A bit. The dryad bit had escaped me. Thanks.
to Quirinius Flatus, Chief Librarian
Irripi Ontor Temple at Glamour
Quirinius,
I have enclosed a transcript of a tale told to me by one of the servants in the Governor's manse in Pavis. He would not give me a name, but claimed to be royalty from one of the smaller Hsunchen tribes to the northwest of Sartar. When I asked him why a prince would spend his days emptying chamber pots (which seemed to be his primary duty), he replied with this story. I later learned from other palace staff that the old man wasn't particularly good at being a servant, but his stories were so wild and entertaining that Sor-Eel kept him on. I pass it on to you for archival and possibly some insights into the workings of other parts of the Empire.
All hail the Reaching Moon
Marmotas Anthrax
IO temple, Pavis
begin transcript:
You think this job is bad? I've had far worse. In fact, the worst job I ever had was working on a Dalthippan road crew. No, truly. You see, they'd have you believe that the roads were built by the priests of the Daughter, and that's true, but the bulk of the work was done by slaves and laborers. See, they'd kind of pave the road out, but it wasn't very level for all them ladies in their wagons, so they'd send men out to level the road with shovels. See, we'd pry up the stones a bit and put some dirt and pebbles under it, then sort of dance on the stone to level it out.
But that's not the bad part. The bad part was the cooking. See, the guvmint didn't send no cooks out with the crews. Seems they had some trouble once with some uppity cook what started a rebellion or something, so they didn't send any out with us. Each crew was supposed to pick out it's own cook. Problem was, nobody wanted to do the cooking, so what we'd do is make the man what complained the most about the food be the cook.
See, that was me. Old rubble runner mouth. Bitched about the food once and they said, "Okay, wise guy. You do better." I hated it, but I couldn't think of a way out of it.
Well, one day, I was out hunting when I came across this big old moose turd. I mean, it was huge. And fresh, cuz it was still a bit steamy. And I thought to myself, "If I make me some bad food, then somebody will complain and then I won't hafta do the cooking no more." So I got a couple of sticks and rolled that moose turd up on edge and brought it back to the cook wagon. Then I went in and made me up some dough and made me a nice pie crust and set that old moose turd in it. I covered it up with more dough and baked it up all nice and brown. It was the purtiest thing I ever cooked, it was. And I waited.
About sundown, the workers all came back with Gerra in front. He was this big old troll of a man with an appetite to match, and I just watched and waited. Then he sees that pie and grabs himself a big old piece with his hands and shoves it in his mouth. Second later, he spits it out and lets out a bellow that would scare Lodril shitless and says, "By the wind! That's moose turd pie!"
"It's good, though."
end transcript
[This is based on an old shaggy dog story. Particularly, it's based on a version told by Utah Phillips relating to the railroads of the American West.]
Baron von Moosehsunchen
Scott Haney scotty_at_olivia.cedar-rapids.ia.us Intolerance is a state no tolerant man can tolerate. -- McGinley
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