If the death of a world dragged all the living beings born within it toward their destined fate, then even if they survived through their own strength and the favor of the Cavern World, they would merely be lingering on their last breath. In that case, this definition of death—the death of a world—was rather peculiar.
Ruger felt that some sufficiently weak things, or things without much intelligence, might instead survive after falling into the Cavern World. After all, so-called burials and so-called corpses had to consist of something too—flowers and grasses upon rock and stone.
So what was the bond of this death?
Were more powerful beings more closely connected to their worlds?
Ruger could make such a guess partly because of that old dog-headed fellow Lunse. After all, the last time the spell sequence had been told to him as a story, old Lunse had mentioned during their idle chatter about this world that some species—certain strange underground beasts, for example—had been thrown over like garbage. In that theory of garbage pits, they had evolved into what they were today.
Of course, wizards could never be absent from any matter. Ruger believed that even some powerful beings barely clinging to life would be discovered and acted upon by wizards—either aided in surviving for observation, or used for breeding and research, producing new species or strange monsters through experiments.
"Don't run around, little ones... That isn't something you can take part in..."
A figure reeking of alcohol emerged from the house beneath Ruger and Mahama's feet.
Ruger looked at Mahama, but the fellow merely shrugged.
He had come out through the bedroom window. Clearly, the big fellow had not left the room by any normal route either.
The footsteps below indicated that Wizard Zorn, whom they had not seen