Return

The dwarf lands a kick in the pit of Krastinaff's stomach, who lands on his back on the ground, his eyes watering with pain and streaking at the bottom.

"I just said! Here's your water, drink it now and let's go!" Krastinaff crawls to the ground, skirting the dwarf's feet and he drinks the muddy water like an animal, the dwarf turns the canteen of urine into that puddle.

"Okay, if you want to drink there, so let it be" Krastinaff stops drinking the water then and he just doesn't jump on the dwarf's neck because he doesn't have the strength to, the dwarf laughs at Krastinaff's disgrace for a long time.

Everyone is hungry and tired and the light starts to dim again, today was a cycle and a unlucky one, the only opportunity to get food they had was when they saw a sparrow in a tree far away, which flew off in awe at the mere mention of Ramon going in its direction.

"Let's build a fire here, and hopefully there won't be any monsters in this zone yet" the dwarf gives the order and they obey in silence, already overcome by hunger after helping his comrades to improvise a camp, Krastinaff starts gnawing on the bark of the nearest tree, where the firelight barely illuminates.

It's a hopeless and useless action, Krastinaff stops chewing in seconds, the taste is worse than muddy water, Krastinaff hears the whispers again, looks around terrified, his companions and the dwarf enlightened by the fire they look calm, he doesn't sees monsters around, he doesn't even hear them, just those barely audible and incomprehensible whispers.

Krastinaff remains motionless beside that tree even though darkness has taken over the place, he tries to think, but his belly won't let him. Hunger, thirst, tiredness and pain and a stab of anger, anger that if he hadn't been overwhelmed for his other problems would took control of him.

Krastinaff spends this dark hours of the cycle there, between blackouts interrupted by his physical and mental suffering, the disturbing whispers last until a new cycle sounds, Krastinaff's companions remain alert, taking turns in vigil.

The dwarf gets up, looks at Krastinaff away and apparently in a trance, eyes sunken with hunger and dark circles of asleep, mouth dry, the dwarf already saw Krastinaff as a pitiful figure, is now worse than he thought he could be.

"Die worm of dung soon! HAHA HA! Nobody wants you here anymore" the dwarf laughs unwillingly, Krastinaff bites his nails, his companions are down, seeing Krastinaff's situation, the dwarf takes Ramon's canteen again, this time he has to force it so that Ramon let it go.

"If you want more, just say it, just to be sure I will fill it here for you" Everyone is dirty and stinking already, the smell of the dwarf's urine is even worse than yesterday, and darker, the dwarf cannot keep his offer, even he is disappointed with the result, not even half a canteen, he also feels dehydrated.

"Today we will get there, it should be close now! And no lazyness allowed, when we get there, start mining with all your might, whoever stays behind, I will beat to death, and I'll make a point of taking a long time!" They do join forces to bark this warning.

The dwarf goes forward, Amira, Ramon and Susano soon follow, the dwarf stops after a few meters and picks up a stone from the ground, looks at Krastinaff and lets out a loud whistle, Krastinaff hears the whistle and looks in that direction, the stone of the dwarf hits Krastinaff's forehead almost immediately, a trickle of blood runs between Krastinaff's eyes, a purple swelling begins to form on Krastinaff's forehead.

"Who says you're allowed to stand there you heap of shit! Come right now before I kill you! You only die when I say so!" seeing that scene Amira looks at Krastinaff as if she wanted to communicate telepathically with him, 'remember I said to you stay on that extra layer?', the dwarf glares at her as if he wants to censor Amira's thoughts.

Krastinaff follows the group a few yards back, crawling with the help of the dry branch Ramon had given him, his blood on his forehead slowly clots, Krastinaff sees a butterfly pass in front of him and he snaps it reflexively.

The dwarf hears a mouth move and notices that it is Krastinaff, he runs towards Krastinaff, seeing the advance of the dwarf Krastinaff tries to retreat and fall helpless to the ground, he only has time to cover his head with his arms before the dwarf get ready to step on his head.

Ramon pulls the dwarf by the collar of the armor, the dwarf sees Ramon's hand from his partial transformation, Ramon is weak, and two claws on his hand are still missing.

"No more waste of time, we have to get to our destination soon, or you will fail the mission and die like a looser!" Ramon's bestialized voice penetrates the dwarf's insensitive ears, the dwarf looks Ramon up and down.

"That's right, good mutt, I can't waste time blowing off the head of this garbage now, let's go dump shit and stop eating in hiding!" the dwarf leads the group again.

They walk for a few more leagues and see the entrance to a large cave that goes underground, next to it there is a small natural water source, like a well that born there naturally, Krastinaff runs wildly towards the water.

The dwarf makes a move to hit him midway, Ramon puts his hand on the dwarf's shoulder who gives up, Krastinaff revels, now his eyes have a bit of life again, he seems to have come out of his trance, his companions and the dwarf goes right away, until they refresh themselves with such abundance.

Ramon washes his canteen, the dwarf looks irritated, they look around for a moment for some food, but nothing, not plant or animal that appears to be eatable, Krastinaff remembers what happened in the last cycle so far as if it wasn't him, but his swollen forehead is there to testify that it really was him.

"WAKE UP!!!" the dwarf approaches quickly and screams in Krastinaff's ears with all his strength, Krastinaff falls to the side in fright and hears a buzz with that ear then the dwarf laughs widely and grabs Krastinaff's branch. "Come on bum! No more rest, let's go down now!" the dwarf enters the cave and the others follow him, Krastinaff to get up puts his hand on the ground and feels a cricket between his fingers.

Krastinaff crushes the cricket's head and without the others seeing, he puts the cricket in his mouth and chews it slowly, if in the morning he could eat butterfly, now he should be able to eat crickets, Krastinaff thinks.

They descend tens of meters illuminated by the torch the dwarf made with Krastinaff's branch, the torch bed light doesn't illuminate much, little by little they see the cave's sediment walls glow neon with the torch light, tiny little pebbles scattered all over the wall, initially many scattered, but the further they go the concentration increases.

When they reach the point where the entire torchlit area is glowing neon, the dwarf turns to them, Krastinaff and his group are impressed, if they hadn't been so sick physically and mentally they would have been stunned.

The bluish color of the neon covers the entire spectrum from lapis lazuli to dark navy, the dwarf takes a deep breath and exhales sharply, a sign of relief, a sign of satisfaction, the first that Krastinaff's group has seen in all this time, the dwarf speaks as if he is putting aside what had happened outside the cave.

"Okay, useless rubbish, carefully remove the larger rocks, don't cause a cave-in, and since we don't have the bags anymore, improvise bags with your clothes now!" the dwarf speaks energetically, almost as if he is screaming at a low volume, it is obvious that the sound must be moderated in this environment by the dwarf's attitude.

They nod, they remove their clothes and tying them together to create a makeshift large bag, they put the bag on the floor, Ramon manages to pull the rocks off the wall without difficulty with just one hand transformed into grey wolf form, and it's the best he can do.

Amira carefully uses the pickaxe to pry the rocks out of the wall, Susano digs the rocks with his machete, he is the most cautious and precise, he removes the biggest rocks causing the least amount of sediment to move around the rocks.

Krastinaff takes the stones and places them neatly in the makeshift bag, he places the smallest stones in the center and the largest stones near the sides of the bag, to prevent them from falling when transported, in a few hours they fill the bag, the dwarf looks happy.

"Yes, now come on, we have to get to the fort by morning, and it should be dark by now, if we don't reach the end of the light period there, they'll leave us behind." The dwarf shakes his head in disgust at the thought of not arriving in time, having come this far, he doesn't want to die on the beach.

Ramon takes the bag to carry it alone, he holds it with both hands in front of his abdomen, normally this would not be a real effort for him at his best, he breathes and groans to carry just over hundred fifty pouds, his companions are happy for him take care of that.

Ramon's companions can barely stand, and the dwarf to maximize the trip makes them carry two large stones each, it's as if they were condemned people carrying their iron balls in their hands, straight to execution.

They reach the exit completely dark, darker than the bowels of the cave they came from, there were these strange stones that they don't know what they are and never found something like that, outside the cave the stones in Krastinaff's hands gleam very little, the reflective effect inside the cave was cumulative, so with no other stones around, these stones light up as much as a match.

They hear the sounds of the monsters, they must be very far away and come from all sides, they don't seem to surround them, they even feel some vibrations, immediately after stepping out of the cave, Krastinaff hears the whispers again, right after stepping out the cave, this time they seem a bit weaker than the night before.

Before departing they drink from the fountain at the entrance to the cave, the water is different, bitter and slightly cloudy, they aren't sure what it is, but as the dwarf doesn't show any qualms about consuming it, they decide to ignore it.

The dwarf drives them at a fast pace through the night, through that area to the arid area, they feel that they have reached that area more quickly, the dwarf takes Amira's pickaxe, Susano hands his machete to Amira, they are desmiling and now cold without their clothes, the breeze is cooler in the arid zone at night, the dwarf's armor creaks more than usual because of the low temperature, and the further they walk, the colder it gets, they can see the condensation of their breath.

The dwarf pauses for seconds after leagues, he feels the weight of his armor, he just doesn't abandon it out for pride, that armor was won with a lot of effort, abandoning it now is out of question, he would be leaving behind years of dedication in his work and in a probable encounter in the forest can save his life from a powerful attack, Krastinaff feels his heart beating slowly, he is in the worst condition of all there and very close to collapse, none of his wounds have healed.

They cross most of the arid zone at the sound of a new cycle, they are already close to the first cave where they took shelter on their way going, with the light also comes the heat, at first it's a relief, but the relief passes quickly and transforms into the dry and dusty air usual for that period.

They haven't found any food so far, it's harder than before, they haven't spent any time looking fo food either, Krastinaff still hears the whispers even now in the light period, but since he left that cave with the rocks, he doesn't feel as disturbed as before, and this was the only reason he didn't leave them behind, the dwarf looks at Krastinaff from time to time in surprise, he gives the heaviest stones to Krastinaff, sure he would drop them or throw them away.

"Hey pile of shit! Why didn't you throw the stones away?" the dwarf interrogates Krastinaff who follows them almost falling behind, Krastinaff would like to have the strength to smile cynically.