"He's right," Louie nodded. "Good thinking, Rory."
"I know," he said and continued singing to himself--a different tune this time.
Wait a minute. I know this one.
"Old man, what are you whistling?" I asked. "Is that Diggy Diggy Hole?"
"Aye," he said and smiled. "It's one of yer songs, right? Good one."
"I thought..." I tried to find the right words. "Isn't it a bit, you know, racist toward you... towards dwarfs?"
"What are ye yapping about, lad? It's a great song," he said and continued whistling his way up the now steep hills.
The red sun began moving backward on the first half of our fifth hour climbing the mountain. We knew this was a realm of eternal sunlight, but having observed the sun move in the sky, we had thought it might just be a metaphor. Seeing the sun move back toward its earlier position made it crystal clear that it definitely wasn't going to set.
We'd already started on the path snaking its way up the bottom part of the mountain and the exhaustion was beginning to set in. The higher we climbed, the colder I felt, though I wasn't sure if the temperature was actually dropping or if it was because I was getting increasingly tired.
"If we're going to continue traveling, shall we make some torches?" I asked when I started losing some flexibility in my fingers. "At least then we'll be able to warm ourselves up a bit."
"Torches mean smoke,” Rory said. "Smoke that can be seen from far away. We don't know who made these paths or, more importantly, who walks them."
"Or who might be lurking in the trees and bushes to attack travelers," Leo added.
"Maybe we should find a place to spend the... night?" Louie asked, and then reconsidered his wording. "I mean, get some rest."
"With all the progress we made today, I reckon we'll be able to reach the top before our next full rest tomorrow," Rory said.
"Then let's move fast and find a place to stay," Louie said.
We spent the better part of the next hour off the main path, cutting bushes and climbing small ledges, trying to find an opening in the rocks. Louie's levitation spell proved particularly helpful as he was the one to discover a very dark cave mouth hidden between the branches of a tree. The only way to access it was by climbing said tree, something that would probably work to our advantage as it limited the number of other creatures that would be able to reach it.
"Caves like this are rarely unoccupied," Leo said before we entered it. "What do we do if there's something in there?"
"We can't attack it" I said.
"We tell it to leave," Rory said.
"How can you tell an animal to leave, Rory?" Louie asked.
"Ye make it scared," he said and strode forward, switching on his flashlight.
The entrance was barely large enough to fit Rory's wide stature but immediately after that, the corridor turned and opened into a much wider one, leading to another turn. Rory went first, pointing his light around the cave. There were carvings on the wall and the low ceiling--shapes and stick figures resembling those found by archaeologists in documentaries--while the floor was littered with small bones. Whatever was living here, it had an appetite for small animals. I just hoped it only ate small animals and not larger creatures like us.
We walked deeper into the cavern in silence until Rory stepped on one of the bones and the crack echoed around us.
"Fuck me." He took out his weapon.
Something stirred on the other side of the cave and then slowly appeared around the corner. With the exception of its completely red eyes and its pointy ears, the creature before us looked exactly like a Neanderthal.
Name: ???
Race: Dryadalis Primitus
Class: Hunter
Level: 13
"Hello," I said as soon as I'd absorbed the information that this man was no monster.
His body was tall and slender but very hairy, while his facial characteristics were refined yet made him look menacing. His clothing consisted mainly of animal pelts and his only weapon was a tree branch roughly the size and shape of a baseball bat. The man reacted to my voice but not in a way I liked. He started jumping up and down, swinging his weapon in front of us.
"Ye're gonna leave for a while," Rory said and took a step forward. "Do ye get me, monkey-elf?"
The man became even more violent, and yet he took a step back.
"Rory, point the light at the ground so that he doesn't get confused," Louie said.
Rory nodded before doing so, but then turned his light toward the entrance of the cave.
"Out. That way," the dwarf said firmly and pointed that direction.
The man looked at him, clearly confused at how fast the light was moving, and took another step back in the direction he'd come from, his weapon still in hand.
"Rory, we can't kick him out of his own house," Louie said angrily.
"It's just for the night," Rory retorted. "Ye know what I mean."
"It's still not right," Louie replied and moved toward the man, waving his tail.
"Louie, be careful," I said and tried to move forward, but Rory stopped me.
"Let him try what he wants to try," the dwarf said.
"Hello there. My name is Louie. My friends and I would like to sleep here. Is that okay with you?"
The man looked more serene now that it was just Louie approaching him, but he still hadn't put his weapon down.
"Louie, come here so I can pet you," I said, taking Rory's flashlight from his hand. "And let's leave this on the ground. It only confuses him."
I placed it on the cold stone floor of the cavern, its light illuminating the wall behind us. Once Louie came back to me, I petted the back of his neck and scratched him behind his ears. Louie let out a satisfied yawn and the primitive man smiled for the first time.
This was enough of a sign for Louie to
