“Captain, the Foundation chamber…” the elf began, a disgusted look on his face.

  Below, in the wooden hatch they had cracked open, a clear, shimmering liquid filled the chamber like thick water, oozing and foaming.

  Mar shoved past Whooshes, looking for himself. He grimaced.

  Below, the treasure trove of blackened wood sat proudly, arcs of plasma streaking off of each splintered piece as they came in contact with the drool oozing from above.

  Bigpig’s nostrils were directly over it, and whatever it was smelling, the foul foam of its produced saliva proved a grave threat to their plans to drive it off.

  “Is it close enough for any of you to use it?” Mar asked the elves in his squad, clutching his mace tight.

  Whoosh looked pensive. “I don’t think so. The mental gymnastics to consider spit to be a kind of Flesh… We don’t have Paragons skilled enough for that,” he answered for his team.

  “Damn. And we don’t have anything that can deal with it, either,” he noted idly. The filth pooling in the chamber, in addition to its viscous nature, was being run through by the atomfire bolts that the Splinters gave off.

  The plasma arcing from them was a consequence of their submolecular edges cleaving apart the matter that touched them, and while in open air, this was of little consequence beyond the vibrant glow they produced, here, in the conductive liquid, with no buffer between them and the tree-stained spittle…

  Mar had told Dry, time and time again, to begin pulling some of the Splinters up out of here, to store them somewhere secure, and this was the consequence of keeping them here for the sake of ‘tradition’ and ‘caution’.

  He set his mace aside, the clay boulder that made it up would only slow him down.

  “Captain, what are you doing?” Whoosh asked cautiously, stepping forward.

  “I’m tough,” he answered, diving in.

  Despite what many thought, metal did not make you more vulnerable to electricity. The opposite was true in fact, as it directed the currents around you.

  It wasn’t perfect however. Immediately, Mar’s copper armor began to cook, as licks of blue fire stroked the metal suit, steam and flash-burnt spittle cooking his arms as he dove down, swimming through the disgusting spit, reaching desperately for the bottom.

  Bubbles of hydrogen percolated from his armor, and quickly, the arcs of atomfire took on the green tint of copper, the metal sublimating into the sludge layer by layer, a cruel science experiment of misfortune, Fate studying the properties of using a lifeline as a mere cathode.

  While Copper was a Precious Metal, nigh-immune to magic, the effects of both the atomfire and the Splinter’s hardness itself were secondary, even tertiary in comparison.

  Like the heat from a fireball, all Mar could do was scream bubbles, as pure willpower drove him to clutch a sea urchin of black spikes from the bottom, the wood easily piercing his armor, and his hand as well.

  He was the Captain of Sunnymeat’s Guard. Cities would laugh to hear the concept.

  Then, they would not, upon seeing it. He had something that even Orcs would consider unbreakable.

  His Will.

  He felt his hair pull high into the air, as he circulated Ki Energy through his body, pulling Bodily Energies directly from his organs and pushing them into his skin.

  All Ki, infused into skin, became a form of Barrier. [Armor of the Beast], many called it.

  Lung Ki, forged a [Barrier of Breath].

  Liver Ki became a [Barrier of Relinquishment].

  Nerve Ki, was turned into a crackling [Lightning Barrier].

  Bone Ki became the difficult and potent [Hardening Shell].

  The Auras surged, and he felt his organs weaken. His lungs burned, his wounds ached, his body grew numb, and his joints began to shudder, as he pushed himself up through the slime, a coronal star spilling out from his Splinter-ridden fist.

  His vision began to fade. It was a mistake. He had gone wrong, to establish a Conduit from his lungs to his skin. If he had made it before he dove, perhaps, but there was no air to trap, save that in his own lungs, and those grew weak without the bolstering power of Mana.

  Bubbles formed at his command as he drew the air from his lungs and clung it to the splinters with the force of his will, and the power of his [Breath Barrier].

  They would float.

  He would not.

  He watched the wood float, neutral in the slime.

  ‘Captain!’

  He watched his subordinate swim down, the Flesh Seeping around him.

  The arcs danced around him, but did not touch. He treated the spit as if it were nothing more than a pool of water, so pure that it insulated, rather than conducted.

  He snarled, as the elf’s hand grabbed his own, instead of the drifting ball of destructive wood.

  He struggled, slipping into and out of unconsciousness, as he was pulled to the surface of the disgusting, filthy slop, the Splinters scattering in their wake.

  He wished his barriers could keep out the sludge, keep the feeling of filthy, bestial spittle from touching him.

  He despaired, as instead of merely dying… Mar had failed.

  –

  Mayor Dry walked forwards. Behind him, dozens of meters of paper were held together in a tight block, like a steel beam, by the thinnest strands of black wood.

  In his other hand, he clutched a simple truffle mushroom, sealed in foil.

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  His father had designed the plan, and it had earned him the place of Mayor, when the previous one passed away. He had trained his muscles, his mind, and his senses to the absolute limit in order to take on this role.

  Despite that, he was carrying a last resort. A tool that would mean he could never return, unless he wished to undo the work he was about to do.

  He and his father had a theory, that Bigpig didn’t actually care about elves, or orcs, or meat, or anything else.

  It only cared about food. In particular, it cared about the scent of food.

  It was generally accepted, after much testing by the pair, that food did not smell as strongly, when it was dried.

  The more you dried something, the less it smelled.

  He knew this in his Soul. He took the name Dry, and when he became Mayor, he used his influence to spread the ideals of Sunnymeat’s claim to fame, its jerky. He pushed for as much of it as he could manage, spreading the little industry until almost everyone made dried meat in their free time.

  He pushed for nearly a thousand gold’s worth of copper, to replace the tin that everyone used before, the Cloud and Rain magic of the metal too big of a risk for what he had planned.

  Even now, the tin remained buried at the bottom of Lake Trough, where it couldn’t draw rains and mists to the village.

  Where previously, the town dealt with Bigpig through trickery, and through the famous Splinters of Dot, making the porcine titan skewer itself on the village’s foundations, a few simple stomps driving it into maddening pain, until it fled…

  Now, the attacks slowed, and were on the verge of stopping entirely. Sunnymeat no longer smelled like wood rot, wet food, and mushrooms buried in odd crevices.

  It now simply smelled like dust, and Dry believed, genuinely believed, that Bigpig did not care at all about dust.

  He left the village behind, walking into the woods with his tools in hand. Where his skin was thin, his blackened muscles shone through, letting him drag the paper-and-wood construction behind him.

  He set the foil-wrapped shroom on the ground, and finally, with a heave of effort, he began to unfold the large paper fan he had brought with him.

  He would need to keep running after this. Living permanently in the wilderness, in order to keep this up, until Sunnymeat’s next Mayor could find another way.

  The plan was simple. Lure Bigpig away. Push the scent it was after towards it. One mushroom could produce enough odor to cover entire wizardball fields, if it were vaporized properly.

  He lifted the fan, the process sending a gargantuan gust above him. The tool itself was painted with the very visage of the beast he sought to defeat.

  The one whose breath had inspired it, in fact. The pigwinds were well known, after all, and designing a tool to emulate them on a smaller scale was not impossible, with the right kinds of paper.

  The right kinds of paper, reinforced with his best attempts at replicating the Splinters.

  “Bookel… Mar. Goodbye. Fight over the position for me, won’t you, you stubborn bastards?” he murmured, body straining as he prepared to blast the mushroom into a cloud of delicious dust, directly at Bigpig, whose face was buried in the village.

  –

  Rhett felt a nervous energy pumping through him. Anticipation. Arrogance.

  The longer he went without seeing that thing outside, the more he thought… Maybe.

  Maybe there was something he could do.

  He could gnaw through wood pretty fast. He was small, and could fit in the gutters.

  “Don’t worry, they only need a little bit of the Splinters to drive Bigpig off. If it catches so much as a whiff of them, it leaves like its tail’s on fire, hon,” Cop promised.

  Just a little bit. He could carry a little bit…

  He felt sick. He wasn’t stupid. He did remember the big booming angel voice that told him he was a hero.

  Refusing The Call was a great way to have the world remind you why you didn’t refuse the call, he knew well enough from stories.

  But in stories, there wasn’t really the risk of him being splattered onto a wall by hurricane winds. He was here, his flesh was here, and he was not a god.

  He didn’t want to get hurt. Didn’t want to die again…

  Cop busied herself over a cup of coffee, the expensive treat brewed at his request, when he stared long enough at the coffee pot she threatened to shove him in.

  He could leave. Now would be the time if he was going to do it. Go over to the scalpel, grab it, jump out the window.

  The air was so heavy. Not the physical air, but the air of the room. The tone of the ringing in his ears.

  He stood up.

  –

  Sniff.

  Important-Smell.

  Make-Happen-Smell.

  Curious.

  Play?

  Leg Hurt.

  Little Bugs.

  Sniff.

  Dust.

  …

  Something Different.

  Smell Gone.

  Different Smell.

  New Smell.

  Stronger Smell.

  Strongest Smell.

  Smell is…

  Boring?

  …

  Boring Smell.

  Do-Nothing Smell.

  Strong Smell.

  Boring...

  Time wasted.

  No fun.

  No interesting.

  –

  He flopped on his belly.

  “Man, fuck this! I’m not going out there, that’s insane!” he cried to the heavens.

  “What?!” Cop shouted, turning to look at him curiously, and more than a little suspiciously, as she held the mug of coffee near him.

  “Uuugh,” he rolled over, facing her with his apron askew.

  “I feel like I could help. I’m not here for no reason, I friggin know that!“ he yelled, throwing his paws up with a scream.

  But I just… Don’t want to,” he said in a small voice.

  Cop looked deeply sad, and when the rumbling stopped, she set down the cup for him.

  “You’re a kid, Rhett. You think you’re not, but you are. You’re an untrained, unpracticed kid who dusts copper for a living, and lives in a hole in the wall,” she said gently.

  “Nobody would be stupid enough to think it’s right to force ya out there to do anything,” she concluded.

  –

  Dry froze. Bigpig’s nose yanked back, and it looked…

  Disgusted?

  He felt like a statue, staring as the brobdingnagian beast turned around… And scuffed a clod of dirt onto the village, the boulder of soil crashing onto it as if it were a pile of Behemoth stool.

  Bigpig just… Left.

  He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, the Orc’s entire body relaxing, as his fan crashed to the ground with a thud.

  “...Thank goodness,” he breathed.

  He really, really did not want to do that.

  –

  Mar realized that he hadn’t failed. That his subordinate had indeed trusted him.

  When he was pulled out of the water, he saw the ass-end of their village’s curse, already waddling off without a care in the world.

  Guardsman Whoosh had done him a service. He kept the old orc from dying for nothing.

  -

  As the rumbles slowly left Sunnymeat, one thud at a time.

  Cop smiled under the silent and complete bafflement of the divine.

  “There, see? You got all worked up over nothing,” she joked, smushing him in the face with a finger.

  He flopped onto his back, groaning at her act of mockery. Doing nothing was hard work!

  …Weirdly hard, in fact. He felt so exhausted, like his well of stress had been cored out by overuse.

  He couldn’t wait to take a nap.