Chapter 6: “What is this Moosikh you speak of?”

 

Tailless slugs are not infact a slug. Rather, they are green slimy blob like beings with two thick flexible eye-stalks that they can retract, extend and use to grip objects between them, some can even use them to grip things like a tentacle. The eyes on these stalks are pure white orbs, so, it can be hard to tell when a tailless slug is looking at you. They are roughly two times or three times the size of a coneperson.

 

Originally they were not thinking denizens, being a dumb creature that just ate rocks and split into two slugs every now and then. They thought even less than most animals do. Then, one tailless slug came upon one of the machines. It was half buried in the earth and rock. The machine was made of yellow greatsteel, a steel made from some iron-like metal not found natively in Elcon.

 

The machine was a shaped a bit like a frog, but more upright, and a cockpit just the right size for a tailless slug. The slug moved to eat the thing, but landed in the cockpit, and just like that, it became a denizen, a being of higher thought. Its first thought as such was how annoyed it was that it couldn’t eat the metal.

 

After this, it searched for more of the machines because it got bored with the others of its kind being poor conversation due to being fauna. It managed to find three machines. So the number of denizen slugs increased. However, what really put the tailless slugs on the map in terms of being yet another race of beings in Elcon was finding, as the tailless slugs called them, the mind crystals.

 

Mind crystals were only named so by tailless slugs, as it seemed that they did not work on other beings.

 

The mind crystals could awaken a tailless slug, but also gave them control over unawakened slugs.

The trouble was that two of the trio of machine piloting found two different crystals.

 

One found red crystals that awakened slugs and giving them red eyes, but these also made them passionate. Perhaps too passionate as the slugs were highly prone to bouts of rage and anger. This machine slug became the first red, Grand Crimson.

 

The other found blue crystals. These made a slugs eyes go blue, and made them calm, perhaps too calm as while they were awakened, they were cold and emotionless, possessing no humour or joy.

This machine slug became the first blue, Grand Azure.

 

These two became separate factions and as the blues found the reds to be “random lawless savages” and the reds found the blues to be “funless bores” They constantly raided each other to steal away unawakened worker slugs, both believing to be sparing the slugs from the fate of being a red or a blue. Of course, both sides did keep a large number of unawakened slug because red or blue, they both hated working and mining. These factions mined for more mind crystals but tossed away any red or blue crystals that weren’t mind crystals.

 

The first machine slug despaired at seeing his kind thus divided. However, it decided to try something different than just moping. It ate both red and blue mind crystals. Its eyes turned purple. In doing so, it did not receive the rages of the reds or the emotionless of the blues. Thus the first machine slug became the first purple, Grand Violet. The purples didn’t keep any unawakened slugs as workers. Both the reds and the blues hated the purples, mostly at this stage because they weren’t either reds or blues.

 

So there was three factions. As all this went on, the tailess slugs made more mining colonies and discovered more of the mysterious machines that started it all. In time they even managed to make their own imitation machines, though they were never as good as the originals. They eventually found green mind crystals which gave tailless slugs green eyes, magic and more than a little madness. This discovery of course gave rise to the yellows, cyans and blacks, so the tailless slugs broke into further factions. The green mind crystals however were very rare.

 

Lupix and her band were surrounded by red eyed tailless slugs. They had with them two mass-produced machines of black rock, a mineral stronger than iron. Both were a bit frog-like and had massive drills for one hand. Their slug pilots glared at the band with their red eyes.

 

The tailless slugs on the ground were wielding as most tailless slugs do; pickaxes good for mining and bestalking other tailless slugs. The pickaxes were also of black rock. Clearly these belligerent reds were from some mining colony with a lot of black rock.

 

The tailless slugs started to speak in the manner of mouthless denizens.

<Who dares enter the mines of the Free Slugs Forgehome of Darkred Minerals?>

<We should just kill them now, and ask questions later!>

<If we do that, we can’t ask anything>

<Exactly, that way we can never know if we made the wrong decision>

<They’re trespassers anyway, we should just get rid of them all, they’re probably spies sent by blues to steal minerals and workers!>

 

Lupix wasn’t liking the direction those words had started in or where they were going, so spoke quickly.

“We are but simple bards, passing through as we play music from place to place”

In Elcon, it was considered quite wicked to kill bards, as they often had lots of knowledge and possessed many stories, legends and history in their heads.

 

The reds just looked confused.

<Bards?>

<What is this moosikh you speak of?>

<Perhaps it is some fiendish cyan secret weapon?>

<What does it look like?>

<Is it ore we can eat?>

 

Lupix and the band were surprised at having encountered denizens who had not experienced music. It was not however that unusual for tailless slugs. Their forgehomes were often quite secluded and many were wary of outsiders and letting outsiders in.

 

“We’ll show you!” Lupix said, readying her lute.

“We will?” Specker said confused.

“Really?” Mik questioned.

“Is this a good idea?” Am ‘P’ wondered.

“This or we leave ourselves to their tender mercies, now play” Koul finished.

 

They began to play. The song was of the ‘Mine’ genre, the music that had been created and made popular by Elconic miners, though it was a bit different playing it with the range of instruments they had.

 

This particular mine song was named “A mining for hearts of golden sheen”

There was a base of it that was similar to the fall of picks on rock, though in harmonious fashion, Koul took care of that. Specker Mik, Am ‘P’ all followed a rush of joy of hitting a good seam of ore, and Lupix beat out a golden heart on her thunder lute. It was an honest song, a song to work to, to take joy in good discoveries and take heart in not having hit a gas pocket and blown up.

 

 

The tailless slugs were enchanted, they had not experienced such a thing before, and as they were miners or at least worked with miners the song connected with them. As Lupix and her band finished digging up the throbbing golden hearts, one of the tailless slugs spoke.

 

<This moosihk is truly great, we should totally capture them and bring them back to play for the colony!>

 

The three conepeople fainted at that utterance. Koul rippled as he prepared to fight valiantly.

Then, slow clapping was heard. Lupix and her band looked this way and that, as did the tailless slugs.

 

At first they saw nothing, but then they spotted the one who clapped. It was Bread! Sitting on top of one of the tailess slug’s machines. The other machine jabbed at with a spinning drill Bread, who giggled and jumped onto it. This machine’s drill tore though the machine Bread had left, the pilot wailed as it abandoned its ruined machine.

 

Bread then backflipped off the machine he had jumped off and bowed before the reds.

“Bread!” Lupix exclaimed half-pleased half-annoyed.

<What is this?>

<Another musician?>

<M-my machine, you broke my machine>

<You should not have been in the way>

<This one is less weak looking!>

“Hey! I’m not weak!” Koul protested.

<We should capture it too>

 

“Oh, I’m not a musician, not really, tricks are more my thing, you know, like how I planted dandylion seeds in the ground around you, and like how I’m making them grow really fast”

There was a great roar as a pride of dandylions in natty leaf suits sprouted up around the red eyed tailless slugs.

 

Bread then stamped the ground, raising dust, which he blew, making more of it until a great dustcloud covered everything. He stowed the three fainted conepeople in his leaf coat and grabbed a hand of Lupix and Koul. Then he ran, dragging them with him.

 

*****

 

In the shadows of the cave they were in a figure was annoyed. It was the grand snuffer of the Firelord’s snuffers. He had finally tracked one of the fire howlers, the very one that had eluded his grasp so many times before, without the forest shielding her, she was easy to find. He had wanted to attack them, but Bread was a powerful being that he didn’t want to tangle with, so he convinced himself. Then, when the fire howler and her friends awoke to find themselves surrounded and bread gone, he had decided he could just let the reds take care of them. Then Bread had reappeared and he had lost track of Bread and the Fire Howler’s band in the dust.

 

What really annoyed him was how good the Fire Howler’s band was. He couldn’t let this stand.

An explosive toot sounded near him.

He had to prove he was better.

 

*****

 

Bread led them quickly through a maze of tunnels and caverns, not saying a word or explaining himself. Then before they knew what was happening, Bread shoved them down a side tunnel that was more like a slide, throwing the conepeople down after them.

 

Koul hit the sand first, then Lupix slammed into him, after that the conepeople bounced off Lupix’s head and rolled off into the sand of the chamber they were in. Lupix rubbed her head, and clambered off Koul. She looked up.

 

There, before her, hovering above the sand in a huge hourglass, was the woman of flame she had seen in her dream, blazing hair wrapped round her form. She was curled up, knees to bosom, not a feature on her face, but it was clear she fast asleep. Not in a dream, Lupix now saw this being for what she was. The Spirit of Fire.