by Robert Bevan
The dwarves nearest Giplin backed away from him like they just found out he had leper AIDS.
Tragnar waved his hands for them to calm down. “Fear not, brothers. I purified his eyes myself. No lasting harm was done. But listen to the mad ravings of this elf, and hear for yourselves how reading can poison your minds.”
The crowd murmured to each other in agreement, then grew silent. The only sound to be heard was that of Lord Trumble's continued piss slurping. A moment later, that stopped as well. His hair retracted from his now healed ass, up his back, to its original length atop his head. Lord Trumble turned around and sat upright in his pool. He frowned at Dave, then looked up at Tragnar.
“What have you to report, Travis?”
Tragnar looked confused for a moment, then shook it off. He smiled at Lord Trumble. “Little to report, my Lord. The elf has entertained us with his mad delusions.”
Lord Trumble's eyes bulged. “Know you not the dangers of speaking to foreigners? Have you not been warned?”
“Humblest apologies, my Lord. I did not think –”
“You are not supposed to think!” cried Lord Trumble. “That is what you have me for. Your place is only to obey!”
“Yes, Lord Trumble!”
“When we have converted this misguided dwarf and dealt with the prisoners, you are all to cleanse each others' ears.”
Cooper looked down at Tim. “Does he mean they're going to –”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Cooper frowned. “I would have liked to see that. It's too bad we'll probably be dead.”
“Maybe,” whispered Julian. “He's still going to try to convert Dave. If he plays along, we might get another –”
“No way!” said Dave. “I'm not going through that again.” He turned around to face Lord Trumble. “You can't convert me! I'll never ever kiss your piss-soaked ass! At this point I'd prefer that you just kill and eat me.”
Lord Trumble did his weird goofy grin again. “We shall see how long your resistance holds out once you've seen me in all my glory.” He looked up and shouted, “Resume showering!”
One by one, dwarves on the platforms above sighed with relief as they relaxed their bladders. Streams of fresh golden dwarf piss rained down once again on Lord Trumble's head. He turned around and slowly rose to his feet. He stretched his arms out to both sides and spread the nearly imperceptible fingers of his tiny hands apart, then turned to face his captors.
“Behold my member, and be forever changed by the power of its bigliness!”
The congregation of dwarves gasped in awe.
Cooper squinted. There was a sparse nest of normal-looking grey pubes, but he didn't see anything resembling a penis or testicles. “Umm... What am I looking at?”
Lord Trumble grinned at him. “A question I've heard many times before, believe me. It's so huuuuge that people don't even know what it is. People come up to me all the time and ask if it's a spear, or a tree trunk, or a Rod of Lordly Might. They ask me how I'm able to lug it around.”
“Is it tucked between your legs or something?” asked Cooper. “I can't see anything.”
Lord Trumble's eyes bulged big and black. “What's wrong with your eyes?” he bellowed as he jumped up and down in his pee pool. The tower started to rumble again. Flecks of stone fell from the top of the tower, catching his attention. He stopped jumping, calmed himself, and pointed a tiny finger at a spot on his crotch. “It's right there!”
Cooper squinted harder. “Oh wait. I think I see it now. Sorry. I thought that was a genital wart.”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Lord Trumble's fingers disappeared into tiny trembling fists as bigger pieces of stone fell from the highest parts of the tower. Another platform broke loose and fell, along with the naked pissing dwarf who had been standing on it. Cooper watched the trajectory of the dwarf's piss stream change with the trajectory of the falling dwarf. It was kind of fascinating, like fractals or some shit. The platform smashed into the raised path just in front of Dave, exploding in a cloud of shrapnel and stone dust, and breaking Cooper out of his trance.
Dave shielded his eyes, then glared at Cooper. “What the hell are you doing? You're going to get us killed!”
Cooper spit out a bit of powdered stone. “You just said you were ready to die.”
“I changed my mind.” He turned to face Lord Trumble. “I'm sorry! He doesn't know what he's saying. We are in total awe of your enormous penis! I'm ready to kiss your majestic ass!”
Lord Trumble's fists and the tower both stopped shaking. “Very good. Approach, so that I may taste your sincerity.”
Tim shook his head as Dave waddled slowly back across the path. “He's got about as much chance of passing a piss test as Tony Montana. I like Cooper's way better.”
“My way?” asked Cooper.
“I think this tower is somehow connected to Trumble's pride. If we can get him to crack... It's a theory in progress. Just keep making fun of his dick.”
Cooper shrugged. “I can do that.”
Tim pressed his face against the bars. “Hey Trumble! My dick is only half an inch long!”
Lord Trumble shook his head. “Pathetic loser! So sad!”
Julian furrowed his brow. “Hang on. I thought we were supposed to be –”
“It's way bigger than yours!” Tim shouted.
“That's a lie!” said Lord Trumble. “Biased opinion!”
“Opinion?” cried Tim. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He pulled down his pants and thrust forward the baby pepper poking out from his massive pube nest. “That's an observable, verifiable fucking fact, you crazy asshole!”
Tim was making a solid effort, but Trumble's thin skin and fragile tower were immune to observable facts. This was a job for Cooper.
Cooper pointed to Tim's dick and called out to Lord Trumble. “If this tiny dick right here was a man, your dick wouldn't be big enough to be its dick.”
Lord Trumble took a moment to process that, then looked up at Cooper. “HEY! That's mean! TOTALLY UNFAIR!!!” His face distorted and his eyes looked like they might burst. “I can't... You don't... NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
As larger chunks of stone crashed down onto the dwarves below, Lord Trumble's hair and beard disengaged from his head and face, retracting two tentacles from the suddenly bald dwarf's ears.
“What the fuck is that thing?” asked Tim as the furry tentacled creature crawled out of the piss pool and down the side of the altar. “I don't remember seeing anything like that in the Monster Manual.”
“Maybe it was in one of the expansions,” said Cooper, unable to take his eyes away from the bald dwarf who appeared to be breathing his final breaths in a pool of urine.
He looked up at Cooper, unconcerned with the chunks of stone exploding into dust all around him, and exhaled his dying words. “Thank you.”
Cooper sniffed back some snot and rubbed his eyes. “I think I got some dust in there.”
“We've got bigger problems,” said Tim. “I just remembered we're still locked in a cage, and there's a tower collapsing on top of us.” He looked up at Cooper. “I know it's a long shot, but you should at least try your Barbarian Rage.”
“I guess it couldn't hurt.” Cooper cracked his knuckles. “I'm really angry!” His heart went into overdrive, pumping blood through his rapidly expanding muscles and turning his vision pink. He grabbed the bars on the door and shoved it back and forth as hard as he could. “FUCK YOU DOOR!!!”
The entire cage shifted on the platform, but the lock just wouldn't give. He pulled and pushed and yanked and screamed until the duration of his Rage timed out and he started to pant and deflate.
Below them, the congregation of dwarves weren't reacting at all. Aside from the ones who'd already been smashed by falling chunks of stone, they were all just standing around as if everything was fine.
Barbarian Rage had sapped Cooper's strength. He sat down and leaned against the bars.
Dave jumped out of the way as a massive hunk of stone ex
ploded on the raised path behind him. This one was big enough to take the path down with it.
“Does anyone else have any ideas?” asked Tim.
Julian looked at the floor of the cage. “I have one, but I don't think you're going to like it.”
Dave grabbed the bars of the cage from the outside. “Whatever it is, do it!”
Julian took Ravenus out from under his serape. “Listen, buddy. Just in case this doesn't work like I hope, you should get out of here.”
Ravenus squawked at him.
“I'm not asking. Go!” Julian thrust the big raven through the cage bars and let go of him. Ravenus flapped out of the way of a falling chunk of stone, then flew out through a missing section of wall.
“You guys might want to hold onto something.” Julian pointed to Cooper's side of the cage. “Horse!”
A large black horse poofed into existence standing so that his giant horse cock was dangling right in Cooper's face.
“What the fuck, man?” Cooper brushed the horse cock aside to look at Julian. “In what way is this helpful?” His stomach turned as he felt himself starting to fall backwards. “Oh shit.”
The wagon tilted back slowly at first, then faster and faster. Finally, it full-on plunged over the platform's edge.
“FUUUUUUUCK!” cried Tim as he hung onto the bars.
The magically summoned horse spent its entire five seconds of life screaming, then winked out of existence when it was crushed under the combined weight of Cooper, Julian, and Tim.
Julian's equine sacrifice had not been in vain. The door remained locked, but the roof had been smashed into splinters.
Dave hopped down from the platform to the side of the wagon, which fell apart under his fat dwarf ass.
Cooper led the way up a pile of rubble to the collapsed section of wall that Ravenus had flown through, pausing only once to punch a Nazi dwarf in the face.
Once outside, they ran for the wall, where four elves were sharing wine and bread while casually watching the tower crumble.
“Who are you guys?” asked Julian.
“We live in a village not too far from here,” replied one of the elves. “We bring food for the women and children every now and again. The menfolk often neglect to feed them.” He nodded past the tower where a few dozen dwarven women and children were all standing around like cattle knee deep in swamp water.
“That Tragnar guy said they kept the women locked up in a pen.”
A second elf shook his head. “That's what Lord Trumble told them, and they believe it. These dwarves aren't what you'd call normal. Generations of inbreeding have warped their minds.” He shrugged. “What can you do but try to help?”
Cooper felt a cool mist that he hoped wasn't pee. He turned to the tower and looked up. The golden penis-head roof of the tower was tilting, and with it the source of the water that sprayed from the tip. The rest of the tower crumbled down to a pile of rubble within seconds after that.
Construction dwarves continued to lay stones on the unfinished wall while soldier dwarves continued to stand ready to defend the gap against invaders. None of them seemed to have noticed that their home had just been destroyed.
“Do you mind if we use your ladder?” asked Tim. “We should be getting home. I have some memories I'd like to suppress with massive amounts of hard liquor.”
“Go right ahead, friend,” said the first elf. “But there are better ways to deal with bad memories than drinking.”
“So I've learned. I was thinking I might just pour it straight into my eyes.”
The End
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