This bizarre freebie story about Paula's favorite dwarf was the result...
Quartz gazed at the empty shafts of mine. Dwarves should have been digging there. If not his own kind, he would have expected to hear the cackle of goblins, their violet, jeering songs echoing in all directions, letting everyone know this was their realm.
Instead there was a strange, four-legged beast standing with a bowed head, uncomfortable under ground, and why should she not be? Such a creature was normally kept by humans, lowing in green fields, what were they called? Oh, yes. Cows.
On a rock nearly laid a single seed, gleaming as brightly as a pearl. It didn’t belong down here here.
“What is this bizarre place?” Quartz muttered, unsure if he was dreaming again or not.
The seed twinkled with the mischievous brightness of a certain impudent kobold’s eye.
Of course. This had something to do with Nimmie Not, but what?
Quart let out a low growl. He marched upt to the seed and thust it into his pocket. Likely a stupid thing to do. He should have tossed it into the depths of the mountain, let it lie there forever.
A low, undulating sound came from the throat of the cow, who shuffled where she stood. It was low, yet somehow demanding.
“I don’t want to be here either, you know,” Quartz grumbled. Actually he was probably a lot more comfortable in a mine than she was.
The beast gazed at him with plaintive brown eyes, speckled ears flopping in a dismall fashion about her triangular head.
“How under earth did you ever end up here?” Quartz muttered, glancing down at her hanging udders. “Did someone lead you down here?”
“Mooo,” she mumbled in a miserable fashion, tail wishing. She took a few steps forward, hanging her head. It didn’t sound like she knew herself.
“There, there.” He patted her head in an awkward fashion. “I’m not sure where I am either, but I’ll do my best to lead you out of here, my dear.”
She let out another one of those forlorn moos.
Quartz stroked her muzzle and gestured in the direction he wanted her to go. She didn’t seem to understand at first, but eventually started moving after him down a passage.
His sight was keen underground, along with his sense of smell. He held up a finger where several passages coverged, decided to take the one going to the right. Mines and darkness were nothing unusual to a dwarf, but something about the twist and turns made his innards churn with wrongness.
The energy flow was cracked, flawed. It reminded him of a certain crystal he’d found right before he met Nimmie Not. Power streamed in rivulets, heading off in directions that diverted from the overall flow.
Yes, this abandoned mine shaft was like that crystal. He’d often wondered…
…if it wasn’t like Nimmie Not’s own heart.
For a brief moment, Quartz opened his eyes within the crystal coffin…only to have them shut once more, feeling the pull of dark energies, pulling him back down into dreams.
Outside a kobold sat on top on the coffin in a clearing in the woods.
“Come on, you stubborn dwarf,” he murmured into the silence. “Figure it out.”
No one answered.
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