CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

As Doctor Mallow hunched over his ill fitted mount, it could not help but glance at the dwarf with a look of envy.

“You must teach me what you have done to win a spider’s heart sometime, stout one. It has been some time since I had means of transportation.”

At the idea of Doctor Mallow possessing arachnids, no less infecting them with its spores, sent a shiver down the dwarf’s spine--so did the snow. The two advanced up the frost bitten path a ways from the church and cottage and advanced towards the ruins far beyond the growing haze. While the dwarf did appreciate sharing the strange centralized weather patterns with another to check on his own sanity, the dwarf’s stomach sank at they’re coming at all. Having dealt with floors of undead, the dwarf did not need to guess what the funguay’s intentions were involving ‘FAITH’.

“Sad sight, isn’t it?” asked the doctor, gesturing at the snow covered ruins coming into view, many of their ceilings in the same state of collapse and disarray the dwarf had met before. “I’ve never known this town any other way since my coming some hundred years ago. Were you to ask me, this is the result of a curse. Not even my own faith can lift it. But not everything can be our problem, dwarf. What we are for...” it began, the two dismounting their rides to enter a very familiar building. “What I am to reveal to you, today, is something perhaps as foul as the eater, which...”

The funguay did not resume its unending speech, ostensibly unable to come to terms with the mass barricading the once locked door. The dwarf made effort to catch its eyes.

“Ah. Well. I want to know. Were you able to call upon His word?”

The dwarf nodded. But Mallow evidently didn’t believe him.

“Then it would behoove you to explain why you’ve left the door in this state.”

As the dwarf’s beard began to give way to words, he realized it would not make sense to explain the floor’s giving way--it technically never had. Only one other entity in the world knew the dwarf’s strange secret. Or was this true, considered the dwarf. His shivering fists balled. He would make no response indicative of ‘LOADING’. The dwarf decided to explain the true encounter of the first zombie, forcing it past the curse into the killing embrace of light. Noticing stairs at the back, he took no chances. This was enough for Mallow.

“But you must undo the barricade. We cannot leave these souls entombed.”

The dwarf’s face fell.

“And you can always use the experience. Real experience, dwarf.”

He, the dwarf, hadn’t really considered why ‘FAITH’ came and went silently in contrast to which gained levels. But then, the dwarf didn’t gain ‘SAVING’ milestones, either. Or were more deaths expected of him? To Him? The very thing at which the funguay put prayers to, the dwarf made heretical farm animal facsimile of. But he did not blame Waspig for the blank bible. If not God, then something like God in scope or scale would have to be responsible for its making, for ‘SAVING’ and ‘LOADING’ which neither Mallow nor any elf made reference of. What could it all possibly mean, the dwarf cried from within. Doctor Mallow, sensing tension in its pupil, approached less authoritatively.

“Come now, dwarf. I have seen your faith. It is strong. Your passion for Him is well evident. So I ask you as one and the same made by His eye to join me in guiding His lost souls home.”

The doctor waited. The dwarf acquiesced.

“Very good. You go about dismantling this nonsense, I will wait outside. Frost on my cap is certainly no curse at all.”

As Mallow exited, Waspig entered. It sat itself near an upturned cabinet and began gnawing a book missing its content. The dwarf took a deep breath. He did have faith.

Stepping outside, the funguay had taken shelter beneath an awning. A mound of snow topped its head. Its multitude of hands began furiously rubbing one another as the two stepped inside, Pistol choosing to remain outside, its play in the snow only daring to be interrupted. With trash and rubbish scooped to both sides of the wall, a clear path led to the door at which Mallow prodded a key towards. It suddenly stopped and craned its neck, at which a little snow slipped.

“How did you get in?”

The dwarf dove into his pouch and produced a lockpick. Doctor Mallow clicked its tongue.

“That is mine, is it not? No, it is no consequence, I have nothing to get into. This door’s luck of a working lock and easily found key is something only He could have ordained. And it is evil, dwarf,” the funguay emphasized, leaning closer, further spilling white. “It is evil that made His children what they are. But that is why we can defeat them.”

WIth the door opening and funguay entering, the dwarf’s eyes widened. It was obviously his duty to warn the doctor, to stop it from tumbling down. Indeed, should Mallow fall, if it did not perish to wounds sustained before water, its staggering self would be little match for the zombies awaiting it. But this was the same funguay which had molested his flock, using the dwarf twice in two timelines. Not only was Funguayou produced this illegitimate way, but even Funguayou became the bearer of forced burdens at the hands of its father of fungus. But it was the dwarf’s heart that forced his hand forward snatching one of the doctor’s pulling him back. It demanded to know what the dwarf was doing, and the dwarf could not vocalize the danger without invoking an a priori account. In his lack of words, the doctor snatched its hand back and continued forward. The dwarf yelled but came ignored. Mallow loudly grumbled, stepping then across the middle of the floor and falling through, hand once more snatched by dwarf. It begged for his help and stretched another hand forward to which too became grabbed. Up the dwarf hoisted the funguay, latter dashing back out into the hall, wheezing as the dwarf approached.

“Reseal... the door...”...

With the barricade re-established, the funguay admitted feeling unfit to continue with the day’s lessons. The dwarf mounted Waspig while Doctor Mallow brushed pounds of white dust from tall, wide, scarred Pistol. The four descended the trail.

“A question for you, dwarf,” began Mallow. “How did you know that would happen?”

The dwarf remained silent. He wracked his head for plausible answers and came up empty.

“It could be none other than divine intervention. Such a thing has happened to myself. I am sorry for how I conducted myself back there. Perhaps we can think of you pulling me up from the floor a test--physical, yes, though I’ve never questioned that. Moral, dwarf. You did not have to save this funguay. Perhaps one day you will regret it. But you acted well. God bless.”

The dwarf massaged Waspig’s head.

“ANIMAL HUSBANDRY INCREASED TO 40”

“Many months will pass before this snow comes to this island in full. But it will happen. Prepare yourself and the steeple, dwarf. In time you may come in need of materials beyond what is accessible to you. Look to Nasteze, then. Though I cannot offer Ishmael, for he is quite busy enough.”

Something in the delivered tone rubbed the dwarf wrong. But he bid farewell to the doctor without its mentioning and, heading away and towards the steeple with Pistol in tow, the dwarf rode on from a setting sun. Arriving, he shoved the stack of planks with tired, funguay saving arms and decided it would be the last time he’d ever shove them again.