LORE #021
The Surprise guest
Thicket kept one arm around his wife.
"Nifty, this is Tansy"
"Tansy, this is Nifty."
Her eyes moved to him.
For a moment, she simply stared.
THE STORY KEEPS GETTING WORSE
THE LORE
Every gremlin has a story. Unfortunately, this one keeps getting longer.
LORE #020
The infestation begins
"Guess we're going to need more food."
Thicket nodded.
"And more roofs."
"Yeah."
"And less humans."
Nifty glanced at him.
LORE #019
The Gathering
Thicket smiled.
"Congratulations."
"On what?"
Thicket's smile widened.
"I don't know yet, but looks like your in charge”
LORE #018
The Grevnoc
He carried a can of spray paint.
On a brick wall behind a closed store, Nifty painted a familiar mark.
A crooked smiley face with X eyes.
LORE #016
The Bramblekin
"Nifty says you're his friend," Thicket said. "I'd like to think so," Corey replied.
Thicket looked up at Nifty for confirmation. "He is," Nifty said.
Thicket considered this, then looked back at Corey. "Humans are mean." Corey nodded.
LORE #015
Thicket
Whatever he grabbed was smaller than he expected and considerably angrier.
The woods exploded into kicking feet, claws, leaves, snarling, and several noises Nifty was fairly certain were insults.
"Stop moving!" Nifty shouted as he tried to hold on. "Get off me!" the creature yelled back.
Nifty froze. The creature froze too.
LORE #014
running away
Leaves broke beneath his feet. He had no destination.
He only knew he could not stand beside those two trees anymore.
LORE #013
Gone
There was no slow collapse.
No fading light. One instant Rook was there.
The next, the forest stood empty between two ordinary trees. The purple light vanished.
LORE #012
Rook?
Rook was built much like Nifty, though a little taller and leaner, with long pointed ears, an old nick cut from one edge, and that uneven grin Nifty could draw from memory even when other faces blurred. The drawing caught the tilt of his head and the familiar look that always seemed to say he knew something Nifty didn't.
READ THE CHAPTER →LORE #011
Rook?
For weeks he had been alone with the noises, the shadows, and the impossible little details. Now Corey was back.
Whatever was happening, Nifty did not have to face it by himself. It's Time For a while they talked about everything except the collection.
Eventually Corey looked toward the drawings. "You waited."
LORE #010
The Launch
Home.
The word entered his mind before he could stop it. Nifty almost laughed at himself.
This was not home. Home was somewhere else.
LORE #009
The Leaf
One afternoon, restless from staring at screens and drawings, Nifty left the cabin for a long walk.
He followed familiar paths through the woods without thinking much about where he was going. The forest had become ordinary to him.
Not home. But familiar.
That was why the leaf stopped him
LORE #008
The Launch
Before Corey left, they made one final trip through the human world together, carefully and after dark.
They stocked the cabin with food, paper, pencils, replacement drawing supplies, batteries, and everything else Nifty might need. Corey also spent hours going over the work they had been doing online.
The website. The accounts.
The collection. And now the token Nifty had decided would become another piece of the strange little world he was building.
LORE #007
The Footprint
The strange little disturbances around the cabin never disappeared completely.
A noise in the woods. Something moved from where Nifty remembered leaving it.
LORE #006
Online
Over the next few months,
Together they began building the version of Nifty the human world would know. Corey handled the things that required a human face or voice.
LORE #005
The Internet
All the drawings, all the pages the stories that covered every wall of the cabin. One evening Corey noticed an old tablet among the things Nifty had scavenged from town.
"You know that thing does more than just light up, right?" Nifty looked at him. "I figured that out." "How much have you figure out?" Nifty stared at the screen for a moment.
"Enough." It was not enough.
LORE #004
The Drawings
Several visits later, Corey was sitting on an old fallen log well away from the cabin. A branch dnapped behind him.
Suddenlyhe hears "Nifty." Corey looked over his shoulder. The gremlin stood twenty feet away.
It was the closest Nifty had willingly come since the snare. "Nifty?" The gremlin nodded.
"That's your name?" Another nod. "Good to meet you properly, Nifty." Nifty stared at him then said
"But, you've already met me."
LORE #003
Friendship?
Corey returned two days later carrying a small bag.
He placed it on a stump far enough from the cabin that whoever lived inside would not feel cornered. Food.
Nothing elaborate. Nothing that required an explanation.
"Dont be frightened, I'm not coming any closer,"
LORE #002
The Human
Corey knew the woods well. He knew the tracks that belonged there, the sounds that belonged there, and the little signs that told him when something had moved through during the night.
That was why the disturbance caught his attention. Something had found one of his snares.
From a distance he could hear movement in the brush. Branches snapped.
Leaves shifted. Then everything went quiet.
LORE #001
The Beginning
Nifty doesn't remember how he got here. There was no doorway.
No flash of light. No journey he can remember taking.
One moment, there was home. The next memory he has is opening his eyes beneath unfamiliar trees in a world that wasn't his own.
He was alone. Lost in a forest filled with unfamiliar sounds, unfamiliar creatures, and distant signs of something he would eventually
learn to fear more than anything else in this strange world.