Lin looked around at the hamsters, which were circling around their dead and decomposing brethren. To a fairy, even a hamster was a big challenge. The rodents were double his size, and they all looked at him like a piece of a… carrot.
Lin did not want to think of himself as someone who could get eaten by a hamster, but that was the only thing he could think about.
Kai could, and the fact the gnome had fought off a giant bee for him, proved it. Lin would have run away. Had not even wanted to come into the dungeon.
He was a coward, pure and simple. If he had not been a necromancer, a rare talent for a fairy to have, then he would not have dared to dream about bringing his brethren back to life.
The world was unjust, Lin doubly so. And now he was going to get eaten by a hamster, and he was never going to see his cousins again.
The worst thing about it all was that hamsters didn't even need to eat meat.
"Oh, my," Lin's head whipped in the direction he had heard the voice from. Had the core grown bored, and decided to come and slay them personally?
Lin stood up, making sure that Kai had a good enough pillow, his very own cape, under his head. Even if they fell, Lin was going to do his best to make sure that Kai had a couple of moments of comfort before the end.
"Stay back, vile wretch! I have a black belt in air sorcery!"
As powers went, even Lin knew that this was nothing. Still, apart from the dead hamsters who were trying to keep out the living hamsters from him, he had nothing else to bluff with.
"Oh, good. Can you fly us to the main hub?"
The shadows parted, Lin gripped his toothpick of a dagger, which was an actual toothpick, harder.
Only to see a gnome coming his way. The woman, for he could see well-pronounced laugh lines under her face, which proved her age, was smiling happily.
A horde of hamsters trailing at her feet.
"Just because I am a fairy does not mean I can fly!" It was a knee-jerk reaction on his part. He had flown earlier, had he not? And yet, Lin was a creature of habit.
The gnome sighed.
"Then what was that about the air sorcery?" The woman sat just out of reach of Lin's decomposing hamsters. Her eyes traced each and every one of them, until they zeroed in on one with a pink bow around its neck. "And why did you have to dig out my pet cemetery?"
Lin rubbed the back of his head. Yeah, that was not something he should have done. Normally, he wouldn't have, but desperate times and all that…
"Never mind, my home is in danger," the gnome lady told him, as she picked up one of the dead hamsters. The animal nuzzled its bony skull against her cheek.
Lin narrowed his eyes. So, he had been right! This was the dungeon core!
"You can tell me, and if I can help, I will," Lin told her, as he relaxed. The core was no human, or Naga. No, just a gnome. He could take on a gnome.
The gnome lady giggled, and then crushed the skull of her hamster. Lin could not help but imagine his own skull ending up as dust on the ground.
"Look here you," the gnome began, and the hamsters, both alive and dead, parted for her like a river. "You will give me the respect due to me, or you will end up as the boss mob! And just so you know, I don't give fair contracts!"
Lin nodded, his hands beginning to shake. He did not want to imagine being slain again and again, only to be brought back each and every time.
"But that would be good for you, won't it?" The gnome's smirk chilled Lin to the bone. The woman knew what she was doing. She hoped to be able to get the excuse to do it. "Then your species will never fade away!"
How was Lin supposed to tell her that he had no mana left? He could not get it from the air, they were in a dungeon!
"What is the problem, fairy?" The gnome took a step towards him, taking out a soul pen. Lin's life flashed before his eyes. "Gnome got your tongue?"
The gnome lady continued her menacing journey.
Lin was ready to beg.
As soon as the dungeon core came within reach of the fairy, it shrieked.
Lin's toothpick was lodged in her knee. Kai was getting up.
"You little pest," the gnome warrior roared, for he had only pretended to be asleep. Well, for the past three minutes or so, at least. Before that, he had really been unconscious. "How dare you threaten my soulmate! My village! You are no gnome!"
Armor replaced the tunic and leggings of the gnome lady. She took out the toothpick from her knee, healing the wound with a snap of her finger.
"Lin, stay here. The lady and I need to talk," Kai even flashed him a smile, his teeth razor sharp.
A gnome berserker? Lin dared to hope that the lighting was not playing tricks on him.
As Kai tackled the gnome lady to the ground, and bit off a finger, as the dungeon core tried to stick him with Lin's toothpick dagger, Lin felt so, as if he was ready to marry Kai on the spot.
The fairy took out his second toothpick dagger and waited for his chance. The lady gnome managed to get Kai on his back, and did stick him with the dagger, right over his heart.
Lin did not waste any time, and he stuck her through the neck.
As Lin pushed the dungeon core out of the way, he did something he had not done before. He dared to hope in the greater powers.
"Hey, don't cry," had Lin been crying? He could not even feel his tears rolling over his cheeks, so fearful he was. "I do have runes on me!"
Lin still placed his finger in the hole his dagger had made.
No blood coated it.
Lin hugged Kai tightly, ear pressed on the man's chest. Listening to the song of life which Kai's heart was singing.
Each heartbeat a treasured miracle.