“The top world was grey. A dead grey like the skin of my father. The various top world blankets rolled across the horizon and back. An invisible sea above the teams head. None of us were prepared for this sort of adventure, many had never had so much as a peek of the outside. Most puked, some cried, and others like myself simply stood silent. We were seven outcasts, charged by the King to find fortune in another mountain as punishment for our wrong doings. The humans called it a sky, we called it a sign of misfortune.”

“Dodifin, we need to find shelter. The top world is losing light and there are beasts out here.” I heard him on the edge of my consciousness, but his worries didn’t register in my mind, so I spoke, “Take down the caravan, we can’t use a broken waggon.” Like much of the crew the waggon had lost something of itself in the journey above ground. The axle was broken and the yokes were on the verge of snapping. “Dodifin! We should dig into the eart–” I snapped, the yoke of my sanity snapped. My hand latched onto the farmer’s ear and my fist slammed into his face. The blood from his nose and lips was visceral, thick and warm across my tunic, as I pounded him to submission. I was the only one with any sort of fighting skill, so I made use of it. “We dig when I say to dig, do you understand?!” No one moved, no one said a thing, no one protested. They wouldn’t, not until I told them to.