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Chapter 31
I awoke suspended over the ground by my arms. They had been tied together, and I had been strung over a catapult.
The little reptile dudes -- which, now that they were close, I realize with pity that these poor little guys were shaped like ... well, they were shaped like something some would consider private -- were crowded around me. They whispered amongst each other, guessing at what I was, wondering why I was here, maybe its an agent of the ock-ta-guy, can we eat it ...
What the hell?
“Hello?” I croak. “All o’ ya!”
It gets their attention, and the beefy centaurs behind them are startled. Ha. Good.
One of them steps forward. The little dudes part before him like he’s a god. He looks me in the face for a full minute, then mutters, “What are you?”
Knowing that asking him the same question would probably result in another administration of beatings, I swallowed and said I was a mudokon.
The centaur-thing considered, then grimaced. “You don’t mean you’re one of the animals they make those disgusting Mudokon Pops out of?”
I groaned. They were already selling mudokon meat products? I was falling behind.
“I guess. I’m on a journey to try and stop them from making us into food.”
The creature was a little jarred, but spoke casually. “Really? We assumed you were lowly, despicable creatures raised on farms.”
The little reptilian guys muttered in general agreement. The other big guy was making his way over.
“No, no, no,” I babbled. “The glukkons and vykkers own our Queen Mother, and sell our eggs to raise into slaves.”
A little dude gasped. “That’s terrible!” he breathed. His voice was small, almost a whimper.
The centaur spoke. “Tell us of your journey. You must have come far, for there are no industrial centers within miles.”
So I retold my story for this captive audience. When I finished, the second centaur spoke.
“I understand. These glukkons and vykkers seem to be a bane to your kind--”
He was cut off by an eager little guy. “It’s like the octigi demon that haunts us! We should, like, be allies or something!”
Nods of assent. Suggestions of setting up catapults at the factory and laying siege.
One of the big centaurs held up a hand, and the little ones quieted down. “You’ve forgotten that Dante here wants to rescue his coworkers--a noble quest indeed. But if we went to the factory and destroyed it, Dante’s journey here will have been for nothing.”
He turned to me. “You must forgive these grubbs, Dante. They often get ahead of themselves, and do not consider things fully before rushing in to something.”
The question I wanted to ask fell out of my mouth. “But what are you?”
I braced myself for a blow, or even some sort of angry grunt. It was somehow worse when I received neither. “I am a steef. And you can trust that you won’t find any trouble from us.”
The other steef spoke. “We will take you as far as the Kraw Totem, but then we must return here, to guard against intruders.”
What was there to guard? I almost asked. But I figured that the grubbs and steefs made their homes under the hills or something.
The steef said to follow him, and I went.
We neared the shore of the Norchan River again. It was the river I crossed after leaving Patch in Oblim.
“Do I need to cross?” I asked.
The steef shook his head. “Not at all. If you follow the river further south, you’ll reach Notheg. If you can swim, do so. You’ll be there before nightfall. I recommend against walking, however ... wolvarks like to camp around here, and they won’t hesitate to shoot intruders.”
I didn’t want to know any more about wolvarks -- if they warranted a warning from a big, powerful looking creature like a steef, then they were probably pretty scary.
I bid them farewell and walked on. It wasn’t long before I noticed the “Kraw” Totem. Kraw used to be Caw. As in the Gabbit, Caw. I powered up my earring and asked Patch to send someone through, take your time.
While he looked, I reflected that if I could become a steef, I could probably break right into Tastee Treets and kick some serious ass. But according to the legend I had been told, steefs did not travel with the wise ones. Oh, well.
Shortly, a bird portal tore open next to me, and an old mudokon stepped gingerly through.
“Hi!” I said. He shrank back, and I noticed he was blind. I rolled my eyes. Good old Patch was getting back at me.
“Hello?” he said, tentatively. He didn’t seem ready to trust me.
“Follow me.” Calmly, soothingly.
“Okay ....” not entirely sure.
I led him to the Totem and placed his hand on the Gabbit. He cried out, and I realized I hadn’t told him it would hurt.
I checked his hand. A letter “C” was imprinted on his whitened hand, and a gabbit-shaped mark stood next to it.
He grunted in anger, and swung out at me, belting me in the head.
I shook it off, and spoke again, putting my hand on his shoulder as I did so. “Sorry...”
He grunted, but he didn’t look angry anymore. “Okay.”
“So what’s your name, guy?”
“Bog. What happened to my hand?”
So I told him, and he got over things in a hurry. He was happy to be helping me out.
I asked him to give me the gabbit power, he said sure, we said our goodbyes, and he went home.
I turned to the water and began chanting. My head began to swell, until it was almost the size of my torso. It became a large triangular shape, and I felt a nose poke out from the top of the front of my face. My eyes bugged out and grew large, sliding down either side of my nose, until they were just above my lips, which had puffed out. Meanwhile, one of my legs shriveled away, and the other just shriveled up. The foot grew wide and flat, perfect for swimming. The space between my toes evened up, and my foot became webbed. My arms wasted away, and were soon mere sticks with fists. Inside me, my anatomy was drastically changing -- I became an amphibian, and soon realized that my trek up the river would be quick and easy in this body.
I expected really basic instincts to arise, as the gabbit looked wild and not sentient. However, I realized the gabbit had highly developed thoughts and emotions, and felt very comfortable with it.
I hopped very naturally on my one foot and into the water. It was chilly, but not unbearable. I began to swim down the river, staying under the surface to avoid being seen by wolvarks.
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