If there is one thing that I have taken from this experience with slavers, it would be that I hate slavers and I absolutely hate balls. I don’t care if you call me stupid or silly or foolish, but how many of you were ever trapped in a ball. Let me tell you, it’s not fun and who knows which balls are benign and which are meant to trap you within for eternity. Trust me and do not trust balls, never trust balls. Being in the ball was a nightmare, I do not know whether it was not designed to trap humans, or whether it was because I had already been shrunken previously, but I was completely conscious while in it, which was supposedly not supposed to be the case. And on top of that it felt like as long as I was sucked in, my body was desperately trying to regain its original size which lead to me being in a constant state of being semi crushed by the walls. It was painful, more painful than that one time I had been caught stealing and subjected to flogging. Well this at least didn’t leave scars. But let’s return to the story, I’m sure that Squeakly told you a lot of unnecessary boring exposition so it’s time to return back on the proper track. So, after Squeakly freed us from those bloody balls of torture, and after conjuring a small scale environmental disaster (while it is true that that happened, I am certain that it was far less heroic that how the old rat told it) we finally set sail to the hermit Maestro had told us about. We had our doubts about this ordeal, as Maestro’s last acquaintances sucked, but it seemed that he was genuinely saddened by that, as he was only talking in self deprecating gloomy poems right now. But even if this hermit proved himself to be an enemy, we now were at least somewhat prepared to face someone. Well I say us but I mean Squeakly and Maestro, I am not a fighter. I can sneak and talk and steal, and I am also a quite good runner, but I am tragic in fighting. Last time I tried to punch somebody I broke my wrist and he did not even get a black eye, and I was (still am) more likely to stab myself with a dagger than someone else. But my fighting proficiency would not be needed, as Squeakly now had a cool sword and was positively glowing with confidence and courage, which had been hidden deep within him prior to this knowledge. And Maestro was…Maestro. He is capable of absolute carnage that I had seen, It was just that he considered fighting a distraction barring him from using his favourite skills and he never properly invested himself in a fight (if I don’t count last time, but he was trapped in a ball before he could do anything then so…you get my meaning). I am sorry that I am not really saying much about the journey, but we were on the boat for about another month, and it was boooooring. There was nothing really happening, but the other two at least always had something to do. Squeakly was using his sword to give us some additional speed and Maestro was creating his newest masterpieces and writing down every minor detail about our journey. So we sailed, and sailed, and after that month of boredom, we finally reached the other side of the Crystal Sea. We disembarked on the sure and cut off the chains of the shrimps that propelled our ship (Squeakly was adamant on this, even though we didn’t know whether we will need the ship again). The shore was empty, but not far away, on a small hilly outlook, from which all the beauties of the Crystal Sea could be seen, stood a small wooden cabin. “There lives the Hermit, my lady this one is good I swear it. If I am wrong I wow that my heart the dark tendrils of endless oblivion shall be smothering, and my life will be nothing but darkness, pain, grief and…” Stop with this nonsense Maestro, I’ve had enough of these rhymes about darkness within, pain, nothingness, meaninglessness, and despair. From now on if I hear one more depressing poem I shall poke your eyes.” Maestro was looking at me and his whole body was shaking from an uncontrollable urge, and he was barely holding himself. I sighed “All right, say it.” “…Suffering.” Maestro finished with visible relief. I wanted to say some funny remark to brighten the mood, but at that moment a small shape began running towards us from the hill. It was a dog. It wasn’t a normal dog so I wouldn’t have been really surprised since nothing here was normal, but it was not normal in a way that was very surprising, because it almost was normal. The shape and everything were very dog like, it didn’t have any unnecessary horns, no fire breath, correct number of eyes. It would be a normal dog, if it wasn’t only black and white. Now this sounds like I have something against black and white dogs, but humour me. This was not black and white in a dog manner, this was like someone took a normal colourful dog and robbed him of all his colour. I could see where the colour was supposed to be, but that part was not just a different hue of black or white. Oh, and from what I remember, dog’s weren’t supposed to have black outline around their body. This looked like a drawing, but it was a dog. It acted like a dog (except it didn’t bark), it looked like a dog (except it didn’t have colour) and it was the bestest of boys (no comment there). No matter how alien it looked I started petting the dog, as this was something my soul needed right now and it even felt like a dog, with the fur and all. But one interesting thing was that when I was done, my hands were full of black ink-stains. Weird. Regardless, we started going towards the cabin. We reached it and knocked on the door, they opened themselves without any help from the inside. Now I didn’t really got a good look around, since my attention was focused on what was happening on the main table. A figure was sitting there and was finishing a drawing of a small little cute hummingbird in his notebook. As they finished the final line, the hummingbird started moving. It began to happily fly inside the pages of the notebook, becoming a moving picture of sorts, but after a while it stopped. But it changed its position as if trying to look out of the notebook and it tensed its drawn muscles. To our disbelief the hummingbird started emerging from the notebook as if breaking through a membrane until it was completely free. Still the same as in the drawing but now in our world. The figure dropped the quill on the notebook and stretched its long arms and legs. I was too preoccupied with the bird that I hadn’t noticed what kind of figure the artist was. You see, those arms it was stretching were kind of boney, one could say there wasn’t an ounce of flesh on him. I looked at his face, and I was met with empty eye sockets and a permanent uncontrollable grin. It was a skeleton. Remembering my deal with the gardener and the fact that it led me to being tortured by balls, I was capable of a single thought which I had expressed outloud. “Bloody hell, not again.”