“Thank you wanderer!” Baby Guy said. “With my thought I called out to the heavens for a champion, and you arrived just in time. My name is Galion and I am high priest of the Temple of the Earth.”
“Gronk,” I said.
“Well Gronk, this land you stand on was once green and fair, but is now the desert you see. An evil sorcerer has stolen the Jewel of the Earth that kept this land fertile.”
“I’m fertile,” I said and pointed at my junk. Then I said, “Nnnnnn”. Like, it sounded like a bunch of Ns.
“Of course! The gods must’ve sent you to us. You must help us restore our lands! Will you try?”
“I dunno, I gotta practice football.”
“Please do not decide too rashly young one! First, listen to our tale of woe,” said Baby Guy. “We were once as you are – tall and strong; a country of free people. We were happy in our little land, desiring nothing more than to live at peace with our…”
He kept talking for a while. I was looking at my pass catching fingers and thinking. They looked like the big size Tootsie Rolls. I love Tootsie Rolls. They get stuck in your teeth but you want ‘em to be there. They’re like that big couch in your dad’s basement that you used to power nap on, except, like, a Tootsie Roll.
Baby Guy was still talking. “…there were flowers in the field that looked like silver stars caught from the very heavens above…”
“You have Tootsie Rolls?” I said.
“What are Toot-sie Rolls?” he replied.
“Like, they’re candy.”
“Oh, we have had no sweets for many a year.”
“What? Everyone deserves Tootsie Rolls. I’ll do it little baby man.”
“Thank you young one! We are saved! We are saved!” He hugged my leg, which was weird. “Do not think it will be easy however – you must pass three challenges in order to reach the castle of the Sorcerer. ‘First you must pass the Forest of Illusion, then you must journey over the Rocks of Sorrow and finally you must get through the Swamp of Forgetfulness. Only then can you defeat the Sorcerer and free the Jewel of the Earth.”
I stretched my lean muscle mass and nodded. “No problem. It’ll be like: BOOM!”
“Wonderful! I will bring you to my brother Talion. He is the King of all of us Smallings and will aid you on your quest. We are only a few miles off now. Come!”
He hopped away a little down a trail to the south and so we set off into the sinking sunrise.
When the sun’s sinking it’s the sunset. Right.
