Carrying Urt under his arm, Badax tromped down the viridescent path to adventure. No, wait. That wasn’t right. Seahorne. The path would take them to Seahorne. Shaking his head, which increasingly seemed to be filled with strange thoughts and turns of phrase – what the fuck was a viridescent path anyway? – Badax tried to enjoy the scenery all around him.

Over the years, he’d visited the surface a handful of times, but had never really gotten the chance to take a good look at it. It was hard to appreciate the way the wind caressed the grass like a lover, or the delicate shimmer of sunlight through the leaves of a tree when you were wrestling an orcupine twice your size to the ground as part of the Mistress’ “recruitment” process.

Hell, it was still hard to appreciate either of those things. Horns and hooves, it was just wind blowing through grass and light poking through the trees! Badax rubbed his chin and frowned. What the fuck is wrong with me?

To be honest, between this sudden penchant for overwrought, tortuous turns of phrase that transformed every minute detail of his existence into a dramatic affair – there it was again! – and the malaise which had left him feeling empty, Badax wasn’t sure which was worse. Frustrated, he clenched his fists together, but stopped at the choking sound of Urt’s voice.

“Uh, Badax? You’re crushing me, big guy.”

The minotaur relaxed his arms and the goblin made a sound that was half gasp, half cough.

“Sorry about that,” Badax grunted. “How are your eyes? Think you can walk on your own?”

Urt wrenched one eye open and squinted, but he didn’t shriek the way he had before, so Badax let him down and the little goblin jogged to keep up with the minotaur’s big, loping steps.

The path before them was gently sloped and marshy, with soft mud in places that squished beneath Badax’ hooves. Meadows of white and yellow flowers dotted the road. Small, fat birds trilled tunes from nearby branches, and despite himself, Badax found them oddly charming. Not charming enough to keep from throwing a rock or three at them when he saw them perched on their branches, but enough to keep Pansy from going off to kill them each of the six times she offered to do so.

The sun lazily floated across the sky as the day wore on, and Badax had no idea how long they’d been walking when his stomach rumbled.

“What do we have for food?” he asked.

Urt looked a little embarrassed. “Well, in the uh, difficult circumstances of our departure, I’m afraid that I neglected to, um, pack the travel provisions I’d planned to.”

Badax felt his eye twitch, and his breath rattled in his mouth as he drew in a sharp breath.

“You mean we don’t have any food?”

Sensing the change in the minotaur’s mood, and wanting to get away before he started Rampaging, Pansy offered to go and look around for something that they could hunt or forage.

“I can fly a lot faster than you two can walk,” she said as she flitted off over the next hill. “Be back soon.”

Badax and Urt carried on in stony silence for another hour before the little pixie flew back and announced that she’d found a group of animals nearby that looked like easy targets. They were big black and white creatures, she said, with barely a flicker of Int in their eyes.

“They kind of look like you, Badax,” Pansy said. “Well, their faces do anyway. Nearly everything else is wrong though. You have a lot more muscle.”

“Well, let’s go take a look,” the minotaur said as his stomach rumbled once again. He had no way of knowing what types of creatures were up here, in this world beneath the open sky, but he figured that even without his axe he’d be able to kill something to get a meal out of it.

A half hour later, they saw the animals Pansy was talking about. There were a dozen of them, and while most of them had the splotchy black and white hair that the pixie pointed out, there were a few that were completely brown. They milled around, chewing grass and mooing, and Pansy grinned.

“See what I mean?”

“They look nothing like me at all,” Badax protested. “They’re fat and docile! They don’t even have horns!”

“Hmm, you know what? I think I see the resemblance,” Urt said as he scratched his nose. “The jaws look similar.”

“Yeah! That’s right!” cried Pansy, clapping her hands and rubbing them together. “Now, let’s kill one and eat it!”

There was a wicked glint in her eyes, and Badax felt a surge of gratitude on the world’s behalf that she wasn’t any bigger.

Of course, the actual dirty work of killing the creature fell on Badax’ broad shoulders. Because of course it did. Settling into a crouch, Badax slowly approached the nearest creature, which didn’t seem in the least bit fazed. He felt no animosity coming from it, which gave him a moment’s pause. Was it right to kill such a beast?

The rumble in Badax’ stomach put the matter to rest, and with a single blow, the minotaur secured dinner. And hopefully the next day’s breakfast as well.

[Cow defeated! You have gained 5 experience!]

So that’s what they were called, huh? Kind of a stupid name, wasn’t it?

Completely unprompted, a series of rhymes fluttered through the minotaur’s skull.

Cow, bow, how, wow, now.

With a grunt, Badax forced himself to stop.

“The malaise really wasn’t that bad,” he muttered.

Hoisting the cow up onto his shoulders, Badax and his companions continued on for another hour or so until the sun started to sink over the horizon. The sky changed colors too, taking on a pinkish hue that Badax found quite nice. He felt the air grow chilly, and saw Urt shivering as they walked into a large clearing.

“We’ll go ahead and camp here for the night,” Badax said. “Can you make a fire, Urt?”

The little goblin nodded and reached into his bag, drawing out a pair of stones and setting them on the ground while he scurried around picking up fallen twigs and dry leaves. Assembling them into a pile, Urt began hitting the rocks against each other and blowing on the sparks he created by doing so. Badax thought it a strange and inefficient ritual, but he couldn’t deny its efficacy, as after only fifteen minutes he got to warm his hands by the crackling flames.

Sitting down next to where he’d previously dropped the cow, Badax got to work “butchering” it. What he lacked in finesse he made up for in strength, ripping the limbs apart until there were a nice collection of unevenly sized pieces of cow cooking in the fire. It wouldn’t be the tastiest thing he’d ever eaten, but there was bound to be a lot of it.

As the smell of roasting meat set the minotaur’s mouth to watering, Badax looked over at the setting sun and smiled. All things considered, it had been a nice first day of freedom, and he was excited for tomorrow. Inspired by the shimmering colors and the tendrils of clouds that looked a bit like smoke, the minotaur tried to compose a verse.

Streaks of red, gray and pink are so bright across the sky,

The sun is setting, gold and orange,

Though it moves me, I don’t know why,

Everything is…

Damn it, he couldn’t think of a rhyme for orange. Grumbling, Badax decided to scrap the poem and try again another time.

[New Skill Learned! Compose Verse!]