A Lighter Tale Part Seven

Chapter 6: Take a pilldog.

Lofan and his two companions had made their way to Elcon’s surface. They had made good time, stopping only when a pack of kunglers (a kind of boar-like crab-spadeclawed beast) came across them. The wild animals fled quickly once they realised how close they were to an explodahead.

Lofan breathed in the cold air of Elcon’s surface, the snows of Elcon spread out before him. In the distance he could see the Dragon Mountains, behind him was the Giant Snowman, the tunnel they had taken had surfaced a good bit away from the Snowman. He could also see a rather large and obnoxious arrow flashing over one of the mountains. Back at his village, Petil had told Lofan that she had put an enchantment over him so that they could be sure of finding the Kindling, he hadn’t seen anything until now.

Lofan wished she could have done something other than the flashing arrow, it was very annoying, and constantly drew his gaze in a horrified magnetism, the ghastly arrow as just so gaudy. He sighed, there was still quite a bit of ground to cover before reaching the mountain of no great importance.

He tapped a foot on Dookie’s head, where he had been riding, after all, they would have gone far too slowly had he walked with her and Hammer.

“well, lets get going then, we need to cover as much ground as we can before nightfall”

Dookie was still trying to catch her breath, in fact she had been trying to do so since they had ran out of Cozzlanga. As it turned out studying magic in a dimly lit room for a large amount of your life didn’t prepare one to run a marathon.

“Can’t… *wheeze* we *gasp* take *Huuuuu* a break now?”

“sorry dookie, but we aren’t the only ones going to the mountains now, the bats will probably send out some people to search the mountain”

“Like those bats?” Hammer commented, pointing to the sky.

Lofan and Dookie squinted and looked up at the sky, well, Lofan first had to cling onto Dookie’s head as she tilted it upwards.

Sure enough, flapping though the sky was a some bats, though Lofan thought he saw a two bats one on top of the other. Sortly the bats had made their way past Lofan and his adventurers.

Lofan gave a little sigh.

“ok i guess we can take a break, there is no way we are catching up to those bats, we’ll just have to hope they don’t stumble on the artefact when they reach the mountain.”

Dookie collapsed, almost sending Lofan tumbling off, but he had predicted the collapse and hung on gamely.

“Wait, why are we resting when we’ve been overtaken dude?” Hammer was confused.

“because you’ll both need your strength if we get into a confrontation, and i can see where the artefact is, i’ll know if they get it, then we can just fight them for it.” Lofan explained.

“oh” Hammer responded, he wasn’t fond of reasonable answers. He could never find a good way of responding to them.

The truth was Lofan was a bit worried, for all he knew the bats could end up using the Kindling as soon as they got it.

Hammer too sat down on the snow, and took his small cask of ale. If he had lips, he would have smacked them. The ale was made from fermented sapples, a kind of strange sappy leakage from a pillar tree. Pillar trees are only found in Elcon’s underground and have no branches or leaves, only a thick trunk. Every now and then a bubble of sap escapes from cracks in the tree, this sap slowly transforms into a sapple, which in turn have seeds that grow new pillar trees.

Sapples are particularly sweet as a lot of elconic things are, due to the land’s chocolate water.

Dookie and Lofan also ate some dried sapple, they had gotten the ale and the dried fruit on sale from a sapple merchant.

Hammer had not been particularly tried but Dookie was quite revitalised by the fruit. A bit of water and she was ready to go again.

They marched off, they had barely gone twenty steps when a series of adorable howls surrounded them. Shortly after the howls they found themselves surrounded by a pack of dog-like animals.

They were all sausage shaped, with flat faces and a short round tail. They had stubby little legs and square floppy ears. They yapped to each other as they circled Dookie and Hammer. Perhaps the thing that stood out most about these dogs was that the rear and front halves of their bodies were different colours. Most were white and red, but there was white and blue, red and blue and a few other colours too.

“Careful! I… uh, heard these, um, pilldogs are very dangerous!” Dookie warned.

The pilldogs didn’t look very threatening, in fact they had begun to gambolling about and one was even lying belly up before Hammer invitingly.

Dookie was trying hard to remember why the pilldog was considered dangerous. Hammer tried to keep stance, but he gave into temptation. He crouched at the pilldog and began to scratch its belly.

“Whos a good dude? You are, yes dude, you!”

He was thoroughly enjoying it as was the dog. Dookie’s thoughts were shut down by how cute the scene was. Then the dog began coughing. Hammer backed away, alert once more.

The dog was acting more like a cat trying to get a hairball out, finally it horked up a green ball. Everyone apart from the pilldogs was still for a moment.

“well, that was kind of disgusting” Lofan said.

“I’ve remembered something! That green ball is edible”

Pilldogs are named so not just for their body shape, but more for the balls of variable colour they produce when stroked, scratched or generally played with. Depending on the pilldog the pill will have a different effect, though all are fairly sustaining food, one pilldog might produce pills that heal minor wounds, another might give out pills that sharpen one’s senses, and one might produce a pill that leaves you a gibbering madman. It is kind of pot luck. The possibility of the pill being poisonous however is not the danger pilldogs are known for.

Hammer picked up the pill, grimacing a bit. The pill was a bit sticky.

“Who would want to eat something like this dudette?” he countered.

It was about then that Hammer was blindsided by something that sped out from behind one of the snow dunes. It hit him hard in the side while snatching the pill from his hand.

Hammer had no idea of what had hit him, but Lofan and Dookie had seen the creature clearly.

It had a round head with a single black eye, a jagged mouth and nose-slits instead of a nose. It sported a furry blonde mane. Its arms were thin things with pointed tips instead of hands, though it did have a pair on hand-like paws on its elbows. These odd arms were reversed from how arms usually are. The beast’s torso ended abruptly. It possessed no lower half. It was white in colour.

It held the green pill in its paws and greedily ate it up. Hammer was furious, not only had he been caught unawares but the animal had stolen and eaten something from him. He quickly pulled his head off and tossed it at the cheeky animal, exploding it as soon as it got close.

The explosion cleared and Hammer found himself looking at a slab of red rock. A chattering came from behind the slab, which swung down to reveal the animal, it was mocking Hammer.

The slab left no question, what they faced was a sledger. Sledgers are considered by most denizens to be an utter pest. They are a highly cunning animal that uses an object they find as both sledge and shield. They will always discard their current sledge-shield if they find a better one. They are despised by adventurers as shield snatchers, as many an adventurer has gone to sleep in camp only to awake to find themselves shieldless and their provisions missing with only a slab of rock or a strip of bark in their place.

“Ah! I um, remembered why pilldogs are dangerous! Things err… follow them to get their pills”

“guess we are lucky it was just a sledger”

Hammer had put a new head in his loopstick and was charging the sledger. The scavenger was understandably spooked by this and flipping onto its sled sped away, or at least it tried to. Dookie made a bubble right in front of it, causing it to bounce right back into Hammer. He exploded his head hoping to catch the beast out, but it skillfully flipped its sled between them again, and Hammer cried out in frustration.

Then the slab glowed black and slammed into Hammer, who fell back and did not get back up straight away.

“ah… thats!”

“Yes, ah, it must have, um, eaten a pill that lets it, err, imbue an object, uh, with magic!” Dookie pronounced.

“dookie you have to support him!”

The sledger had clearly decided that it wasn’t going to be able to escape and so was going to fight!

It got on the sled and sped towards Dookie, the red slab began to glow black. Dookie simply threw up a bubble around herself and Lofan. The sledger had not been expecting this, and bounced off, this time it didn’t see Hammer, who struck it then exploded his head to send the sneaky scavenger flying.

It landed in a snow dune quite a bit away, it shakily got up and crawled away as fast as its arms could take it, leaving its slab behind. Hammer slumped against his loopstick.

“Dude, now I’m the one that needs a break”

Lofan frowned at the slab, evidentially the magic that had surrounded the it had hit Hammer worse than it looked. Dookie for her part was quite pleased with how effective her bubble had been.

“Come here dude” Hammer called to one of the pilldogs.

He scratched it behind one of its ears. “Which one of you dudes spits out magic giving pills”

“Yap” went the pill dog, and it ran off, only to return with a pilldog that was purple and green.

Pilldogs are naturally tame creatures, and will happily obey many orders.

Lofan watched this, and as Hammer tried to coax some pills out, an idea came to his head. He whispered the idea to Dookie.

“What? No, that’s a stupid idea!” Dookie protested.

In spite of her protests soon all the pilldogs were bound together by rope and bound to the slab of rock. Hammer laughed.

“This is the best idea ever!”

He took up the reins. “Mush!” he called, cracking them.

They sped off over the snow dunes, Hammer laughing and Dookie wailing. Dookie wasn’t good with anything that wasn’t walking.

Lofan smiled, with the sled, they could possibly beat the bats to the mountain.

Author: SnowyMystic