DWARF IN A HOLE

Having sprung so deep into the forest not far from the plundered cottage, only following the dwarf’s third stumbling into wet earth did he somewhat regret charging recklessly into the night. There seemed evident reasons all around: black bounded between tree and tree obfuscating all directions. The dwarf had felt certain his chosen direction would lead to the ravine, but certainty shattered over stray twigs and snagging branches. He rose up from muck, the dwarf’s face wet and indecipherable like the abyssal haze so smothering. But after rising he ceased the search party and calmed Waspig to camp, the dwarf soon resting against a log with raised writhing bumps. He shot forward and found his hands suddenly resting against more bark. With one cautious step backwards the dwarf stumbled back into mud. Waspig’s wings whipped the same substance against its master’s wooden enemies.

Perhaps morning would have proven a better departure, the dwarf daydreamed, dripping. He did not necessarily hold against himself the rashness of so soon a leave on so depleted a stomach--he wished desperately to save the swinesects deep within an unlocatable crack in the earth. He felt it at least wise to have prepped as he did, unraveling the bag pierced with iron poker. The dwarf produced a smushed loaf of mushroom, sat to his prayers somewhere dry, and began forcing bites down one after another, coughing sporadically throughout the meal. Despite being granted more than ample time to adjust, the dwarf’s eyesight could not separate tree from grass and grass from hog, relying solely on sound. He thought once more of halcyon days echolocating back to his farm and father, webbed moss his robe. It was dark then, too, but the unobserved canopy sprawled high above the dwarf now made certain of an impenetrable night. The dwarf figured no other plan followed sense but to wait for dawn. He shivered, naked. So his arms piled atop bunched knees and the dwarf made himself small. Waspig, sprawled across muck, made aid of its wet hair. It somewhat helped, but the gesture warmed him more than anything.

If not for the anchor of his pet, the dwarf worried the darkness would overtake he. Already his senses seemed strained, few hours of sleep not nearly as sufficient as the rest gained in a fallen timeline. His eyes drooped inadvertently jolting the dwarf awake, a repeating of the process soon ensuing. The dwarf threw himself suddenly onto his bottom, Waspig evidently having woken and taking up another activity. It eyed its master strangely before returning to its game, such happily expanded. Wings warped up gusts that occasionally breezed by the dwarf’s cheeks. The cold continued. But the presence of his pet just as well set his teeth on edge, Waspig’s sounds obfuscating many of the forest’s own auditory offerings. In-between grunts came rufflings and whistlings and wallops and whoops and all sorts of other cacophony that phased only the dwarf, the pigsect’s play undisturbed. He convinced himself if Waspig felt at ease, so should he.

So when Waspig ceased activity to hold firm and huff, the dwarf’s hairs erected.

Waspig growled its equivalent, feet only as firm as the dwarf could imagine in the blackness that pervaded. The dwarf’s mind rocketed between the possibility of Captain Locust’s approach, if not a second enlarged chicken. He caught a buzzing and a beating--like a heart, but wetter. The sound grew duplicates, and soon all around the dwarf and his pet swirled a sea of insect noise. It seemed maddening, sound arriving, crashing like waves though the dwarf could attest to no physical sensation. And then all ceased, and he sat still and Waspig continued huffing. Somewhere far but not distant glowed--unnatural light; not dawn. As soon as bark became lit did the glowing stop. It appeared elsewhere, then, that soft pulsing. Each appearance marked varied locations all within and beyond the dwarf’s grasp: batches of vegetation, scarred oak, crystal mud. Another source of light joined the stage. Three became visible in three separate corners; four; fifteen. Each bug beat its drum with thumps ricocheting off trunks, hinds alight to darken. The dwarf soothed his pet realizing the presence of this world’s equivalent of the firefly.

They, the fireflies, buzzed and lit in various tones of murky greens and browns, variations of more saturated color via fungus observed. Light crisscrossed past particularly long poles of wood; became swiss through bushes. The dwarf roused the absorbed Waspig and continued forward under the flies’ careful guidance. Slung back behind, the dwarf’s half eaten loaf bounced around skewered by poker and, to his side, Waspig trot warily, its defense yet yielded. But the dwarf was merely happy to see no threat. The further they traveled, the more the sense of walking through a galaxy dawned on the dwarf, lights rising and falling throughout nature’s cage, canopy vibrant with the shatterings of dark. They brought the dwarf and his pet finally to the edge of a massive ravine running east to west infinitely in both directions, the sense further aided by whatever darkness the fireflies could not penetrate. The dwarf noted additionally they ventured not across the gorge, the blackness of elfen territory a thick wall of its own. But this mattered little to the dwarf’s interests: he had not come to liberate the sharp eared.

The first embers of dawn began shooing the insects of the night away in favor of multicolored jewels. Ruffling his pet’s fur, the dwarf looked upon Waspig tenderly. He rested an ear against it and felt its thumping and beating, his cartoonish hands soon grazing in rhythmic tracings. Its life would not be endangered this time. Instead of across, the dwarf needed down--a task more than possible. Mounting the bugbeast, the two unceremoniously hopped off the edge of the cliff and, forceful but measured, Waspig’s wings fluttered in the golden dawn that sunk back into black. Tipping his pet upwards nearly vertically aligned with its tail, the dwarf hovered in a slow descent. He felt grateful for the little light afforded, deftly dodging wooden webs and entangling moss, his dance and descent so long the dwarf wondered if the two hadn’t tricked themselves into an endless trek. It was only when Waspig’s feet splashed into the ravine’s sole source of water did the dwarf realize success.

The morning’s light helped, but it would unfortunately be an early afternoon’s sun before the grainy atmosphere would disperse. The dwarf slipped off his pet and submerged himself, the thrill of a sudden intense cold powering his swim. He twisted and scrubbed, caked mud flaking off into the stream. And out came a clean beard. Stumbling forward, Waspig was ahead at the shore and, rejoined, fauna and shrooms showered in water off the dwarf’s bare body. It took some time to dry, the sun’s heat not quite potent. The dwarf filled the hours scavenging through the graveyard of carts and vehicles left to rot. Yet themselves to do so, vegetables became rediscovered, and the dwarf barely restrained himself from gorging on an uncooked sample while tossing another to his expectant pet.

Beneath clumps of blackened wood and shredded sheet metal, a rusted pickaxe was discovered. It certainly came with some heft, but the thing felt good in the dwarf’s hands. He set it aside--his poker would suffice for now. The vegetables, meanwhile, entered the sack with the mushroom bread, and back it came across the dwarf’s. He approached a familiar tree and broke free sap. Satisfied with the drenching of a branch, he set the would-be torch down to grind wood together--a laborious task, his loss of some ‘SURVIVAL’ levels felt. But fire sparked just enough, a small campfire following, enveloping the sticky substance his would-be torch dripped, means of light provided.

“SURVIVAL SKILL INCREASED TO 13”

While the dwarf couldn’t seem to rediscover the stash of eggs, he managed once more a leather belt out from wreckage. Again he strapped the thing around Waspig and smeared its topmost portion in sap. The dwarf had recovered the once used bowl and filled it with the same sticky mess amidst déjà vu lacking all mystery. He dipped the torch through the air and alighted the bowl’s contents, flickering light soon strapped to his pet--one for him, one for his. Satisfied in the reperformance, the dwarf, together with Waspig, entered again the foreboding moss shrouded cave.

Waspig trotting alongside, light bobbing and bouncing, within the long tangling of rocky walls and tunnels the dwarf traveled surprisingly with ease. He remembered a dwarf that aimlessly wandered dark sprawling halls and contrasted against his current venture, certain stalagmites recognized, splotches of off color familiar, dead ends ignored. It surprised the dwarf how quickly he came to behold the glow of another flame flickering against rock: he’d found the funguay. Resting his torch against the wall and forcing Waspig stay put, angry face utilized and surely menacingly lit by two of the three light sources, the dwarf crouched and cautiously drew forward alone. Rounding a corner, he beheld once more the shacks and shanties of feral funguay, their constructions which wrapped around stalagmites and -tites and their fire which offered quick evidence of only a recent start--game yet to be mounted. All the better if he could save one more, thought the dwarf.

If.