THE LOST SUPPER

The echo of tiny feet resounded in the corridors as Nisovin was running through. He eventually reached the dining hall just to see six dwarves seated merrily around one of the tables, eating, laughing and involving themselves in all kinds of party-like activities. He took in some air and asked:

“What on earth is happening in here?”

Unfortunately, his tiny gnomish voice has been extinguished by one of the dwarves experiencing pure joy caused by his friend choking on a fish. He then went on to punch the aforementioned friend in the shoulder. Nisovin stomped with his left foot, activating his rocket boots and landed in the middle of the table.

“Dwarves! What is this?!”

The room went virtually silent with an exception of a dwarf hidden in the corner of the table, still munching away on a massive chicken leg.

“You there! Cut it out!”

The dwarf’s eyes went bigger and the nibbling became significantly softer, though still perfectly audible.

“Are you perhaps deaf?”

“Master Nisovin, please, if you will, leave him alone. He’s been digging gold all day, all by himself. He forgot to bring any torches with him too.”

The wizard looked at the miserable miner, whose munching was slowly returning to the previous levels of enthusiasm.

“Right, fine. Can anybody tell me why are you here instead of on the left wall, where The Old Man has assigned you to?”

“Wel,” started a big dwarf sitting in the middle of the table. “Ve was bord.”

“A what?”

“Don’t mind him, he comes from that small country across the ocean. He doesn’t speak dwarven very well,” said a tattered looking gravedigger with a lambchop stuck on the horns of her helmet.

“Hehehehehe,” added a merry, ale-filled dwarf and fist-bumped his neighbour into the shoulder much to the latter’s disapproval.

“Fine. You! Soft shoulder. Tell me what is going on.”

“Sir…. see… We have been there for the… you know…. entire night… and we didn’t… see anyone… ummm… .”

“What he’s really saying is that we haven’t abandoned our duties, our duties have abandoned us,” finished the lambchop lady.

“I’m going to have you know that a Golem just came through there and killed someone! While you were here, dining away!”

“And what good would we do against a a Golem? They are Bruce’s responsibility. To be frank, I am glad that we weren’t there because it would be one of us biting the dust now,” said a young, snarky ranger, having just dealt with a mouthful of cake.

“And we will fall anyway,” he continued. “Once the monster reinforcements arrive we will just die off so it’s way better to spend our last hours with laughter and friends rather than slaughter and fiends.”

“Jimmy, please. You don’t know that,” claimed Nisovin

“Hell if I don’t! Every single settlement falls with no survivors!”

Suddenly, accompanied by a subtle bone rattling noise, a skeleton rushed into the room, holding some vines in its bony hand. It didn’t have much of a face, but if it did, it would surely be full of surprise.

“Wie is skelton,” said or asked the foreign dwarf. Who knows what he meant.

The skeleton pulled out his bow with the speed of light and fired three consecutive low-velocity arrows. One of them broke one of the ale mugs under Nisovin’s feet. The other one hit the traumatised chicken fellow who flew towards the wall and rolled over, never letting go of the precious poultry. The third one managed to hit the young, mouthy ranger and make him take off, together with the chair he’s been sitting on, and fly out of the window.

Grand Wizard Nisovin pulled out his wand, but before he aimed it at the sneaky snipy skeleton, it’s been shot with a dragon-like bow by the drunken dwarf.

“Hehehehehehe,” he summarised and fist-bumped his neighbour, who promptly fell over dead.

The lambchop gravedigger quickly stood up, overturning her chair and shouted.

“What have you done, you drunkard!? You killed Eugene!”

“I DIDN’T MEA… Wait, his name was Eugene? Hehehehehe.”

“What is wrong with you, Eugene is a perfectly good name!”

“I know but… Hehehehehe… I am so sorry… Hehehehehe.”

“LOL,” the foreign dwarf valuably added to the conversation.

“OI!” shouted the lambchop. “My mother was called Eugene!”

“Hehehehehe.”

The drunken dwarf has at that point lost the capacity both to produce words and to breathe. The chicken chap has reappeared from under the table, licking the last of the grease from his fingers.

“I had a cat called Eugene but a wolverine ate it.”

“Kitty deaded,” said the foreign dwarf.

“Yes, sadly, kitty deaded,” confirmed the miner and grabbed an another piece of poultry from the plate.

“Please, let us stop this insanity,” decided Nisovin. “You’re coming back with me RIGHT NOW!”

Then, though, he looked upon the dining table. Upon the weird, traumatised, bird-eating miner. Upon the completely drunken warrior, capable of fighting only for his breath, providing many unidentified noises. Upon a huge outlander with a dwarven axe in his hand instead of a real weapon. Upon a smashed window, beyond which the young ranger has disappeared never to be seen again. Upon Eugene’s dead body lying face down in a pumpkin pie. And finally upon a slightly senile gravedigger, who, as Nisovin laid his eyes on her, suddenly realised:

“Oh hey, there is that lambchop I was looking for since yesterday.”

And then, Grand Wizard Nisovin, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that his work there was done.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a bunch of crumbled stone fell onto the table right in front of his feet. He raised his wise tiny head to see three dwarves hiding in holes under the ceiling.

“Dear Cake God, and who are they?”

“Hehehehehehe.”

“LOL.”

“Munch, munch.”

“No idea, Sir. They have been up there for about 40 hours now, they are afraid to get down. We have been throwing food up to them but they kept calling us noobs so we stopped,” said the woman picking up her chair from the floor.

Suddenly, a loud ominous drum sound echoed through the keep. The dwarves looked at one another, excluding the foreigner, whose eyes were having a conversation with a fork, and Nisovin then said:

“Okay, you know what? I have an important mission for you. You stay here and watch for infiltrators. I have to go and deal with this, this might be serious.”

A paladin, covered in arrows, ran into the hall and reported:

“Sir, it’s swammies, we need you.”

“Hehehehehe, SWAMMIES, I love fish! Eugene, ready the furnace! Oh… wait… I made myself sad.”

So Nisovin rushed away to the front, leaving our heroes with an important task. Right as he was disappearing in the corridors, two skeletons peeked from behind one of the pillars he just passed. They looked at the dwarves gathered around the table trying to assess their chances. The drunken warrior took his chair and moved over to the axe-weilding giant trying to fist-bump his shoulder but he could not find it. The gold miner was as involved with the chicken as ever and the gravedigging lady decided to take a nap. The people up in the ceiling patched the holes and their status was completely unknown. One of the skeletons rushed past their backs towards the inner chambers. The other one was smarter, so it just walked, breaking all the lights on its way.

18/10/2015