I Want to Live, Part Four

Zoltuce explained to us that we four were going to be a special strike force that was going to be used to cause irreversible damage to the Gathe peoples in their precious city of Briqu-O -Dam. If everything went according to plan, if we succeeded, we would be the sole reason the dragons had emerged victorious against the resilient second kin. We were already jumping around excitedly, the three red Sckaens with each other, me by myself. They looked ridiculous, holding hands and spinning about in a circle like some cog.

Zoltuce roared for silence. I was only the last one to stop because I was mocking those rude reds; Zoltuce knew this and now so do you. After the mocking was determined sufficient, Zoltuce made it very, very clear that we weren’t allowed to tell anyone about what we had been chosen to do. We were to be top secret about our top secret mission, to be the cornerstone for their plan.

Did that sink in? Go on, take a few seconds and just breathe in that information, really let it sit with you. Take as long as you need, it’s not wasting any of my time, afterall. Oh yeah, now you’re getting it. I can see that smile on your face! You are beginning to understand how important this was. I figure I can tell you all about it now since the deed is done but, just in case, keep it secret, which would imply safe as Useful… Hold on a tick… As Useful would say, but the King DOESN’T HAVE TO KEEP SECRETS!

Where were we? I mean, what were we going to do? We were going to go in a back tunnel of the subterranean kingdom, while the Titans assaulted the front entrance. Once we had made our way inside, we were to go to the vault, where we would find the Gathe’s most prized possession. Wait for the drum roll. If you don’t have a drum roll, go get someone to give you a drum roll, this requires ambiance. Oh, and you should be sitting down for this. Hurry up! Sit down!

THEIR BIND! BAM! Go on, catch your breath, right. Yeah, that was me, so yeah. You do know what a bind is and how important that is? I mean you may not so to tell you more elaborately what a Bind is, wouldn’t be me boasting or bragging. It would be me simply educating as this whole story has done. Educate. Because I am nothing more than a humble Educator. I shouldn’t have written in pen. Because I am nothing more than a magnanimous Educator.

A Bind is, apparently, a large stone megalith, with four large vertical stone pillars. These pillars were arranged in a square pattern and had four other large horizontal stone pillars resting atop the vertical ones. All we had to do was walk up to the pillars that were vertical and put our hands on them. That meant that each of us was only supposed to go to one pillar. Zoltuce explained it again, looking right at me while he said “each of you must approach one of the pillars. Do you understand?” I nodded. I bet he didn’t want to make the step-Sckaens feel bad, so he just picked on me. He was so great!

After we had all confirmed that we understood, he said that once we had accomplished our task, we were free to grab anything we wanted. He would come back for us where he had dropped us off. It all sounded simple enough, so it was pretty shocking when one of the Red Sckaens asked why we were even doing this? My arm had only been raised because I was trying to stretch a pesky…armpit cramp. Those can be rather vicious you know, being as educated as I am sure you are.

We had fought with Gathe before, on a few occasions. For the most part the fights ended with just shouting or occasionally a boxing match, which the Gathe did win, like all the time, with their massive arms from mining and hammering and logging and building and smelting and hammering, you get the picture. It was obviously time for the Gathe to get their punishment for always beating us up. Like law number 2 says, if you lose a fight then you are automatically innocent. I understand that this may be confusing, because law number 3 states “If you win a fight, you are automatically innocent,” but an obtuse mind would see that Law 2 says lose and Law 3 says win. It is a subtle difference.