Fiction - From the Dungeon

[Cerulean_Wings]

Here's a story I started some time ago, and recently decided to seriously write up. As the name suggests, it starts in a dungeon, rather than ending in one; it's the story of a monster, instead of a hero, and how the monster leaves the dungeon and tries to survive in the land of humans (and other fantasy races). There's more to it, such as an overarching plot that ties the main character with 3 others, but I don't want to give anything away

I hope you enjoy it, and if you have thoughts on it, I'd like to read them

I have no intentions of creating a schedule for uploading chapters; I'll upload 'em when I think they're good to go. It won't take a month, but don't expect it to happen in a week, either .


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I lived in darkness. Impenetrable, unyielding, oppressive. The perfect habitat for a creature such as I and others, who cannot survive well under the light of the sun, in the world of humans.

And yet I left. Not because of the monotony, or the constant warring between the factions that lived with me in that underground world, or the occasional raids humans from the surface would bring to my dwelling place. No - I left because it suddenly felt wrong to be there, even though I had lived in those same conditions since I was born. How could I describe it, to realize that the place had suddenly mutated from home to prison?

The problem, I think, lies in that it wasn't the cave that had changed, but me.

CHAPTER 1

As much as I had envisioned myself running full-tilt towards the light of day at the end of the tunnel, I still didn't leave. My mind was out there, on the surface, exploring new places, while my body remained under the earth, not taking a single step to my self-imposed exile. It's funny, to think that I could have faced the deadliest of foes in single combat fearlessly, yet I couldn't confront my doubts. They were like ghosts, plaguing me for the whole day with their prophecies of doom; it was their fault I lingered.

As I pondered and considered my options, which lead to an infinite amount of circular problems, I was visited by Maenhu. The creature, a natural shape shifter, had disguised itself as a surface girl, as if to mock me for my plans. I had foolishly divulged my intentions to her not long ago, hoping for advice. My intentions had been to gain the perspective of someone else, to think better of my idea.

What I got was nearly killing her of a laughing attack. After she finished rolling on the ground and wiped her tears away, Maenhu confessed she had never heard such a good joke before, and that she had never seen it coming from me, either. I should have known better than to tell her, of all beings that lived underground; she was the wild card, a creature of unclear and often ambiguous allegiances. She wasn't my ally, nor my enemy, but something in between.

She moved into my large chamber without stealth, yet I hadn't noticed her presence until she laughed aloud, drawing me away from my deep thoughts.

"You think and you think, Big One," she said, using the nickname she had given me since we had met the first time. "You think and you think, but where oh where does it lead you?" she asked rhetorically, dancing around me, arms wide, playing the part of human child perfectly. I always wondered what her true form is, but to this day I have not a clue.

I decided to answer after a while - it was the quickest way to rid myself of her. "I will go when the time is right." It was true, but Maehnu laughed, as if it had been a joke.

"Reaaaally? And when is that? Today? Tomorrow? Or is it never-never, Big One?" Her voice taunted me to no end, condescending as always, one step ahead of me. I growled in response - this would have sent most denizens of both the underground and the surface running for their sorry lives, but not Maehnu. Instead, she giggled, and climbed over my body, to sit on my shoulder - not an easy feat, for my nickname was very appropriate.

"Aw, Big One, you know which one it is, so why bother pretending? It is not like you could just go away, to the surface, where everyone will try to either kill you or flee to get someone who can. You will stay here, with the rest of us, and live until you make a mistake and get killed, or less likely, drop dead from old age. That one could take centuries, right? It is better that way for you. Why do you make your life oh so difficult?"

I could have swatted her away like the annoying little thing she was, smashing her fragile body against a nearby wall. I did it before, and for much less. "Leave me be, Maehnu," was all I said, sighing, and didn't add a word after that. She seemed to consider this for a moment, swinging her legs from her high perch, until she got bored and leaped down, landing safely on the ground.

"Bah, you are no fun today, Big One!" Maehnu complained, hands on hips, and stuck out her surface-girl tongue at me. "I go now, but I will come back, knowing you will still be here." She giggled, then actually left, her silhouette shifting as she abandoned her shape for a new one. I felt relieved, at least for a moment, for in the next one I was still in the same place before she came, literally and figuratively. The shapeshifter had gone away, but her words remained, speaking a great deal of truth.

For the next minute, I roared at the walls in my chamber, making my world shake. But the words didn't leave after I was done, so I decided to change tactics, and did the leaving myself. Many passages connected to my home, and I knew very well where each one could take me to. I took one at random, leading me to a huge cavern with a pool of lava in the center, where several creatures bathed, enjoying the heat as fish enjoy water. My body would have been fine had I taken a dive, but I wasn't in the mood for one. A high-pitched and rough voice called me from the lava as I walked along the edge of the lake.

"Heh, look who goes there! Aghemer! Why don't ya join us?"

I looked around. It was harder to see in the beginning, due to the brightness of the lava, which confused my darkvision, but my eyes adjusted quickly. The one who called me was Durzil the imp, skinny and red with horns and a tail, like his friends, who were waist-deep in the lava near him. The others waved at me as well. I didn't see the harm in approaching the group; I had known them for some decades, and our relationship always curiously shifted from "buddy-buddies" (in their own words) to "bodyguard-buddies" when trouble arose. I didn't mind it much, for the exercise kept me strong, and created a reputation for me. It also had the side benefit of the imps sharing their surface knowledge with me, for they were prone to go up there for occasional mischief, which involved stealing babies from their cradles.

"Not today, Durzil," I said once I was close to them. They didn't like this, naturally.

"Really? No fire swimming? Boy, Aghemer, you must be in one o' those moods. Or did Maehnu come and bug you again?" The other imps snickered, and I shook my head. How he had guessed was beyond me - or had the shapeshifter told them of our encounter?

"That bitch sure likes hanging around ya, for some reason," one of the imps commented, and the others nodded excitedly. "Can't say I don't envy you - I mean, she can take any form you can think of, know what I mean?" he said, nudging the others with his elbow, winking lewdly, and they returned the favor, laughing. I would not have joined in even on a good day, and today I frowned at them, entertaining thoughts of eating imp entrails for dinner. Durzil caught on to my mood fast, however, and stopped.

"Yeah, alright, we get it, funny. Say, Aghemer, is it true you're still thinkin' about leavin'?" Durzil asked, changing the subject, which made the other imps quiet down in an instant. I gave him a shrug, looking away.

"Maybe."

Durzil hit the ground outside the pool with his tiny clawed fist. "Come on, Aghemer! Don't do this to us! We need you, and you need us! Buddy-buddies, right?" he said. "Yeah, buddy-buddies!" his friends echoed, nodding to each other. They stopped when I gave them another shrug and left without a word. I think I heard one of the imps whispering, thinking I was out of earshot.

"That giant ... sheesh, what's wrong with him? He's got everythin': big cave, loads of loot, half the underground fears him. What else does he want?"

What indeed. That was the question I couldn't answer, and I knew deep inside that I wouldn't find the answer if I stayed where I had lived all my life. I took another tunnel at random, without worrying about where it might lead, of even bothering to check for signs of an ambush. Part of me didn't care, and the other, my savage instincts, told me I would be fine. Most of the other creatures had to be pretty paranoid about things such as traveling down unknown places, or just areas that they weren't welcome in, lest they found a gory death on their way.

I happened to be in the small group that caused that gory death to others. Few were the beings that could pierce through my natural hide, and almost everything could be snapped like twigs by my clawed hands.

I don't know for how long I walked through that tunnel, which alternated going up and down, left and right. It's nearly impossibly to tell the passage of time underground, and I had been told that magic might be the only way to do so. I knew little of the art of altering reality, just that it was a foe to be respected, or even feared. I could count the spellcasters I had met in the underground with one hand, and even with them I had barely gotten a glimpse of arcane power.

On my way I passed tunnels and holes that went in all possible directions, some the home of insect-like monsters, others merely hiding spots for beings small enough to fit in. To say I knew where every single one of them lead to is anything but true; even for someone like me, who had lived many decades in the complex, large areas of the cavern were still a mystery. One could explore for months and still not find all there is to see down here. Every day the diverse factions and groups of the underground would send scouting teams to expand their territory, and every day they would win and lose it in equal amounts to their enemies. It was a constant give and take, with no end in sight. A senseless, brutal struggle, that had been my whole life in that colossal cave complex.

I stopped my trek at a particular intersection of three corridors, counting the one I was in. One lead to the deeper areas of the underground, where my chamber was, while the other one lead... outside.

There was no way for me to see light coming from the tunnel to the surface, not at that distance, but in my mind it was there, shining, beckoning me. This wasn't the first time I had been here, staring at this one corridor. I lost count of the number of occasions that I returned to this intersection, either by accident or by choice, and did no more than look. The exit was barely minutes away if I ran, and there was nothing that could block my path - not for long, anyway. I took a step forward on impulse, feeling a sudden urge to break free of the cavern.

And that was as far as I could go.

Well. There was one thing that could stop me, and that was my own self.

"Why bother pretending?" I said, echoing Maehnu's words. She was right, after all, and so I walked through the other tunnel, the one that lead to my chamber, my head hanging down, observing the movement of my feet all the way. I made it back in a haze, unable and unwilling to think about anything. Eventually I made it back home; the entrance was plainly visible, a large hole that lead to my main chamber. Once inside, the first thing that greeted me were the old skulls of past enemies, staring at me from multiple directions. Some were on top of piles of coins, mostly gold, mixed in with jewels and other treasures. Half my walls were covered in rags or skins, most - if not all - coming from the owners of the skulls. On a stone table I had the still-fresh leftovers of my previous meal, a crimson lizard two times my size who made the fatal mistake of attacking me.

There's not much more to say about it. Home. The place where I rested relatively safe, and stored my possessions. I had no attachment to it, for it had as much meaning as each individual rock that it consisted of. The main chamber was twice as tall as me, and wide enough to fit twenty more like me side-by-side. And that was without counting the four rooms I had annexed to it with my own hands, for storage purposes. All of it was half-worked stone, for I had spent some effort in shaping the place to my liking.

"You have no idea how boring it is to wait for our prey to come to us, Aghemer," the drider said, sitting on top of my treasure pile. I had seen him before, this one; he was a squad leader, Enizu by name, and a very proficient one when it came to assassinations. The only times we had met were out of coincidence, and no more, and we had exchanged nothing more than nods of mutual respect. He was throwing a small crystal ball from my treasure up and down into the air with one hand as he talked. "We're used to going to our prey. But I suppose to have asked you to hurry in your return would have defeated the purpose of our ambush, no?"

I noticed he talked in plural, so I looked in the only direction that his companions could possibly be: above.

The dozen driders hanging from my main chamber's ceiling made it look constricting and small. Maybe I should have widened the walls and then added the extra rooms, in order to accommodate more space for my "guests." Driders - half-dark elf, half-spider, they were one of the deadliest predators under the earth where I lived, and this particular group was even more dangerous than the usual ones. There was a simple reason for that: they came on behalf of my half-sister, Irmella, the insignias on their chainmail betrayed that much. The driders were still as stone, but only because they were waiting - anxiously - for their leader's order to attack. Had it been up to them to decide when to strike, I would have been swarmed by the pack the moment I set foot in my home.

There was no avoiding a battle. Every muscle in my body tensed, but I didn't make a move to enter a fighting stance, for that would trigger an early attack. There weren't many options for me in terms of strategy; I would have to fight them in my home, where I had the advantage, for they weren't as familiar with it as with the tunnels.

Enizu was fully confident that he could take me down, that was clear. Otherwise, he would have struck by surprise, without bothering to say a few words while in full view. They had very powerful poison coating their weapons, a pair of short swords and a crossbow each, save for Enizu, who carried a rope-dart instead of a blade. It wouldn't be easy, but they could potentially end me with all their combined might.

But still, I had a question to ask before any blood was spilled.

"I haven't done anything against your faction, Enizu. Why does my sister want me dead, now, of all times?"

Apparently he had expected it, so the response came instantly, almost rehearsed. "Oh, what with you thinking of leaving the underground, the Lady of Fangs thought you had gone soft, and decided to put and end to your pitiful existence," he explained with a shrug, as if he were unsure of his own words. Even if I was to be his victim, the drider was careful to use my sister's title. If there was something my sister had accomplished as a faction leader, that would be instilling a mixture of fear-driven loyalty in all of her followers.

Enizu tossed my crystal ball one more time in the air, and didn't catch it on its way down. It crashed against the hard ground, exploding in a rain of glass. It was a waste of good jewelry, and the signal for the twelve driders to attack.

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

It happened in an instant. The driders, including Enizu, fired their crossbows, their aim impeccable. Not that I was a particularly hard target to hit, but they wouldn't have missed even if I had been the size of a cockroach. So I reached for my stone table and swung it around one-handed over my head, sending the dead lizard flying away, and turning the table into a shield that deflected all the bolts.

Well. That's what I had hoped for, but only most were blocked, and a pair sneaked in, biting me like steel-edged bugs, and delivering their dreadful poison. It would take a matter of seconds for it to start acting, and that left me with very little time to bring the encounter to an end.

So I grasped the table with my other hand as well, and launched it towards the ceiling, where most of the driders were grouped. It exploded, leaving a crater where it hit, but no squashed driders, for they had all jumped down to the ground. Suddenly I was surrounded by the twelve assassins, all wielding their wicked blades in both hands, their expressions a mixture of hatred and cold-blooded stares. Thankfully I had kept my front to Enizu; the drider leader launched his rope dart at me, even though I had a living shield of half a dozen driders between us. He didn't even nick one of his subordinates, and the poisoned dart-head went straight for my throat, fast as a snake.

I grabbed the thing by the rope before it could get to me, and I yanked. Hard. Enizu didn't see the catch nor the pull coming, and he came along with his weapon, crashing into the driders in a spidery mess, swearing all the way. The other side of the circle attacked then, weapons flashing in the darkness, thrusting at my exposed back. Unfortunately for them, I wasn't done with their leader's weapon. Still holding on to the rope, I swung it as I turned around half-circle, bringing with me its owner, who stubbornly held on to it, and knocking the six driders in a row from the side. They went sprawling against a wall, more stunned than injured, knocking a bunch of my skulls in the process.

Enizu wasn't pleased at all by this. "Get. Him!" he shouted while pointing at me, his face a bloody mess, for his nose had been broken in the first or second impact. The driders didn't have to be told - the first half that I had knocked down were ready again, and this time I had no counter for their assault. The blades attacked in from all directions, their wielders dancing around me, coming in and out, too quickly for me to possibly stop of all of them. Most of the slices weren't strong enough to pierce through my skin, but a few did, and I was already having trouble breathing. It was the poison, and I had seen the aftermath of its victims: they looked fine on the outside, even though their lungs had exploded. It only took a minute for most beings to take full effect, I had been told, and I was lucky to have not one, but two heritages that had a tough immune system.

That only bought me five minutes or so. Enizu made an intricate hand gesture and said a code word, making the driders stop their attack and get ready to leave. The driders could leave and let time kill me, with no loss of their own. As for me, I did the one thing I could do to avoid certain death, and lunged for the drider closest to me, grasping his throat in my clawed hand.

Or at least I tried, for the bastard dodged, and I only got his arm. The drider cried out, stopping his teammates from leaving, for they understood what I was after. My captive struggled, but couldn't break free of my iron grip, and so resorted to stabbing my arm repeatedly with his remaining weapon. It stung more than anything, and potentially made the poison act faster, but I didn't care. When the other assassins dashed back to me I turned in a tight circle, swinging their companion about. They had adapted to my tactics, so they avoided another embarrassing collision. I had expected this, so I finished my swing by making the drider's body meet the ground full-force.

Crunch. That sound never gets old or less satisfying. I was panting, with the poison coursing strongly through my veins, but feeling victorious. Now that I had a limp drider, I dug my hand into his satchel and ripped it open, making two tiny vials fly out, one gray, one yellow. I didn't have time before I was attacked once more, and bit the yellow vial as it flew in mid-air. I broke the glass with my teeth and swallowed the whole thing. Enizu and his driders considered me with caution, forming a space semi-circle in front of me, no longer feeling confident of an easy kill.

I suppose this is one of those times that having an imp as a friend/informant comes in handy; Durzil once told me that the driders' poison had an antitoxin, and each squad member that carried the poison also carried the antidote as well, just in case they accidentally got poisoned with it. Their paranoia had allowed me to overcome their only real threat against me, and I was already recovering from the stuff in my system.

"You can't run, can you, Enizu?" I asked, wiping my mouth with an arm, then spitting some pieces of glass. "Unless you return with your target dead, my sister will have you tortured, then slaughtered like goblin cattle. Are you going to fight me to the death, or maybe try your luck with another faction, one that can protect a failed assassin from my sister?"

If a glare could injure people, Enizu's look would have destroyed me in an instant. He swung his rope dart over his head, forming a wheel, and snarled at me.

"I won't be humiliated by a brute like you! We will bring you down, even if it takes a million cuts and slices!" His followers imitated him and banged their blades together and filled my home with battle cries and curses. As one they rushed me, violent murder in their eyes, faster than lightning, and just as deadly.

A minute later I stomped over the head of the last drider alive, no other than Enizu. He kept spattering curses at me, his pride wounded more than his body, until my foot put an end to his life. I looked around: my house was a bloody mess, even worse than usual. It would take me a while to fix things, including the stone table. First things first, however: I took the dozen satchels from the corpses, and found to my dismay that only two of them had vials left intact from the battle. Oh well, something is better than nothing, so I took them with me.

The next step was gathering my things. I went to my room, which consisted of many rags and skins to serve as a bed, and a hidden cache of personal items. I checked the cache behind a loose stone the size of my fist, and sighed in relief; the driders hadn't touched it. Taking the small bag that lay there, I opened it and looked inside. There lain an old golden coin, my most valuable possession. Deciding I didn't want to risk another group of assassin's coming by, I rushed through the steps I had outlined weeks ago in my head if it came to leaving my home. First came finding my traveling sack, made of giant lizard skin, big and sturdy enough to carry everything I needed. Then I had to fill it, mostly with some meat of the other lizard I had, and some leather skins, in case the surface proved colder than I had guessed. The pouches from the driders and the one holding my gold coin came in last, of course, for I didn't want them crushed by the other things or lost in the mess.

I double checked everything, and once I was satisfied I went to the entrance tunnel. The place had served me well for my time underground, there was no denying that. But now I had to take measures against others coming in and taking my treasure and trophies. There was no trusting other denizens of the underground complex, and who knew who would be the place's new owner in a matter of days, or even hours. I dropped my traveling sack nearby and stretched my arms and hands. They were a bit painful to move from all the wounds the driders had delivered, but they would heal. Taking a deep breath, I clasped my hands and smashed the rock above the entrance tunnel with all my might.

It would have been undoubtedly more dramatic had I managed to bring the earth down in one blow, but alas, it took me five such strikes to collapse the roof, sealing my home for good. Even if some creature who knew where I had lived came by, they would need to dig through several feet of hard stone, and then remove all of it to even get close to my loot. In short, it wasn't worth anyone's time, and that was what I wanted.

One half of my heritage made me feel guilty for leaving my loot behind, all the treasure that I had accumulated over the years, but I did my best to disregard my instincts. There was no way in hell I would be able to take any wealth with me, and even if I managed, what good would it do me on the surface? I had no dreams of going to a human city, let alone purchasing goods there. All I would need was surviving in the wild, and I knew enough of the surface thanks to Durzil and his friends to manage. Or at least I thought I did.

"Time to go, Aghemer," I said to myself, for there was no one else to do so. And so I left my home, now a huge rock tomb. I headed straight for the exit tunnel, as quickly as I could, while trying to keep a low profile; one team of assassins was more than enough for one day - or a lifetime. Knowing my sister, she would send someone to look for Enizu if he didn't report in time, and Irmella wasn't known for her patience.

There was also the matter of my half-brother. He lead his own faction, like Irmella, and while my sister's involved stealthy murders, his was centered on the subtlety of destroying all opposition with brute force and nothing else. Karg'un had never bothered to go after me, as an ally or foe, and that was due to his great arrogance; he thought me so beneath him that he probably had forgotten all about me.

Still, there was no telling if he had realized he had a blood-kin running to the surface, and would come to personally rip my head from my shoulders.

"To rid the world of your shame," he would say coldly, and then leave me to rot without another word.

Suppressing a shudder at the vivid mental image I had conjured, I focused back on the last leg of my journey. No one had challenged me on my way thus far, and I was minutes away from the exit tunnel. Was I lucky, or had my quake sent a warning message to everyone in the radius of a mile? I wondered idly what Durzil and his buddies would do if their lava bath were interrupted by falling rocks, and found myself chuckling.

"Aw, hell's bells, that had to be Aghemer!" he would probably say.

Well. I never had any true, lasting friends here, only allies, and those were as elusive as underground light. Durzil's band would miss the benefits of my presence, but eventually they would find another tough creature to hide behind, of that I was sure. While I couldn't say I'd miss those imps, I felt no relief either. The rest of the creatures I had sided with were of little relevance to me, and I had forgotten their names with the passage of time.

The intersection was finally within sight, and there was no one blocking it. Now I had no choice: staying underground meant death, whereas going up meant... something else, which I would have to discover. Thus filled with excitement and adrenaline, I took my first real steps to freedom.

"Well, well, well. It seems my guess was more than accurate, dear brother," said a voice from behind that I thought I wouldn't have to hear ever again. My half-sister Irmella leaned against the corner between two tunnels, her slender and beautiful dark body covered partly by a pair of bat wings that acted as a cape, along with exotic clothes that revealed more flesh than they hid. I couldn't see any weapons on her, but then again, she didn't need any inducements, since for all purposes she was a weapon.

"You guessed that I had killed Enizu's squad, and would be leaving this place right now?" I asked conversationally. I can be really good at hiding my overwhelming sense of dread when I'm pushed to it. I even turned around and leaned against a wall to pretend I was in no hurry. I was nearly at the top of the food chain in the underground, so if I say I wouldn't wish to fight my sister, that speaks volumes of just how powerful she is - and thus I didn't want to give her any reasons to attack me. If she had intended to finish Enizu's job by herself, she would've done so already. Why she didn't was a mystery that I actually managed to solve before leaving.

Irmella smirked and folded her arms. "Yes. I've got eyes and ears in more places than you can imagine, Aghemer, and with that information I can reach some conclusions. Right now, the information in front of me lets me reach the conclusion that a valuable asset is fleeing my reach, and I'm very much curious to try to find the answer to that fascinating question." Her crimson orbs were half-hidden by a frown. "Why?"

I could've lied. Poorly, but at least it would've been a simple straight answer. Instead, I told her exactly what I was thinking. "I don't know. I'm leaving to find out."

My half-sister stared at me, and after what seemed like an eternity, stretched her arms to the sides lazily, and turned her back on me as she started to walk away.
"You know," I couldn't hold back in saying, "for a master of subtlety, you seem very relaxed right now, coming all by yourself, and even leaving your body open to attack."

That stopped her in her tracks. Irmella looked over her shoulder and smiled impishly, something I had never seen her do, or imagined her capable of. It was far more disturbing than seeing her in a murderous fury. "Oh, Big One, how silly you are sometimes!" she exclaimed, giggled, and turned around the corner of the tunnel, her shape distorting like a shadow.

I remained where I was, my eyes set on nothing in particular. How had I fallen for such a cheap trick by the likes of Maehnu? Part of me reasoned that the shape shifter had had plenty of practice to mimic Irmella's appearance and demeanor, but still... the sting of shame and embarrassment I felt didn't diminish in the slightest.

"She must have been checking on me by Irmella's orders," I thought aloud, shaking my head, and grabbed my traveling sack. It was time to go. It didn't matter what my manipulative half-sister wanted from me. Whatever Irmella had in mind couldn't possibly affect me once I left the underground, I had to believe that.

By leaving I wasn't just letting go of the physical place that had been my life, but also leaving behind the warring, intrigue, assassination, and constant strife. I didn't know it then, but the surface world of humans had those things as well. Cynics would argue that all I had done was change the scenery for the same play, but I disagree. There was something in the land above that I could never find in my home.

Hope. For what, I didn't know, but it was a start. And so I moved towards the surface. Thankfully, I was alone.

I wouldn't have wanted a single soul witnessing big and tough Aghemer's legs shaking on the way on every step.

 

[Haraash Saan]

Really enjoying it so far Cerulean_Wings!

Looking forward to the next installment and seeing how it develops.

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

Really enjoying it so far Cerulean_Wings!

Looking forward to the next installment and seeing how it develops.

Thank you for your support, Haraash Saan, I'm glad you enjoy it!

I'm actually some pages ahead of the current chapter, but I need to proof read them to make sure they're good

I might be able to update today. There's some real life stuff threatening to get in the way, but hopefully it won't.

 

[the Jester]

Wow, this is a cool start of a story, I like it a great deal.

I'm guessing half-dragon or half-fiend?

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

Wow, this is a cool start of a story, I like it a great deal.

I'm guessing half-dragon or half-fiend?

Thank you, good Jester, I'm very glad to see you enjoy it.

With regards to your guess, well, all I'll say is that you might be on the right track. Maybe.

Aghemer's nature is meant to be a minor mystery, so it's not that big of a deal, unlike a certain Monster in the Dark's recurrent appearance in a certain webcomic...

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

I had emerged from the darkness, and that made me evil in the eyes of humans. The reason is simple: any creature fears that which they can't understand, and to humans darkness was one big mystery. If they had darkvision, like me, maybe things would be different, but even then I still looked like what humans referred to as "monsters." Big and deadly, that was me. And so they expected me to attack them on sight.

Knowing this, I expected the same from them.

CHAPTER 2

If I said that what first greeted me on the tunnel's exit was shining, golden light, welcoming me to the land above, I'd be lying. It was dark when I emerged from the rocky passage, which meant it was "night", the time of the day when the "sun" hides. Above me I had this... this mantle of dark, but a different kind from the one in the tunnels. It gave me an uneasy feeling, having no ceiling close to my head, and hoped I could get used to it quickly. Durzil taught me quite a lot about the surface over the years, mostly in the form of little bits of information that he had gathered on his surface raids with his imp friends. What can I say, my first stage of my exile came in the form of curiosity, and I had asked a lot of questions.

There were a lot of tall... plants, I think, in front of me. Tall and slender, like columns of wood, with greenery at the top. I approached one and tested its body carefully, but not shyly. I knew it couldn't hurt me, it was a plant, after all, but I didn't want to snap it in half by accident, gathering unwanted attention. A few knocks on the wood gave me the impression it was solid, and then I shifted to hugging the trunk and gave it a good shake. The branches at the top shook like stiff arms, and there was a brief rain of leaves.

Huh. It didn't come off or anything. It must be a "tree", according to Durzil's description. I nodded at the tree with respect, seeing that nature above wasn't weak or easy to break. My little experiment done, I picked up my sack and turned around, back to the tunnel. It's funny, how simple and nonthreatening the entrance to my world looked, almost as if purposely deceiving travelers as to the place's danger. The cave's black mouth opened at the base of a tall mountain, and I couldn't see much in that direction other than walls of rock. I wasn't going to just stand there and stare at it some more; I had things to do, now. I turned around and left the cave for good, no ritualistic goodbyes or anything.

"Good riddance," I whispered to myself.

As I walked between the trees, I wondered, what was the name for a place with this many trees? Hm. I actually forgot, and made a mental note to ask someone, if I ever had the opportunity. For now I referred to the place as a "tree herd." This tree herd was pretty big, at least for my surface standards, as the minutes went by and all I could see were more and more trees.

Strange sounds filled the night, all intriguing and new to me. I will admit that the first time I heard a surface bird call out I jumped on the spot, fetched a stone from the ground and chucked it in the avian's direction, causing it to fly away and caw in protest at me. Well. I was used to every single thing I heard to herald the coming of an attack, and thus I was a bit jumpy. Nothing that some time spent on the surface wouldn't get me used to. So a while later I had walked enough to only see the tree herd around me, and threw more rocks at birds that startled me than I could count. There was no one else in this tree herd, and I couldn't decide if to feel grateful or miserable for it. Part of me was eager to meet the locals, and the other wanted nothing more than being left alone. Ah, the dichotomy of having two distinct bloodlines.

The former got its wish, and quickly. I hadn't taken ten steps when I heard the very distinctive sound of the human language ahead of me. It was an exchange between a man and a woman, and it was too far away for me to understand. Yes, I knew enough of the human tongue to understand, maybe even have a simple conversation. Durzil was, once again, in a position to ask me favors for teaching me valuable things. All I had to do know was approach the humans and test my mentor's teachings.

"Remember, Aghemer, pronounce the words slowly!" Durzil had told me again and again in my lessons, "Otherwise, people are going to think you're barking and growling, rather than talking. And you're nagging me all the time to teach you how to talk, right? Right. And boy, do you learn fast. Hey, don't give me that look that says 'Durzil, I'm gonna smash your head against that big rock if you don't stop talking and start teach-' AUGH, damn you! I can't teach you if you keep punching me..."

Hm. What was I doing, again? The humans. Two of them. First contact. Yes. Hopefully the darkness is enough to persuade them from running away from me on sight. As much as I expected a hostile reaction, at the same time I wished to test the waters, especially if it was in a place seemingly far away from their community. Slowly but surely I approached the place where the voices were coming from, crouching so that I couldn't be seen (or at least not be seen as what I was).

"I'm telling you, Dana, it's gone for good! We shouldn't be here so late," one voice was saying, clearly male.

"And I'm telling you that it's still here, John!" said another, obviously female. "For goodness sake, it should be as valuable for you as it is to me. You don't seem very keen in getting it back."

I got closer and closer as they talked, trying my best to be quiet. I'm not master of stealth, like my half-sister or her minions, and to make matters worse every single little thing in the tree herd made some noise or another if I so much brushed against it. I was twenty feet away, crouching behind a bush, and they hadn't noticed me. Thanks to my darkvision I could tell them apart, man from woman, and that they were dressed plainly, which meant they were workers - or peasants, like Durzil had told me once. No weapons on them, either. How foolish of these humans, especially with the likes of me around (not that I intended to hurt them, at least in the beginning).

The man named John let his arms fall and his hands slapped his legs, "Sheesh, woman, I can't even see where I'm going. Why didn't we bring a lantern, or even a damned candle? We had plenty in the village" he said tiredly. The woman, Dana, was kneeling on the ground, searching the grass with her hands.

"Because you forgot to bring them when I told you we had to run this way, John, you fool," she replied condescendingly.

"I did what, now?" John practically shouted. "You didn't even tell me what we were coming here for, and now you're blaming me for not having a damned light to look for it?"

Dana stopped her search and looked over her shoulder to glare at John. "Yes, I am, and just so you know, shouting in the middle of the forest won't help me find it. It was a gift from my ma', in case you've forgotten, and I'm not leaving this place 'till I find it back." She went back to searching after that, and John paced around for a bit, grabbing (or possibly pulling) his hair with both hands, grumbling under his breath.

Something the woman said clicked in my mind, like the final piece of a puzzle. Forest. Intuition told me that's what this place was. Still, tree herd sounded much better to me. John eventually (and clearly resentfully) got on his knees as well and helped in the search for some object they had lost.

"I swear to the Goddess," Dana was saying, "sometimes I don't know why I'm still living with you."

And that was when I stepped forward from my hiding spot, still crouching, and into plain view. Maybe it was my imagination, but that simple movement sounded like an earthquake compared to the noise the two humans were making. They both froze on the spot for a second, then simultaneously turned their heads to look at me.

"Whoa, there, friend, you just scared the hell out of us," John sputtered, falling back on his behind. He rubbed his face with one hand and took a deep breath. "I mean, I thought-I thought you were an animal or something, coming to eat us."

Dana hadn't changed her posture, and placed a hand on her chest, breathing out in relief. "Aye, you got us good. Whoever you are," she said.

Are all humans this stupid and naive, or were this two the living example of that? A dark figure comes out of a bush in the middle of the tree her-hm, forest, and they think it's not a bad thing? At this rate, I'm betting my hide that I'll be sitting amongst humans in a circle, singing songs at night around a fire, or whatever it is humans do at night.

"Aye, who are you?" John asked, standing up.

I cleared my throat. This sounded like a growl, but they didn't seem affected by it. I wasn't nervous, but I wanted to create a good first impression for the sake of the experiment. Nice and slow, like Durzil had said.

"Eeeyeee. Uhmmm. Ah-geh-merrr."

Silence. Neither John nor Dana said anything. They just stared at me. And then they shared a look. "A-Aghemer? Is that your name, friend?" John asked, uncertain. I nodded slowly. John nodded as well. Dana got up from the ground and wiped her clothes with her hands. More silence.

"That's a weird accent you've got. You're not from here, are you?" Dana asked, arms folded. I did my best to keep a straight face, and quickly considered if to lie or tell a simplified version of the truth.

"Eeyee... nnoott frroomm heeere," I said after a pause. John gave me a sideways glance that I could only interpret as suspicion. Were they on to me?

"Pardon my asking, friend, but did you get hit in the head or something? You're talking like a little kid with a deep voice," John said.

"John!" Dana chided him in a low voice, hands on hips. John shrugged helplessly. "I'm just saying..."

"Yyess, eye gett hitt, yyess," I replied, relatively quickly. No need to clarify that getting hit didn't mean getting hurt, thanks to my thick hide. John gestured with one hand towards me and looked at Dana, "See? What'd I say? Poor fellow, got smacked or something and now he talks like that."

"Look, it doesn't matter, uh, Aghemer, we were just looking for our-" Dana was saying, when something ridiculous happened. Silvery light started to illuminate the forest, not by a lot, but well enough that I could look at the humans without darkvision. And they could see me just fine. I turned my head upwards, to find the culprit of this absurd light, and I found it easily enough: a silvery orb on the sky that most certainly wasn't there before. How did it manifest itself so suddenly, and why did it choose such a poor time to do so? Durzil never told me of this, that damned imp.

Before, in the dark, I may have looked like a big human, covered in animal hides. Now it should have been obvious, even for this pair of idiots, what they were dealing with in the middle of a forest at night, without anyone to protect them or even hear their cries of help.

"Wh-wh-wh-what the hell-" John stuttered, pointing one shaky hand at me as he backtracked. Dana had fallen down and was crawling backwards away from me, her eyes wide and her mouth wide open. "Oh my Goddess, oh my Goddess, please protect us-" she whispered hurriedly. I just stood where I was, not moving an inch, and couldn't help but look down at my own body. Did I really look that frightening to them? Most certainly dangerous, but if the humans had managed to talk with me just fine moments ago, it came as a shock that suddenly they were pissing themselves and getting ready to flee.

As I observed my own self, something tiny sparkled in the silvery light for just an instant, and I picked it up with one clawed hand to better look at it. It was a ring made of copper, with a small and simple amber stone in the center. Nothing special by my standards, but I saw no point in letting a forest animal step on it by accident. For some reason, my movement made John and Dana stop their panicky escape and stare at me. I, in turn, stared at them, a bit confused. Weren't they running for their lives seconds ago? Or were they so stupid they forgot about that?

"The ring," Dana said breathless, pointing at me. "John, he's got it, our wedding ring."

John blinked, and after a moment his eyes widened. "Bloody hell, Dana, you're right," he said.

The ring? This ring? The one in my hand? I looked down at the cheap piece of jewelry, then at the human pair. "Disss?" I asked.

They nodded in unison.

"Yorrss?" I asked. More synchronized nodding.

I extended my hand towards them, making them flinch, but they didn't move any further away. "Heeere."

No reaction. "Yorrs," I added, trying not to sound any more threatening, although I did feel like roaring at them "Just take it already!"

Dana got up slowly from the ground, and started to move in my direction, one hand extended carefully in front of her. John whispered her name fiercely and beckoned her with frenetic hand gestures, but she forestalled his calls with an upright palm. It took a boring half a minute for the woman to get one feet away from me, and then an interminable long minute of her eyes darting between the ring and my own. Was I lulling her into getting close enough, her eyes were asking.

Of course not. Judging by their reflexes, I could catch up to them without breaking a sweat. They didn't know that, and thus remained careful. Well. I suppose they weren't completely senseless, after all.

Tired of the seemingly endless wait for the damned woman to pick up the damned ring, I practically shoved it in her face and said, "Yorrss. Nnoww." She yelped, but kept her composure and actually picked it up. Seeing that I hadn't taken my chance at devouring her alive (or worse), Dana looked at me one last time and walked back to her husband. John had remained frozen in place, unable to believe his eyes, and said nothing as Dana dragged him away by the hand.

"Let's go, dear. Back to the village. We found the ring. Hopefully the others aren't worried about us," she said a bit shakily as they went. "Not a word of this to the others, you hear?" she added.

And that was the end of that. Not terribly disastrous for a first encounter. Future meetings with humans would go just as well, I figured. As long as they were missing valuables that I conveniently found by my feet, that is. Hm.

I was about to leave the area when I noticed the darkness returning in full. A quick glance skyward showed me no traces of the mysterious silver orb. Where had it gone to? I made a mental note to skin Durzil alive for withholding vital information about the surface if I ever met with him again.

"Buddy-buddies. Heh, right."

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

Now I had to decide where to go. Given that I didn't know anything about the land's geography, I had no way to do so but at random. However, as I started to move again, a thought struck me, and I suddenly had a place to go. I thought I had lost them, but after a few minutes I managed to spot the human couple on their way back through the forest. Thanks to the dark night I could spy on them from afar, without worrying of getting noticed. I stalked them as they returned to their village, and after an hour or two I saw what seemed like a dream: the end of the forest. Suddenly there were no more trees, and instead I could look at a vast land, bigger than anything I could ever have imagined. The ground was covered by grass, bushes, and no more.

What a strange world, with no constricting walls of stone, or simply rocks as the only thing one sees around. This meant that I would have to keep my distance from the humans, and I lingered by the forest's edge a moment or two before resuming my stalking.

John and Dana were moving in a straight line towards a group of buildings that was about two hours away. Hm. There weren't many hiding spots for me to use if I went after them all the way, and I didn't feel reckless enough to risk being spotted by someone else other than them. For that matter, I didn't know how they would react to my stalking, given how our first encounter went. But I felt a need to observe a human community, and pushed on anyway, dashing from cover to cover whenever I could find it.

The human settlement was small, housing probably around two hundred people. I observed it all from an abandoned building that was separate from the rest. Well, it wasn't actually empty; some tasty looking large quadruped animals were kept in stalls, tethered with ropes, making nervous whining noises every now and then at my presence, and stomping the ground with their feet. John and Dana had disappeared inside one house made out of wood (just like all the others), and I didn't spot any other humans nearby. I suppose they aren't creatures of the night, after all, despite the couple's forest expedition. So all was well for my spying mission, at least if I didn't think of the smell of the building I was in - even someone such as I had standards.

My stomach had given me a growling demand more than once, and I kept eying the animals with more than passing interest. My hand reached for one of them in its own volition when I heard movement coming my way: a human was walking towards this very building with a lantern in hand. Damn. Were my stomach and his synchronized? I didn't have time to think about it, and left as quickly as I could without giving myself away. Laying against the outside wall on the back of the building, I waited for some tense minutes as I heard the human get closer and closer. When he finally got inside, the strangest thing happened.

"Heya, boys and girls, just comin' by to check on ye."

Could humans talk with these animals? I strained my ears to listen for a response, but only heard the same noises the animals had done with me around, only more relaxed. Hm. Maybe humans have the strange habit of talking with their food. But just as I had reached some conclusions, I heard more movement, and then saw one of the animals walk out of the building, with the human on its back.

"Let's go 'round the village and do our night guard, shall we?" the human was saying to the animal as they went.

"They're mounts?" I whispered, frowning, suddenly feeling very stupid. Of course - they had four sturdy legs, and muscled chests that looked strong enough to carry heavy things, like people. I shook my head and stretched my limbs. All this sneaking around wasn't like me, and I was both hungry and tired. I didn't get to see how humans lived in this place, but I got some ideas. I walked away from the back of the building and kicked a rock high in the air without noticing. It landed twenty feet away with a heavy thump.

The human, naturally, noticed this and rode to see what the noise was about. I didn't have time to run for it. With the lantern's light, he saw me well enough to cry out in horror. I didn't like that, so I crossed the distance between us and grabbed him by his shirt, lifting him off the mount, while simultaneously snatching the animal's reins with my other hand. And then I ran for it, human and mount in hand.

Funny story about humans: they scream a lot if you take them away by force. I put an end to that by eating his head off in one big bite. It turned out to be almost more than I could chew, but my teeth and jaw managed just fine. Flavor-wise, I've had better. Actually, I was going to, thanks to my other stolen item in that night. I dropped the headless human on the way without ceremony and gulped down the remnants of the head, letting out a big belch when I finished. The mount didn't seem to like any of this, and wanted out, so smacked it silly on the head, ending its wild protests. Now that the thing went limp, I had to carry it over my shoulders.

Well, what can I say, you can't have everything.

I was sprinting as fast as I could across the grassy plain carrying the animal mount in the middle of the night, heading back to the forest, with a human corpse on the way as proof of my passing. In hindsight, I should've hidden the corpse. Hopefully he wasn't well liked in the village, and the other humans would think "Good riddance!" at the sight of his headless body. One can only hope, yes?

Once I made it back to the forest, panting and thoroughly tired by then, I dropped the animal to the ground and rested my back against a tree. Once I was recuperated enough I had my meal. Good meat. It tasted even better roasted. There wasn't much left when I finished, so I didn't even consider carrying the left overs in my sack. As I finished chewing on a large bone, I considered my experiences so far in the world above. Not bad, for the first night, I thought, and went to sleep against a nearby tree.

The next morning was going to be much more interesting, but I had no warning whatsoever.

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

Alas, I had intended to update today, but I need more time to polish what I'm about to upload. Quality over quantity, that's my new motto

That being said, keep your eyes open for tonight or tomorrow - there shall be an update, and there shall also be unpleasantness for Aghemer

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

As promised, an update! Hopefully you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it - especially the first bit


---



I was mating rather intensely with this very attractive fire giantess, when something pointy prodded my shoulder, waking me up from the dream. I waved one hand at the direction of the annoyance and grumbled some curses, shifting around, not even bothering to open my eyes. Maybe I could go back to the fire giantess, if I tried hard enough. Her ruby-colored eyes were still fresh in my mind, along with her voluptuous, ash-covered bre-damn it all, why won't that annoying thing go away? More prodding ensued, and I wondered if there could be an animal in the surface world dumb enough to annoy someone like me. Were their instincts different from the beasts of the underground?

"Oy, I-I think it's moving!"

Wait. Animals don't talk like humans. Or at least the ones in my home don't. I abandoned the futile quest to meet again with my fiery love and dared to open one eye half-way, just to get an idea of what I was dealing with. Big mistake. Light overwhelmed my vision, and I had to shut my eye while shielding my face with a hand. I'll even go as far as admitting to have cried out in surprise. That had to be the “sun’s” work. There was a sound of multiple things shuffling, and then it was gone.

"I-is it awake? Is it? Good Goddess, it's bigger than I expected," another voice cried out. Humans. Definitely humans. I squinted one eye while protecting it with my hand, and all I saw initially were dark silhouettes carrying long and thin objects, all moving constantly, like jumpy goblins, illuminated by an impossibly bright light from behind. What in damnation did they want from me? My drowsiness couldn't let me think straight, and I struggled to recall what I had done recently. Hm. For one, I was in the world above, resting against a tree in a herd of trees. Forest. Resting in a forest. And I had managed to have a conversation with a mentally unstable human couple. Oh, and then I went after them to find out where they lived. That was that for the night.

One of the human figures was jerking its hand at the ground close to me. "Do you folks see that? Those are a horse's bones! It's from the one that went missing last night!" the human was shouting, and the other gasped in shock. Seems like they can put two and two together, after all. Wait. Had I forgotten something? I got it now: there was a human who spotted me, and I ate his head and took his mount/meal. Now I remember. Mystery solved. Back to sleep...

"I think it hasn't heard us," another human whispered. Oh, how I wished he was right. I wondered what they wanted from me, for them to stay around and talking to each other about me, as if I wasn't there. At least the poking and prodding stopped, but it got replaced by anxious whisperings. Something about "what should we do now," and "let's leave before it awakens and eats us." My love goes to the one who suggested that last bit, but alas, the rest didn't agree. And so I yawned fiercely, stretching my arms, and got myself on my feet, all slow-like, sleepy as I was. I wasn't going to just take it anymore, and tried to look at the humans in front of me with one hand covering my forehead to shield my eyes from the light.

"What," I growled, forgetting to say it in their language, but I think they got the idea, with all the yelps and shrieks they gave in return. There were more than I had expected: twenty or so peasants were formed in a tight semicircle, all carrying some sort of weapon, like daggers or staffs with metal parts at the top (an interesting take on a spear, with two heads). Hm. Were they here to fight, then? What had I done to earn their enmity?

The headless corpse. Right. I looked around the human group, trying to find their would-be leader. One man had pretty big muscles (for a human), he was taller than the rest, and stood in the center of the semicircle. So I pointed at him and asked, "What brings you to me, human?" Or at least that was what I had meant to ask in their tongue. Judging by the leader's look of shock, I doubt he got the right message.

"What do we bring to you, monster?" the leader said, outraged. His big fists whitened around the haft of his weapon, and his face reddened. "We ain't going to offer tribute to the likes of you! You may have fooled John and Dana, but it's clear to the rest of us that you are here to do no good." The other villagers shouted their agreements, gaining confidence with their leader.
Monster. He used the word not like an insult, but as a statement of fact. What else could he call me, after all? All the humans were now ready to attack me at a moment’s notice. I could’ve taken them, of course. Twenty of them, armed with improvised weapons, could barely scratch my hide. They couldn’t even hold me down long enough to tie me up, either. And if I wanted to, I could rip them apart with my claws, eat them, or if was feeling creative, even uproot a tree and wield it like a massive club.

I let out a roar that made the humans step back, and even knocked down some of them out of surprise, and then I did none of those things. Instead, I picked up my sack and ran like the wind. Sure, I could’ve won easily, but what was the point? As I dodged between trees, heading for neither the tunnel to my cave or the village, my mind realized the bigger picture: If killed one of them, and twenty came after me. If I killed twenty, then a hundred would follow. And if I killed a hundred… that’s a lot of humans coming after me.

"Don’t let it escape!” their leader shouted as they chased me through the forest. They all took turns flinging curses in my direction, all of which I had never heard before, and took mental notes to translate them later to my language. I had longer legs than them, and my stamina was higher, and while they couldn’t catch me, I couldn’t lose them either. I blame the foreign terrain for that.

What can I say, I wasn’t used to running through a forest.

At first the ground was even, and I had to worry only about crashing against a bush or a tree - that changed after a couple of minutes. The terrain abruptly changed, and then I was sprinting up and down hills, as if it wasn’t challenging enough before. This put as much of a strain on me as it did on the humans, so I couldn’t complain. I had almost gotten used to this when I heard the distinctive sound of running water ahead. A river, most likely. It didn’t come as a big surprise, since I had seen plenty underground, but I couldn’t hope for the river to work the same above as it did below.

Underground, rivers were narrow and twisty beings that were plagued with stalagmites (and sometimes stalactites if it went through a small tunnel). I expected the ones in human lands to be the exact opposite, and I happened to be right. After some minutes of human on monster chase, I spotted the water ahead, and I have to say, it was big: twenty feet wide, maybe ten deep, it started on a hill to my left, and kept going downwards to my right. There were no bridge or stepping stones on sight, and the river rushed faster than I ran.

The moment I came to a sudden halt right by the water I heard one human say, “We’ve got him, boys! Big guy can’t cross the river!” and the rest cheered, increasing their speed to end this once and for all, despite how tired they all looked.

Damn. I don’t like water. Or cold things, for that matter. I’ve always had an aversion for both, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to overcome it. Must run in my blood, or something. But one look over my shoulder and I saw something else I didn’t like: a bunch of peasants, charging after me. To swim or not to swim, that was the question, and I knew the answer, because staying on ground wasn't a good choice. So I braced myself, tied my sack to my shoulder, took a deep breath, and jumped as far as I could. I heard the humans cry out behind me, surprised that I had taken the leap, and then I hit the water, halfway across the river.

I’m not going to try to describe how infinitely painful and disturbing it felt to get drenched from top to bottom in one agonizing instant, only to realize it wasn’t over, and I would remain soaked until I swam across the river. My limbs shivered, my jaw opened and closed repeatedly against my will, and all I could think of was to curse the deity responsible for creating this torture device and putting it in my way.

Now, if I had to point one good thing about the river, that was that I happened to be slightly taller than the water. That said, I couldn’t really stand up straight, what with the rushing current and all, so I struggled to get my head above water, and I ended up swallowing a lot of it in the process. This is the embarrassing part where I admit not knowing how to swim, and all I could think of doing was moving my arms like wheels, and kicking my legs to push myself forward. The current pushed me to my right, and I felt very helpless, unable to grab a hold.

I started making progress after a minute of struggling, and could almost reach the other side with my hand, when I hit something hard on my side, hard enough to hurt, and I went back to square one, in the middle of the river. Probably a river stone. The impact made me turn around full circle, and I saw the peasants on one side, now far away, pointing and laughing at me as I went away with the water. Well. That made me regret not killing them after all, and I considered rectifying that in the future. But first I had to make it out of this god-forsaken river.

I tried my improvised swimming technique once more, but to little effect. My sack felt heavier than ever with all the water, but I suddenly remembered what made it so. It was a pain, but I managed to open the sack, take out the old lizard meat that I had brought with me, and dump it out into the water. Much better, but I was still weighed down. Out went the furs and skins I had as well, and I hoped for warm days ahead. I lamented having to throw out goods, just like that, but I had no choice. With my pack thus lighter, I swam awkwardly to the opposite side of the river once more, and got a hold of a rock. As I struggled to remain by the edge, I realized in hindsight that I could have thrown my sack to dry land, instead of emptying half its contents.


Cursing my own foolishness, I climbed up to solid ground with some difficulty, and collapsed face-down once I succeeded. Ah, how good it felt, the dry grass against my hide. I was still very wet, but at least I had escaped the nightmare. As I lay down near the river, I felt the light of this orb, the "sun", shining on me from somewhere in the "sky", its rays sneaking through the tall trees, giving me warmth. What a convenient thing, this "sun." I liked it much more than that other orb that appeared at "night". Whatever it was. Hm. Then it was "night", so now it should be... "morning"? Or was it "dusk"? Durzil once mentioned that people above had ways to measure time with the help of the sun, something that intrigued me, and I had asked for details, which I vaguely remember now.

I don’t know for how long I rested like that, basking under the radiance of the sun and wondering how I had managed to survive this far in my life without it. But I do know that eventually it was time to go, and so I grabbed my now frightfully lightweight sack and started moving. One glance over my shoulder confirmed what I had suspected: the peasants were nowhere to be seen. Then again, I had been pushed like a rag-doll by the river, so I don’t think I could’ve seen them even if they had decided to watch my watery ride. Just as well; had I spotted them, I would’ve unleashed my rage on them, even if that meant jumping across the river again.

And so I made my way through the hilly forest. Now that it was morning, all sorts of animals made their appearance. Some small (smaller even than humans!), some big (not nearly as big as I, of course). The bottom line was that they were all edible, and I was out of food. With some practice I managed to capture the least skittish of them. Surface creatures had quite a different taste from the underground ones, but it wasn’t bad. I didn’t know any of their names, so I invented some for my own convenience: little orange rat-thing with big tail, big black fat thing with paws and sharp teeth that’s pretty strong, skinny brown thing with antlers, and more.

They weren’t very convenient names, come to think of it.

I was finishing one of my meals when a glance to the sky made me pause and stare. At some point the sun’s orb had moved, and was closer to the center of the sky than before. I needed to get used to that, if I wanted to be able to measure time like a surface-dweller. As I looked above, something else caught my eye: a thin column of smoke, coming from somewhere ahead in the forest. I threw away the remnants of the animal I had eaten, and resumed my walk, heading in the smoke's direction. The sun had positioned itself right above me by the time I made it to the source.

It was a cabin, smaller than the buildings in the village I had seen yesterday, maybe big enough for two people to live in there. It was situated on top of a hill, surrounded by bushes and low trees. The thin line of smoke emerged from a short column on top of the house, making me wonder if it was on fire at first. I was spying it from a safe distance behind a wide tree, and seeing that the smoke didn’t enlarge, I could only assume that if there was a fire in there, it wasn’t running wild. Not that I’m afraid of fire; on the contrary, it’s my ally. What I was concerned of was the cabin itself, and its inhabitants. Maybe I would be able to live there, if I took it for myself. But first I had to get there and investigate.

I adjusted my sack to my shoulder and walked straight for the cabin, ready for a fight.