Read Chess With a Dragon for Free Online

game this evening. Your success at the game of Nestlings has improved remarkably since you have begun traveling with a host-grub. We were most curious about this fact, and I tell you truly, we had not expected such an astonishing demonstration. We find it most interesting to see that your grub is capable of such astonishing behavior. It suggests possibilities to us that we had not previously dreamed of. Now do you see why we need to know how this grub was trained?”
    K!rikkl’s mind was racing with thoughts of unlimited wealth and unnumbered mates. Perhaps even a nest of its own! Was it truly possible to dream this big! K!rikkl bent its forelimbs and lowered its head in acquiescence. “I shall be at the service of your Nest, my Lord. My flesh is yours.”
    â€œThank you, K!rikkl,” said Hnaxx. “Your service is accepted and welcomed into this Nest. And in return, the Nest stands ready to serve you.”

The Cold Earth
    Into the Southern Hemisphere of a gentle world, comes a night when the blossoms rustle with tomorrow’s wind.
    The hot breath of unborn days catches the leaves of many orchards, many groves, and all the stands arise to wakefulness in hours, all the stands, all whispering with the troubled murmurings a dream-time less than sweet.
    The blossom-scents of many Fn^rrun turn yellow-brown with dreadfulness and uncertainty.
    My roots have grown so cold . . . .
    The hideous dreams, they come again!
    The sense is clear. The scent is fear .
    My roots are cold!
    There is ash upon the soil .
    We wither and we die .
    There are eaters in the dreams. Many eaters creeping. They eat the seeds. They eat the young. They scoop and eat the brains of those who dream .
    My roots are cold .
    The eaters come, the eaters breed, they run wild in the groves! They eat us as we dream! All cry for seedlings yet unsown!
    Where are the Ki!? Where are the Ki!?
    Where is the promise of the garden-keepers?
    Why are the Ki! not in the dreams? Is the rasp of silver claws so much like the sound of teeth?!
    Fear for the Ki!, the ones who walk the night. They swarm and spread betrayal of the crop .
    My roots are cold .
    Fear for the Ki! No more to swarm! No more to swarm!
    They are lost in dreamless dreams! They do not heed our cries!
    The dreams, the foul dreams!
    Who brings such madness to the roots? Who fouls the dreams?
    Who?
    The wet ones slither through the dreams
    The wet ones lie in slime! They promised us a world! Ai-eee. It is a world of death!
    My roots are very cold .
    The dreams are filled with teeth and terror!
    The eaters still infest the groves, they overrun the groves .
    The orchards swarm with menace. The soil blackens with manure .
    The children die within their hands!! The wind does roar and rip the leaves!
    Why do these dreams infest? What portends? What horrors sweep upon us from the night beyond the dawn? Why are the dreadful eaters following on the trail of the slugs?
    So cold. So very cold .
    Abandon hope. Abandon fear. The edge of horror soon cuts here!
    The slugs are beasts from coldest hell, from hottest hell, from driest hell, from wettest hell. They speak in lies; they lie in offal. The awful truth of slugs is that slugs can’t tell the truth!
    The wet ones creep through all the dreams. They speak too sweetly; they leave behind a sugary death. They give our children no safe place to sink their roots .
    We have been sliced .
    Betrayed .
    Destroyed .
    My roots are cold .
    The eaters come through coldest night. Can you hear the teeth?
    The dreams are screams of children, seedlings dreaming screaming! They are being eaten in their birth-dreams!!
    The stalks of many will soon be rotting in the dream-groves!
    The death comes quickly, spreading like a brown and wilting scour .
    Aieee!! I mourn! I mourn!
    Our world will be lost, our blossoms fall upon a barren land!
    We can no longer trust the hosting slugs! They kill us with their kindness!
    There is no hope! No hope! No home!
    So very very cold