In the sixth installment of Corey's tale, Axiomatic Anarchy, Gritgut recovers from his ordeal and finds friends in the strangest locations.
Gritgut, the whirling fury, awakes well in body, even though he still isn't well mannered.
Gritgut continued to search the void for some feature other than flat, soft blackness. He desired nothing - he neither thirsted nor hungered - but he was bored.
Interminable bleakness surrounded him for days, or so it seemed to the oltreggan, before a soft wind began to blow. It had an odd, rhythmic nature to it - like when a bird flapped its wings. Or when the leaves of a tree rustled. Or someone talked...
Then he heard it. Someone was whispering, urgently calling someone else. Suddenly, words formed in the billowing air and reverberated in the void. "Gritgut-Gritgut-grritguut...Where-where-are-you-you??"
"Here!" His voice seemed flat and thick in the dense atmosphere, nothing like the voice on the wind.
A mote of gold slid into existence before him, and he walked towards the beam. A sense of necessity welled up within him, created by the warning, and he broke into a run, putting more of his massive strength behind every stride. He embraced the primal urge to push himself harder, Gritgut barreled onward. He could not see it, but he felt he was running with his forefathers, over mountains and into dales, charging to face an unparalleled foe. The Ghailgaresh, the Ultimate Challenge...
As he coursed forward, the ember flared into a sun, blinding him to everything but the sphere of gold. It hovered ever before him, neither rising nor setting, and he barreled into the radiance. Surprise and a bit of fear swept over him as his strides threw him out into emptiness and he began to fall into the gilded sun.
Downward he plunged. Flickering ghosts, shadowy visages of light, fluttered past. An elf, blade drawn and eyes burning with anger and pain; an etherean, his face frozen in fear; an alonn, trident held at the ready; and a scowling dwarf, the fire of life long burned out of him. All flashed past for an instant before the luminescent void swallowed everything.
Finally, a strange figure walked steadily toward the upside-down oltreggan, somehow matching the speed of his descent. Gritgut shook his head in disbelief. A life-affirming light infused and radiated from the humanoid, far purer than the realm around them. The figure halted just before the barbarian could make out the individual's face, and extended its right fist.
"Gritgut...preserve the light - and spare us all!"
Though such calls to Light and Good made no sense to his primitive nature, Gritgut now recognized the speaker. Flailing to halt his fall, the olteggan screamed one last word before darkness returned.
"SHINY!!!"
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Soft wind touched Gritgut's ears. He breathed deeply and the pungent aroma of dank moss and bile assailed his nose. He opened his eyes, and he remembered enough to marvel that they were not caked shut. His limbs felt unbroken and hale - more so than they had felt in a long time. Feeling his side, he found even the gash from the serpent had disappeared.
"Whaz happened?"
Another voice answered, gentle and fluid. "You were a mess to tend, Gritgut."
The oltreggan snapped his head up from the pile of moss. An alabaster skinned figure knelt before him, his cardinal robes cut in a stylized fashion for adventuring. His boots folded down at the top, revealing the hilt of an ornate dagger, while his belt bore a series of pouches and buckles. The figure's hair was long and silver, and flowed to his shoulders. His emerald eyes regarded at the oltreggan kindly. This definitely was not Shiny, but some unknown lumillon.
"Howz yu know me?"
The lumillon chuckled. "I know many trifles that would seem odd, but your name I have from your master. He was worried, but I assured him you would survive.
"Now," the lumillon dove a half-gloved hand into one of his many satchels and dree forth a vial. Its blue glass contrasted with the brown of his leather gloves and gold of the exposed fingers. "Drink this - it'll curb your appetite better than fern or mire."
Gritgut was indeed hungry and thirsty. Draining the potion in a single drought, the oltreggan belched heartily. "Ah....thanks yu."
"Your satisfaction is my reward! When the young one awakes, I'll ask for his name. As for mine, my parents titled me Solis Emberheart, and as it may be a bit much for an oltreggan, call me Solis."
"Soles..."
"No," the lumillon corrected. "Solis."
"Dez what me sed."
Solis shrugged and turned back to the still form behind him. Landon still bore more wounds - the lumillon had only been able to focus on one patient at a time. A harsh whelp of scarlet and deep black covered the nape of the mage's neck. Penance blow had been with the reverse edge of his falchion, though that nearly snapped the human's neck. Solis placed his fingertips to the bruise and closed his eyes. His fingers began to glisten with a soft radiance as Solis' forehead furrowed. The congealed blood under the skin retracted into rapidly healing capillaries as the lumillon's inherent healing undid the toils of combat. Soon the ghastly blotch only blighted Solis' memory, and he rested his weary frame against the moist wall of the cell.
