Joe was covered in blood from head to toe. It was pitch black inside the hole and he could barely breath. He was crushed underneath the head of the massive pig as he tried to rock it off of his body. The spade banged on his helmet from above as The Elder dug into the side of the pit forming an earthen ramp to drag out the prey. He dragged both of the hogs back up the ramp setting them off to the side of the hole.

Bi kept clanging the shovel against the pot attempting to rouse Joe.

It only succeeded in dazing the young man more. 'Poor bastard has a gut full of pig blood and a concrete snake in his shorts. Shame doesn't look like he will be able to do anything with it tonight... still wasn't expecting Three to get married like ever. The fact that Joe survived says there's more than meets the eye here. The purple haired pig was here tonight... if the boy has that as his spirit beast there's nothing that can stop us on this mountain. I'll just ask him if I can ever get him awake.'

"Crane, you and Jimbo double back to my house and get the dump truck. I'll hang back here with my new in-law." The Elder yelled to his subordinates as he paused from beating Joe in the head. The Tinker and The Scholar both got back on the bike headed to retrieve the dump truck. The Elder reached inside one one of the pockets on the inside liner of his dressing gown retrieving a small stoppered vial. He uncorked the bottle holding it under Joe's nose. 'The Striped Civet Cat Concentration will surely work. The amount of ammonia is almost one hundred percent.'

The smell of a tannery bay assaulted Joe's nostrils the chemical overtones and aldehydes made the mucus membranes in his sinuses got into emergency production. He hocked a massive green pulp from his lips as he opened his eyes.

"Now that I have your attention I need you to answer a few questions. The first of which is how are you connected to that purple haired pig." The Elder was squatting off to the side of Joe with a serious face. " If you can't tell the sect is in dire straits we need to come up with alot of stones otherwise we are out on our asses fairly soon."

"Well that pig is Jeffy... he threw me a bachelor's party. Seems that we are buddies, he brought those pigs right over so... yeah." Joe was still expectorating the sputum from his lungs and mouth.

"Next point of business. You married my granddaughter what brought that on?"

"Fear of what she would do to me if I told her no... Your granddaughter has informed me before that she always gets what she wants. This is a woman that drowned me for calling her mean names what would she do of I said no to the marriage or asked for a divorce?"

Images of burning cities and wailing children filled both of the men's heads accompanied by ominous music. There were priests saying prayers over mounds of corpses and a red sun.

The two men exchanged sheepish smiles;

The Elder continued his questioning.

"Well now that you married my favorite little hellion how are you planning to support yourselves? What about kids?" The Elder's face was serious.

"I don't know my first plan was to run far and fast as soon as she was busy."

"Sounds like a great plan I recommend asking Jimbo which clan might take a useless reprobate... nobody wants a slacker in the family you need to get a plan of some kind besides just running away. I was under the impression you were wanting to be an inscriber." The Elder was getting excited at the prospect of an inscriber joining his family.

"Three made it sound like way too much work. I think that dream is dead. Looks like my wife and in laws must support us." Joe wiggled his eyebrows as he gestured to The Elder.

The veins on The Elder's neck popped out and his bald head flushed a deep red. 'This boy is most definitely Thomlin's son. Shameless as the day is long.' The Elder gave up further questioning in exasperation.

Jeffy was in his cave high up the mountain surround by tree nuts organized into mounds by their species. Several small piglets were rooting around in the piles feasting on delicious pecans and walnuts. 'My little brothers and sisters are so damn cute. Soon I'll have to eat them before they decide to eat me.'

"Dad I'm back home."

"Where were you? Looks like alot of late nights for you these days... Find a girl that you wanted to settle down with yet?" A very large hairy boar with a calico pelt spoke up from deeper in the cave. He was staring at a large archway that led nowhere carved from a single piece of white stone.

"When are you going to give up on staring at that archway? There's been nothing come out of that portal in over 1600 years, that is if you believe the legends written on that papyrus scroll that was left by the door. Some of it is written in plain English the rest of it is in dots- and dashes that only god knows what they mean."

"I will stare into the abyss for as long as it takes until the abyss stares back."