Alone, Goor the Undubbed thought, alone again.
He did not stay in the ruins and he did not ascend to meet with the conjurer. He returned to his tripede and began to make his way home. On multiple occasions, he slipped off his mount and landed on his face. He struggled many times to get back on the tripede without it running away from him. What was once muscle memory became a skill that he had to relearn or else risk stranding himself in the midst of a flat world with no means of return. He spent the rest of his journey hugging his tripede’s back, his legs wrapped around its stomach.
Goor spent the proceeding stretch of time lost and bewildered. He had taken one erroneous detour after another until he found himself in places he did not recognize. He spent many nights in thick forests and caves awake while the tripede stared at him. He did not want to turn his back to it. As he traversed the lonely circular plains, he realized that his only tool for navigation was his rune. At certain points, it pulsated and he made it his mission to proceed to the direction where it continued to pulsate. Eventually, he was led to a nameless village where an old inn resided. His rune danced quicker in his palm as he reached its door. Stationed next to it was an elderly couple, both their faces sagged.
“Oh Wilfred,” the old lady said, “the locksmith is here!”
“What?” the old man said, “I have not summoned anyone yet.”
Goor approached them.
“Are you the locksmith?” she asked Goor.
“Please let him be,” her husband said, “He is a vagrant. Pretend you did not see him.”
“Then where is the locksmith?”
“I have yet to call him.”
“Then do it, dear.”
Without acknowledging Goor further, the old man brought out a massive winged hawk, three times his size, an envelope clamped in its mouth. It was a fattened envelope with what could be seen as a cluster of coins pooling at its bottom. It took flight. Sensing the opportunity, Goor leapt from his tripede and immediately grabbed onto one of the hawk’s talons as it departed from the earth. His tripede galloped in the flying creature’s direction. The two innkeepers remained where they were. They decided to sleep outside to wait for their locksmith.
Goor held onto the bird as it zipped across the ocean, locking eyes with his speeding reflection, warped by passing rows of churning waves. He turned his head upward to find the massive wingspan of the creature shielding him from the hot sun, only allowing a thin streak of golden sunlight to accentuate the outline of its feathers. At such a height among such a windless sky, Goor noted how it flapped its wings with such ferocity that it was practically generating its own momentum from the sheer impact of its trail of air blasts that propelled it forward at an inhumanly seamless rhythm. The sun had set by the time Goor’s house reared its familiar roof into the horizon. The sight welcomed him.
Approaching the house, the winged creature slowed down and craned its head towards the correspondence box, nailed next to the window as it always was. The creature bent down and jutted its beak into the box to deliver the envelope. In mere seconds, the entire foundation of the house was rocked by the bird’s sharpened screech as it flailed about. Its beak was ensnared by the box, specifically by the spikes that were planted inside. Goor could feel half-buried memories surged to the forefront of his mind as the panicking messenger tore the box from its wall and began to menace the sky with its raging boxed beak. In the midst of the chaos, Goor quickly leapt into the window.
The wooden floor sounded a homely creak as it bent beneath Goor’s frazzled feet, signaling that his abode had welcomed him without scorn or disdain. A quaint sigh passed his lips. The familiar view of miscellaneous items and worthless litter was enough for a small sliver of pep to strike at his heart though he was not certain if he should accept it. In the same fashion, he felt a familiar tinge of caution as he observed the uncanny cleanliness of the table, the cauldron and shelves of objects, shined and emptied of dust. Someone had arrived and taken care of this place long before he did.
Suddenly, a foreign creak sounded from his left, followed by a sound of a hatch being slammed shut. With sluggish footsteps ringing closer, Goor caught sight of the intruder. Stepping forth from the comfort of the evening shadow was none other than the assassin: the first one that once ambushed him at the tavern. The one that once ambushed him here at his home. For as many a times as Goor had slain him, he had never once stopped to ask for his name.
“Oh,” the assassin uttered.
He was clad in his undergarments, his upper half a nigh-transparent coat of wrinkled flesh, clinging to a hunched-over structure of decaying bone. On his trembling hand was a bowl of partially eaten gruel, a sweaty spoon on the other. His face was pale and his alarmed expression was enough to tell Goor that his heart was more than willing to resign before Goor could even approach a half-step. Goor’s instinct was to throttle him but ultimately, the fair locksmith relented, preferring to stand and await further reactions from the intruder whom he had slain and tossed into the sea countless upon countless heaps of time.
In what could only be termed as a lapse in preservation instincts in the face of inevitable doom, the assassin quietly shuffled to the dining table to finish his meal. And perhaps in a bid to challenge him in his unpredictability, Goor calmly took the seat opposite to him at the table. They sat in silence, one that was only disrupted by the loud slurping of the gruel and the muffled squawking of the bird outside.
“Please allow me to finish my supper,” the assassin said, “then you may kill me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Goor replied.
The hapless pitiful thing continued to ingest the liquid slop as slowly as he could. Goor considered getting it done and over with quickly and yet he did not move. Wanton bloodlust had yet to reside on his weary brain.
“You were absent from your home for so long that I imagined I could stay awhile.”
Goor did not respond.
“I was recently expelled from the guild, you see. I no longer have business with you.”
A drafty black hue of nighttime settled in the room.
“Gold coins were relayed here a few days ago. The wind appeared to have swept it through the window. I have gathered them here in my bag since there are different writings on each of them. They might be of importance to you.”
The former assassin poured from his bag a small cluster of coins onto the table, all scrawled with charcoal. On them were scrawled different messages of varying length:
“WHERE ARE YOU?”
“THIS WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN”
“DAMNED LOCKSMITH”
“YOU WILL PAY DEARLY”
“COME TO THE RUINS”
“WAIT”
“OH NO”
“PLEASE RETURN MY COINS AS WELL, I SHOULDN’T HAVE SENT THEM”
“PLEASE BRING THEM ALONG WITH YOU”
Goor pocketed the coins.
“Are they important?” asked the former assassin.
“No,” Goor said.
Eventually, the poor imbecile finished his supper. In a rather tragic motion, he reared his head forward, his cranium positioned squarely in the path of Goor’s right hand, yet to curl into a fist.
“You have actually honored my request. For this, I thank you. Please. Retire me swiftly.”
Goor observed the wearisome head with disconnected islands of hair, complete with liver spots the size of saucer plates.
“As I have said, fool,” Goor said, “Do not order me around. I only do what I willed.”
The thing sank back into its seat, astonished at its newfound spark of life. Goor was almost tempted to disappoint him dearly at the height of his euphoria but alas, he halted his thoughts for he knew that none of this would ever be of consequence to anything.
“Oh thank you, sir. Thank you.”
“Quiet, you sycophant. And be still.”
“What do you wish of me, sir?”
“Be still. Or don’t. Walk around like you own the place for all I care. Just let me be.”
“Pardon?”
“Live the rest of tonight like you would any other night. Pretend I am not here.”
With great hesitation, the lackluster assassin slinked off his seat and proceeded to walk around, only once beckoned back to his seat to answer a question.
“What is your name, wretch?”
“Loiii, sir.”
From where Goor sat, the night outside lasted for what his haggard mind assumed to be a whole day’s worth of time. The shrill screech of the giant bird was still being heard from beyond the wooden walls. Temporarily departing from the table to observe the event from the window, Goor watched as the agitated avian bounced its trapped beak from rock to rock, pecking against the cliff face with each winding swill of the head being more aggressive than the last. Goor moved his sight towards the clear coastline, curving eastward into blackness. He bent his gaze lower to the beach near the cliff and, much to his surprise, found his tripede standing on the sand, having followed its owner all the way here. It looked up at him, transfixed with a strange stare that repelled him back to his chair.
Loiii paced about his living space, clearing the dishes and occupying his focus by counting the floorboards (as he often did) until he too grew tired and rejoined Goor at the table. They began talking about all matters of affairs, from their respective careers as killer and locksmith to what manners of fruits were best harvested before winter. Loiii preached of his old religion and his old life in the rural bowels of the Southern continent while Goor spoke of an old crone who once crowned him a hero of a bygone prophecy. Of course, these words were meant to fill time, as brainless chatter flowed from one ear to the next, while the moon wore itself down. Eventually, Goor spoke to Loiii of his many lives. He spoke of how he had killed the one sitting across from him many times, in methods both broad and terribly specific. Loiii kept silent.
“Fret not,” Goor said, “In this life, I mean you no harm.”
“What about the next one?”
“Who knows? I might get bored. I might not. It should not concern you, however.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it is just ‘you’ here. The next ‘you’ would be a different ‘you.’ Thereis a difference.”
Loiii looked at the table, hoping to scrounge for any words to bridge an awkward gap in an already awkward conversation.
“Do you not get… tired?” Loiii asked.
“Yes,” Goor said, “But then after a while, I would forget that I was tired and things would continue before I get tired again. So on and so forth.”
“How miserable.”
“I know.”
The black sky turned a lighter blue.
“Do you not wish to end it?”
“How?”
“I know not. I simply ask if you have actively tried to stop this madness?”
“I am sure I have tried many times but as I have reported, it is meaningless.”
“Is that your assessment?”
“Certainly more qualified than anyone else’s.”
Both men felt the whole room shudder. The bird’s efforts against the cliff face were beginning to take its toll on the entire structure of the house.
“What did you see?”
“What?”
“Inside the… the darkness. You recalled seeing something in the dark.”
“Ah,” Goor uttered, “I saw surfaces – walls – but they were far, far out of my reach.”
“Have you tried touching it?”
“Why?”
“For the sake of it.”
“I do not follow.”
“Surely you can’t be aware of your own imprisonment until you are aware of its confines.”
“Confines?”
“I will tell you a story,” Loiii said, “Decades ago. I had forgotten how long. For once and only once in my trade, I was caught and charged for the slaying of some administrative busybody in the Southern regime at the time. For my punishment, I was to be confined in Uidrakk’s Fortress, the most hellish holding space this side of the earth. I could boldly attest that my first instinct when thrown into my cell was to feel the door to my prison, feel its material and toughness before I could even hope for an escape plan.”
“What is your point?” Goor asked.
“I believe that you can never truly understand your prison until you know of its limits. It is only logical, after all.”
Goor stared at Loiii with an odd expression, one that he had not worn before in a long time. It silently signaled an end to their meandering exchange as they both appeared to have exhausted all of their remaining verbal distractors. The bird’s relentless muffled whining continued to encircle the outer walls. Goor strolled to the window, watching as the creature darted back and forth in an unstoppable frenzy of confusion and rage. He watched it intently.
“That box should have fallen off already,” Loiii remarked, “It is not like I planted that many spikes into it anyhow.”
“Perhaps I should do something about that,” Goor said.
“Be my guest,” Loiii replied.
Goor hopped out of the window. In great alarm, Loiii jerked away from his seat and raced after him, stopping at the windowsill, his eyes drawn to a possible red bubbling mist among the dark waters below. To his shock, however, he lifted his head to find Goor, swinging about the bird’s beak before hoisting himself up onto its jittery backside. He had not tamed it at all. By all accounts, the animal’s rage only compounded by the time it had registered the presence of an amateur pilot attempting to assert himself. Goor wrestled desperately against the winged behemoth as trails of white feathers were let loose upon the nightly air.
“Quick, man! Kill me!”
“What?!”
“Your arrow! Throwing knife! Whatever projectile you have on hand!”
“Why would I do that?!”
“I have a plan! Do it now while I am seated up here!”
Loiii made his way to the closet where he haphazardly swiped away at piles of cluttered weapons which he no longer used until he found in his hand a rustic dagger. He dashed back toward the window.
“Okay! I have it here!”
“Throw it! Right here at my heart!” Goor tried to gesture towards his chest amidst the chaos. Loiii realized that over a year of unemployment had not rendered his killing instinct completely rudderless as he was able to eye the object of his blade’s glare, throwing it with a sharp zip across the air until it landed precisely where it needed to: the heart of his recently-christened and now dead friend. Goor’s muscles were no longer tensing though he made sure to retain his grip on the bird. A curve crept onto the corner of his metal lips.
“Thank you,” Goor said before his body slackened and fell onto the bed of feathers.
Goor returned to the void but he was not alone. Thrashing and flailing beneath his stomach was the still-living bird, tenacious in its ambition to survive. As Goor expected, he felt the blade still in his heart but no loss of strength. His priority was well lodged in his mind. He was to remain in this void for as long as he could physically manage, no matter the costs. He brought his arms around the bird’s head, in a current nosedive, and forcibly lifted it up. He had no idea what this would accomplish. In fact, beyond his tripede, he had no prior experience with directing any animal to where it should go. This action, from his mind, as desperate and menial as it was, was his only means of persuading the animal to proceed upward. The two creatures of misfortune careened further and further into the dark, approaching the burning acid below. Just as Goor braced himself for the familiar visage of the ruins, however, a mighty flap of the creature’s wings rippled against the acid as it launched itself back into the windless air, its impromptu rider in tow. An astonished Goor hugged its body tightly, his arms spread out. He began to rock his body back and forth, nudging his reluctant mount to steer in the direction he wanted but to no avail. The creature continuously produced its own blasts of air in an effort to remain afloat. It proceeded in a blind haste across the empty space. Goor cursed himself for forgetting to bring a light source with him.
It was not long until the wall was struck. The flying giant had struck its head onto the boundary with much unintended force, reeling backwards in shock. Goor found his opportunity. Though he could not see, he could estimate the distance between the bird and the unseen obstacle. With a hefty compression of his heels, he launched himself into the unknown.
Before he knew it, his mount was long gone, having flown elsewhere, its screeches growing fainter. His sweaty palms extended into nothing. He felt nothing. Utter nothing. For a moment, he was ashamed and thus hated himself for grasping at nothing. Then he hated the nothing for daring to humiliate his hands with its useless, damning, irritating, worthless presence. Then he felt something. Wet flesh.
Revolting inhuman flesh that was alive and throbbing. He felt almost sick to his core for even touching it but the triumph of having overcame the absence in his hands was paramount. He laughed with great maniacal merriment as he held onto the flesh wall, his claws sunken deep into its large wriggling veins. It was as he hypothesized. He was in the beast’s stomach. He had always been in the beast’s stomach. That fateful day when he encountered it, when it mocked and swallowed him whole, he had never actually left it since. All this time, he had been trapped here. For all he knew, the hundreds of lives he led in the outside world could all be a fabrication for it may have never been outside to begin with. Or all of them may have been real. It didn’t matter. Goor left it all out of mind for his many theories were being replaced with one unifying sensation: the need to escape.
With immaculate fury, he ripped the dagger from his chest and plunged it deep into the wall. Though he winced from the pain, he did not feel any fresh blood on his chest nor did his head feel any lighter. In this strange domain, lethality seemed to not be applied to him. He stabbed the dagger again and again into the wall. When that had proven to not be enough, he sheathed the blade back into his chest cavity before slamming his own fists against the wall, one after the other, to the rhythm of his palpating heart. He clawed at its writhing texture, sinking his fingers, hands and arms into its putrid mass until it threatened to swallow him whole. Goor retained his position on the wall as his metal feet, less liable to be absorbed yet liable to remain plastered on its surface, acted as his anchoring point, preventing his body from falling as he continuously clobbered the monster’s flesh. Eventually, something gave way. Goor felt on his two crumpled fists bits and pieces of squelching mulched meat. He resumed his flurry against the indomitable wall for an indeterminate amount of time. The bird was gone for its noises had long ceased. He had also observed that as long as he remained here, he had no need for food, air or water. He thus kept striking indefinitely.
One of Goor’s fingers was dislocated but he felt nothing. Instead, he felt on his right hand a sizable round mass of flesh, disconnected from its place in the wall. With vindication, he tossed it over his shoulder and continued. Barrages upon barrages of strikes proceeded with clinical pacing but the wrath had not slowed. More misaligned fingers followed with a hateful wail, heard by no one. Pounds of flesh were thrown aside. More and more could be heard splashing below. From what his skin could feel, the once flat wall had sunken into a makeshift alcove of which he could physically step inside and even rest in.
Goor liked to imagine that he had slept for some time within this space but he could never be sure. For the entire course of his assault, he was effectively blind. He rested and realigned his fingers before continuing to render his confines asunder. Time passed. His approach became more systematic. He began digging tunnels. From within this hellish domain, expansive networks of flesh were formed. Giant boulders of meat were rolled off of steep hills (also formed of meat) into the acid below. Entire tunnels were caved in as new ones were being formed. A maddening trail of wanton destruction slowly but steadily took hold of the landscape, so terrible in its sight yet was fortunate to be seen by no one, not even by the one responsible.
An inhumanely long period of time passed. Goor, who had since forgotten his name and all else that pertained to his life, continued to dig.
Pieces after pieces of the walls fell and splashed.
And then, after all else had given way, Goor felt a new solid texture and flew into a stark panic from its alien touch. Unbeknownst to him, he had struck the monster’s bone.
“RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH”
A existentially-shattering roar shook and rattled what was once a vast and unknowable void, now an unseen resting place of ruined flesh.
Goor’s whole body began to quake. He was standing on the slopes of meat that he had carved out of one of the walls when he suddenly felt something whizzing past his face. Then another. And another. Pieces of mulch were zipping past him at an alarming degree, enough for him to halt his digging hands, which for the longest time, had never crossed his decaying mind. With animalistic curiosity, he followed the sharp whooshing sound in his ears until it led him directly to the source. His left foot was a mere distance away from the meat cliff before he swiftly withdrew it upon sensing that his trail ended here. Yet he could hear the squelching pieces of rot swirling in the great expanse ahead of him. Repetitive swirling noises that swung from loud to quiet to loud again. Goor could hear it clearly. They were swarming around a singular point, pelting that point until it formulated a single floating mass. The mass began to expand.
Goor sensed another rather large nugget of flesh tumbling towards him. With quick reaction, he leapt and held onto it as it rocketed off the platform, flying high in the air, racing eagerly to join its brethren in the rotating meat sphere. The collision was swift as Goor’s body was slammed against the object, yet he had the sense to keep his hands and feet firmly rooted in its gooey construction. The substance was shifting and turning under Goor’s hold. He felt foreign stumps and limbs protruding from under him. Two stumpy trunked legs forced him to climb to the other end of the flesh ball where his head was summarily smacked by a large tail, littered with a sequence of sharp spikes. It was therefore made exceptionally clear to Goor that whatever object this was, it was most certainly sentient. A large mouth proceeded to split open.
“FOOLISH, INSIPID, MONGREL,” it boomed, “YOU HAVE WROUGHT RUIN TO MY REALM.”
Suddenly, intense light ignited within the darkness and Goor screamed as his dormant eyes seared in pain. The creature’s own eyes glowed brighter by the second.
“I NEVER SHOULD HAVE EATEN YOU, YOU LITTLE PEST.”
A limb grew and stretched from the beast’s body, seizing Goor by the throat and ramming him with unfiltered speed against one of the few remaining walls in the vicinity. Its other arm was launched to cling to the closest wall on the opposite end of the area, keeping its body perfectly suspended above the pit.
“BUT I SUPPOSE IT CAN’T BE HELPED.”
In the clutches of the monster, Goor could see everything clearly as if he had been awoken from a long uninterrupted slumber. He was in the ruins of what could only be a creature’s innards. His eyes scanned the now brightly lit environment to find the beast. The one that greeted him at the head of the staircase among the tallest spire of the old ruins. The very same one that was torn limb from limb yet managed to put itself back together to eat its victim whole. Goor’s once scattered mind was thusly emblazoned with rejuvenating rage. The fabled object of his endless labor was directly in front of him and all those lives long past came flooding back into his skull like a fountain of chilled spring water. How was it possible for the beast to be inside itself? Perhaps it was Goor’s destructive activities that had forced its regeneration to take place inside its own vessel, an unusual action that even the beast itself did not anticipate.
The stretched hand of the beast tightened and Goor’s ribs wrapped close around his lungs as the hand dragged him closer and closer downward, towards the abominable pit of acid which he had embraced time and time again. His skeletal structure chafed against his insides but he knew it to not be fatal for as long as he remained here, he would not perish and to a degree, his stamina would last.
As he was then being rushed headlong into the pit, Goor reciprocated the beast’s iron grip, in turn ensnaring the cursed hand in his own meaty palms and, with unrestrained strength which he could not hope to replicate from beyond this realm, yanked the beast’s whole body towards him. The pull was executed at such a speed that the beast’s massive body soared past Goor, zooming past over his shoulder and flopped onto the acid bed with a monstrous splash. Its body had not sunk, however, as its buoyancy kept the nasty creature paddling its feeble feet to keep its face above its own stomach acid. It screamed as it could feel its own skin melting from its own digestive system.
What would happen, then? Goor thought candidly, if the beast with a bottomless stomach was to digest itself fully.
“Ack!,” the beast choked as Goor, bereft of any need for self-preservation, landed on the beast, pushing a portion of its body further into the burning liquid. Steadying himself, he hopped a few feet above the air before slamming down hard onto its form with tremendous force, submerging them both.
In the great marble ruins, along the rim of the tallest spire, sat Agg: the conjurer of wind and air, languishing in the heat. Though the swing of his scepter had managed to somewhat temper the heatwave with its drafts, the wretched weather kept returning and returning until his arm surrendered to its own weight and dropped like an anvil onto the fractured tiles. He would have sought shelter in his studies if not for the fact that he had made the imbecilic mistake of leaving his own key inside, resting on the coffee table, in his ignorant rush to complete his morning errands without properly checking his inventory on the way out. He had hired a locksmith but alas, he was eaten by the beast with the bottomless stomach that prowled the path to Agg, another bout of ignorance on Agg’s part as he had forgotten to issue a warning to him on one of his coins. To be charitable, however, he had never once set foot on the steps since he preferred to travel by air so the thought of the monster had completely slipped his mind. It could not be helped, he supposed. The beast, he observed, was initially torn to shreds by the locksmith but managed to regenerate its body from a lower place on the tower before striking quickly, grabbing the poor man by his torso and stuffing him into its maw. For the past half hour or so, the beast returned to its initial position on the steps and began walking up and down the steps, no doubt to digest its prey as quickly as it could. Every once in a while, it would glance up at Agg with its crooked mocking smile, knowing that he would probably need to sleep on that roof for the night. Agg could leap down and engage the creature in combat but his success would hardly be guaranteed. Thus, he planned to remain on the roof for the time being. It was more likely for him to travel elsewhere this evening to rest at the nearest inn he could find but his current funds were dwindling. The coins jiggling from within his compartments were not as vocal as they once were.
But then the unexpected occurred, the conjurer looked on in surprise as the beast, with no prior provocations, buckled to its tiny knees and keeled over, growling and groaning. He watched as it sputtered, coughed and heaved, as if desperately attempting to upchuck something undesirable from its pit but to no avail. One last screech left its mouth as a flicker of light flashed across all of its orifices – followed sequentially by a devastating explosion.
The explosion in question expanded far and wide, laying utter ruin to an already ruinous place. If these ruins were indeed meant to be forgotten by the greater eye of the world then this last nudge of destruction was all that it took to confirm its demise. The conjurer was flung far into the air. Every tower in the radius of the blast was swiftly deprived of their heads, leaving vague blobs resembling unfinished construction, too primitive to be considered in the same breath as any basic architecture.
Agg resisted the fluttering madness of the air with another hefty swing of his scepter, generating more shockwaves to return himself to his prior point before his untimely expulsion. There was no roof to speak of. His private studies had turned to a bed of collapsed wood and marble. All that surrounded him were piles of rubble. Some were taller than others but to any passerby, this was but a glorified featureless dustbin of the earth that was never meant to last. The only object of note to which the most rudimentary definition of ‘structure’ could be prescribed to – was the door to his deadened studies, still standing strong with pride, its impact by the explosion hardly noticeable and – as he wiggled the handle one more time – still locked shut.
Heavy steps quaked from behind Agg, honing his attention immediately to the source of the noise. He withdrew his breath the moment he had identified the being to be the locksmith himself, shambling up the steep slope to which steps used to occupy. His metal head was horribly dented and his crushed torso inflated and deflated like a piece of ballooning prune. His left metal leg protruded backwards. There was a dead glare in his eyes that signaled a passing disinterest in his own sentience while he limped towards the door, sharing no words with the conjurer. He pressed his rune against the door and lo and behold, it clicked open. The door had thus fulfilled its final purpose, a passageway that was virtually useless. The locksmith extended his other hand towards Agg and laid it bare.
“Payment,” the locksmith said, his voice coarse.
Agg obliged, handing him a bag of gold.
“Not enough,” the locksmith said, “The bags in your legs and chest. Them, too.”
Agg was astonished that his secret compartments, not once disclosed to any client or colleague, were so easily addressed.
“Your tooth, too.”
His gold tooth! Agg gathered the words to respond.
“How did you know about that?”
The locksmith was silent.
“It was the beast, was it not? If so, then I am sorry I have not warned you earlier about that. I have forgotten.”
Agg wanted to change the subject.
“I say, I have never once encountered anything like that before. That cruel beast, crumbling like that. A miracle, I tell you.”
The locksmith was silent.
“That was no easy feat. From what I have heard, a beast like that is said to take its time with digesting its prey. It is even said that inside its very stomach, it houses countless fabrications of the world from which we occupied, to lull the victim into a false sense of security as they live in there indefinitely until they are slowly but surely digested again and again. Until their sanity and will dwindled to the point where they are able to be digested permanently. I suppose it is good that you are able to leave before that point.”
Agg tried to chuckle but it was veritably clear that this locksmith was staring at him with the most violent of intentions.
“Okay, fine! Have my money! Have it all! It is only fair recompense for someone who has destroyed my home!” Agg unzipped his compartments and out came stashes of his gold – his remaining livelihood. Agg plucked out his special tooth and flicked it to the ground. The locksmith stashed all the treasures away in his left hand.
“Away with you, you ruffian! You have done more than enough damage to me! Do you have any idea what trials I have to go through to secure a dwelling such as this?! Do you?!”
Before he could speak any further, his nose and mouth collided with the locksmith’s fist and was sent spiraling to the ground. Agg mumbled incoherently as the metal-headed fiend withdrew from the area, gold in hand.