by Sarah Lin
Since there was nothing to see but dust, Izzy ran around the group a bit. She got closer and tried to listen to what they were saying.
"What I'm sensing doesn't seem like anything the box gods set up, but that doesn't prove anything." Meara glanced over at Gharavi and frowned. "If your necklace is picking up something we can check it out, I just don't think it's very connected."
Frowning, Gharavi kept playing with her necklace. It was made of bones but Izzy wasn't allowed to eat it. "Normally I'd say I was certain there was Outsider magic, but with all of you it's more difficult to tell."
"It's worth looking into." Izzy perked up when she heard Da speak, nodding curtly to the other two. "At worst we'll lose a few days. At best, we'll be able to improve our tracking spells and finally test that bone wand."
Though Izzy eagerly listened for more about the bone wand, she realized that it was the other bone thing she wasn't allowed to eat. Da and his friends needed to find something important and Izzy was gonna help them. But now Da and Meara were talking about confusing things again and Izzy's attention wandered.
Talking was fun but Izzy couldn't always talk with the others. Meara seemed to have lots of fun talking but she said strange things that made Da make weird noises and the others laugh. Izzy got especially confused when Gharavi talked about magic things. Or when Meara started talking about boxes. The idea of the boxes didn't confuse Izzy - she imagined them as pretty and blue - but the ones that weren't about her seemed very strange and complicated.
But Danniah was easy to talk to! Danniah usually didn't talk about strange things most of the time and did talk about normal things like food. She ate strange sorts of foods and that confused Izzy a bit, but she knew she'd figure it out eventually.
Since she was bored and tired, Izzy ran up behind Danniah and hopped onto the shield on her back, getting a good grip to ride for a bit. "Hello, Danniah!"
"Hi, Izzy." Danniah wobbled a bit before getting her balance, then reached back to pat her on the head. "Are you tired?"
"I can't get tired! But I'm tired of seeing dirt!"
"Haha... me too, Izzy, me too."
Though Izzy wanted to keep talking to Danniah, she caught a whiff of something strange. Her head automatically swiveled to look and she licked her lips without realizing it. She could only see dust, but she knew that there was something out there. A small something in a big pile of rocks, but it was coming toward them.
"You notice something, Izzy?" Danniah knelt down beside her and Izzy nodded.
"I smell something tasty!"
"Oh, hell." Danniah pulled back to her feet and grabbed her shield off her back. "I think we're about to have company!"
Everybody got ready, but Izzy wasn't paying too much attention to them, she was just looking for the tasty thing. Several things, she thought, which meant they were gonna fight. As she pulled out her knives, she eagerly licked over the points of her teeth, imagining what it might taste like...
At last they appeared: several pale gremlin creatures loping on all fours, moving around a fatter creature that was even paler. Izzy had never seen anything like them before and was a bit curious, but more than that... she was hungry. Snapping her teeth together, she rushed out to attack the food.
Even as fast as she was, Gharavi was faster, shooting out a big zappy lightning bolt. They had made Izzy jump and panic at first, but now she didn't even slow down. One of the gremlins dropped, but the others kept going.
Izzy collided with one, stabbing her knives into it. She wanted to hit its chest, but it managed to block her with one bony arm. The other lashed out, damaging her a bit, but Izzy just ignored it and stabbed again. She reached in to bite, but to her surprise the gremlin tried to bite her back.
They tussled wildly for a while before Izzy came up on top. She could feel that her body had been damaged a bit but she felt fine. Most importantly, the gremlin was dead. Not an enemy now, just food. She desperately wanted to eat it, but managed to tear herself away. Da and the others might need her help, after all!
The big fat gremlin must have been really strong, because Da was struggling with it, and Da was really strong. Izzy started to run up behind it, wanting to sink her teeth into its flesh, but abruptly changed direction. She could always tell what Da wanted her to do, and right now Da wanted her to help the others.
She understood a second later as she saw that the other gremlins were swarming the others. Some of them were tumbling through Meara, which looked very funny, but the other part was not funny at all. Gharavi was keeping some back with a wall of fire while the others moved around the sides. Danniah tried to guard her back, but the gremlins were climbing over her, stabbing at the cracks in her armor.
Danniah was making a pained sound. Izzy didn't really understand pain, because it made her sad to see the others feel it, but she also liked snacking on it. But she didn't need to figure that out right now, she just needed to attack.
Izzy tackled two of the gremlins off of Danniah, biting directly into the head one of one of them. She snapped her teeth together happily at the new taste and turned to help more. There wasn't much need, though... Danniah jerked one of the gremlins off her shoulder and then squashed it, while Gharavi helped blow up the others.
Just then Da let out a cry and finished a great big swing that cut the fattest gremlin in half. That only left a few little ones, and they didn't last for very long. Since the fight was done Izzy was really hungry, but first she went to Danniah.
"Are you okay, Danniah?"
"They got one of my arms pretty good." Danniah winced and tugged off her gauntlet, revealing the bruises underneath.
"I'll help!" Izzy rushed forward, snapping her teeth and gobbling up her friend's pain. She wanted to lick all over the bruises but didn't because Danniah didn't like that for some reason.
Still, as she ate the pain, Izzy stared up at the short woman. Danniah was very, very tasty but Izzy didn't want to eat her up. She didn't like it when Danniah was hurt but she did like to eat up all the pain. Izzy snapped her teeth together happily as she finished, then went to look for Da.
He was standing over the corpse of the fat one, folding his arms like he always did when it was serious time. "I've never seen the like. Could these be your Outsiders?"
"Traditionally the term is used for intelligent beings," Gharavi said, "but I don't think they're from our world. Most worlds have monsters or animals of some kind, and some are overrun with them."
"Does that imply some sort of open portal?"
"Given the scope of such a thing, I have a difficult time believing it."
Izzy looked at Gharavi whenever she talked, then back to Da whenever he said things. Soon Meara was there saying other things. None of it made too much sense to Izzy, she just understood that they needed to talk about the tasty gremlin things before she could eat them. But soon. Hopefully very soon.
Eventually they seemed to agree on something. Da glanced over at Izzy and she eagerly came up beside him, snapping her teeth happily when he put his hand on her head.
"Good work, Izzy. You can eat them, but leave one for Gharavi to check."
"Okay, Da!" Izzy immediately crouched down beside one of the smaller gremlins and began to tear into its arms.
For a while her world was pure bliss as she consumed the flesh before her. New things were always so tasty... Izzy liked eating anything, but new kinds of food were always tastiest. Except eating the injuries of her friends... that was a different sort of tasty. Izzy wasn't sure which was better and thought about it as she consumed the corpses.
Sometimes Da's friends said that they were full, after they ate a lot of their weird food. Izzy had never felt full in her life, but she was always satisfied after eating a bunch. Especially tasty new food like the gremlins. She sat back in the dust and looked around to the others, hoping they could find more.
Except the others were kind of sitting around. Izzy realized that they were tired, probably from the fighting. That happened to them -
actually, it seemed to happen to everyone but Izzy. She had even more energy than before but knew they would want some time to rest, so she wasn't sure what to do.
Gharavi had moved away and started doing a magic thing. Da was sitting down and Danniah was leaning against him. Izzy liked to do that too, but Danniah did it in a different way. They seemed very friendly and Izzy was a bit confused, but she was glad that Da and Danniah were happy.
With nothing to do, Izzy instead ventured away from the others to look around a bit. Maybe there would be something tasty around. She didn't find anything but dust until she ran across Meara, who was staring out with an odd look.
"Hello, Meara!" Izzy ran up beside her and was glad to see Weird Meara go away and the real Meara looked down to smile at her. "Are you not tired, Meara?"
"I don't really get tired anymore. Besides, I didn't do anything."
"You made potions for Da!"
"I suppose I did." Meara smiled and put a hand on her head, which felt nice. Sometimes Izzy wasn't sure how she felt about Meara. She was Da's special friend and sometimes Izzy wanted to call her "Ma" but most of the time that felt weird to say.
"Are we gonna find something special soon?"
"I hope so." Meara looked into the dust and got a distant look in her eye, but the real Meara didn't go away. "We're tracking something from another world, but we're not sure exactly what we'll find."
"Oh!" Izzy perked up. "Can I go look for it?"
Meara smiled and nodded to her. "Sure, but be careful. There are probably more of those creatures."
Izzy rushed off to look through the wasteland for non-dust stuff. Eventually she smelled more tastiness and tracked it to a strange cave entrance in a clump of rocks. She spotted a gremlin and wanted to eat it, but there might be even more of them hiding.
Instead of eating anything, Izzy ran back and got the others. They all went together to look at the cave - it turned out to be the right cave and everyone praised her. Though Izzy was happy about that, she was also eager to see if there were more tasty things inside.
More gremlins attacked them, but this time the group was ready for their swarming tactics. Da stomped one and grabbed another out of the air, tossing it to the ground. Danniah did a good job squashing the ones that tried to climb her and smashed others with her shield. Since Gharavi was doing a good job zapping others, Izzy just ran and stabbed the ones that got confused.
Soon they cleared out all the nearby gremlins. Though Izzy snapped her teeth together eagerly, she resisted the urge to eat any of the tasty flesh since they might have important things to do. When they advanced into the cave the walls looked weirdly fancy. Izzy wasn't sure what to think of that, but Gharavi immediately went to look.
"These patterns... I don't recognize them, but the stranger thing is that I think these curling lines are text. If so, they're not a text from this world. Perhaps instead of an attempt to reach another world, this is a place where another world reached into ours..."
She kept saying more things, but Izzy started to get a bit confused. Gharavi was very, very smart. Maybe as smart as Da. The two of them liked to talk about confusing things and Izzy was glad that Da had a friend to talk about smart things, but she wasn't sure what to think of them.
Instead she wandered away, and soon smelled more gremlins. Some of them were a little different and would probably be tasty, but she waited for the others. They got deeper into the cave and Meara got out her torch. Soon they were in a little bubble of light, fighting off the gremlins that came toward them.
"These tedious creatures are endless..." Da kicked one irritably. "The tunnel is branching more than I'd like as well - if they're capable of strategy, they could end up swarming us. In sufficient numbers, even these creatures could be a serious threat."
"What should we do, then?" Danniah asked. Da considered for a moment before turning to Izzy.
"Do you think you can scout to find a leader? The others seemed to follow a larger specimen of their kind, so perhaps there is another."
"Okay, Da!" Izzy moved to the edge of the light, then frowned into the shadows. "It's really dark."
"Come now, you're undead! Darkness should be no..." Da sounded a bit angry for a while, but suddenly trailed off. "No, I suppose the boxes must not include such things. You should have plenty of Necromancy Points, let me check..."
Izzy felt a strange tickling in her head. It always felt that way when Da searched for new gifts for her. Though Izzy couldn't see the boxes, she imagined pretty blue windows appearing in front of Da. She moved closer, hoping that he would explain them to her as the tickling sensation got stronger.
"Hmm... Darklight Vision... that sounds like what we need."
"Okay, Da!" Izzy nodded eagerly. The tickling got even stronger, then suddenly relaxed in a very satisfying way. Izzy always liked getting new gifts from Da, which was another reason to keep eating tasty things.
But more importantly, the world had changed. Instead of darkness all around outside the torchlight, suddenly Izzy could see the caves easily. It didn't look like it was daytime, it was still dark, yet she could see. Izzy didn't quite get how it worked, but didn't need to confuse herself. What mattered was that she could see now, so she could help Da.
Izzy rushed through the tunnels, sniffing for something especially tasty. Several of the gremlin things tried to attack her, but she just ran past them. There was another big one, she was sure of it.
With her new eyes, Izzy was able to see the walls and floors and ceiling and everything else. There were lots of symbols on them. They were a bit pretty, but Izzy wondered what Gharavi would say about them. She was pretty sure that this was an important place.
Abruptly Izzy found it: a gremlin that was even bigger and fatter and tastier than all the others. It noticed her, green eyes opening and glaring. When it opened its mouth it let out a croaking and more gremlins started to come, so Izzy fled back to her friends.
"There's a big one! Let's get it!"
Da nodded seriously and came after her with all the others. Izzy eagerly showed them the way, pointing out where the gremlins were waiting. With her warnings, the others easily took care of them and Izzy felt a warm feeling inside. This new gift had been especially nice and now she could help everyone.
Plus, they were making lots and lots of tasty corpses. Once the battle was over she would be able to eat for a long time.
When they reached the large room with the fattest gremlin, things got more difficult. It croaked and called more, forcing their group to pull together defensively. The gremlins couldn't get past Da and Danniah, but they were rushing around quickly. Something was different, like the fat one was a special leader.
Leaving the others, Izzy dodged past the little gremlins to attack the fat one. She stabbed her knives into its chest, but to her surprise the monster just grunted. It slammed its body into her, knocking her to the ground and trying to crush her.
Izzy stretched forward and bit into the creature's chest, tearing out a chunk... and found herself freezing. It tasted so different... was it tasty or not tasty? There was something very weird about it, something Izzy wasn't sure if she liked. She hadn't ever tasted anything quite like it.
"Izzy!" She heard Da call her name and pushed herself back into action. There was no time for tastiness, she needed to help!
Lunging forward, Izzy took another bite out of the gremlin. It let out a roar and tried to crush her, but Izzy tore her knives out of its chest while biting again and again. Not to eat, just to kill it so that it couldn't hurt Da and her friends.
By the time the others reached her, the fat gremlin lay dead. Izzy struggled to her feet, spitting out pieces of its flesh. Afterward she licked her teeth, though, trying to decide how she felt about the taste. Maybe she should ask Da, he always knew more about such strange things.
Danniah came to check if Izzy was okay, but of course she was okay. The others smashed a few gremlins that hadn't ran away yet, but Izzy was more curious about the fat o
ne's corpse. She took a few bites, trying to figure out the tastiness of it. Maybe this had something to do with the confusing things Gharavi said about other worlds.
The sorcerer was talking to Da about the place around them, something about a ritual site and running experiments. That seemed to be nice for them, but Izzy was too focused on her meal. After she'd eaten most of the fat one, she found herself sitting down, feeling weirdly heavy. When Meara came to sit beside her, Izzy looked up at her.
"Meara? I feel a bit weird..."
"I think you're fine." Meara closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. "I think you need to... digest your meal, so to speak. This is a different sort of food than you're used to."
"It was a bit funny. But I think it's tasty." Izzy was going to say more, but found herself blinking in a weird way. She felt a bit heavy all over in a way she never had before. "I feel... tired? Am I tired?"
"Maybe you are." Meara smiled and pulled her down to lean against her. Izzy was happy to do that and double happy when Danniah came to sit beside them. She was still breathing heavily and needed to rest from the battle.
Was that all Izzy needed to do? She was still hungry and wanted to eat the corpses, but what Meara said sounded right. Maybe she needed to take some time to eat them, since they were a different kind of food. That was fine, because she didn't need to do anything important.
They could all rest until they weren't tired anymore. Smiling to herself, Izzy relaxed back against her friends.
