Chapter 68: Of Moles and Holes

"What the hell was that for?!" The farmer yelled at me angrily. "You idiot! Look what you've done! How dare you!"

"It's just a flower," I replied. I stared down at the tiny trampled rose that I'd stepped on by accident. The farmer sighed.

"I guess you're right," he grumbled. "But don't do it again!"

I walked off, and I sat down next to Amy11 on the bench. Ever since the fiasco when we nearly got blended alive by a giant mole, we'd been coming to the park every day to try and get the mole to come back out. We'd seen it twice since then-strangely, it always seemed to come for me more then the others.

After questioning the farmer of Falador Park, I discovered that a bottle of plant growth was the cause of the giant mole. But, the farmer said that recently, the mole was becoming rowdy and very ferocious, and it never had red eyes before. I made my own very obvious assumption after that- it was possessed.

Aaron had returned recently, his clothes ripped. He wouldn't tell us where he went and what happened to him- I was worried for him.

I sat next to Amy11, and gave her a grin. She smiled back up at me, and pecked me on the cheek.

"Hey there," she greeted me. "Have you read this?" she asked, waving today's newspaper in my face. "There's been another murder, but this one was a lot more ferocious then the last one. The body had been completely ripped apart and disembowelled this time, with scratch marks all over it." I took the paper from her, and started reading. I finished a grimace on my face from the gory account in the paper.

We'd been aided by our new friend, Dream Decay (I called him Dream for short) and Mark, who knew a thing or two about the giant mole in chasing and defeating it. We hadn't had much luck yet, though. Speak of the devil, I thought, as Dream and Mark walked up to us cheerily.

Following them was a man. This man wore a hard hat on his head, and a camouflage shirt and trousers. He wore a buckled leather belt with a whip attached to it, a gold amulet around his neck, and big brown boots. He had a massive brown rucksack on his back. He looked like a tough nut, with bulging muscles, a high level of 65, and his shiny red whip.

"Hello mate!" he cried joyfully in an unfamiliar accent. "You must be this young lad my friend Mark was talking about here. I'm Colin the Collector. It's nice to meet you." He stepped forward, and shook my hand so vigorously it was almost as if he wanted to yank it off. I stammered nervously.

"If you're a collector, what are you a collector of?" I stuttered. Colin laughed loudly.

"I'm a proud collector of animal trophies," he replied. "I travel RuneScape, taking down large animals, and keeping a part of them as a trophy. I'm here because my friend here, Mark, called me to help take down a giant mole. A giant mole claw would make a perfect trophy!"

"I have a plan, you see. I have here, some mole bait. I specially went out and bought this from a local farmer's shop. Instead of buying the small amount, I bought the sack-o-the-stuff!" He pulled a smelly brown bag out his rucksack proudly. I shuddered at the stench of rotting weeds.

Colin emptied the contents of the sack in the middle of the gardens, and waited. I sighed, tapping my feet impatiently. I hoped this plan was going to work now. I wasn't expecting it to work.

The ground started to shudder, and my impatience seemed to dissolve instantly in excitement and fear. Under my feet, the ground was literally ripped open, and I fell, screaming. I felt a little bit of déjà vu.

I fell deeper and deeper into the ground, before I finally landed on something brown, furry, soft, and smelly. I almost screamed when I realised it was the giant mole. There was a roar, and the mole started moving slowly. I looked up, and I could see I was in a massive tunnel made from earth. The mole was digging further, and I was being showered with bits of filth and earth. There was another roar. I wasn't sure if the mole was aware that I was here. I had to endure this for at least ten minutes.

A throwing axe flew over my head, and hit the mole on the nose. Mark stood behind me triumphantly, with Dream Decay, Amy11 and Colin the Collector standing behind him. They'd chased after me in the tunnel. The mole roared again (this mole did a LOT of roaring), and a shockwave the mole created with its claw nearly blasted me off my feet. The tunnel caved in around me, and when I looked up, I could see sunlight. The mole jumped up, and smashed its whole body intro the ground. The whole tunnel vibrated, and collapsed. I was completely buried under over ten feet of earth.

I was panicking. I couldn't breathe, I was suffocating. I dug through the earth frantically using my fingernails, trying to escape from death itself. Lack of oxygen was starting to get to my head, and I was feeling dizzy. I heard the mole roar from the distance. Just as I started to slip from reality, I found a pocket of air. I gulped it up thankfully, but it wouldn't be long before the oxygen ran out. I continued digging, but oxygen deprivation was returning, unavoidable, inevitable. Trying to run from it in this situation was like trying to run from my own shadow. I started sinking into unconsciousness again.

I woke up suddenly. I wasn't stuck under the earth any more! I looked up, and saw the sky. I was on the surface. I could breathe again! I coughed up earth, breathing in the oxygen gratefully. I looked at my saviour.

It was none other then Ilookgood99. He stood there, staring down at me, a smile playing on his lips.

"It's you!" I yelled accusingly. "Why do you keep popping in? Why did you save my life? Why won't you give me straight answers about anything?"

"I have nothing to say for myself," Ilookgood99 answered. "I can't answer your questions. As for saving your life, I was only passing through. I can't just leave you die-you're too important to lose suddenly." Before I could question him further, he vanished in a puff of smoke.

I huffed angrily. He always had to be the mysterious man. Why couldn't he just spit it out? Why was he hesitating in telling me the great 'secret' he was hiding about me? It can't have been a coincidence, him popping in and saving my life like that. But I couldn't dwell much on Ilookgood99- I had more problems to worry about in the form of a giant mole.

I spun around to face the gardens, and instead I was faced with a gigantic pit. The garden had been completely ripped open and dug out by the giant mole. The area of the Falador wall which was behind the gardens had been smashed down, and the pavement I was standing on was cracked and smashed. In the pit, dead bodies lay scattered. A very familiar roar shook the whole city. Falador guards rushed towards me.

"What's going on here?" One of them questioned. "What the hell happened to the gardens?" His question was answered as the hairy beast which happened to be a mole flew out of the ground. Amy11, Mark, Dream Decay, and Colin the Collector ran towards it. They were all caked with filthy brown earth.

I skidded down into the pit which used to be a garden, closely followed by five Falador guards. The others spun around to greet me.

"I thought you'd suffocated," Amy11 said, relieved.

"I was saved by….a passing stranger," I replied. She nodded, and ran forward to give me a hug. "Now let's take down this filthy overgrown mole once and for all!" I shouted. My confidence evaporated as I faced the gigantic beast. The giant mole roared-it sounded like a battle-cry.

Two guards were crushed by a flying paw. A shockwave flew through the ground at the impact, blowing me off my feet. I stood up, dusted myself off, and ran forward again. The mole roared in my face again. Its breath stunk rotten and putrid. While its mouth was open, I thrust Silverlight through its jaw. There was another roar, but this one wasn't of rage- this roar was of pain. Filthy red blood dripped onto the floor. The mole swept its paw towards me, and I was sent flying into Colin.

Colin sat up, and ran forward. With a strike of his whip, he sent the mole reeling. The mole seemed to do a noise which was a cross between a hiss and another roar, and it crushed Colin with another strike of a paw. The remaining three guards ran forward to assist the injured Colin, but they were swallowed whole by the enraged mole. There was an unpleasant crunching sound as the mole ate the guards alive. The mole spat out some soaking armour pieces, and continued towards us.

Mark took lead then. He ran forward, yelling. He threw three throwing axes. One struck the mole in the back, and it was as effective as throwing a ball of paper at it. The second hit it in the nose. It squirmed in discomfort, and roared (yet again). The third went right on target, and hit the mole in the eye. The mole screamed in pain as it was blinded. With a slam of a giant paw, the ground shook, and Mark was half-buried under several feet of earth. The mole ran forward, and sent Mark flying into the wall opposite.

Amy11 ran forward, but was bowled over before she even had a chance of attacking. Dream jumped up, and landed behind the mole. The mole spun around, and Dream jumped up, and landed behind the mole again. Confused, the mole spun around, and the act was repeated. I saw what Dream was trying to do- confuse the mole to find a hole in its defences. I sent a 'confuse' spell its way to try and help Dream, but it did nothing to the bulk of fur, teeth and muscle that was the giant mole. Dream then landed on the mole's back, and sunk his bronze scimitar into the mole's flesh. There was a bellow that shook the earth, and the mole blasted Dream off its back.

We all gathered together. "The physical approach doesn't seem to be working. Do all of us know how to use a fire spell?" I asked. Everyone nodded. "Does everyone have runes on them?" there was another flurry of nodding. "OK, at the count of three, we'll all use a fire spell on the mole." Everyone nodded again. The mole eyed us suspiciously with its remaining functional eye.

"One….two…..THREE!" I bellowed. Everyone shouted 'fire strike/blast!' simultaneously, and several spurts of fire flew towards the mole, combining to become one raging, flaming fireball. I could feel its heat from here. The mole seemed to shiver in fright, and cowered back from the majesty of white-hot flames. It tried to dig away, but it wasn't quick enough. It was engulfed in the fireball, and I could hear it screaming in pain as it was roasted alive.

It rolled around in filth, and the flames were extinguished. It seemed to have shrunk slightly, there were black patches in its fur, and its eyes were a beady black now. It was no longer possessed. It gave us a terrified look. I sighed with relief.

"It's safe now," I laughed. "It seems that the fire did the trick. It's no longer possessed." But I heard a smash, and a yelp. I spun around, and the farmer that I had a run-in with earlier stood there, rigid with fury, holding a spade, with a surprised mole standing next to him. The farmer hit the mole again across the head. The mole hissed. Colin stepped forward, laughing.

"You've got it all wrong," he said. "This is how you do it." Colin took the spade off the farmer, and smashed the spade into the mole's head. I heard a crack. The mole fell to the floor, unconscious. Colin hit it again twice to make sure, and used a dagger from his pocket to slit the mole's throat.

"What did you do that for?" I yelled. "That creature isn't possessed any more!"

"Look around you!" the farmer snapped back. "Look what this monster has done to my beautiful garden! It's gone from becoming a pocket of beautiful nature to a pit in the ground! I can't let anything that does that go." The farmer stomped off. Colin bounced forward. He started sawing the mole's paw off with his dagger. After a minute, it came off, and Colin lifted it up and put it in his rucksack.

"Well, I've got what I came for," he chirped cheerily. "I'm off. Bye!" At that, he walked off. Mark followed. Dream gave me a grim smile, and walked off too, leaving me with Amy11, standing in a pit of filth, with a deceased mole nearby, surrounded by rubble. It really wasn't a pretty sight. I decided to leave. I clambered out of the pit, Amy11 following.

It had been a strange day. I'd encountered collectors from foreign lands, ferocious giant moles, and angry farmers with spades, and Ilookgood99. I wondered if my day-to-day life could get any weirder. I also was still worrying about Aaron- what was wrong? Where had he gone? Why wouldn't he talk about it?

I hope you liked that.

As mentioned before, Dream is a part of the Sphere of Varrock-The adventure through RuneScape shared universe. It was explained in detail last chapter.

This chapter was written for the purpose of giving me a short break from writing heavy fanfic. No heavy plotlines, just laid-back, relaxed writing. it also gave me some laughs- you may have noticed it was slightly random.

Next chapter-Mainiac97 meets his match....

Until next time, toodles!

P.S. I am in the steps of starting off a brand new RuneScape fanfiction called 'History of a Tramp'. keep your eyes peeled for that!