A/N:

Putting the notes in front for this story, mostly to assure people that this is not a rip-off or a sequel of any kind for NoobFish's Garden Gnome series. His stories in combination with a bit of chatting I did in the chatrooms gave me this idea of a story. Except it's not cheery like any of them. At all.

In fact, I'm putting a bit of a warning on this. If you suffer from depression, don't read this. This will just make things worse. And the more you think about it, the more horrible this story becomes and the worse any possible depressing thoughts may get. So no reading for depressed people!

Hope y'all enjoy this bit of horror. If you find it horrific at all. Bonus reference points for those that know Dungeons and Dragons!

Alternate title: Stonecast

It was dark. As it always was.

Ever since he had been moved in this dark space where light could not reach, it had been horrible. Being cramped and the musty smell was nothing compared to the crushing loneliness that he experienced. No one had come to the cavern in the years he had been imprisoned there.

Even if someone were to come, the passages available were much too small for any human to ever be able to fit. He had been abandoned with darkness and a deafening quiet droning straight into his mind like a finely crafted pickax.

How long had he even been here? Decades? Centuries? It was hard to tell the passage of time in a place lacking light and his usual means of telling time cut off from him.

Dear Gaerdral, did he want to finally free! It had been several millenia since he had been locked in this form of flesh to stone. And at least a decade of being locked in this horrible place, though he was certain it was triple that. The possible chance of that happening now was beyond his own feeble skills with mathematics. He had no guesses as to the chances now.

With the dwindling presence of magick in the world, he was sure that anyone that could possibly hear him was long gone. He had called to many men that happened to go by him in the hope that one of them had a mystical ear that could hear.

No one ever had.

A noise was what first alerted him to the presence of another in the empty cavern. The creaking of ancient gears coming to life, carrying a load they were wont to for many years previous and many more to come. He had barely brought his attention from his meditative state. There had been many a time when someone or something came in, the noise always being the only alert he received to their presence before they left as quickly as they'd come.

This time, though, a muffled noise echoed throughout the enclosed space. All he could compare it to was the dragging of bodies off the field of battle, the sound of things being carelessly tossed about and crashing occasionally making it to his pointed ears instead. What could it possibly be save for raiders looking through the pockets of the dead? His attention was piqued by this as it was a new noise that could keep himself from falling into the madness just a little bit longer.

It sounded as if the noise was actually getting closer. Preposterous! There had been no one save himself that had come this far back in many years. It was simply his mind playing tricks, trying to give him a hope there had not been in the time he had come to live with his current 'owners'.

He had somehow become a type of trinket that humans kept and used as decorations. It was a pathetic existence, but it was one that he could do nothing about due to his current state.

Suddenly light shot into the enclosed space, bringing sight to a once shapeless emptiness.

He took the opportunity to look around as much as his frozen eyes would allow to take in the cavern he was trapped in. Amazingly, the walls were a near-perfect parody of a castle's finely carved structure. The only difference was that the walls were featureless save for being the color of dung.

Before he could take in any more detail the floor below him gave way. His concentration snapped as a twig would under a heavy footfall as he fell.

His landing was surprisingly soft considering that he had landed on one of the bricks that composed the walls around him.

A sudden gasp of terror, a noise he was well acquainted with from his glory days, caught his attention. He had come face-to-face with a young man. Somehow he hadn't noticed the boy even though he was right in front of the aged man. The deep chocolate glow that came from the his eyes was faintly familiar…

"So, Mr. Garden Gnome, we meet again. It's been a while."

Garden gnome? Glairat'shee mentally snorted. Those idiots couldn't be trusted to strap their own belts, let alone use magick like he could. It was an insult to compare him to them!

Suddenly the old gnome remembered where he had seen those same eyes staring back at him. Back before he ended up in this cavern. A small child riding on a strange wheeled contraption…he had tried talking to the child then. There was a latent power that the magic-user had sensed from the boy that he had hoped would allow him to communicate.

All he ended up doing was scarring the boy.

But perhaps now that he had matured more there could be a better chance…?

Before he could even try to communicate, the golden-haired lad smiled wickedly and grabbed him. The boy declared proudly, "This time you're on my turf and I'm taking out the trash!"

The old gnome sighed wearily. He wasn't surprised by this. There were many other homes that he had been in before this one. It seemed to be about the right time to be sent to a new one since the youth was now a man.

The gnome cleric was then seized by an intense body-wracking pain. His basest nerves—ones that he had thought long numb from the spell—twitched in place as his very being vibrated.

He was sure that he heard his body producing strange sounds, almost like talking. But they were nothing but gibberish to him as his ears were incapable of hearing, his nerves overloaded as they were.

After what seemed like hours of pain, the sensation finally stopped. He tried to gather himself, thinking of what his goal had been before the onslaught of what felt to be a concentrated destruction spell. The boy! He was going to talk to the boy.

No, not boy. Young man. Only a man could properly channel the magick in the world. It was a man that the gnome needed to be able to hear him.

He gave a small mental shout, not really expecting anything to happen.

And then the blonde stiffened and looked right at him.

"Oh no," the young man muttered in Common. "Nonono! You are not going to use your tricksy gnomish magic to seduce my innocent little mind." He crossed his fingers into an X and put his hands between himself and the gnome. "Begone, demon!"

The gnome was suddenly taken by a hope that he hadn't felt in so long that it burned to feel it now. He tried to scream. He yelled at loud as he could, begging the boy with the magickal aura to pleasepleaseplease hear him! There was hope—there was always hope—but now was the best time out than he'd had in so many years…!

But the boy did not hear him. He refused to. It was obvious that the young human had felt something; his eyes had not left the gnome's own for several minutes. Overall, Glairat'shee's cries were in vain. For while the boy had the gift, he did not know how to harness it. Thus eventually the boy covered him in more boxes in an attempt to forget his strange troubles.

It was once again for naught. The blonde had begun chanting in that blasted Common language to himself that the 'evil little man' couldn't get him anymore. The gnome continued to yell but already realized it was no use continuing. The futility of trying hit him once more as he saw his only hope in years walk past the point of his vision.

This was not supposed to be his fate. He had so much glory! He was one of the greatest gnomes to EVER serve their lords! Why was he the only one of the clerics to have this curse set on his shoulders? It was not his hand alone that the battle had been lost so long ago. He had been a loyal servant for years. His life, his blood, his own family slaughtered for the glory of the gods.

It wasn't fair…

It wasn't fair!

IT WASN'T FAIR!

He screamed as loud as his mind would allow, his mental energy reserves quickly draining away as he bellowed his rage at everything he could think of. Eventually his cries of anguish died down, the little energy he had saved eaten away by his ranting. The gnome berated himself for his anger. If he were to ever have a chance, losing his senses like that would not be the way to do it.

Thus he stopped in his efforts and waited, once again gathering his energies into regaining the strength he had just wasted.

Later a strange creature made of amorphous emerald flesh appeared and began to eat around the cursed being. He had heard of monsters such as these, oozing horrors that stripped the flesh clean off their still-screaming victims. They were supposedly wiped out by an army from a plane of Order which found them to be an abomination of nature itself. A pity that it was obviously not true.

It was sliding ever-closer to him, small tendrils reaching to encompass him in a parody of a lover's outstretched arms searching for a comforting embrace.

He wondered if he would even feel it eat his stone flesh away to nothing.

The gnome felt both relief and horror as the green mass overtook him. While he had not been successfully restored to flesh, at least now his eternal torment would come to an end. Perhaps he would even get to meet with his family again in the next world.

This proved to be a futile hope as well. The magicks that kept him petrified began seeping into the blob, infecting it with the painful poison of the planes of Chaos. Stunned, it cried out and threw the old warrior onto the stone floor of the small enclosure. He was once again facing the young man who was now accompanied by a fiery-maned maiden.

The regretful hope that he had just had ripped away from him drove the gnome to rage-induced madness. Screaming, cursing, crying against the cruel fate that the cursed kobold god had bestowed unto him. He did not want to stay like this! He had been a great servant of his god. How could he be forsaken, left to stay forever trapped in the prison of his own head?

The proud creature was reduced to grovelling to anyone, anything listening to his pleas. The young woman also seemed to be affected by his attempts to speak, her eyes locked with his own just as the young human man had been earlier. He tried hard to get her attention, begging pitifully for her to save him, telling her about how he needed her help and how much he just wanted to have this curse lifted and be free to finally die.

The boy said something and darkness slowly began to take Glairat'shee sight again as the mouth of the enclosure began to close.

'Please! Save me!' he screamed, begging any and all deities that could possibly hear him to let this girl sense him and release the spell. She continued to stare, the young man lightly pulling on her arm while dutifully avoiding looking at the millenia-old cleric of Gaerdral. He forced every trace of magic that he had managed to gather in the last however long and channeled it into his psychic links, hoping that it was all that would be needed to boost his mental prayers.

The light had almost vanished, cut off by the swiftly descending wall. The already dire chances of being rescued grew ever slimmer. But he had to keep trying! The ancient gnome was determined to try as long as he could to get the attention of those around him. That's all he had to do; keep trying.

And he did. But once again, his senses were swallowed by the void.