Sick Nib #2
Story Time: A (mostly) weekly update of our exquisite corpse story. Each section is written in turn so please forgive any major or minor blunders, we’re just having silly fun after all and hope you do too! Issue 1 here.
Outside, he gazes at the concrete dullness of Lottatrees Wood. Beauty may be subjective, he thought, but dross is an objective fact, even if there’s no-one to observe it. Still, if his vestigial memories of the upset, the ones that had seeped through the shop’s walls, were to be believed, they were luckier than most. Lucky, in fact, to still claim the ancient rights of the forest. With an empty knapsack it was a short walk to the first of the virgin traps, and upon reaching it, Sick Nib shook the mechanical hand which extended out of the crescent-shaped funnel, waggling it against its elaborate sleeve. He wasn’t completely sure this was a necessary part of the ritual, but he felt it only prudent, along with a nod of thanks after his incantation caused the trap to display its harvest. He tossed the dozen-or-so sesquicentipedes into his knapsack and returned the mechanism to its disguised state. For something designed to nestle amongst moss, it adapted surprisingly well to buildings instead, or perhaps it was the surrounders who played a part in its plain sight hiding. In any case, the next few traps each offered their own bounty, including a porcupine—maybe that would mollify his mother—and Sick Nib relaxed as he proceeded. Out here, in the jungle, away from the shop, he didn’t have to skulk. If he encountered something unusual, he didn’t have to hide away, but could investigate—like whatever it was the next trap grasped?
To Sick Nib’s bemusement, disgust, intrigue and back to bemusement, this last point didn’t just hang as a sense of anticipation in completing his chores. In fact, the next trap had indeed grasped something worth investigating. A very long, grey, figure whose head was as smooth and round as an obelisk. If Sick Nib was old enough to remember the last trees of Lottatrees Wood, he might have also described the figure as having the same girth and length as a trunk but alas, long would have to do. As Sick Nib approached he noticed the colour was the result of a thin robe that seamlessly enveloped the entire…thing? Hang on, Nib thought. I ain’t never seen anything like it, what if it’s a beast sent here to eat our sausages, or a traveling trap salesman who’s deliberately sabotaged our kit to sell us a new one with added warranty; or maybe it’s just a robe full of sentient spiders, the kind moth- I mean Sir- always warned me about? Sick Nib felt the ground move beneath his feet. This kind of spiralling was usually soothed with a dozen link sausages. But out here, Sick Nib had to rely on his fortitude. Problem was this was the equivalent of throwing a hamster out of a very tall tower in hope it would spontaneously sprout wings.
“Oh, excuse me.” said the long figure, slowly turning. “Are you hyperventilating?”
Hurgh. Hurgh. Sick Nib lived up to his name as he struggled for breath. Hurgh. Yet with each inhalation more seemed to escape. Ack. How do you do this? Hurgh. The creature reached out a bony hand to the half-orc’s half-empty chest. Hurgh. Sick Nib felt his life dangle on the last wisps of air rapidly leaving his lungs. To be killed by something a trap had caught was bad enough, but why, oh why, did he have to die hungry? Darkness descended with his eyelids and ushered peace so sublime even his belly was silent in awe. “Feeling better?” Sick Nib’s eyes shot open just in time to see the creature remove its hand and replace within its seamless cloak an inscribed, leatherbound…sausage…no? But one would be good right now. As if on cue, the figure proffered a carrot. Sick Nib frowned. He’d been warned about accepting vegetables from strangers, well, accepting vegetables full stop, but especially from those who could send you to Styx and back. “Here,” the creature said, waggling the carrot like a wand, “aren’t you hungry?” Its mellifluous voice resonated along the whole length of its being and helped the insistent protest of Sick Nib's stomach win out. Hmm. Carrots weren’t actually too bad. “So…I don’t suppose you can operate this mechanical marvel?” The creature gestured at the trap which still held it.
