It was unclear if the dryad were dead or alive; our hero endeavored to climb the tree and find out. He took with him the mage, the businesswoman and the soldier. The prosecutor, the half-minotaur, half-attorney, accompanied them, so as to determine whether our hero committed murder.
Our heroes climbed the great tree, whose crown disappeared in the vaults of heaven. Its bark was tough and gnarled, one could get little footholds into it, and creatures were already drawn to this resilient totem of life.
A wyrm chewed on the roots, but he only wanted some gum.
Harpies harangued our heroes at the heights, but they only wanted some soap to clean.
A roc had made its nest here, yet it found the tree too tall for its liking and desired some assistance down.
Our heroes, tired from rough climbing, plunged their faces into the clouds, showering themselves in suspended droplets; peering above, they found a vast expanse of white, and, to their surprise, a palace for giants in the vaporous clouds. It was painted in garish colors, it was as tall as the tree, and it was ornamented with dazzling gold and silver.
A shadow fell on them, and they heard the “earth” tremble around them, more and more intensely. They hid beneath a leaf; a giantess thundered by them and cut the top of the tree, keeping it short. She carried the tree, which was but a mustard green to her, back to her home; unbeknownst to her, she carried our heroes in her shoes.
The giantess paused in the path, and took off her shoes, for she felt sand in them. Our heroes scurried beneath her toenails, fitting themselves in the black lumps of dirt and dead skin. The giantess no longer felt the sand, but now she felt something in her toenails. Unfortunately she did not have her nail clippers at hand.
The giantess opened the immense doors to her palace, which her husband was renting, took off her shoes, and set down the mustard green in the kitchen and wondered how to cook it. Our heroes scurried away, yet only to the hideout they could quickly enter, the cracks of the wall.
No sooner did they enter were they jostled and bumped around by a hundred families of roaches, who were the same size as them; they touched our heroes all over with their antennae and teeth, and would have eaten them if they themselves had been eaten by larger roaches. The roaches carried them to successively larger roaches, until they arrived at a roach that had eaten several generations, who was born yesterday afternoon, and yet even this roach was devoured by the true lord of the walls, a rat whose head was the size of one of our heroes. The rat bared its teeth, making to eat our heroes. Our heroes ran.
Our heroes ran into a crevice even the rat could not squeeze into. They found a hairpin the giantess had forgotten. The five of them held up the hairpin and drove it into the rat’s eye, piercing deeply into the brain.
The rat did not entirely decease. The mage had an idea. With her knowledge of anatomy, she entered the rat’s skull, reorganized the rat’s neurons, and found the rat could be manipulated. It was decided that our hero would pilot the rat, while the others resided in the stomach.
As soon as they made their way to the exit, they saw a goose on the giants’ mantel. Although everything is very tall in the land of the giants, this goose was a dwarf, no bigger than the giantess’s thumb, yet, as our heroes discovered, it laid golden eggs, which the giantess collected, being equal to pennies, though taxed nonetheless. The businesswoman was adamant in taking this goose, and our heroes had to agree. They also sought to see if the dryad was in the mustard green.
The half-dead, half-alive, very unhappy rat scurried throughout the house. Unfortunately, the giants kept a very bored cat.
The cat chased our heroes to the barn. The cat pounced; the rat ducked beneath the cow’s hooves; the cow kicked the cat, breaking some teeth.
The cat chased our heroes to the kitchen. The cat pounced; the knives were put in hazardous places; the cat lost some hairs, and his manhood.
The cat chased our heroes to the kitchen. The cat pounced; ethanol was placed precariously; the cat lost some of his ability to speak and to walk.
The rat ran outside, where the neighbor’s cat, a beautiful female, was crossing. The cat smiled; she did not appreciate his broken face; she further did not appreciate his alopecia, nor his missing manhood; he tried to speak; she found him unintelligible; he chased after her; she turned her tail to him. There was nothing for him to do but to hang his head with rope.
The cat was dispatched, and the giantess and her daughter sorely missed their pet. The giant, returning from a long day of drinking, scooped up the rat and put it in a cage in their infant daughter’s room.
© 2025 Jay Lee