Within this tight space lies a prone Kiriga, ancient and orange. His face has a calm, peaceful expression that fights with the craggy contours of his protruding eyebrows. A folded parchment is tucked under his chin, tied around his neck by a dangling string, and several mothballs and vermite traps are carefully attached to the interior of the small room.

The cold, still form of the old master seems to look somehow right this way… as if someone who was long overdue a rest finally had a chance to have it… but the illusion is broken by a sudden twitch of one eyebrow. Then the nose twitches, one of the Kiriga's whiskers moving, until slowly, almost imperceptibly, Long Tooth's eyes open again. He draws in a long, shuddering breath, and makes smacking noises with his mouth, as if he was trying not to taste a mouthful of cod liver oil. He looks around questioningly, somewhat disoriented.

It's awfully … cozy in here.

Tooth's brow suddenly scrunches up. "Again wissa box… Moonshine make me blind again, or foes try trappah me once more. No box can hold old Mastah Long Tooth!" Drawing back his fist as much as he can in the confined space, the Kiriga aims a bony knuckle at the center of his prison, and thrusts forward. "Hragh!"

With a loud crack, the crate bursts apart … or, that is, a few of the planks do, letting the Kiriga's fist stick out through the fractured wood. A few vermite traps go off at the disturbance, making a staccato series of snapping noises.

With a wheezy grumbling echoing around in the confines of the crate, the Kiriga's wrist jiggles around in the splintered boards, until Tooth adds his other one to it. "Hmp!"

It's quite the hassle, but the cheap wooden crate is no match for a near-dead Kiriga. It's soon reduced to scrap wood, and the orange master finds himself … hmm … it is a desolate landscape, stretching out as far as the eye can see, pocked with craters here and there. A strong wind blasts the Kiriga with a cloud of grit, causing the parchment dangling on a string around his neck to flap up and smack him on the nose a few times.

"Hah! I escapah once again! Simple wood is no match foh… plth!" A mouthful of windblown sand and a corner of the paper cause him to break off his sentence, and in irritation he grabs at the scrap of parchment, spitting out some grit as he does so. "Pth! Ptoo! Bah!" Squinting in the sudden change of light, Tooth jerks the parchment away from his neck, and tries to focus on it.

The parchment appears to be some sort of shipping manifest. "Cargo: One dead Kiriga, Master of the Arthritic Open Paw of Severe Drubbing. Handle with Care. From: Levitha's Blanket, Half Valley. Ship to: School of the Arthritic Open Paw of Severe Drubbing, Nagai City, Nagai." Then, there's a stamped logo under which reads, "Slow Boat Express – When You Absolutely Positively Don't Really Care When It Arrives, As Long As It's Cheap!"

Funny. This doesn't look like Nagai. For one thing, it's too chilly.

Grumbling, Long Tooth steps out of the planks, joints creaking as they're allowed to stretch again. He stands up as straight as his bent back will allow.He ignores the wind whipping his mane around, and surveys the area. "By-ah my watah fillt knees… thissa must be fourth hell, cold one. I really dead this time. Huht." Undaunted by this conclusion, the old master begins hobbling around in a search for higher ground, to survey the realm of the dead.

A lonesome sound echoes through the wind. It sounds like someone blowing across a glass bottle half-filled with water. Other, similar, sounds follow, but at different pitches.

Lying on the ground around the crate can be seen a few pieces of rope. Hmm. Cargo netting? If it is, it's torn up, to be sure.

A ragged ear perks, and the old master narrows his eyes… though it's really hard to tell under those shaggy eyebrows and bags. He turns around a few times, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, while making a big show of focusing on the shredded rope by the box.

The shredded rope … well, it represents a few fragments of a torn up cargo net, apparently. The airship that it was once attached to is nowhere to be seen. But as the Kiriga expands his search of his surroundings, he can see a few craggy mountains in the distance … and many more craters. Some of them are so large that there are craters within craters! A particularly large "bowl" slopes down just to the side of the "peak" the Kiriga is currently standing on. Down in the bowl can be seen … lots of strange whitish, shiny things. Eggs? Very big eggs, if so. Or perhaps large round bleached bones, of some great and bizarre creature. Hmm. Some of them seem to be moving around. Another "hooooot!" noise comes from the direction of that bowl, along with a chorus of others.

An eyebrow quirks, the dangling end being carried over Master Tooth's shoulder by the winds. "Wassa dis? Cold Hell hassa birds?" Deciding aimless wandering of the "underworld's" vast plains would be fruitless, the Kiriga makes his way along the lip of the crater, then hops on the slope to skid down it toward the source of the noise to investigate. Maybe there's breakfast to be had here somewhere.

It would have been a grand plan, and fairly dramatic, too, if there hadn't been a weird whitish round thing (it all happens too fast to call it anything other than that) right inside the lip of the crater. As the master slides down the slope, he collides with the – thing … and they both go rolling and tumbling down the slope! There are several high-pitched "hoot" noises that emit from the roundish thing that is rolling down the slope with the Kiriga.

"Awpth!" In a cloud of dust and debris, the old master bounces down along with his stumbling block, spindly limbs flailing. Though most of Tooth's exclamations are just grunts or shouts, every fourth one is a Nagai curse. "Oof! Ow! Akpth! @#$%!! Urk! Ngk! Urgh! **#$!!"

As soon as the Kiriga rolls to a stop at the bottom of the hill, he finds himself surrounded by several strange-looking creatures that peer curiously at him. They seem to have bodies constructed of random assortments of roundish shelled pieces that have surfaces that suggest polished ivory. Their heads all look alike, though – they look remotely birdlike, with "muzzles" that stretch into bottle-like protuberances, and concave "eye-sockets" that they apparently see out of. Some have two legs. Some have four. Some have several more, or that many arms … or other strange appendages of unknown function.

They make odd water-bottle hooting noises at the Kiriga by way of greeting. (Or maybe they're asking him if he's hurt, or what he is, or whether he's a Sky God. Who knows?) "HOOOOO-kaaa!"

The creature Tooth currently rests upon starts to rise up to its feet and moves to shake him off… or maybe warm him up.

Several of the creatures begin hopping up and down, as if excited, making a cacophony of hoots and honks. "Hooka! Hooka!"

The Kiriga eyes the odd creatures curiously… until the one he's seated on moves, at which point he falls off it, and onto his back. He hops back to his feet, dusting at his robes. To do anything less is a sign of weakness, after all. That done, Long Tooth tilts his head curiously at one of the creatures. "Huh… whatta you? You cold-hell birds? No, you gotta no wings… hmm… " He reaches out to lightly tap one of the ivory plates with a fingertip.

*tap tap* Feels quite solid, actually.

"Whonk!" the creature replies loudly, jumping up and down on it's odd legs and making a funny clattering noise as its joints click together. It head-butts Tooth gently.

The old master grunts as one of the plated beasties bumps him, and he lays a hand on its head by reflex. "Hmph! Whachoo want? Huh? Eh, jou notta cold-hell birds. You wantah somesing? Whatta jou eat out here, anyway?"

"Whonk whonk?" the critter says again. It shifts around on its feet as the Kiriga pushes on his head… and accidentally stomps on the lizard's foot.

"Ghhk!" Something in the foot goes *POP*, and the not-lizard jerks his foot back to clutch it, hopping in a tight little circle. "Oog! Aiya!" He wiggles his toes gingerly while perched on one foot like some kind of odd crane.

Several of the two-legged creatures mimic the Kiriga, hopping up and down on one leg, and "hooka"-ing happily as they twirl about.

The Master's activity seems to have excited the toe-stomper critter as well. It dances from foot to foot happily, seeming awfully pleased with itself.

After being sure it's okay, Master Tooth carefully sets his foot back down, watching the creatures mimic him. "Huh! Jou likeah dat? Dat nothing, I show you." The ancient reptile arches his back, making a series of cracking noises that climb up his spine. "You see iffa jou do this." With a short spring, he jumps upward, and flips over in the air, coming back down in the same spot on his feet. His face bears a wrinkly grin, and he taps Toe-Stomper on the head. "Lessah see jou try dat, huh?"

A few of the creatures try mimicking Master Tooth's stunt, from a safe distance. They end up with varying degrees of failure. Some end up lying on their backs, feet kicking into the air. Some fall on each other, causing an effect not unlike falling dominoes.

The critter raises one foot much in the same manner the Master did… and then brings it down to apparently try and stomp the Kiriga's other toe!

"Ait!" The old lizard jerks his foot away as quickly as he can, in the hopes of taking it out of harm's way.

*Crunch* The stomp misses wildly. The foot's owner makes a rather sad sounding warble and taps his foot up and down.

Tooth wags his finger sternly at the beast. "Jou not do that! It bad for my feet. Bad bone-thing! Pah."

The "audience" hops up and down excitedly, filling the air with many more honks and hoots and hookas. Hmm. They seem to have formed a ring around Master Tooth and … Whonk?

Whonk's joints clatter as it shakes itself out again. It carefully steps back from the Kiriga and moves to stand, head down, a few yards away. Maybe it's waiting for something, or maybe it's going to charge, or spit fire, or just stare at him…

Tooth stands there expectantly, hands on his hips. "Okay, I fohgivah jou for stomp my foot. Eh… whatchoo do now?"

"Whonk!" the bone-critter replies. Maybe that means something like "Your mother wears Titanian boots," or maybe it's simply commenting on how much of a lovely day it is. Durn language barrier!

"Huh!" The old Kiriga scrunches his face up. He pinches his snout, and whonks back. "'Whonk' to jou too!"

The audience goes wild. "Honk! Whonk! Hoot! Toot! HOOKA!" They bounce up and down and flail their appendages around randomly.

Whonk scrapes its feet against the ground, lowers its head, and wiggles its backside back and forth. Maybe it's about to charge!

Whether Tooth notices or not is another story, the confusing jumping and clattering around him throwing him off slightly. "What I say? What I say? I just tell jou someting good? Thissah good?" He jumps up and down uncertainly. "Haaah… thissa good, right?"

The bone-thing seems to look somewhat put out. It straightens itself out and walks back over to Tooth, giving him another head-butt, this one somewhat rougher.

"Oof! What?!" The Kiriga looks somewhat annoyed, and bends down to look the creature in the eye-sockets. "Stop it! How jou like it if I hitchoo with head likeah dat?" Tooth attempts to do that, though comparatively lightly. "Jou see how you like it! Huh? Whatchoo tink that?"

"WHONK!" comes the response, and Tooth gets yet another head-butt.

Tooth harumphs loudly. "Whonk jourself! Jou see? It not so fun, is it?" He pushes at the other creature with his head some more, veins on his neck sticking some of his scales out.

The audience starts hopping up and down, honking, "Whonk! Whonk! Whonk! Whonk!"

Whonk and the Kiriga push head-to-head for a few moments… and then the creature suddenly takes a step backwards.

Flop! The unexpected give causes Tooth to face-plant, earning him another mouthful of sand, which he promptly disgorges. "Blah!"

A few of the creatures hoot, "Bwaa!" This is picked up by the chorus.

"Bwa-bwabwabwa!" Whonk gleefully hoots!

Tooth sits back up, scrubbing dirt out of his face, and glaring at Whonk. "Ptoo! Bah! You think jou real funny, huh?" He pinches his nose and makes the loud "whonk" noise again.

Again, Whonk moves in to head-butt the Kiriga. "Whonk WHONK!" it honks impatiently.

This time, the Kiriga ducks down to meet Whonk's head again with his own. "Hrrr!"

This time instead of lowering its head, Whonk meets Tooth's nose to nose… except it would seem that Whonk's nose is a wide round opening. *Shoop!*, and the Kiriga's snout is now stuck inside the bone-critter's. "Mrrrrmp!" it muffle-honks!

"Hnagh! Shnerg!" The Kiriga goes from being irritated to alarmed. "Nash my noshe! Net go my noshe!" His wiry limbs kick in, and Master Tooth begins scrabbling around to try to scuttle backward.

As the Kiriga backs away, the creature's head suddenly pops off, still attached to Tooth's snout. "Whrmmm!" the disembodied head murphles. The rest of it just stands there, occasionally switching its weight from one foot to the other.

The Kiriga's eyes bug out so much that, if one looked very closely, one could see them. "Shnagh!" Frantically, he reaches up with his paws to push at Whonk's head, struggling to get it off his snout.

The audience keeps hopping up and down and honking. Seeing Whonk lose his head doesn't seem to cause them any additional alarm. But then … maybe they arealarmed? Hard to tell.

With a loud pop, the head is pulled loose. It blinks at Tooth from his hands, "Whonk!" it says, now that its… er… mouth is clear again.

The old master looks somewhat discomfited. "Now I tink I understand efen less aboutchoo. Jou a strange one. Uhh… jou wantchoo body back?"

"BLAT!!!" the critter honks, sending out a noise that makes the Kiriga's whiskers ruffle back and his ears ring.

"Huh! Still going to haffa tempah, eh? I teach you some patience." Tucking the head under one of his arms, Master Tooth begins trudging back up the slope of the crater.

The critter's body decides to remain where it is while the head continues to make… well… whonking sounds!

Alas, it seems that Master Tooth is ringed in by a crowd of honking creature-things.

Hemmed in by the other bone-beasts, and obviously not making any headway (ha), Tooth stands there for a moment, and grits his teeth. "Fine!" With a grunt, he hefts the bony skull, and launches it up the slope as best he can. "Hrnf!"

"WHOOOOOOooooooonnkkk… " trails the critter's noggin as it flies off out of the circle. The body walks over to Tooth and taps a foot impatiently.

Tooth crosses his arms. "Hah! Jou wannit, jou geddit jouself! That teach you some manners, eh?"

The critter swings its neck at the Kiriga. Somewhere in the distance comes a familiar sounding "Whonk!"

"Hup!" Tooth's circular block attempts to place a battle-toughed forearm in the neck's path, without thought to how ghoulish blocking a neck really is.

As the neck segment strikes Tooth's blocking hand… it breaks off as well!

The Kiriga looks at his arm uncertainly, then at the bone-creature and its brethren. "This really messing with my chi flow… "

The circle of critters continue to honk and hoot and hooka loudly. None of them seem to be attacking or interfering, though.

Whonk's body, minus the head and neck, gives the Kiriga another bump.

Bobbing on his toes, Tooth hesitantly takes on a guarded stance. With the next poke, he hops backward, his robes flapping as he drops to spin on one set of toes, aiming a sweep at Whonk's legs. "Hya!"

The sweep connects! Whonk's legs fly from its body with a loud popping noise and its torso hits the ground solidly. "Whooooonk!" comes a cry from behind the Kiriga, sounding much closer than the last one.

The closer sounding honk forces the old Kiriga to whirl around confusedly. "Aie? How that thing moof without legs?"

It would appear that Tooth's throw just missed the lip of the crater as Whonk's head comes rolling back down! "Whooooonk!"

"Pah! Enough off dis!" The Kiriga ignores the bouncing head, certain the other bone-beasts will stop it, and marches over to the de-limbed torso to examine it more closely now that it can't head-butt him.

The torso piece is rounded and smooth, looking like nothing so much as polished ivory … though it lacks the striation one might see up close in true ivory. There are several indented sockets in the body, where the limbs were once attached … plus a number of additional sockets.

"Whooooooooonk!!!" comes a cry from behind the Kiriga as something strikes his backside and bounces off.

Tooth stumbles forward, tripping over the torso as he does so. Fortunately, this time around, the old master manages to keep from eating sand, and instead stands up to turn and glare at whatever hit him. More to the point, how it hit him.

It appears that rolling head got a good bit of momentum! It spins dizzily across the sands and stops, facing Tooth's feet. "Bwa-WHONK!" it hoots.

The bits of critter that were knocked away roll crazily and bump together, making odd clicking noises as they come into contact with the larger torso.

"Chsh." The Kiriga snorts, strolling back over to the bodiless head, and he stopps down next to it to peer into its eye-sockets. "Jou give up? You stoppah try to hit me? You bettah, or I… I… uhm… I put you back togethah really badly."

"WHONK!!!" the bone-thing replies, seeming suddenly eager about something. Meanwhile, something gives the Kiriga's shoulder a tap.

"Huh?" The old master glances over one of his stooped shoulders.

What stands there is an even stranger apparition than before! A creature with short stubby legs, four short arms, and a long tail that wags eagerly from side to side. It looks like if you got some bits of the leg segments and stuck them here and then put some extra bits there and stuck that neck segment on the backside… well… you'd get this thing.

Long Tooth's eyebrows rise so much, they threaten to join his hairline. They come back down, and the old warrior smirks, reaching down to pick the skull back up. "Aha… letta me guess… jou want dis back." He lobs it at the strange clicking conglomeration with an easy underhand toss.

The weird creatures keep hopping up and down excitedly. Suddenly … some of them seem to be losing body parts! How bizarre! Within a matter of moments, the strange creatures have rearranged themselves into … a circular arena, for lack of a better description, with Master Long Tooth and … Whonk … in the middle! Or maybe it's an amphitheater. Creature heads are incorporated into the "wall", and they honk and hooka gleefully.

The head rolls towards the re-assembled torso and the whole thing crumbles back into its component parts. The parts start clicking back together, and the critter reassembles itself yet again…

This sort of setup seems at least vaguely familiar to the old Kiriga, and he steps back to one side of the circle, watching Whonk expectantly. He scuffs some sand with his feet, and slaps his sunken chest with both palms simultaneously, before settling into a broad-footed stance.

Whonk reforms! He is now an extra tall critter balancing on one long leg that sports two feet and a very long neck that peers down at Master Tooth. "Whooonk!"

"Yah! 'Whonk' you too! Jou come an' get it!" shouts Master Tooth, beckoning with one palm. He rubs his nose with the knuckle on his other fist, sniffing. "I ready foh jou dis time!"

Whonk bounces towards the Kiriga on his long leg, threatening to fall apart with each jolt. "Bwaaaa!"

"Kyaaaa!" The Kiriga charges to meet his opponent, kicking up a spray of sand when he leaps upward, an insanely screaming missile rocketing toward Whonk's socketted midsection.

The blow connects easily. In fact, the thing hasn't even tried to dodge! It breaks down again and the pieces start to reassemble into another shape…

This time, the reptile tries to stay on top of the torso section. He leaps again to try to perch on it. "No jou don't!"

This time, the Kiriga finds himself sitting on top of a four-legged critter that might make for a riding beast. Its head swivels around to look at Master Tooth. "Bwa?" it honks.

The arena honks and hoots enthusiastically, rattling and shaking as it does so.

The reply comes in the form of a gnarled knuckle speeding toward the center of the strange skull-bone thing!

… another blow that the thing does not even attempt to get out of the way of. The legs, head, and tail all tumble off as the torso bounces against the ground. The severed pieces twitch, switch around and start to move back to the larger torso.

The Kiriga stands his ground, perching on his prize to defend it. He hops from foot to foot swipe at parts that come close, dancing around on the central trunk and cackling. "Jou wanna click back on? Hah! Back! Back jou go!"

"Whoooooooonk!" the bone-critter whine/honks pitifully. Apparently this was not part of its plan.

The limbs continue to tenaciously try to reattach themselves, but the Kiriga's swift hands bat them away.

"Jou real funny now, huh?! Bwa-whonk, eh?" Swat, bat, block, and turn, the Kiriga's flurry of activity begins intensifying. His howls and kiai's become louder and fiercer, as he seeks to send each part farther and farther toward the walls of the rattling arena.

The limbs go flying off in every direction. Eventually they get so separated that they stop creeping back to the torso. The head honks sadly at the Kiriga. "Bwa-whooooooonk… "

The arena-audience makes several plaintive-sounding hoots and wails.

A quiet falls upon the crowd gathered … and then … a golden light breaks through the overcast sky.

Panting, Master Tooth glances around him for any more sneaky bits that might rattle back … then stands upright again, folding his arms and glaring from his vantage on the bone torso, his crooked tail held in an arch. "Jou haffa 'nough? I thought s – eh? This again!"

A thundering, disembodied voice pronounces, "Master Long Tooth of the School of the Open Arthritic Paw of Severe Drubbing is victorious over Whonk, Master of the Wandering Roams."

Some dust starts to rise from over the edge of the bowl-crater.

"Aieech!" The booming voice shakes a jerk out of the old maned lizard, who clutches his chest again to be sure everything under it is still functioning. "Surprises! Nrgk!"

The golden light fades. Just then, when everything seems to have calmed down…

Several giant rolling balls crash over the rim of the crater, and smash through the creature-arena, sending polished white segments honking and hooting in every direction!

Master Tooth is caught in the ensuing chaos, and is tangled up in one of the larger balls. The world spins and spins and spins…

There isn't much time to savor the sweetness of victory, or the sourness of system shock. The bone-jangling tangle disorients even as it transports. The old master isn't even allowed the presence of mind to be confused, and he numbly bounces around with the sphere, taken to… who knows where? It's not long before the wind covers traces of his passage.