After facing down the fume wyrm, the remaining tasks in the mine were a walk in the park. Mug and I reconnected the tubes and pipes that had been displaced by the fume wyrm’s nesting. Luckily for us, they were color-coded, and with a little trial and error, the giant air pump began to hum loudly. After five minutes of humming, the bellows on the rear compressed for the first time, wafting away a huge portion of the gas and allowing us to see without the haze of green that had been borderline oppressive. Within five more minutes of running, the cavern was mostly clear, the waterwheel chugging along neatly and the pump moving in a powerful rhythm.
Next up was the fume wyrm corpse. No way was I letting a huge chunk of potential experience and ability gains like that go to waste. The only problem was that I could only fit about 1/20th of it into my body at any given time. In the end, I had Mug place the head and as much of the neck as he could into my opening and activated Devour. I was mostly curious to see what would happen; so far, I had only eaten small objects. This would be an interesting bit of limit testing.
Heat filled my body as mana began to pulse and Devour began its work. To my surprise, I didn’t just process the head and leave a stump behind like I expected; I began to suck the whole wyrm in, slowly and steadily. It was like I was a giant, high-powered vacuum, and the wyrm was a large piece of lint. Sure, it made some unpleasant cracking noises as we got to the ribcage, legs, and wings, but other than that, Devour seemed to have no problems with the fume wyrm. Mug looked a shade paler and greener at the gruesome display, but again, there was no chance I was letting this opportunity pass me by—humanoid squeamishness be damned.
OBJECT DETECTED: LESSER FUME WYRM CORPSE (FRESH). EXPERIENCE VALUE: 1,750. CURRENT EXPERIENCE IS 3,102. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW A LEVEL 17 UNADORNED TRASHCAN WITH MODERATE ENCHANTMENT. CURRENT STATS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST. NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED. RESIDUAL SYNTHESIS HAS GIVEN ACCESS TO: STEAM SHOT 1. RESIDUAL SYNTHESIS HAS GIVEN ACCESS TO: HEAT DISPERSION 1.
Two new abilities and some stats? Not half bad! I was especially excited about Steam Shot. I had a lot of utility, but I couldn’t really do damage—not by myself. I needed a way to be able to handle the world around me, especially if I couldn’t make my exit from Aeternia before Duke Bertith made his appearance on the scene. I used Polymorph 1 to make a short tube to disperse the steam, focused on the mana, and…
Shot out a puff of steam strong enough to maybe knock over an unbalanced garden gnome. It was hard to gauge temperatures as a trashcan, but even I could tell that the heat generated might have been mildly uncomfortable at best. Oh well; it was nothing like the fume wyrm’s stream of superheated, metal-melting steam, but I could probably find a use for it sooner or later—or maybe level it up eventually.
With my experiment disappointingly concluded and the pump back online, Mug hopped back into the cart and we ascended back to the ground floor. There was still poison gas in the air, but the difference was night and day. Surely the kobolds would be able to get back into business with this.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It was night when we rolled out of the mine, the moons shining brightly in the sky. Moons? I guess this was my first time outside at night. The moons were twinned, perfectly symmetrical and overlapping in the night sky, one glowing a faint pale yellow and the other a dusky orange. It was really quite beautiful; I made it a point to see more of the wildlife and world of Aeternia when I had the chance.
The kobold camp was quiet, fires and lights put out for the night, the noise temporarily stopped by the need for slumber. We rolled toward Foredrake Merri’s office building and were greeted by the sight of her sitting outside on a rock, holding claws with the blue kobold in the tidy glasses who had given her a drink. She seemed to be smoking a cigarette and rubbing her brow—the universal sign for a person so stressed that they had developed headaches and stomach ulcers. The blue kobold was speaking gently to her, caressing her claws and tail with gentle tenderness. I hated to interrupt, but Mug had no such reservations; he began to loudly clear his throat as we approached, clearly still in a good mood from our earlier conquest.
Foredrake Merri looked up wearily, then looked back at her knees, then did a double-take and looked back at us. She practically jumped up, rushing to the two of us and pressing her earring of messaging to her head.
“Seein’ a gob, seein’ a trashcan, NOT seein’ two melted corpses! Wantin’ to believe. But! Not darin’ to. Is this real? You two dud-defects really do it?!” Her tail was twitching rapidly behind her as she spoke. She grabbed Mug as if to check if he was real, pinching his cheeks and prodding his chest in disbelief to his weak protests. Me, she slapped on the lid and placed her finger in the hole that the fume wyrm had melted.
‘Foredrake Merri, this dud-defect will ignore the fact that you called him that to tell you: the fume wyrm is dead. The pump is back on, and your scale-hides should be back in business.’
She let out a shrill, lizardy yip of excitement, then ran back to the blue kobold, speaking in a rapid, garbled tongue, explaining what I had said. He let out the same yip, and they hugged and spun in circles, giving each other tiny kisses and bites on the neck in affection. I hadn’t taken Merri as the marriage type, but seeing them now, it all made sense. If that wasn’t her mate, then I wasn’t an animated trashcan.
She turned back to me and Mug, settling on giving Mug a giant hug seeing as I was a trashcan. I couldn’t help but notice that Mug seemed a little taller than when we had arrived that morning; before, Merri had appeared to have a few inches on him, but now they stood face-to-face. Curious, but it would have to wait. Merri rubbed his bald head and shook him by the shoulders, and Mug appeared embarrassed but also happy.
“Trashcan! I mean, er, Lugenhelm! You and gob… Mug stayin’! Sleepin’ with us tonight! Feastin’ in mornin’! You two saved us! Got a hunnert thirty-three scale-hides here—but! Got over three hunnert children! Havin’ thirteen myself! Back to workin’, back to earnin’! Thank you, Lugenhelm!” She extended her hand, and I made my crude version to receive the hearty handshake. Mug lifted me from the minecart and I grew my rudimentary legs. Then, she and her mate were pushing us inside their office, yipping and laughing.
Who knew being someone to count on felt this good?