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.

Zed's Shed.  All rights reserved.