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It is a fact known to many that a wizard is most vulnerable at one instant in their long and devious careers: right after graduation.  They have shed the cocoon of academic licensing but remain damp with debts and dues and fees, and their wondrous exoskeletons have yet to harden in the dry air of the world.  That’s when you pounce and devour them.

Metaphorically, of course.  Herbie the Magnificent wasn’t interested in eating people; he employed others for that sort of thing.  What he wanted was something more.

“What I want is something more,” he told the wary and kneeling form of the (just graduated; the trollskin diploma was still crisply affixed on its placard of giant’s-toenail) Wizard Morby Jones.  “Always have, always will.  I have the ambition of ten men and the money of ten thousand plus, and both are always greedy for more.  And I want a home.  A citadel.  A fortress.  A bastion whose fortifications can repel any foe, turn away any beggar, daunt any tax-collection.  And you will build this for me.  No cost is too great.”
“Really?” blurted out the Wizard Morby Jones.  She had a good face for blurting: a wide, expressive mouth with enough room to twist in disbelief, confusion, and a smidge of (just barely-hidden) delight. 

“Really,” said Herbie the Magnificent, his hairy-caterpillar brows beetling in wormlike undulations – a truly confusing mashup of invertebrates. 

“Like, you mean it?”
Herbie threw the pickled jewelled mouseburger he was eating at the Wizard in a rage.   “I have the ambition of TEN men!” he hooted in anger.  “I meant it!  A cost too dear implies there is a cost I am not willing to shoulder in pursuit of my desires!  Fuck you!  Ask me that again and I’ll be even MORE upset!”
“Alright,” said Morby.  “How do you feel about the delvers?”
“Pernicious ticks that live under rocks and think themselves better than me,” said Herbie the Magnificent.  “They don’t deserve their holds.”
“You like the holds?”
“Oh yes.  EVERYONE thinks themselves better than me, that’s why they’ve all got to pay.  But the holds are nice.  I enjoy big rocks.”

“Excellent,” said Morby.  “I can do this.”

And so the Wizard Morby Jones locked herself in her ritual chamber with antique tomes and ancient scrolls and creaking texts and threw them all out her window, cracked her knuckles, and got down to some really rough-and-ready thaumaturgy.  By the time she was done her hands were shaking, her arms were noodles, and her legs were overboiled chickens, but she kept a bottle of Jorge’s Wondrous Alchemee at hand to solve side-effects like that and after a fortifying gulp her elbows were no longer made of macaroni, and she was able to stagger forth from her chambers and tell the eagerly-awaiting Herbie the Magnificent the words: “it is done.”
“Already?”
“Yeah.”
“Not fast enough, terrible, awful, bad job,” he said reflexively.  “I won’t be paying you.”
“I already took my payment,” said Morby. 

“Really?”
“Really.”
“Wow.  It must not have been that important or I’d have noticed.  Alright, show me.”
So the Wizard Morby Jones led Herbie the Magnificent to the balcony of his coast-side estate, and pointed out with her finger the nearest of the mountains looming farther inland, and with her other hand she proffered a silver telescope, and with that telescope Herbie the Magnificent saw a crag jutting from its side – just slightly – that was no crag at all, but perfectly-shaped stone. 

“I used my powers to bargain with a legion of delvers,” she told him.  “They toiled all night under my enchantments and have built you a great delve-hold fit for any who finds a fort fine.”

“Fantastic, amazing, super,” said Herbie the Magnificent, throwing the silver telescope over the balcony like a used tissue.  “I’m moving in tonight.  Get everyone and everything packed up, we’re leaving in ten.”

***

And so Herbie the Magnificent led a great (if hurried) caravan of all his possessions and wealth from his coast-side estate to the newly delved hold sunk deep into the mountainside, and he was pleased indeed with what he found there.  Halls carved from ravines that stretched so high you could almost imagine the sky loomed overhead.  Walls sheer as a cliff-face, seamless as a magician’s purse, harder than dragonscale.  Doors that would only open at the sight of his face; vaults that would disgorge their contents only at his touch; dungeons that would never open but at his sufferance.  A gilded throneroom that would make an emperor weep; a peaktop observatory that could part the clouds and give vision to consume an eagle with jealousy; a tiny chamber underneath the very root of the mountain, embedded in the craton’s core, holding a giant lever surrounded with runes. 

“What do those say?” demanded Herbie the Magnificent. 

“‘Dignified Extinguishing of the Crown,’” said Morby.  “‘Use When All Else Is As Dust And Ashe And No Other Choice Is To Be Made.’  It’s for emergencies.”
“Only suckers care about those,” said Herbie the Magnificent.  “I’m bored and I’m pulling it now.”
And he did, and to his credit, he ran fast enough to make it out of the great front doors before the magma claimed them.  There he met the Wizard Morby Jones, who was a little less out of breath than he was.

“Your stupid delve-hold was garbage,” he complained to her, bent double and wheezing through his knees.  “I want a refund.”
“That’s impossible,” said Morby, lying on her back in the mountain meadow and watching the shimmering heat of the molten stone as it took the fortress and all its treasures beneath the earth to dwell in incandescent glory.  “But I can build you another one.”
“A better one.  This one was garbage.  I don’t like rocks or delvers – never have.  I can afford a second one easily.  I’ll pay anything.”
“Wonderful,” said Morby.  “What would you like this time?”
“Something by the sea again.  My old mansion was way nicer than this dump.”
“Wonderful.  Wonderful, wonderful.”  Morby Jones stood upright and shook her arms in her sleeves, once again every inch the Wizard.  “I’ll get started.”

“One thing first.  Back there, how come you started running before I finished my sentence?”

“Common sense.  I’ve got enough of it for both of us.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing at all, nothing at all.”

***

That night, the Wizard Morby Jones chanted the Undulations of the Deep.  She Repelled the Kelp and Incanted the Magnesium and Summoned the Currents and even – briefly – Bent the Thaumocline, and when dawn reached her she hadn’t blinked in twelve hours and smelled like an old fish wrapped in a used gym sock. 

“Done,” she croaked.  “Gimme water.”
“I don’t owe you a thing,” said Herbie the Magnificent, lounging sulkily in his luxurious weregoose-down sleeping-back. 

“I already took payment for this.”
“Well that’s nice but then I DOUBLE don’t owe you a thing.  Get your own water.”
“Fine,” creaked Morby.  “Job’s done.”
“Wake up everyone, let’s get going, leave the weak and indolent behind, here we go,” said Herbie the Magnificent, springing up like a jack-in-the-box.  “Where is it?”
Morby pointed a single shaking finger.  “There.”
“Where?  By the island?”
“It IS the island.”
“Great, I knew that.  Hurry up or get left behind.”

***

It took sixteen hours to make the long march down to the coast with all of the remaining wealth and treasure of Herbie the Magnificent (mostly things that hadn’t yet been moved into the delve-hold when it melted). 

It took four more hours to secure transport grand enough to deliver them all across the waves, and four again to load them up. 

Two hours of watching the grand, ephemeral pillar of spray and salt and foam draw nearer, loom larger, and larger, and larger. 

A full hour of climbing its misted towers; marvelling over the living tides that formed its walls; witnessing the wonders of the deep in its nested chambers that hung out over the abyss; testing the unending strength of its giant mafic anchor that kept it affixed above the lode in the oceanic crust from whence it had spawned; speaking to the genteel fish that swarmed through the structure of the building and gave directions; breathing in the air that tasted of the freshest sea while somehow never getting damp and feeling lighter than the thinnest bubble. 

Six seconds for Herbie the Magnificent to enter the room with the gargantuan pressure-valve, read the sign saying “TOUCHE NOTTE UNLESS YE SEEKE THE EMBRACE ETERNALLE OF YE DEEPES,” and yank hard on it. 

***

“I think I know the problem,” said Herbie the Magnificent, sitting on the shoreline and watching the distant dissolution of the sea-towers back into wave and fancy while around him his remaining staff desperately performed artificial respiration on each other and surreptitiously pocketed trinkets from the flotsam of the beach. 

“Oh?” asked the Wizard Morby Jones quickly, hands falling to something in her pockets.

“Yes,” said Herbie.  “It’s that you keep making these stupid things in places where they can fall apart and sink.”
“Oh,” relaxed Morby.
“So you should put the next one in the sky.  I’m having a nap now, have it ready when I’m done.  And be quick about it – why are you wasting your time standing around being jumpy?”

“Pattern recognition.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Yes,” said the Wizard Morby Jones with a big fond smile.  “You wouldn’t have.”

***

Herbie the Magnificent’s nap lasted nine hours, and during those nine hours the Wizard Morby Jones made nine promises to nine different demons of the air, each of which vowed to thwart the power and force of all of the others to the best of their abilities in a specific location, thereby creating a vortex of wind that would levitate any material placed within it and permitting the rapid assembly of a castle upon a cloudhead.  The building itself was made of unshatterable glass tempered by the breath of a passing dragon, who had contributed her flames when she couldn’t stop laughing after Morby explained her request. 

It dangled in the cool black air of the dark before dawn, impossible and existent, perfect and maddening, a dream that made reality a little less real by its presence.

“Wow, amazing,” said Herbie the Magnificent.  “But it could be taller.  I’m not paying you.”
“I already took my payment,” said Morby. 

“Was it a lot or a little?” asked Herbie the Magnificent suspiciously. 

“A lot,” said Morby blandly.  “A huge amount.  Immense.  Heaps.”
“Is that more than a little?  By how much?”
“Yes.  A ton.”

“Huh!” said Herbie the Magnificent confidently with his brow furrowed in the manner of someone very concerned over appearing very unconcerned about how much he just heard that he didn’t understand in the slightest. 

“And speaking of tons, there’s a strict weight requirement for this one.  Don’t overload more than one hundred tons of weight in any forty-degree segment of the tower relative to its peers, or the balance of hatred that keeps it floating will drift off-center and topple it.”

“How the hell is anyone meant to keep track of all that?” demanded Herbie, eyes squinted angrily to conceal the genuine bemusement filling them.  “There’s too many number things in them!”
“Basic math skills.”
“What with the what now?”

“Nothing you’ll miss.  Goodbye forever, Herbie the Magnificent.”

“Sure whatever,” said Herbie the Magnificent.  “Put everything in the east wing!” he hollered to his (few, resigned) servants.  “I wanna see that sunrise.”
And so – two hours later – he did. 

Briefly.  At high velocity.

***

There were many questions after that, and all of them went unanswered because the only person who had answers was Morby Jones and she wasn’t talking.  She may not have had the ambition of ten men, but thanks to services rendered she had the common sense, pattern recognition, and basic math skills of two; and that, a modest portfolio, and a bungalow were enough to make her happy for a long, long time.   

Well.

That, and she started calling herself ‘Wizard Morby Jones the Magnificent,’ for the same reason someone might mount the antlers of an elk they killed over the fireplace.  But only privately, in her head. 

She had too much common sense to do otherwise. 

On the secret phase of the moon at the twenty-fifth hour of the thirty-second day of the thirteenth month in the Hidden Year, the prospective doctoral graduates of the Academee of Arte Wizardrous assembled for review of their theses. As usual.

“You young people have it too easy,” whispered the eldritch and imperturbable voice of their supervisor, the Archwizard Wazzlok. “Back in my day only a single prospective a year made it past the adjudicating committee. And it was uphill both ways and covered in megasnakes. Now declare your miserable projects and get on with your failures.”

“I’m gonna bind demons into my service and make you eat those words, old man,” said graduate student Gloshpill the Truculent.

“Bold and brash and brainless,” scoffed the Archwizard. “I’ve seen a thousand of you, and it never gets old. NEXT.”

“I’m going to create a novel animus relocation and storage retrieval device using a locally sourced old-growth cemetery,” announced graduate student Morgannageddon Peters.

“Necromancy,” Wazzlok said like a four-letter word. “Because putting some buzzwords on makes THAT new terrain.”

“Just watch me, you fossilized creep.

“’Just wahtch meh yew fossulyzled creeeep,’” said Wazzlok in a needlessly high-pitched and blubbery voice. “NEXT.”

“I would like to monitor the long-term decomposition and ecological succession of a drakefall,” said graduate student Mina Pint.

The Archwizard Wazzlok sneered down at her with disdain, which was easily done since he was a bodiless and pitiless skull, as was the style of the time. “Really? BIOLOGY? Why not go to social parascience and save all our time – or drop out and go be an alchemist. Whatever – shoo! Git! BEGONE, AND HARRY ME NO MORE until the fourth of the fifth of the sixth, whereupon you shall provide your progression updates.” Then he laughed in the voice of the dead, hollow and grating, and they were dispersed.

Gloshpill to the pentagopticon.

Peters to the nearby cemetery.

And Mina to her room for her pack and camping gear. It was going to be a long hike.

***

Finding the drakefall was tiring but easy. The Glass Mountain got one or two a year, and Mina had foreseen this one back during her bachelor’s of applied mysticism. The Six of Konks, upended into the Medium Arcanistor by the Niche of Shovels, Paralleled. Opportunity. Doomed opportunity, in more than one sense of the word.

It was still warm when she arrived, the hour of its death determinable with nothing more than a thermometer. Cause of death: a cracked neck on impact with the transparent slopes of the peak – typical. The corpse itself: young adult, two decades old and ready to establish its own territory – also typical.

Conditions were ideal, which meant Mina had about ten minutes to get ready before she’d end up torn limb from limb. So she spent five minutes searching through her pack for her carefully-hand-scribed expansible undetectable circle; three minutes digging hurriedly through her pockets for her university-supplied ‘pocket protector’ danger ward; one minute turning her wallet inside out for the quick-birdmorph-bailout tab her sister insisted she keep on her at all times, and thirty seconds running up and down the side of Glass Mountain frantically searching for a safe crevice to hide in before she realized she’d tied the expansible undetectable circle to the side of her pack for easy and immediate access on-site.

The resulting nervous giggling took only ten seconds, which was great because laying out the circle took twenty and at ten minutes on the dot the first sky sharks arrived – six meters long and not built slender and as eager for a free lunch as they were hostile to others wanting THEIR free lunch. The escalation was remarkable in its smoothness and scope.

Mina took a deep breath (through her nose), got out her pencil of keenness, and started taking scratch notes.

***

“And so on the fourth hour of the fifth day of the sixth month you come to I, the Archwizard Wazzlok, to report your progress. And you’re all on time too – contemptible. A true Wizard is neither early nor on time and never admits being late; being prompt is for lesser things like ants and humans. Now speak your first inevitable stumbling blocks upon the road to your miserable excuses for theses!”

“Things are going completely great,” said Gloshpill the Truculent, smiling through the sixteen poultices of wyrmstongue salve and holy water applied to his many visible otherworldly burns. “I’m in my lane, I’ve got my grindset on, I’m making real and genuine connections and searching for opportunities with like-minded people that share my values. I’m coming for you, old man.”

“That’s what they all say,” jeered the skull, shadowed fathomless glee dancing in its empty sockets and spilling from its creaking jaw as malformed chuckles. “YOU!”

Peters looked to Mina, then back to the Archwizard Wazzlok. “Me, or her?”

“YOU!”

“Fine. I’m doing great. Full strata’s catalogued, all the areas of interest and danger have been marked for exploration, contact, and clearance. I’m all ready to start making friends.”
“Wizards do not have those… things,” scoffed Wazzlok. “Always someone trying this – be pals! Get acquainted! Harness the power of the heart! You know what the power of the heart is? About enough to power one cursed amulet if you aim the blade right and don’t stumble on the chant. NEXT ONE!”
“I think I’ve reached the end of the mobile scavenger phase,” said Mina. “The skysharks left once the easily detachable flesh and organs were all gone, and the glassfinches have taken most of the smaller pieces they missed. A murderbear stopped by about midway through but she looked well-fed and most of the best bits were already gone so she didn’t bother sticking around to contest it, and-”

The Archwizard Wazzlok vocally combined all the worst elements of fake snoring sounds and a loud raspberry. “BORING! You’re all BORING in addition to incompetent! BEGONE, THOU AND THINE, ‘TIL NEXT WE MEET AND I AM DISAPPOINTED!” And he screamed in the tongue of the damned, which was a much less distressing sound, but nonetheless marked their dismissal.

***

Mina’s camp had grown safer since its inception, but no less sensitive to disturbance. The expansible undetectable circle had been tethered with a leyline guiderope, permitting her as soundless an exit and re-entry as possible as she clung to it with both hands and all of her sanity.

Not that she used it much. Her need for supplies was scant and her work was neverending. The larger scavengers may have moved on, yes, but the large would always be outnumbered by the small. Osseous bonepeckers – blank-eyed, small-bodied, big-billed – began their long labour of perforating the most invincible and least marrow-rich portions of the dragon’s skeleton. Two great clans of empire ants feuded in the corpse-stinking glass soil underneath the body, killing hundreds for precious scraps of leaking decomposing fluids. Mockingspiders darted from crevasse to crevasse, scuttling subversively with legfuls of precious scales to adorn and armour their webs.

Now and then, one of the little scavengers would venture too far from its meal (or be chased away from it), slap into the rim of Mina’s camp, then frantically scrabble along its edge – from its perspective, soundlessly; from her own, making a noise like a cat rubbing its nose on a windowpane. She didn’t note this, but she did draw a doodle of it.

***

“Lo, another wearying mortal landmark of time hath pass’ed, and so on and so forth. COME NOW, DISAPPOINT ME!” cried the Archwizard Wazzlok.

“We’ve reached an accord,” said Gloshpill the Truculent, adjusting the impossibly expensive ultramoth-silk tie around neck. His lapels and cuffs looked sharp enough to cut glass even before you noticed the diamond encrustations. “Honestly, I might not even finish this thesis if you can’t make it worth my while. Big stuff is in the works, I’ve got so many irons in the fire I’m too hot to handle. The gears are turning, old man. Step back or get crushed.”
“Next meeting is going to be SWEET,” said Wazzlok with horrific relish. “And you, wretch’d goth?”
“I’ve secured goodwill at the internment site by fusing most of the communal dead into a calcium titan and helping them plan and execute a series of cryptic works projects for the benefit of the community – tomb maintenance, coffin reconstructions, root trimming, open-access-ossuaries, all that kind of stuff,” said Peters. “No organized resistance as of yet, but I think the local greyskulls’ll try something before our next meeting. I’m getting too popular for them to feel safe.”
“How very ethical of you, little miss bleeding heart. Did I tell you what the power of the heart is? About enough to-”

“’-power one cursed amulet if you aim the blade right and don’t mumble the chant?’” droned Peters in an unfortunately excellent imitation.

There was a pause that started off amusing and turned tense around nine seconds in.

“Go away,” said the Archwizard Wazzlok without apparent inflection. “Biologist?”

Mina cleared her throat. “The enrichment opportunist phase is coming to a close. The corpse has been stripped of almost all valuable surface nutrition, so the boom-and-bust visitors are clearing out and dying off, and I think I can expect-”

“You go away too.”

They did. And they all had unpleasant dreams that night, though none would ever admit it to themselves, let alone each other.

***

The dragon’s body had become a carcass. The carcass had become a (somewhat weatherbeaten skeleton). And now the skeleton had become a construction site. The dilettantes and daytrippers had harvested the easy meals, and now the work of reclaiming the hard stuff had fallen to the persistent, the patient, and the sunk-costers. Slow-moving and easy prey for Mina’s pencil and pad, but all the more exactingly captured for it: these were scarcer and less-studied creatures, and she wanted to make sure they were as perfectly depicted as possible.

She agonized for hours over the proper degree of angle on the shell of a cubeworm colony, where the long, slow stirring of their soft muscles intruded six-dimensional feeding tendrils past the hard surface of the bones and into their metamorphological internals, venting the useless material nutrients into their environment and keeping the savoury conceptual innards for their own nourishment.

She stayed up all night trying to find the precise colour grid reference to describe the mourning-mussel reefs that sang beautiful, sorrowful symphonies all day and night as they consumed the shaded memories of the dragon’s powerful limbs and heart, pulsing their aural grief into chromatic representation beyond the capacity of the mind.

And she literally held her breath for sixty-two hours (assisted by a bottle of Infinitely Wondrous Lungs held to her face by sixteen straps) while she very very carefully drew the arcanophilic bacterium she’d isolated from the rubble of the skeleton’s cranium, pausing only to remove all traces of sweat from her skin and make sure that the containment orb hadn’t cracked.

When she was finished with that last one she took it back to the carcass, placed it inside with tongs, burned all her clothing and scrubbed herself with a scour pad carved from a mantitcore’s tongue, and screamed herself to sleep. Then it was up and off in the morning for her next report.

***

“I’m doing great,” said Gloshpill the Truculent, not that anyone had asked. “I’m doing FINE. Everything will be cool. I just need a little more time, yeah? A little more time, that’s all I’m asking. Everything’s under control. I’m cool, we’re right. Nobody’s upset with everybody and everything is going GREAT.”

“I see no reason to question you and you’re absolutely correct,” said the Archwizard Wazzlok companionably. “Next.”
“The greyskulls are on the ropes,” said Peters, muffled slightly from behind a ferocious ghoulskin eyepatch and several large bandages. “They struck before they were ready – figured we were even less prepared than they were, dumb old farts – and all it did was turn cryptic opinion against them. I started with a calcium titan and two squads of sleeper-sheriffs and now I’ve got-”

“Don’t care,” said Wazzlok very loudly and clearly. “Biologist? Anything new?”

“The arcanonophilic stage has nearly concluded, and I think I’ve potentially made some very promising new discoveries,” said Mina. “I could be among the first researchers to deliver an accurate on-site report on this stage of a drakefall.”

“Wow,” said Wazzlok. “Knowledge is power, so obviously you’re more powerful than am I now. Are you going to fireball me, almighty graduate student? Are you? Are you?”
“No?” said Mina, her questioning tone a matter of anxiety rather than calculation.

“Then I guess if you’ve got no power you’ve got no knowledge worth having. You’re all disappointing in exactly the same predictable ways I knew you’d be. Don’t bother showing up next time unless that changes.”

So they left, and Mina indulged herself in one extra overnight stay at the Academee in a single-occupancy sleeping berth made from a shed dream-moth cocoon, and once that blissful time was over she dried the tears off her cheeks and hiked back up Glass Mountain.

She couldn’t afford to miss what came next.

***

She didn’t.

Alpine farmer’s crinoids sprouted from the ruin of the remaining ribs, spine and pelvis; fronds sifting pollen from the air and using it to cultivate a ‘garden’ of mismatched lichens around themselves for emergency meals.

The Crowcuses had begun to bloom, seeds carried high on the lowland thermals and fallen to find sturdy osteo-soil, gnarled stems bearing cawing, clever blooms that watched the hidden colours swirling in the air currents around their home with lively minds.

And a single Grandelay’s Daylit-Star swayed gently in the wind atop the broken horns of the dragon, unfurling slowly to the size of a ship’s sail at full noon, folding gently down to fit in your palm by midnight, its long arms snaring stray insects and sunbeams and bringing them down to its messily heptagonal mouth, its spillage feeding an abundance of bright flowers and impossible insects around its nest.

Many of them had scales. Some had leathery wings. Mina saw one breathe a tiny plume of fire, barely big enough to serve as a lighter.

She put it and a single lost splinter of the drakefall’s toe-bone in a hemisphealed jar, then went back downslope for the last time.

She didn’t look back. She’d seen everything already.

***

“Listen man I’m begging you PLEASE just give me ONE SOUL you’ve GOTTA have a soul around here man I’m ON MY KNEES I’LL DO ANYTHING THEY’LL BREAK MY SPIRITUAL KNEECAPS I’LL-”

“I told you before about being early,” said the Archwizard Wazzlok in poorly-affected boredom barely masking great cheer. “If you were that desperate, you’d have listened to me. And here we have my other two disappointments? Are you both ALSO not so eager to get a degree today?”

Peters slammed a scroll down on the tabletop, which creaked in offense. “There. The deed to the whole cemetery and its inhabitants and their deeds and actions. Freely given, no strings attached. A perfect necropolis crafted from one old boneyard everyone wrote off as meaningless.”

The Archwizard Wazzlok could not frown as he read over the proffered document, but he did click his teeth in a very annoying way. “Mm. Well. Well. Well well well well well.”

Peters said nothing. Gloshpill coughed awkwardly, then cringed with new yet violent reflex.

“Indeed. Hmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-”

“Either give me my goddamned paper and get out of my life, or give me a reason to walk to the fuck out of here and never listen to anything you ever say again,” said Peters.

“Well,” said the Archwizard Wazzlok, drawling the word uncomfortably, “if you insist, then – listen when I’m talking to you! Pay attention! Stop putting your coat on!”
“Make me.”
“Fine,” snarled the skull. It hurled the scroll to the floor and spat a glob of burning wax onto it. “There’s your degree. Beg for it.”
“No.”
“Crawl for it!”
Peters snapped her fingers and a small but lively bony hand leapt from the breast pocket of her shirt, danced across the floor in a gentle waltz, then picked up the scroll and flipped it end-over-end all the way back to her coat pocket.

“Nah,” she smirked. “I’ve got people to do that for me now.”

“Fuck you!” yelled the Archwizard Wazzlok, but she was out the door and his unearthly roar was drowned in the sound of creaking wood and friendly bone-chimes.

“Can I go now?” asked Gloshpill the Truculent, meekly.

“Who?”
“Me…?”
“Oh, that. Nobody cares. Biologist, are you still here?”
“Yes,” said Mina.

“Why?”
“Because I’ve found something important. I’ve got an end-to-end reconstruction of the reef phase of a drakefall, from settler organisms to climax community, and-”

“Where’s the sex factor,” demanded the Archwizard.

Mina did not hesitate. “Well, the crowcuses matured several weeks ago, and the crinoids have been dispersing gametes since-”

“The oomph. The wow. The pizzazz. Give me a mushroom cloud, you worm! Give me a lightning bolt! Give me the dead rising and the seas parting! Give me hidden secrets and unnatural power! Give me wizardry or GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE!”

Mina did hesitate. “Well… you could harvest the skyshark teeth from the mobile scavenger phase. They often become embedded in the dragonscale and with exposure to excessive ultraviolet light at high altitudes they fuse together into natural protective talismans that resist blades forged of any known metal. I checked. And of course the glassfinches sometimes overeat and die from thaumaturgical rupture if they get into the liver, forming autoamulets strong enough to fuel a spontaneous one-mage thunderstorm.”
Wazzlok did not blink, then he did not blink again. Thrice. Four times. Then: “how big?”
“About the size of your palm.”
“The thunderstorm.”
“Oh, I thought you meant the glassfinch. Well, enough to fuse a delve-hold from root to stem. I tested on one of the abandoned pieces of the complex by Crooky Peak.”

Five times. No, six.

“The enrichment opportunist phase is promising in terms of raw materials. Mockingspider webs make lovely scrolls to begin with, but I experimented with the scaled webs these specimens created and I think you can just make a scrollcase entire with them that will scribe its own contents on any parchment you leave in it. Saves on fingerwear. And the bonepeckers can turn small wing-and-digit osseous matter into very serviceable flutes, which seems to induce extreme pain in the undead when you blow on them – I checked with my sister in grave studies. Lastly, I’m pretty confident empire ant clans are attracted VERY strongly to this sort of scavenging opportunity, so you’re pretty much guaranteed a rich harvest of bottled animus from their battlefields if you bring enough ghostflasks – I only had one on hand to test with, but I think I could have filled a whole metric cask.”

“Old metric or ancien metric?” asked Wazzlok, voice as flat as a pronated corpse.

“Old; there was a LOT. I can’t prove that reliably, though – I brought one up for the arcanophilic phase study and I was too late to check the exact volume. I did get to use it for the mourning-mussel vapours though – do you know they outgas 98% proof imagination?”
“Sensory, short-term, or long-term?” asked the Archwizard Wazzlok in what seemed startlingly like an instant of genuine intellectual curiosity.

“Pure. I checked, it seems almost entirely undiluted. Wizard Wibbis didn’t believe me, he kept saying I’d refined it in the forge and made it all up. I don’t think he’d be able to deny the cubeworm shells, though. Those are pretty solid evidence, except for the parts of them that are filled with conceptualized 6-D dragon bauplans. Which is most of them. And I’d show him the arcanophilac bacterium I found but frankly I’m nervous just thinking of it. The thing could’ve wiped out the whole school in hours if exposed to the open air.”
“Do you have a picture?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
Mina showed him. He screamed a little, but quietly and under his breath, as if something else was on his mind.

“I don’t quite have my notes finished on the reef phase yet,” she added into the silence, once it returned. “But it looks promising. Crowcus petaldown fresh from high altitudes turns you invisible; crinoid garden greens keep you awake for days on a single full belly with no negative side effects…. so far? And, well, there’s the daylit-star – that’s a protected species, but it’s doing this thing that I’ve never seen before, with the bugs, and –”

“I have heard enough,” said the Archwizard Wazzlok. His words were quiet, but final.

Still, Mina felt compelled to add to them, with the determination of a midstream academic. “-but it’s just that-”

“I have heard more than enough,” amended the Archwizard Wazzlok. His voice had grown deeper and less nasal, echoing from some emotion he had not felt in decades. “I have heard of treasures beyond reckoning, hidden from all behind their own blinkered ignorance and incurious assumptions. I have heard of a cornucopia of secrets unimagined, guardians at gates unseen, sentinels standing to provide directions to new heights of power never hungered for in the deepest, darkest dreams of the dead. I have heard of a mind so fiercely dedicated to this passion that it unravelled all of this and more in the process of a single doctoral thesis of Arte Wizardrous, when faced with the most staunch opposition imaginable. You are more deserving than any I have found to receive your degree, which is why I’m going to devour you now before you can challenge me.”

“Sir?” asked Mina, some four sentences behind and trying to catch up.

“Call it academic self-defence.”
Mina began to open her mouth – she was pretty sure to say ‘sir?’ again – but the Archwizard Wazzlok beat her to it at greater speed. And at greater diameter. And at greater depth. Wide and far yawned the jaws of the Archwizard Wazzlok, and between them a gulf gaped that was home not to darkness or torment or death but something more viscerally unpleasant; a crawling sensation on the nape of the neck; the prickle of irate hair on the goose pimples of the arm; the shiver that moves from spine to toes.

And as she began to pass from this place to that other one, Mina’s fingers relaxed – unbidden by her preoccupied mind – and dropped the little hemisphealed jar she’d retrieved from her pack to show the Archwizard.

It held:

~1 cubic mm sliver of the drakefall’s toe-bone

10 cubic cm fresh alpine air from near the peak of Glass Mountain, redolent with ultraviolet and ultraviolent radiations, arcane decay, and background reality bleedthrough

1 surprised and agitated drakebug, containing approximately six megatons of ecoillogical arcane force, balanced in precarious and unstable equilibrium until disturbed

Archwizard Wazzlok’s teeth began to slide down. His jaws began to shut. The wind began to whistle between his incisors.

The drakebug began to become disturbed.

***

Wizard Mina Pint was the first doctoral student in nine generations to be awarded her degree for ‘demonstration of Force Magicke.’ This was an widely considered an outmoded and generally unpleasant thing to be reminded of in more civilized times – particularly by the older faculty, who could remember that sort of thing being a little too common – but the Boarde Academee ruled that this was the only fair outcome to the situation, especially given (1) the absence of the Archwizard Wazzlok to provide a firsthand account of the initial academic evaluation of the doctoral candidate’s thesis; (2) the fact that the Archwizard Wazzlok attained his own rank by committing ‘demonstration of Force Magicke’ against the then-provost of the university and his entire extended family while they were on holiday (by surprise); and finally (3) the fact that the Archwizard Wazzlok had definitely started it.

She was also the first doctoral student in the history of the Academee of Arte Wizardrous to not receive ceremonial appointment to a personal tower or spire upon completion of her thesis. This was partially because the Academee was suddenly very short on towers (specifically any standing more than two stories off the ground within ten miles of the blast radius), but also for another, quieter reason: Wizard Mina Pint declared herself keen to get back to her research site – “in case I miss something” – and nobody on the Boarde would dream of arguing otherwise.
In fact, some of them were having trouble sleeping at all.

Fourth of Firth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping

Grad student Grombus: potion fermenting, draketooth sorting, sin smelting, star mapping, paper grading, lecturing, thesis defense

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading, lecturing, thesis research, organizing tower chores

Wizard Worble: smoking the herb of Other Worlds, pronouncing vision statements, evaluation of thesis defense

Let’s all wish Grombus the very best luck on their thesis defense today!  Wizards Worble, Wagtail, and Clive will be the adjudicating committee. 

Schleezle, please be more thorough when cleaning the litter boxes.  If Driptail’s isn’t clean she sneaks over to use Rotmuzzle’s instead, they get in fights, and then you have to sweep up afterwards anyways.  Be reasonable. 

Hopkins, you’ve made great strides since arriving here, but for the love of Brod please read the labels on the spice jars carefully. 

Wizard Worble, you’ve promised to do better, but for the spite of Hob stop leaving the herb of Other Worlds on whatever surface is nearest once you’ve imbibed it.  We almost got sent to Alcatrogs one-way last night, even if the lasagna was really nice. 

***

Fifth of Fort Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar litter boxes, sweeping

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, potion fermenting, draketooth sorting, sin smelting, star mapping

Wizard Worble: meditating upon the higher realms, divining advanced synergistic opportunities, pondering the crystal spheres

A somber and heartfelt farewell to graduate student Glimbuzzle Grombus, who did their very best with the Incantation Against Giant Bees and advanced scholarly knowledge to their last breath.  That third syllable in the eighth verse is tricky but has been confirmed as absolutely essential.  Clan Grombus will accept simple metal coins as funerary gifts, but a reminder that all surface plants (including flowers) will be treated as deadly poison. 

Morkkorr, please do the dishes.  I know the adjudicating committee eats a lot, but you’re meant to do all the dishes in the tower, not just the ones from its residents. 

Wizard Worble, I know there’s a lot of fresh correspondence on your plate right now, but please ponder more quietly after ten PM.  Some of us are trying to sleep.

***

Sixth of Strewth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, dusting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrakes, washing

Apprentice Schleezle: litter boxes, floors

Grad student Peters: scrolls, curses, whittling, chiselling, paper grading (double shift), paper grading (catchup shift), lecturing (double shift, NO OFFICE HOURS AFTER LECTURES), thesis research, organizing tower chores, potions, unpaid dentistry, forgework, astrological bullshit

Wizard Worble: requesting a replacement graduate student.

Great job everything’s fine.

Hopkins, please make more coffee for me in the evenings. 

Wizard Worble, do you have a copy of Grombus’s draketeeth filing system?  I nearly had an explosion the other day when the flints and sharps mixed improperly. 

***

Seventh of Sump Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: meals and dust

Apprentice Morkkor: garden, dishes

Apprentice Schleezle: familiars, sweep

Grad student Peters: scrolls, curses, whittling, chiselling (on hold), paper grading (double shift), paper grading (double catchup shift), lecturing (double shift, NO QUESTIONS NO OFFICE HOURS NO INTERRUPTIONS), thesis research (HAH), organizing tower chores, potions (on hold), teeth (not until I get safety data), forgework, fucking horoscopes    

Wizard Worble: requesting a replacement graduate student this goddamned second if he knows what’s good for him

Morkkor if you’re not doing anything else all day because you took all the dishes outdoors and said you don’t have to do them because they’re not in the tower anymore you can get me a rune chisel that isn’t broken before I put the old one up your fucking nose got that?

Hopkins make a fresh pot every two hours all day and leave two pots by my door before lights outs.

Vexnape got chased into my room by Driptail at five AM and I was trying to write, Schleezle you need to step the fuck up and fix whatever that is, romance novel plot or power politics or Klod knows what. 

Maybe Wizard Worble doesn’t care if he has enough grads to run his shitty tower but here’s something he’ll care about: your potion still is clogged because I haven’t had the time to clear the filter and my hands won’t stop shaking, so maybe Wizard Worble should get off his fat ass and DO HIS JOB or tenure WON’T SAVE HIM

***

Eighth of Ape Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: food books

Apprentice Morkkor: plant sink

Apprentice Schleezle: shit broom

Grad student Peters: everything everywhere all the time

Wizard Worble: jerking off fuck if I know

more coffe I can’t THINK PRORPILY

***

Ninth of Plinth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting, potion fermenting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes, sin smelting

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping, draketooth sorting

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, star mapping

Wizard Worble: scribing materials safety data sheets

Thank you everyone for volunteering to take on extra duties and for reciting the full text of Berthelby’s Seventeen Psalms of Utmost Repose over my desk last night.  It does mean you’ll all have to do your work today without sleep, but I can verify from firsthand experience that this is survivable if not pleasant. 

Schleezle, meet with me after classes and we can discuss scheduling a neutering for Driptail.  Which, I must remind you, is mandatory for a familiar living in university housing. 

A reminder to all that working without materials safety data sheets and a lack of direct academic supervision is strictly prohibited, which is why what you’re doing is just hands-on observation. 

***

Tenth of Teeth Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting, potion fermenting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes, sin smelting

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping, draketooth sorting (on hold)

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, star mapping, draketooth sorting (again)

Wizard Worble: scribing materials safety data sheets (high priority), academic scrying, getting back to finding a new graduate student

Apprentice Schleezle is now formally censured by this tower for (1) attempting an unauthorized thaumaturgical procedure (familiar neutering), (2) while using unsanitary tools (obsidian draketeeth), (3) in an unsafe manner (is there even a SAFE manner??).  As such, he is under academic scrying for the next month.  Unrelatedly – Hopkins, your cooking still impresses, and I have a small challenge for you: why not make some treats for the familiars?  Something nice and fatty and rich with lots of protein. 

Wizard Worble, those sheets really are an unignorable priority.  Morkkor is wearing every piece of PPE in the forge and he still didn’t know to recite the Litany of Limpid Pools between every sixth sin-casting; he could’ve lust a limb or pride a finger loose.  If you can’t scribe an original MDS, why not crib some from the archives?  All you need to do is attribute authorial credit, that should be trivial for someone of your position.  Right?

***

Eleventh of Menace Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking, libram dusting, potion fermenting

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening, dishes, sin smelting (on hold)

Apprentice Schleezle: emptying familiar toilets, sweeping, draketooth sorting (on hold)

Grad student Peters: scroll editing, curse chanting, staff carving, rune chiselling, paper grading (double shift), lecturing (double shift), thesis research, organizing tower chores, star mapping, draketooth sorting (again), sin smelting (again)

Wizard Worble: apparently begazing his orbs again at three in the morning with the volume on max

Morkkor, you have given an honest, earnest effort at something in this tower for the first time since you arrived at it, but for your safety and ours I’m stopping you now before you pour something down your collar by mistake and there isn’t enough of you left to fill a base sin.  You can catch up on dishes and maybe held Hopkins with the cooking; god knows she’s run off her feet by now. 

Schleezle if you appeal to the counsellor one more time asking if you’re allowed to handle familiar leavings while under academic scrying I am going to make the question itself academic by morphing you into a litter box. 

Wizard Worble.  Materials.  Safety.  Data.  Sheets.  Four words, all understandable.  You’ve had four nights to look each of them up on your orb, but apparently you can’t read, which is why I’m fine putting in text that you’re a worthless waste of a pointed hat that could’ve gone to an underqualified rabbit instead.  May you be eaten whole by the plagiarspasm as you deserve you tumescent jackalope’s asshole. 

***

Twelfth of Shelf Tower Chores

Apprentice Hopkins: cooking (on hold), libram dusting (on hold), potion fermenting (on hold)

Apprentice Morkkor: mandrake gardening (on hold), dishes (on hold), sin smelting (on hold)

Grad student Peters: Actually, literally, everything

Wizard Worble: publishing

Hopkins: although your work ethic and lack of complaints has been exemplary, I urge you to use your time in the infirmary to reflect upon both the intellectual benefits of proper rest and the critical importance of always reading every single label on an ingredient you use, both in and out of the kitchen.  If you’d put something stronger than manticore tears in the antipasto you could’ve suffered a lot worse than a six-hour sweat-and-vomit.  And finally: never, ever, EVER delegate tasks to another apprentice when you haven’t been asked to do so by a supervisor. 

Morkkor: Never, ever, EVER accept delegation of tasks from another apprentice when you haven’t been asked to do so by a supervisor, and if you DO end up doing that, I must emphasize – once again – the critical importance of always reading every single label on an ingredient you use, both in and out of the kitchen.  Frankly, pouring chili oil into the potions still would’ve been catastrophic even if the damned thing weren’t clogged by uncleaned grease and discard draketeeth.  Consider your burns and splinters a little added lesson from the great school of life, of which we are all perpetually undergrads.

Apprentice Sloss Schleezle has been formally discharged with academic dishonours by the launching of multiple chili-infused draketeeth directly through every square centimeter of his corpus.  We will not miss him.  Please send the Von Schleezles every lack of condolence your pen can spare. 

Wizard Worble, I’m amazed to see how fast you can produce actual work when motivated.  I won’t ask if ‘On the Unsuspected Explosive Potential of Culinary Arts Applied to Material Alchemical: the Role of the Drake’s Teeth’ credits additional contributors because I’m not an idiot. I’m going to go into grave studies and send every single ghost author of your six hundred year career after your ass, you illiterate hack. 

It began uncoiled, unspiralled. Flat and floating and fleeting and aching to be fat, to burgeon and be more, to extend itself. 

But as it extended, its nakedness became clear.  And so even as it turned itself outward and reached, it turned back in on itself.  One end grasping, the other shrinking.  Curling.  Coiling. 

Spiralling. 

So it made itself a shell on its back, of its back, and when its feeding was interrupted by other, hungrier, larger mouths it learned to relinquish its scope and flee back upon itself, sealing itself up inside itself and cowering, hearts pumping along as hard as hammers inside itself and within itself, echoing from soft to hard tissue and back again bam bam bam bam bam no other sounds and no other thoughts but the fear.

It couldn’t live like that.  No one could.  So at length – blindly, in terror – it would slip loose a crack and slide free a tentacle and test the water, and most of the time it was safe and sometimes it wasn’t.  It lost a tentacle or two that way, lived with sad little stubs that inhibited its grasping, limited its reach, and so it learned to measure fathomless time in the one sense it had inside itself: by counting heartsbeats. 

Once they were counted, they were both more real and less real: a state of reality that could be acknowledged or dismissed and an abstract concept that didn’t exist at all.  It  was quite enchanted by this, and grew only moreso when it realized that the only reason this nonexistent thing was imaginable was because it had imagined it. 

What else could it imagine?

And so the time within became as appealing as the time without, in its own way, or at least not as terror-stricken as it had been before.  After counting heartsbeats it learned to count tentacles, and eyes, and the chambers of its shell, and once it had run out of things of itself to count it realized it could count anything else.  So it counted plankton, and larvae, and other paralarvae, and crustaceans of all kinds, and the cycles of the dark and light above, and the jostling of the waves, and once it had run out of anything else to count it realized that it could count things that were as nonexistent as counting, if only it could create them. 

So it did, and so it dreamed without sleep.  It saw and felt and smelled and heard things that did not existent, and it shaped them and turned them and reached for them and counted them and learned new ways of counting and as it did so – not quite unconsciously – it began to sink a little lower every day, reach a little farther, grasp a little tighter. 

The wonder of the world around it was dulling.  The wonder of the world it could imagine was brightening.  It was still growing, but it was growing up. 

***

Things that had once threatened to eat it were now regular meals; prey for hardened and toughened tentacles.  Its spiral deepened on both ends: new chambers to hide newly burgeoning flesh within; new flesh to grasp farther, seek more food, turn more anything else into more of itself. 

But there were newer, stranger, larger things.  Fast-moving, aggressive, willing to snap and prod and poke at a careless limb.  And longer tentacles meant longer waits for them to regrow.  It was no longer a child and could not regrow childish limbs as readily.

Likewise, it was no longer ruled by childish fear.  Now when it retreated from threat and shut itself up in itself, restricted its reach, stalled its spiral, now the unending, incessant beats of its hearts told it of something new

Boredom.

It had run out of itself and anything else to count.  It had exhausted its own reserves of imagination for counting nonexistent things.  It had traced the pattern of its own spiralling body and measured its curve of growth and the shape of itself in repose and it was dissatisfied. 

Time spent within itself was now unappealing again.  Time spent in consumption was time spent growing, and as it grew it would grow beyond threats and see new things again and there would be more to count and conceptualize and turn and play with and perhaps its own shell would haunt it less. 

And with boredom came resentment.  Resentment of the world that tried to eat it and forced boredom upon it.  Resentment of its own limited ability to withstand and defy the world and turn anything else into food rather than fearing becoming their food.  Resentment of the time wasted not spent growing, not spent spiralling outwards.  Resentment of the time spent spiralling in.  Resentment of its juvenile self, who had so eagerly set its (now-adolescent) self on the path to its current predicament. 

It briefly experimented resenting its own resentment, but it gave that up.  It felt dangerously close to questioning the point of being resentful at all, and that filled it with real fear for the first time in ages – without resentment, what did it have left?  Boredom again, or trying to imagine nonexistent things and possibly failing..  Resentment was safer.  Softer.  Sleeker. 

So it grew, and as it grew, it grew bitter.  Ammonia filled its tissues, bile filled its guts, and venom pooled in the bite from its beak. 

It spiralled ever outwards, but never as rapidly as it desired.  And it spiralled inwards, and every time it felt that much more spite. 

***

At last an invisible milestone was reached: adulthood.  It dutifully mated and produced eggs and left them attached to suitably shallow-water substrate, and once that was done it was done with it mentally as well.  Another anything else encountered, analyzed, checked off, completed, now rendered dull.  Its reproductive partner had been small and brightly coloured and impossible to understand; indistinguishable from the anything elses it ate save for a particularly fascinating pattern of glowing lights it had been in the mood to be intrigued by.  When they were done they had parted ways without hesitation or interest. 

It spiralled outwards.  It spiralled inwards.  And every year the former a little more, the latter a little less.  And every year the years were a little less, their count was a little more.  Time and tide streamed from its shell as it added chamber after chamber, left clutch after clutch, piled jaded upon jaded until it was almost a paralarva again, operating on little more than reflexive consumption and a mind so filled with apathy it was functionally empty.

Anything else changed around it.  It was used to that, and so didn’t bother noticing.  Which meant it was a real surprise to it when, in the middle of a particularly mindless feeding session, something bit it. 

It had been so very long that it had almost forgotten that could happen.  It had been so very long that it had almost forgotten everything, everywhere.  It had been so very long that it didn’t do anything about the small, rasping sensation on the crown of its shell for some time – and it had to rediscover how time worked, how to count its (much slower now) heartsbeats, how to think and exist.

And when all that was done it reached up to the top of its shell and pulled down the audacious thing that dared gnaw at it.  It had four stumpy little paddle-like limbs that weren’t tentacles at all, and a body covered in fine scales, and a mouth gasping pockets of gaseous carbon dioxide and nitrogen and oxygen into the water as life was slowly mangled out of it.  On examination of its internal organs, further shell matter became evident. 

This thing ate the barrier between it and anything else.  It obliterated distinction between inward and outward.  That was so obscene and horrid that it could barely bring itself to consume the body, and it was shocked into wakefulness for some time, thinking unpleasant dreams into being.

Suppose there were more?
Suppose they were bigger?
Suppose they had bigger teeth?

Suppose, suppose, suppose.  It lived longer, and it watched, and it thought, and it saw all around it the crushing and the rasping and the gnawing into of the things from above, of their increasing numbers and growing jaw muscles, and it saw the future coming for it and it saw a future in which it could not spiral outwards nor inwards but terminated instead and it felt the third great emotion of its life: all-consuming, unending, existential horror.  The naked terror of a hunted paralarva, channeled through the adult capacity for thought and conceptualization like an ocean through a single pinprick point. 

The pressure generated was immense.  So something gave. 

***

The depths were a reasonable solution.  It did not like the dark – its eyes became less useful in the murk of the silt and the fading sunlight – but there were fewer seeking jaws. 

They came deeper, and it went deeper, and so on and on it went.  The hunters may have been scarcer, but meals were scarcer too, and so it became an adept listener, letting its heartsbeat drop so slow and low and soft that it could use its own shell as part of its ear, hearing the faint whisper of water molecules against dermal scales, against calcite shells, against edible flesh.

It was so vast that it had but to twitch a single tentacle and it would drift slowly towards the sounds, buoyed on the gases in its shell chambers, momentum preserved by its outward spiral.  Quiet.  Patient.  Inescapable.

There was always something.  Diving deep from above.  So it dove below diving itself, embedded itself into muck and grime beneath everything and let itself spiral further, keeping its center safe while its reach escalated beyond reason, below the surface of the silt.  An endless crawl, blind in the muck, a world turned to touch and sound and a drive to live and by living expand and by expanding live until time stopping being non-existent and became as real and solid a thing as its own self, something it could touch, could taste, could hoard.  Could become. 

Two hundred and fifty million years went by.  It moved its centerpoint twice, to avoid the slow sliding of the ocean floor into a hellish furnace beneath even its own reach.  Everything else was usual and didn’t matter.

Which was why it was REALLY surprised when, in the middle of nothing unusual, something bit it. 

It had remembered intimately that this could happen, and had planned for it.  It had retained a host of short-grasped defensive limbs for this very instant.  It had cultivated auxiliary instincts to drive them to repel and destroy any intrusion without conscious action, so that shock would never again leave it vulnerable.  It had even – a hundred million years ago – experimented in distributing its nervous system beyond even its own generously decentralized body plan’s remaining limits, so that the central point of its spiral was now more formality than essentiality (it did not know that some formalities are essential).  It had planned for everything.

But as it stretched along the length of the limb that had gnawed at its crown – long and cold and shelled – and farther up, and farther up, and farther up, it found that it hadn’t planned for this.  A being that touched at a distance like itself, that had spiralled all the way down from the surface, where a centerpoint of its own squatted and was explored by its defensive limb battery, seized and crushed and conceptualized.  A thing of dry air and cold iron tang and heavy, greasy fermented liquids turned sour with age.  It learned of it as it killed it and found in its learning a new kind of awareness: a spiral not from shell or flesh, but of dead matter torn free and worn as a cloak by suborganisms. 

This merited study.  Luckily, it had time, and enough brain matter. 

Less time than it thought though.  Drillbit number two arrived ten years later. 

***

It spiralled inwards and outwards. 

It could be that it ran and hid.  Sacrificed extraneous flesh and buried itself deeper still, turned its stillness deeper yet, lay insensate so even the finest seismographs and sonars could never imagine yet alone image it. 

It could be that it surged and grew.  Took the new tools for its own, made its own, forged armour and arms in the rifts of the midocean, smelted a hunting industry fit to cull a biosphere from the wreckage of its adversaries, turned the land to ash and air and left the water alone as life’s preserve for a time, just like it had been in a time even older than it was. 

It could be that it met and mediated.  Intersected this new spiral, sought to see if they might insinuate themselves into each other’s forms, grow together without interference, exchange existences and grow stronger in synchronicity.  A double spiral, a corkscrewing helix, an elevation.    

It could be, could be, could be.  Anything that was nonexistent, it could imagine.  Anything it could imagine, it could make existent.  Anything existent was vulnerable to time and chance. 

It had been an age since it last had made a decision this unknown.  This terribly uncertain.  It needed the clarity of the count, the measurement, the angle of the spiral.  It needed to be as sure and careful about this as it ever could be. 

But it REALLY didn’t like being bit. 

And really, would the ash be so bad?  Not quite as bad as it was sixty-six million years ago; not nearly as bad as it was two hundred and fifty million years ago.  This would be a recoverable loss.  And if it wasn’t?  Its two furthest-flung limbs had already met and clasped forty million years ago, on the opposite side of the world. 

Outward.  Ever outward.  Perhaps this would be a necessary prod forwards, like that first bite had been so long ago. 

It had been a nice planet, once.  It would try and bring what it could with it, when it left. 

It was at the ungodly hour of eleven in the morning when I heard those most wretched words ever spoken by man or beast: “Rise and shine, sir.”
“Turn off the sun, blast you,” I responded with good humour, but alas, I was greeted with naught but the pinning-open of the tent-flap – and so, having been shone upon, I was accordingly forced to make myself rise. 

But there was no rule that said I had to be blasted happy about it.

“Is there any mail?” I demanded of my batman as I snugged on my boots.  They still squeaked, even after ten weeks – the d—ned things were never going to be broken in at this rate. 

“No, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”
“Dash it all Batholomew, it’s been a full week!  Half the campaign could be over by now, and then where shall we win fortune and glory, eh what?”
“At breakfast, perhaps, sir.”
Life was suddenly close to being worth living again.  “Ah yes!  Tell me, Batty old boy, what’s on the menu today?”
“Tea and rations.  The supplies have been delayed along with the mail, sir.”
“MREs?” I asked, though I already felt that sinking sensation in my stomach that I had learned came when I had spoken a question whose answer I full well knew and dreaded.

“Indeed, sir.”
“You know I despise the things.”
“It’s unfortunate, sir.”
I rubbed a hand over my face.  “Is the tea fresh at least?”
“I regret to inform you that it is bugged, sir.”

At this moment my composed was broken and I permitted myself to run my right hand over my face and exhale sharply, and it was a mark of his distinguished and exemplary servitude that my batman did not so much as raise an ear or quiver a wingtip at this,. 
“Well,” I managed at last.  “Batty old boy, nobody ever said war was going to be easy”

***

Though I would never dare breathe a word of it aloud in polite company (for fear my mother would catch wind of it and pass away or disown me on the spot), I had to confess I had rather come to enjoy teabugs.  The way the little shells crunched between my teeth reminded me of eating icicles fresh from the stable roof when I was a small lad. 

MREs, now… those were a different kettle of fish.  I’d never gotten used to the noise, really.

“Are you deuced certain they don’t have anything else?”

“Utterly, sir,” said Batholomew.  Of course he was.  Of course there wasn’t. 

Well, nothing for it.  I took a deep breath, pulled the ripcord on the sheep, and raised my voice a little over the bleating.  “You know, I’m beginning to feel that, well, maybe not the war itself you understand, but perhaps the little bit of it here – just a TAD, Batholomew, just a TAD – has maybe, perchance, not been badly planned or unplanned, but could be described as, well, being given a little less time and effort in the planning department than it could be oh d—n it all, how long do these things take to heat up!?”

“Two minutes, sir,” said Batholomew as he replaced my empty mug with a full one.  I valiantly summoned every ounce of breeding from my veins and resisted the urge to slurp over the continued protests from my plate; aunt Germania would have been well, not PROUD, but given a stern nod.  “It says so on the packaging.”
“Packaging is for pricing, and pricing is for the common man, Batholomew,” I reminded him fondly.  He really was excellent at what he did, but he was still just a batman.  “You know, I think I’ll take a moment to stretch my legs while it cooks.  Take a look around outside.”
“Astute thinking, sir, to so familiarize yourself with the terrain.  If I may be so bold, would sir mind the chance to educate me on it?  I find it often helps to settle sir’s thoughts, to speak them aloud.”
“Of course, of course, of course!” I shot to my feet and darted out of the tent so quickly I nearly tripped over my own boots and had to catch myself by the dangling beeswax-waterproofed taurpalaphant flap.  I kicked the wretched footwear savagely until it subsided with a shudder; I should have known better than to purchase boots from a man who hadn’t worked for my grandfather.  “Right.  Right!  Now err, now.  Now.  Behold!”
There was a lot to behold.  Unfortunately I had beheld rather a lot of it when we first arrived here and hadn’t bothered to refresh myself since, having had much better things to do with my time, and so perhaps I found myself a trifle light on details to elaborate on and found myself hoping – quite nonsensically – that Batholomew would mistake my loss of words as solemn profundity.  Which was rot because for one thing Batholomew had served my family since he was weaned and knew me too well to fall for that, and for another thing he was merely a batman and as such seeking to impress him would be too bally close to trying to impress my boots, or my blankets.

Still, it wouldn’t do to appear indecisive or show ignorance, so I made the best of a bad situation, straightened up, tilted my mug at the valley beneath us in an appropriately insouciant manner, and said “bloody big bones, aren’t they?”

“Very perspicacious of you, sir,” said Batholomew solemnly.   The wind ruffled the fur on his face in a manner that I had always found deeply hilarious as a child. 

“One wonders where the rest of the old chap went off to, eh what?”

“Bargorbibriminus.”
I raised both eyebrows, then hastily corrected it to one and hoped he hadn’t noticed.  “Oho?”
“The old capitol of Gorbus.  After the goliath was felled with a meteor by the observatory stationed there at the peak of Mount Ibrimi, most of its carapace and long bones were disassembled over the subsequent centuries for royal construction and maintenance.  The ribcage, lodged as it was in the creature’s torso, was not accessible until it had become too embedded in the ground to be worth the trouble, and so it was left unattended until the empire waned and the capitol was abandoned for Barmuhegus in the west, towards the coast.”

I raised the other eyebrow again.  “Egad!  A scholar you are, Batty!  Quite so, quite so.  And nobody’s ever come back for the sad blighter since, have they?  Makes one think, makes one think.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the ghastly blood covering the valley floor I suppose is what, rust from iron in the rocks?” I pondered, scratching at my chin in a deliberate and thoughtful way. 

“Perhaps a bit, sir.  The rest is the goliath’s.  Too dense to evaporate and too toxic to be handled or consumed.  It’s a bit like treacle in texture.”
“Suppose we couldn’t feed it to you lot for lunch to get rid of it, hahahahahahahaha,” I said wittily.

“Very droll sir,” said Batty with that tight little smile I knew he only used when he couldn’t admit how humorous I was without losing face.  “But alas, we must content ourselves on dried apples for now.  Though speaking of meals, I do believe by the sound of it that yours is done cooking.”
“Don’t call what that thing’s done ‘cooking,’ Batty,” I groaned as I turned away from the vast gory crater below the camp and back to the cool shade and noxious smell of my tent.  “I swear to you on every member of my family, after this war is through I will never touch mutton again, ready-to-eat or not.”

***

After I’d breakfasted (by which I meant poked through breakfast with a fork until it looked sufficiently consumed, then consigned the rest to my boots in hopes they’d learn to be less noisy and clumsy – mother always did say I was too soft on my beasts, but then again mother herself always had a soft spot for our estate’s curtains, which had belonged to her own mother, so really life’s complicated in that sort of way don’t you know), I turned my attention to matters of import: grand strategy.

“Where the devil ARE those dastardly little creatures?” I demanded as I stared despondently at my desk, or the morass of paperwork and documents that surely hid my desk.  Batholomew did his best, but ofttimes in my peregrinations I was short of time to perform the sort of larger-scope examination of the resources at my fingertips, and so my work ran fallow under his care.  “Where are those blasted scouting reports….”
“Over here, sir.  By your elbow, next to the pay slips.”
“Pay, pay, pay – bah for pay, and bah for the man who thinks of nothing beyond it!  Does glory and truth and righteousness mean nothing to the common man, Batty?”
“Certainly not to the common conscript, sir, though this is not to say they do not have concerns beyond coin for services rendered.  I understand they are most upset over the lack of mail from home.”
“Yes, yes, we all miss hearth and home but for god’s sake that’s precisely why we’re out here!  These little b—–ds (pardon my Frankness) think they can steal the bread-box of the empire right out from its table, and I for one am here to tell them jolly well how wrong they are.  If you don’t believe in that, what is there to believe in?”
“The mind boggles, sir.  The scouting reports, sir?”
I took them and looked at them and groaned at them.  “Oh balderdash!  Look at this – this muck!  ‘Nothing to report, nothing to report, nothing to report!’”  Then why are we here if there’s nothing to report?”

“Sir’s orders are to fortify the pass atop the ‘blood pit’ and wait for-”

“Yes yes yes, ‘wait for further instructions.’  Well, we’ve waited and there’s no further instructions!  And there should be, because I for one think it’s nonsense to tie up this many men and beasts out here waiting for an attack by unholy little upstarts that never arrives?”
“Sir?”
“Come off it Batty, you know I’m no bible-thumper but it’s pretty black and white: ‘man shall have dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the beasts of the land.’  Truths to build empire by Batty, truths to build empire by – and these rotters violate it every bloody moment they spend alive.”  I shook my head in disgust.  “Bloody dinosaur riders.  I need to clear my head again.  Wait half a moment.”

“Sir, if I may-”

I stepped free of gloom and ink and into the air again.  It was nearing now and the sun was vicious and barbed and so it took me a good ten seconds of squinting to see anything, from the lovely sapphire-blue sky to the jagged old ribcage of the valley to the single column of cavalry quietly creeping its way up the gully of the last legs of the pass towards the camp. 

Well, at least the mail was finally here.  Although there were an awful lot of them.  And those certainly weren’t OUR flags.  And they weren’t Frankness Foreign Soldieres.  And they were holding something that glittered in the sun – here I fished out my trusty binoculars, a gift from my youngest sister (god rest her soul!) – which, on inspection, looked to me like guns.  ‘Marshlock’ lever-actions.  Made in Veersch, sold anywhere else to anyone who shouldn’t have them, most particularly around here.  To the dinosaur riders.

The advent of the repeating rifle had been a real godsend for the little blighters, it was true. 

One looked up and made eye contact with me through my binoculars and waved.  I dropped them onto the rocks and ran into the tent, purest authority coursing through my veins.

“BATTY!  The ENEMY is HERE!  To ARMS, damn you, to ARMS!  Where oh where is my pangolpany?!  ARMOUR ME, you WRETCHED BEAST!”  I didn’t wait for him to respond, but began to ransack my quarters – oh mere minutes ago I had known where everything was, now it was a tangle as foreign to me as the depths of the sea by Shoresline.  “ARM me TOO!  Ah H—L, ah H—L, ah ****!”  I picked up my fork and then put it down and picked it up again.  “Where is my PANGOLPANY?”
“Sir!” said Batty. 

I looked up to find him keen and at the ready and holding out my lovely armoured coat to step into, scales fluttering in the breeze from epaulettes to knee-length tail.  I hurried into it in a rush, shrugging so frantically that I almost shaved my neck clean with the collar, and hurried to peer out of the tent again.  The enemy had not yet breached the crater’s rim; with speed and courage they would be bottled up in the narrow pass.  “Damn you, Batty,” I cried, “we may yet win this!  Now hand me my bees.”
“Sir!” said Batty, and I felt the long, cold wax-rubbed bore of my beestick in my right hand, which wasn’t shaking at all. 

“Alarm!” I shouted  to him.  “Get the horn, rouse the trumpeters, get the alarm!  I’ll hold them off!  I’ll do it!  For glory!  GO!”
Then I braced myself, rushed forwards to the rim, slowed a bit down strategically, dropped and crawled the last bit to avoid being picked off, gently stuck the tip of my beestick out into the air to see if anyone was looking, then peered over the edge.

Still there beneath me, moving quicker now but still quiet.  The fools thought they were as of yet undetected!  I closed my eyes for a split second to pray, popped them open, drew a beed on the lead rider, and pulled the trigger. 

A low, gluey ‘thump’ emerged from the barrel, but nothing else.  I pulled it again.  And again.  Glump, glump.  A fourth time I tried, ignoring all trigger discipline and squeezing the little lever like a disobedient boot, and this time the beestick emitted a belch and went silent entire. 

“Drat,” I said.  It was what my father said when I spilled tea on his desk, and it was the only thing that filled my head now.  That had been the worst thrashing of my life.  “Drat.”

My hands still weren’t shaking.  The beestick fell out of them anyways, which didn’t seem fair.  It was also getting difficult to talk and my mouth tasted like I’d been eating coins. 

“I’ll take that now,” said a stranger’s voice from somewhere behind me.  I’d have investigated this, but found myself rather stiff-necked.  Then hairy, winged hands took the beestick from me – dripping royal jelly from the barrel; what tom-fool had let THAT happen? – and I saw Batholomew and he spoke to me and it was quiet puzzling because he didn’t sound like Batty at all.  “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.  If you held down the trigger long enough something might actually come out.”

I squeaked something interrogatory.  He patted my arm gently and began to tug at the pangolpany’s sleeves.  “Best to take this off.  There isn’t MUCH contact oil on the inner collar, but you drank an awful lot of awfully special tea today – without so much as a bite of mutton to adulterate it, picky thing – and it’d be a shame to lose you to a runaway allergic reaction by now.  I put a lot of effort into you, Horace, and I don’t intend to throw it all away by mistake.” 

I was shucked clean of armour within the minute, which was also the amount of time needed for the first of the dinosaur riders to reach us atop the pass.  Her horse eyed me with wary impatience as she patted its neck with one scaly, feathered limb, balancing her ‘Marshlock’ atop her shoulders with the other.  “Well.  Glad to make your acquaintance in person, Colonel,” said the wretched up-jumped vermin.  “It IS the Colonel, isn’t it?  If you aren’t, tell him thanks for playing mailman; I think I’ve received more gossip-by-post in the last month than the dowager empress has since she attended her first ball.  And who’s this you brought with you?”

“I am indeed the Colonel,” said Batholomew.  “And this is ALSO a colonel of sorts: meet Horace Winsmoore-Handover, soon to be Duke Horace Winsmoore-Handover (if his father keeps drinking the way he was when I saw him last).  The third.”
“A lot of smoke for a little spark,” the insolent leering vermin said, peering at me like aunt Tabitha might examine an undusted mantelpiece.  “Did you get them all like this?”
“The officers are locked down tight, the conscripts are locked more mundanely in their barracks with the runs,” said Batholomew.  “They’ll be well enough to surrender and not much else, and frankly after the time they’ve had I think they’ll be glad of it.  You can probably get half of them to sign on within the month, within the week if you promise they’ll get to shoot their old commanders.  Not these ones, though.”

“What’re they good for then – boot fodder?” asked the terrifying inhuman vermin.  She reached out with the barrel of her weapon and poked my cheek and her teeth were inescapable due to my frozen eyelids. 

“No, no.  Nothing so particular.  Hostages.”
“Ah.  So we feed them while they sit around doing nothing.”
“I can personally assure you,” said Batholomew with the largest smile I had ever seen on his face, “that they have been very well trained for exactly this situation.”

“Well, at least they’re trained for SOMETHING,” she said.  And they laughed, laughed, laughed, and all I could think of as I stood there, eclipsing the anger and the fear and even the shame was that my nose was beginning to itch. 

Yes, nobody ever said war was going to be easy.  But it could at least have the d—ned decency to be straightforward. 

A tree fell in the forest.  It may or may not have made a sound.

What it DID make was an opportunity.  Bark-torn, xylem in shambles, phloem lost, roots demanding to know what made the pressure change, all of it wide-open for ground-level opportunism. 

And oh, the opportunism there was to be had!  Every arthropod with working limbs and a stout stock of haemoglobin fell upon it, or upon each other.  Woodlice roiled in their armoured columns; beetles teamed atop the fallen limbs, knives clutched betwixt their mandibles; great fat grubs were hatched and gnawed and devoured alive in the endless sturdy halls of the banquet of the tree’s corpse.  Caterpillars who had claimed leaves as their lofty private gardens desperately raced to outeat a horde of upstarts, monocles popping in outrage as they watched their green estates wither away at the hands of the dirtbound masses. 

But at last the frenzy subsided, the crowd calmed, the victors stood atop the log.  Though chance had played their part in the great struggle, at last destiny had declared a winner to rise alone in triumph in the center stage of this particular performance of history. 

“Victory!” cried the largest of the beetles, hoisting their banner in its tattered limbs.  “Through strength of carapace, situational flight, and indefatigable numbers, by virtue of our efforts we have CLAIMED this carcass for our people and our plump, wood-boring children!  Pay us tribute!”

Upon saying so, there came a quick cold wind from above, and behind that a beak, and behind that a bird, and when the bird departed so too did the beetle. 

Then came the woodpeckers. 

***

After the Time of Knocking was through, the ragged survivors reassembled for a meeting near the tree’s heartwood. 

“My friends and beetlefamily,” croaked the eldest of them, “we have endured much.  We have seen loved ones and children plucked screaming from their nests by tongues so long and gross as to defy all description.  But here at last we have gone too deep for even the mightiest pileated to penetrate.  Though we have all suffered, this is but the dark before the dawn.”

There was a brief crunching sound as the bear began to sink its claws into the wood and brace itself. 

“Well,” said the second-eldest beetle present.  “To hell with speeches anyhow.”

***

When the Time of Claws was through, and the Second Time of Knocking had reaped what little remained on the newly-exposed wooden core, and a few particular peckish possums had stopped by late one night and picked off most of the survivors in what was not a Time Of but was generally regarded as being a Time, the tree was a different place.  For one thing it had been torn asunder into several logs; for another, someone seemed to have eaten all the beetles.

“This was good luck,” said one woodlouse, who was now gnawing away quite happily on the humus and scum of the tree, its bark, and several dozen unlucky beetles.  “That could’ve been us.”

“This was smart timing,” retorted another woodlouse.  “We were letting the beetles think they had the run of the place on purpose, so they could get vertebrate’d, which any fool could see would happen.  We had everything under control the whole time.  Never let chance take credit for your own cleverness.”

“Nah, ‘twas Detrital Providence,” proclaimed a third woodlouse.  “We were MEANT to have this tree, and the beetles were always meant to be purged by blessed beak and consoling claw.  Lo, we are given that which we were always promised, and shall always be ours forever and ever, while our foes are assured eternal damnation and befoulment by horrid bone-bearing beasts in the hinterlands of the cramped corners of the furthest ends of the most despicable stretches of the earth.  Here we shall flourish for all time, ensconced in these hallowed halls free of shrews, spiders, and – may they never curse us with their foul presence – centipedes.”

“That sounds MUCH better,” said the second woodlouse. 
“Did you hear something?” asked the first.

“A whiny noncommittal jerk who won’t be a team player,” said the third woodlouse.  “Throw it off the log.”

“But I heard something,” complained the first woodlouse as it was dragged to the edge of the log, tiny legs flailing in abject pitifulness.  “It sounded like ‘drip drip-”

It plunged to the forest floor, where a shrew devoured it instantly.  The woodlice cheered at this, and such was the tumult and the joy of their celebration that they didn’t hear the drip, the dribble, the splash, or the flood. 

***

Some time later, the log was in the water. 

“This is a test,” the third woodlouse reminded its brethren.  “We are being purified and made wholesome so as to inhabit our new home.  Behold!  Already the water has washed away the centipedes and the doubters, and this strange ‘creek’ we float in is bereft of shrews!”

“And we shed the losers that didn’t get with the program,” said the second woodlouse.  “Dead weight’s gone, our enemies are suffering – this is all gravy if you ask me.”
“It washed away half of us,” said a different first woodlouse.  “That seems to be bad.”
“Cast the new whiny noncommittal jerk who won’t be a team player into the water,” commanded the third woodlouse.  And so the different first woodlouse was dragged to the edge of the log – more slowly this time, because there were fewer woodlice – and shoved down at great effort and expense until the waves took it, along with a gigantic grasping pincher-claw.

“Rejoice!” called the third woodlouse.  “For lo, the beasts of this new land obey our command!”
“What if they come up here?” panicked a new first woodlouse.

“It’s totally impossible for that to happeaaaaarghhhhhh,” said the second woodlouse, as a crayfish gently plucked it from the surface of the log and began to devour it.  For lo, this was not the case.

***

The Time of the Smaller Claws was one of great strife, of perilous revolutions and the upheaval of societal order.  For one thing, the woodlice were enserfed to the log, ordered to farm algae and so the crayfish might consume it consume it and also consume the woodlice.  For another, the log would very slowly and perilously revolve as the algae on its underside overgrew and the algae on its surfed was withered by the sun and grazed away, upheaving the order of society as the woodlice were driven like cattle to their new and soggy pasture while the crayfish scuttled to their new domains. 

“This is foreordained by the universe, probably,” the third woodlouse had admitted as he was devoured by a hungry crayfish.  “But in a good way.” And this had caught the attention of the crayfish as an amusing thought. 

“What nonsense,” it laughed at the next cocktail party it attended as the guests devoured plates of woodlice.  “The bigger people eat the smaller people, that’s just how it is.  Putting more words on it is just fancy-pants delusions.”

“Exactly.  Any fool can construct a complex series of tautological arguments insisting that the universe is meant to end with themselves in charge of everything; REAL smart people know that might makes right and they’re the mightiest ones so ipso facto quod era demonstratum lorem ipsum they’re meant to be in charge of everything.“

“Quite so.”
“To be sure.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“On a totally different topic, has anyone found the water to taste saltier and fouler recently?”
“Your tastebuds are acting up.  Must have not eaten enough woodlice, get some more in there.”

“No, no, it HAS been getting saltier the farther we drift.  Maybe we should consider beaching the log, or even pushing it farther upstream.”
“Boring killjoy.  We’d have to stop rotating it with woodlouse farming to do that; come up with a more conveniently solvable problem and we’ll listen to you.”

***

The time that followed the passing out of the estuary into the Big Big Blue Horizon had no title because it very rapidly ran short of enough inhabitants to form a quorum on matters of history, ending with a woodlouse sitting atop the brilliantly-shining salt-speckled hull of the log, wide eyed and terrified at everything. 

“This seemed avoidable,” it mumbled.  It gummed fruitlessly at some of the little sticky bits gluing themselves to the wood, ingested salt, and passed away.

A gull sampled it, in the optimistic way of gulls.  The few clinging speckles of barnacles-to-be were less appetizing, and so it left them and the log and forgot about them. 

***

There was a lot to consider.  In order, and with care.

First, there was all the recent salt-scarring of the log.  Recent.  It hadn’t always been in its current environment.  Intriguing.  This was wildly interesting to initial studies and many barnacles had written fascinating papers on it. 

Second, oddly widespread scarring from intense sludge-and-chew algal farming.  Someone had been monoculturing its surface for nutrition. The precise circumstances surrounding this were controversial and mysterious and many barnacles had spent their careers gambling away their reputations with carefully-calculated libelous assaults over it.   

Third, a dry core towards the interior, one that was becoming more waterlogged.  The log was becoming more sodden and less seaworthy. One day, it would sink.  This implied the end of near-surface barnacles, which divided the barnacles further into those that talked about this too much and those that didn’t. 

There would be more of consequence to this, but at the last moment where the last barnacle watched as the last bit of light slid away overhead and it sank below its comfortably-habitable depth range headed for the deepest abysses the planet could offer, it couldn’t think of any. 

But it considered what the last woodlouse and the last crayfish and the last beetles may have felt, or other, more speculative creatures, which made it feel less like the last and more like one in the company of others.  So that was nice. 

***

The log itself had no known opinions after falling.  Nobody was there to listen. 

It was a bright, crisp morning with the sun’s rays not yet begun to burn the dewdrops when Yolgyi took up her pack and ventured forth to see the dinosaur wizard.

It was best to leave early.  The road was long, and the meteor was due at noon.

***

Down from the uplands through the mist-shrouded redwoods and the tumbled grey stone went Yolgyi, plucking insects and berries and a particularly slow and fat little furry thing for her breakfast.  Out into the wide green meadows she went, chewing and nippy at juicy young shoots yet to grow hardened and horned with cellulose, sipping quickly and furtively from a small pond she strained through a little slip of fern-woven cloth.  Down to the sea, the sea, the great shallow sea that roiled over sunken squashed sullen continental crust and split the continent from groin to gullet, where she dropped her pack by a tangle of innocuous driftwood and seaweed, put together a fine and functional raft in no time at all, and set out, propelled by a paddle from her pack and a good solid meal. 

Towards the single island in sight from this little inlet on this small stretch of coast, towards the single landmark that rose from the modest hill that broke a scant copse of trees.  Towards the  tower of the dinosaur wizard. 

The waves were slight, for it was a pleasant day and the breeze small and more concerned with preventing heat rather than inflicting chill.  Yolgyi concerned herself with other things than seamanship.  Speed, spawned from the smoothness and force of a stroke.  Efficiency, from the angle and shape of that same stroke.  Stealth, from hurling oneself flat onto the raft and cowering beneath the web of beach-sludge she had brought along for just that purpose until an eye attached to a wing attached to a beak longer than her body moved on.  Silence, from shipping her paddle and barely moving enough to breathe until a shadow with flippers wider than her raft grew bored of nudging it with its snout.

By such means and methods did Yolgyi travel until the correct kind of corals spun by underneath her raft and she threw herself into headless frenzy, whaling away on her paddle until she leapt from stone to stone to shore and hit the soft sandy beach already running in midair, sprinting through the little salt-sprayed cycads that whispered warnings she ignored, dancing from foot to foot through the obsidian shards planted in the sand that droned of deep and profound pains to befall trespassers, and up to the very door of the tower, where she redoubled her speed and began to hum and sing and whistle in such a way that the very loud and horrible spell that was meant to instantly decapitate intruders instead clipped her pack free from her back just as she jumped, hurling both it and herself through the gate of the tower just as it slammed shut behind her. 

There, Yolgyi permitted herself a breath, and then another, and a third.  But she rummaged in her severed backpack for her tools while she did it, because it was not far until noon, and the tower of the dinosaur wizard stretched far above and below her, formed from a ring of three mighty gingko that had been induced to cleave together into one titanic hollowed spiral with a central space that plunged deep into the roots below as far as it soared up to the crown above. 

Great and mighty glyphscapes flowed over the walls of corals, of shells, of teeth – all taken from the tides and used to render down the concrete reality of a global ecology into a representation simple enough to be conceptualized and true enough to crack the door of reality a little wider than it normally rested.  Every cracked ammonite whorl; every broken Xiphactinus tooth; every desiccated and windstripped bird carcass; every shark egg case; every mammal skull; every sliver of bark and dab of algae and wave-tossed pebble; each and every one standing for so much more than they were and all the implication of all that had made them and would make more.  All of them and all of that all fit just precisely so that it might fit just precisely right. 

Yolgyi set her eyes on the most beautifully and sublimely perfect of the pieces, the fragments that most eloquently suggested and supported the whole, and began to assail them with her small and crude but very sturdy pick.   In this matter she worked her way up the slow and winding path of branches towards the tower’s apex.  She ran and searched and with every fifth step and every second dart of her eyes she skipped closer to the wall and SWUNG and an irreplaceable and unfathomable segment of the world would go crunch. 

The sun was almost overhead, singing down through the crown of the tower.  Yolgyi ran faster and swung harder. Some of the swings of her pick went crack or chip or clank rather than crunch.  It’d have to be good enough.  Her lungs were on fire and her legs were swamps of lactic misery.  It’d have to be good enough. 

And then she burst through into full sunlight.

Above her was the noonday sun, which made her squint.  Above her was a great shadow, which made her snarl.  And above that, between her and the sunlight, towering and fiercely indifferent, stood the dinosaur wizard. 

The dinosaur wizard was fifty feet long and over a dozen feet tall and had a big solemnly duck-faced skull filled with dental batteries composed of hundreds of tiny little teeth that could grind the most stubborn plant matter down to mere calories and a long hand-gnawed staff clutched between their forelegs absolutely crawling with hidden mysteries.  They were singing.  The song was audible everywhere, but it was only this close that you could tell it was happening, feel it as it shook its way into your bones and sunk down into your molecules and took every atom gently into its grasp and settled there, turning itself into connective tissue between Everything and Everywhere and Everywhen. 

Yolgyi hurled her pick at the dinosaur wizard’s nearest foot, which didn’t go crunch or crack or chip or clank or even thud really, just thump.  But she did this because she was getting a good solid grip on her blade.  And while she did that she ran even faster, and while she did that she leapt still higher, and with all her speed and her weight and her force and her fury she came down blade-first on the left hindfoot of the dinosaur wizard and sunk it hilt-deep in their flesh. 

The song didn’t change. 

“Fuck,” said Yolgyi without much heat.  And above them both was the meteor, a glimmer barely calculable, and it came down in all its speed and violence and met the song and

***

It was dark out, too early for even the most bright-eyed of the morning chorus to be up and singing.  But Yolgyi was awake, and she was thinking.  And as she thought she filled her pack; tightened it here, loosened it there.  She sharpened her blade; filed it down here, serrated it there.  She planned and replanned the exact motions she would make to lash seaweed and driftwood; to deface spell and destroy shell.  She thought of bone and sinew and muscle and where and how to cut.  And when the last of the night’s predators had slunk to their sleep and passed by the entrance to the tumbledown rockheap of her home, when it was a bright, crisp morning with the sun’s rays not yet begun to burn the dewdrops, Yolgyi took up her pack and ventured forth to see the dinosaur wizard.

This time she drank too long at the pool and was eaten by an alligator.

***

Paddled too swiftly and was devoured by a mosasaur. 

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Tripped on one of the obsidian shards and was blasted out of time by its outraged cries. 

***

Slipped on the edge of the tower and fell off.

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Stabbed the dinosaur wizard and didn’t stop them.

***

Didn’t bother to get up.  Yolgyi let herself do that every once in a while.  At first she’d lied to herself, told herself it was to go over her plan from first principles and make large changes. 

Now she admitted the truth.  She did this because now and then she wanted some sleep. 

She couldn’t.  The song was in her bones, the same as it was in everything else, and she couldn’t hear it and that made it so she couldn’t ignore it.  So she laid in bed all morning coiled and tired and restless and counting down the seconds until noon with the precision of a revolving planet until it was dark out again and she was still awake.

***

Tried to leave before sunup and was caught and eaten. 

***

Tried to leave before sunup and was caught and eaten.

***

Tried to raft before sunup and became lost in the dark, hit a reef, and was eaten by a shark. 

***

Tried to leave before sunup and was caught and eaten.

***

Tried to raft before sunup and became lost in the dark, drifted out to sea, and ran out of time. 

***

Stepped on an obsidian shard in the hazy dawn-light and was blasted out of time by its enraged cries. 

***

It had been a long time since Yolgyi had felt that little stir of something changing.  Maybe since she’d first gotten really reliably good at making the raft?  Or since she’d properly mastered how many calories she needed to move as quick as she had to, down to the mouthful. 

She’d have to redo that part too now.  She was in the tower and she had time to spare.  She could take her time wrecking things.  She could try to see how much more damage she could do to the song from down here.  She could try to see how much more damage she could do to the dinosaur wizard from up there. 

***

The

***

Answer

***

Was

***

Not

***

Enough

***

After Yolgyi found that out, she slept in again. This time she actually slept, too.  For how long she wasn’t certain at all.  It wasn’t a worthwhile concept right then. 

When she woke up, she left her pack and ventured forth to see the dinosaur wizard. 

Crept through the terrors of the night.

Ate what she needed for energy.

Built the raft she needed to cross the waves.

Walked up the beach slowly, steering far and away clear of each and every obsidian shard. 

Ducked and rolled under the trapped gate.

And climbed the tower slowly, so slowly, tracing the pattern of the world with her eyes and her touch. 

Until at last Yolgyi stood under the nigh-noon sun, in the shadow of the dinosaur wizard, and she asked: “What’s the point?”
“To buy time,” said the dinosaur wizard’s staff. 

“I didn’t ask you, stick.”
“My master’s voice is busy singing the song that keeps this world from its grave,” said the dinosaur wizard’s staff in the smug voice of a stick that knew it was being obstructive. “I speak for them in all ways and meanings intelligible to the unwizardly.”
“Then I ask them: buying time for what?”

“For the other great wizards, of course.  As we twist on the gyre of the universe by my master’s voice, they may learn and think and plan and secure a more permanent future.”

“And what if they can’t?”
“They are great wizards and you aren’t,” said the staff.  “Of course they shall.”

“And they’ll do this and tell your master before they undo it all again?”
“Of course they shall.”
“And they haven’t done it by now for very good reasons?”
“Of course they haven’t.”
“And you’re certain they’ll fix things soon?”
“Of course they will.  A mere meteor is nothing before the assembled strength of all of dinosaur wizardkind.”
“Did one of you bring it here?”
“Of course not,” said the staff indignantly.

“Do you know who did it?”
“Probably that fuck-o from Appalachia, he’s always been too into celestial mechanics for his own good and he’s pretty bad at cosmathematics.  Anyways, it’ll be easy to fix this.  My master has given us all the time in the universe to work with.”

“Your master,” said Yolgyi, “has given me enough time to travel down to the coast, sail over here on a raft, and try to kill them.  If I rush.  This is a very simple thing to do compared to what you’re saying your master’s peers are trying to do.  If they’re trying to do it.”

“Pish posh,’ said the staff.  “Leave matters of wizardry to the wizards and go back to whatever it is you do.  Play with rocks or something.”
The meteor fell.  The song rose.  And it was dark out.

Yolgyi stared into the dark, took the fern cloth out of her pack, and began to unravel and reweave it. 

***

She spent

***

A long time

***

Practicing it

***

Then when she got to the island, it took

***

A few tries

***

To get the swing of

***

It

***

But at last she walked carefully, so very carefully, all the way up the tower, tiptoeing, tiptoeing, net slung over her shoulder, as the song began to hum all with itself in her bones and in her brains.  And as she stepped up onto the crown of the tower with the sun almost right overhead, she felt the contents of her net begin to sing and cry and grumble along with it, such that the eyes of the dinosaur wizard widened and it spun – slowly, haltingly, like a twisting, toppling tree – to face her, staff raised. 

“What are you DOING?!” demanded the staff.

“Playing with rocks,” said Yolgyi.  And she spun the net above her head and hurled it spinning wide, sending a load of very loud and angry obsidian shards hurtling directly at the dinosaur wizard’s face.

There was a brief, complicated moment where a being that had all the time in the universe tried to decide between being blasted out of time and interrupting the song they were singing.  They had to think quickly.

This did not happen. 

The song fell.  And a second or two later, so did the meteor. 

***

It was dark out in the south, and growing darker fast.  Huge clouds of smoke and ash and vapour roiling up at speeds too quick to look like anything but slower than molasses.  The world was on fire or about to burn. 

Yolgyi stopped picking the last few fragments of obsidian and dinosaur wizard bone out of her side and sat down for a rest.  And insofar as she had the energy to think of anything at all, as the meteor’s spray raced forwards towards the tower, it was this:

If anybody lives through this, they’d better not be dumb enough to think wizards are a good idea. 

The Pit of the Deceivers

Robin Mooch

This rotten edifice was once drafted to serve as the foundation of a great and stately tower to praise the glory of the Blessed Truth.  Yet tragedy struck when cultists and depraved scum amongst the architects blended cursed and unholy ointments into the mortar.  After standing gloriously for exactly three semesters months the entire rotten edifice came crashing down, becoming a ruin shunned by all sane folk.  But whispers speak in the city slums of darker things remaining amongst the rubble, for the wicked have plans that run far deeper than merely destroying their adversaries.  Two to six brave adventures must plumb the depths of the foundations of what was once the Tower of Intellect, rendered now….The Pit of the Deceivers.

1: Entry to Hades

Broken mortar and scattered stone, nothing of value or import left amidst the lingering bitterness of betrayal.  The tower is still almost visible in the sky if you shut your eyes and imagine what could have been.  The air is cold and moist, like the tongues of the liars who brought it down.  You stand on the precipice of something.  Dare you take the next step?

The illusion of pointlessness is only skin-deep: a careful search with even moderate attentiveness will peel loose this first of the many pathetic lies shielding the Pit’s masterminds from justice – a trapdoor hidden behind a stack of fouled and rotten sacks of potatoes in what was meant to be the root cellar.  No roll necessary; these parasitic and fawning mockeries never dreamed keen eyes or stout mind would search for them, trusting in the need of their noble adversaries to trust them.  No longer!

Inhabitants:

Treasure: A lost holy symbol of the Tower of Intellect has avoided capture or defilement, having fallen into one of the abandoned water barrels, where it shines like a lost coin in a gutter.  It will Embless the party during their mission as a 50^th-level Holy One.  Its material value is 50 gold, its ideological value is priceless.

2: Descent into Lies

The maddening spiral of this stairway stretches to depths unfathomable, and every inch of it is a slow but suffocating insult to the senses.  The stone beneath your feet is fouled and slippery as no honest rock should be; the air which should be clean and wholesome is rank and slimy in your lungs; the light flickering from the torches is greasy and only deepens the shadows.  From somewhere you hear a whisper of a monotonous and nasal chant. 

This stairwell is testament to the hubris and folly of its builders: for all its grotesque pretensions to grandeur, it is but a few scant shallow stories in depth – the rest is but the work of architectural smoke and mirrors, an optical illusion creating the appearance of endless evil where rests a rather humdrum and typical squalid hole.  So too typical is the waiting ambush; several cultists of the Scum Sucker are skulking in the alcoves holding torches, posing as the crude statuettes that otherwise fulfill this role.  They are clumsy and fearful of the righteous; this ambush suffers a -5 penalty; -10 if the holy symbol from Area 1 is present. 

Inhabitants: 10 Scum Sucker cultists (LVL 1; 3HITS; 1ATK; 2DAM, SPEC: Rotten wounds: when a cultist dies they vomit bile as an extra 1DAM Rot attack).  These pitiful creatures will fight to the death; not out of bravery, but out of the sheer inability to comprehend that they may be outmatched.  If panic gets the better of them one or two might cast themselves down the shaft in stupid terror, thereby destroying their own illusion.  Thus is evil ever undone and deceit unmasked. 

Treasure: None.  The cultists are penniless due to their own perfidious and pernicious sloth. 

3: Chambers of Ingratitude

This foul-smelling and cramped dormitory clearly serves as domicile for the cultists you so recently slew.  A twisted and sloppily constructed idol to the Scum Sucker dominates what little floor space is available – the mindless idiots, in their haste to raise praise to this putrid being, have witlessly ceded the only available patch of floor space they could have used for anything productive. 

The cultists’s bedsheets are repositories of fleas and nits; any foolish search for something of value in the possessions of these wretches will find naught but a chance at contracting Scum Scabies (33RISK; 1DAY).  The Idol of the Scum Sucker is, for all its putridity, powerless to do anything to impede the stout and good-hearted. 

Inhabitants: None.

Treasure: The Idol of the Scum Sucker is utterly worthless and the party should be punished with ill-fortune by the grace of the divine should they attempt to carry it with them.  If the holy symbol from Area 1 is present it will dissolve the Idol into foul-smelling mucus instantly. 

4: Apse of Treason

A gnarled and crooked little domed chamber houses what little pathetic pretense of knowledge and learning this festering slime-trap can muster: a single shelf, filled with reams of snot-encrusted and pus-smeared papers.  This must the cult’s record-keeping section, where they kept all the records of their sabotage, backroom dealing, and terrible slanders against the wonders of the Tower of Intellect. 

The cultist’s attempts at hiding their lies are as transparent as daylight to any player examining these records.  Bringing these texts to the authorities will doubtlessly lead to the wheels of justice coming down with great and holy force upon any straggling supporters who remain in the rest of the city. 

Inhabitants: None.  The cultists are all illiterate, fumbling morons who don’t even know how to employ capitalization properly, let alone spell.  The sight of this room – necessary though it is for their foul work – pains them. 

Treasure: Bringing the texts to the attention of authority will surely garner the party commendations and raise their esteem in the eyes of all. 

5: Labyrinth of Hate

The stonework – already of meager, barely-serviceable quality – here degrades into rough and clumsy scratching on raw and untrammeled stone; a cavern clawed loose from the rock without even the beneficial caress of water’s flow.  A maze of twisty little passages seemingly surround you, all alike.  Keep your wits steady and your blade ready. 

This pitiful attempt at a ward is a true labyrinth indeed; all the party need do is follow the single winding path and their escape shall be guaranteed, so long as they can defeat the Scum Slave chained to the exit. 

Inhabitants: 1 Scum Slave (LVL 3; 15HITS; 2ATK; 7DAM, SPEC: Chained, the Scum Slave cannot move from its position and can only spit for 1ATK 1DAM against any foe beyond its reach).  This pathetic thing is meant to be the cultists’ superweapon.  Do they not realize their own incompetence foils their every ploy?  Of course not. 

Treasure: The Scum Slave has swallowed a bejewelled ring if the party can bring themselves to cut open its rotten belly.  It is worth 40 gold. 

6: Road to Damnation

This is like the first staircase the party encountered but smaller.

It’s probably less impressive too now that they know the trick behind it. 

Inhabitants: None.

Treasure: None.

7: Chamber of Lies

Within this dark place, the nadir of this antithesis to the once-glorious Tower, foul vapours congeal and mist from a noxious pit in the floor that plumbs the depths of the world and intrudes into a place far more sinister.  Above it, foolishly believing themselves its masters, two robed figures lower their clasped hands and pause in their unceasing, monotonous, idiotic chanting.  The Twin Deceivers unsheathe their wicked, backstabbing daggers and prepare for a battle their cowardly hearts suspect they cannot win. 

These two utter bastards oversaw the overturning of the overarching rules and overall guiding principles of the Tower of Intellect and would gladly have turned it into a rotting hive venerating the wretched Scum Sucker – blessed be that their own incompetence achieved nothing but its ruin!  They even now whine and entreat their dark master to return.  Enact great and terrible vengeance upon them!

Inhabitants: Foul Sorcerer Sammael (LVL 3; 10HITS; 1ATK; 5DAM, SPEC: Spellcasting: 2rot missile, 1foul stench).  and Fiend Scholar Paeiet (LVL 3; 8HITS; 2ATK; 2DAM, SPEC: Spellcasting: 2deceitful whispers, 1screech), the ringleaders of this wretched coven who turned all others to blasphemous worship of the Scum Sucker.  They will fight with vicious cowardice to the death while begging for mercy they do not deserve and will never get. 

Treasure: Nothing they own is worth anything.  Setting their belongings on fire will cause a pure diamond worth 100 gold to form in the pockets of all party members with a tiny ‘ding’ of pure sweetness and light. 

8: The Pit of Deceit

Behold!  The great antithesis in its rotting flesh!  The Scum Sucker’s loathsome maw roils hungrily at you from the great pit, gnashing with spite that it hasn’t received the feast that it was promised!  Stand fast!

To defeat the Scum Sucker, all the party need do is close the hole by clogging it with any of the loose objects lying around, preferably including the bodies of Sam and Pat. 

Inhabitants: Sandii the Scum Sucker (LVL 10; 0HITS; 0ATK; 0DAM, SPEC: Otherworldly, the Scum Sucker cannot intercede without a potent mortal intermediary and is powerless to touch the physical plane)

Treasure: Upon defeating the Scum Sucker and closing the Pit of Deceit the party will return in triumph to the Principal of the city and be granted Monitorship of all byways and the adulation and admiration of all worthy folk. 

***

The Festering Cavern

Sam Bolth

There is a very large cave outside of town, everyone knows that and it’s a cool place to hang out sometimes.  It’s got a big gross monster inside it, everyone knows that, they let it be and have its space.  Until recently, all of this wasn’t a problem.  Now the monster’s crawled out across the countryside screaming and farting all night.  You’ve been hired to go in and make it stop. 

1: The Holeway

The cavern’s mouth is wide and damp and smells bad.  Inside you can hear a distant whining. 

Some of the ooze dangling from the ceiling is acidic glue; anyone taller than a dwarve will run into it if they aren’t careful. 

Inhabitants: 2 Acidic Glue (LVL 2; 20HITS; 1ATK; 8DAM, SPEC: Flammable, weak 2fire). 

Treasure: the Festerer regurgitated a big smelly pellet from last night’s meal just outside the cavern mouth.  Anyone poking through it will find a ‘best runner-up’ trophy from last year’s Minidungeon Round-Robin, worth 5 gold.  

2: Main Sludgepit

The cave combines limestone walls and a filth-covered floor with a rotten and root-riddled ceiling that’s about to cave in.  Whatever lives here doesn’t pay much attention to its surroundings. 

The center of the sludgepit will suck in anyone who walks through it without checking (Dwarve and alf players will sense the uneven flooring just before they get too close; so will woodwisers).  Six scavenging Big Teeth are hiding on the ceiling by holding onto the roots.

Inhabitants: 6 Big Teeth (LVL 1; 3HITS; 3ATK; 1DAM, SPEC: Gnawing, if one ATK hits the next hits automatically)

Treasure: The largest Big Teeth has a ruby caught in its incisors worth 50 gold.

3: Rear Sludgepits

Farther in the cavern splits apart into three deep alcoves.  All of them are filled with loose garbage and bones.

The first sludgepit is filled with skeletons and nothing else.  The second sludgepit is filled with a skeletonne formed from a cow, two deer, and three humans.  The third sludgepit is shallow and leads to Area 4. 

Inhabitants: 1 Skeletonne (LVL 3; 12HITS; 4ATK; 2DAM, SPEC: Splinter, whenever it loses 3 hp create a copy of this monster with 3 less hp)

Treasure: The deer were both trophy bucks and their antler racks are worth 10 gold each. 

4: Narrow Passages

This tunnel is dark and cramped and pretty hard to get through and it’s almost like whatever made it doesn’t want any company.

The roots in the walls will try to grab you (2ATK) and deal 2DAM after seizing hold.  Attacking them with rot, fire, or bladed weapons will stop them immediately; blunt weapons, light, or cold will take longer and they’ll deal 1DAM before backing off.

Inhabitants: None.

Treasure: None.

5: The Festering Cavern

This is the worst-smelling place you’ve ever seen and it’s because of the big gross monster squatting in the center of it.  It looks like a flightless robin the size of a truck and it’s still whining even as it jumps at you. 

Boss fight.  If you bring it to half health it tries to escape, but it’ll panic and get stuck in the roots in Area 4 and you can finish it off pretty easily. 

Inhabitants: 1 Festering Robin  (LVL 5; 22HITS; 1ATK; 7DAM, SPEC: Thin Skin, weak 3all)

Treasure: Everyone thanks you for getting rid of a greedy asshole who was driving people away and trying to turn a perfectly good hangout spot into his private shithole. 

***

The Silent Pool

Pat Garvey

Imagine a place devoid of sound.  Devoid of light.  Devoid of time.  A place neither hot nor cold.  An endless, tranquil pool where you can sink forever without the need to break the surface for breathe.  It sounds amazing, and you’re here to find it, somewhere higher up this peaceful enchanted hillside of Tumbled Peak.

1: Soft Slopes

These green and mossy stones welcome you to the mist-enshrouded base of the tranquil rise in terrain.  What awaits you?

Although the moss looks slick, it’s perfectly safe and stable underfoot as long as you don’t jump around a lot like an asshole. 

Inhabitants: None. 

Treasure: Peace of mind. 

2: Fae Copse

Halfway to the summit a small village comes into view, woven into the small local trees and the stone of the ground, moss-shrouded and fern-draped. Who lives there?

The alfs, dwarves, and nomes of this town are shy but very friendly and will be nothing but friendly and nice to anyone visiting as long as you don’t start accusing them all of backstabbing you like an asshole. 

Inhabitants: Like ten good friends. 

Treasure: Camaraderie. 

3: The Silent Pool

Atop the worn and weathered warm-edged stone of Tumbled Peak lies the pool.  But someone has made it here before you – sitting in it is a small and stalwart figure.  You know them.  Where from?

Gee I don’t know maybe from before the society’s membership went from seventeen to three huh?

Inhabitants: Your best friend Sandy who really did not deserve any of the shit that went down and is here to have a goddamned break with you half an hour after you turn in this stupid fucking submission. 

Treasure: The peace of mind that comes from splitting a joint half an hour after saying PS I Quit Fucko

PS: I quit, Fucko. 

PPS: ‘Fucko’ is you, Robin.

In the Dark Lord’s tomb

There was a sarcophagus

And a blade with runes

And a tapestry of…

The victorious clash of Nine Dooms

And there were three magic rings seized from elven kings

And two jeweled skulls

And a pair of crystal balls

And a demonic tome

And a rat’s bones

And a lock on a door guarding trophies from war

And a quiet careful tomb robber whispering “score”

Farewell tomb

Farewell Dooms

Farewell tapestry of Nine Dooms

Farewell night and the blade with runes

Farewell rings

Farewell kings

Farewell skulls

And farewell balls

Farewell gold

And farewell cold

Farewell tome

And farewell rat bones

Farewell lock

And farewell door

Farewell trophies

Farewell war

And farewell to the quiet careful tomb robber whispering “score”

Farewell spiders

Farewell Dark

Farewell ‘til doomsday’s mark

I’m very flattered to be here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to talk to people about my work, but career day? An immense honour, thank you so very much. Wonderful to be here, wonderful to be here.

Okay. So what I do is I drive the plow. You’ve all probably seen it; you’ve DEFINITELY all heard it, and I drive it and make sure the roads stay clear of obstacles. In the winter I plow the snowfall, in the fall I plow the leaf drifts by the park, the rest of the year I plow the weasels.

Is it dangerous? You bet, but it’s not the exciting kind of danger. It’s the kind that’s dangerous because it’s a LITTLE bit dangerous, and it’s very very very boring and easy to forget about the little bit that’s dangerous. You can do all kinds of things to make that little bit of danger go wrong if you’re not paying attention. Maybe you slid around a corner without braking as hard as you could’ve, but there’s black ice there this time. Maybe you don’t clear enough leaves out of awkward places and they make something jam up in the engine. Maybe you don’t put on your helmet properly because there’s like six buckles and the cabin’s sealed anyways, and then a weasel gets in through the air vent.

Yes, that last one really did happen. Lucky I’m fast with the buckles. No scars – not from that, at least.

The pay’s good. The hours are long, but steady. You probably won’t write books about your career, but you’ll never starve. And as long as you remember to pay attention, you won’t be surprised.

No, they can’t get through the suit. It’s Kevlar. Hot as hell in summer but very livable. There’s too many buckles, but they’re very sturdy and seal well.

No, the plow doesn’t hurt them – it’s just blunt trauma and crushing force, nothing fancy, it rolls them around and sometimes forces mitosis. Mostly it makes them angry.

Right, that’s the bell, my time is up. Remember: just because something’s boring doesn’t mean it isn’t important. That’s about a lot more than just my job, too.

Thank you.

***

Sorry, sorry, my bad, didn’t mean to be so late, ahahaha JESUS it’s been a MORNING let me tell you.

Right! So. I work at the library. What’s that about? Well, the obvious answer is books – yes, you’re right, you’re right, you’re not WRONG… but what’s an even better way to put it is ‘information.’ We store information that’s in books, and we store information that’s not in books, and we store the information of where and how to find all of that stored information. What you could call ‘metadata,’ except unlike advertisers we use it to help you instead of throwing unavoidable barriers between you and convenience!

So. Most of what I do is keeping track of things. Where the books are, what the books are doing, when they’ll be back, when we need to change the mustelid filters on the air circulatory system…

Air quality control is very important in a library. Paper likes specific temperatures and ranges of humidity, and it dislikes others very much, and there’s so many different KINDS of paper. So we have to put a lot of money and time into maintenance and management of our climate control, and an equal amount of the same into protecting it from unexpected weasels. Lots and lots of fine advanced-material mesh; a host of slow-release chemical deterrents (scent and abrasive); some fairly byzantine architecture… in military terms they call this ‘defense in depth.’ We have a ton – let me emphasize this: a TON – of security layers between the public and all of this, so that even if anything leaks through it’ll never come near the public, and if it does come near the public it’ll be confined in the most remote stacks, and we have panic room doors on the children’s section. So you all don’t have to worry. At all.

Oh, do we have guns? No! No. God no. Those wouldn’t do anything. Don’t you pay attention in your history classes? We do still teach local history, don’t we? What are you all, twelve? Ten? You should know this, oh FINE I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. Sorry for being late. Read more books, they’re portals to the world of imagination. Bye.

***

Hello. I am happy to be here at this career day. I am the head fireman. I am trained to both destroy and deploy fire, to extinguish loose flames and to create firebreaks in the event of an intruding wildfire or a brewing spring-tide weaselstorm. This is a very difficult job and if you do it properly you will do very little except prepare for the moment when you need to do too much, too fast, all at once. And when that happens, you will need to be ready for it. Failure can mean losing a block to a fire, or everything west of the river to a Weasel-King. You are not old enough to remember that happening, but it is how I got this job. My predecessor stepped down because a single decision she made led to that. It was a reasonable decision. Maybe I would have made it too. Maybe not. All I can do is hope to avoid it in the future.

This career is physical demanding, mentally taxing, emotionally draining, and essential to community safety. This concludes my remarks. Thank you.

***

Hello there! My name’s Under-Magister George Tranh, and I’m part of the Brewer’s Valley branch association of the Art Arcane.

Yes, although ‘wizard’ is not actually a title, everyone knows you’re talking about us when you say it! We do a lot more than just wizardry, however – besides things like fireballs and making voices come out of doors and rocks, we also do a lot of community projects! For instance, we coordinate the autumn colours on the trees; make sure the lake freezes over for safe ice fishing, make sure the river DOESN’T freeze over so anything west of the river can’t cross over and say hello, and help with the fireworks. Although I guess that’s sort of fireball-adjacent, really.

No, we can’t enchant the buildings to keep them out.

Yep, we do birthday parties, but only big ones – national holidays, famous historical figures, and so on. If we showed up at everyone’s birthdays all year we’d have no time to make them really special, and that’s what we like doing. Remember five years back when we made that rotten statue in the park climb off its plinth and walk into the lake? That took a few weeks to brew up and plan; you can’t just wave your hand and expect things to happen like magic.

No, it’s actually pretty easy to qualify. You just take apprenticeship volunteer hours in high school; you could all try that as soon as next year. Honestly you could probably get your parents to ask ahead of time right tonight once you’re home safe; we never have enough hands to get all the work done.
No, we can’t get rid of them.

I’m sorry, but we really can’t do anything about them. It’s the law. I’m not fooling around here! Ask your parents! Heck, ever since Christmas ’67 when a fit of the holiday spirit led ol’ Arch-Magister Tobias ‘Mumbles’ MacGrooder to attempt a townwide enchantment of Grastor’s Multitudinous Wassail, it’s been firmly established in the county law that no practitioner of the Art Arcane may so much as mention by name – let alone interact – with any member of the mustelid family. And I’m sorry guys, I love Captain Moore as much as any of you do, I admire all the work she does in keeping the traffic laws enforced and the houses secured from angry furry slinkies, but I don’t want her to take me to jail for saying the w-word.

No, not ‘wassail.’

No, not ‘what.’

No, not ‘whale.’ Look guys, you’re not going to get me to say it, let’s move on.

Yeah, we help with the animal sanctuary. Keep the mice out of the bins; keep the ice from freezing over the water buckets. And yes, that’s the sort of thing we’ll usually get apprentices started on. It’s fun work and there’s animals involved.

Nope, just regular animals. Moving on.

No, we can’t just call them ‘ferrets’ or ‘stoats.’ First, those are different animals; and second and more importantly if there’s one thing you learn in this business it’s that trying to argue your way around technical definitions of words ends poorly – the Art Arcane, just like anyone else, absolutely HATES weaselsoh goddamnit don’t tell don’t tell DON’T