Kingdom Of The Weak

Meanwhile, at Herb Valley, Vigil was actually getting bored .

[Stop fidgeting . ] Carrie told Vigil, yawning as she snoozed under the warm afternoon sun .

Vigil whined, tail drooping, trying his best to entertain himself by ambushing a hapless flower growing by the side .

Carrie rolled her eyes, rolled over, and went on snoozing in the sun .

Then, she blinked, and her eyes widened . [What"s that?!]

Vigil, gloriously relieved of boredom, looked up excitedly . [It"s an airship! It"s being chased! And it"s crashing down on us!]

[Why is an airship crashing on us?!] Carrie protested .

On top of that, there were about a hundred Tier 4 flying Wilds chasing it, plus a few Tier 5"s blasting away at it with powerful Psionic or elemental attacks . Holes were being torn in its hull, its envelope, everything . The airship was already falling apart as it tried to flee .

[I think that"s one of Remian"s . ] Vigil squinted .

"Help!" a slightly familiar voice yelled down at the wolfcats . "Tell them to stop hitting us!"

[I think we know that guy…] Vigil added, eyes narrowed .

"We can"t last much longer! DO something!" the guy yelled again .

Carrie and Vigil exchanged bewildered glances . [What does he want us to do with an airship?]

Whatever the case, at least it wasn"t boring . Vigil"s tail wagged a little . Just a little .
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The airship came crashing down .

[Uh… I think it"s going to hit the herb field . That would destroy the herbs . George is going to be really mad . ] Vigil added .

[No, no, that won"t do! We can"t have that!] Carrie snorted . [Everyone! Blast that airship away from the herb field!]

With a roar, a concerted volley from roughly three hundred wolfcats slammed into the airship from below, all but tearing it into two .

"Not THAT!!" the guy shouting at them yelped .

But it was too late . The airship broke into pieces, a small piece still held up by its envelope, and a trio of larger pieces scattering as they fell…

[Keep those pieces away from here!] Carrie barked .

Streams of wind stormed out at the pieces . The wolfcats weren"t having any of that in their vicinity, no way, and the Wilds above didn"t interfere . The pieces were blown northward, towards the Amber Gorge .

Three pieces fell into the Gorge itself . One piece was shattered into yet smaller pieces that rained all over the northern slopes, almost but not quite reaching the herb fields . The last piece landed right at the edge of the Gorge .

The Wilds above, eyeing it maliciously, decided to finish it off with a combined attack . A powerful glob of Psionic energy gathered, gathering in size and strength until it was roughly the size of the original airship, and then dropped down on that offending piece with much aplomb .

BOOM! The airship piece, the chasm edge, in fact, the entire cliff at that end of the Gorge was downright smashed to pieces . Rubble, dirt, and crushed stone fountained in the air, then rained down on the poor, unoffending Gorge .

Meanwhile, the last remaining piece of airship was also sinking to the ground, though much more slowly . The Wilds above considered it for a moment, then started blasting at it too .

Cables and people hastily dropped out from the final piece . About five humans made it to the ground before the final piece was completely shattered . Three more fell heavily . One last human was caught in mid-air by a hungry Tier 5 wyvern and brought away for lunch .

Vigil, Carrie, and the entire ma.s.s of wolfcats watched as the humans scurried away eastward while harried by a handful of bored Tier 4 Wilds . The rest of the flying bunch turned back to continue their rampage back at the west . This left only the wolfcats at the herb field to stare at the newly broken cliff and the sudden slope leading down into the Gorge .

Carrie hesitated .

[We should go take a look, see what happened to the airship . ] Vigil said innocently . [There might be survivors . ]

[Survivors… right…] Carrie frowned, then made an executive decision to ignore it and go back to snoozing lazily in the sun .

[Come on! Let"s go explore! We"ve never been in the Amber Gorge before!!] Vigil protested .

[Bring along a few others if you want to go explore . ] Carrie yawned . [The Gorge is fine, but don"t go to far . ]

[Within howling distance . ] Vigil promised, and dashed off to find a few friends to explore the Amber Gorge with .

***

Vigil ended up cautiously crawling down the newly formed slope into the Amber Gorge with precisely two friends .

Snaps was a brown Tier 3 . 2 cub just a few months younger than Vigil . He was named for loving to bite whatever he could get his teeth into; this included the shoes of many hapless human victims in KarGoth . As for why, he claimed he had itchy teeth . Vigil figured he was just hungry . Snaps was down here with Vigil looking for a snack .

Other than Snaps, there was Cheery . Cheery was even younger than the two of them, and she had a queer shade of reddish-peach fur that bordered on pink . Cheery was named for her constant bouncy mood . She claimed she was just happily optimistic . Vigil wasn"t sure she understood what "optimistic" really meant, but she really did seem very p.r.o.ne to laughter and was even more easily bored than he was .

He"d also tried to bring Chubs, who was another wolfcat cub friend of his, but Chubs was hopelessly difficult to wake up during his warm afternoon nap hours . Nothing short of the smell of a roasted meat dinner could stir him from his snooze during these times .

The main thing Vigil and his friends all had in common was a refined taste for cooked food . In other words; they were all roast meat foodies . Vigil had first gotten caught by Remian long ago because he"d made a run for the roast . Snaps would have gotten caught with his teeth still in it . Chubs would have gotten caught slowly ambling his way there, and Cheery would have been caught trying to share it with Remian .

Sadly, there was no roast meat to be found in the vicinity, and it was even less likely there would be any down in the Gorge… unless, of course, there had been some in those pieces of airship that had dropped out of the sky…

Which was, incidentally, exactly the reason why Snaps had jumped at this chance to go down there with Vigil on this exploration trip .

[Let"s GO!] Cheery quickly took the lead from Vigil and dashed down the slope recklessly, heedless of the stones and debris her scurrying sent tumbling down the slope .

[Cheery, wait, if we"re not careful, the whole thing will go down and then how are we going to come back up?!] Vigil protested .

[Oh, we"ll manage!] Cheery said cheerily, and scampered down even more recklessly .

Somewhere out there, entire human nations were battling with hordes of enraged Wilds, but here in the Amber Gorge, none of the three cubs scrambling down the slope cared one whit about it . They only wanted to have some fun and see if there was anything tasty to eat .

The walls of the Gorge let off a dim orange glow as they went down into the chasm . Vigil sniffed as they ventured lower, smelling stuff he"d never smelled before, creatures he"d never before seen, met, or likely wanted to meet .

For example, that Giant Centipede far over there at the side, the one with glowing yellow eyes and fire coming out of its mouth… nope, definitely not a creature they wanted to meet! Vigil and his friends scurried past it and headed lower, where vague mists clouded the Gorge, and the sunlight above seemed to dim .

Actually, that sunlight got dimmer and dimmer the lower they got . After a lot of scampering and scurrying and tumbling down, they got to areas where there was more light coming off the amber walls than there was from the sun above .
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Until now, they still hadn"t found any pieces of the wreckage or anything tasty to eat, so they kept going .

While Cheery cheerfully scrambled around sniffing and peeking at everything, and Snaps went about trying to eat every weird plant that grew on the ledges and slopes, Vigil kept his ears and eyes cautiously open, keeping careful watch on nearby denizens of the Gorge, who were mainly sleeping, snoozing, or otherwise minding their own business . Most of them were large, strong, and very nasty-looking, and some of them looking particularly hungry . Vigil shushed his friends and had them sneak carefully past those whenever they came across those guys .

Deeper down, more weird smells came about . They pa.s.sed whole nests of strange giant bug-type creatures easily a dozen times bigger than themselves . They fell into some huge bird"s nest and Cheery greeted the meter-tall hatchlings inside . [Hi!]

[Food! Food?] The hatchlings enquired looking at them eagerly .

[Sorry, we don"t have any . We"re looking for food too . ] Snaps said sadly .

But the hatchlings only looked at him more eagerly . One licked its lips hungrily . [Foooood…]

[RUN!] Vigil yelped .

They ran . Thankfully, the hatchlings didn"t chase them . They didn"t even leave their nest . But in their scamper, Cheery lost her footing and slipped down a long slope, yelping .

[Cheery!] Vigil went after her .

[Wait for me!] Snaps went after them .

***

By the time they caught up with her, they had reached a level where they couldn"t see the sun or blue skies above any more . There was only the mist, and the glowing amber walls . All around them were the scents and sounds of big, scary creatures . On top of that, Vigil was sensing other, even more dangerous things, Psionic emanations that made him shiver just sensing them in the distance .

There were extremely powerful Wilds down there . Not just in size, but in Psionic power, creatures on par with Spike and DD and Jujar . Creatures with the power to challenge the Lords .

One, in particular, drew Vigil"s attention . There was something familiar about that emanation, something that called to Vigil, even as its power made him shiver in fright . Vigil was starting to tremble uncontrollably, yet his feet were inevitably drawn towards that power .

[Vigil… are you okay?] Cheery asked, nosing him .

[I… that power… I just… I don"t know…] Vigil said awkwardly, still marching inexorably forward .

[Is there food?] Snaps asked, eagerly .

[I don"t know . Maybe . ] Vigil said, still shivering . [Anyway . I"m going to check it out . ]

[Then, me too . ] Snaps decided .

[Wait for me!] Cheery wagged her tail and romped after them .