Abraham Lure and the Last Meech Munchie

[MeechShrykull1029]

It's finally here! Okay, this is the prologue, which is a history of the relationship between Mudokons and Glukkons I made, so the first chapter of Part 1 of the prologue will be about things that happened between Mudokons and Glukkons 100,000 Oddworld years ago. An Oddworld year is shorter than an Earth year in my fanfic, but only by several days.





ABRAHAM LURE AND THE LAST MEECH MUNCHIE
Prologue: Chapter 1: The Initial Friendship Between Them

100,000 years ago, much of Oddworld was covered in a thick, dense forest with an occasional desert or grassland. There were no giant factories that we know today. At that time, Abe's Moon was just a regular moon that, along with many others, circled the huge planet of Oddworld
Deep inside of the vast forest that covered most of Mudos, there was an ancient town called Sloggadon. It was called so, because it was a tradition for everyone to own a Slog. Slogs were brought here about 2 thousand years ago, by Sligs. Now, they were kept as traditional pets in every Sloggadon household. Everyone was welcome in the town, but most of its inhabitants were Mudokons and Glukkons. They all lived in simple mud-brick houses, and only wore simple loincloths. Every day, the young Mudokons would go outside of their simple homes, and play with their Glukkon friends. The Glukkons didn't even think of having Mudokon slaves. That's how everyone lived on Mudos 100,000 years ago. But all that was about to change due to an asteroid storm that was coming near...

[Wings of Fire]

First get!

Well, it it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting, the narrating style is a bit half and half which is a bit weird, you're narrating it like you're half removed from the story and half the storyteller with all the references to how Mudos will be in the future.

Other than that it's all right, a little short and without much elaboration but I'm sure you can improve on that. You may also want to play around with using more describing and also try building up the tension more. You've certainly got the basis of a good plot with the whole 'Ages past' thing and it could be interesting seeing the lifestyles that the Mudokons and Glukkons lead respectively, also how the Sligs figure into this could be quite interesting, and I haven't mentioned the Queens yet.

[Moosh da Outlaw]

Meh, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either. >>
Pretty interesting plot, you might just be able to pull this off.

[ParasiteSklent]

I am...intrigued. A bit on the short side, but it's the beginning, it has a shot of getting better.

[Leto]

Such hype for something so breif! needs more tl;dr.

[mudling]

Not that bad, seems to be following the typical old tale, fairy tale conventions.
Some advice:

Just a small thing, and I know I have the worse grammer here, but I'm sure it's "most of oddworld".

Try not to have names like Sloggadon, unless it is meant to mean, or sound like it means for example "village that trades in slogs". Alternativly, if it's a name that is meant to be a joke and referance to something else, like Elswyer in Oblivion, or D. Caste Raider from Stranger's Wraith, that would be ok in a world like oddworld, as it is done all the time, aslong as it is clear and appropiate, or extremly innappropiate.

Your foreshadowing is painfully obvious, try to be more subtle, but in this case, we all know what happens so it doesn't realy matter, but in the last sentence, you could have said something like "But that was all going to change due to (Unforseen consiquences, the inevediable, something no one could have expected, rumours of a danger forecomming, etc.)"

The whole asteriod thing is a bit risky, as it is no one's fault, it can't even be caused by global warming, but I guess it's the results of the storms that matter.
Altough you are going along the cliched road of "a blissful world and everyone is happy but then a completly unnexpected thing caused by nature ruins everything."
But this is done alot in fairy tales/ yarns, and this seems to be the format of your story, so it's ok.
Well the story's yours, so I'll leave it at that, but I can see potential for this.

[abe is now!]

It looks like what we were talking abou in the Q&A thread!!! It's not bad, I like it, but you must skip to the most important argument of the story.

[Oddey]

Interesting... However this is nowhere near what you led us to beleive in your coming soon thread. I think I'll check back sooner or later.

[GlacierDragon]

Not as bad as I was expecting, though it's far too early to tell if I like this or not. But for now here are some tips: Try to add more detail and describing words. If you can, use metaphores and similies (they are life-savors when you don't want to describe things in lots of detail). Also, try to describe what the charactors are feeling; were all Mudokons and Glukkons friends? Or did some of them dislike each other (e.g. bullies and victims)? Where they friends with the Sligs? Or did they stay away from them? Did they eat pie? Ok, that last one was a joke, but you get what I mean.

[MeechShrykull1029]

This is only the prologue. The actual story is coming later.

Prologue: Chapter 2: Abe's Moon

It was a cloudless morning in Sloggadon, perfect for looking at the sky. At this time strange things happened at the House of the Queens, where the Mudokon Queen Monsaic, and the Glukkon Queen Magog lived. Monsaic and Magog's favorite hobby was to look at the sky every night, and this was a perfect, cloudless day. The Bigface came to their house at night, and said: "Don't look at the sky tonight, even if you want to. If you look at the sky tonight, a great war will come, and it will go on for thousands of years!" But the Queens didn't listen. "How can looking at the sky hurt you?!" Monsaic said. "I have never heard of anyone dying just because they looked at the sky!" Magog said. But the Bigface insisted: "Don't look at the sky tonight, if you want to stay alive!"
The Mudokons and Glukkons the most of Sloggadon's population. But the town was als inhabited by Sligs. These Sligs came there from a nearby desert they called "Scrabania". They said that there are scary, tall creatures everywhere in that desert. The Sligs were welcome at Sloggadon, and they were even give a pair of mechanical legs -- a new invention -- to walk with. The Sligs told of their Queen lying somewhere in Scrabania, and the Sloggadon Army was given instructions on how to bring the Slig queen to Sloggadon. All this happened 5 years ago, and the army didn't return yet.
Monsaic and Magog looked at the sky so much, that they knew every moon that circled Oddworld. They liked to point at each moon, and say how they recognise it. This night, they told everyone at Sloggadon to come and look at the sky with them. The Queens are so huge, that the whole city can hear them. They began to point at the moons, and tell everyone about them. "I know these moons!" said Monsaic. "That one is small, with a few small craters, that one is large, and would you just look at the huge crater, and that one is..." The Queens were so surprised, that they opened their mouths. They were looking at a huge monn they thought they knew, but something was weird about it. It had a huge crater now, and the weird thing was that the crater was shaped like a Mudokon's paw! An old Mudokon whispered: "I know what this means. It means we are the chosen race!" Suddenly, all Mudokons were cheering and yelling: "We are the chosen race! Glukkons are losers!" Magog got very angry. She yelled: "I declare..." , but she couldn't finish, because she suddenly saw a large field of light moving toward them. She heard a familiar voice: " We found the Slig Queen!" Magog yelled to them: " The Mudokons think they're the chosen race, and they're calling us losers! I declare war!" The Slig Queen yelled: " The Glukkons are right! We're on the Glukkons' side!" Now that both the Glukkons and Sligs were against them, the Mudokons knew they were going to be defeated. The only thing the could do is wait...

[Oddey]

Ah... Now it's getting better. Good one. I like the way that the Slig Queen came along at just the right time.

[mudling]

I like it, it contains humour, and lightness that is with the oddworld games (where else would a tribe call people loosers?).
Only problem is, plan everything, don't randomly add facts, if you have to, pretend you didn't.
Try and be more subtle about it, instead of saying things like: sligs also inhabited the town.
You should of said that when you first introduced Slogadon, but you could of gone around that and emitted that sentence altogether, we would of worked out that there were sligs in the town aswell.
In the future, at least have the basic story in your mind, so you won't have to add things like that at the last minute.
Otherwise, goodjob!

[abe is now!]

It explains how Glukkons enslaved Mudokons!!! I like it, I gave you a rep for this ! But I didn't understand this: if the Slig's Queen were in Scrabania and Sloggadon Inhabitants wanted to help Slig to bring her, how could they find her so easily? You could explain it better in a new chapter. But this is a good chapter!!!

[GlacierDragon]

Yep it's getting better! One thing I can't understand though is how the Slig Queen ended up in Scrabania when Sligs were native to swamps. Meh, never mind.

[OddYouko]

This good so far..more please!
I like it. Don't keep us waiting again!

[MeechShrykull1029]

Just a reminder: The actual story is an Abe's Oddysee with lots of new plots.


Prologue: Chapter 3: The Outcomes of the War

The Mudokons got scared. Quickly, they ran into their homes. All but Monsaic, who was too fat to run. Magog yelled: "Kill Monsaic, the Mudokon sucker! If she dies, there will be no more Mudokons! No more living waste will exist in my city! THIS IS MY CITY! GIVE ME ALL OF MONSAIC'S MONEY! I WILL BE RICH! GET THAT STUPID LOINCLOTH OFF ME, AND MAKE ME A LARGE SUIT! I AM THE QUEEN!!!!!" All of the Slig and Glukkon army ran at Monsaic. Monsaic couldn't do anything. She laid one last egg, and a shower of poisoned arrows covered her entire body. She was dead. And suddenly, everyone saw a light. It was the Bigface. The Bigface took Monsaic's last egg, and looked at it. It was an extremely large egg.The Bigface took the egg, and teleported.
Magog has never been happier in her life. "Dump Monsaic's body in the dirtiest place you can find!" she said to her army. She turned around, but Monsaic's body was gone. She quickly yelled: "WHERE IS HER BODY?! I WANT HER BODY RIGHT NOW!!!!" Curt the Slig was the leader of the Slig army. "The Shaman with the long mask took her, when he teleported." he said. "Well, he's probably in a dirty place anyway." she said. "Curt, come inside my house! I want to talk to you!" Curt nervously folowed Magog inside her house. "I want to know, how Slurgs like you can live in a desert. You say Scrabania is a desert." Magog said. " We are not native to Scrabania. We originally are from the grassy swamps of Meechonia. For thousands of years, Meechonia has been our home. But some of the things about Meechonia are not as good as you might think. There is a large number of dangerous creatures called Meeches there. We got scared of them, so we had to move. So we did. We always moved in one direction. Finally, we came to a greater danger than Meeches: a desert. Luckily we found oasises there, so we just moved from oasis to oasis. We lived near the oasis lakes. After we got used to an oasis, we decided to explore the desert, and found some very creepy animals called Scrabs. We tried to go back to Meechonia, but the lake near the previous oasis dried up. We just had to move forward. Finally, we found some mountains. When we got past them, that's when we got to Sloggadon. This all happened a long time ago, only the move to Sloggadon is recent. I found out the rest from our Queen." Curt said. "An interesting story" Magog said. "Let's get back to our recent issues. Why do we use poisoned arrows as weapons, just like Mudokons? We need a more advanced weapon. "Codar, our inventor, says he's doing experiments with all kinds of things. Once, he managed an explosion. We might get a good weapon soon."
The Bigface teleported himself to a jungle, far from Sloggadon. Near him, was lying the dead body of the dead queen Monsaic. "All the Mudokons need to live here now. Sloggadon is not safe anymore" he thought. "This will be a holy place. I've heard 3 powerful animals live near here: Scrabs, Paramites, and Meeches. I think they are sacred. This place will be called Monsaic Lines, in honor of Monsaic, the Queen who died because of her former friend." He looked at the egg, and thought: "This is obviously a Queen egg. A new Queen will hatch. She will be named Kundo (one of ancient Mudokon words for 'peace'. I made it up.). She will live here, and Mudokons will be safe. Three temples will be built: The Scrabanian Temple, the Paramonian Temple, and the Meechonian Temple." The Bigface was about to leave, when he heard a crack. "The egg is hatching." the Bigface thought. He turned around, and went deep inside the jungle. Finally, he arrived at a field, completely surrounded by jungle. "I will leave the egg here. The Spirits told me it's a safe place. Caves will be built here. This will be a peaceful place for all the Mudokons to live in." he thought. He left the egg in the middle of the field, and went back to the village."I can't teleport right now" he thought. "The Mudokons will bury Monsaic's body."
Magog took all the money from the Mudokons. The Glukkons made her a large suit, and were busy making smaller suits for themselves. The Sligs came back from their search for Monsaic's body. "We did not find Monsaic's body" Curt said. "But we did find several other towns where Glukkons live." "Where is one of them?" Magog asked. "What do you want with it?" Curt asked. "I want to make an agreement. A cartel. We can form a country." Magog said. "It's in that direction." Curt pointed. Magog went there with only the Glukkon army leader, and Curt to accompany her. The problem was, that Curt pointed in the wrong direction. Magog was going straight to Monsaic Lines, where the Mudokons of Sloggadon and nearby towns already went by the Bigface's warning.
Magog traveled, and traveled. Finally she found a jungle. She was large, so she could see far. She saw Mudokons, or at least specks that looked like Mudokons. What she couldn't see, is the bows and arrows that the Mudokons had.
Hundreds of Mudokons were living their life in Monsaic Lines, when they saw the familiar to some Glukkon Queen. "MAGOG, HOW DARE YOU KILL OUR QUEEN!!!!" the Bigface yelled. "KILL THE GLUKKON TRAITOR!!!!" "NOO...", Magog started yelling, but she was silenced by the storm of poisoned arrows that the Mudokons shot at her. Curt, and the Glukkon army leader ran away.
Deep, inside the jungle, the Glukkon army leader (named Hurar) took a large egg out of the pocket of his own suit. "It's a Glukkon Queen egg! We will have a new Queen! Now, let's go to those towns to create a country. We will call the agreement the Magog Cartel, in honor of Magog."
SEVERAL YEARS LATER
"Revenge" Duba, the new Glukkon Queen said at a country meeting. " We have to capture the Mudokon Queen, and keep her here. The eggs she lays will turn into slaves for us!" The Glukkon army had to go back to Monsaic Lines.
The Mudokons were peacefully working on the caves, when they saw a huge army of Sligs with advanced weapons moving toward them. "Don't move, or I'll shoot you with my new gun!" yelled Kurt, showing an advanced weapon. "We will take your queen away! She will still live!" They took the Kundo away. After they were gone, th Bigface appeared. "You should have stopped them!" he said. "Our race faces slavery for thousands of years!"

[Wings of Fire]

A few structural tips:

1, Dialogue should never ever have more than one exclamation mark, otherwise it looks quite silly.

2, Also to do with dialogue, each new speaker should speak in a new paragraph.

3, There is a difference between situations you use "Speech marks" and 'Inverted commas', also if you are writing in a characters POV there is no need to use any kind of punctuation to display their thoughts, it should integrate itself into the text naturally through adjectives and descriptive language.

Your plot has a few interesting dynamics to it but I feel it is succumbing to the 'Episode III' syndrome of moving too fast with too little justification for the characters actions. Magog for instance seems to have turned completely evil, grown a taste for expensive suits and acknowledged the technological potential of her race just through being humbled by the Mudokons.

It would have maybe made more cognitive sense if you'd have had increased tension between the Muds and Glucks for some time and the moon being breaking point, and it would have been a good idea if Magog herself was a more progressive queen while her daughter, enraged by the callous murder of her mother, wanted nothing better than to break the Muds forever. The Mud's relative impassivity to protect their queen seemed a bit strange to me as well, call me a cliché whore but Bigface coming home to find a cave full of slaughtered Mudokons would have been awesome.

There are also some points of conflict in your story, to do with what characters are saying and where they are talking about. Always make sure to proof read your work before and after postage to get rid of that problem. And finally the evolution from gunpowder to weaponry took mankind several hundred years of blood, sweat and toil, yet the Gluckons, with their lazy Slig colleagues managed to do in in several? The introduction of Vykkers at that point could have both solved that problem and caused some really neat plot devices.

On conclusion, I don't want to appear overly critical of your work but I find it hard to express my feelings without doing so. The purpose of me writing here is not do dissuade you, but to encourage you to incorporate more skillful techniques into your work, as I hate to see what could be a potentially enjoyable plot crushed by sloppy writing.

Lorne gave you a large amount of resources to draw from in the Oddworld universe, try to implement more of them.

EDIT: Oh and any singular ending with 'sis' becomes a 'ses' in plural so oasis becomes oases.

[Oddey]

I hate the sound of Meechonia. It just doesn't fit. I know there isn't really a substitute but I really don't like it. The mudokons just let one guy with a big gun steal the queen? That's insanely stupid. Chapter two was better than chapter one but this is just bad.

I doubt I'll check back on this one because I don't really like their personalities. It's hard to follow the actual personalities but still.

Oh contraire WoF. It's good for expressing. But it's idiotic at a max of 6.

I don't start a new paragraph, just a line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probrably.

Err... Yeah again.

He sure did.

I beleive that's right but is it really life-threatening?

[GlacierDragon]

That last chapter moved way to fast. I hate to say it, but I agree with everything WoF and Oddey said.

[MeechShrykull1029]

I'm done with the prologue!

[MeechShrykull1029]

This thread needs to come back.

[mudling]

MeechShrykull be patiant, and please don't double post, when I have spare time, which I don't at the moment, I will review your last two chapters in detail.

[MeechShrykull1029]

Okay, this is the story. The actual story, not the prologue.

Chapter 1: A Strange Dream

"Hey, Richard, I got the Employee of the Year award!" Abe said. "I know! Good job!" Richard said. Abe and Richard were regular slaves at Rupture Farms, the biggest meat processing plant on Oddworld, owned by Moluck the Glukkon. Abe was a regular Mudokon, whose full name was Abraham Lure. Richard was strange. he was an old Mudokon, very old, and he did strange things while no one was looking. Abe saw him drawing something, and then pacing, when he was alone. This happened when Richard was in a small room the slaves lived in, and he was scrubbing the floor somewhere near. Once Richard noticed Abe watching him, he stopped. Last week, Abe got the Employee of the Year award. He was the only slave who did extra work, when all the other slaves were too tired. Abe always persevered, when he had an important goal.
"Shut up, you worthless scum!" the Slig watcher said. He went up to the 2 floor-scrubbers, and started beating them. "Don't you see the freakin' sign, you crap?!" He pointed at the sign, which said: "NO TALKING TO FELLOW EMPLOYEES" "Employees? More like slaves." Richard muttered. "Are you deaf?! I said: No talking, you worthless pieces of garbage! You're lucky Molluck doesn't allow me to use my gun!" the Slig guard said, beating Richard 12 more times. Abe continued scrubbing the floor, working like a machine. Even though he did his job properly, the Slig guard hit him. Abe ignored him, and continued working. He knew that if he doesn't complain about his life, the Sligs won't be so mean to him. The Slig hit him another time, and as Abe ignored him, the Slig muttered: "It never works! Why is he so stubborn?" The Slig threw some dirt at Abe, and started drinking a new, but already popular drink called SoulStorm Brew. The bottle was small, so he drank it in one gulp, and threw it at Richard. Abe continued scrubbing. The floor of the corridor near the slave room, which was initially covered in blood, was completely clean. It was the end of the day, so when Abe and Richard finished, they, along with other slaves, went to the small slave room to sleep. Abe was very tired from working all day, so he fell to the pile of hay, which was his bed, and instantly fell asleep. He had a strange dream:
Abe was surrounded by chanting Mudokons in some kind of jungle. The Mudokons were chanting all together, and it was really loud. Then, another Mudokon appeared. This Mudokon wore a weird long mask. He told Abe to chant too. Abe started to chant, and turned into a monster. He was horrified. Suddenly, he turned back into a Mudokon, and closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, he was back at Rupture Farms. He was on the second floor, and he could see what was hapening on the first floor. Several Sligs were holding a weird looking Slig, was struggling to escape them. One of the Sligs said: "It's the albino Slig! Take him to Skilliya!" Abe couldn't look. He closed his eyes, but when he opened them, he was inside a strange building. Around him, small green worms were slapping him with something strong. Abe suddenly thought of a very strange word: Huahur. He saw a circle of birds, and started to chant. And something unexpected happened. The circle of birds turned into something he never saw before. He heard a voice in his mind: "Jump into the birds!" He jumped into what used to be the circle of birds, and he got back into Rupture Farms. He let out a sigh of relief, but suddenly got terrified again. He saw more green worms crawling up to him. Before he closed his eyes again, he saw a Meech Munchie wrapper. When he opened his eyes, he was back at the jungle with the masked Mudokon. The masked Mudokon said: "You must stop him!", and Abe really woke up.

[GlacierDragon]

That was better than the last chapter. I like the dream bit; it's vuage, but in a good way (looks like this is going to tie in with SligStorm). A word of advice though, when a different character starts speaking start a new line/paragraph. For example, instead of

"Don't you see the freakin' sign, you crap?!" He pointed at the sign, which said: "NO TALKING TO FELLOW EMPLOYEES" "Employees? More like slaves." Richard muttered. "Are you deaf?! I said: No talking, you worthless pieces of garbage! You're lucky Molluck doesn't allow me to use my gun!" the Slig guard said, beating Richard 12 more times.

Consider

"Don't you see the freakin' sign, you crap?!" He pointed at the sign, which said: "NO TALKING TO FELLOW EMPLOYEES"

"Employees? More like slaves." Richard muttered.

"Are you deaf?! I said: No talking, you worthless pieces of garbage! You're lucky Molluck doesn't allow me to use my gun!" the Slig guard said, beating Richard 12 more times.

But apart from that it's good.

[Oddey]

Wha? Dirt? In RuptureFarms?... How?

Straw? As a bed? In RuptureFarms too? How?

What is goin' on here? Natural resources can be found on the ground in RuptureFarms is just wrong. Now I half beleive what OANST said. Please don't take that seriously and start a huge tennis-ball effect.

Overall this story isn't my taste so I won't be checking back in on it.

By the way if the sligs said "The Albino slig." then they must somehow know that there was going to be one. I think you had ought to change it to An Albino slig.

[MeechShrykull1029]

Seriously, stop complaining. Dirt doesn't have to be soil, and hay is common as a slave bed. It's the same as saying "How can Scrabs and Paramites be in Rupture Farms?"
And the Sligs DID know there was going to be an albino Slig.

Chapter 2: The New Guard and the Newspaper

Richard heard Abe muttering in his dream: "Huahur. What's Huahur. NO!!!!!"
Abe suddenly screamed. Richard went up to him, and started to shake him that's how Abe woke up.

"Is everything all right?" Richard asked, even though he knew that it wasn't.

"I had a weird dream!" Abe said. "It had creepy green worms with 2 mouths, and long tongues in it!"

"Fleeches." Richard said. "They were Fleeches. They are very dangerous. If they hit you several times with their knife-sharp tongues, you're dead."

"Richard, I have a question." Abe asked. "What's Huahur?"

"It's um... I'll tell you later." Richard said quickly. "Let's go do our work. I have to clean the Paramite Packaging, and you have to clean the Slog Kennels." He rushed off, but Abe saw the shocked look on his face after he asked about Huahur. Now, Abe was certain that Richard was hiding something from him. He quickly ran to the Slog Kennels to do his work.

"You're late, you freakin' piece of crap!" screamed the Slig guard. "How can you get here at 5:03, when you're supposed to come at 5:20?!" The Slig started to beat Abe, but stopped when he saw Molluck appear. Molluck never came to look what his employees are doing, so everyone was surprised.

"To the Boardroom, Roger." Molluck said to the Slig. They went to the Boardroom. Abe was always interested in Board Meetings, but he never saw one. This was his chance. He started to sneak behind them. It was risky, but Abe thought it was worth it. When Molluck and Roger went inside, Abe quickly ran upstairs, and started to look through the door above the Boardroom.

"We have a new guard who wants to work here: Becrot!" Molluck said, as a Slig went to stand next to Molluck. It was a very weird-looking Slig. His skin was strangely hanging, and it even looked like a costume.

"Hi everyone!" Becrot said. He had a normal Slig voice, which was surprising for Abe. "I am Becrot, and I would like to get a job here, at Rupture Farms, as a slave guard!" Abe was very interested in hearing the rest, when he got hit in the head with something that felt like paper. He turned around, and found an old issue of The Daily Deception on the ground. Abe had never been outside Rupture Farms, but he was still interested in the outside world. He opened the newspaper. It had articles like "Laughing Gas: Keep Your Slaves From Escaping!" and "Elum Chubs: An Unsuccesful Alternative to Meech Munchies Stops Being Produced!", but the article that he really found interesting was "Motswek the Albino Slig: New Information About Escapee!" This is the article:
When the albino Slig larva named Motswek before he was even born escaped from the Birthing Complex, many Sligs tried to find him, bt it seemed like he just disappeared. Now, Ted, aguard at Rupture Farms, claims that he saw him in the Free-Fire Zone of the factory. Here's what he told us:
"I spent all day doing my job, making sure the slaves don't escape, so at the end of the day, I was tired. I went to the Free-Fire Zone to rest. I made a campfire, and stayed there for the night. In the middle of the night, I saw something Slig-like crawling near me. I looked at it closer, and saw that it was a Slig. The weird thing about him was that he looked very white. Then, I saw that he didn't wear a mask, so I quickly closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was gone."
We will have to look for the ugly mutant near the Free-Fire Zone, so Molluck will have to allow other Sligs to come there.

When Abe finished the work at Slog Kennels, he ran to the slave room, where Richard was already sitting on the old pile of hay. Abe told him about the new Slig, who came here to work, and the newspaper article about Motswek. "I'm planning to go on a hunt for Motswek." Abe said. "He might be hiding somewhere here, in Rupture Farms."

"Don't!" Richard said. "You'll get in trouble!"

"Richard, if I find him, Molluck might free me!" Abe said. "You will be free then too!

"Don't!" Richard insisted, and went to sleep. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he saw that Abe wasn't there. Richard was very worried, so he got up, and went to look for him.