Dominant Species
Issue #8
by Tom Zjaba
Chapter Ten
Long Lost Friends
Derrick looks at the dragon and then at the cage. He tries to
figure out how to get to the cage. He cannot fly. His only means of flight, the
cherub, just flew off and he is not coming back. And then there is the dragon.
Whatever he does, he needs to do it very quietly. The last thing he wants to do
is wake the dragon from its sleep. He is scared to walk around as every step
makes sound. But that is to be expected when the floor is covered in gold and
silver coins. So far the dragon has not stirred with any of the noise he has
made. He does not know how good a dragon's hearing is. There was no mention that
sense in the Into the Catacombs game. He can only guess at how acute it is and
right now it does not seem to be very good. But then with the sound of the
dragon snoring or what he assumes is snoring, he could probably bring an army in
here and the dragon would not hear them. He also does not know how long a dragon
sleeps for. Will it sleep for days or hours? How long has it been asleep before
he came down here? These are questions that he has no answers to, but he wishes
he did. It is times like this that he realizes how incomplete a game like Into
the Catacombs was. He then looks up and notices that the cage is hanging from a
chain that is attached at the ceiling of the cave. The cage hangs at about fifty
feet up. There is a thick chain that attaches the cage to the ceiling and is
another thirty feet in length. Derrick thinks of a plan where he could scale the
wall, climb on the ceiling and then down the chain to the cage. At first he
laughs at the notion. He isn't Spiderman, he is a normal human. Or is he? He
remembers that his character is a thief and one of his abilities is scaling
walls. He was not sure how to use his abilities. Did they just happen or did he
have to say a phrase. It has been so long since he played the game that he does
not remember. He knows the wizards have to say a spell to make it happen. He
decides to just try climbing the wall and see how it goes. He heads over to the
wall and looks up. The wall is rough stone but does not have much to hold onto.
He puts his hands on the wall and concentrates. He then grabs hold and starts
climbing up. Surprisingly, his hands are like suction cups. They stick to the
wall with ease. He finds that he can scale the wall quickly and easily. This is
so cool. He goes right up the wall like a fly. It feels so natural to him, even
though it is the first time he has done it. Within minutes, he reaches the
ceiling. He pauses for a second as he looks at the ceiling. Even though he is
hanging on fine, there is that part of him that is hesitant. Climbing a wall is
one thing, but walking on a ceiling and defying gravity is another. Few rules
from the old world still apply here, but the rules of gravity are one that are
still very much enforced. But he swallows hard and pushes forward. And he finds
that like the walls, he has complete mastery of the ceiling. As he walks along
the ceiling, he looks down at the sleeping dragon and smiles. This is going so
easy that it is almost criminal. He is now at the chain and reaches over and
grabs hold of it. In one quick move, he climbs onto the chain. At first the
chain moves a bit and the cage sways from his weight. He waits for it to stop
moving before continuing. He looks down and sees the cage below him. It has a
large metal lid on it, so he cannot see what is in it. He slowly slinks down the
chain as he moves ever closer to the cage. When he reaches the roof of the cage,
he gently steps on it. "Anyone in there?" he says as he knocks lightly on the
metal covering. At first he does not hear anything. So he knocks again and asks
"Anyone in there?" He then hears a low voice that sounds like it's in pain.
"Leave me alone." the voice says. Derrick listens to the voice and tries to
place it. He knows the voice but it has been so long since he heard any of his
friend's voices that he is not sure which one of his friends is in the cage. So
he goes to the edge of the cage and looks in. Huddled in the corner is a naked
boy who is curled up in a fetal position. "I'm here to rescue you." he says as
he peeks over the edge of the cage. At first the body does not move. But slowly
the head turns to look to see where the voice is coming from. When he turns,
Derrick recognizes him immediately. "Scott! You're alive!" he says with
excitement in his voice. When the person hears a voice he recognizes he says
"Derrick, is that you?" Derrick climbs down and hangs onto the bars as rests his
feet on a lip that circles the cage bottom. The lip is about two feet wide and
more than enough room for him to stand on. He looks into the cage as Scott
slowly rises and comes over to the bars to see him. "It is good to see you
Scott." Derrick says as he puts his hand inside the cage to shake hands. Scott
grabs his hand and holds it tight. "Please get me out of here." he says as any
happiness from seeing his friend quickly leaves his face.
Through the tall grasses, Bearslayer pulls the stretcher with
Howlingmad on it. While the stretcher is heavy and weighs down on his arms and
back, he pushes forward. He knows that the sooner he can get him to the village,
the better his chances of survival. He also knows that they are easy prey out
here. Any creature can easily ambush them and kill them with little effort. And
when it gets dark, it will be much worse. While this is the longer way,
Bearslayer would rather be in the grass fields where he can see and hear
anything large coming. In the woods, it is too easy for a creature to jump from
the trees onto him or to hide behind some of the larger trees. As he looks
ahead, he sees a herd of triceratops. There are five adults and two children.
They do not see him, nor do they really seem to care. A few of the adults looks
up every so often to make sure nothing is coming. But they look more to the sky
for the dragon than on the ground. He decides to go to the left to not get too
close to them. While they probably will not harm him, he knows they may get
agitated at his presence and just decide to attack. Creatures that big normally
don't pay any attention to humans, but if they feel even the slightest
threatened, they will charge. And with young triceratops present, he knows they
will be very protective. So he increases his journey some more as he gives them
a wide berth. As he walks past them, he keeps one eye on them to make sure they
do not decide to charge. But they are busy eating the tall grasses and
completely ignore him. Within ten minutes, the triceratops are far behind him
and no longer a threat.
Eightdigit rises with the sun. Unlike Spearfisher, he was not
chosen by any of the village women. So he went to sleep early. As he rises from
his makeshift bed by the fire, he looks at the glowing coals that are a reminder
of a great fire the night before. He thinks about how all the girls passed on
him. He was hurt but he has come to expect that. Being short and especially
having missing fingers, he found that most girls are not interested in him. Like
in the animal kingdom, most women wanted the biggest men to both protect them as
well as give them strong children. While his strength was greater than most men
and his hunting abilities are among the best, most women could not look past the
short stature and disfigurement. And it was their loss as he was a great hunter
and provider and in this world, that was more valuable than sheer height. As he
rose, he stretched and let out a yawn. He also cracked his back as it was stiff
from sleeping on the ground. He will have to look into getting a house, but
right now he is just glad to be in the safety of the village. Looking around, he
sees other unlucky men who are also sleeping on the ground. They also were not
picked and chose to drink themselves to sleep. Having learned his lesson about
alcohol from the previous night, he did not over-indulge. Eightdigit decides to
look for Spearfisher. While he does not want to disturb him, Spearfisher is the
only person he knows in the camp and would feel better if he knew where he was.
So he head through the town looking to see if he can find anyone who can tell
him where he may be. As he walks through town, he comes to one end and hears
voices up ahead. As he comes around a building, he sees smoke rising from a
fire. He sees a handful of the elder men sitting around the fire, smoking pipes.
At first he plans on asking them if they know where Spearfisher is, but
something tells him to stay back. He stops at the edge of a house and listens to
the conversation that is going on. "The dragon is demanding a sacrifice and we
have no children to give him." says one of the voices. "We have to give him
someone. How about one of the new guys?" another voice says. The first voice
then responds "Yeah, how about the smaller one?" he asks. Another voice then
asks "Should we not harvest his seed first?" The men laugh and then one of them
says "No, we don't want his seed. Golden has already made sure we collected the
other one's seed." This is followed by some laughs and whistles. Then the first
voice says "What will the other one think about us sacrificing his friend?"
There is a few moments of silence and then the man says "Once he gets used to
the life and especially Golden and the other girls, I think he will be willing
to make the sacrifice." This is enough to shock Eightdigit. Deep in his gut, he
knew there was something wrong with this village. He also knew that the chief
must know something or else he would not be so quick to leave. But things seemed
so good. Restful sleep, beautiful women, plenty to eat and the alcohol was
enough to ignore that gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was enough
to ignore the very instincts that have helped him so often in the past. He
needed to tell Spearfisher about this and hope he believes him. But first he
must return to the fire and pretend to be asleep. The last thing he wants is for
the elders to find out that he overheard them talking. This way they can sneak
out without anyone getting suspicious.
Derrick looks at the cell that holds his friend Scott and
looks for a door to the cage. As he walks around the cage, he finally finds the
door, which has a large lock on it. He yanks on the door and as he suspected, it
is locked. He looks at the lock and inspects it. Once again, his thief persona
takes over and he pulls out his dagger and starts working on picking the lock.
He could not tell you how to pick a lock, but an instinct takes over him and
soon he has the lock picked. When it opens, he slowly opens the door as he needs
to keep moving back as opens it. Once it is open, he walks around the cage and
comes in the cage. He hugs Scott as he is happy to see him and ignores the fact
that he is hugging a naked man. After a few seconds, he looks at Scott and says
"Grab onto my back and I will carry us both down." Scott nods in agreement and
he puts his arms around Derrick's neck and hangs on tight. Derrick then climbs
out and starts back up the chain. The added weight is making it hard on him, but
he keeps pushing forward. Luckily, Scott is small in stature like him, so it is
not too difficult to carry him. Within minutes he is on the ceiling. Scott
closes his eyes as he is scared they are going to fall. "Don't worry, I can
climb like a spider." Derrick says to calm his friend. But this does not make
Scott feel any better and he decides to keep his eyes closed. He also wraps his
legs around Derrick's midsection to insure he does not lose his grip.
There was a time when the sound of an oinking pig was
pleasant to the ear. But that was a long time ago and the world was different.
The chief thinks about how such a sound would make him think about bacon and
sausage. He remembered attending pig roasts and eating pork ribs covered in
barbeque sauce. But this sound did not invoke pleasant memories. This was a
louder sound and more frightening. Even up in the tree, he did not feel safe.
These were giant boars and unlike the ones that he read about in the old world,
these were killers. While he had heard stories of wild pigs and boars that would
get to be a thousand pounds in the old world, these creatures could reach a ton
and resembled a rhino in size more than any hog. And they had very large, razor
sharp tusks that they took great delight in using. Stories had spread how they
would not only kill a person, but then they would continue to disembowel them
until all that was left was a bloody mess that barely resembled a human. Some
people said it was payback because humans always hunted and killed them. While
they were hard to bring down, they provided plenty of meat and were delicious.
One adult boar could feed a whole village for a week. This also made them
favorites of other animals like dire wolves and saber toothed cats. But giant
boars stuck together in groups of up to thirty members and few animals would
take on a whole herd. Most animals would either try to get one animal to
separate from the herd or go after the sick or old boars that would be left
behind. As chief looked down at the group of boars as they walked past his tree,
he could see that a few were sniffing the ground. Did they pick up his scent? He
tried to cover it the best he could but they had a powerful sense of smell. He
also made sure to not camp in a fruit tree as they have been known to smash
against a fruit tree to knock the fruit down. They loved fruit, especially
apples and pears and have been known to even uproot trees to get at the fruit.
One of the boars stopped under the tree and smelled all around it. It then
looked up in the tree. The chief was careful to camp high up as most animals did
not have great vision and boars were among them. He also made sure to not move
as they saw movement and even if they did not know what it was, they may smash
into the tree to make sure it wasn't a threat. But the boar did not see anything
and kept moving along. As they walked past, he counted at least twenty animals
in the group. He was thankful that he was in the tree and not on the ground.
Taking on one boar is more than most men can handle, but a herd of twenty is
nothing short of suicide. He watches as they slowly make their way past him and
soon melt into the forest. He breathes a sigh of relief and wonders if he made
the right move in sending Bearslayer back alone. What if he ran into that herd
of boars? If he was by himself, he would have a chance to run and hide, but
pulling along Howlingmad, he is a sitting duck. He says a small prayer and hopes
for the best.
As Derrick finally reaches the ground, he stops to let Scott
climb off. He then lets go of the wall and drops to the floor. They both look at
the dragon in unison. The great creature has not moved. It continues to lay
there and sleep. Derrick whispers "Why don't you see if you can find any clothes
around here?" Scott nods and starts to look through the piles of treasure for
some clothes to cover himself up. As he does that, Derrick also starts looking
through the treasure. Most of it is gold and silver coins, which are of no use
to him. He hasn't been to any large cities, so as far as he knows, money has no
value. But he does see different precious gems mixed in with the coins. He picks
up a diamond that is the size of a baseball and looks at it. Something like this
would be worth a fortune. But does it have any value here? He puts it back down
and keeps looking. He finds a few rings. One is plain white gold and another is
red in color and has a black serpent carved in it. He grabs both of them, not
knowing if they have any powers or not. As he keeps looking, he comes across a
glowing dagger. It has a black blade and a gold handle and it has a glow around
it. He picks it up and is amazed at how light it is. He grabs it and sticks it
in his belt. He then sees that Scott has found a large robe that he quickly puts
on. When he puts the hood on, he starts to blend into the pile of treasure. It
is like he just melted into the treasure and became part of it. Derrick rubs his
eyes and looks again. He does not see anything. But after a second, he sees
something moving. It is the coins being moved as something is walking over them.
He whispers "Scott, where are you?" He keeps looking to see if Scott shows up be
he does not see him. Then he feels something touch his arm and he jumps. Scott
then removes the hood and becomes visible again. "What's wrong, you look like
you saw a ghost." he says to Derrick who is clutching his chest. "You
disappeared when you put that cloak on." Derrick whispers. Scott then puts the
hood back on and once again he blends into the background. Derrick looks at him
and sees that there is a faint hint that he is there. It is not so much that he
is invisible as he blends and looks like the background. It must be a cloak of
camouflage or some other magic item. Scott then pulls the hood off and becomes
visible again. He then goes over and grabs a mace, a belt and a necklace. He
puts them in his pocket and motions for Derrick to follow. The two of them then
quietly make their way out of the room and head back up the mountain.
As the sun rises, the whole village comes to life. Slowly,
all the men and women wake up. Most of the men head down to the river to wash
up. The women get together and start working on the meals for the day.
Spearfisher kisses Golden goodbye and heads down to the river with the other
chosen men. They are all smiling at each other and there is an extra bounce in
their step. As they reach the river, they all start to strip of their clothes
and jump into the river. While they are splashing about and having a good time,
some of the men do keep an eye open. One area where they are not safe is the
water. The dragon's influence does not reach the water and they are fair game.
While there is a scorched earth mark along the river's edge, it does not go into
the water and even if it did, most fish are too stupid to know better. So the
men can be attacked at any time in the water. While there are not a ton of
dangerous animals in these parts that make their home in the water, there are a
few. Giant snapping turtles, eels and very large and dangerous cat fish are but
three of the potential dangers. There are also fresh water sharks that are known
to be in any body of water that is deep enough to support them. As the men are
all washing up, Eightdigit heads down to the river's edge to see if he can find
Spearfisher. When he reaches the river, he looks out at the dozen or so men who
are moving around the river. He keeps looking for Spearfisher but does not see
him. Then he sees a person rise from the water with a large crab in his hand.
The men are all cheering him as he holds it over his head. He then heads to
shore to drop off the crab. They can eat it for dinner and he is happy to be
able to contribute to the meal. As he rises from the water with the crab in
hand, he is quickly greeted by Eightdigit. "How about this crab? Ever see one
this big?" he asks Eightdigit. "I need to talk to you. It is very important." he
says as he looks Spearfisher in the eyes and ignores his catch. "If it is about
last night, I will tell you everything later." he says as he smiles at him. "No,
it is very serious." he says as he tries to convince him that this is really
serious. Spearfisher then goes and sets down the crab and says "All right, let's
go talk." Eightdigit starts to walk away and says "Follow me, it is not safe to
talk here." The two of them head down the river until they are in a spot where
no one else around. "What is this about?" Spearfisher asks as he crosses his
arms. Eightdigit can tell that Spearfisher is upset and worries how he is going
to take this. Will he believe him and be willing to leave the village or is he
going to have to leave by himself? At least he has his weapons on him, so he can
leave. But Spearfisher does not have his and they would have to go back to the
village and get them. That is if he is willing to leave. "I overheard the elders
speaking this morning and they are going to sacrifice me to the dragon." he says
as he tries to convey his sense of fear. Spearfisher keeps his arms crossed as
he says "What are you talking about? Surely you misunderstood them." Eightdigit
looks down at the ground as he feared this. "Honest, I heard them talking and
they said there are no children to sacrifice to the dragon, so they need to give
an adult and they chose me." Spearfisher has a doubtful look on his face.
"Things are good here and you have to cause problems. You're just upset because
none of the women chose you. Wait until tonight, it may be different." he says
as he tries to rationalize things with Eightdigit. But that will not work as
Eightdigit knows what he heard and no one was going to tell him different. He
had to leave the village and quickly. So he is giving Spearfisher an ultimatum.
"I am leaving the village now. Are you coming with me or not?" he says as he
forces him to make a rash decision. Spearfisher gives him a pissed off look and
says "If you want to go back to that world, be my guest. I am staying here where
I have a good life." He then turns around and heads back to the river.
Eightdigit watches as he walks off. He knows how stubborn Spearfisher can be and
how he is expecting him to run after him. But he knows he has to get out of the
village while he can. He turns and runs towards the scorched earth and does not
stop until he reaches it. As he stops at the scorched earth, he looks back at
the village. From here all he sees is some buildings jutting out of the trees
and smoke rising in the air. He then looks over the area and it looks safe. So
he steps over the scorched earth and starts to run towards the woods and head
towards the mountain.
Headed up the stairway, Derrick and Scott are moving as fast
as they can. They know the dragon could wake at any moment and the last thing
they want to do is face an angry dragon. Both are running as fast as they can,
ignoring the burning in their sides. Scott is really having a tough time. He has
been locked in that cage for years and the toll of not having allot of room to
move around is taking its toll. But the thought of the dragon finding him and
sticking him back in the cage is enough to keep him moving. They are halfway up
the stairs and making good time. As they are rushing up the stairs, they hear a
sound that chills them to the bone. A roar so load and so violent that it shakes
the entire mountain. They then hear a voice that reverberates through the whole
mountain. "Where's my pet? I will kill the person who released my pet." Next
thing they know, they hear the sound of the dragon breathing fire. As they look
down, they see flames pouring through the hole and reaching the bottom of the
stairway. "Stupid humans will pay for taking my pet." the dragon screams as he
makes his way to the stairway. "Quick, get behind me." Scott says as he pushes
Derrick against the wall. He then stands in front of him and pulls on his hood.
In a split second, he blends into the wall. He then whispers "Don't move an
inch. If we are lucky he will go right past us." Derrick then stands as still as
a tree. The dragon then looks up the stairway and scans over the stairs, looking
for his pet. His eyes are set to not only for normal vision, but also can see
heat. This allows them to see invisible creatures as their heat signature gives
them away. But the blending cloak is different. It not only blends the wearer
into the background, it also holds in the wearer's heat and masks their heat
signature. It makes them completely invisible to almost any creature and luckily
this dragon is one of them. After he finishes his scan is confident that the
humans are no longer in the mountain, he spreads his wings and takes flight.
With a few flaps of his mighty wings, he is in the air and within seconds, he
flies past them and out the hole in the top of the mountain. The wind knocks
them over and luckily the dragon is past as Scott's hood comes off his head from
the powerful wind made by the dragon's wings. As the dragon disappears out the
hole, the two boys look at each other and then start running up the stairs as
fast as they can. They know they have to get out of the mountain before he
returns.
Dominant Species ©
Tom Zjaba 2006-2008