"What makes these eggs special, Fred?" Kumbanaka asked.

　　"I got no idea. It`s just what Jim said this morning. He said the eggs of this queen wurm can be used to close demon gates. He was gonna tell me how, but the pilgrims started showing up."

　　"I`m sure the eggs will be concentrated packets of magic, but the humans will have to be very smart indeed to figure out a way to use them against the demons," Martin said.

　　"I agree with Martin," Kumbanaka said. "It`s far-fetched. You might want to consider the possibility that Jim has his facts wrong."

　　"Or that Jim is reliable in any way," Martin agreed.

　　"Hey, he taught me drum language, Okay? I didn`t think that up by myself. Isn`t that proof he`s real?"

　　"Real or not, this golden egg business is hard to believe," Martin asserted.

　　Just then, Jim spoke.

　　Hello, Fred.

　　"Hey, Jim!" Fred responded. "I was just talking to Martin and Kumbanaka about the eggs, of the celestial wurms. You didn`t explain how they could close demon gates."

　　They can, when used properly. It`s still far too early to worry about that, though. They haven`t even been laid yet. So what`s been going on today? I see the pilgrims have taken over.

　　"Uh, yeah, the Priestess Sharfroen sang spells all day long, until she keeled over. Now every human is waiting to see her do it again tomorrow."

　　Oh dear. I hope she recovers quickly. I can`t imagine that these pilgrims will be the last. The other Earth Spirits tell me that her fame has spread far and wide.

　　"Do the other Earth Spirits speak human?"

　　A few do. But they`ve also seen drawings and printed material with her face on them. Some human somewhere has a printing press, or an ink block, and is advertising her existence.

　　"Wow. Why?"

　　I don`t know yet. Perhaps your Kumbanaka can furnish us some answers. Will you ask him?

　　"Sure."

　　I have to tell you; two more demon bombs were stopped by walls. Walls that you pioneered.

　　"That`s great! But Kumbanaka says that if the demons are bombing us, they`ll send armies soon."

　　No Earth Spirit has yet faced a demon army, Fred. But I agree with Kumbanaka. If the humans don`t take the fight to the demons, the demons will bring the fight to them. And thus, to you and your fellow Earth Spirits. Be cheerful. This is why you`ve been training the humans. With your help they`ve grown quite powerful.

　　A deep drum started up.

　　There`s your peer now, Fred. I`ve got to go. Good night!

　　"Okay, bye."

　　The drums were Micheal, who started with a weather report; clear skies and cold. He talked about finding a pyramid in a deep cavern. He talked about finding a hoard of magic scrolls in a buried chest (presumably in the deep cavern). He talked about how his fierce giant duck seemed to like to eat human arms, leaving the rest of the unfortunate human alive.

　　After he was done, Virginia spoke up. She too had clear, cold weather, but she said she had a boring day, with nothing else to tell.

　　So Fred replied. After the ten beats, and then the eight beats of his name, he talked about the pilgrims, and how ill and sick they were, and how much work the priestess did. He talked about the bomb at his gate, and how he manifested a hand, and threw it away before it could explode. Again, because he knew anyone could hear his messages, he decided not to talk about the Celestial Wurms and what they could mean. But he beat out Micheal`s "name", and told him that Fred had also found a solid pyramid in a deep cave.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

　　When he was done, Fred was surprised when Micheal "called back". Micheal told Fred that he`d found his chest full of scrolls underneath his cave pyramid, and Fred should check under his. This was exciting. Fred took only a moment to look into the rock beneath the pyramid in the Cave Zone. But even though he pushed his presence fairly deep under the pyramid, he didn`t find anything but rock.

　　So he replied to Micheal, and told him that. And that was all the drumming that happened that night.

　　"Quite a lot of drumming tonight, Fred," said Kumbanaka. "Too bad you didn`t find a chest full of scrolls."

　　"Yeah, but isn`t it weird that me and Micheal both found pyramids in caves underground?"

　　"That`s difficult to say," Kumbanaka replied. "Your domain has been filled with strange and improbable things."

　　"I suppose," Fred grumbled. "I don`t really have anything to compare it to. This is my first time being an Earth Spirit. And I can`t go anywhere and visit other Earth Spirits."

　　"You`ve been talking to your peers, just now," replied Kumbanaka. "And Martin and I are here to tell you of all the amazing sights and sounds of this world."

　　"Oh yeah, that reminds me. Jim was telling me that people have been handing out flyers about Priestess Sharfroen, and they have her face on them. A picture of her face."

　　"Bizarre," mused Kumbanaka. "The priestess is well known around here, of course. And the gryphon riders will have spread her fame by word of mouth. But printed material, speaking of her, with her picture? Why?"

　　"That`s what I said. And Jim asked if you would investigate it for us. For me."

　　"I shall do this, Fred," Kumbanaka said. "In return, may I remind you that a great number of new humans have come to your town. And we know that demon infiltrators like to pose as humans. I can smell them, out there, in the crowd."

　　"Shit! I didn`t think about that. I`ll deal with them now."

　　Fred had no qualms left about hunting and eliminating demons. He used his magic sight to look through the crowd of pilgrims that were mostly sitting or laying on the cold ground. It took a while, but he identified six different demon infiltrators among the humans. But he knew that the demons were sneaky, so he spent more time looking everywhere. He found two more demons living in the towers, and three more lurking alone, on the very outskirts of the town.

　　Actually, one was outside the walls, walking upslope towards the treeline. "I bet he`s going for the teleporter," Fred thought.

　　By the time Fred felt he had looked everywhere for demons, the teleporter-bound demon was already in the forest behind Martin`s tower. Having carefully identified eleven demons, he set about eliminating them. The three that were not near anyone, and were standing on the ground, were the easiest. Make a hole, drop them in, squish. Boom.

　　The six that were camping with all the other humans were a bit trickier. Fred didn`t want to accidentally drop a human in the hole. But this extra precision wasn`t too hard for Fred now. For all six, he made a hole in the exact shape of the demon, ensuring that they disappeared into the ground quickly and (relatively) quietly. He dug the holes deep, and (after the demons had fallen all the way down) closed the holes quickly. Then he squeezed all six demons into paste simultaneously.

　　The six simultaneous underground explosions were audible throughout the town, and caused a bit of a hubbub. But no riot started, and eventually people settled down. Fred now watched the remaining two demon infiltrators, living in different areas of the towers. One was high up, well above ground level. One was sleeping in another tower, near the bottom, deep underground. But not in the bottom level, and not near an outer wall, so Fred wasn`t sure he could get the demon into a hole easily.

　　The two demons didn`t seem to notice that their fellow infiltrators had been killed. One appeared to be talking quietly with a human; the other appeared to be sleeping. As Fred watched, Kumbanaka spoke up.

　　"I assume by the thumps I heard, you`ve found and dealt with the demons?" asked Kumbanaka.

　　"Yeah. Well, all but two," Fred replied. "These last two are inside towers, so it`s hard to get them on the ground where I can put them in a hole."

　　"Ah, we had this problem before," Kumbanaka said. "You asked me to lure the demon onto solid ground. As I recall, that worked."

　　"Yeah, that`s what we did. But gimme a second. I think I can do this."

　　Fred noticed that the demon that was high in the tower was leaning against an outer wall, talking to someone. He thought about removing the wall the demon was leaning on, causing it to fall out of the building. When it hit the ground, he could make a hole for it. Of course, this was tricky, too, since humans were occupying the space on the ground where Fred expected the demon would land. After a bit, Fred thought better of it. "I can wait," Fred thought to himself.

　　Throughout the night, the town was very restless, mostly because there were so many new people suddenly camping out inside it. But nothing really happened, and everyone seemed to hold their breath, waiting for something bad to happen. But nothing really did.

　　Closer to dawn, the two remaining demons left their towers and moved out into the town. This gave Fred the opportunity to dispose of them, so he did. In the darkness, one of them fell into Fred`s hole quickly and silently, and would have been disposed of silently, if not for, you know, the underground explosion.

　　The other was walking near some other people, and was carrying a bright lamp. That didn`t stop Fred from opening the hole, so the demon fell into the hole, leaving the lamp behind on the ground. Humans near the event walked over to investigate the sudden disappearance of the man, and look at the lamp he dropped. Then they heard and felt the explosion beneath them, and ran away spooked. Fred wondered if people were getting the idea that he was killing humans randomly. "I wish I could tell them. But on the other hand, this isn`t a safe town. Mebbe it`s okay if they want to leave soon," Fred mused to himself.

　　Now that over a dozen demons had been killed by Fred`s pit-and-squish method, he was concerned about how the ground felt. The places where the demons died were still little knots of magical resistance, at least to him. He could feel the ground and rock as a numbness, and the actual spot resisted his attempts to move or modify the rock. They didn`t seem to be getting bigger or smaller; they were just places in the earth that resisted him, in a frustrating way.

　　It dawned on him that, if a demon army came, and he killed thousands of demons, he might turn huge areas of ground into no-go zones for him and his magic. He`d been thinking that, if he needed more walls, he could just erect them as needed, during the battle. But now, he wondered if he shouldn`t build more walls (or trenches) ahead of time.

　　"I heard more explosions. Did you finish off the demons, Fred?" Kumbanaka asked.

　　"Yep. Oh, I didn`t mean to disturb you."

　　"The humans did that, you didn`t. Don`t worry. I`ve talked to a few humans about these printed papers that mention the priestess. I haven`t gotten any good information yet. I`ll keep asking, though."

　　"Okay," Fred acknowledged.

　　"Fred, the humans took the token from me again yesterday. Could you replace it?"

　　"Yes, sure," Fred acknowledged. He felt a little guilty that, with all that was going on, he hadn`t even realized that Kumbanaka had died. He made another copy of the hidden token, and placed it on the pedestal in Kumbanaka`s room.