Bad Day

  We need to get together and punish all these *** magicians for *** our world! To a rge organization! *** organization! *** *** ***! Come on, come on, we need some weapons, armor, hierarchy, slogans and other ***. Hey, you *** parchment scratcher, what are you scribb – The transcript of the speech of Irrazard the Tongue-Tied, the first Mourneer.

  When Gloomeye awoke, he thought he had woken up in another dream. He saw a giant as big as a megashroom. He wore a loose bck tunic and a bck cloth that hung from his forehead band and covered his face. On the cloth were painted red closed eyes, from which the red drops flowed out.

  The wind ruffled this strip of cloth, revealing the fleshy face of a giant behind it. Over the giant's shoulder was a rope from which hung huge cages covered with bck cloth. The wind also revealed that there were people in them.

  The worst part was the bald spot on the top of the giant's head. It made this monster not a dream, but a real creature of flesh and hair.

  Looking around, Gloomy realized that the entire vilge was packed with guests. They were all wearing "weeping" veils and either bck robes, or tight bck waistcoats with hanging half-skirts with (of course) bck trousers. It looked like the giant was supposed to wear this uniform too, but there wasn't enough fabric. Some had iron weapons strapped to their backs or belts, others carried coiled ropes, backpacks, or nothing visible at all.

  What also gave hope for the unreality of what was happening was that the guests were of strange proportions: some were very wide, some were too tall, and one of them had fur sticking out from under his clothes. There were also small alms standing on four legs, and creatures simir to them, but rger and with longer necks. Unfortunately (or fortunately, on the contrary), Gloomeye could not see them, they were in the distance.

  The vilgers were at a loss and only whispered to each other. The guests were clearly uninvited, they ignored the fence and the gate, not great, of course, but understandable in their purpose. Gloomy heard the word "Mourneers" from Beard. Ma... that-figthers? My father was right when he said it would get worse, so worse?

  But it took so long to wait for something to happen that Gloomy accepted the reality of what was happening. Eventually, a man came out, also wearing a loose robe, but with three curved metal prongs on his circlet, as if they had been sculpted by hands out of cy. The three-pronged man was tall, thin (even skinny) and limping.

  "Ummmm. I see you've been running through walls to prepare for our arrival," said chief Mourneer in a young and uncertain voice.

  He nodded at yesterday's attackers, who were piled up in the distance. A gust of wind showed that his lips were broke into a smile, which immediately twisted in anger at his stupid joke. Silently, his lips said something like 'demon'.

  Wolves took a step towards the me joker:

  "My name is Wolves, and I am a hunter of the vilge of Worldedge. Now introduce yourself too and tell us what you need.

  The Mourneer ignored the question and hobbled over to the ash pit. He spread his arms and turned awkwardly, as if to highlight the surrounding ruins:

  "What is this? A garbage dump? Ummm. Where do you live?"

  "This is the centre of our vilge," the no-chief said proudly.

  Even through the veil, the leader of the Mourneers was taken aback by the answer. He must have thought Wolves was mad.

  "We were hunting a dangerous fugitive with forbidden knowledge. From there," the Mourneer pointed away from the vilge, "to here," he pointed at the ground beneath his feet. "If he's not here... Ummmmm..." He walked over to the corpses and began to stare at the mage's remains, but his face was a bloody mess - whoever had killed him hadn't been very gentle. "You couldn't have killed him." Mourneer pointed a finger in the direction of the Edge of the World. "What's in there?"

  "Absolutely nothing," Wolves expined just as helpfully.

  "Where's your leader?" Mourner was beginning to get annoyed at what he thought was a conversation with the vilge fool.

  Merchant had crept up to her husband and was now desperately jabbing at his side with her elbow.

  "I am the chief!" The husband winked visibly at his wife. She began the process of rethinking her life.

  "Ummmm (with these "ummmms" the stranger bought himself time to form the next words into sentences). Let's start again. Ummm. You introduced yourself, and I was preoccupied with other thoughts, and then I felt that I had missed the right time to respond. But it looks like I'm going to have to get over this awkwardness. I am Slizvert, centurion of the fifth century of the Hand of Mourneers. Yes, we just took the ranks of the Old Empire, I would have come up with something of my own. Ahem! We mourn for ourselves, for we are already dead. We have sworn an oath to destroy every manifestation of forbidden knowledge. This is our sacrifice."

  Slizvert began to rest from his long speech, staring at the vilgers as they stared back at him. When there was no reaction, the centurion continued:

  "Do you see Aurgelmir? Of course you do."

  The giant, hearing his name, began to wave his hand, creating even more wind.

  "Hefty, isn't he? Ummmmm. He doesn't use his physical strength in battle. He..." the leader of the Mourneers turned his head towards the giant, took it away, but returned it immediately: "No, stop!" he waved his hands. "Stop being so friendly! When I'm threatening people by you!"

  A ghost suddenly popped out of the ground, frightening the vilgers and Slizvert. The ghost looked like a transparent man wearing a Mourneer's uniform, but instead of a veil, he had a tight-fitting bag on his head. The transparent man flew up to his leader and whispered something in his ear.

  "I told you not to do that again. Or was it another cursor? Who even thought of covering our faces? Ummmmm. Understood. Go back to your body. Ummmmm. And don't jump out like that again." Slizvert looked at the crowd in front of him with a new look (probably. But he definitely tilted his head at a slightly different angle). "There's really nothing there. Ummmmm. So what do we do now?"

  "Tell him the truth, Wolves! There ain't no more patience to listen to his "ums"! Ay'm sure none of us here have, includin' his folk!" Mom couldn't take it any more.

  "Okay, I killed the mage. With this." Wolves held up his carved wooden dagger, which was broken in two and darker than usual. "He came to our home with a controlled mob, destroyed our food, attacked us, and tried to kill my son. That's why he's lying in that pile of corpses.

  "Kill me?" Gloomy thought. "Damn, I didn't notice what was going on around me back then."

  "Ummmm. Okay. You, the hunter of the vilge of Worldedge, killed the bearer of the Norn Ring with this shard," if the leader of the Mourneers wanted to hide the doubt in his voice, he failed. "Ummmm. Where is that ring, by the way? As proof of your prowess?"

  Wolves thought for a moment and said, despite the fact that his wife grabbing his arm and bulging her eyes:

  "I took it off and threw it over the Edge of the World.

  Gloomeye didn't like the way his father was lying. It reminded him of certain points in Storyteller's tales.

  "Don't believe the father, I dropped the ring!" Gloomy stepped forward.

  "No, it was me!" as if expecting something like this, Mom stepped forward, hiding Babyboy in his breast carrier.

  "Don't listen to these liars, they're protecting the old man. It was me, I tell you," said Storyteller.

  "What old man? You, the peg in the prime of life? They're protecting the woman," Merchant said resignedly.

  The others began to speak, but Gloomeye noticed that Slizvert was watching him. It was hard to tell where the Mourneer was looking because of the veil on his face, but it was possible to guess the direction. His painted eyes suddenly gave the guy goosebumps. This Slizvert was an outsider with an army at his back, he could be expected to do anything. And the Mourneer didn't move, even when it was Giggler's turn to speak.

  "One of those, eh? Ummmm. I know I don't look very impressive and I don't talk very well. But you don't have to put on a jester's hat with bells on me. Ummmmm. I already have the crown of three phanges on me, they don't fit together very well. In general, what I'd say that weaklings and fools are not in the habit of becoming centurions. Ummmmm. As far as I can remember," the leader of the Mourneers made a speech, sweating a little, when all the vilgers had spoken. "Put them in a cage. The special one. Let them agree on a general theory and who they choose as the ring-bearer, and I'll talk to them."

  The giant set up one of his cages, and the grim Mourners (though perhaps smiling and making faces under their veils) stuffed the whole vilge into it. Then they covered the cage with a cloth. Darkness fell.

  "What have you done? It's because of you, Storyteller!" Wolves seemed very angry."You put this kind of nonsense into their heads with your stories. Now they'll think we're hiding something. But in case you didn't know, we're not hiding anything. What a surprise, huh?"

  "Sept who threw the rin' away, huh?" Mom rustled his clothes and wrapped the baby up tighter.

  "Just in case. It still doesn't change anything. The ring was thrown away, and who..."

  "No point talking about it then. Now give me a pce to explore the bottom," said Moose, Shroomer's wife. Unlike her thin husband, she was a stout woman with thick red hair, which she passed on to her daughter Crushy.

  "Do you think they'll put us in a broken cage somewhere?" Merchant asked her.

  "Don't you feel that this is a pre-Break boards?" Moose replied. "And I hope prisoners here have been actively leaking fluids to rot wood somewhere."

  "I hope our captors' prisoners aren't leaking too much here, whatever they're leaking," Stump, who had already lived a life of misery, expressed hope.

  "So what?" There's still earth underneath us," said Forager, the vilge forager.

  "That's just the thing, there's a tunnel underneath us from my dugout to the communal storage cave. What's 'whoo'?" Moose tsked at the disapproving whoos. "Like you don't take whatever you want from there whenever you want. And as if there are some great values there.

  Everyone began to explore the floor by touch, because there was nothing else to do here anyway.

  "Ouch!”

  "Did you find it?"

  "Yesh, a shplinter. It's shtuck and I can't get it out wish my teesh."

  "Be quiet! Do you think that if they can't see us, they can't hear us?"

  Gloomy found the chipped board and, using his father's dagger (why wasn't it taken away, by the way? Did they not consider it a real weapon?) he was able to separate it from the others. Then all together, which was more of a hindrance than a help, they hollowed out the entrance, breaking two more daggers in the process.

  "Can you get through?" Wolves asked his son.

  "Why am I the first? Giggler is smaller than me," Gloomy said in surprise.

  "Because it's the most dangerous pce for you to be. And Giggler will go with an adult when that adult can squeeze through the hole. In the meantime, go to the city, from the pce where the brown alm attacked you, choose the direction where Dayorb usually happened during breakfast. Wait for us there, we'll all catch up with you," with these words, Wolves gently but firmly began to push his son into the passage. Then he handed his son one of his wooden daggers.

  "See you soon," Gloomy managed to shout.

  The tunnel was wide, and only Mom would have had any trouble with it. The guy was walking, barely stooping. Gloomeye soon reached a pile of pnks, knocked them down, and made his way to the storage cave. There, in addition to the fallen pnks, were potsherds, a side of Meat, and dried herbs. He didn't understand why Moose had bothered to dig a tunnel. Maybe she did it in the hope that the vilge would grow, which never happened.

  "What are we doing here anyway?" a voice came from outside. "We caught some savages and we're waiting for something."

  Gloomeye clenched his fists. Offensive.

  "You know Slizvert and his mad pns. And don't call them savages," Gloomy liked the other voice better. "Savages don't sleep on the bare ground and in some ways prepare for tomorrow. They must be altered alms.

  No, even less. Gloomeye began to search for slingstones.

  "I didn't sacrifice a friend, and I didn't eat that muck to guard the beloved hummocks of human cattle."

  "This is our sacrifice."

  "You know how I feel about propaganda slogans.

  "Don't let the centurion hear you. He may be a half-wit, but he's powerful. Come on, this dirt is clean, let's go check another one."

  "Ha,'dirt is clean'! Well, you say stuff sometimes..." the voices began to recede.

  Gloomeye emerged from the cave into the light, looked around and crawled on the ground. This way he was covered in mud from head to toe, but it didn't matter to him. If the two returned, they would surely be ughing.

  They'll say something like "Look, a savage has got out to roll in the mud!" or "This savage is so stupid that he's forgotten how to walk with his feet, isn't that hirious?" What does he do then? Stand up and say: "You're wrong to jump to conclusions about people you've just met. We are not savages. Find out all our circumstances and only then judge"? Perhaps Gloomeye will have time to finish his speech at their leader's feet.

  But he met no one, and no such dialogue took pce. He reached the broken fence of the vilge, got up, and ran. When he was far enough away, Gloomeye walked across the wastend to the spot where the brown alm had attacked him. His father indicated the direction with a riddle, suggesting that they might be overheard.

  This happened many winters ago in the Dry Channel - a rge earthen channel with steep and dangerous banks. To get out of there, you have to stand on a steep slope, and then jump, catching on the overhanging edge above your head. Gloomy, at that age, couldn't manage this trick. It was there that the alm met him.

  Forest alms always have a different number of limbs, and they are not always stable. But this one was standing firmly on all fours, with its head in front. The rest of its snout and paws were smaller and were pced on its back and sides.

  Fortunately, Gloomy was rescued by Mom, who was still Mountain at the time.

  Breakfast time had already passed, and the sky was a pale pink. Titus stared off into the distance. Gloomeye walked, trying to clean the dirt from his clothes, but only smearing it. When he reached the bank of the Dry Channel, he hesitated, bad memories flooding back.

  Suddenly, a deep, hoarse voice rang out from behind Gloomy:

  "Are you going to jump, or are you just going to wonder where the water has gone? It's the perfect time for that."

  He turned instantly and saw a girl. She had long, and tangled bck hair that hung down over her face. She was hunched over, moving slowly and smoothly, and her clothes consisted of two dirty-white cloths tied together at the shoulders (like a tunic), and a simir piece of cloth as a skirt.

  "Just noticed? And I've been following you since the bckies. No wonder they took you by surprise," she continued cheekily.

  "Just choosing a scenic pce to bury a Mourneer spy," Gloomy had no idea what he was saying. His mouth had rebelled against the rest of his body and was now working on its own, not communicating with his brain.

  The girl came towards him, and he saw that she had a big mouth, wide-set green eyes, thick eyebrows, and a ft, short nose. "Crushy is prettier," Gloomeye thought for some reason.

  "That's right. I'm a Mourneer's spy. Their leader, Slizvert, sent me to keep an eye on you. And he told me to tell you about it. And to say this too.”

  "So he doesn't know much about spying," Gloomy's mouth said, matching the girl's jocur tone.

  "He assumed that by showing you two tricks, you would rex and not notice the third, the most important one. Or that you'd fall for a girl's face. Either the cloth on his head is opaque, or the circlet is pressing too tight on his skull," her lips broke into a smile that widened the mouth even more, but Gloomeye noticed that her eyes didn't change. They were quite old for her age, perhaps he mistakenly thought her age was the same as his? "What he didn't ask me to say is that he asked me to say 'And to say this too'. Do you understand? I suspect not. In general, you don't have to trust me. But if I'm not with you, Mr. Rag-on-the-Face will send someone competent. I don't need it, do you? Yes, he told me to tell you that he let you escape by putting you in a broken cage...”

  "Yeah, we..."

  "...with loose bars. Have you ever wondered why it was so easy for you to escape, ‘hero’?”

  "What does he want from me?"

  "Ah, I forgot to ask." The girl pretended to be remorseful and thoughtful, rubbing her chin with her fingers. "I will come back and ask him to write me a detailed report of all his pns. By the way, I'll send him reports about us, but don't worry, they'll be utter nonsense, first css rubbish, with a little bit of truth mixed in."

  "There's something wrong with your brilliant pn. But what?" the guy repaid her with his acting. "Oh, yes, my consent to your surveilnce," the mouth seems to have brought his revolutionary army into the mind pace and is now executing the brain nobles. Gloomeye has just broken his record for the longest time he's spent with girls in recent memory. Crushy was several winters older than him, and she was bored with him, and there were no girls his age in the vilge.

  "Listen, let's discuss this ter," the girl looked in the direction of Worldedge. "We have to get out of here, Mr. I-am-Vessel-of-Power-Boo-Hoo will soon send the pseudo-hounds after us. Well, so that we can unite by working together in order to survive. A pn? So, just stand here and blink like a fool? I don't see how that's going to help us.”

  "What? What's your pn? You've known about these hounds all along!" Gloomeye's mood changed abruptly. The brain regained its rule.

  "Oh, by pn I meant running direction, you should know this area. Fighting with our wishy-washy forces is out of the question. In a straight...”

  As she spoke, Gloomy jumped down into the Dry Channel.

  "And in a straight line like this, where you so recklessly jumped without listening to the end of my sentence, they will easily catch up with us and destroy us!" the spy finished, catching up with Gloomeye.

  They had been running for a while when they heard that they were being chased. The pseudo-hounds ran after them in silence, only the ground flew out from under their paws. The guy looked around and saw that they were bck four-legged creatures with a long muzzles and standing ears. They looked like the figurine Earlier had given him. Only their eyes (unlike all decent eyes) refused to stay in their sockets and now hung from stalks in front of their noses.

  "Run! Don't look back!" the girl running nearby shouted.

  The ground beside Gloomeye exploded. He saw something red and covered in white spikes crawling back from the explosion. He turned again (ignoring the spy's advice) and saw that something being returned to the open mouth of one of the pseudo-hounds. And the hounds themselves had shortened their distance considerably. Fortunately, the fugitives had reached the right area.

  "Let's go!" Gloomy shouted. He rushed to the bank and tried to jump onto it, but two attacks from the hounds immediately blew up the spot where he was trying to cling. He was thrown back and pelted with dirt, and the attacks also sliced through his arm, tearing the skin off. But he had time to see what was being thrown at them - a tangle of fangs on long tongues. Fortunately, the attack had knocked down the earthen roof, reducing the bank to a straight wall, slightly crumbling. But how could he get there with the constant attacks?

  Something grabbed his leg and Gloomeye kicked in fright.

  "This isn't the time!" the girl said from behind, crouching down as she held his leg and tried to put it on her shoulder. Gloomy understood and stood on it. The girl stood up, holding on to the ground, and the guy felt her swing from the blow in the back without even crying out. Desperately, he pulled himself up onto the bank and grabbed his rescuer's arm, pulling her to him. Another attack scratch the girl's legs as she climbed. Once out of range, they fell to the ground, panting heavily.

  "I'm sorry... I... I..." Gloomy said. He was very embarrassed. Just met a girl and kicked her when she saved your skin. You should have put her up! Good job, Gloomeye!

  "Nothing... important... touched... These snail spawns hit harder," she said, brushing something from her lips.

  "Thanks for the help. We need to check the wounds." Gloomy started to get up.

  "No," she shook her head, and her long hair scattered across the ground. "Look at them.”

  The pseudo-hounds continued to attack the bank with their tongues.

  "They'll make their way here soon. We have to go," the girl said.

  She winced as Gloomy helped her to her feet. Her bare feet were covered in blood from cerations above her ankles. Her shoes had either been lost on the run or never existed. He threw her arm over his shoulder, and took as long strides as possible to get as far away as possible.

  "I hope the view is really scenic. But there won't be much of us left for the funeral," if the girl was trying to cheer him up with such a joke, she wasn't succeeding.

  "We're still carrying out our pn," Gloomy said, trying to save his breath for move, but answering anyway.

  "Okay. We've done the stupidest and most risky part of your pn, haven't we?"

  "Err, yes."

  "Did you take confidence lessons from Slizvert?"

  Gloomeye had a pn, but he liked it less with every heartbeat. The memory of this pce made Gloomy think that if they couldn't fight, they would have to find someone who could. He also thought of Mom and what he had said yesterday morning. But how could he trust Mom's words? It's Mom! His dustbag also exploded. Apparently, along with the memories, gratitude for his rescue had clouded his brain.

  They went where he wanted them to go, but there was no one there, just a forest of dangerous trees, that wriggled their tentacles in search of prey. The Pinching Forest.

  "Don't tell me you're trying to lure them into those nasty trees," the girl said, growing steadily weaker. "Then we'll have to go in ourselves, better to be torn apart by a thousand teeth. How fortunate that pseudo-hounds have a thousand teeth.”

  Gloomeye walked along the edge of the forest, hoping to find what he was looking for. He heard the patter of paws, but he didn't look back. Finally, as he rounded a hill, he saw it. The elf was standing with his hand on the tree that was trying to wrap around him. He was very tall, taller than Mom, and dressed in a floor-length white robe that ended at the chest and hung in tattered rags over his arms. Strips of yellow metal intertwined with the fabric, cshing at the chest.

  The girl broke his gaze by shoving him from behind. She fell herself, managing to get her hand into the leaping hound's mouth. Gloomy tried to help her, but a toothy ball hit his shoulder and cheek, knocking him to the ground. Was his pn really so stupid? It was the first time he had ever put a serious idea into practice, and it had been such a tooth-crushing failure. Oh, no teeth thoughts for now...

  Gloomeye felt the ground swell behind him. Looking back, he saw that it was true. Or it's a combination of visual and physical deathbed hallucinations. There was a bubble coming out of the ground, like a stinking soil, only this one was very big. Finally, a huge metal face - no, a mask - broke through the growing mound from the inside. Then another mask appeared, sitting on the chin of the previous one. Both had smooth and graceful facial features. The first mask expressed surprise, the second - anger and the next - concentration. Then the body of these masks was released, wearing armour simir to the elf's, only heavier and rger.

  At Gloomy's side, the swollen earth released the giant sword that held the underground armour. Then a spiked ball on a stick, then an axe. The galloping ground stopped the hounds as they struggled to stay on their feet. Only the one that had tried to eat the girl's hand was still on her.

  Gloomeye, falling, jumping and rolling, from the constant rotation of the earth, managed to notice that the multi-armed giant was constantly pulling a weapon out of the ground and dragging it behind his back, while the other hand was pulling out a new weapon. His face-shaped helmets also changed endlessly from bottom to top.

  A pseudo-hound tried to attack the armoured giant with its tongue. He stopped his earth mill and swung horizontally, cutting several of the hounds in half. The legged halves began to run away, their torsos dropping to the newly ploughed field without a cry and trying to crawl away as well, leaving behind not blood but a watery liquid. Others decided not to wait for their own slicing and rushed away.

  The hound that had attacked the girl also tried to run away, but either the girl held her tongue or the spy's hand was stuck in its fangs. The hound only managed to pull its tongue back a long way when a huge mace smashed its head. The freed body ran off.

  When the earthshaking was over, the guy hurried over to the wounded girl. He saw that there were fps of skin hanging from her arm, but the bleeding wasn't severe. She waved her good hand at him, rexed on the ground and closed her eyes.

  "We need to wrap rags around the wounds," Gloomeye suggested uncertainly.

  "A new word in treatment? Dirty bandages?" the girl cocked her head and looked at their clothes, which were more dirty than cloth. "Or do you want to rip off a piece of our saviour's clothing?"

  Deciding not to argue, Gloomy cautiously approached the elf to thank him. Well, and look: it was an elf after all!

  "Wait, I was joking, don't take me seriously!" the girl excimed worriedly.

  "I just have to ask," the guy stopped at a respectful distance from the armour summoner and addressed him with all the respect he could muster:

  "I'm a human from a nearby vilge. You're an elf, aren't you? Um. Thank you for saving us. Do you happen to know how to treat wounds?"

  In Storyteller's stories, all the elves were arrogant and cold and had the same voice as the ghosts (but without the howling. Gloomy called that voice "sleepy zybone"). But they treated humans patronizingly, like unwise children. Which, judging by what happened, was not so far from the truth. The elves didn't like dwarves (though Gloomeye didn't know why, because he didn't think dwarves were much different from humans, especially short Thorn), and they were generally at odds with the winter fairies and the orcs.

  The elf didn't change his position, only the tentacles of a tree took over more of his arm. He had a smooth, calm face with a small nose and long blond hair that fell to his shoulders. Gloomy even doubted if he was a male elf. But the chest ptes were too tight, and the shoulders were too broad. The elf's pointed ears were indeed long, but they were almost parallel to the ground. And his eyes were closed.

  "Lethargic," the recovered girl identified him. "All that's left of the elven mage-warriors. That armour - it was his dream. We'd better get away from him before he has a nightmare."

  "Look, I've made you suffer so much..." the guy started, but the girl stopped him with a wave of her hand and words:

  "Don't thank me or feel sorry for me. Have you forgotten who I am? The spy on whoever released these freaky alms after you. If you had been killed, I would have failed my mission." She abruptly changed the subject: "Oh, right, people give their names when they first meet. My name is Boiriann."

  "I'm Gloomeye."

  "I see. Is that what your parents named you?" Boiriann asked mockingly.

  "That's right," Gloomeye turned and crouched down. "Take me by the neck with your hand, I need to get back on track so I don't miss my escaped cnsmen."

  "You want to carry me?" Boiriann crified.

  "I'm sorry that I can't carry you on my hands in front of me, but there's still a long way to go," Gloomeye said.

  Boiriann wrapped her good arm around his neck, and he rose, tucking his arms under her knees. With one st look at the elf, Gloomeye walked back to the Dry Channel.

  "Wait, no sarcastic remarks this time?" the guy asked.

  "I don't want to spill the rest of the blood I used to save you," the girl replied, somehow not believing her own joke.

  "You have a long name, can I shorten it somehow? Like Boi or Ann?" Gloomy gave Boiriann a light toss, in attempt to hold her more comfortably. "You can call me Gloomy, for example."

  "No."

  "But that's what everyone calls me."

  "No Bois and Anns."

  "I see. Then I'll give you a characterizing name. Cargo." Gloomeye's mouth took control again and for some reason began to tease Boiriann. She was actually quite light.

  "No."

  "Splinter."

  "No."

  "Bloodflow."

  "My teeth are right next to your neck. No."

  "Sarcasm."

  "What a great nickname. No."

  "Splinter."

  "No. And you're repeating yourself."

  "I'm checking to see if you're really getting into the conversation."

  Unnecessary author's note: I decided to create an insecure antagonist. His name is "slime" (phlegmatic in the Hippocratic cssification) + "introvert". Initially, he was supposed to transform constantly, including age.

  The Mourneers are the Children of Light from the Wheel of Time, the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout, the Legion of the Dead, and the Grey Wardens from Dragon Age all rolled into one.

  I strongly suspect that Boiriann is more interesting than the main character. We love sarcasm, don't we? Yes, folk? Folk? She's also mysterious, and the author has definitely written a sad backstory for her, which he will reveal towards the end in a cathartic moment. By the way, I am thinking of having a file where I only write dramatic backstories, and when necessary (which is always and everywhere), I just take them from there.