[Formatting options are now suddenly not terrible, may have to go back and edit the previous bits, enjoy now with coneperson dialog at the right size]

 

“i thought you said you had dealt with the truants!” Petil screamed at the Little Fire. Her being a coneperson meant she reached just about normal volume levels.

“I thought I had!” the little fire crackled back.

He was scuttling like the wind, down the tunnels.

“then, what do you call that?” Petil cried.

She, for her part was clinging for dear life on to log that the little fire was in. What she referred to as ‘that’ was what was currently chasing them.

As they fled, crashing through behind them was a great swirling creaking mass of truants. It was really quite unnervingly. If Petil was to look back for a moment, she would have surely fainted. As it was, her wish to live only just managed to be stronger than her fear.

“there is no way that can be considered dealt with, i’m going to die, i’m going to be eaten by plants. people are supposed to eat salad, not the other way around, there is nothing right about this situation!” Petil was, at this stage quite understandably distraught.

The little fire had considered turning about and fighting, but as it was a rather bright fire, it reasoned that the only result of that would be Petil getting killed by burning debris, or burning truants. Really it wasn’t a great idea. So he ran.

He hopped over pits, dodged lashing tendrils and was generally glad that since Petil was a coneperson, her screams of terror were rather subdued. Then great many kunglers burst from the ground in front of the little fire.

Kunglers are generally considered a bad creature to come across underground. A gray furry beast with a short snout, and body, perhaps a bit boar like. Their forelegs take the form of large spade-like crabclaws. Their hindlegs end in odd flat clawed feet. Their green lamp-eyes have thick metal like plates over them, very rarely do they open their eye-plates the full way.

One kungler would not be so bad, the creatures are after all, around the size of a small dog. Unfortunately, much like a dog, they dig in packs. Well, not that dogs dig in packs, but they would if they lived underground and had spade-like crabclaws…

Moving on, kunglers have long been considered by any elconic denizen mad enough to study wildlife (and who has not yet been eaten) to be one of the best small predators of the underground, discounting monsters which may or may not be real.

The kunglers squealed menacingly, they hadn’t opened their eye-plates yet, so they hadn’t seen what their quarry looked like. They had only smelt coneperson, which for some reason smelt delicious most elconic animals. They opened their eye-plates a bit, letting green light spill out.

The little fire ran straight past them. A few turned to follow him. The remaining kunglers opened their eye-plates even wider at the sight of the mega-mass of truants tearing their way through the tunnels. The little fire soon found Kunglers running along side him. The kunglers too slow on the uptake were quickly devoured by the truant knot.

Petil, though half mad with fear, got a great idea.

“bravespark! Leap unto the back of that kungler in front of us!”

Or at least it seemed like a good idea to Petil.

The little fire, being the trusting fire that he was, leaped onto the back of the kungler before them, a particularly mean and big one, with some black on its back. It squealed as the weight of the little fire, the log and not really petil came onto it. Naturally the kungler also squealed because a living flame had jumped on it and burnt its back.

The little fire clung on gamely with its root legs as the blackback bucked and bounced. It was going even faster than before, which was fortunate because not long after they had leaped onto it, the tunnel roof collapse behind them, blocking out the other kunglers and the truants. Petil also thought she heard someone snickering.

The little fire, Petil and the kungler had all turned their eyes to look back behind them, so it should come as no surprise that they never saw the rock they smashed right into.

They all went flying and hit the ground. Petil went out cold and so did the kungler.

“Youse come ta duh rong hood sparky!” A gravely voice spoke out.

The little fire’s mind was a jumbled mess and the last thing he saw before he fainted was what looked for all the world like a moustache of moss on the rock they hit.