I find that witty verses like this are hard to write when I haven't just finished a chapter. Instead, what I seem to get is senselessly trashy witty verses like you've just finished reading.
Chapter 38
It took the last of my water and another three hours to reach it. And it was a story stone.
Exhausted and discouraged, I plopped down in front of it and pressed the mudokon handprint carved into it.
A little pop-out fold of some animal skin flung itself up, fastened to bones, from behind the stone, and stretched out to reveal the message inked on perhaps centuries ago.
“Why are you out here? I recommend going home ... if you’ve made it this far, you’ll not make it farther without some kind of miracle.”
Words of encouragement from some old bastich or another. The story stone flipped its message back down when I took my hand away. I hung my head ....and saw marks in the sand.
The marks moved to the left, as if the stone had been dragged once before.
No big deal, I thought at the time. Someone probably had to drag it here, so whatever.
But ... the marks stopped about a yard off.
So the wind had covered the marks with sand.
But they didn’t cover that one spot?
Could be coincidence.
I bet if I walked along the way the tracks pointed, I wouldn’t find any more “coincidences.”
So what are you suggesting, that this thing is covering something?
Could be.
Let’s take a look.
I stood and heaved the stone onto its side to find ...
A well. Cool, clean air rushed up out of it, and I felt completely refreshed. At this point, I didn’t care where it might lead. Just as long as it was out of this heat and lead to more cool air.
I hopped in and was whisked away through a nightmarish, twisting and turning tube that pushed me along its course with a relentless force.
After what felt like moments (but, for all I knew, it could have been hours), I was abruptly shot out of the far end of the well and into a small, underground cavern.
It was pretty empty, except for a stone slab in the center and a vykker adorned totem.
This was Bolgemal, then. I stepped forward and heard some rattling above me. I looked up and saw blades poised to fall with the slightest provocation. What a pleasant welcome.
I strolled over to the Vykker totem and obtained the power. I contacted a bored and somewhat sleepy Patch to meet Fix, a little mud who couldn’t have been four. He understood that I was doing something nice for all the poor enslaved mudokons, and was ready to help.
So he went home and I began to chant. I was curious to know what a vykker thought and felt.....
My stomach bloated out, and I felt my internal organs changing ... I became a hermaphrodite capable of impregnating myself. Aside from this completely disgusting fact, I had no problems transforming. My head became bulbous and my eyes sank into my head. My jaw narrowed and stuck out, giving me an almost detached lower jaw and awful under bite. My skin darkened to a vivid purple color, and a third leg sprouted from the base of my spine. My other legs, meanwhile, thinned and narrowed to deadly pointed feet. The bones in my arms thinned, and each arm split into two much thinner arms with three claws at each end.
It was done, and before anything could happen, I heard a voice.
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