on his territory with her adorable butt.
The dwarf lad had few choices, so he brought his hand down on the round, white clad asscheeks that had somehow landed across his lap; before he realized he’d even taken a seat.
The crisp sound of calloused a workman’s hand colliding with a firm bottom, wrapped in taut silken trousers was followed by a soft squeak of delighted alarm, from his wriggly lapful.
“Oww! Too hard, silly man.” She complained sweetly. While she griped, the bubbly girl wriggled her tight uniform trousers down, exposing her green, round cheeks, blushing where his hand print was just beginning to show.
Also on display were a few silken ribbons running over her hips and a tiny triangle of lace above her sweet crease, that led to another bit of ribbon, one that promptly dove between her two round, firm, yet bouncy cheeks and vanished.
“Better try again, lover… just a little harder!”
A few crisp swats later, the house fell silent for a while.
#
A lazy trickle of smoke poured from the oven and stove top, drifting out the open windows on a summer breeze. His stew and garlic loaf were scorched and blackened into a reeking mess, though they’d been forgotten for just a little while.
He’d been ‘distracted’ from his task by a wicked and awful girl… Who was now curled up in his arms, sleeping with a smile on her face and bright pink blush under the green of her little, round, well paddled butt.
She woke at the scent of acrid smoke, the cuddly armful squirmed and shoved at him, while keeping her sore bottom up in the cool breeze.
“Get up, boy… You forgot all about lunch and burnt it up!” Daisybelle whined, while poking at him, since he was done poking her, for now.
“I still have some of those meat pies leftover from my great escape…” Gandree mumbled from between Daisybelle’s breasts; he lived there now, he’d decided.
She complained and giggled at him until he rose from the sofa and went back into the kitchen to handle the mess.
Beyond inedible, he buried the whole thing and the stew pot as well, in an unmarked shallow grave in the backyard.
Scrubbing that thing would have been beyond pointless… Gandree had stolen nearly every pot, kettle, cauldron and cooking pan in Dwarfhold on his way out, just to be a dick. He might not have to scrub a pot for a year.
He smiled at the thought as he strolled back inside, returning to the beautiful girl waiting for him on the stoop, wearing not much at all, aside from starlight and her welcoming smile.
#
Liam and his team were up at dawn, facing their next step down in the barren, rocky valley outside the void maw; the scene was anticlimactic. A few adventurous birds sang and chirped to greet the morning, but only small creatures dwelt on the ground in the shady, narrow vale.
There were no trees to speak of, just plenty of hardy thorn bushes and bramble briars. Moss and lichen covered much of the thin, pebbly soil, but too little light and rain reached the crevasse of granite to foster much life.
“Should we perform your familiar ritual on this side?” Liam asked Ivy, while eying the dark rift in the rock wall that was their next step. “This soil is so poor, Audrey wil take several hours to sprout here, but you could summon Otho…”
“No, let’s do it on the other side. There might be some climbing yet and he’s terrible about caves and caverns.” The tiny blonde mage answered, idly stroking a red gold birthmark in the shape of a leaping hound that now covered most of her forearm.
#
“...the population is becoming increasingly restless and prone to acting up. We’ve had to quell several minor uprisings already, your holiness. An additional levy of children could spark actual unrest…” The bishop of somewhere unimportant mumbled and whined, flanked by a number of robed government and trade ministers.
Pontiff Lumos scowled wordlessly at the human functionaries and waved at them to withdraw. They scurried like frightened rats, almost clambering over each other in their eagerness to flee his presence. The newly young and vigorous pontiff leaned over and spoke quietly to his aide.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Have three of them seized and executed in the temple square... something slow and gruesome.”
“As you wish, holy father... Which three?” His current assistant asked, very carefully.
“Oh, you pick, or draw lots… it doesn't matter. They all have schemes and plots on the boil, I’m sure.” The priest king smiled… technically. In truth it was more of an angry grimace… He’d never had time to learn how to operate a human vessel particularly well, there was just so much going on all the time!
Speaking of too much going on…
“Put together a papal bull declaring a special tithe… We need more human children, more flesh. Tell the human flock that they must increase their rate of reproduction, lest the Light become wroth… or some such pifffle.” The pontiff grumbled.
“Your holiness, the human cattle are already restive and fretful. Increasing the children’s tithe will be fraught with peril…” The worthless mortal whined.
“You cattle care so much for your offspring…” He sighed.
“Give my orders to your assistant. The humans can choose; make more of them, or we will take more of them. tithing one child in ten is not enough anymore.” Lumos commanded. “And submit yourself to the inquisition, for questioning me.”
Lumos shifted on his throne, once the worthless human had fled. Even with curses of obedience and generations of conditioning, the filthy mortal livestock refused to be managed properly.
Once they had gleefully brought their children to the temple, trading them for a few coins or trinkets…
Now it took considerable effort just to winkle a few hundred squalling, screaming whelps from the population’s clutches.
That filthy green witch had ruined his goblin breeding program in that stable fragmentary world… No more hordes of ravenous green idiots poured from that place, eager to serve as disposable shock troops. All those curses, all those generations of breeding the perfect fast breeding, moronic raiders; all spoilt by a single mutant goblin.
Even the single miniscule human town in that realm was lost to the Light. None of his agents or priests had returned, since that filthy goblin witch had appeared.
To make matters worse, the slug matron was missing and presumed to have fled for reasons of her own, taking her spawn with her. The few slugs who remained were now enfeebled, stupid and pitifully weak, compared to just a few days before.
Even the slave trade was faltering! For untold centuries, a steady supply of humans and beastfolk had poured in from the ports and gateways, as the mortal filth captured and sold each other off, for a few shiny objects.
All of that had collapsed recently, within the last ten or fifteen years the trade had dwindled to a pathetic trickle. Lately, hardly any of his reliable slaver guilds were producing anything, even adults would be welcome at this point…
The slave trade’s outsider leaders had fled, experiencing this new ‘Fear’ thing that so many of them were excited over. Without proper leadership, the slave markets of the city of Light were a sad and desolate place… only a few scrawny ragged, worn out scraps could be had at any price.
Even the pontiff’s own pet project, the experimental squid lich, had finally failed him. The ship and the whole crew were missing on the prime world, presumed to have been taken by pirates or sunk by mortal forces.
It was a pity, he’d been the most diligent and productive of the Light’s minions, delivering cargos of human slaves; even unspoilt children to the temple with regularity.
That experiment had borne so much fruit.. Perhaps it was time to expand the operation aggressively… Lumos attempted another smile, with limited success as he contemplated a bold new idea.
Even the best human slavers had a tendency to despoil and befoul the best stock before turning them over… Virgins were always so desperately needed and so terribly rare, at any price. The disgusting mortals just couldn’t seem to keep their filthy, biological desires away from their product.
The undead had no such troubles and served reliably, without complaints. Lumos contemplated that thought for a while and managed an actual smile.
“Mobilize my navy. We need more slaves, more flesh for the coming battles… And call for all of my necromancers.”
Lumos finally muttered, confident that his new aide would be present to hear his words.
“We must be prepared…”
#
“Well, I wasn’t prepared for this…” Count Liam Kinnis muttered, standing on a rocky outcropping, overlooking a verdant and noisy jungle. The journey had been brief, uneventful and actually quite pleasant…
As the team filed into the narrow cleft in the granite mountain, darkness engulfed them one by one. Within a few steps, the other side emerged.
The tunnel opened onto a volcanic cliffside, bright and sunlit, with a warm breeze scented of the sea blowing across their faces. Below them a small island spread out, a half mile wide at most, surrounding the bare, weathered cone of an extinct volcano.
No human habitations appeared at a glance, nor any sign of active intelligent life at all. A wide, stone cut road led in a lazy spiral down the cone of the steep, squat, extinct volcano, ending at the ruins of some kind of town.
All around, the wide azure sky met a trackless ocean, with low waves glinting in the sun and seabirds wheeling in the empty vault of the heavens.
“Did anyone bring a boat?” Dannyl asked calmly, once everyone had a look around.
“I kinnae even fit Seahorse in my gift… Amy and the boys have all the boats with them.” Shai muttered unhappily. “Nae that we should go sailing on that tropical sea… So close at hand and so blue…” Her obvious regret was palpable and hilarious to Ivy.
“Oh, yeah… looks nice, doesn’t it…?” The blonde mage sighed wistfully, with a wicked smile.
“Well, let’s explore this island, get the lay of the land…” Dannyl grinned and took a deep breath. “This is my favorite part.”
Since they were standing on the lip of the squat volcano, around a hundred yards above the treetops and visible from almost every point on the tiny island; the team marched down in a loose formation, paying little heed to stealth.
It took half an hour to get down to the low, rolling flatlands and the jungle, switchbacking and curving around until a few members of the group started feeling a little vertigo. The road debauched onto a wide, barren space; composed of layer after layer of mine tailings and gravel, flattened and compacted over and over again. The ruined town was built on the farther edge of the space, leaving two acres of flat, empty ground.
Only weeds and the occasional patch of saltgrass or prickleweed grew on the wide plain of shattered stone and gravel. It was too heavily compacted and too barren to support the jungle life, even after being abandoned for so long… At least from the looks of what was left of the town.
All the roofs were caved in and most of the walls had tumbled over, broken by the jungle’s return. Vines, creepers, canebrakes and mature trees clogged every door and window, only the weathered remains of the town jutted from the forest, barely visible from the ground level.
The forest had nearly consumed the pitiful work of mortal hands, cheerfully taking back what was hers, slowly but surely.
“Could have biked that…” Ivy complained sourly, at the bottom. “Basecamp here?” She asked, while rubbing her poor, giant husband’s shins and calves, in an attempt to relieve his cramps.
“I told you this would happen if you didn’t keep up your cross country training…” She switched back to fussing at her huge mate over his fitness, or lack thereof.
“Aye, basecamp…” Shai mumbled thoughtfully. “I’ll be taking it slow and careful, in this new place… Watch o’er me, comrades, I’ll be immersed in this working for a while.”
Wordlessly, Tallum and Dannyl faced the jungle and the abandoned town; while Liam watched over the low, marshy mangroves at the shore a few hundred yards away, across the broad, barren wasteland. They settled in to listen to the music of Shai’s violin and chimes, joined by Ivy’s drum, just like old times.
Shai began carefully pacing off her ritual site, driving stakes into the gravel bed at each point of the compass and then at the quadrants. Once the stakes were set, she walked the perimeter of her site anti clockwise, stepping heel and toe for the entire distance.
Normally, she could simply conjure her home forth with a truly crushing outlay of Mana, which would drain her dry and leave her useless for hours. A few preparations and a little extra time spent casting her spells would reduce that cost greatly… and she would still be ready for any trouble that might come along.
For the same reason, she avoided drawing any Mana from her comrades, trading a slow, careful ritual for a greatly reduced cost in her magical and spiritual energies.
Ivy settled in with her drum to assist the working, while the others spread out to patrol the area and keep watch. Poor Shai spun and danced her spell for a good long while indeed, using her physical Stamina to the limit, while only depleting her Mana pools by half when the job was finally done.
Within a half hour, they were all inside the sturdy stone garden wall working on their next steps, while Shai recovered in the bath. The exhausted giantess snored softly, while Tallum and Dannyl kept watch over the wide flat plain around their little stronghold in the wilderness of another world.
Liam stripped down to his arming suit and underthings, before squatting in Shai’s garden bed to dig a hole with his war shovel. He dropped a large, pink seed into the hole and drew a small line of crimson down his forearm with the keen edged, enchanted garden tool.
He gently watered his planting with fresh blood, drawn from the colorful snapdragon vine tattooed on his arm and shoulder. “Audrey should be mobile in a half hour, and fully developed in an hour...” The count said quietly as he sealed the wound in his arm with a dollop of violet goop.
“Same here.” Ivy sighed, with a tiny, red-gold puppy in her arms. “Otho hates being resummoned…” She sighed, while giving the grumpy little ball of fluff a tummy rub. “I promise I won’t leave the house until you’re ready, you big goofball.” She told the complaining pup, speaking firmly.
“Early lunch, then?” Dannyl suggested, drawing strong backup from Tallum.
Three chimes rang from the small bell by the door to Shai’s house, by the time they were ready to scout out the little island… though their journey down the volcano had exposed every inch of the place to their view. So far, nothing more dangerous than seabirds had appeared.
Well fed and rested, Dannyl, Shai and Liam strode out in full kit, to survey the island after a hearty lunch. The three humans vanished into the jungle and were gone in mere seconds; while Audrey, the vibrantly colorful snapdragon familiar disappeared even more swiftly, melting into the riot of greenery as if she’d never been there.
“Let’s start dinner. Otho, take watch.” Ivy directed, once the exploration team was out of sight.
#
The jungle was so thick and entangled, the team wound up slowly circling the island on the low, sandy dunes and windswept rocks of the perimeter, just above the tideline. Nothing roared from the trackless forest, nor did any leviathans rise from the shallow, crystal clear waters.
Of intelligent life they found few signs, beyond a tiny shipwreck among dunes behind the mangroves, well above the tide line. The broken mast of a shattered, small trader stuck up from a sand dune, covered with clumps of saltgrass and riddled with woodworms and other crawling nibblers.
Nothing of value remained on the fifty foot wreck, not even a name; all the paint had long since been blasted away by salt and sand, just as all the rigging, superstructure, decking and cargo had been devoured by the hungry wind, wildlife and time.
A multitude of colorful fish and other creatures swarmed the coral reefs that surrounded the little speck of land. Sea turtles and crustaceans abounded as well, along with eels and whatever lurked in the shadowy crevices and deeps, waiting for night.
Ashore, coconut crabs, land lobsters, crawling, creeping, flying and burrowing life flourished in the tanglewoods, hunting and being hunted in their mind boggling variety. Jewel bright, giant dragon and damselflies buzzed and soared among the wetlands and waterways, patrolling their territories and swooping on any prey they found. The mosquitos were particularly offensive; these were abnormally large, even for giant skeeters. Worse yet, they were active day and night, appearing in two distinct varieties at least.
The nocturnal species hid in the wet, jungle foliage during the day and were much like the moth winged, sneaky variety on the islands back home.
The daylight pests were hummingbird sized, fast flying, needle tipped horrors, always waiting to swoop on any unprotected, warm blooded being. Aggressive and mindless, they moved in swarms, boldly attacking the few mammals and birds that lived among the trees.
More than once the team ran across a small deer, boar or a seagull on the verge of the forest, drained of blood and left for the crabs to devour.
Fortunately, their insect repelling charms remained effective, while Audrey was having a fine time.
She had developed a new display of red, wide petaled, heart shaped blooms, scattered all over her vine and brambly, snapdragon body. The blossoms were warm, smelt of human breath and warm blood; a very tempting aroma, to a certain class of insects.
Her ‘perfume’ drifted through the forest on the soft breeze, drawing a vast swarm of the awful things to her vines. Quick as a beartrap, the blossoms snapped closed at the first poke of a proboscis, folding into a tough, woody cocoon that actively chewed and swallowed the filthy thing, before popping back open after a few seconds, eager for more.
The monster plant roamed the forest verge all the way around the island, gorging itself on both varieties of skeeters, several species of venomous midges, numberless biting flies and a vast legion of sneaky kissing beetles. Those last were a flattened, stealthy bug, related to assassin bugs that preferred to steal blood from sleeping creatures, usually by attaching near the victim’s mouth… or anus. The festering, parasite riddled sores they left behind were the bane of many a traveler in untamed wildlands.
“She’s going to be insufferable after this…” Liam sighed sadly, while smiling at the carnage she wrought on the filthy blood suckers. It took four hours for the team to circumnavigate the island and return home to the house on that blasted plain of weathered gravel, where Otho the dog waited at the gate, tail wagging excitedly..
“Yes, darling, you may go play… let us know if you find anything dangerous.” The count called to his very smug flower dragon. “Stay away from the ruins and make sure you don’t eat anyone sentient!” He scolded her from the gate of Shai’s house, as she vanished into the forest.
“We’ll investigate the ruins and the mine tomorrow; what’s for dinner?” Liam asked eagerly, once he was inside the house and shucking his gear with the others.
#
“Tell no one… this passage is a goblin secret and is sealed against others, unless they have the key!” She whispered, holding up a bracelet of small, colorful clay beads, tied around her slim wrist with a jolly yellow tassel dangling from the complex ritual knot.
She and the wargs led him up a short, rubble strewn slope from the pleasant little meadow and his home. Behind a massive boulder of dark gray rock that seemed slightly out of place among the pale, gray granite cliffs all around; his slender guide vanished into the shadow of the stone.
“Down here, a secret way, hidden by the boulder’s magic.” She called from a hidden crevice in the mountainside.
“That rock fell from the sky, they say… it hides the emanations of this entrance from those who do not already know.”
She giggled merrily, while the wargs dragged and pushed him along in the narrow space behind the stone. The passage slowly darkened, becoming a tunnel, leading deeper into the mountain.
His dwarven eyes adjusted to the fading light quickly, revealing the rugged, nearly unworked walls and the floor, which had been crudely leveled with soil and gravel.
The tunnel stretched on, running at a slight upward angle, until his vision ended suddenly, thirty yards ahead. No wall or obstruction closed the passage, he just couldn’t see beyond that point.
Daisybelle paused a few yards away and turned to face her nervous companion. “You have passed through one of these before… We are just doing the same again. That, my lover love, is where this world ends… and another begins.”
#