Chapter 3 A Change in Desire

With a groan, Khall forced herself to get up and begin moving. As the day before, there were the annoying words in front of her eyes that wouldn't disappear before she read them:

[Proceed towards the Divine Summit. Ascension awaits. The System guides Stines. Ascend from the Void below.]

She was stiff and sore and uncomfortable and burned and the words still made no sense… but at least she was better than before she had slept, and that was better still than what had happened after she "levelled up". Khall rolled over and, without standing, began to eat the last of the prey from before. Now that she sat down and wasn't sizzling in pain and suffering, she caught the smell of the meat, and it was much less tasty than that of her first prey, her fellow mud lizard. This "fry" reeked of the "brimstone" smell and she didn't like it. But, it filled her belly, so Khall ate it, even if it wasn't tasty.

Even if there had been food when she woke up, Khall knew that she needed to eat, and soon. The need to eat, hunt, consume… it was all that she could think of, and it was much better than thinking about "ascending". So, Khall grumbled and slowly trod out of her little burrow. There was little to see and less to go off of to find where her next meal could be found. The only light around came from occasional gouts of magma, and the air was choked with ash, so all that Khall could do to try to find a meal was to wander off in a random direction and hope something tasty would walk out of the smoky surroundings. After her experience with the lava river the day before, she was NOT going to go back there. And so, she set off uphill, since that felt right..

It was boring, mostly. Constantly walking uphill and looking for signs of food was far from the excitement of the first two days of Khall's life, and as the time stretched ever longer, her impatience began to manifest. Her easy lope extended into a hurried trot and she kept her nose high, hoping to scent something, but there didn't seem to be anything tasty around. Hissing to herself, Khall rushed along until a scent caught her attention. It wasn't the "brimstone" smell, since she stayed away from the fiery death rivers, but of something else, something different in a way she couldn't quite understand.

With an excited chuffing, Khall trotted towards the smell and realized it wasn't really a smell that drew her, but something else, something better. She couldn't place it, but stars above was it a good thing. Unwittingly, her mouth spread in a grin, her wide jaw showing her thick teeth. There was a slight clearing in the smoke and ash in the air, and before her eyes was a new thing. It was like a bush in how it came out of the ground and then sprouted upwards, pointing up and branching out and around. The branches were bare and looked prickly, just like a bush, but it had a burl of roots underneath that wrapped around a small stone, the roots spread down into the ground and… it was amazing. Khall knew that this majestic wonder was a special bush, and she knew that this was going to be her home.

She strode around her newfound dwelling, observing its beauty and majesty while deciding where to make her burrow. Perhaps there, where the mass of roots opened up… Yes, that would be perfect, the bush would be a crown on her home and head together, showcasing Khall's own wonderfullness. Smirking happily, Khall's stomach growled audibly. She listened to her body, that was true, she needed to consider where she would find her next meal…

First, though, she needed to dig out a home for her to return to! So, finally, Khall began to enter under the bush's branches. They were strangely pokey and pointy and went every which way. She cocked her head and contemplated which ones she would need to remove to help her drag in her prey. Khall couldn't dream of destroying the bush's beauty, but perhaps a couple little branches being trimmed here and there would add to its magnificence. Then, interrupting her planning, a surprising yet familiar sound greeted her, and before she could react, it was followed by another agonizingly familiar pain.

Whirling around, Khall hissed her challenge at the cowardly ambusher. It was a dark-colored fuzzy thing... a sneaky, fuzzy, stupid thing! She recognized the little beast, it was just like the robbers from before! Khall slowed herself, not rushing at the small, worthlessly weak creature. It had massive eyes, and its fur was standing up all over… it was really big, with stripes of orange and gray covering its complete body. There were sharp teeth filling its mouth, made for piercing flesh, and its feet ended with sharp claws made, apparently, for shredding her back! Its form was completely different from Khall's own, perfect form. 

She was dense and powerful, made to smash into things and dig deep into the soil, a peak existence. This puny creature was built to run away and bite before continuing its cowardly flight. Nonetheless, Khall hesitated to rush to attack it in retaliation, since although it was a coward of the highest order, it was a worthy opponent all the same! With it still lurking in the area, it seemed like the vile Void-creature was not only of the fuzzy thieves, it went beyond stealing food, trying instead to steal Khall's future home! That could not stand!

With a throaty yell Khall pushed onward to the creature. It, like the other she had pursued, danced back with little leaps and bounds, hissing all the while. She chased, her own, throaty hisses mixing with the higher pitched and less threatening cries of her prey. The prey, unfortunately, did not seem to want to cooperate with the hunt. It never approached close enough for Khall to do anything more than hiss and swipe hopelessly. Finally, after a near miss of the cowardly prey, it retreated up into the bush and out of Khall's reach.

Panting, hissing, and breathlessly baring her teeth, Khall settled comfortably onto the ground to watch the interloper prey. Its eyes glowed with the embers in the air, flickering constantly and confusingly. Moments, then minutes passed. The prey didn't move, except for its twitching tail. Finally, Khall could take no more. If the Void-creature wanted to sit up there, let it, she wouldn't have it disrupting her schedule for the rest of the day. Firstly, she needed to dig her home at the base of the bush, then to find prey that wouldn't simply lay on a branch she couldn't reach and watch her. 

With a slight grin of superiority, Khall set to finding the prime entrance for her new, more permanent home. She decided to dig just in front of the small stone at the base of the burl of roots since that would make for a much more stable and long lasting burrow. Eventually, she found an opening between two of the thick roots she wouldn't be able to dig through without damaging her precious bush, and began the creation of her new home.

The earth was softer and somehow thicker here, and though Khall struggled to figure out what it was that made it so different, she knew that this was much better soil than she'd ever found before. A smile spread unknowingly across her wide face as Khall began to lose herself in her digging. The difference between dirt and soil filled her mind, and the word loamy bounced back and forth as she happily swung her head back and forth as she occupied her four limbs with the excavation. With each swipe of her claws, the soil parted beneath her powerful claws, and her home came closer and closer to her vision.

While she was happily turning from depositing some of the earth out of the hole to return to her tunneling, a slight rustle had Khall pause just before another flash of burning pain scored across her back. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the hiding prey. Khall screamed in pain and rage and lashed out with her jaws, too slowly. Before long, she and the prey were in the same positions as before, Khall panting and imagining the worst, most painful death she could on the beast (something involving the lava river for sure), and the prey looking down on her from higher within the bush. A small part of her thought she saw a smirk on the cowardly, worthless, fleeing beast, but it surely couldn't be so intelligent, so Khall dismissed the thought. 

But how to catch the beast? It was, undeniably, much faster than her. Plus, Khall was hungry and getting tired, so what could she do to stop the little thing and finally devour it?

Hoping it would clear her mind, Khall turned back to her digging, this time paying much more attention to what the prey was doing in the bush above. Now that she refused to lose herself in her efforts, she noticed the creature slowly moving itself from its original perch on the far side of the bush. Whenever she turned to deposit the results of her digging, Khall noticed that the beast stood completely still until she had turned back to her task. Once, it had been about to pounce on her when she'd turned and tried to catch it, but she'd moved too early, and it retreated back to the far side of the bush while she continued on with her excavation.

Regardless of her soon-to-be dinner's actions, Khall's new home was coming along nicely. There was now a space where she could huddle, and the indescribable comfort of the area was seemingly concentrated in her new home. It radiated a pleasant aura that she couldn't place, that same confusing thing that had drawn her to this special bush in the first place. With her initial excavation completed, Khall settled into the section she had hollowed out enough to sleep in.

As she laid, enjoying the aura of the something, Khall could feel that the shallow wounds on her back, the proof of multiple run-ins with the fuzzy cowards, were healing at an increased rate. For the first time since she'd hatched, Khall stretched almost comfortably. There was a pulling sensation along her spine, then with an audible crackle, she could see flakes of scabs begin to flutter down around her. Fortunately, there wasn't any pain with the cracking of her scabbed blood, just relief from an idle, constant itching.

With three turns, Khall adjusted herself and settled into a comfortable position on the soft soil. Again, a grin spread across her face, and again she relaxed. As her eyes closed involuntarily and she began to descend into sleep, again the prey attacked.

A burning pain accompanied by a hiss woke Khall. The fuzzy Void-creature was clawing furiously at Khall's face while its jaws struggled to find purchase on her thick neck. With a roar, Khall struck out with her own jaws and claws, her blunt claws batting the beast away while her jaws clashed together without making contact with it. The rage blinding her, Khall rushed onward towards the ambusher while it sprinted to flee from her. Unflinching and unrelenting, she chased it out of her home, her jaws clashing together again and again as she snapped at the tail of the beast.

Once, twice, thrice she missed the fleeing beast before it got too far away for Khall to continue the exhausting chase. Panting, miserable, she settled onto her haunches and stared hatefully at the creature. Why would it keep doing this? It wasn't doing anything but tiring her, and while it had been dangerous while she'd been asleep, the weak prey's bite hadn't been able to pierce her thick neck more than a little bit…

Exhausted and furious, Khall stumped back to her den. The aura here healed her both physically and, eventually, emotionally, but her stomach growled loudly in protest. She needed to eat, and she didn't have any leads other than the foul, cowardly, stupid, dumb, bad prey outside… With a groan edging on a whimper, Khall settled into a sitting position on her haunches, not letting herself relax enough to sleep. 

The aura of the den slowly seeped into her, and, in a flash of inspiration, Khall suddenly thought of a way to finally kill the fuzzy bastard.