by Robert Bevan
Julian should have stepped up to use his Diplomacy skill right about then, but the bartender was focused on Dave, so Dave did the talking. “I see you remember us, sir. I promise we’re not here to cause trouble.”
Morty’s expression lightened to only mildly terrifying. He grinned with a mouthful of teeth that looked like they’d evolved to eat souls. “Relax, gentlemen. Come, Milo. Why don’t you show your friends to your private room?”
Milo nodded solemnly, and the tavern grew noisy again as conversations picked up where they’d left off. Once again, Dave breathed a sigh of relief.
Making sure he was far enough back from Milo, Dave muttered to Julian, “The poor homeless minotaur has his own private room in a bar.”
The tips of Julian’s ears were red. For once, the bleeding heart elf was at a loss for words.
Milo led the group to the rear of the tavern where he slid open a seemingly inconspicuous section of wall, revealing a wooden staircase which led down into a basement. The huge minotaur trudged down the stairs, and the rest of them filed in behind him.
“Not a bad setup, my friend,” said Tim, who was first in line behind Milo. “Smells like shit, but otherwise pretty sweet digs.”
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Dave had to guess that Tim was either blind, lying, or simply had very low standards for what he considered an acceptable place to get drunk. The cramped little dungeon of a room looked like the sort of place you’d interrogate suspected terrorists in, furnished only with rough wooden crates, the largest of which would serve as a table. A small, permanently enchanted Light stone hung on a thin chain from the ceiling, providing just enough light to remind a person of the poor life choices which led them to this time and place. The ancient brickwork was crumbling, leaving little piles of red dust and grit along the base of the walls. The wall opposite the stairwell had a giant hole in it, about the size of a doorway, but looked to have been punched through rather than crafted. Who knew where that led?
Milo knew. “Pardon me,” he said, unbuttoning the top of his leather trench coat. “I must answer nature’s call.” He ducked under the hole in the far wall. Shortly after came a sound like water being poured from a height and the pungent stench of ammonia.
Dave sat on a crate, his head spinning with the smell of minotaur piss. He sharpened up when he heard another set of hooves stomping down the stairs.
Morty appeared in the entrance, his each of his hands gripping the handles of two massive tin pitchers. They were dripping on the outside, as if whatever was in them had been scooped out of a larger reservoir rather than poured in.
“Two gold. Paid up front.”
“Of course, sir,” said Julian, hurrying to produce the coins.
Morty grunted his satisfaction and set the pitchers down on the large crate, sloshing some of the brown liquid over the sides. Dave watched in disgust as a cockroach leg slid down the side of one. Hair, bug parts, and other miscellaneous unidentifiable bits were trapped in a greenish-brown foam floating on the surface of all four pitchers.
“What the fuck is this shit?” asked Tim. “Can’t we get a beer?”
Morty held out his hand to Julian. “Milo prefers drinking from the well.”
Julian’s hand trembled as he hesitated to hand over the money. “I-I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that two gold pieces seems a little steep for…” He looked down at the pitchers. “…that.”
“Well sludge only costs a silver piece per pitcher. You can think of the rest as a security deposit.”
Julian swallowed. “That sounds fair.” He dropped the coins into Morty’s hand.
Morty put the coins in his apron pocket, from which he then produced four rusted tin cups and placed them next to the pitchers. Stepping into the stairwell, he faced them again, reached up over his head and pulled down a heavy iron portcullis. When it was all the way down, there was a spring and a clanking sound, and Dave knew he was trapped.
“Enjoy your drinks,” said Morty. “If you behave yourselves, I may let you out later. Cause any trouble, and you get flushed.”
“Hang on, man,” said Dave. “What’s this all about? You serve us well sludge and lock us in a dungeon? So we screwed up once. That doesn’t mean you have to treat us like criminals. I told you we weren’t here to cause trouble.”
Morty snorted and furrowed his brow at Dave. “It’s not you I’m worried about.” He turned around and stomped up the stairs.
Everyone looked angrily at Cooper.
“The fuck did I do?”
“You spread your stool on his stool,” said Tim.
“Well I didn’t barf all over his floor and break his glasses like some little asshole I could mention.”
The sound of running liquid stopped.
“Jesus,” said Julian. “Did Milo only just finish taking a piss?”
“Big fucker must have been holding it in for a week,” said Cooper.
“Some of us know how not to piss ourselves every five minutes,” said Dave. He immediately regretted it. That was too low. Cooper’s incontinence was a symptom of his low Charisma score. Dave shouldn’t have said that. “I’m sorr—”
“Holy shit!” Cooper’s attention was elsewhere. Specifically, focused on Milo. More specifically, on Milo’s enormous dick.
Milo had returned from his piss, but hadn’t bothered to re-button his coat. Whatever this minotaur’s problems may be, physical endowment was not one of them. He looked like a wooly mammoth doing a handstand.
“Ah,” said Milo, licking his lips and staring down at the pitchers. “Sweet sustenance!” He picked up one pitcher and greedily licked the outside of it, his purple tongue flapping around like a snake having a seizure. “Who's thirsty?”
“Uh...,” said Tim.
Milo poured the well swill clumsily into four of the tin cups, not bothering to tip it back up between pours. He ignored the fifth cup, choosing instead to just use the pitcher as his own.
“Forgive me for not having asked your names yet,” he said, raising the pitcher to his mouth. “I can be a bit bullheaded at times.”
From the wide-eyed, helpless expressions on Tim and Julian's faces, Dave knew that they were suffering through the same conundrum as he was. Was that a joke? Should he laugh? Would laughing get him murdered? Would not laughing get him murdered?
“Bullheaded?” Milo repeated, raising his eyebrows. He was clearly awaiting some kind of response.
“Heh... heh...” Julian started. A tentative start to a laugh that he still might be able to steer into a cough if he had to. Well played, Julian.
Milo grinned. “Bullheaded. Huh?”
Julian nodded as his laugh/cough became louder and more committed to the former, a sign for the rest of them to follow suit.
“H-hee hee h-hee,” said Tim, barely containing the nervous tremor in his voice.
“Ha ha har har,” said Dave. It was as good a fake laugh as he could muster up.
Cooper frowned. “I don't get it.”
Julian nodded for Dave and Tim to continue laughing while he himself stopped. “He's a minotaur,” he explained to Cooper. “He's bull headed. He's got the head of a–”
“Yeah, I get that,” said Cooper. “But what does forgetting to ask our names have to do with being – Ow!”
Julian's jaw was clenched as he glared at Cooper. Dave couldn't see their feet behind the large crate, but he was pretty sure Julian had just stomped on Cooper's.
“What the fuck was – Ow! How how haw haw ha haha.” Cooper appeared to have finally caught on.
“You get it now?,” asked Julian. “Bull headed?”
“Yeah. It's fucking hilarious.”
Julian rejoined Tim and Dave in their terrible imitations of laughter, but soon Milo joined in with his own genuine laughter, drowning the rest of them out.
Eventually, Milo calmed down and took a swig from his pitcher. He wiped a tear from his eye. “Oh, that was too much!”
“I'll say,” said Tim. “Jesus
Christ I need a fucking drink.” He grabbed one of the cups and necked back the contents, filth and all.
“It's only fitting,” said Milo, “for a pint-sized lad like yourself.” He didn't even wait for anyone else before he started his own roar of hearty belly laughs.
“What the fuck?” said Cooper. “Was that even a joke?”
Dave thought he might prefer to get punched in the face with Milo's fists than with his comedy routine. It was time to brave the well booze. He continued his fake laugh as he grabbed a cup, picked a dark hair off the top, closed his eyes, and choked it down. It was strong and sour, but the taste wasn't as bad as the texture. It was gritty, and though he may have imagined it, he thought he felt something in it move as he swallowed.
“Wow,” Julian said when Milo stopped laughing long enough to suck back some more of the fermented sewage that passed for booze down here. “You're quite the jokester, aren't you?”
Milo's hairy face was wet with boozy foam, which didn't help him look any less crazy. “And you have quite an ear for comedy!”
“I don't...,” Julian touched his ear. “Oh riiiight. Ear. Because I'm an elf. I have big ears. That's soooo funny.”
“Oh my god,” said Cooper. “Please stop. I'm begging you.”
Julian doubled over in fake laughter and slapped his knee. “Yes, please stop! We need a moment to breathe.”
“I'm an entertainer at heart,” said Milo. “I tend to get carried away.” His eyes were wet and puffy.
“You're a very talented musician,” said Dave. “You could totally make it professionally.”
Milo took a swig from his pitcher, and shoved a crate next to the one Dave was sitting on. He sat down, wrapped an arm around Dave, and pulled him in tight. Dave very much wished Milo's coat was buttoned, as their differences in height and the forcefulness of Milo's arm forced Dave to look directly at the giant, veiny moray eel between Milo's furry legs.
“I dream of one day playing for a real audience on the stage of Cardinia’s Grand Concert Hall.”
Dave took that as an opportunity to struggle out of Milo’s embrace without offending him. “I can see it now,” he said, standing up. “Your name in lights on the marquee.” He spread his hands wide in a gesture of grandeur. “MILO!”
Milo finished the contents of the first pitcher. “Your kindness knows no limits. But when I dare to dream such lofty dreams, it’s my stage name which I see illuminated above the theater entrance.”
“Oh?” said Julian. “What’s that?”
Milo stood, gazing at the ceiling on the opposite side of the room, his eyes glinting with the seeds of fresh tears. He mimicked Dave’s spread arm gesture. “The Minotard”.
Dave, Tim, and Julian exchanged brief glances. The laughter which followed was hearty and genuine.
Cooper, having his first taste of well swill, sprayed a mouthful all over the three remaining pitchers, further contributing to their lack of appeal. “Now that’s funny.”
The only one not laughing was Milo. He stared severely at each one of them in turn as laughter unconvincingly turned into fits of fake coughing. There was no mistaking the rage in his eyes this time.
“WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?” He hurled his empty pitcher at the wall leading out to the lavatory, widening the hole by half a brick.
The fake coughing subsided.
“It’s nothing,” Julian scrambled for something to say. “I… uh… We just… um… I had something in my eye.”
Milo bent over, resting his hands on his knees, and started crying. As his body shook with sobs, his dick jiggled like a dead snake.
Dave looked questioningly at Julian and mouthed the words, Something in your eye?.
Julian shrugged helplessly. What the hell was I supposed to say?
“Why?” Milo said between sobs. “Why do they always laugh at me?”
“What… um…” Julian appeared to recognize his Diplomacy skill as the only way they might make it out of this dungeon alive. He was choosing his words carefully. “What made you decide upon that particular stage name?” Move past the laughing. Get him talking. Attaboy, Julian.
Milo sniffed back his sobs and sat down heavily on his crate. “I am a poet. Music and words are the tools of my art. I wanted a name which demonstrates how I can combine two words into one, thus creating something new. I combined the words minotaur and bard. Minotard.”
Cooper choked on another throatful of well swill.
“Something wrong with your friend?” asked Milo, a hint of menace in his voice.
“Don’t pay any attention to Cooper,” said Julian. “He’s retar— He’s not right in the head.”
Tim was holding his breath and bending his index finger back nearly to the point of breaking to keep his composure. Dave had to get him out of there before he cracked.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Dave announced. “Tim, can you help me?”
All eyes in the room turned to Dave as all of his blood rushed to his face. Unable to think of anything that could possibly further clarify such a request, he simply lowered his head and stomped toward the exit, grabbing Tim’s arm on the way.
The cavern beyond the brickwork was carved out of bare earth. Dave didn’t need any special dwarven mining knowledge to feel extremely claustrophobic in there. It was wide and high enough for a minotaur to move around in, but the slightest hint of a tectonic shift could see he and Tim buried alive in a second.
A saucer-sized hole at the rear had been bored into the stone floor, leading into some sort of chamber from which Dave could hear slowly running water. The three inch wide corona of wet stone surrounding the hole suggested that this was where Milo had relieved himself.
Tim fell to his knees laughing, and Dave pushed his face down into the piss hole to muffle the sound. Tim’s laughter turned into hacking, then gagging, and finally vomiting.
“Are you good?” asked Dave as Tim ineffectually slapped at him. “You get that all out of your system?”
Tim ceased resisting and gave Dave a thumbs up.
Dave released him, and they both sat back against the wall, where Tim swapped out the thumb for a middle finger.
“Don’t give me that,” said Dave. “I’ve got enough hoofprints in my armor as it is. That guy’s unstable. If we push him the wrong way, he’ll murder us all and go back to drinking.”
“He’s the one that called himself a minotard!” said Tim. “How does he expect people to react to that?”
“That’s just it,” said Dave. “I don’t think he has any idea of how he comes off to people. He’s big and scary-looking, not to mention a bipolar alcoholic, so people have always just reacted the way they think they’re supposed to. He makes a terrible joke. People laugh. He calls himself a minotard. People say ‘Oh, that’s very clever’ and laugh later behind his back.”
“That’s quite the diagnosis, Doc.”
“Have you not been paying attention? When Morty locked us down here, he said ‘It’s not you I’m worried about’. I thought he was talking to me specifically, but he was talking about all of us. He doesn’t give a shit about us. He can easily throw us out of his bar again. We’re locked down here to protect his patrons and staff from his depressed, violent, booze-crazed minotaur friend.”
Tim thought for a moment, then looked at Dave. “What do you think he meant when he said he’d flush us?”
“I don’t know,” said Dave. “And I don’t want to find out. We’ve got to come up with a plan.”
Tim nodded. “I know what we have to do.”
Dave breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. What?”
“We have to outdrink him.”
“Goddamnit, Tim. That’s your solution to everything.”
“Think about it,” said Tim. “If we can get him to pass out, Morty might let us out of here before he wakes up.”
“And how do you propose we outdrink him? Have you seen how big he is?”
“You can do it,” said Tim. “You’re a dwarf. You’ve got a
Constitution bonus and all that shit.”
“He’s a fucking minotaur!” said Dave. “Compared to his Constitution, mine’s just a preamble.”
“Well then think. How can we–”
“THAT BITCH TOOK MY KIDS AND MY MONEY AND RAN OFF TO WILLOWHAVEN!”
“Shit,” said Dave. “We’d better get back in there.”
When they re-entered Milo's private drunk tank, Julian was wedged into a corner, both hands wrapped around his sloshing tin cup. Cooper was sprawled out face-down on the floor. Beside him lay the crushed remains of another pitcher. Milo was in the corner opposite the one Julian was cowering in, one hand bracing him against the wall, the other furiously choking his dire chicken.
“What the hell is going on?” Dave whispered to Julian.
“Do I really have to spell it out for you?”
“LENORE!” Milo groaned at the ceiling.
"What happened to Cooper?” asked Tim.
“Milo punched him in the face,” said Julian. “Knocked him out cold.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Dave. “What did that idiot say?”
“Nothing bad. He just asked Milo if he wanted another drink. I guess Milo read something into it. He said ‘You sound like Lenore’ and decked him.”
Tim looked at Milo. “Is that the same Lenore he's whacking off to in the corner right now?”
“One can only assume.”
“WHY, LENORE? WHY?”
“So what do we do?” asked Dave. “I think his arm is moving faster. He might be close to finishing.”
Julian thought for a moment. “Tim, do you think, if I put you on my shoulders, you could knock him out with a Sneak Attack? He's pretty distracted right now. You'd probably get a bonus to hit him.”
Tim shook his head vigorously.
“Okay then. What if I summon a horse, and we –”
“What's all of this noise?” shouted Morty as his hooves pounded the stairs. “You're disturbing my customers! If I have to warn you again, I'll –” Rounding the bend in the stairwell, he saw Milo through the portcullis bars. “Gods have mercy! Milo! What's come over you? Milo! MILO!”