Elsewhere and elsewhen, a Still Very Strange If Increasingly Familiar Pair Of Fellows had arrived in the small town of Basket on the Rye, there in search of monstrous rifts to another world and an umbrella.

In spite of its name, it was a dreary town. The fields of crops from whence the town had derived its title were wilting, browning and withering away in spite of the pristine weather and ideal soil conditions.

Nor did the people look much better, with sickly individuals scurrying away at Snaggle & Tooth's approach, hiding from the light behind dented shutters.

Still, in spite of the malefic atmosphere and general reticence of the inhabitants, the pair of Very Strange Fellows were able to get directions to the Cornucopia of Plenty, which as it happened was not in the centre of town (as the youth had affirmed) but just outside it.

Their journey there did not predispose them to hold any warm and fuzzy sentiments for the ‘Dungeon.’

The landscape died the closer they got, the lush crops giving way to dead twigs, the trees bare bark with nary a leaf to be seen, and certainly no fruit.

The Dungeon itself was just as the youth had described it, mostly. It was in fact a giant cornucopia, set roughly in the landscape, its yawning maw a clear portal to Somewhere Else, even if nothing could be seen through the darkness.

Little else of his description had proved correct. The area around the Dungeon entrance was a blasted heath, devoid of all save the most limpid of grey grass. Every sign of human habitation - from the fences and barns to the houses - was ruined and mouldering.

The only sign of civilisation, properly speaking, was in the distance, where old fashioned windmills could still be seen turning their blades.

Snaggle's foot kicked against something, and he looked down, grimacing. He'd accidentally knocked against a severed hand, whose garish sleeve clearly identified it as belonging to the youth from earlier.

The smaller Fellow gingerly stepped over the limb and continued on, only making it another dozen paces before he nearly tripped over a foot - clearly not that of the youth, for it was a woman's.

From there it was another half dozen feet before he hit a different woman's arm, then another three feet before he found a man's hand, then it was only a foot or two before the ground was littered with body parts - oddly enough, all limbs; there was not a head or torso to be found.

“Do you know? It's at times like these that I wish I had your height,” Snaggle grumbled. “Desperately so.” The small Fellow tripped over another gruesome remainder of some lost Hunter, and nearly fell flat into a pool of blood.

“A wish I respect, but cannot fulfil - and certainly don't reciprocate,” Tooth muttered, his massive frame daintily picking its way over the sea of grotesqueries as he continued to head for the cornucopia mouth. “I, I am glad to say, am wholly content at my current height.”

He reached an especially cluttered area of the field, pirouetting over the pile, and continued his commentary. “In any event, at least we've ascertained that this Dungeon does not belong to the boss.”

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“You never know. Maybe he picked up a weird hobby,” Snaggle quipped, but his heart wasn't in it.

“Mmm.” Tooth concurred, keeping up the vague banter in an effort to avoid talking about what was clearly before their eyes. “Ideally not one he plans to share.”

And then they reached the Dungeon edge. The grey grass gave way to a putrid, atramentous sludge here, hopefully of decomposing plant matter but likely of something far fouler. The Dungeon entrance stood before them, the massive cornucopia - its shell halfway between a basket and some sort of lacquer - arching far overhead, the lip seeming to reach up into the clouds.

Down below, however, there was merely the yawning maw of the entryway, squatting down in a revolting imitation of some colossal beast.

It was black as pitch and nearly as thick, a turgid liquid dark that clung to their skin and got in their mouths and would have been highly uncomfortable if either of the pair had, in fact, been human.

But as they were not and were anyways a great deal stronger than an E-rank Hunter (even if they didn't know it) they pushed on, continuing into the Dungeon.

After a little while Tooth lit a torch, holding it up to illuminate the structure. Its interior - perhaps unsurprisingly - was an immense cavern, the roof and walls lined like a basket or horn. The ground under their feet was rough but well-trodden, pressed flat by the movement either of many someones or by a select few, immensely huge someones. Of the tracks’ owners, however, no sign could be found, nor had they left any refuse - from torches to food wrappers - behind them, with even the walls devoid of decorations or devices.

There were no side paths, or turns, or secret passages… just an endless tunnel heading down, down, down, into the benighted depths.

“So, when do you think the fun starts?” Snaggle snarked, and at that very moment they heard a hiccup.

This hiccup was followed by another, then two more, and then it metamorphosed into breathless laughter, hiccuping hysterics that sounded vaguely unnatural and grated against the pair's ears.

The youth stepped into the light of the torch.

Or perhaps I should say he hopped. For he was quite dismembered, his left arm and right leg shorn away at the roots and his left leg missing half its foot. There was a gaping hole in his stomach, and his eyes spun about crazily, moving in two entirely different directions, as he tried and failed to gaze upon the Very Strange Fellows.

“So, it's you again,” he hicced, sounding almost gleeful. “I was wrong, so very wrong… and yet, so very right. This is a land of plenty, a land of plenty beyond your wildest imaginings, plenty beyond your wild dreams.”

He cackled insanely, and Snaggle & Tooth gave him time to recover. It was only right, for one whose body was already dead, and whose soul was gazing fearfully out at the margins.

“No,” he said after a moment. “That's not right. Should I say - perchance - that it's plenty without your wildest imaginings, plenty without dreams? Truly, it's a plenty such as I could never have thought of before, a plenty which made me realise just how impoverished I always was.”

And here he began to laugh insanely once more, waving his sole arm about like he was at a concert and hopping back and forth across the dirt.

Then he froze. His head tilted one hundred and thirty degrees, staring Snaggle & Tooth dead in the eyes. “Wouldn't you like to join me?”

And before either of them could reply he sprung, uttering an almighty shriek and leaping for Snaggle, the fingers on his hand metamorphosing into claws.

Tooth swatted him out of the sky, sending his broken body in three different directions.

“Well that was a needless tragedy,” he grunted.

“Mmm. Here comes another,” Snaggle concurred, as from the darkness came more hops, more cackles, more cracks and groans as dozens of slain rift touched leapt and crawled and stumbled their way towards them, dead eyes gleaming in the gloaming.

“So,” Snaggle said, affecting a mock cheerfulness as he spun a string of smouldering snares from the aether. Tooth cracked his knuckles. “Do you think any of them have seen an umbrella?”