Thank you.
I have kept you waiting long enough, I think.
Time for the conclusion to Dante's Oddysee.
Chapter 44
So what to do? Try and see if the Shrykull power worked?
Before I could decide, I recieved a frantic message from Patch.
{Dante! The sligs are coming to Oblim! It’s terrible ... the colors are melting out of everything ... the mudokons are crying and getting depressed ... several have already killed themselves! Please! Help us!}
Oh, man ... way to pile on the guilt. These guys were counting on me, and here I’d been, cursing their names and wishing they’d died. It seemed I was getting my wish.
Ah, hell. Time to go back. I wasn’t going to walk, that’s for sure.
I thought about how Patch had always been able to send someone to where I was. I figured I had to think about someone on the outside and chant to get a bird portal open. But that was no good; Abe had never been on the outside when he started rescuing mudokons. So maybe there was just a Sacred Mudokon place that all rescued mudokons were unloaded into... But would I get sent there?
I didn’t know. I decided to try. I coughed, suppressed a sneeze, and began chanting, focusing intently on creating a bird portal that would take me to Oblim.
I heard fluttering almost instantly, and the birds that gathered opened into a portal shortly thereafter. The portal opened onto a place that had to have been Oblim: it looked, once more, like a black and white fotograph. I took a deep breath and leaped through.
FALLING!
FALLING!
FALLING!
Thud.
I wasn’t in Oblim. I was in a heavenly clearing. Trees surrounded the wide space, the grass was tall, spooce shrubs grew in wild clumps. Not far off, there was a river, a perfect water source. This place would’ve been an ideal place to begin a new settlement.
I new instinctively that this was where any mudokons I rescued would wind up.
Okay. Time to find Oblim. I looked up and judged the time to be late afternoon. I had traveled pretty much west from Oblim, and south from Dis, where I’d met the grubbs ... so if Oblim was anywhere, it would be probably be northeast.
After about a half hour walk, I spotted it.
It was in Oblim, no doubt. I snuck up to it, and peeked out from behind the first hut I reached. Three mudokons here were moaning and groaning. They lay in the shadows cast by the hut.
The unmistakable sound of mechanical pants filled the air. I heard a few gunshots, and was ready for action.
“Hi,” I whispered.
“Hi ...” the nearest mudokon sighed. Sounding very depressed. I noted with dismay that it was Boomer, and his wrists had scars that looked upsettingly fresh.
“Ohh ....” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Sorry,” I offered in feeble sympathy.
He looked up and recognition flashed in his eyes. Color flowed through him again, and he smiled. “Okay! Hi, Dante!”
I had to hush him, lest he attract attention. The other two mudokons looked up at me, and had much the same reaction.
I wanted to tell them to follow me, but I hadn’t figured out where to take them yet. “Wait here, I’ll come back.”
They shrugged. “Okay,” said Boomer.
I peeked around the hut and saw easily three dozen sligs building a gallows. If I knew sligs, they were building it to frighten the natives into doing as they were told.
I felt a tingling course through me, almost demanding me to go in headfirst. I tried to resist, but I had to prove something to myself.
Go time.
I didn’t run ... that would have caught the sligs’ attention too soon. Instead, I tiptoed as quietly as I could, right into the open space of the town square.
I stood ten feet away from the nearest slig.
“Hello,” I called. The slig spun quickly, and was frozen in place.
I guess he’d been forced to memorize my face, and as he placed it, he shouted “Freeze!”
I didn’t even have to react -- my body did it all on its own: I leapt forward, and in the second I was in the air, my body transformed.
My face erupted forward, jaw first, into the familiar shape of a scrab head. Five paramite fingers stretched out of the top of my skull. My tongue split and became a whip-thin, double-pronged thing that may well have dripped poison. My fingers stretched forward and melded together, and my arms became paramite-like legs. A second set of these arms worked their way out of the sides of my torso. My legs each split into two separate and muscular scrab legs. By the end of the transformation, I resembled a huge scrab with a paramite welded onto its back.
I touched the ground and heard shooting. I realized that I was being shot at. But I felt no pain.
That tingling sensation again ... but much stronger. It was almost an orgasmic shudder. I felt sensations similar to being shot (thinking back now, I realize it was accurate: I had the gunshot from my escape from Tastee Treets to compare the sensation to) all over my body ... but there was no pain. I realized these sensations were coming
from me, not being fired
into me. Bolts of searing blue fire were erupting from my body, seeking out prey and striking without fail.
The sligs, meanwhile, had turned when the first one had said “Freeze!” Many attempted to shoot at me ... foolish. When half of the gathering in the square had been vaporized, more sligs charged into the square. The shouting, shooting, and
zap!ing sounds had drawn their attention.
Good! Let them come! I would fry them all!
The sligs, stupid beasts that they were, all came at me, each probably thinking that they would be the brave slig to take down this monster.
They all fell under my wrath.
The whole encounter lasted under thirty seconds, but it felt to last longer. I reflect now and realize that the past three days really did seem to have been a year ... but that’s besides the point.
The Shrykull sensed that the area had been cleansed and purged, and my body slowly reverted to normal. I took in my surroundings.
I hadn’t just destroyed sligs ... I had wrecked all the huts in the village.
Oh no.
Hoping I hadn’t harmed any mudokons, I began a frantic search, greeting all the mudokons I found with a quick “Hello, sorry about that, it’s okay, follow me,” and gaining the trust of many mudokons with little effort.
It took twenty minutes to round up all the mudokons in the village. Pale color was beginning to edge into the village again. Forty-three in all.
Luckily, Patch had been spared, and he came forward.
“Dante, are you alright? You look anxious.”
Panting, I hissed at him. “Me? I’m fine. I just wanted to know ... how many people were in this village before the sligs came?”
Patch thought a moment, and said, “Probably about seventy or so. But the sligs killed about twenty of us, and five or so went and killed themselves.”
Uh oh. That meant, if his numbers were right, that I had wasted three mudokons.
“Patch,” I grunted, “this is very important. Can the Shrykull hurt mudokons?”
Patch raised an eyebrow, and slowly shook his head. “Of course not. Especially if a mudokon was harnessing the power.”
I breathed a huge sigh of relief ... which brought on a series of body-wracking coughs. The flu I’d picked up was more serious than I’d thought. I fell to my knees, overcome by coughs.
Patch was there at once, and he shouted orders. Someone find some shade, someone rummage for a blanket, someone get some tea ....
With a mighty sneeze, I blacked out.
Hope you enjoyed the conclusion to Dante's harrowing quest. I promise that in the beginning of his Exoddus he'll get over his pneumonia and be back on his feet.
For now, I'll leave this open for anyone who might happen to have questions, comments, complaints, or confessions of any kind.
One last note:
I want to sincerely thank any and everyone who has read any of this story. Seeing the view count increase on my little writing project is the most effective form of encouragement, and I deeply appreciate it.
Thanks, Constant Readers.
Dave
EDIT: First time reader? Want to read more?
Go on to Dante's Exoddus.
Yeah, I can't wait until Dante's Exoddus, either-I bet it'll be even better than this one. (and that's saying a lot because this one was excellent. 
) If I were to rate it on content, character development, and tone, I'd give it a 10/10 in all areas as well. Great work!