(Okay, I admit it…this is definitely a barebones version of what will go on the Patreon and eventually be in the novel. But I LIKE the story and wanted to tell it to you. I just….have some more flesh I want to throw on it.
I think you’ll enjoy it anyway. If you like Dark Lords, Dwarves and/or Dragons.)
Sam and the Dragon: The good news is, Sam was neither roasted nor eaten, AND the remaining talking pigs treated him with significantly more respect thereafter.
The Dragon’s answer was several thousand words, all in a language Sam did not understand, followed by the word “NO”.
Sam decided he would argue with the Dragon. This was not difficult. Sam was very determined.
Sam looked the Dragons straight in the eye. About a month later, dirty, bedraggled, and annoyed, he pulled himself back from the edge of a ten-thousand hectare cliff with a sudden JERK.
“Don’t look a Dragon in the eye ever, not ever, really, ever, ever again,” suggested every single part of his brain.
This was fine with Sam.
He would have bothered Alice, but Alice was bothered enough already.
It is good that even Dwarves like Sam are good at machinery, and the Printing Press, while it does tend to get invented in quite a lot of places, is a frustratingly, even inordinately complicated device, to the point where it often doesn’t exist.
Stencils, however, are not difficult to make, although it is considered eccentric behavior to waste valuable parchment on something you can’t bother to hand-write. But it does get attention.
Here are some of the posters Sam printed up:
WANTED: Dragons.
FOR: Having too much treasure.
REWARD: We won’t count the treasure before you return it to us.
This was also popular:
DRAGONS ATE YOUR DAUGHTER.
If your daughter is still there, you have VERY LIMITED TIME. Plant Dragonsbane NOW!
___
Sam also sent the Dragon a letter via courier. That is to say, Sam was the courier, and he had someone with excellent handwriting draw up a letter which he left in a place sufficiently visible and sheltered that the Dragon could not miss it, sufficiently close that the Dragon would encounter it, and sufficiently far that he was unlikely to accidentally look it in the eyes unless it happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and even Sam’s luck probably wasn’t that bad.
(It was, but what’s another month?)
The letter was the lyrics to what, the Dragon would not know, was a very popular song. It was a song about slaying Dragons. It was a song which spoke of how easy it was to slay Dragons, how wealthy they had, and how delicious their flesh was.
Sam was not wealthy, but the Dark Lord has a significant budget available for corruption. So he hired a very talented bard to write it, and then he paid several Bards to go around playing it everywhere, telling everyone it was the most popular song in the land. It was a decent song. There were better songs. Nevertheless, it did become the most popular song in the land; everyone knew it to be true, and why let better music stand in the way of having the best taste?
The other side of the parchment was a note:
“When you get sick of eating idiots, come join the Dark Lord and we’ll write another song saying that the first song was so beloved that all the Dragon treasure has now been stolen by Elves.”
Dragons are patient.
Dragons love a fight.
They love to win.
…it was therefore three months before the Dragon flew to the Dark Lord’s Citadel, signaled its peaceful intent, and landed in the Dark Lord’s third-worst courtyard.
It did not look well.
It was bloated and sad.
“I have eaten too many fools,” she said.
Alice looked at the great beast.
“Too many for your stomach, not enough for the World,” she said, gently. She gestured to a very, very large entrance to what turned out to be a very large cave filled with stolen gold. It also had a human-sized table with some tea and pair of pills, each the size of a human head.
Alice gestured at the pill and indicated the convenient, and clearly not accidental pool of clear water within the well-lit, recently-excavated cavern.
“Take two of these and call me in the morning,” she said.
“And what will you have of me, if I join you?” asked the Dragon.
“A bestselling cookbook,” she replied, and left the Dragon to ponder her temporary but well-designed accommodations in peace.
____
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