Dingbat the Monk and the Brooch

                             by "Those Dudes"

(Synopsis of Part One: The monk finds a large diamond jewelled brooch while
out gallantly searching for firewood. Upon his return to the camp and while
the party is drooling over the find a hobbit appears and demands the brooch,
based on his having stolen it from a group of orcs. Dingbat refuses to hand
it over and during the resulting altercation Rodent 'accidently' kills the
hobbit a bit. Later that night the party is attacked by giant rats, who 
make off with the monk (who was carrying the brooch). Scarcely have the others
digested this bit when they are confronted by the aformentioned orcs, who
also demand the brooch. They confuse the orcs with a line of patter and 
ditch them, moving off to search for the monk.)

Part Two

     By evening they had untied the paladin and were preparing to find a
campsite for the night when Rodent spied lights to their immediate east.
Upon closer inspection they found the lights to be those of a small
wilderness tavern.
     "Strange place for an inn." mused Sauramud as they approached, but
stranger still was the sign that hung loosely over the oaken door.  The
sign bore scenes of pike-impaled bodies, split heads and other assorted
cleavage.  Rather quaintly scrawled below this (in blood) was 'Half-Axed
Alehouse'.
     "Interesting." mumbled Rodent as they dismounted and tied their horses
to the cement blocks out front.
     "I vote that we spend the night elsewhere." gulped the wizard,
thumbing back over his shoulder.
     "Nonsense." grunted Rodent.  "It's too dark to find anyplace else.
Besides, this place has a nice, er, rustic atmosphere."
     "You mean it smells like a dirty stable." muttered Sauramud.  They
climbed the steps to the front door, and with but a moment's pause to
examine the many deep axe-marks in it they entered.
     The main room was sparsely lit and filled with a dense blue smoke
which reeked of burnt venison.  They stood and blinked for a few minutes
until their eyes stopped stinging and finally caught their first glimpses
of the room's occupants.  The room was filled with round tables, each
sporting three or more very large, muscular men dressed only in loincloths.
Upon spying the party they began to flex their brazen biceps and grunt,
     "Butch, butch, butch..."
     "Hmm." pondered the ranger.  "Barbarians.  We may be in for some
difficulties.  They serve only the most manly of types in these places." He
glanced dubiously at Playdough who had barely passed puberty.
     "Well I'm not going to let some barbarians spoil my appetite." snorted
Sauramud, waving the others forward towards the bar.  When they had taken a
scant three steps, however, there arose such a clatter of sword clasps and
switchblades being snapped open that they had cause to reconsider the
wizard's brave words.  A quick backward glance showed that a few barbarians
had shifted over to block the doorway, so they continued over and sat down.
     Once seated (after the ranger had cleared away the cockroaches with
his bastard sword) a huge barmaid strolled over to them, wrinkling her(?)
half-orc nose at Playdough.  Suddenly she spat,
     "Ve don serve his type here."
     "Vait!" grunted a husky voice behind them, and they turned to see an
immense barbarian (wearing captain's bars pinned to his bare shoulders).
"Gib dem vat dey vant." He smiled a warm smile that would have turned a
basalisk to stone.  "Den ve kills dem, Jah?" He flexed his massive arms for
emphasis and stroked his lantern jaw.
     "Jah!  Jah!  Kill kill kill..." chorused all of the barbarians,
banging their cast-iron cups on the table and "Butch!" called a few voices
from the back.
     "Er, thanks anyway, but I just lost my appetite." coughed Sauramud,
struggling with the stopper on his hip flask of 'Ol Lysol' (a beverage not
unlike grain alcohol, but 90 proof stronger).
     "You eat!" bellowed the barbarian, slamming a fist the size of a ten
kilo ham down on the bar.
     "Jah!  Eat eat (Butch!) kill kill..." began all of the others again
until the first raised his hand and waved for silence.  The barbarian
grabbed a menu and thrust it at the paladin.  Playdough took it from him
and flipped open the human-skin cover and began to read.
     "Duh, lemme see." mumbled the paladin (he had never learned to read
silently).  "Duh, beer, saurkraut, pretzels, beer sausages, (no quiche),
spam..."
     "Vell, make up yer mindt!" snarled the barmaid contemptuously.
     "Milk and cookies!" declared the paladin, slamming shut the menu.  The
barmaid paled noticeably and retreated a pace.
     "B-but dey ist not on der menu!" she stammered, casting glances about
like a trapped animal.
     "Yeah, but I made up my mind like ya said, an' I want milk and
cookies!" grunted Playdough, who was always cranky when hungry (and annoyed
twofold at having been bound and gagged all day long).
     "Rodent!" hissed Sauramud, elbowing the ranger sharply in the ribs
after the barmaid had shuffled off to fill the paladin's order.
"Everybody's stopped talking and their all staring at us." Rodent said
nothing but merely nodded that he had noticed as well.  The barmaid
returned presently with a huge frosty aluminum jug of milk and a platter of
fresh chocolate-chip cookies.  Playdough fell to greedily.  Rodent leaned
across to the wizard and mumbled in his alignment tongue,
     "I don't trust this barmaid." Sauramud, who was of a slightly
differing alignment, heard this instead to mean "Let's go find a table."
     "Where?" asked Sauramud rather puzzledly upon noticing that all of the
other tables in the establishment were full.  "I don't see any."
     "What do you mean?" demanded Rodent, misinterpreting the wizard's
meaning.  "Look right in front of you!"
     The wizard did, and spotted a table across the bar with only two
barbarians seated at it.
     "You mean that?" he asked, pointing.  "It's occupied." The two
barbarians, however, upon seeing him point at them took the notion to jump
out of the nearby window.  The ranger gave up the wizard for drunk and
decided to terminate the conversation.  He began to look around to study
the room's contents in case of a fight when he spied an empty table where
he could have sworn two barbarians were just moments ago.
     "Oh look, an empty table." he exclaimed.  "Let's grab it." The group
scraped together their milk and cookies and shuffled over to the vacant
table.  They had resumed the task of devouring the paladin's sundries when
Sauramud made a surprising observation.
     "Why is it that there are only three of us, yet I count all four seats
at this table filled."
     "You've probably counted yourself twice." said Rodent between
mouthfuls.  "Either that or you've counted the old man next to you."
Sauramud spun and indeed there sat beside him an old man of such advanced
years that he looked as if he would die of old age any second.
     "Kin ye spare an old man a few bites?" he asked feebly.
     "Duh, no." said Playdough ramming the last bites down his gullet.
"But you can have some milk." The old man grinned and chuckled.
     "Not that milk, thanks anyway." Sauramud stared at his empty glass and
gulped sickly as the old man continued, "Ay must say, that were one good
show ye put o'er the barbarians.  'Takes a real man t'order milk and
cookies affore barbarians, aye."
     Rodent chuckled with some relief.  "Should have ordered quiche while
we were at it."
     "An' sent yerself to an early grave, no doubt." said the old man as he
scraped the cookie crumbs off the plate.  "They respect real men.  They
kills wimps." He fixed Rodent with a gimlet eye.  "Take me advice, ye'd
better be off 'fore the shock wears thin."
     "Won't that look cowardly?" asked Rodent uneasily.
     "Ach, ye'll be okay if ye don't turn yer backs on 'em." spat the old
man with apparent amusement.
     "Good." said Rodent quickly.  "Okay you two, we leave.  Back to back,
weapons drawn.  Playdough, swing at anybody who gets close."
     "Duh, hokey-dokey." acknowledged the paladin who then turned and took
a chop at the elderly stranger.
     "Not yet...  er, not him!" cried Rodent in alarm.  At the sight of a
weapon a rumble ran though the rest of the patrons and a few assorted
bill-hooks popped into view.  "Now look what you've done." The old man was
clutching his chest and gasping in fear, but miraculously unhurt.
     "No fear." he gasped.  "Wi' the gods on our side, we'll make it."
     "Gods." snorted Rodent piously.  "Who needs them?" Then, upon feeling
a twinge in his alignment he added as an afterthought, "I mean, why disturb
them over something like this that's well in hand."
     "Let's cut the chatter and blow this taco stand." growled Sauramud.
Several nervous sparks were jumping from a glass rod he had clenched in his
fist.
     With weapons drawn and back-to-back, they scuttled to the front door
with as much nonchalance as they could muster.  Once outside they sprinted
for the woods, with the exception of the wizard.
     "Go!" he cried.  "I shall cast a spell to detain the barbarians should
they choose to pursue us!" The others watched intently as he pulled out his
hip flask of 'Ol Lysol' again and stuffed a rag in the top, then produced a
Zippo lighter from a pocket in his robes.  With a graceless flourish he lit
the rag and heaved the burning flask through the window broken in the shape
of two barbarians then high-tailed it after the others.  A muffled
"Foomph!" rewarded his efforts, then when the highly volatile barbarian
liquor ignited the entire area was rocketed by a fiery explosion and the
tavern ceased to exist.
     "A 'spell', huh?" enquired Rodent nastily upon his return.
     "Blow it out your ear, nature-boy." said Sauramud testily.
     "Wasn't that just a little bit chaotic?" said Rodent.
     "Certainly not!" snapped Sauramud defensively.  "I planned to do that
all along." The others could not argue with such logic, so they gathered
their belongings together and mounted up again.  A campsite would be easy
to find, they knew, given the light of the inferno behind them.
     They came at last to a sheltered clearing sporting the obvious
remnants of a recent orcish encampment, which Rodent pronounced as safe for
the night (seeing as how the orcs would have eaten anything in the area
likely to have given them trouble).  After tossing down their gear and
cobbling together a makeshift camp they turned and regarded the old man who
had tagged along with them tenaciously.
     "Now, who are you?" asked Sauramud suspiciously.
     "Ah." said the geezer.  "Ay'm an information man ay is."
     "An information man?" asked Rodent in surprise.  "You mean you sell
information for a price?"
     "Duh, a stoolie!" chortled Playdough.  The old man glared at him.
     "My profession is an old and noble one." he snapped.  "And my price
rises when ay feel upset!"
     "Hmm." said Rodent.  "Do you know anything about a monk who stands
about 5'6" in height, hops about punching at shadows while bragging about
his exploits in a loud voice and does strange things when he gets close to
horses..." began Rodent.
     "Ye mean Dingbat?" interrupted the old man.
     "No!"
     "Maybe!"
     "Duh, yeah!" blurted three voices simultaneously.
     "You've seen him then?" demanded Rodent, giving Playdough a dirty
look.  The old man smiled.
     "Mebbe." he yawned.  (Note:  In the lands around the city of Vermouth,
when one says 'maybe', they really mean 'Yes, if the price is right').  The
ranger scowled and reached into his pouch for some currency, but came up
with little more than a handful of copper pieces.
     "Dang!" he cursed.  "Look, I'm a little short at the moment.
Sauramud...?"
     The wizard was already reaching for his pouch however.  He dumped it
on the ground, intending to count it.
     "That'll do." said the old man, scraping the pile close.  "All ay
knows is that he passed though the 'Alf-Axed Alehouse aboot a day ago, wi'
a bunch o' ratty dudes." He paused and grinned.  "That were a bang-up
fight, it were!  You know, I never seen someone try tae start a fight in a
barbarian bar afore."
     "Why should a barbarian bar be any different for him?" said Sauramud
crossly.  "He tries to start one in every bar."
     "Duh, how'd he do?" asked Playdough curiously.  The old man cackled
with glee in remembrance.
     "Sounds like his typical barfight." observed Rodent.  "Tell me, did
you happen to see which way the ratty dudes dragged him when they left?"
     "Aye don't rightly remember." (Note:  'I don't rightly remember' means
the same thing as 'Maybe' in Vermouth).
     "Highway robbery!" exploded Rodent.  "All right, who has any money?"
     "Duh, I do." offered the paladin.
     "Okay Playdough." sighed the ranger.  "Let him have it." Playdough (of
course) misunderstood and thought the ranger was encouraging him to do
something violent.  Shrugging, he grabbed the old man by the throat and
bellowing,
     "WHICH [///language not suitable for publication///] WAY DID THEY
GO?!?" Playdough gripped with such enthusiasm, however, that the old man's
face turned crimson, his tongue swelled up like a balloon, his eyes popped
like pimples and his neck snapped in twelve places.
     "Oh nice going, stupid!" yelled Rodent angrily, slicing off
Playdough's left ear with his bastard sword.  "Now he can't tell us
anything!  Plus we'll all get quested by the temple for murder or
something!"
     "But, but, but..." stammered the paladin, wondering what he had done
to incur the ranger's wrath.
     "You may as well fling him into the pond!  How we're going to find
that brooch now is more than I can see!" raved Rodent.
     "They went northeast." declared Sauramud.  "Tending to the north
(hic)." The others goggled at him.
     "Duh, how do you know?" asked Playdough, trying to re-affix his ear.
     "We wizards have ways." smirked the magicer, quickly pocketing the
now-empty bottle he'd been spinning on the ground.
     "Duh, well, let's go!" said Playdough with his usual amount of
gung-ho.
     "In the morning." countered Rodent reasonably.  They slept.

     The next morning they gathered together their gear and headed off in
the direction which the wizard had indicated the night before.  The going
was slow, in part due to Sauramud's hangover and in part because their
horses had frozen solid in the night.
     "Whaddya mean, 'it's winter'?!?  It wasn't winter last night!" cried
Sauramud.
     "Sure it was, didn't you notice the snow?" said Rodent.
     "Duh, nope." said Playdough.
     "Well I can't be responsible for pointing out everything." snorted the
ranger.  Sauramud muttered darkly about certain higher powers glossing over
details, but put up with the weather resignedly.  As the day progressed
however, travelling became easier and Rodent began to recognize the terrain
as being, somehow, familiar.  When by mid-afternoon they had run up against
a solid stone wall, he felt certain he knew the terrain.
     "You turkey, Sauramud!" he cursed.  "You've led us right back to the
city of Vermouth!"
     "Hmm, so I have." agreed the wizard.  "Dingbat must lie within then."
They moved around to the front gate and bribed their way back in as usual.
As they moved down the main drag Rodent expressed doubts about Sauramud's
hunch (and later his sanity) when suddenly the wizard stopped before a
small shop and declared,
     "This is the place."
     "The Wine & Cheese shoppe?" demanded Rodent.  "You're crazy!" Deciding
to humor the daffy wizard Rodent strode into the shop followed by Playdough
and Sauramud.  Inside the store they glanced idly at the racks of wine and
shelves of cheese.
     "Excuse me gents.  May I be of service?" asked a rather ratty-looking
man behind the counter.
     "Buzz off." snapped Rodent, but then reconsidered.  "Well, yes.  Do
you have any 'Wartburg-au-merde' cheese?" The clerk grinned.
     "You're in luck.  We got in a shipment just last year." 'Wartburg-au-
merde', you recall, is a creamy, rather nasty cheese that improves with
age, i.e.  the greener it is the better it is.  He reached under the
counter and produced a block of something green that seemed to quiver as if
alive.
     "Here it is." he choked.  "Would you like a bag for that?"
     "No." sniffed Rodent.  "I'll eat it here."
     "You most certainly will not!" gasped the clerk, who dropped the
cheese into a bag and hermetically sealed it.  "Will there be anything
else?"
     "Yes." said Sauramud slowly.  He held up a bottle which he'd pulled
from one of the shelves.  "What kind of wine is this?" The clerk paled and
said in a hesitant voice,
     "Er, that's 'Blue Monk'.  Truly a fine wine sir..."
     "Yes." said the wizard acidly.  "But it's not the monk I'm looking
for." The clerk was sweating and cleared his throat nervously.
     "Monk?" he squeaked, backing off a pace.  "I don't know what yer
talking about.  Ain't nobody brought any monks here." On impulse, Rodent
drew his bastard sword and used it to part the clerk's ribs.  The clerk
expired noisily.
     "Rodent," said Sauramud in his 'let's be reasonable' tone.  "Why did
you do that?"
     "I suspected that he might be a wererat." said the ranger
apologetically.  "One of the ones that dragged off Dingbat.  He looked so
ratty, you know.  If he was, a normal weapon wouldn't have harmed him." (A
wererat, you remember, is immune to anything but silver or magical
weapons.)
     "Rodent, your sword's bloody magical." said the wizard flatly.
     "I forgot." Rodent admitted sheepishly.  "Anyway, let's check out the
shop while we're here."
     They kicked aside the corpse and stepped around behind the counter to
a curtained doorway leading to the rear of the shop.  There they paused.
     "Suppose a customer comes in and discovers our lycanthrope friend
here?" asked Sauramud nervously, pointing at the corpse of the clerk.
"They might get a little upset and call a constable or something."
     "Hmm, that's a point." agreed Rodent.  He turned to Playdough (who was
busily looting the corpse).  "Playdough, how would you like to play store
for a while?"
     "Duh, okay." said Playdough who had enjoyed playing store during his
recent childhood.
     "Good." said Rodent.  "Take care of any customers who come in." He and
the wizard stepped through the curtain (not a moment too soon it seemed)
when they heard the front door of the shop open and close.
     "Excuse me," came a voice from the front of the store.  "Do you have
any...  Aaieee!" (Thwunk!!)
     The two leapt back through the curtain to see Playdough with his two-
hander lodged between the shoulder-blades of a townee.
     "Duh, I took care of him real good like yuh said, hyuck hyuck!"
chortled Playdough who, being a paladin, enjoyed nothing more than
imbedding his blade into all potential godless heathens and blasphemers.
Rodent and Sauramud exchanged hopeless glances and returned to the back
room.  Aside from a monk chained to the back wall and seven wererats, the
room was empty.
     "Holy shi..." began Sauramud, just as the wererats attacked.

End of Part Two
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