Chapter 28

[Rocky]

It was an enigma.

How did the humans put so much water into such a small space?

Even with the proof before him, Rocky couldn’t fathom how this was possible.

It simply wasn't.

In fact, not even Gorf, who was the most thoughtful and wise of all the Golem created so far, seemed to understand. Rocky’s lumpy brother seemed equally perplexed, as he tipped the jug forward again.

Together, they watched.

Water poured out to the sand around the green sprout. What was clearly an entire container’s worth of the liquid soaked into the dirt.

Then, it kept pouring…

And pouring…

Finally, Gorf shrugged, and set the jug down.

Defeat.

Total defeat.

While Rocky felt that the sprout did seem quite happy, having grown quite a bit over the last few days, they were still no closer to having an answer. At this point, it seemed safe for Rocky to assume that this would remain one of life’s great mysteries.

The water jug simply made no sense.

Rocky had given up.

But Gorf had other plans.

Being the persistent Golem that he was, Gorf still demanded answers. In awe, Rocky watched, as his brother enacted a different experiment. By, what could only be a stroke of genius: this time, Gorf was pouring one endless jug of water into another jug.

The results were… exactly the same.

Truly fascinating.

How did it work?

Rocky had confidence that Gorf would make a breakthrough, eventually.

There were so many new things, these past few days.

Yes, their venture out into the great unknown beyond their home had been a fruitful and exciting time. The Creator had called to them with the promise of many wagons that needed to be thrown, and after they’d returned with all sorts of strange objects.

Stacked high were boxes, crates, and piles of shiny metal things the humans used as weapons. Sharp and specialized tools, all of which were completely pitiful next to the sturdy and hardy nature of regular rocks and stones found just about anywhere you looked on the ground.

Humans were quite stupid, Rocky decided.

But, they did have their moments of creative genius.

Clearly, as he and Gorf had determined, noting the jugs filled with impossible amounts of water.

It was a good thing, too.

Even with Rocky’s limited vocabulary, the things that his Creator happened to mumble when using magic to water the sprout had been growing increasingly worrisome. So it was far better, that the problem was remedied.

Gorf could also be trusted to handle the task of watering the plant, too.

In fact, if Gorf kept at it, why, the green sapling might be as tall as Rocky in no time.

The more water, the more plant.

Simple.

Gorf had been the one to figure that out too.

Yes, Rocky understood clearly now. Beneath that lumpy exterior of oddly shaped stone: Gorf was clearly someone who saw the bigger picture. Who saw what needed to be done, before the need even arose. The wits, to match Rocky’s brawn.

Gorf was pouring two of the jugs simultaneously into a third, now. By all the a Golem might hope to understood: if that wasn’t brilliance, nothing was.

Times like this, Rocky was truly humbled.

…….

[Snake Report]

Along with a God-awful hangover, there's a pile of stolen plunder to be sorted out.

So, as the morning sun rises, I’ve opted to slink back into the dark twilight of my reclaimed section of the Dungeon, and wait out the worst of my poor life choices.

Theft.

Grand Theft.

The words seem a little small compared to the scale of how many boxes are up there.

Four Golem are capable of carrying a lot more than I had anticipated.

Is there something past Grand Theft?

I truly don’t know.

Legally, I'm not sure if this world even has such a distinction- but if they do I probably committed it.

Like a tiny blue Robin Hood.

Who steals from the rich to give to…

Himself.

Okay, I’ll admit this doesn’t exactly make me out to be the good guy.

Robbing the Empire.

Yeah.

It sounds pretty bad, when just thrown out there on its own. In fact, I feel it almost seems accusatory without context- but context is everything.

Robbing the Empire that already hates me, and keeps sending small armies to invade.

Robbing the Empire that already hates me, and keeps sending small armies to invade, while administering some imprompu justice on some mercenaries?

Vast improvement.

When put this way, I feel it does a better job to portray motive and justification. One, by which most people could probably relate to. I’m confident this frames the whole mess a lot better than: "I had a little too much to drink, and I thought it might be fun."

Sss...

I've done stupider things.

Not many.

At least two, maybe three. Point is, I won't deny it. And- while this clearly wasn’t a great decision, let's be real honest here.

If we stop and think about it, rationally, we can see that maybe this was just the right choice.

This was a power move. One somewhat-drunken, reckless, gamble of a play, in the game of fourth dimensional tiny-snake chess.

Honestly: what trouble can this really bring me, that wasn't already coming my way?

Ssss…

There’s something to consider, right?

What are they really going to do? Send another army?

Pretty sure that was already inevitable.

So, it's fine.

This is fine.

Sss…

Yeah. What’s done is done. Best not to dwell on it.

And the best way not to dwell on problems is to endlessly distract one’s self with completely unrelated things.

And, I’m pretty much a pro at that.

Stuff.

Things.

Gorf has brought me some interesting pieces from both of those categories. At a leisurely pace, but he’s getting there. He’s actually been quite selective, which I didn’t expect.

Some boxes, he brings right down. Others, he keeps.

I’ve noticed he’s mostly just bringing me the ones that don't have water jugs with storage runes all over them. For whatever reason, it appears that he’s found these to be worth his interest.

His personality is an odd one.

I'm okay with that, though, because those things not really worth mine.

My interest.

Blanket statement, but: Runes are weird.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of them.

Despite my best efforts, I can't figure out how to get them to work the way they should. Even after a few hours of tinkering, intent on making the most basic of examples, my science projects have not gone at planned.

For example, my second latest attempt to replicate one exploded.

I'd say that was pretty bad, but then the next one I tried exploded and then reformed.

Then, it exploded again.

And then reformed again.

At some point, I think it was a little after the thirty-second-ish explosion, I opened a hole in the floor and buried the horrible thing.

If I listen close, I'm pretty sure it's still going.

Like some sort of circulating pressure vacuum, eternally trapped in some horrible and twisted loop of very-slightly diminishing returns.

Ba-dum.

Baaaa-dum.

I think this is my magical Tell-Tale Heart.

Anyways, the moral of the story is I’m not trying that again.

Runes are dangerous.

In fact: Magic is dangerous.

Plus, pretty much anything that humans seem to get their hands on, is all mangled up and warped. They use shortcuts, and tricks, and loopholes, instead of just doing things the proper way. The way they operate reminds me of the Skills I could purchase back when Gaia and I were on good terms.

Besides, even if I might be pretty comfortable with any of the basic elements I’ve grown accustomed to using, I still understand these powers aren’t exactly friendly.

Not even Earth magic.

I can make a shield out of stone, or I can make a sword. Or, I can make a thousand spears of hollow stone, and propel them several hundred feet into the air, to rain shrapnel upon my enemies.

At this point I’m reasonably sure I could do any and all of the above, but the only reason I’d even be comfortable trying would be due to my confidence in not having any of those things backfire on me.

Forget the really dangerous stuff: I’m confident the shield isn’t going to fall over and squish me flat, basically.

I am always in control. I can always disassemble if I feel something isn't working.

But until I can feel even halfway sure about Rune related activities, a blanket policy of caution is in place.

I’ve survived too much nonsense to get killed by a water jug.

Sss…

It’s an interesting problem, though.

I’m assuming Runes must work has to do with an element the humans can use, but I can't. Or, at least I can’t consciously. Like how Eveth kept going on and on about the Soul element, or her use of Air magic.

Might as well be impossible for me, I have no idea how to gain access to those things. So, I’m taking a guess they’re at least tangentially related to the trouble I’ve been having with this.

Either that, or I just happen to be terrible at replicating languages I don’t know, and this is a lesson for dabbling in forces outside my understanding.

Maybe the exactness of the font in the script has some sort of trick to it.

... No, probably better to stop.

If I could learn something from that last terrible experiment, I would have already.

Regardless.

With the influx of new stuff, the main Dungeon room had to get a bit of a rework. I've stalled my exploration further into the main hall and focused on the entrance room I've been living in.

It took me a bit of time, I think it’s finally looking a lot more like the [Tiny Snake Camp] it always deserved to be.

For starters, to make space for all the liberated possessions, I've carved out an additional storeroom and put in some more shelving. We're up to three of those, now. One for weapons, one for mana crystals (though it’s quite empty), and now one for an astonishing number of water jugs.

Gorf might still have another room’s worth of those upstairs, but I’m still too hung-over to try and get an accurate count of them.

Best guess, though: probably an excessive amount of water.

Plus some crates of grain, just caught up in the mix.

All in all, I'd feel a bit like a doomsday-prepper, but I live on top of a horrible cavern filled with monsters.

Somehow that negates it.

Justifies it, maybe?

It's literally always doomsday around here.

Still, even infrequent as his deliveries are getting, Gorf's been hard at work and I've been pretty lazy, so I've had my work cut out for me during my short sprints of non-lazy behavior in order to outpace the random additions of crates and stolen objects.

I've made a table in the center of the room.

Decided a big round table would look cool.

I decided to just make a giant block of stone by skimming a couple inches of the top of the floor for material, so I can move things around easier. Sprouting hands from the surface, and what-not, without sacrificing the structural integrity of the whole thing.

It looks pretty freaky.

Just a table with me in the middle, and a much of stone hands shuffling things around.

If someone saw this and didn’t know it was me, I bet this would qualify as the stuff of nightmares. Classic evil wizard stuff.

All the weird stuff I don't know what to do with has been going here, too.

Several books, of varying subjects and styles… I think. Some jewelry that might be magical, or might just be pretty

A glowing sword covered in symbols

A second glowing sword, also covered in symbols, but shinier.

Lots of stuff. All of which seem really cool, but I can't read and I don't have arms, so what I've really been really interested in is the picture book.

That sounds bad- it’s not actually a picture book.

I feel like that terminology would lend itself to some sort of children’s bedtime story, made out of cardboard and laminated so a toddler can’t manage to get a bite out of it.

This is more like something I would have imagined in a museum somewhere.

Big, impressive, heavy cover: By its presence alone, I feel this is the kind of literature that would come with a little plaque. The type your might see beside the glass case protecting this national treasure from grimy hands, intended to hold some information about how five generations of monks had dedicated their lives to creating the book by hand. Maybe even a blurb about how the jewels which encrust the cover, are the property of the royal crown.

Or something.

I would have preferred less jewels and more laminated pages.

Accidentally ripping the first page in half trying to get my fine-tuning with the Earth Magic exact enough to skim through this, I still can’t help but imagine a chorus of librarians crying out in agony.

Big oof.

It starts out simple enough.

Like most books, there are words.

I assume they’re words.

Unfortunately, I can’t read any of them, no matter how hard I try. Whatever script is on the page, it might as well be squiggles with a pattern- but if I turn the pages, carefully, I come across an image.

In both black ink and color, is a detailed picture of a familiar setting.

A scene I recognize, all too well.

Though the walls aren’t nearly as tall, and the palace in its center doesn’t rise out in the ominous fashion I remember, this is clearly the City of the Emperor.

Only, it’s not.

This is the city, but not the same one I know. All about the image, I see tiny figures sketched in. People working, but in a way that hardly seems to fit, in this world.

By hand.

This is the city when it was fist being built. Walls and buildings are being held up by lattice. All about the city, there is a rising falsework of what must be constructed timber, and frames. It is a scene of progress, but with an emphasis on labor. Human ingenuity and logic seem to hold precedence. In the center of it all, seated on a throne, a single man watches over the work. Small as he is, I can’t see his expression, only the crown.

Only a few pages further, though, and there’s another scene.

The city has grown, though still not to the scale I know it to be, presently. The walls are larger, the construction still being completely by hand and hard labor. There seems to have been a great shift into prosperity, as the buildings are filled with sculptures, and art.

But, here, in this chapter: there is violence.

In front of the walls of the city, I can see many soldiers. Those with swords, and with spears. Above them, I see banners, each bearing a different crest. All of which seem to be fighting one another. Above it all, the throne sits empty, while two men- each with a crown of their own, fight.

As the pages continue to turn, it only grows worse.

Whatever the words on these pages might read: outside the walls, where there was once only humans at war, now there are others.

The Elves are drawn in.

Slender, beautiful things, seated upon massive creatures, wrapped in armor. Beasts with fangs the length of spears, birds with wings that spread as wide as the city walls grow tall. On the opposing side, pinning in the city, strange machines roll on wheels and gears, drawn along by strange figures. People, if they can be called such, which are low to the earth. Wide and short, they bring a violence of a different sort. One of mechanical efficiency, where machines of stone rise up to do battle.

It is not difficult to tell that the humans are losing.

Before the Elves and the beasts, the faded red-ink representing blood soaks the page. Bodies of hundreds, piled atop on another. Beside the machines on the opposite side, the results are no better. But, even with all these losses, the humans banners still stab at one another. Those who appear capable of resisting, rallying forces behind them. The ground is all but red.

Yet, something changes, in the next scene.

Humans are still fighting one another, but they're no longer cowering in fear from the Elves. In fact, the Elves seem to be retreating. The Dwarves, if I’m correct to assume the identify of these workers of stone and machine, seem to be repelled, as something rises up above the battle.

This has a religious zeal to it, I won’t say that it doesn’t. Perhaps, there is only so much I can safely draw from the image as intended meaning, but there is a figure of light above the humans. Something, which resembles a man wearing a crown, with arms outstretched. Beneath it, the humans are almost unrecognizable.

Forgotten are their simple swords of crude metal shapes: what they have now are replaced by brilliant flames. By winds, shaped to rain destruction down upon their enemies, and spears of ice. The destruction which rains down from each one of them, can only be described as catastrophic. The ground is broken, the skies seem filled with storms. The great walls, built by logic and persistence, and shattered by the forces, crumbling with each passing scene, as the banners turn on themselves once again. Even as their enemies retreat, their violence cannot be sated. By the hard edges, the swift strokes of a master’s pen, what’s drawn is to show there could be no greater calamity.

But, the final two pages, tell of a different story.

The final images show the humans bowing to a single figure.

There, seated atop a throne, split and crumbling, a man looks down upon the crowd. At his side, all the banners kneel to face him, as massive ships rise up in the air beside the palace, and walls are formed to match my own memory. That of the modern age of the Empire.

Beyond the walls, the Elves are seen, pursued by such flying vessels, and the Dwarves have been entirely replaced by bloodied peaks. Jagged and sharp, like fangs, rising to the East.

Outside the rising walls, monsters now lurk. Beasts and strays, prowling on the hunt.

The final image shows the same, but closer. Panned in, by some sense, to follow as the man has risen from his thrown, to turn into the darkness beyond it, looking deeper into the palace. For there, upon an altar, sits a single candle's flame. At a simple glance, that’s all it is.

A single flame, lighting the darkness.

Perhaps, this is a strange way to end such a story, but by looking carefully, there is more.

In the solid black of ink, the shadows about the flame seem to twist and fragment. Faces seems to stare out of the dark, with all expressions that seem to bring horrid laughter to the back of my mind. Specters who call out, with ten thousand cackling whispers.

Louder, and louder.

Whoever this artist was, whoever they once were, I cannot doubt they witnessed what was drawn here.

They saw them.

The must have.

For, what's drawn here is too real, too true, to just be simple strokes of a quill upon paper. There is too much detail, to ever hold in one medium, of paper and ink, alone.

No, that single candle’s flame of hope is not enough- not possibly enough to keep them at bay.

If I listen closely, I can almost hear them again.

Catalyst…

Hear what I wished so badly to forget. Those terrible voices. Those horrible beings, who bargain with lives and blood. They call to me.

Trespasser.

Louder and louder.

It is too much-

Enough, Great One!

Sss…

Back beneath their tomb of leather and parchment…

Shut them away…

Shut them away…

The book is closed.

All is silent, but for the echoes.

Even the other voice fades, disappearing in the depths of my mind.

How long has it been, since I was born in this world?

In that time, I have seen things. I’ve been places most people might never go. I’ve spoken with Goblins, with Elves, with Humans, and very likely: Gods. Painfully, I’ve pried information out of [Voice of Gaia] time and time again, but in the end?

In the end, it’s been of me to put the pieces together.

Just little bits of information, congregating to make an incomplete picture.

And, I’ve come to recognize something.

I was never meant to understand this world.

I wasn’t.

If this were a story, or a play, with actors up on a stage, I’m very much like an extra who never learned their part. Or, someone who just mistakenly walked in off the street. Who took a wrong turn, only to find themselves turned into a blue noodle the moment they stepped onto the stage.

I was never meant to know about any of it.

If I was truly meant to do anything in this world: it was to live and die, a monster in the Dungeon.

I wasn’t ever meant to become self-aware.

I was certainly never meant to make it all the way to the surface, never having killed anyone.

So, it’s times like these that I’m able to recognize just how odd my presence is. Because, even if I’m not sure on all the details, there is still a story here. One that will likely have a tremendous impact on my continued existence. One that might well determine if I live or die.

And it is a story I wasn’t supposed to be a part of.