Finding a Destination
As far as religion and philosophy go the People have had a great many differences from the mud men. However there are some things that both peoples consider universal truths and virtues. Among these is the majority of the Ten Commandments.
Mulch Diggums had never spent much time studying mud man religions but years after he had finished what little schooling being a mining dwarf required he had cause to remember one phrase that had caught his attention when he was in school.
He was working on a crossword puzzle which required him to complete the phrase "Thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy ." As soon as the word neighbor's sprang into his head Mulch felt something strange. At first he had thought it was a pang of gas but when that proved to not be the case he decided it must be a feeling of destiny.
His mind began to whirl as he thought about the commandment. At first he couldn't determine the cause of his destiny-like feeling; his neighbors were all dwarves who had nothing that Mulch didn't already have himself. He then reasoned that the phrase probably didn't mean his actual neighbors, just people in general.
In that case Mulch could understand perfectly. He coveted things other fairies had all the time, things he had no means of getting. His lot in life was a common one for a dwarf. He had been born into a mining family. All that had ever been expected of him was that he follow in his ancestors' footsteps. Growing up he had never thought much of it but now he found that the mining life didn't suit him at all. It felt completely pointless to be digging around aimlessly, hoping to find some lost treasure. Mulch wanted to have something definite to dig to.
That was what had led to his coveting. Suddenly he had begun to notice all the fine things people around him had that he couldn't have. It irked a little more every day until he began to wonder why he didn't just take these things he wanted. Whenever these thoughts came into his head Mulch would push them away hastily. It was wrong to steal.
"Thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbor's." The phrase swirled around in his head for weeks. He tried to ignore it but it was always there at the back of his mind. The temptation to take was becoming harder to resist.
Then one day in the mines he had a realization: the commandment wasn't even meant to apply to the People, the mud men had made it as a guideline for themselves. Mulch fumed silently that he had spent so much time worrying about a stupid mud rule. It couldn't help him at all. Now he felt there was nothing to keep him from taking what he coveted.
If that was going to be the case he was going to start by stealing from those stupid mud men.
Mulch chose his first target carefully; he didn't want to start out with anything too big. The house was one on a far about twenty miles from the nearest town. He didn't expect to find much worth stealing there but he figured it would be good to learn about the layout of mud men's homes in someplace more isolated first.
When he tunneled above ground that night he would have liked to be dark and stormy with plenty of lightning around to suit the excited mood he was in but it was only a normal night with a slightly chilly breeze. It didn't matter though, he had a mission to accomplish.
He carefully looked around the house before going back underground. He had decided it would be best to enter through the house's basement which turned to have a dirt floor.
Just before he took the final bite it take to break through the floor Mulch hesitated. Stealing from the mud men was a direct violation of the Book, entering without permission would mean giving up his magic. Would it be worth it? Giving up his magic would be irreversible and it was a very scary thought. Mulch almost changed his mind then but he remembered what he had to return to: a life in the mines.
Magic was overrated anyway.
Several hours later Mulch returned below ground grinning wildly to himself. He had taken everything in the house that looked vaguely valuable and wasn't nailed down. As he tunneled downward he was almost laughing. He wouldn't ever have to worry about his coveting again. He wasn't going to be coveting now, he was going to be taking.
And although there is great irony in his supposed outwitting of the commandment it did lead him to help greatly in some very important adventures many years later. So perhaps it is for the best that he didn't know about that there was another commandment that said not to steal.