BattleWom stood with his paws on the railing of Lord Gohba the Loyal Blacksmith's newly acquired ship and stared at the ocean. The beautiful endless blue reflected in his deep brown eyes. Then he turned his attention to the leaking ship on which he stood.
"We have to travel over that?" he asked, gesturing towards the ocean, "in this?"
"Yeah... I don't think so," he said.
Even with his claws sheathed, his paws dug deep groves down the gangplank as he scampered off the ship.
"I think I'll find another way."
But getting to the Himling Islands was going to be a challenge; and BattleWom was close to reconsidering after he saw some of the transport alternatives (including a strange contraption the smell of which was somehow reminiscent of nothing so much as wee - he wasn't surprised when informed it flew through the sky to escape its own stench).
He wandered at last alone along the rocky shore, leaving the other Steemlords to their own devices. "You know what?" he said to himself at last, "it's been a while since I've gone for a really long dig."
And with that, BattleWom carefully unsheathed his claws, and slowly at first, and then faster, began to dig.
When digging, a BattleWom has two speeds - fast and super fast. And BattleWoms can dig forever, only needing to stop occasionally to have a nap, or eat roots and leaves.
Deep, deep underground he went, and then deeper still, because he needed to dig beneath the very ocean. His mighty legs and arms worked together as a singular, gyrating, steel-clawed muscle machine and the very earth flew from beneath his paws.
After a time he recalled the need to gift the priest of Himling, and decided to stop by the fabled isle of Crete. Up, up up, and suddenly he broke through a layer of rock into a gaudily lit chamber.
He sniffed - yes, he was still underground, but the scent of womens' apparel was almost overpowering.
Suddenly, out of the shadows, came the lumbering form of one of the earth's most feared creatures.
A minotaur!
"Squi!" it cried. "A real-life BattleWom from myth and legend! You simply must let me make you a blazer!"
To be continued...
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