Nana was dreading the torokka her mother had prepared, but sat down to eat nonetheless. Even though some things seemed off. The table was only set for one diner and the purple cushion she was so fond off scraped her knees as she sat down. She struggled to get comfortable, then sighed when the bowl of food was set before her. There was a large pile of torokka on it, curled orange vegetables that twisted and turned around their axis, each neatly scraped off the hairy skin that covered the nutritious vegetables. Nana looked around the table for her chopsticks and found none. She risked the ire of her mother seeing her eat with her hands, taking the first of the hated vegetables to her mouth.

Even though torokka was supposed to be a hard root vegetable, it felt soft and slimy in hand, vaguely reminiscent of the times she had had a certain male body part in her hands.

She thought to herself that that made no sense. She was too young to even know about such things apart from the few times she had seen young lovers in the bath house, but she had definitely never touched a man's organ. She shook her head, brought the torokka to her mouth and bit down. Instead of the crunch there was a slight protest of the soft food in her mouth, then a burst and she had a mouth full of cold, thick creamy juice. It didn’t taste half bad, but it certainly was no torokka.

Questioningly, she looked up at her mother, then frowned when her parent wasn’t there. In fact, this wasn’t her house… was it? There was a flash of brownish gray cave wall, then back to the dining room. She made the observation to herself that she probably didn’t sleep enough last night and returned to forcing the torokka into her mouth, persevering for the candied grasshoppers that would follow her culinary ordeal.

When she finally finished her food, her mother appeared again. This time accompanied by somebody she only vaguely recognized. He was dressed in the flowing black garments of a doctor and covered in more facial hair than a fly. He studied Nana silently.

“Nana,” her mother said, “Mushi? I have brought the foreign doctor to look into your illness.”

Nana cocked her head at the man. She didn’t feel sick and something seemed vaguely familiar about the man.

“You’re lucky they hadn’t left yet,” her mother continued, “He’ll just have to make a small incision in your leg…”

Nana looked curiously at her leg, then her arm. There was a barely perceptible scar from a previous bloodletting. Had this happened before?

The doctor meanwhile came closer without a word. He produced a knife from his sleeve and something occurred to Nana. The doctor was a foreigner, why did he wear the black robes of the Empire’s healers? The thought however was quickly forgotten when a sharp pain ran through her leg.

Nana screamed.

Rei was making her way through the tunnels, which were surprisingly warm, but also very damp and, as such, the perfect breeding ground for the giant luminescent mushrooms that covered the ceilings and wall. Strangely, they seemed to shy away from Rei’s torch as she approached.

She sighed when she came across another fork in the road, leaving her with three choices into the depths. She lit one of the mushrooms on fire. It burned up momentarily with a satisfying crisp sound. As soon as she entered the next tunnel however, she heard a scream. A distinctly human scream.

“Nana,” she gasped. The sound of hearing Nana scream was so surprising that she dropped the torch, forgetting about the fire altogether. She rushed towards the noise and found that the glowing fungus showed the path. Among the many light blue ones, red ones and purple ones seemed to mark a path in a script she could not read, but vaguely looked like the characters they used in the empire.

Another scream followed and Rei picked up her pace…

In a large crevice, closer to a chamber, she found Nana. The other woman was by herself, seated on a rock, leaning on another. The stone had been hewn, vaguely mirroring the tables and cushions found in every corning of the Empire.

Nana was staring at the wall, a dreamy look in her eyes, and chattering to somebody only she could see. She was talking about the bumblebees she had seen in the temple.

“Really cute,” she said, “I might become a shrine maiden to play with them.”

“Oh, hi,” she said to Rei when she noticed her entering, “I was just telling mother I might become a shrine maiden.”

“Bit late for that,” Rei replied dryly.

“Why?” Nana demanded with the petulance of a child told that she couldn’t have a cookie.

“Most importantly, because you’ve not been a maiden for a long time. Secondly, you already have a duty to the Gunari, Nana. You’re a dragonfly.”

Nana laughed at the statement, “Nonsense. I’m seven years old.”

Rei sighed and waved a hand in front of Nana’s eyes. She slowly became aware of her actual surroundings.

“Rei…?” she asked cautiously.

“Sure am,” Rei laughed.

Rei sat down on the table, raised her hand to slap the woman to her senses and… recoiled in horror when she saw Nana’s leg.

A fresh gashed marked the tanned skin, though that was not what had terrified Rei. Inside the gash was the source of her horror. A host of snow white maggot swarmed in Nana’s leg, feasting on the living flesh.

Rei bit her lip, considered her options and in the end went with her original plan. She slapped Nana’s face, then brought her hand back ready for a second round.

“Rei?” Nana asked.

“Can you walk?” Rei demanded.

“Where are we?”

“Can you walk?”

Nana laughed. It seemed a silly question.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, then her eyes wandered to her leg. She barely responded at the sight, though her face did pale at the sight. Curiously, she pushed a finger into the wound and watched one of the maggots sink its tiny teeth into her skin.

“Now how did those get there?” she asked herself, studying the one on her finger.

Rei slapped her again.

“Focus, tassi,” she snapped, “There’s Pagga around.”

“Pagga?” Nana laughed, “Nonsense. I ate my vegetables.”

Rei sighed. It was a common enough threat from most parents. ‘If you don’t do your homework’, ‘if you don’t eat your vegetables’ or ‘ if you don’t shut up now’ were generally the start of the threat, but they always ended roughly the same with, ‘the Pagga will take you away.’

It wasn’t clear to the kids what the Pagga would do to them when taken away, but the promise of being taken by the demihumans was generally enough to scare a kid straight. Clearly Nana had been a fussy eater as a child.

“Nana,” Rei yelled, “You’re an adult. Shake the joyflower off. This is not the time.”

While she yelled, it occurred to Rei that this wasn’t the usual result of ingesting joyflower. There must have been another factor. She took Nana by the wrist and pulled her from her seat.

“Mom!” Nana yelled, “I’m going out to play!”

Rei was relieved that Nana wouldn’t put up a struggle, then frowned when she heard an odd squelching sound behind her. She turned around and for the first time in her life stood face to face with a Pagga. Just like Nana, she had been threatened with them, but seeing one in the flesh was a new terror.

It was roughly humanoid in shape, though shorter and a lot fatter than most people. Its head was shaped like a toad’s, animals that Rei only knew from drawings as those had been long extinct in the Empire. It was a dirty brown and appeared to be wet all over. Two bulbous eyes stuck out of its head, where its pupils seemed to swim in the dirty yellow they were. It wore an amalgamation of brightly colored rags that had been haphazardly stitched together. In its three-fingered hands, fingers that ended in odd round suckers, it held a staff that was little more than a carved branch, which he used as a cane.

Its eyes fixed on Rei, who was dragging away its prey and its tongue flicked out of its mouth, clearly some sort of warning. Rei took another step and now the tongue came out proper. It was surprisingly fast, cutting through the damp air so fast that all Rei managed to do was half draw the blade to block it.

It bounced off the chitin and the Pagga angrily slurped it back into its mouth.

“Back off,” Rei warned it, drawing the blade fully and prepared to defend herself.

She nervously fidgeted until her fingers felt in place around the hilt. Unlike Nana, who religiously practiced her bladework in her free time, Rei lacked confidence with the weapon. She especially lacked confidence against an opponent as alien as this, unsure what it was capable off.

She pushed her left arm forward, the palm towards her opponent, then freed two fingers from her balled fist, the index- and middle fingers pointed to the side. She finished her preparation by finding her balance and placing the tip of the blade over her left hand.

It was a rather simplistic stance, one that most blademasters recommended their students forget as they developed their own style, but Rei never learned beyond the basics. However, she also felt the basics were enough to fight the odd jungle creature in front of her.

Surprisingly, it returned the greeting with one of its own. The cane it had been using to walk was taken into two hands now and he lightly bonked his head against the weapon before falling in its own battle crouch.

“Nana,” Rei said flatly, “Get down.”

Nana looked blankly at her.

Rei’s eyes darted between the Pagga and her companion, the former of which just stared menacingly at her.

Rei realized it was waiting for her to make the first move, which gave her the chance to deal with Nana first.

“Nana,” she said, as firm as she could to her, “It’s time for bed.”

Nana, whose eyes were still somewhat glassy, nodded, stood up and headed out of the room, dragging her maggot-infested leg after her. A moment later she and the Pagga heard her collapse outside the cavern.

Rei laughed at the absurdity of the situation and realized that the strange croaking sound from her opponent might be doing the same.

“We’re no so different,” she said to it, “I don’t want to hurt you. Just let us leave…”

The Pagga responded by pushing its tongue down against the spit bubbles under it, making a disgusting sucking sound. It meant nothing to Rei.

If diplomacy was off the table, she simply hoped that being the aggressor would win her the fight.

She sprang into action, kicking off with one foot and swinging the sword neatly at the pagga’s head with an overhead blow, intending to end the fight with a single strike.

The Pagga brought up its quarterstaff to catch the strike and Rei felt the chitin cut into the thick wood, finding to her dismay that with the force she had put behind it, it was now stuck in her enemy’s weapon. The tugged hard on her sword, trying to regain control of it and saw just in time that the Pagga had never intended to use the staff to fight. It was a trap.

Its wide mouth opened and the tongue cut through the air, aiming for Rei’s eye.

She barely avoided it by jerking her head to the side, feeling its spit spatter past her ear.

Her long blade was lost for this fight, so she let go off it and stepped back, drawing the short blade as she went. She made sure to keep distance between herself and it, planning to cut off its tongue if it it came at her again.

The Pagga tossed its weapon aside and also took a few steps back, hunched and clearly prepared to jump.

Nana brought up her sword, preparing to defend her from the oncoming blow, then followed the Pagga as it leaped high, too high to be a direct threat to her.

Afraid it was planning to crush her with its massive weight, Rei rolled forward, which was what the Pagga had been hoping for. Its long tongue curled out of its mouth and twisted around her ankle, sending her sprawling to the floor instead of properly finishing, or even starting, her roll. She yelped when her chin slammed against the hard floor, but held tight to her sword. She heard the Pagga land behind her a second later, then felt the tug of its tongue, pulling her towards it.

She rolled on her back as her knees were being scraped open, then saw her chance. She brought her blade up and a moment later felt it cut into its backside. It let go off Rei to scream, a disgusting wet sound, but the momentum it had caused was enough for Rei to slide under its legs. As soon as she cleared the living ridge she hopped to her feet, she turned around and brought a hard punch to what she assumed was the pagga’s nose.

It stumbled backwards, still groaning at the sword that cut into its rear. Rei, now fully on the offensive, brought a forceful kick to the Pagga’s stomach, which sent it reeling back even further. For a moment she waited, one leg still in the air, to see if it was willing to surrender. It stumbled forward, let out a rasping gasp, then seemed to prepare another attack. Rei brought the foot that was still in the air to the ground and used her other to kick it in the jaw. Its jowl made an odd quivering sound at the impact, which Rei would have laughed at under other circumstances. She didn’t wait for it to recover again. With both feet firmly on the ground, she punched it in the stomach. It lunged forward against the fist, its eyes bulging more than they already did and its tongue lolling out of its mouth. Rei struck again with her other fist, then continued a rain of punches that left the creature with little more options than to gasp at the barrage of violence. It retched, then stumbled forward, barely keeping control over its own body. Rei sidestepped just in time to avoid a generous spray of black and white projectile vomit that spattered off the cavern floor.

For a moment Rei pitied the hunched over Pagga, then brought her elbow down on where she assumed it spine was. The Pagga collapsed to the floor, showing off the sword that was still firmly lodged into its back. Rei smiled, grabbed it in her hand, then levered it up. It cut through the screaming Pagga that struggled against its tormentor until it suddenly stopped moving when she hit something vital.

She flicked the blood off the weapon, sheathed it, then made a point of politely bowing to the defeated enemy.

After that, she collected the long blade, sheathed it as well and rushed to find where Nana was.

She laughed when she found her tassi. She was sleeping peacefully, or as peacefully as anyone with a host of maggots in their leg, on the cavern floor.

Rei sighed in relief and hunched down to wake her up, then frowned when she heard an odd noise. She listened carefully. The plopping sound of approaching Pagga feet the tunnel from all sides. She stood up, placed a hand on her hilt, then paled when she saw she was surrounded by at least three dozen of the creatures, crowding to be the first to see her.

“Oh…” she said, taking her hands off her weapon, “…Poop.”