Chapter 12 Job Resumes

As days continued to pass, Khall had recovered enough to hollow out a burrow for herself. The huge wound through her chest was still scabbed over, but at the edges, where the scabs were beginning to peel away, the hints of glowing flesh shone through. With her many new patches of brightly glowing scales, Khall's light filled the little burrow she had made, and at last, she had decided to begin to create a plan to kill the final creature necessary to gain the Fell Miner occupation. She still didn't know what the word "occupation" really meant, but the mysterious words had explained to her what the benefits of the occupation were, and that was all that she really needed. Stronger and smarter? Yes and yes.

Then came the issue, though, of getting something to come into her burrow where she could kill it. Khall hadn't realized how lucky she had been before, to constantly be surrounded by things to hunt, but now she was alone, with only the occasional creature passing near enough for her to even note its passage. While still recovering from her nearly fatal wound, though, she had been unwilling to call attention to herself in the fear that something that ordinarily wouldn't pose a threat to her came and dealt the final blow.

Now, though Khall was far from entirely healthy, she was more than willing to go find something she could hunt. When she looked back and could count the individual bones in her tail, and could feel the rumblings of her tummy crying out for sustenance, she knew that she needed to go find something to eat, and soon. So, though she had begun to think of an idea of how to hunt a creature in her burrow, Khall left it behind to find something to eat. After all, she couldn't think about something complicated like that on an empty stomach!

Determined to find something to fill her belly, off Khall trundled. She could, to a very small level, understand what parts of the earth were fertile and good places for creatures to live in, so she could just go to where the soil was good, and there would be plenty of prey for her! Excited, Khall continued on her way, chuffing excitedly at the thought of eating all the weak, slow creatures and filling her belly once again. She simply needed to follow her nose!

Hours later, Khall flopped to the ground, exhausted and irate. How dare the prey not show up when she was going where she could smell the soil was good? There should be bushes and prey everywhere around here, but there was nothing! No good feeling from arcanite, no delicious prey to find, no bushes to sit under, and nothing to fill her belly! She wasn't the type of creature to be able to chase down her prey, so she needed to see it to hunt. As she laid on the ground, the smell of the dirt was rich and almost as invigorating as some arcanite. There should be something to hunt here!

After laying on the ground and feeling sorry for herself for a while, Khall looked around and hoped to see something that had miraculously approached her to give her a perfect prey, but… to no avail. She groaned again to herself as she forced herself to her feet. Then, again, Khall began plodding forward. She needed to find something! She crested a hill, and was about to go to the fiery death river, since, while there were some fast, super dangerous fish around there, there were also weak ones that she could hunt too. Those fry… Kinda delicious when she ate them fresh.

As her steps led her down the edge of the hill into the strange circular hole in the middle, Khall noticed that the ground here was sandy and a bit slippery. Nothing that mattered much to her, but it was interesting and different. She let herself slip down a little, since it was easier than walking, but then, a bunch of sand started to shower onto her and make the slippery sands give under her weight. With a growl, Khall looked up at the sands that were hitting her, but then realized they were being thrown at her from below.

What she hadn't seen in the base of the hole was a pair of jaws, at least two feet wide. They were long and barbed all over, and from behind them two arms kept throwing more and more sand over her, further unstabilizing her footing. Initially, she fought to escape the clutches of the hill, to get away from this thing, but then she realized… jaws… meant a creature! A creature is prey! As soon as she realized, she turned and leapt into the air, her limbs and tail flailing madly through the air as she pushed herself to reach her prey.

Khall flew majestically through the air, until her ribs smashed into the hidden thing's jaws. With an explosion of pain, she realized one of the barbs on the thing's mandibles had punched through the scab on her chest, and Khall's planned epic assault instead led to her wheezing in pain as the jaws snapped closed around her. Immediately, Khall began to panic and thrash, hoping the massive mandibles wouldn't be able to bite through her before she could attempt to escape.

Then, after a moment's realization and a hot flash of embarrassment, Khall realized that while the mandibles looked menacing, they couldn't begin to bite through her. They hurt, for sure, but they were only really holding her in place, and below them was the creature's actual mouth. There, sharp fangs and dripping saliva warned her of a much more dangerous attack that this thing could try, but Khall was simply too large, and the truly dangerous part of this cowardly ambusher couldn't reach her!

With a cry of victory, Khall began to twist and roll, the barbs on the mandibles slipping uselessly from her tough scales. Then, as she slithered her body along, Khall began to tunnel into the wall of the burrow. For a moment, it seemed useless as sand from above kept falling into where she tried to dig, but as she continued to dig her snout and hands into the sand, eventually she reached soil and dirt. There, she continued to dig onward until she could grasp onto the firm earth and pull herself free. As her tail slipped past the horrible ambusher's face, it took a wild bite and made contact. The sudden surge of pain as the pointed fangs of the creature's mouth stabbed into her flesh was a sharp reminder of the potential danger she was facing, though she was managing it well.

With a small roar at the cheeky thing that dared to try to chomp into her, Khall pulled her tail free and began digging furiously. She threw all the dirt she excavated behind her with wild abandon, and could feel her prey trying to throw out the sands to extricate itself. All that only gave her greater energy to continue digging forward, and then down. Khall squirmed and struggled, all four of her limbs working in unison to get towards the cowardly ambusher that thought itself clever. She was clever! She was strong!

As more and more dirt was thrown behind her, Khall felt her hands and snout begin to press through the packed dirt until it gave way to her pressure. Before her eyes squirmed the body of her prey. It was fat and semi hairy, with four little legs in the dirt, and its body, where there weren't any of the thick, bristly hairs, was segmented in little plates like armor. The thing was… horribly ugly, if Khall was honest, and it looked far from tasty. Its beady eyes looked wildly at her, and she saw the beginning of a primal fear growing there. Khall let herself grin widely, forgetting about if the prey would be tasty, and instead focusing on how her belly would soon be filled.

With a lunge and a snap of her jaws, Khall pulled one of the sand-flinging arms from her prey, and it hissed at her in pain, but she didn't care. Without regarding the thing's feelings, Khall chomped down with her jaws and crunched into her first bite of this new prey. Surprisingly, it was rather delicious with a savory sweet taste, and the crunch was a pleasant addition to the taste. Khall smiled again, chuffed to herself in pleasure, and began to dismember the creature bite by bite.

Chomp! Gone were half of its legs.

Chomp! Part of the thing's fat abdomen disappeared down Khall's throat.

Chomp! Khall pulled the rest of the struggling, terrified thing into her burrow, where the first part of it to go was its nasty face. As she chomped there, the huge fangs and face were too hard to be easily eaten, so she spat it out and continued to eat the rest of the tasty, exposed body. Its hairs were tough and tasteless, so Khall rubbed her tongue around her teeth to get them out of her mouth, before pawing them away with her hands. Eventually, all good things are finished, and Khall laid with a distended belly and an ichor stained face on the ground of her tiny, cramped burrow. She chuffed happily to herself, and then looked at the magic words.

[Antlion Larva, 3 slain. You have gained experience. Current Racial Designation: Juvenile Moltenscaled Drake. Current Occupation: None. Total level: 7. New occupational option unlocked for acquisition.]

An antlion. She was surprised it was so tasty, but surprise or not, it was gone, and she was glad she hadn't run into it when it was no longer a larva. Khall couldn't imagine what kind of terror the antlion would become once it evolved from the small but mighty and cowardly ambush hunter. Would its sand flinging arms become able to throw large rocks? Would its massive mandibles and its mouth merge to become a Void-hole that could swallow her whole?

Khall pulled herself from her musings as she recognized that the last of the magical words were different. As she thought about them consciously for a moment, more words appeared in Khall's eyes.

[Current occupational options:

Miner. Acquisition requirements: dig a total of 50 ft of tunnel. Completion: 117/50 ft. Fell Miner. Acquisition requirements: dig a total of 100 ft of tunnel, slay 5 creatures within a tunnel of your own excavation. Completion: 117/100 ft, 5/5 creatures slain.

No other options currently available. Would you like to acquire occupation: Miner?

Would you like to acquire occupation: Fell Miner?]

Only after she read through these second words did Khall finally understand that she had killed the antlion in a tunnel of her excavation! She hadn't thought much about it since she'd just wanted to kill the bastard that was trying to kill her, but Khall had indeed dug out her own hole and killed the antlion in it. Excitedly, Khall tried to do a little chuffing dance, but she was unable to move enough to dance in her tight, sharply curved burrow. Instead, she dug forward a bit, just enough to have her body fully horizontal instead of twisted in half in her shoddily constructed hole. Then, once she had made herself a little more comfortable, Khall selected the "Acquire occupation: Fell Miner" option.

Once she did so, knowledge about soil, dirt, digging, and fighting while under the ground and within tunnels began to fill her mind. There was a hint of discomfort as the occupational knowledge began to fill her mind completely, but after a short moment of feeling mentally bloated, Khall settled down and enjoyed the benefits of her new occupation. The first of which was… How on the Rings under the Stars had she managed to dig such a piss-poor tunnel here? She should be ashamed of her ineptitude! Then, with righteous fury and excitement, Khall began to dig out her most magnificent and wonderful burrow yet, her every claw's movement guided by her occupational knowledge and a zen-like enjoyment of the process of digging.