Taaku woke up to something poking him in the side, over and over again. It was bright and warm and he didn't want to move, so he hissed at it and curled into a tighter ball. A tickle at the back of his mind reminded him that he wasn't alone, so whatever was poking him was probably safe, because he was guarded.

  "Time to wake up," an oddly slurred voice mushed. The goblin!

  "Why?" Taaku whined.

  "I've found as much food around here as I'm going to," Greyex said. "I found some water plants, too. Wake up and eat."

  Reluctantly, Taaku sat up. He kept his eyes closed. It was too bright. A familiar basket was pushed into his hands, and he groped around in it, blindly. Skittery little things scrambled over his talons and palms, but he couldn't get a grip on any of them.

  He swallowed his pride and stuck his face in the basket, feeling around with his tongue like a hatchling, and got all the bugs down. Some of them bit him. It was worth it.

  Greyex took the basket away and gave him something else, something strange. It was hard and round and smelled like a plant.

  "This isn't a water vine," he said, confused.

  "No, but it is a water plant," Greyex said. "It's hard on the outside, but there's water in it."

  Taaku bit at the plant for a while. Nothing happened, and it felt bad against his teeth.

  "Oh, I see the problem," the goblin said. "Let me just..." it trailed off and took the impenetrable water plant. Rock plant. Water rock plant.

  There were cracking sounds, and a hollow thunk, thunk, thunk , and the plant smell grew stronger and wetter.

  "Here, try it now." The best goblin in the world gave the water rock plant back to Taaku, who promptly stuck his tongue on it and felt around until he got to a jagged hole. He shoved his tongue into the hole and was rewarded with spongy wet flesh which, while cold and gritty and unpleasantly sour and bitter smelling, he could almost pretend was a fresh kill.

  Taaku sat down with his tail curled primly around his legs and set about using his tongue (and, sometimes, talons) to crush up the weird plant meat inside the water rock so he could lick up the bitter smelling plant water. Maybe it was less bitter than the water in the other water plant, but it was still nowhere near as nice as fresh blood or clean, normal water. He drank everything he could coax out of the weird plant until all that was left was crushed plant bits that he scraped out with his tongue and then spat on the ground.

  Greyex took it away and handed him another one, which already had a hole in it.

  He must have missed the sounds of a goblin breaking a rock plant open in his rush to drink the gritty plant water. Rather than admit to loosing so much track of his surroundings, Taaku guzzled more plant water from the water rock plant.

  As he finished the second water rock, he became aware of a soft scraping sound.

  "What's that scraping?" he asked.

  "Not going to open your eyes and find out?" Greyex asked in turn. Taaku hissed at him.

  "I'm using a stick and some gravel I found to get the mushy plant bits out of the rock fruits. We can use them as containers."

  "More goblin plant magic," Taaku said sagely, and nodded his head in understanding. The goblin made a funny noise, but he ignored it.

  Obviously, his goblin was the best goblin, in that it wasn't much of a goblin, but was a very good companion.

  ---

  Greyex had no idea how to explain to the stupid kobold that not only did he not know any magic, if he did, it certainly wouldn't be plant magic. He also had no idea if he should explain that he didn't know any magic. The weird scaly thing was a lot less likely to stab him in the back once it was healthy, and it was nearly healthy , if it thought he could put a curse on it.

  He scoffed a little. Plant magic .

  "You can go back to sleep," he said after Taaku made no move to open its eyes or leave the dubious shelter of the hollow log it had wedged itself into. "These rock fruits will take a while to scrape out."

  The kobold promptly curled up into a ball and tucked its tail over its nose to go back to sleep. Greyex shook his head hard enough that the tips of his ears nearly poked him in the eyes and got back to work. The rock fruits were the right size to fit in the woven containers he already had, but had the benefit of not having more than one hole in them.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  ...well. The rock fruits were almost the right size. The dry net bag made of vines had cracked a little, and the basket had some new holes, and he'd had to use a rock to make the jagged holes in the top of the empty rock fruits a little wider and a lot smoother, but all in all, Greyex was pleased with how well he'd done.

  He checked the sky. The sun had just started its descent; they were half through the day, and he'd run out of things he could do. Also, the log was too small for him to climb into with Taaku, so there was no way for him to take a nap before they set out again.

  He reached into the log and poked the sleeping kobold.

  "Ssss, is there more water?" it asked groggily.

  "No," Greyex said. "It's time to move. Come out and hold my arm; I'll guide you, this time."

  Taaku crawled out into the light, and it was obvious that it was much healthier now. Its scales had lost some of their dullness, and its flesh was no longer sunken. It had its eyes closed.

  Greyex guided the wickedly clawed hand onto his elbow and resolved to move as slowly and carefully as possible. Those things were sharp .

  ---

  Taaku didn't like this moving around during the day nonsense. It hadn't seemed as bad last time, or the time before, when he'd been delirious with thirst and everything was awful. Now that he was feeling better, holding onto Greyex's soft, smooth arm and stumbling along under the blinding light of the sun stood out as being really, really unpleasant. He felt so exposed - anything could see him, and he couldn't see anything!

  Was this how the goblin had felt, following after him at night?

  They walked, together, for what felt like far too long. Taaku felt thirsty, then thirstier...

  "Is there water?" he asked, finally. "I'm thirsty."

  Greyex stopped and, presumably, looked around.

  "I see some," it said. It guided Taaku along but, instead of stopping at water, it led him to shade.

  Wonderful, cool shade. Taaku sat down and tried not to pant.

  There were grunting sounds, then crashing, cracking sounds, then a sharp, bitter smell, and there was a water rock plant in his hands. Taaku shoved his nose into it greedily and got as much of the sour, bitter water out of it as he could. Once he'd emptied it completely, lethargy stole over him. He yawned and curled up, exhausted.

  "I guess you can have a nap," Greyex said. Taaku barely heard it through the sleep fogging his mind.

  ---

  Greyex inspected the sleeping kobold. Despite having had all of the water from the rock plant's fruit, it looked worse than before. The scales around its face and sides, which had been regaining some color, had lost what little vibrance had come back.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a wet rumbling sound. Taaku released a truly foul fart in its sleep, and Greyex had an epiphany.

  The rock plant's fruits were safe for goblins. He'd poisoned his kobold, and if he wanted it to be useful, he was going to have to stop feeding it rock fruit water and find water vines or, better yet, actual drinking water.

  It might not be able to walk properly. He'd half-carried it before, he could do that again.

  Another fart blasted out, smelling even worse than the first one and followed by a liquid squelching.

  Rather than wait for what was inevitably to come, or leave the creature to its fate, Greyex shook the kobold's arm a bit and said, "hey, it's time to move. Come on; I'll help you."

  He levered the still mostly asleep kobold to its feet and, murmuring encouragement, set off the way they'd been going, toward the next mountain that loomed over the little valley they were in.

  A wet sound and the worst smell yet, accompanied by the dripping splatter of mud hitting the ground, told Greyex everything he needed to know about how the next leg of this journey was going to go. Maybe it would be better to leave the kobold...

  No, it could still be useful. If they were made by a predator, he could drop it and run. It would be too busy eating the easy meal to chase after him, and he would live to see another day.

  Something about that thought didn't feel very good. He could feel bad all he wanted as long as he lived. He'd just... rather not feel bad about loosing another pet. Sort of pet. Friend? Friend felt wrong; friends tried to cook and eat you as soon as they got hungry enough. Pet. He'd had pets before. Friends cooked and ate your pets as soon as they found out you had one.

  The kobold made another smell. Yeah, pet felt right.

  Greyex hefted his pet kobold a little more over his shoulders and trudged forward, watching for water vines and trying to smell for streams or springs. As time went by, it got harder and harder to smell anything other than very, very ill kobold.

  ---

  Meanwhile, back at the dungeon...

  My third and final room was nearly complete, and I had a choice to make. I could get ready to move my core into the new room immediately, like I had before, or I could expand my dungeon's blueprint and avoid the inevitable discomfort of stagnation.

  I still hadn't had anything larger than a bat come in to bother me, and my minions were up to full strength, so there was really no hurry to move my core. I opened the dungeon editor and started playing with halls and rooms. I had the template for pine seeds. I was struck by the sudden need to have a pine tree, maybe more than one. I had no idea how I was going to grow a tree in a cave, but I wanted one. Maybe if I made a really high ceiling, and a deep depression in the floor and filled it with soil, I could pull it off.

  I threw down some long corridors at the back of the third room to allow for branching paths and put a really big, irregularly shaped room at the end of one of them. I raised the ceiling fifty feet, I sunk the ground twenty feet and marked the depression to be filled with soil. I left a three foot wide stone path around the edge, though, in case the soil turned out crumbly and hard for (hypothetical) people to walk on. I even started work on an irrigation system to mimic rain, set to match outside precipitation, and crossed my imaginary fingers hoping it would work.

  I also sketched out a few side rooms, and another big room at the end of the other hall, but I didn't make any changes or details to them yet. Having more space queued up eased a tension I hadn't known was in the back of my mind. If I had a face, I would have smiled.