[Poor Grallus, the Rogue – 1]

At the top of a deep, pitch-black hole, an overly muscled man stands in the middle of a forest clearing. An abused short-bow and quiver combo loosely hang on his back, and he holds a brightly lit torch.

“Ya dead? You dolt…” he yells into the chasm, craning his neck to see. “You shouldn’a run from me… again,” he adds, laughing a little to himself. His cracked padded-leather armor creaks as he cups his huge hand to his mouth. “I wudn’t gonna kill ya, I swear.”

Seemingly confused by the lack of a response, he gives a slight shrug and lightly tosses the torch into the crater, watching curiously as it falls. After a few seconds, the light disappears completely, swallowed by the darkness. Still, there is no response.

After a few more moments of silence, the brute turns and slowly lumbers away. “Oh well… Nobody’s gonna care anyway.”

As the nameless man walks off, scratching his head beneath his marred helmet and mumbling to himself about lost opportunities, something softly shuffles tens of meters below ground within the pit.

Inside the sheer rock abyss, several minutes pass in silence. The abandoned torch lies flickering on a pile of flat rocks. Its light reveals subtle movement high atop a pile of discarded compost. A small figure is barely visible, slumped face-first in the soil. With great effort, he slowly turns his body, rolls off the mound, and lies flat, facing upward.

“Oh, my ASS!”

[341] Words : What, who, which?