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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerulean_Wings" data-source="post: 5198808" data-attributes="member: 55060">As promised, an update! Hopefully you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it - especially the first bit <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" />---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.</blockquote>

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