DWARF IN A HOLE

Soaked and splayed, the dwarf, dripping, grimaced. A few feet beside, Doctor Mallow aggressively paced.

“You would escape one execution only to make another out of mud?”

The dwarf shook his head. His slick beard widened to gave way to protests--then came hesitation. Would the funguay flee at first mention of the hideous sight seen only moments ago? Fast his pupils widened scanning the dark cavern in a hurry, hands palming at the nonexistent hold on his neck. The dwarf could make no recognition of the flayed face of rotted skin beheld but once--but the cave was not any less dark. Indeed what few runes pulsed did so as sole beacons--what accosted the dwarf could lurk still anywhere. But Mallow needn’t know it, reasoned the dwarf: if the doctor fled, so too did the chance of the Ponderous’ solution promised yet delivered. His father chided him for his deceitfulness, but the dwarf little wished to be alone again--not with a frightful abomination. The dwarf’s limbs tired tremendously--his arms pounded with ache from the suffered toss. His legs too were not improved by the fall, but the difference in pain before and after becoming a patient of Mallow was incomparable. The dwarf continued to want its care.

“Where do you look, stout one? I am before you. What?”

The dwarf swallowed hard and shook his head. Doctor Mallow waited some time before speaking:

“Do not yield to this darkness. You may yet know faith, ye who sin.”

The dwarf, flat on his back, bumped his head into stone, startled. The doctor looked as if it understood.

“I may forgive you yet, for that is His way. But you will need repent. To set fire to His doors, to attack His people...”

His people, pondered the dwarf. The dwarf thought of this world’s bible--that which unfolded blank keeping him tethered. He wondered of the first death incurred by the hands of Waspig--what would have happened had he not ‘SAVED’? A chill rushed over the dwarf, but his soaked state did no favors. And what could something so wordless mean to a funguay? He wondered just who He was.

“... Regardless, I will treat you as I would anyone. But I expect you to beg Him for forgiveness. Your legs are looking fine. Bring those large arms here.”

The dwarf could hardly stretch them, and Mallow took notice of his flinching. Of many hands hung from beneath the doctor’s flared cap, one produced a turquoise vial and rubbed its contents into the dwarf’s skin, much clinging to his hair in rebellion. The process over, the funguay brought himself breaths away from the dwarf.

“You must heal. You will wait one more night--”

The dwarf shoved himself away using the unleveled ground as leverage, clumsily rolling into a half standing stance, pain jolting with every correction his feet attempted. Teeth clenched beneath immense pressure. The dwarf grabbed for the rusty pick before a gaping Mallow and marched to the small fissure in which water a day before rushed out from.

“Mad dwarf!”

“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 12”

“MINING SKILL INCREASED TO 13”

Bursting apart, muddied rock fell in clumps to the wet earth the dwarf stood heaving atop, himself falling forward only inches from a rune once rested by. He jammed two filthy fingers into his mouth and bellowed a whistle. Instruments falling to his sides, the dwarf only then processed what had been just endured, screaming as the veins in his arms--of those not pocks--pumped agony throughout. The dwarf’s voice became hysterical blubbering through the worst horror he could claim physically subjected to yet. The doctor stepped over, eventually, and said something the dwarf could not hear or remember. Eventually the noise quieted into murmurings, and the hole resumed silence. Only by familiarity or careful ears could the soft flappings of Waspig soon be caught, and the dwarf’s tears continued, agony interspersed with joy.

Chains rattled. The dwarf’s heart abstained from its beating rhythm, and Doctor Mallow turned away.

“Was that you, dwarf?”

Waspig finished its descent, toppling over the dwarf and soon wallowing in its master. The dwarf’s teeth pounded into one another once more, a resounding crack blasting outwards, as he thrust his pet into the air to which it stabilized itself by wings. The dwarf lunged and took a fistful of the doctor’s wrists, the doctor soon sailing over onto the pigsect. His great hand rising, the palm soared through the air and straight onto the hind of Waspig, Waspig squealing, shooting upwards with Mallow in tow. The dwarf fell and splashed fully into the hole of his origin--that which he’d once fell through and became dwarf. He groaned and became more a hysterical mess, his insistence on pushing his dwarfen body’s limits summoning dire consequences. He grit a wet rock, the newly made canyon in his teeth radiating pain. And all the while, iron shook and resounded. The dwarf spit the rock and took mud into his mouth like feed from a trough, agonious wailing replaced with muffled whimpers. He kept his face buried, globs of tears dribbling down and between his meal. Hurried thoughts shifted from the horrific chain dragging monster to the flight of Waspig and Doctor Mallow to the rescuing of Lieutenant Doetrieve. He thought of his mother and father. He thought of the farm. He thought nothing at all and waited to overhear no further rattling.

Soon the distant flapping of his pet grew again. The dwarf hurt, but he smiled, mouthful of dirt making no difference. His rapid breathing slowed, and the dwarf felt at rest. The dwarf would summon another round of impossible strength and seize the belt of Waspig and ride back to his flock, planned the dwarf. The two of them would once again escape the hole so set on being involved in a life unwanted of. But, accusing himself of pessimism, the dwarf did not think he could move. The anxiety rising from this idea stirred the dwarf to squeeze his palms; he could not. The most minute of movements generated such turmoil within the dwarf, the dwarf knew there was no mounting Waspig of his own volition. But perhaps the pet could be convinced to assist the dwarf snout-first, the dwarf wondered. He feared its tusks in the process, but little choice seemed offered. With the wings of his pet soon booming, the dwarf accepted this obstacle could be overcome--he would soon ‘SAVE’, would rest, would heal, and save Doetrieve; stop Locust. The sound of diffused wind but surely feet above, the dwarf then felt a nuzzling beneath that turned him over. Dirt spit, groaning and grunting the entire way, the dwarf recovered and opened his eyes.

A face of stretched, decayed skin and exposed bone materialized inches before the dwarf’s. It shrieked. The dwarf hollered. Chains whipped around beneath his beard and seized the throat, the dwarf’s breaths stifled. Floating up from the well, the dwarf shot upwards past a bewildered Waspig, chains taut after. Wind stolen from his pipes, the dwarf fell back to the bottom of the hole and into the portion still submerged. It soon dawned on the dwarf he was being held below, but his limbs could offer nothing in the way of resistance. Here, so close to ‘SAVING’, the dwarf’s life would be stolen away again--the dwarf would have to once more free the doctor from imprisonment and execution. But Doetrieve would at least still wait for the dwarf within the cottage. Yet, Doetrieve vexed the dwarf. When the lieutenant turned he and Mallow in, was the action opportunistic or planned? Either or, what produced the change in heart that led to he and his arachnid’s assistance? Worse, why did the dwarf ponder all this moments before his death by drowning, by the hands of something so monstrous the dwarf dared not attempt to conjure its memory? Had death become so meaningless, worried the dwarf.

Jerked and fished out from the pool, the dwarf took some time to process his sudden vertical flight. But before the chains could snap tight again, Waspig whisked in and rescued the dwarf, the grip on his neck dissipating into the rushing wind. Though his senses were nearly disabled, the dwarf easily ascertained how difficult the pigsect worked its muscles--its dedication to its master upset the dwarf’s heart, in remiss over perhaps too gruffly handling it and the doctor earlier. He was not sure how he’d explain his actions to the latter--he only hoped more lotion would be applied to his limbs. Tears dribbled out and onto Waspig’s wet fur, upset he could not stroke his pet to show thanks. Yet through wet eyelids the dwarf did perceive:

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY SKILL INCREASED TO 22”...

Several hands gripped the back of the dwarf from bald to bottom. He rose from the hole of nearly his murderer and collapsed onto tile heaving. Eventually falling onto his back, the dwarf faced his flock in an uproar, a shy looking Funguayou and moonlit Doctor Mallow.

“ARE YOU MAD?” demanded the latter.

Making no move to answer, the dwarf’s only muscles worked were that which produced a great smile across his beard, his hogsects upon their master with love, his Waspig meanwhile too heaving not too great distance away. The dwarf softened. He would ‘SAVE’. He would rest, would heal, and save Doetrieve; stop Locust. Doctor Mallow would produce the “cure” to revive the Ponderous’ cognitive ability, and the dwarf would receive answers. Though eyes closed, he could see no other way.

With sudden alarm the dwarf’s flock sprang into defensive positions. Not a moment later and a ghastly apparition rose up out from the hole’s lip and defied gravity before all. Its horrifically gnarled face of rotting flesh and calcium emitted a hair-stiffening wail. And towards the dwarf it lunged.