Sorry, been busy with rl. Next chapter is a action orientated segment, so look forward to some action by Tom himself.

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I see a fog before me, my eyes slowly opening. A slight buzzing sound enters my ears next, the sound itself becoming a constant nuisance very quickly. My eyes finally open their widest, and the fog begins to clear away from my sight.

But all I see is darkness. An extreme blackness that I can only remember once before.

I was back in the cell again. But the light from before is no longer there, as if a shutter has been placed over it.

My stomach growls slightly, and I begin to imagine the smell of bacon. A greasy, home fried bacon that can only be cooked by Mother. I sniff the air some, and the scent begins to grow stronger from my right. I begin to follow that smell until I hit the stone wall that contains me. I scratch upon its surface, desperate to be let out. But the only reply I hear is my own heartbeat, as it resounds across the room.

…

I sit down, the weight of my own body crushing me against the solid floor. I try to remember what I was doing before I woke up here, and I… don’t remember.

I don’t remember how I got in here, but I do know what happened to me. Transported from that spacecraft, I had landed on this planet. I don’t know its geography, but a slight feeling of comfort points me to the left, away from the bacon smell.

Being a natural survivor of the Alaskan forests, I sit down upon the cold earth, and cross my legs. I close my eyes, and attempt to drive away the panic setting into my heart. I go over what I’ve learned, as I can’t do much else in this dark prison.

I am on the P3 planet Vernier, and currently I am ‘housed’ in Dunheim, a village of dwarves. Borin is the only dwarf I can trust, since he isn’t the one who got me hammered. The special Progression that is perhaps specific to this planet has begun to affect me, as my liquid manipulation power is no longer viable, or usable. I have a scaly arm, a scaly leg, and a scaly tail. My face itself has begun to scale too, and I don’t know if there is a chance of me going through the Progression again.

The memory of the pain makes me flinch slightly, but I stay in my criss-cross applesauce position.

I am 13… no, I don’t know how old I am. I feel like I should be older, since my build has become bigger. I… just don’t know. I shake my head to disperse the negative thoughts.

I begin to train my body in the current position I am in. How? Meditation. It was so quiet, I felt like this was a time I could ‘get in the zone’.

I don’t know how much time has passed, as no light enters the small room I’m in. I stretch my body as the meditation position began to make me cramp, and I become curious about the room I am in. I plaster my body against the wall I had touched earlier, and like a worm I inch my way across the surface. The stone begins to rub against my scales, which causes the stone itself to give way.

I don’t use that as an excuse to start digging, as digging may cause a collapse. I don’t want that to happen, and ultimately kill me in the process.

I feel my way across every wall, totaling up to four walls in all. I feel the impression of a window on the last wall, but I don’t reach out as I know there is no window to look through. Basically, I’m in a room with no doors, but somehow I am surviving. I cannot feel any breeze, nor a current of air. Do I have a limited air supply? I try to slow down my breathing, but it doesn’t help with the exhaustion I feel.

Why am I exhausted? I am only doing little things at this very moment.

I begin to search frantically for an air current, as I feel my own time ticking away. The sound of my heartbeat, and the sound of stone tumbling to the floor enters my ears, as I search. I turn to where I think the stone fell to the floor, and pound my left hand against the wall, and after a few of my own heartbeats, the sound of something hitting the other side of the wall echoes into my little prison.

I make a clawed hand, and scrape my hand against the wall, the stone falling from the carving I do against the wall. I dig furiously, as I my brain begins to get fuzzy, most likely from the air that is being exhausted by me. This prompts me to increase my pace, as time wasn’t my ally.

Tiny cracks of light began to shoot out from the wall, most of them spread out in different areas. I could feel the breath of air flow past my normal cheek, and I begin to bang my fists upon the wall.

Stone tumbles as the light breaks through the wall. I continue to pound against the wall as I hear the muffled breath of the other person, or thing on the other side of the wall. They breathed roughly, and I could almost imagine their nostrils flaring up.

After only a few minutes, I breathe a good amount of dirty, fresh air. Opposite of me, on the other side of the wall, stood Borin, his beard shifted into a smile. I look up at him from my kneeling position, and smile at my friend of another planet.

“Took a good while ter’ find yer’, Tom. Thought yer woulda been dead by now. Lucky, ain’t yer’?”

I stifle a laugh as Borin shushes me by putting a finger to his lip, or beard. I crawl through the opening in the wall, and my tail lands heavily on the ground as I stand up to give a big hug to Borin. But he sticks out his arm to hold me off of him, and I just hang limp on his outstretched arm.

Borin sheaths his greatsword onto his back, and hangs a white pickaxe I’ve never seen before on his waste. He looks at me with his squinted eyes, and point out into the streets that my prison had lain before.

“Meh feel guilty, so meh lettin yer’ go back ter the surface. Yer aren’t exactly… wanted her’.”

“Why?”

Borin scratches the back of his head with his free arm, and looks off into the distant bar.

“Well, yer… aren’t a human anymore. Yer genetic makeup ain’t what it should be. Yer… different. Us dwarves are a proud folk, but we can’t handle change well. Since yer ain’t resemblin us dwarves, we hav ter let yer suffer in the Nameless Waste.”

“Nameless Waste?”

“Yer know, the desert upstairs, ther roof over our heads?”

I nod my head, and Borin releases my body, and the weight of my tail allows me to bring myself back into a standing position, although the sense of weightlessness does startle me slightly. Borin motions for me to crouch, and I do so. He beckons me towards him, and I match his footprints as he begins to crawl along the ground, as he sneaks under window sills and past door frames.

The streets that I had once walked through before are still empty, and the light I thought I had seen before was just the warm glow of lanterns powered by crystals. I inquired to Borin when we passed underneath if the cause of the crystal dust could come from energy-worn crystals. He tells me that this is not so, and I could only nod as we continue with the escape plan.

Crawling ever so slowly, it takes a good 30 minutes for the two of us to sneak towards the center of the village, and apparently the only entrance and exit to and from the life beneath the sands.

As Borin takes the first step out into the open area, where a huge pile of sand resides on top of yet another dried up fountain, lights from multiple houses turn on at almost exactly the same time. The beams from the glowing crystal begin to act like searchlights, and pass over Borin’s bulky, short, armored, bearded form as he tiptoes on to the fountain edge. Behind him was me, tiptoeing with my normal human foot, and the scaly foot digging into the sand.

The beams of artificial light begin to congregate all in one area, my area. The light reflects off my blue scales and it flashes over me, and stays on my person.

From the houses of stone come a tide of people, the sound of metal armor clinking about echoes through the village center. The shadows of pointed metal block the light source at different intervals, and I can see what is heading towards Borin and I.

The dwarves of the Dunheim village were amassing upon us.

Ulia stood in the front row of the said mass of hairy dwarves. The artificial lighting making their armor shine in an array of colors. Oddly though, despite their knowledge of technology, swords, axes and pikes were held in their hands, with the odd dagger or staff. Ulia raises her hammer up into the air.

“Borin! What have you done!”

“Meh keepin meh word, meh promise to the boy. Yer lies don’t sit well in meh belly.”

Borin folds his arms while his leg is still bent upon the fountain’s edge, and the sight of Borin’s armored frame causes some chuckles to escape from the crowd, although the sight of me shuts them up. Ulia glares at Borin, and quickly looks at my figure before looking back at Borin. She points a finger at my direction.

“That is no boy! The radiation is already affecting his mind! You saw him! How terrified the little ones were!”

Borin gives me a small smile before turning his head back to Ulia. I begin to slide my feet across the ground towards Borin.

“Ther’ radiation got to meh too, and yer’ see how meh am. Perfectly fine!”

Borin spreads out his arms and gives out a hearty laugh.

“You have a speech problem, you blabbering imbecile! The bothing needs to be put down!”

Ulia raises her hammer once more, and a chorus of voices echo from behind her. The dwarf community begin to stomp their feet, an intimidation tactic that shakes the ground itself. Nothing brings in fear like a marching ‘army’.

I then decide that right now, was no better chance for me to get to the surface, and I spring into action. I hear the sound of the villagers roaring at my sudden movements, but I can only continue forward, or I may be killed for something I apparently know nothing about.

“C’mon Tom, ther’ onto yer’. Faster!”

Borin shouts at me, and I can only comply to his demands. My tail drags along the ground as I push against the sand ridden ground. I reach Borin in a matter of seconds, and the weaponized villagers were just a few yards behind me. These dwarves were fast on their feet!

I reach Borin, and he picks me up like a child. I look at him in confusion, but the feeling of something shifting around me occurs, and we both go springing up into the sand ceiling. I close my eyes as soon as the sand touches my head, and in the next second I feel air flowing across my face, and I open my eyes.

“Well, that was easier then meh thought.”

Borin mumbles to me, and I only nod in response. The warrior dwarf lands a few yards away from a sinkhole, and I notice that the sand doesn’t move. The dark night might have affected my vision on that matter though.

Borin brushes off some sand from his armor, and looks at me with some guilt in his eyes.

“Meh sorry bout that Tom. Meh didn’t tell yer’ about the Progression…”

I slide on the sand over to Borin, and pat him on the shoulder.

“It’s alright Borin, I’m still human in the end.”

“Technically, yer aren’t.”

I look down, a sheepish smile probably crossing my face. I look at Borin and nod, looking over to the quicksand pit that we had just exited. I look at Borin and point with my thumb, a raised eyebrow signifying a question.

“Ah yes… Meh can’t go back down to her ugly mug…” Borin looks over at me and smiles. I begin to see the hint of a tear before he turns away. “Yup! Might as well try ther’ next best thing for civilization.”

I really don’t understand the way this one-sided conversation is going.

“Um… Borin. How did we get through that quicksand?”

“Easy Tom. That ther’ is nothin.”

“Nothing?”

I walk over to the edge of the pit, and kick some sand on top of the quicksand. Realistically, I expected the sand to go on top of the quicksand. Until I saw the sand go through the quicksand. I peer over the side, and I hear something whistling, like an object going at a very high speed.

The piercing whistle becomes louder, and I instinctively throw my head backwards, and just in time too as a very familiar hammer comes flying out of the illusion quicksand. Attached to the hammer, was another familiar object, named Ulia. The mad gleam in her eye has returned!

I quickly shuffle backwards on my tail, leaving a trail that had me written all over it. Ulia lands where I just was, and looks at Borin. I can see the red color on her face, and I know she isn’t happy.

“Where do you think you’re going, Borin!”

Borin freezes, and immediately turns around, a cheesy smile on his face. The beard only emphasizes the look.

“Why, lookie her’, the chief is back. How may meh help yer’ needs?”

Ulia doesn’t respond with words, but violence, as she throws her hammer at Borin. However, Borin only ducks to dodge the incoming projectile, and begins to crack his knuckles.

“Yer’ on meh turf now, yer’ crazy bitch. Meh gonna need ter show yer' meh serious side.”