097 The Not-Immortal Blacksmith II – The Thing in the Well IX
1st or Arah, Second month of Winter,
Gods buggered elemental. That bloody well hurt! At least Grendel lived.
-
Johnson’s Hole was a large gray bricked chamber where the flow of several alley sewers dumped into the main sewer. Then the main sewer, for some unholy reason, constricted to a third of its previous size, creating regular massive backups. At least the “hole” was large enough to contain most of the backups.
Maxwell and Grendel stood in the main sewer entrance to the Hole, and stared. What should have been a backed-up pile of effluent, was a pool of water as pristine as a mountain stream. The air even smelled sweet.
Eyes wide, the pair looked at each other, then back at the pool. After a few moments Grendel let out, “What in the idiots’ pink panties?”
-
In the celestial realm, lying on her very comfortable fainting couch, the goddess of Tranquility sneezed.
-
“I have no idea.” Max said quietly as he held up the wand. The wand was still showing Water and Earth elements, but when Max opened his hand, palm up, it began to spin, pointing at everything.
Grendel glanced worriedly at the wand, “Does that mean the thing is all around us?”
“I hope it means the elemental is too near to point to directly.” Max whispered.
The water before them erupted as a lance of greyish matter stabbed up and pierced Maxwells stomach. Max screamed as several dozen spikes tore out of his abdomen. Grendel fell backward, trying not to vomit, as the scene unfolded.
For his part, Max twitched and died.
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Grendel scooted back from the spikes, and slowly regained his feet. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
A faint voice replied from the far end of the hole, “Why not. Food is food. This one is strong food. Once it drains its life into my pool, I will eat.” As the thing spoke, its spikes retracted into the water.
Grendel took a deep breath, “Because all you did was piss him off.”
Knee deep in water, Max stood, face an ugly red, and screamed. “You stupid, gods buggered, piece of sewer trash!” Then the “Hole” turned white.
A sustained blast of superheated air blew Grendel backwards into a wall, He felt overwhelming pain for a moment as his nerve endings cooked, then blessedly passed out. When he awoke, crumpled on the floor, a slightly singed Max stood over him.
“I’m glad you’re alive son.” Max let out a long-held breath. “Bri would have killed me if I didn’t bring you back alive.
Grendel looked up at Max, and stared through freshly regrown eyes, “What was that?”
Max grimaced, “Just that Bri would kill me if I didn’t bring you back alive.” He looked down, and under his breath added, “son.”
Eventually Grendel got to his feet and was wrapped in Max’s cloak. “Did its core survive?” He asked.
“Well, I got this small cracked piece of kind of glass, but that’s it.” Max said. “I think that’s it.”
Grendel made a wan smile, “Then let’s head home. Dad.”
“Shut up. Son.”
-
It stared out the fractured face of its condensed essence, and screamed. Then screamed again for good measure. What had happened? Food had come. Strong food. It had killed food. Then food had killed it! What? That defied the natural order of things! Food no kill! Its consciousness sank to the middle of the cracked ball of condensed essence, and drifted into oblivion.
-
Elsewhere, around the same time.
The dark oozed through micro-fissures in the stone of the world. It wiggled and crawled. It started with pride at the crystal filled caverns, unblemished by mortal eyes. On three different occasions it came across mines that were too deep, made by dwarves. It shook itself in the depths of them, and caused their collapse, sometimes causing the mine to collapse all the way to the surface. It did not care.
It followed the sense of her. The essence it wanted. Needed. West, as the mortals called it, West it went. Need and longing occasionally overcoming it. In those occasions it dove deep. Deep into the warmth of the worlds embrace. Then up to cool itself. Quenched, it continued its unrelenting journey.
Once there was a cavern, into which a small slice of light had made its way. The light glittered through countless natural prisms of crystal. It was blinding, but mesmerizing. It stayed there for a time, until finally moving on to the West.
Another interesting cavern was found, one with the skeletal remains of long bodied mortals. They were still dressed, as though they were just taking a nap. It passed through without a trace. It thought on that cavern for a while, before remembering the things. Things that had been cast aside by that old god, things that the old one had decided to destroy. It put the affair aside, and continued its journey.
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