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Norman (the Necrotic Gnome).
Norman (the Necrotic Gnome).
Amonie came first, followed by a large woman
with done-up hair on her head and a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on her
nose. She wore an apron covered in flour and took each step carefully, hiking
it up as a skirt.
“So, these are the guests I’ve heard so much
about!” she exclaimed in a shrill voice, a smile beaming from her small mouth.
“How nice to meet you.” She looked around the table at each of them, but her
look soured when her eyes fell on Clune. “Clune!” she scolded, “What are you
doing out of the kitchen? You should be getting lunch ready!”
Clune’s eyes fell, burning holes in the
table. “Yes, Mother,” she said bitingly, audibly pushing back her chair and
stomping back to the kitchen.
A smile returned to Mother’s face as she
finished waddling down the stairs and took a seat, the chair complaining as she
settled in. Amonie moved to sit next to her, but Mother waved her away.
“No dear, that’s for Gretchen!” Mother said
dismissively. Amonie paused, her face impassive, then took Clune’s empty chair.
Mother turned over her shoulder to call up
the stairs, “Gretchen, honey! Come down here, please. We have guests. Don’t be
rude.”
A timid woman descended the steps. She
remarkably resembled Clune, like her twin, but somehow seemed prettier.
Evidence of recent tears showed on her face, though it looked like she had made
some attempt to clean them up. She gave the adventurers a quiet smile and
curtsy, not meeting their eyes, and took the chair beside her Mother.
Mother gave Gretchen a pat on the leg, then
directed her attention to the adventurers at the table. “I trust the road
treated you well?”
“It’d have been a lot smoother if we weren’t
robbed, Lambob grumbled. “Some highwaywomen held us up not even a mile from
here. Took a gold piece from each of us.”
The girls giggled. Lambob’s anger turned to
surprise, then to more anger.
“What, d’you think that’s funny?” he asked,
clearly offended, his gaze passing over each of them. “People getting their
lives threatened? Their gold taken from them?”
The girls giggled once more, though Amonie
avoided Lambob’s eyes and looked abashedly at the floor.
“We may know who it was,” Amonie admitted.
“Did she have black hair? A three-cornered cap?”
“Aye,” Lambob responded, “and a musket.”
The girls giggled again.
Shame crossed Amonies face. “That would be
our sister Melysse,” she admitted. “She’s supposed to watch the woods for those
who might do us wrong, but she’s gotten… adventurous, lately.”
Lambob turned his fury to Mother. “What, you
just let your daughters hold up whoever comes to visit?” he asked, eyes
bulging. “What kind of operation is this?” He looked around accusingly. The
cats met his gaze from the rafters, clearly disapproving of the noise.
Mother heaved an exasperated sigh. “What’s a
Mother to do? They need the guns to scout the wood and protect us. What’s the
harm if they have a little fun while they’re out there? Besides, they only took
a gold piece from each of you. They could have taken much more,” Mother
offered, directing a meaningful glance between Grendel’s legs. He shifted
uncomfortably in his seat.
“If it means that much to you, I’ll give her
a scolding when she returns,” Mother conceded. “I’ll get your gold back.”
“Yes.” Lambob dropped the word into the
conversation like a lead brick.
“Well… onto our business, then,” Mother
continued. “My daughter Amonie tells me you’re Delvers. Is that true?”
“Yes. Of a sort,” Gwomodom answered. “Just
got into the profession.”
“Good. Well, I’ve got a problem I could use
your help with. A monster that needs slaying. I can pay you a hundred silver pieces for its extermination. However, I can’t let you help us without securing
your discretion. You see, this… monster interferes with our bakery. It poses a
danger to my girls. It almost got poor Gretchen,” Mother explained, wrapping a
soft arm around Gretchen and giving her a squeeze. Mother suddenly grew very
serious. “And believe me, nothing threatens my Gretchen and gets away
with it,” she added.”
Gwomodom noticed Clune glaring at Gretchen
from the kitchen.
“However, by slaying this monster, you will
learn several secrets most dear to our bakery, “she continued, “so I need your
oath that you won’t share my recipes with anyone not in present company. That
includes anything you see behind our house. I should tell you that this oath
will be magical. We need a bit of magic around here to get by, you see. But if
you break this oath, it’s your own fault. I take no responsibility for what
happens, as you’re agreeing to it here and now, of your own free will. So. Do
we have a deal?”
An obliging smile crawled across her face.
She offered a soft, bejeweled hand.
“Yes ma’am,” Grendel said, taking her hand in
his. They shook on it. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
Gwomodom and Lambob followed suit. As each of
them agreed, they felt the magic spell wash over their minds like cold water.
After a few moments, the feeling dissipated.
“Good,” Mother said, satisfied.
“It’s a deal. You’ll find the monster out back, in the yeast pool. Just follow
the stone path.”
“The yeast pool?” Gwomodom
asked, his voice rising in excitement.
“Yes, the yeast pool,” Mother
confirmed, clearly pleased at Gwomodom’s interest. “We use it as a stock of
pastry dough. The miller can’t fill our needs alone.”
Grendel and Lambob exchanged a
satisfied glance – the sort of glance two men share when they’ve confirmed
something they predicted to be true.
“The yeast is self-replicating. It’s
docile, and we keep it down. But it seems to have taken on a mind of its own. I
don’t know, we’ve never seen anything like it before.” Concern darkened
Mother’s face.
“When Gretchen was last out there,” she
continued, “it rose up to grab her. It very nearly pulled her in.” Mother
stroked Gretchen’s hair where she sat beside her. Gretchen nodded to confirm
the story.
“A yeast monster is about as close
to our specialty as you can get,” Grendel claimed. “Our moss dwarf here has a
special knack for yeasts.”
“It’s true,” Gwomodom confirmed.
“Once, I squeezed the juice from my own toe cheese to make a sour. Delightful
stuff – tasted like pickles.”
Mother’s smile struggled to stay on
her face. “Yes. How… quaint,” she mustered. “Do try to keep your – ehm –
‘cheese’ out of the pool, though. I don’t think it would suit the pastries
well.”
“I’d like a toe-cheese
pastry…” Gwomodom admitted, his eyes downcast.
“Why not just send your daughters to
take care of it?” Lambob asked suspiciously. “If they’ve got the guns and guts
to rob honest travelers, a yeast monster doesn’t sound like a problem.”
“Melysse would probably do it, if I
asked her to,” Mother responded, looking worried. “But I’d rather not risk it,
if I don’t have to. Pardon my honesty, but I’d much rather risk your lives than
those of my daughters. Besides – you all are professionals, are you not?” She
gave them an ingratiating smile.
“Right,” Grendel confirmed. “So it’s
settled then. We exterminate this yeast monster for a hundred gold pieces.
Correct?” He looked at Mother with raised brows. She nodded in return. The
adventurers then rose from the table, walked through the kitchen, and out the
back door.
“Best wishes!” Mother cheerily
called from the steps. “And remember,” she added, the cheer disappearing from
her voice, “just stay on the path.”
The adventurers trundled out the back door
along a path of rough, uneven flagstones. After about twenty paces, trees
surrounded them.
The party followed the stony path through the
foliage. Suddenly, they stopped. In the middle of a glade, they saw a bubbling
pool of dough twenty feet wide and three times as long. Its contents churned,
rising in places and deflating in others. The air reeked of yeast.
The adventurers surveyed the glade. Lambob
found a stray piece of gingerbread lying on the ground, as large as a fist.
Gwomodom noticed there was no birdsong in this glade – only the sloppy sounds
coming from the pool. He sniffed the air. “The yeast’s bad,” he observed.
“Something’s gone off.”
Grendel stepped forward to the pool’s shore.
“Come out here, Beast!” He called, waving his
axe in the air. “Or should I say ‘yeast?’ We’ve come to put you dough-n.” He
turned back over his shoulder, grinning at his companions. Their eyes fell on
something behind him and their faces turned white.
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