[Mkguild] To Snare a Rabbit, Part 2

[Logan Zoel]

The second half of my second story; hope you all like it.

*****

Griff struggled against the crushing strength of the giant's grip. In
the distance he could hear Oonsus--who had been transferred to the
giant's other hand--screaming violently Griff fought for a moment to
break free from the imprisoning walls of the giant's fist, but soon
gave up, realizing it was almost certainly futile.
 
 Griff now
lay placidly in the giant's enormous fist and attempted to resign
himself to fate. In doing so, he reflected back on his life. It had
been a prosperous one at the beginning. Becoming the head of Baron
Fredrick the Pacific's royal guard at a young age, he and his family
held high hopes for the future. Even before the Battle of Three Gates,
however, it had been obvious that things were headed downhill. Baron
Fredrick proved not to have the genius and initiative that his father
had possessed, Wyrd forest was gradually becoming an unimportant
backwater, and short of applying for transfer to Metamor Keep, Griff
had few ways out. The Battle of Three Gates and subsequent confusion
had only hastened the decline, soon reducing Wyrd Forest to the
pathetic state in which it now languished. Griff's family, too, had
been destroyed. His father had died in the battle--one in which he was
too old to fight-- and his mother and sister had both gone insane and
were never heard of after the curse took its hold over them. After all
that, Griff thought to himself, death couldn't be much of a
disappointment. After all, it wasn't as if he had much further to fall
from where he now stood.
 
 As the giant momentarily tightened
his grip, nearly crushing Griff's ribcage, Griff decided to reconsider
the idea that he had nothing left to lose. He vaguely remembered
someone once mentioning a proverb about a live dog and a dead lion that
now came to mind. Suddenly, Oonsus's muffled voice emerged from the
giant's other fist.
 
 "Prepare yourself, foul monster," Oonsus
shouted just loud enough that Griff could hear him. "For I shall
destroy you out of my unbreakable commitment to justice!"
 

Although now was hardly the time, Griff suddenly felt an overwhelming
urge to roll his eyes sarcastically. And then, to Griff's complete
amazement, the giant responded to Oonsus's barely-audible threat.
 

"But.. but...." the giant stammered, clearly unable to control its
emotions. "But Gath don't want to be destroyed! Not Gath's fault he got
lost in the mountain passages! All Gath want is to go home! Gath no
want unbreakable juices! Gath want help!"
 
 And then the
giant--whose name was apparently Gath--dropped both Griff and Oonsus
and pressed his hands to his face to hold back a river of tears. Griff
was so surprised that he barely had time to spread his wings in order
to slow his fall before hitting the ground. Landing with a thud, Griff
slowly backed away from the giant, who was now crying so loudly that
Griff found it difficult to hear himself think.
 
 Griff now
spotted Oonsus, who had landed near Gath's left foot and appeared
substantially unharmed. Rather than running away as Griff had, however,
the boy appeared to be pounding on the giant's toe and shouting
something up at it. Griff raced over to Oonsus and attempted to drag
him away from the giant.
 
 "Let it go," Griff said. "Even if you
scared it, there's no way we could take on something this size... well,
maybe if I flew you and we went for its eyes... but... it's not worth
our time. Come on! Let's get out of here!"
 
 Griff was unsure how much of his speech Oonsus was able to hear over the giant's unbearably loud crying.
 

"Didn't... hear!?" Oonsus screamed just loud enough that Griff could
make out every other word. "We... have... hurt... we... to ...it!"
 
 "We what!?" Griff shouted back, unable to understand Oonsus.
 
 "Hell... it!" Oonsus explained.
 
 "WHAT!?" Griff demanded, not understanding the words that were coming out of Oonsus's lips.
 
 "HELP IT!" Oonsus shouted at the top of his lungs so that Griff could just barely understand.
 
 "You're crazy!" Griff shouted back and then turned to go.
 

Griff walked a few paces before turning around and realizing that
Oonsus was still pounding on the giant Gath's toe. Ignoring the
recklessly foolish boy, Griff determined to continue on his way.
Suddenly the giant reached down, and scooping up the young boy lifted
Oonsus towards his mouth. Pushing aside his reservations about fighting
a giant--and a large one at that--Griff took wing. It wasn't as though
Griff's conscience would allow him to let Gath eat Oonsus (who had
saved his life less than an hour ago) without a fight.
 
 Guess I'll go for the eyes,
Griff thought as he streaked through the air towards the giant, who was
now holding Oonsus within a hand's breadth of his mouth. A giant's
hand-breadth albeit. As he dove towards Gath's left eye, claws
extended, however, he noticed that Oonsus was not screaming in terror
as Griff would have expected. Instead, the boy was talking with the
giant.
 
 "Where are you from?" Oonsus asked in a perfectly calm tone of voice.
 

"North... me think," Gath answered in a booming voice, the force of
which pushed Griff several feet backwards as he attempted to hover in
place. "I not really sure," the giant continued. "Me got lost..."
 

"You must be from the Giantdowns," Oonsus reasoned. "I'm from the Outer
Midlands.... My name's Oonsus Koguja, by the way.... what's yours?"
 
 Griff was surprised that even Oonsus could have forgotten the giant's name already.
 
 "Me Gath Djilla," the giant boomed in reply.
 
 This time Griff had braced himself and was not blown back quite as far.
 
 "It's a pleasure to meet you, mister Gath Djilla, sir," Oonsus said excitedly.
 

Griff continued to hover a few yards away from Gath's head, not at all
sure what to make of the ongoing conversation. Only a moment ago, he
had felt quite sure that Gath was planning to eat Oonsus and now the
two of them were conversing politely.
 
 "Me glad meet you, too," Gath replied. "You help me get home?"
 

Griff was again caught off guard by the sudden excitement in Gath's
voice and was blown back several yards. Hovering at a distance, he
listened for a moment longer as the boy and giant continued to talk and
then turned to go.
 
 "Of course I'll help you," Oonsus replied without hesitation.
 
 Oonsus--or so it appeared to Griff--had already picked up a new adventure. I have to take care of Wyrd Forest, Griff thought to himself. Leave the boy and the giant to their adventures...
Neither Gath nor Oonsus seemed to notice as Griff gradually drifted
farther and farther away from the two of them. Griff shouted a distant,
unheard goodbye, and then turned towards the walls of the canyon they
were in.
 
 As he gained a better feeling for their surroundings,
Griff realized that he and Oonsus had emerged into a box-canyon. Walled
on either side by towering cliffs, a narrow valley--one just big enough
for Gath to have wandered through--lead out of the valley in the
direction of the Great Barrier Range. Gath must have wandered through
some unknown pass to arrive at this place from the Giantdowns, Griff
reasoned to himself.
 
 Rising up over the canyon walls, it took
Griff only a few minutes to orient himself. The canyon, he realized,
lay just beyond the foothills of the great barrier range that marked
the eastern boundary of Wyrd Forest. It would only be a short flight
for Griff to return to the palace and warn the baron of the menace
hiding in the cave that Oonsus had revealed to him. It would be a
simple matter to seal off the cave. Or, if that didn't work, to have a
contingent of soldiers from Metamor Keep flush it clean of whatever
terrors lay within. Griff had already battled what he now realized must
be a centipede-morph, and Oonsus had testified to seeing a dragon in
the cave as well. Although it was likely that the dragon existed only
in Oonsus's hyperactive imagination, Griff didn't think it was beyond
the ability of Metamor Keep to deal with one if it did exist. It was
hardly the sort of thing that could be handled by the Wyrd Forest
palace guard, however.
 
 On his way back to Baron Fredrick's
palace, Griff suddenly realized that he should probably stop back at
the peasant's hut and relate to them the fate of their dear Ol' Sally.
Griff spiraled downward towards the dismal shack in which the
beaver-morph and his family lived. Practically landing on the peasants'
doorstep, Griff morphed into his humanoid form and rapped on the door.
Normally he would have worried about no one being home, but it was late
enough that he reasoned the peasants should have returned home for
their supper already.
 
 After a few moments, a particularly humble-looking beaver opened the door.
 
 "Why, mister... Sen," the beaver said, stumbling over his words. "What... what'a.... surprise to see....see you... again..."
 
 "I'm afraid I have some bad news," Griff said darkly.
 
 "W--won't you come... in... and have a bit... a bit to... eat?" the beaver offered, now trembling from head-to-toe.
 
 Griff was confused by the beaver's terror. Earlier he had been overly respectful, but hadn't seemed afraid of Griff.
 

"Oh, no, I'm on my way back to the palace," Griff said. "I just wanted
to stop and tell you what I found out... about... Ol'... your cow..."
 
 "You must come in," the beaver pleaded. "I... in--insis--t..."
 

"Very well then," Griff conceded, not exactly sure how he wanted to
break the news about the cow's death. "But only for a minute... I have
some important news I must relay to Baron Fredrick."
 

"Im--important news?" the beaver said, taking Griff by the hand and
pulling him inside. "But... how important.... could it... be? It's..
only...a.. cow."
 
 Something about the beaver's trembling and
his sudden lack of care for his once beloved Ol' Sally just didn't add
up. For a moment Griff resisted the beaver's urgings to come inside,
but then the beaver--who was surprisingly strong--literally pulled him
though the door. Once Griff was inside, the door was slammed shut by an
unseen hand, leaving him surrounded by darkness. There was no fire in
the fireplace, and the only light in the shack came from the dim
evening light that filtered through holes in the home's poorly-built
walls.
 
 "Who's there?" Griff demanded and sensing danger morphed into his taur form.
 

"I think I should ask that question," an ominous voice whispered in the
darkness. "But, I think that I already know.... After all, the
investigator always returns to the scene of the crime; don't you, Griff
Sen?"
 
 "I think you mean the criminal always returns to the
scene of the crime," Griff replied and then suddenly realized who he
must be talking to. "Barhat!" he shouted. "You cannot escape the
clutches of justice forever!"
 
 "I believe it is my clutches you
will find difficult to escape," the whispering voice replied. "You did
so once, but don't think I'll let you do it again... not when you know
where my secret hiding-place is... speaking of which, were is the boy?"
 

Griff knew better than to answer the question. Instead, he bared his
claws and lunged towards the source of the whispering voice. 
 

Somehow the voice dodged and then retaliated. The Last thing Griff felt
was the heavy wooden club crashing into the back of his head.
 
 * * * * *
 

Griff Sen regained consciousness to a sharp throbbing pain in the back
of his head. His ankles and wrists also burned as if they had been
rubbed raw by constant abrasion. He also felt slightly disoriented. As
he grew more alert, Griff realized that this was because he was hanging
by his hands and feet. 
 
 Griff flailed against the ropes binding his hands and feet in an effort to break free.
 

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," an unseen voice commanded; it was
the same one as from the peasant beaver's shack. "Look where you're
hanging before you take the plunge..."
 
 Twisting his neck
around, Griff could just see out of the corner of his eye a flicker of
flame coming from under what smelled like a cauldron of boiling soup. A
second ago, Griff had been wondering if he could cut the ropes with his
claws if he morphed. Now he realized that wasn't such a good idea.
 

"Yes, you see it now, don't you?" the unseen voice said with obvious
delight in his voice. "We're making ourselves a bit of a soup... and
you're.. the main... INGREDIENT!"
 
 Panic raced through Griff's
head. He suddenly remembered the image of Ol' Sally, torn to pieces by
the giant centipede he and Oonsus had battled earlier. Was he to share
the fate of the cow he had failed to rescue earlier?
 
 "You're a monster!" Griff accused the unseen voice.
 

"Me?" the voice replied defensively. "I'm just the chef... a mere
master of the culinary arts... an artist, if I may say so myself. It's
my friend here who has a taste for rare treats, such as... eagle
soup..."
 
 "The centipede morph," Griff inferred.
 

"GIANT centipede morph," the unseen voice corrected Griff. "Surely you
noticed he was more than six inches long when you fought him, didn't
you?"
 
 "More like six feet," Griff agreed.
 
 "Six feet
of very hungry centipede that needs to be fed fairly frequently," the
voice said with a bit of an amused chuckle. "And you... will have.. to
do."
 
 "I won't do it!" Griff exclaimed.
 
 Griff
struggled against his bonds more violently than before. He guessed that
the pot below him probably wouldn't burn him instantly. If he could get
free, at least he had a fighting chance. Not much of a chance, Griff
thought grimly, as both the unseen voice and the centipede had already
bested him in a fight once already.
 
 "Oh, and good luck with
those ropes," the unseen voice said. "I'm afraid you'll find them
unlikely to break, even if you had a knife handy, which I was careful
to make sure you don't... wouldn't want my friend's meal to get away,
now would I?"
 
 Griff suddenly realized that the pack he normally kept strapped to his chest was now missing.
 

"So long as I'm not going to be living much longer, I don't suppose I
could have the privilege of seeing the face of the Vile Thief Barhat
once before I die, could I?" Griff asked. 
 
 "I suppose... I couldn't deny the dying wish of a condemned man, now could I?" the voice conceded after a moment's hesitation.
 

A second later, a creature stepped into Griff's field of vision.
Although it was difficult to see any details by firelight, the outline
of Barhat's rounded body and floppy ears were undoubtedly those of a
rabbit.
 
 "A rabbit, so I was right," Griff said upon seeing Barhat. "Didn't think your kind had much taste for meat, though..."
 

"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times," Barhat
replied, placing his hands on his hips impudently. "The soup... err...
you... are for my centipede friend, Munus."
 
 "Munus?" Griff
said, somewhat surprised. "He has a name? I wasn't even aware that he
could talk.... he's hardly as talkative as you, to say the least..."
 

"I'm afraid the curse has taken away his tongue," Barhat admitted. "He
does still screech furiously from time-to-time when he feels
particularly riled.... He hissed at me for almost an hour after you and
that... boy... disturbed his meal. Guess it affected his
digestion. Speaking of which, were is the boy? I rather hoped he might
come for you sooner or later... only real reason I've been keeping you
alive... although... I suppose he has no way of knowing... may as well
cook you now...."
 
 With that unceremonious speculation, Barhat
suddenly reached for a rope tied down to a large rock and loosened it,
letting out a few inches of rope. Griff felt himself plunge a towards
the bubbling vat beneath him. He could feel the steam wafting up
towards his body and felt as if he was already being cooked alive. At
the same time, Barhat reached into a jar on the floor and, retrieving a
potato from the jar, tossed it into the pot of boiling water. Griff
winced as super-hot water splashed onto his back and neck.
 

"Wait!" Griff said, suddenly feeling a desire to save his own life.
"Isn't there something you'd accept in exchange for freeing me? I'm
sure that Baron Fredrick would pay you handsomely for returning the
head of his palace guard...."
 
 "Bah!" Barhat scoffed. "If I set
you free, you'd just come back after me... probably with reinforcements
from Metamor Keep. Besides, you and I both know that our dear Baron
Fred is completely broke.... At this point, I've stolen pretty much
everything of value that remains in Wyrd Forest.... Been thinking of
moving on to more fertile pasture for weeks now."
 
 "But... you'll never get away with this!" Griff shrieked, realizing at the same time how utterly pathetic he sounded.
 

"But I already have,” Barhat pointed out. “At this point, it would be
more trouble for me to free you than to cook you…. For one thing, I’d
have to figure out how to get you down without dropping you in the pot
beneath you.”
 
 Then, as if to reinforce his point, he let out
another few inches of rope. Griff plunged precariously towards the pot
of boiling soup and then came to a sudden stop, the rope tearing at his
wrists and ankles as he did.
 
 There was nothing else left,
then, Griff was going to have to fight his way out of this. If only he
could figure out a way how. Again Griff struggled against the ropes
holding him and grasped at them with his claws.
 
 "I've told you
already," Barhat said, chuckling as he watched Griff struggle. "There's
no way short of magic you're going to break free of those ropes..."
 
 I still have one last chance,
Griff thought to himself. He must have morphed back into his humanoid
form while unconscious. If he tried morphing into his taur-form, he
would have a free pair of claws to untie the rope. If that failed, or
if Barhat dropped him into the soup before he could break free, there
was no chance for his salvation.
 
 Deciding that there was no
time like the present, Griff at once morphed into his taur form and
began slashing at the ropes with the pair of claws that appeared
between his arms and legs. Unsurprisingly, the ropes did not give way
and four of his six limbs remained as tightly bound as ever. Barhat's
promise, then, remained valid. To Griff's surprise, Barhat made no
motion to lower the rope and drop him into the soup. Instead, the
rabbit remained as he was, staring at the struggling eagle-taur and
laughing out loud.
 
 "You think I'm going to shorten your
suffering just because you kick and scream a little?" Barhat asked; the
firelight revealed a look of obvious delight on his face. “I’ll have
you know that you—and this damned valley—have given me quite a bit of
trouble. I wasn’t always like this you know. Had a home and a family.
But once I wandered into this damn valley and morphed into… this… well,
I could never go back.”
 
 Griff said nothing but continued to tear at the rope with his claws.
 

"You and this valley have taken my entire life,” Barhat continued. “So,
no, I’m not going to let you go easy. I'm going to cook you one inch at
a time until you beg for mercy.”

 "From a thief and a coward who
hides in caves and steals from peasants?" Griff said, having just
enough mental capacity to form this insult. "I'd sooner die than give
you the satisfaction..."
 
 "What about that bit earlier when you said the Baron would ransom you?" Barhat pointed out.
 
 "That wasn't begging; it was negotiating," Griff shot back.
 
 "I like to call negotiations where one party is hanging helplessly over a fire...begging," Barhat replied without missing a beat. "How about I lower the rope another inch and see if you scream?"
 

Barhat let out another section of rope and Griff again plunged
downward. This time, the back of his head--now the lowest part of his
body--came into contact with the scalding hot water. He snatched it
away instantly, suppressing a desire to scream. Barhat seemed
unimpressed by Griff's resolve, instead reaching for another potato to
throw into the pot.
 
 "Aww, did the poor little birdie get burned?" Barhat said patronizingly as the potato splashed boiling hot water onto Griff.
 
 Griff refused to give Barhat the pleasure of hearing his reply.
 

Griff gave one last frantic tug against the ropes binding his arms and
two of his legs. At the same time, Barhat reached out for the rope
again, undoubtedly to let out more rope and begin the slow process of
cooking Griff alive. Before he could let loose another section of rope,
however, he was stopped by a voice in the background.
 
 "Hold it right there, you vile fiend!" came the all-to-familiar voice.
 

"Oonsus!" Griff called out in surprise, unsure of whether to thank the
boy for coming or scold him for putting himself in such danger.
 
 "Hold what?" Barhat asked, looking at Oonsus with an appearance of supreme innocence on his face.
 
 "That's my friend!" Oonsus shouted. "Let him go!"
 
 Griff visibly winced. Oonsus's choice of words had been unfortunate, and Griff had no doubts as to what Barhat would do next.
 
 "Okay," Barhat said generously.
 

Pulling a previously unnoticed knife from is waist, he slashed through
the rope supporting Griff in a single fluid moment. Griff experienced a
single moment of panic and then searing pain as he was doused in a pot
of boiling hot soup.
 
 "AAAAAGGGGHHHH!" Griff let out a scream of pain as he clamored to grasp the edge of the pot with his two free claws.
 
 "Griff!" Oonsus said, charging towards Barhat and the pot containing Griff with sword drawn. "Don't worry, I'll save you."
 

Barhat took one look at the angry, sword-wielding boy and sprinted out
of the room as fast as his rabbit-feet would take him. Ignoring
Barhat's flight, Oonsus reached for the pot containing Griff and with
his bare hands tipped it over with a single shove.
 
 Griff,
along with the other contents of Barhat's quite possibly delicious
soup, spilled out onto the cave floor. Still bound, Griff writhed on
the cave floor until Oonsus cut through the rope binding his hands and
lower feet with his sword. Morphing back into his humanoid form, Griff
attempted to thank Oonsus.
 
 "thank... I mean... I appreciate... well... you shouldn't have... err... I'm glad you..." Griff struggled for words.
 

Oonsus seemed too enfixed by staring at his badly-burned hands to
notice anything the eagle-morph was saying. The pot being much hotter
than the soup inside, Oonsus's hands had suffered far worse than Griff,
who had been in the water for only seconds.
 
 "I have something that should help that," Griff said, noticing Oonsus's hands.
 

Looking around, Griff was relieved to see his pouch lying on the
cave-floor. Picking it up, he strapped it back onto his chest.
Rummaging through it, he pulled out a bottle of salve that had been
blessed by the Lightbringers of Metamor Keep. It was incredibly
powerful, and therefore incredibly expensive as well; Griff guessed
that it would cost about two months of his present salary to replace
the bottle.
 
 "Here, try putting some of this on your hands," Griff offered, handing the bottle to Oonsus.
 
 "Thanks!" Oonsus replied.
 

Holding the bottle by the cap he unscrewed it. Predictably, as soon as
the cap came off, the bottle fell to the ground, shattering on the
rocky cave floor.
 
 "Oops," Oonsus said, looking at the puddle of greenish-gray goo on the ground.
 
 Griff repressed an overwhelming desire to curse.
 

"Here... I can fix it," Oonsus said, kneeling down and trying to
collect most of the liquid in his hands before it seeped into the cave
floor.
 
 "Just... never mind," Griff said, pulling Oonsus away from the puddle. "Rub your hands together to soak it in a little."
 

Oonsus rubbed his hands together and smiled in apparent delight as the
healing potion took affect. Griff had forgotten that the potion also
had mild euphoric qualities. In less than a minute the burns on
Oonsus's hands were completely healed. Griff's own claws still shivered
with the pain of having recently been scalded. 
 
 "Why did you
come back in here?" Griff asked suddenly, deciding to put forth the
question that had been on his mind for the last several minutes. "How
did you know I was in danger?"
 
 "The Dragon told me," Oonsus replied matter-of-factly.
 
 "Dragon?" Griff asked, either not understanding or refusing to believe.
 
 "The same one that was chasing us before," Oonsus attempted to explain.
 
 "The dragon... that was chasing us... told you I was in danger...?" Griff asked skeptically.
 

"Yeah," Oonsus agreed. "And it even gave me directions. You see, before
I thought that it was an enemy, but it turns out that it was actually
really friendly and it even said that it knew me from somewhere..."
 

"You've meet this dragon before?" Griff said, perplexed. Oonsus’s
explanation was growing less and less probable with every word.
 
 "No," Oonsus said. "But he'd met me... well... it's hard to explain, and I don't really understand all of it..."
 

"I see..." Griff said, deciding to let the issue drop. He suspected
that the ‘dragon’ was no more real than the demons Oonsus had been
fighting that morning. "So, this... dragon... told you that I was in
danger and how to find me?"
 
 "Uh-huh," Oonsus agreed. "It was a
good thing, too, because I got really lost looking for you... that's
how I found his lair in the first place."
 
 "You were looking for me?" Griff asked. "Why?"
 

"I wanted to say goodbye," Oonsus said innocently. "You disappeared
while I was talking to Gath, so I figured you must have gone back into
the caves, didn't you?"
 
 "Well, not exactly," Griff confessed.
 
 "But then you got caught by that tricky guy, Barhat, right?" Oonsus continued, apparently ignoring Griff's statement.
 
 "Err... something like that," Griff conceded.
 
 "And then he tried to turn you into soup, but I came and rescued you just in time?" Oonsus asked.
 
 "Yup," Griff said.
 
 "Wow! Isn't it cool!?" Oonsus said.
 
 "Cool isn't exactly the word I would have used," Griff said.
 

At the same time, Griff could feel the burns all over his body. He was
moderately worried that most of his feathers might fall out.
 
 "Oh, and did I tell you about Gath?" Oonsus said, again ignoring Griff's reply.
 
 "No, you didn't," Griff said.
 

"It turns out he's not a mean scary giant after all," Oonsus said.
"He's a friendly giant. He's from the Giantdowns and he got lost and he
needs somebody to guide him back home..."
 
 "I gathered that much myself," Griff agreed.
 

"So I told him that I would help him," Oonsus continued. "But first I
had to come back and say goodbye to you. And then the dragon told me
you were in danger. And then I rescued you. And then... well, that's
now, isn't it?"
 
 "Yes," Griff smiled--as much as it was possible to smile with a beak for a mouth. "Yes it is."
 
 "So?" Oonsus said.
 
 "So... what?" Griff asked, suddenly confused. 
 
 Everything Oonsus had been saying had made at least moderate sense and yet he had somehow managed to confuse Griff again.
 
 "So do you want to help me take Gath back to the Giantdowns?" Oonsus asked..
 
 "You want... me?" Griff responded, his eyes widening in surprise.
 
 "Uh-huh," Oonsus said. "I think we make a really great team!"
 

For a split second Griff seriously considered the possibility of going
with Oonsus to help Gath. It would be nice, he thought to himself, to
go on an adventure; to get away from it all. And then he remembered his
duties as the head of Baron Fredrick the Pacific's palace guard. There
were things that had to be done. For one, this cave had to be
thoroughly cleansed of Barhat and his friend Munus (the giant centipede
morph), as well as whatever other vermin lived in here. At the very
least, the entrance should be sealed off. The more he thought about it,
the more Griff realized that the barony would probably completely fall
apart in his absence.
 
 "I'm sorry," Griff concluded. "But I have to stay here and protect Wyrd Forest."
 

"That's okay," Oonsus said, not missing a beat. "But I'll be sure to
come back and visit you if I'm ever headed this way again..."
 
 "Well, I'll look forward to it," Griff replied.
 

And then, without saying another word, Griff and Oonsus started walking
towards the exit to the cave chamber they were in. Both took a torch of
burning wood from the fire that Barhat had been prepared to cook Griff
with. After walking down the cave tunnel for some time, they came to a
split. Griff--who had regained his bearings now that he was less
panicked--recognized the split. One way led east to the valley with
Gath in it. The other led south to Wyrd Forest. Surprisingly Oonsus too
appeared to recognize the intersection.
 
 "Um... I guess this is where we part ways," Oonsus said softly.
 
 "I guess so..." Griff agreed, looking off to one side.
 

"It was nice meeting you, Mr. Griff," Oonsus said, smiling warmly. His
face looked strangely supernatural in the flickering torchlight.
 
 "It was nice meeting you too, Oonsus," Griff agreed.
 

And then Oonsus reached over and gave Griff a tremendous hug, sending
waves of pain across Griff's badly scalded skin. He winced and then
weakly returned the embrace. A moment later, Oonsus set off down his
branch of the tunnel and disappeared into the darkness. Griff stared
out into that darkness for a long time, wondering if he had made the
wrong choice. Eventually, he started off down the tunnel that led back
to Wyrd Forest
 
 * * * * *
 
 The End of "To Snare a Rabbit".
 By: Nagolinc.
 CopyNot 2009.
 		 	   		  
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