An Epic Tale, Part IV

"What ho, dear brother!" Ludmilla the Insatiable cried as she leaped from her war unicorn and bounded up the steps to the tower three at a time.

"Hello 'Milla," Spatchcock replied flatly, blowing pipeweed smoke into her face. "What brings you here?"

"I was riding through yon hills and saw this village and tower in the distance and I said to my esquire, Spunge," she indicated a put upon man who was trying, without much success, to control the war unicorn, " 'Spunge, what village is that?'

" 'Why tis the village of Fisting-in-the-Dale, Milady', he replied.

"And I said, 'A-ha! Why that is the home of my dear bother, the mighty mage, Spatchcock the Green!  Let us go bid him greetings.'"

Spatchcock puffed on his pipe for several moments.  Then blowing more smoke in his sister's face he asked, "You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"

Irate, Ludmilla drew herself up to her full height, loomed over her older brother and then suddenly deflated.

"Spatchy, I'm in trouble," she said meekly.


[Author's Note: I stole the name Fisting-in-the-Dale from comedian Greg Proops.  He used it in a bit about the quaint names of some English villages.]

An Epic Tale, Part III

Grimbi Grimbison drew himself up to his full height of four feet, ten inches and shoved his crossbow into the crotch of the six foot tall thug in front of him, “What was that you called me?”

Around the tavern floor was scattered coins and cards from the overturned table. “I called you a cheat, short-arse!” the thug screamed as he pulled a short sword from it’s scabbard.

“Now that is needlessly cruel,” Grimbi replied calmly. “I thought this tavern was a safe space.”

“Huh?” answered the now confused thug.

“I don’t mind being called a cheat.  Namely because I was cheating.  But anti-dwarven epithets are just being malicious in a way that doesn’t help the situation.”

“Epi-wha?”  The thug was getting even more confused.  Indeed, the shuffling and whispering by the other drinkers in the tavern gave the impression that they were having a hard time following Grimbi as well.

“I’m saying you could have just called me out as a cheater without disparaging my race.”

The thug lowered his sword and started scratching his head, “I suppose…”

TWANG!

Grimbi let loose with a crossbow bolt and there was a high pitched scream as his opponent fell to the floor grasping at his family jewels.

Grimbi looked down sadly, “Some people are just too stupid to live.”

An Epic Tale, Part II

Spatchcock the Green stood up, coughed twice and looked about the ruins of his laboratory.  “A little less red mercury next time”, he mumbled to himself as he made a note in his still smoldering notebook.

He gently kicked his apprentice Pune, who was still cowering behind an overturned table and said, “Clean up this mess.” He then wandered upstairs to to his library.  Like most sane - for given values of the word sane  - mages, Spatchcock did his experimenting in a specially warded, underground laboratory lest it damage his tower or indeed large swathes of the countryside.

As he ascended to the higher levels of the tower he happened to look up from his notes and and through one of the windows he spotted an armored woman riding towards the tower on a black unicorn.  His pipe fell from his slack jaw at the sight.

“Dammit!  What is my sister doing here?” he muttered.

An Epic Tale, Part I

And it came to pass that when Thagwald the Incontinent was king, there came out of the Plaid Hills a barbarian hero of great skill and renown. The hero strode into the small town of P’Tang, sweat glistening of his mighty thews and when he reached the square at the center he drew his sword and cried, “I seek brave souls to help me overthrow the Seven Lords of Lower Cromden!”

The only denizen of the town square, a rather bored looking cow chewing her cud, looked askance at the barbarian.