Mark of the Ranger

XXVII. Geovore Breakfast Run!

          Ben turned me back around. "First, we got to suit you up in some wood armor if you're going to get near them geovores!" He told me. He brought me down around a corner on the left of the wood shack, where a man with an axe and a lot of wood was waiting. "This is Doc," Ben introduced. Doc noticed us and shook my hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Lion," I told him. Doc nodded with a grin, then spoke with a pure Badlandish accent. "Ye must be from the newest shipment. Ah'll get ye some wood ahmor. 'Ow tall are ye?"

          "I think I'm about six feet tall, but I might be shorter or taller," I answered. Doc nodded again, then took out a tall length of wood. "Ah'll measure ye." I took off my shoes, then stood tall as he looked between the makeshift ruler and the very tip of my head. "Yep," he finally confirmed. "Six-foot-one. Tall fah ya age, if ya thirteen and a human." He looked at me, and I nodded. He seemed almost impressed, so I continued the conversation. "I'm also a Ranger, and I have the Mark of Strength. However, that's kind of useless, because of the manacles." Doc made an expression like he knew my pain.

          "Ah used ta be a Ranjah, too. All seven Mahks. Useless nah, just lahk ya said," he answered, pointing to his manacled forearm. He then reached into somewhere I could not see and pulled out a suit of wooden armor that looked like it fit me exactly. It was sanded and smooth, as if he had worked for hours on it. From its color, I guessed it was made of birch. "Take this, and put it on," Doc told me. I quickly armed myself in the new gift. It fit like a glove.

          "Thanks," I gratified before Ben grabbed me again. "You're gonna have to be on the first shift, by the way. House rules, you know," he told me with a hint of Doc's Badlandish accent. It was understandable why--it was an infectious accent. I glared at him. "You must be crazy. I know nothing about the job. Well, actually, will there be other people on the shift with me?" Ben made an expression like the answer was obvious. "Of course! We may be stupid, but our heads aren't rocks. If they were, they would have been eaten already, metaphor or not."

          "Okay, then I'll do it. Especially if it's house rules." Ben grinned, then patted me on the shoulder. "Alright, then we'll find a rest of the crew, and we'll prepare for a breakfast run. The geovores are going to be hungry in the morning." He started walking, then gestured for me to follow. I obeyed, and we entered the main room of the shack. He cleared his throat, and everyone became silent. "Okay, men! We need a babysitting crew for our new shipment--Lion!" About as many hands as I had hoped rose to accept the job. Ben picked three other men for me to work with. There was one dark-skinned man, like Ben was, whose name was Larry. Along with him, there was a wood elf named Chris, and a dwarf named Balthazar. They were all strong-looking men, as if they had experience with this job.

          "We'll come back in the morning, but until then, let's find you a bunk and head to bed! We'll need our rest for tomorrow's breakfast run," Balthazar told me. Ben grabbed me again, and he led me down a trapdoor and a ladder. At the bottom was a massive room full of bunk beds. Some had name plates on them, some did not. Ben and I found a completely empty bunk bed and slapped a plate on there, then wrote my name with a pen. "Lion" was displayed on my new bed proudly. All the men from the main room of the shack came down and laid in their respective beds...at least, one would think. I followed suit and did my best to fall asleep. Apparently, my best was about twenty minutes of tossing and turning.

          I woke up some time later after what I thought was a dreamless sleep before I remembered one detail. I had seen a hooded figure with strange antlers, but I couldn't remember what had happened or why they were there or anything else. I kicked my new bed in frustration as I dressed in the clothes that the man who assigned chores had given me, then put on my armor. I marveled at Doc's, or whoever's, amazing craftmanship. Of course, the real test was whether or not it could protect me. I'd been told that geovores wouldn't ever touch wood, but that was up to be proved when i had my breakfast run with the other men. I climbed the ladder and went up through the trapdoor, where my mentors were waiting for me.

          "I was just about to go down and wake you up," Balthazar told me. He and the other two were dressed in their wooden armor, which were each made of a different kind of wood. They immediately stood up, then beckoned for me to follow as they walked out the door. "What goes on in this process?" I asked the men. 

          "Well, for meal runs, there are two teams. One to go and feed the geovores the rocks that had been gathered the last meal, and the team that goes to the rock spring to gather rocks for the next meal. However, geovores are everywhere, and the goal of the feeding team is to lead the geovores over to them so the gathering team can get the rocks. Any questions?" Chris explained.

          "Yes. What is a rock spring?" I asked.

          "Oh, that's right. A rock spring is a magic thing, powered by geovore milk, that makes rocks. The milking process does not concern us at this moment, however, so let's not worry about it."

          "Got it."

          "Now, if we're done with explanations, let's go get them geovores. The gathering team needs their space," Larry said impatiently. We ran over to the edge of the ledge, and the other men jumped off. Larry grabbed my hand to drag me with him. I held in a scream as the sudden increase in speed washed over my body. We slowed ourselves down on these worn-out grooves that had been carved in the walls by the previous feeding teams. There was a pile of rocks at the bottom of the fall. Each man picked up a large rock, and I did the same thing. The others looked wildly around for geovores before running off in separate directions. Chris and Balthazar ran one way while Larry dragged me the other way.

          I spotted a mass of slimy flesh, then shouted loudly. "Yoo-hoo!" The slimy mass of flesh began to move. Instead of shushing me, like a normal person would, Larry congratulated me on finding a geovore and followed suit with the calling. "Woo-hey!" We called out, continuing to annoy the creature. The geovore finally showed its face. The purple ring of an eye glowed like a star in the top center of its face. Saliva dripped from its teeth. Whenever a drop hit the ground, it melted the rock with a hiss. I gulped, but continued to shout. "Yodelay-doo-da!" I egged on the creature until it stood on its four legs and charged us. We, being manly men, turned and ran the other way, as fast as we could with our large rocks.

          I looked back and saw a second eye, as well as both sets of glowing ringed dreadlocks. There were two geovores. I told Larry, and he seemed to even cheer up. "That's great. That mean that Chris and Ball only have two geovores to take care of. Unless, of course, there's a third--" A third glowing eye emerged from behind the second, pushing the other two down. "Sakes alive," I swore. Larry was about to chide me before he saw the pile of rocks. "That's our landing spot. Let's stop there and start throwing rocks."

          We finished our run and began throwing large rocks at the gigantic creatures. The beasts swallowed them greedily before we saw Chris and "Ball" running towards us. They stopped and started throwing rocks at their singular geovore. We all threw rocks until the geovores were satisfied and we started running out of rocks. "That's all it takes," Larry said as we climbed a rope and the geovore went aback to sleep, this time two on each side. 

          I reached the top, last one to climb. "Well, that wasn't so--" suddenly fell to the ground and started shivering, deeply thinking about what I had just done. That was one of the most dangerous jobs possible! How could I be so stupid? What was I doing?" Then, just as suddenly, the shivering stopped. I got up, thinking about how exciting the adventure I had was. "Well, I'm hungry," I told my feeding team. They didn't seem too shocked or concerned about my shivers, and we went down to the wooden doors that led to the big rock dome. The man who assigned chores had said we could go there to eat.

          It was certainly an interesting job, this geovore care. Certainly much more interesting, if not just  more dangerous, than the chores my friends had been assigned. Like Ko's, for example.