A long time ago in a sandpile far, far away...heh ! turn the music off by pressing my apple
 

 ...lived a family of fat brown earthworms.  Not a nasty wet sandpile with weeds and flotsam
strewn about, but a well-kept snug pile of clean sand with good drainage.  The family living inside
this sandpile was your basic ordinary earthworm family; except for one young worm by the name
of Bumpy.  Bumpy was a good worm; he attended wormie school and got decent grades, but
sometimes he would let his curiousity get the best of him.  Now Bumpy had always kept inside the
village compost heap; the land outside was full of danger, for his mommy had told him: "Bumpy
dear, keep inside the village compost heap, for the land outside is full of danger!"  Bumpy was
keenly aware of such things, but that seed of curiousity grew inside him as he grew older.

On a time, in the waking dawn hours, the wormie god Hand took away Bumpy's daddy.
Although Hand was usually kind to the village, showering lovely coffee grounds and bits of veggies
down from the sky for the village to eat, occasionally he took a sacrifice to appease some other evil
god called Hook, and the rites were not pretty; the screams of Bumpy's daddy would echo in
Bumpy's head for a long time, and Bumpy cried.
 That night while he slept he was visited by a vision in his dreams.  He saw what he thought was the
most beautiful girl earthworm he had ever seen.  She raised her head to him and said, "Bumpy, I
hear your cries and am moved to pity.  You have now within you great gifts that the wormie gods
have granted you, but they will only flourish if you are guided by a man.  But beware!  Men can be
evil as well as good..."  Then the beautiful worm faded away, leaving Bumpy to ponder the
message.

Without a daddy wormie in the house, Bumpy had to take over being the daddy to the younger
wormies.  He did most of the wormie chores and took over the daddy wormie responsibilities.  In
those days Bumpy grew like a weed, and he became the strongest worm in the heap.  He was also
looked upon as a leader among the worms, even though he was still but a stripling.

While Bumpy was still young there was a great fire in the sky.  The wormies were filled with dread,
and they prayed to Hand and the other wormie gods for guidance.  As they prayed they heard a
great scream from the heavens, and some say they saw Hand streak across the sky at that time.
They never saw Hand again.  In fact, from that time onward, the heap had suffered great famine
and drought, and many wormies were lost.  But not Bumpy, for his destiny led him down a far
different path.

A day after the Great Noise, as it was called, the wormies heard new sounds they had never heard
before.  Sounds of many gods at once, but they sounded harsh and mean.  The wormies has a
meeting and decided that they would send an emissary up to the very top of the world, where very
few wormies liked to go, to attempt to pray to the new gods and to find out what happened to
Hand.  Bumpy volunteered for this dangerous mission, which was just as well; for he was the
unanimous choice of all the rest of the wormies.

Now when Bumpy had ascended to the top of the world, he saw quite a sight.  The sky indeed was
on fire, and he heard sounds that reminded him of his daddy's cries, but these cries were from the
gods.  Bumpy grew afraid and thought the world was coming to an end.  He was just about to
burrow back into the village when he beheld for the first time the face of a god.

The god had a hard shell around his body, even on his head, and it flickered in the light of the
fire.  Bumpy noticed several other gods in the area.  He also noticed that the god nearest himself
seemed to be the king of the new gods, for the other gods showed him great reverence, bowing and
saluting him.  But Bumpy was confused; he noticed that these gods had a part of them that looked
exactly like the god Hand.  Then Bumpy remembered his dream and the words of the beautiful girl
wormie: These gods must be called men!

This was too much for poor Bumpy to take in at once, and he started to cry.  He wanted to just
crawl away and hug his mommy.  But Fate would have it's way, and the king god heard the tiny
cries of our little wormie hero.  The man picked Bumpy up and was about to do him harm, when
the gift of human speech was granted to Bumpy, and he pleaded to the man to spare his life.

The man held Bumpy, speechless!  Never in his life had he ever heard of an earthworm that could
talk!  But the man was crafty, and did not share this miracle with any of his fellow comrades.
After getting over his shock, the man took Bumpy and put him in a pouch.  The last thing Bumpy
saw was his little sandpile, a sight he wouldn't see again for a long, long time.

While Bumpy was inside the man's pouch, he tried to absorb his experiences.  He pondered the
thoughts of gods and men.  He questioned wormie theology as he knew it.  He wondered how his
family and the village were faring.  But most of all he replayed his vision with the beautiful girl
wormie over and over again, trying to make sense of what was happening to him.  He was keenly
aware of things going on outside, using both his sense of hearing and smell.  He finally realized he
was on a long journey somewhere.  He occasionally heard the sounds of shouting and battle,
although he wasn't sure what it meant.

After what seemed to Bumpy was years spent travelling, the man finally took him out of the
pouch and put him in a small jar of soil.  Bumpy now saw that the round bright sky ball didn't
shine in this place; only small sharp lights that were strewn about a dark sky.  The man appeared
to shed his shell, and sat down next to Bumpy's jar.  The man seemed to eye up Bumpy, as if to
make sense of him.  Then the man said, "I don't know if you are a god come to deceive me, little
slug, but I intend to make you my own private treasure trove, as Ares is my witness!".  Bumpy
didn't like the sound of that, but he remembered his vision and kept an open mind.

The man started to treat Bumpy differently than Hand ever did.  Instead of dropping the yummy
food that Bumpy was used to, the man gave him a red liquid that tasted yucky.  In the beginning
Bumpy refused to eat this new food, but after a few days he got hungry and had no choice.  After a
while, though, he got used to it. The man taught Bumpy how to do things, like how to lift a heavy
stick over and over again, how to stand up on his tail end; things like that.  He told Bumpy stories
of his life, of things called battles and how these things made the man rich and famous.  Bumpy,
ever conscious of the vision in his dream, paid attention to the stories and tried to learn his lessons
well.

A month passed since Bumpy was brought to his new home, and even though Bumpy couldn't see
it, he had grown tremendously in that time.  He was now able to lift branches, big ones, and toss
them quite a distance.  He could perform acrobatic tricks, like jumping and twisting in mid-air,
and he could crawl as fast as the man could walk.  But the biggest change in Bumpy was in his own
mind.  Bumpy now fancied himself quite the earthworm indeed.  He spent a lot of time in front of
the shiny wall looking at his reflection. The man praised him all the time, and told him that
someday he could be the best thing to ever happen for all earthwormdom.  Bumpy believed
everything the man told him, especially about himself, and on a time Bumpy asked the man if
there was any task that he could perform to prove his worth.  The man pondered that a moment,
and a smiled seemed to slowly grow on his face.

Then man started instructing Bumpy in the art of combat.  He showed him how to lunge and
parry with his body, how to perform different techniques designed to knock down opponents and
stun them.  The man started to give Bumpy other strange liquids as well as chunks of smelly stuff
covered with the red liquid.  The man also started doing things that were strange to Bumpy;
ceremonies that were noisy and smokey, and the man called out the name Ares a lot.  During these
ceremonies the man often held Bumpy high up in the sky.  Although Bumpy thought it strange, he
wasn't much scared anymore.

One morning after a ceremony that was especially smokey, Bumpy was having a hard time
talking.  He crawled over to the shiny wall and to his wonder he noticed sharp white things
growing out of his face!  When the man saw what happened, he praised the gods and told Bumpy
the time had come to face his first opponent in combat...to the death!

The man took Bumpy outside along with a wide shallow bowl and a small mouse.  He put the
bowl on the ground and placed the mouse in the bowl.  Then he took out a vial with a liquid
Bumpy had never seen before.  He put a drop of the liquid in Bumpy's mouth and dropped him
into the bowl as well.  Now Bumpy looked up at this huge monster that skittered around the bowl,
and he began to worry a little; after all he heard stories as a toddlewormie about such creatures
and they frightened him.  But the liquid was taking hold, and Bumpy felt strange; he was growing
very angry, more angry than he ever felt before.  He was gaining strength, too.  He now looked at
the mouse and saw his worst enemy.  All of Bumpy's thoughts were now concentrated on defeating
his enemy there in the bowl, and he crawled towards it.

It was over in a blink of an eye.  Bumpy had his first taste of battle, and he rejoiced in it...until
the liquid wore off, that is.  Bumpy looked at his vanquished foe lying dead next to him, and he
started to cry.  But the man didn't let Bumpy rest for long.  He put a bigger mouse in with Bumpy
and gave the earthworm another dose of liquid, with the same results.

These exercises were repeated over and over for many days, and with each passing day the liquid
would have a longer effect on Bumpy.  The liquid caused Bumpy to appear drunken with rage and
somewhat obnoxious; revelling in his own apparent bloodlust. Only rarely did Bumpy have
moments where he was wholly clear of the liquid's effects, usually at night when he was in bed, and
at those times he thought back to his sandpile, and his mommy, and the beautiful girl wormie in
his dream, and he wept.

Now just before the men were to strike out on their next campaign the man decided to reveal
Bumpy to his comrades.  He showed them how Bumpy could do away with mice and rats, but the
other men were jealous, and they took Bumpy and threw him in a cage with a wild boar that they
had just captured for the night's meal.  What they saw amazed all that witnessed it; all that was left
of the boar was it's tusks.  When the men saw that sight, they indeed thought Bumpy was a gift
from the gods.

They girt Bumpy in wormie-sized armor and placed him in the vanguard of their host of warriors,
and set off to take over the countryside.  Bumpy showed great ferociousness in combat, and raised
the morale of those who fought beside him.  He was ruthless to his enemies, and showed no
quarter.  The man, who had now gained even more respect from his men, fed Bumpy fresh bear
meat every morning, which was Bumpy's favorite.

Now a month into this campaign of terror the liquid that made Bumpy angry ran out.  But it
seemed that Bumpy no longer needed it; for he still fought with expert skill and cunning, and he
remained bloodthirsty and fierce.  Indeed the mere mention of the worm made whole villages
surrender.  Bumpy had become an icon for evil and bloodlust.  Not that Bumpy payed attention;
he was quite happy with himself, for he knew the gifts the wormie gods had granted him had
flourished within him, just as the beautiful girl wormie had forseen, and he felt he was bestowing
glory and honor upon his own kind, and finally proving to the world that earthworms deserve
more respect than to be stuck on a fishing hook.

The army was moving across the lands now with complete abandon; nothing dared stand in their
way. Bumpy was quite comfortable now in the man's world, he understood many things that he
previously chalked up to wormie god theology.  He sang men's songs, and drank men's ale.  But he
still longed for his own sandpile and his family, and at night in his bed, when no one was looking,
he would wipe away his wormie tears.

One day the army came to an island called Tol Lenwa, where legend says the mighty Egalmadrim
of old had once called home.  There was supposedly a blessing on the land foretelling that no
enemy would conquer it under threat of force.  The man urged his army on, explaining that they
will go into battle with Bumpy at their side, and that only a gift from the gods would be able to
break the spell on the land.  The army was whipped into a frenzy and poured across the land
bridge onto the isle, intent on slaughter.

But some curses are stronger than other curses, as some blessings are stronger than others, and
the gods muse on such things.  What seems coincidence to one is destiny to another; for it so
happened there were visitors on the isle that day.  During the battle the visitors fought on the side
of the villagers, and did great deeds of valor.  Bumpy was astonished by the talents of these
visitors, and hesitated to attack them, but not due to fear.  Bumpy sensed that these folk were
unlike to his master, but he wasn't sure quite how.  He noticed that they defended the weaker
villagers, something that his master never did.  They also avoided killing if at all possible, but tried
to scare away the men instead.  Bumpy remembered those valiant visitors and their fighting style
from that time on, especially the man with the big muscles and the lady with the shiny round thing.

The battle turned for the worse for the invaders, and only the man and his closest friends were
left.  Bumpy was with them, but he hadn't done much fighting thus far, content to watch the battle
with wide wormie eyes.  The man joined in the fray, but Bumpy didn't, for now he had seen the
difference between good men and evil men and now more than ever Bumpy wanted to get away.
So Bumpy quietly crawled out of harm's way, hoping that no one would notice him, and he hid
under a rock for a while.

When the battle was ended, the invading army was no more.  Bumpy was quite sure that his
master couldn't have survived that fight, let alone any of his men, so he surmised that no one left
alive knew of his special gifts.  Sick of all the violence in the name of evil, he wriggled out of his
wormie armor and decided that his days of fighting were over; he'd find his way back home
somehow and try to worm-alize what had happened to him to his family and friends.

Bumpy made his way from under the rock, and trusted to the confusion of the aftermath to
escape notice, since he decided not to go underground, to see if indeed the evil army had been
completely wiped out.  Just then he heard wild barking, followed by vibrations in the earth of an
animal running towards him.  Bumpy acted instinctivly; he turned and slew the beast quickly.  But
that battle had been witnessed by others.

Bumpy soon felt himself lifted up by a strong hand.  The man who picked him up looked at
Bumpy with a scrutinizing eye.  Bumpy had never met a man like this before, although he
remembered him as one of the visitors to the isle.  The man said, "Hey there, little guy.  You don't
look so evil...so what's your story?" and he smiled at Bumpy.  Bumpy didn't feel at all threatened
by this man, so he decided to tell him his story, including the vision in his dream.  He also told
him that his fighting days were behind him and he was just about to crawl back home, if he could
find it.

This man with the big muscles thought about it a bit, and brought Bumpy over to the lady with
the shiny round thing.  He whispered something to her, and she glanced over at Bumpy with a
raised eyebrow.  They both explained to Bumpy that since he had done so much evil in the past, he
might try to right his wrongs by fighting evil in all its forms; that way he would not only clear his
own name, but it would make him feel better about himself.  They also reminded Bumpy of his
vision, and that he now had the knowledge of what is evil and what is good, and that he needed to
fufill his destiny, whatever it turns out to be.

The two visitors were in a hurry, so they put Bumpy down on a hill and bid him well.  Bumpy
would never forget what they told him, and their mercy in letting him go after all he had done in
the past.  But Bumpy had doubts that he was capable of doing good without a guiding hand.  So
as the visitors were walking away, he yelled to them and asked where he would be able to find
guidance in such a big world.  They looked at eachother and told Bumpy to go back to his
"roots", and they walked away, and Bumpy never saw them again.

Bumpy wondered why big folk always had to talk cryptically to him, and he thought it rather
annoying.  But this message wasn't as cryptic as perhaps it was supposed to be; Bumpy lived
underground and saw roots everyday of his life.  So it wasn't a stretch to think that they meant
him to seek out the local compost heap and talk to the locals, which he did.

The compost heap was located on a farm near the edge of town.  The local wormies had indeed
heard of Bumpy's exploits, and had more or less thought he must have fallen in with an evil God.
But when Bumpy explained who had sent him, their trepidations ceased, as their Hand kept the
wormies better informed than Bumpy's had.

When Bumpy told his tale to the heap elders and had asked what to do, they told him that one of
their gods had recently left the sky to find fame in a far away place, and from what they could hear
from their heap the god was generally known to be one of the most beneficent gods in the skies.

Bumpy bid the heap well and struck out to find this god.  He gathered that the man-name of this
god was Zed and that he was rumored to have headed towards a village called Athens.  Now
Bumpy had heard of this village before from the men in the army, and they had mentioned that it
was one of the bigger villages they had ever seen; also that it was very far away.  Bumpy took a
deep breath, said a silent prayer to the wormie gods and crossed the land bridge connecting the isle
to the mainland.  He still wished to return back to his sandpile, but he knew that his destiny was
interlocked with this man Zed and he vowed that once he found him, if he ever did, he would listen

to him and fight the good fight against evil every day.
 

::hums:: no apple stealing!

 
 

 
 

heh! don't you dare !!!

 
 

                                                                           ::hums::