In the Land of GIANTs, 407 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…

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“Our ancestors were men of fire and rock.” Ambertus grabbed a handful of flame from the brazier with his left hand and summoned a lump of granite with his right. He held the fire close to his face, so that its flickering would animate his face as he spoke. Despite his efforts, the children remained bored and restless. The Subterranean children had all heard this story a million times, and the others showed even less interest.

“Monster lore is dumb,” said a leopard-spotted Folk child. “I want to hear about the GIANTs.”

The other children perked up. “Yes, tell us about the GIANTs,” they demanded.

“We don’t know a whole lot about the GIANTs yet,” Ambertus admitted. “But I have been able to discover something unusual. There is, among their culture, a surprising lack of a very common ability.”

He had their attention now.

“The GIANTs, as far as our best explorers have been able to determine, are completely unable…to do this!” Behind his back, Ambertus had divided the flame and granite each into two pieces. Now he brought his arms forward and began his juggling routine. Flames danced in the air. Stones coiled like snakes.

The children groaned and drifted away to find other entertainments.

“Ambertus! Could I have a word with you?”

Ambertus turned toward the approaching figure of Wordler 373. On the day 373 had been chosen to quest for their Word, they had slain a dragon. Before NIGHTfall, they had been named to the QUEEN’s Advisory Council. And afterward, they had led a group of survivors onto a sailing ship. The ship had been destroyed in an unlucky storm, but as far as Ambertus was concerned, 373’s leadership is what had kept them all alive and safe. They were a force to be reckoned with.

“What can I do for you, ser?” Ambertus asked. “If it’s about the support beams for the West End, I’ve had some thoughts about shoring up the rock with metal bands, once we can find and process enough ore. Some of the Subs favor a clockwise spiral pattern for the supports, but my reasoning is—”

“Ambertus, you and the other Subterraneans have done a masterful job in carving out this community-sized cavern, but we can’t get too comfortable. We don’t intend to stay here forever, just for long enough to build another ship.”

“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.” Ambertus shook his head. “I work with fire and rock, not timber and canvas.”

“I understand that. I also understand that you and I now have something in common.”

“Ser?”

“There are very few among our group of castaways who have received a number,” said 373. “We are a select group.”

Ambertus considered pretending not to know what they were talking about, but he knew without trying that 373 would not be fooled. He took the blue paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Don’t get too comfortable, Wordler 407,” he read. “Finding your Word of Protection will require close quarters.”

“How long were you going to delay your quest?” 373 asked with concern. “You know that the curse requires its answer by sundown.”

Ambertus sighed. “It’s was the close quarters part that got me. I have a thing about tight spaces. But if you have any advice for me, ser, I’m all ears.”

“Actually, I have something better than advice. I have an important job to assign, and what I require most is somebody who’s good with children.”

A group of explorers, with Ambertus and 373 among them, were soon crawling through an access tunnel to one of the cleverly designed exits to the world above. It was always disorienting to emerge into the Land of the GIANTs, where some rebellious spirit of Nature had scaled all the plants, insects, and animals up to gigantic proportions. “Look at that! A pinecone as long as I am tall!”

“Focus, Ambertus,” 373 chided. “So far, we’ve gotten nearly all of our information from that GIANTess girl, Fritta. But there’s only so far I’m willing to trust her, only so much she can tell us, and too much that remains unknown. We can’t wait for information to come to us. We need to seek it out.”

373 led the way to a smooth-barked sapling that would have rivaled the tallest tree in the ordinary-sized forests back in the REALM.

“Those ants are the size of squirrels!”

“Ambertus!”

“Sorry.”

373 whistled a signal, and a rope dropped from a leafy platform over a hundred feet above their heads. The other explorers began to climb. “Would this be a bad time to mention that I have a thing about heights?” Ambertus asked.

Somehow, with helpful jabs and nudges from the explorer just below him, Ambertus made the climb. After the last explorer followed, the rope was pulled back up after them. The sapling stood by itself on a small rise, granting the platform a commanding view of a meadow edged by a stream and a line of thousand-foot trees.

In the meadow was a GIANT boy that Ambertus recognized as Fritta’s friend, Zen, whom she’ had brought with her once for an unexpected visit. The boy had been hunched over something that Ambertus couldn’t see but stood and looked down at his handiwork, clearly pleased with himself.

“The lad must be fifty feet tall,” said Ambertus. “Has he grown even more since the last time we saw him?”

The others hissed for him to be quiet.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Ambertus whispered. “What’s he doing?”

“Just watch,” 373 whispered back.

“This sure would be a nice day fer a picnic,” the GIANT boy proclaimed to no one in particular. “Yessir, if there was any tiny Villager folk what wanted some nice beans and walnuts what to snack on, Ah’m sure they’d find these tasty as all get-out.”

On the ground at his feet, Zen had spread what was, to him, a handkerchief-sized square of flannel with piles of chopped walnuts and dried beans on it.

“So that’s what a hill of beans is meant to look like,” Ambertus commented.

“Shhh!” the other explorers hissed.

“Ah’m gonna wander off to take a nap,” Zen announced. “Feel free t’grab yerselves a little snack, any tiny Villagers in the hearin’ of my voice.” He yawned and stretched, then retreated to the other side of a house-sized mulberry bush to crouch with a jar in his hands as he focused his gaze back on the picnic blanket.

“He’s not sleeping,” Ambertus noted.

“He didn’t sleep yesterday, either,” said 373.

“What exactly do you need me to do?” Ambertus asked, with growing suspicion.

373 smiled. “How would you like a picnic lunch?”

Ambertus sighed. “Did I mention that I’m allergic to walnuts?”

After a harrowing descent from the sapling, Ambertus made his way across the meadow. The walk was longer than it had seemed from the tree, and the waist-high grass slowed him down, but he got there as quickly as he could. The boy’s handkerchief would have made a comfortable bedcover, if it were folded over a couple times. Or maybe, if 373 and his team ever rebuilt their ship, it could be used as a sail.

“I say, someone has left this tasty snack just for me?” Ambertus stated, loud enough for his voice to carry. “That was very nice of them, whoever they are.”

The ground trembled from the boy’s footsteps. The jar dropped over Ambertus. The world turned upside down as the blanket and jar inverted and Ambertus tumbled, along with a shower of beans and walnut pieces, to the bottom of the glass.

“Got yeh!” Zen declared, as he tied the picnic blanket in place across the mouth of the jar with a string as thick as a shipboard rope.

“And we’re off,” said Ambertus, as the jar was jostled in all directions by the boy’s escape across the meadow, over the hills, and into unexplored terrain. “Tight quarters indeed,” Ambertus mumbled, reaching out his arms to secure himself against the sides of the jar.

Web3 Draft:

• Listed on OpenSea
  
• Listed on Rarible
  
• Pinned to IPFS

Revision Notes:

To be added.