SamIam
New Member
I'm reposting this, since it, too, mysteriously disappeared after the server crash. Make sure you give Sheri grief until she pulls her hair out.
The reference to a Gnomish Cranial Folic Overlay is from an old story I wrote for WoW. So is the reference about Shebaely's nose ring. If you're interested in it, you can read the two-part story below.
Ambriana was in a panic. No, the famous merchant, Tarjay, was not having a year-end clearance sale. It wasn’t that kind of panic. It was a tearful panic. Well, to be precise, a steamful panic. Bright Wizards don’t cry. In fact, they can’t cry. Their fiery core instantly turns their tears into little puffs of steam. It is amusing, actually, in a rather humid sort way. And steaming was exactly what Ambriana was doing as she careened down the crowded streets of Altdorf, heedless of all in her way. She ran pass gawking onlookers and bounced off rat-infested barrels as she sped through the streets. Puff, puff, puff. Hiss, hiss, hiss. It is not every day that one sees a Bright Wizard steaming. They take the utmost care where and when they let their emotions show. But this was not one of those times. Oh, no, it wasn’t. Disaster had struck. The sky had fallen. No, it was worse than that. Much worse than that. She was ruined. She could never show her face in public again. Especially her face. Ambriana steamed as she sped for home. Puff, puff, hiss, hiss.
Ambriana threw open the front door and ran madly through her manor, searching for her husband, seeking consolation. “Durruck!” she wailed. “Durruck where are you?” Not finding him, Ambriana dashed upstairs to their bedroom, taking the steps two, three at a time. Puff. Hiss. She skidded through the bedroom door and spied Durruck in their closet.
“Oh, Durruck!” she sobbed. “I’m ruined. My life is- Durruck, why are you wearing my dress?”
“Eek!” shrieked Durruck, spinning around. His long flowing hair fanned out behind him. Ambriana’s dress fell to the floor, having slid off his slender shoulders, leaving him standing there in all his effeminately elfish glory.
“Ambri, dear. What are you doing home?” He began quickly fanning himself with his hand. “You gave me such a fright! I nearly jumped out of-“
“My dress,” Ambriana finished for him. “And you did.” Puff, puff. Hiss, hiss.
“It’s not your dress,” whined Durruck as he picked up the fallen apparel. “It’s mine. I mean, it’s my new robe. It is crafted from the finest snow-white silk with beautiful gold brocade to accent the gorgeous red trim. Isn’t it just scrumptious?”
Ambriana was speechless. Well, nearly so. She was a woman, after all, so she was never completely speechless. She was only mostly speechless, and, like being mostly dead, one miracle is all it takes to recover. In this case, it was Durruck coming out of the closet.
He then sashayed over to their plush bed and threw himself back on it, hugging his silk robe to his bare chest. “Mmm, it feels so divine. The way it caresses my skin and sends tingles all up and down when I move,” Durruck trilled.
“Oh, Durruck! Never mind that. Look at me!” Ambriana pleaded, puffing and hissing.
Durruck stopped squirming long enough to look at Ambriana. He looked up. He looked down. He shook his head, sadly, sympathetically. “Oh, my poor, dear, Ambri. I see what you mean. Your simple, russet and dull red dress is so…so…plain. Not to mention stiff and scratchy, woven from asbestos as it is. I would be steaming too, if I had to wear such a horrid thing. Well, crying, actually. We Archmages have properly functioning physiologies.”
“No, Durruck,” Ambriana wailed. “It’s not my dress, it’s my hair. Look at my hair!”
“Uh, what hair, dear?”
“Exactly! It’s gone! My beautiful flaming orange, spiky hair is gone.”
Durruck stared. He continued to stare. At her bald head. Her bald shiny head. Durruck stopped staring and blinked. Then he resumed his staring. He was speechless. Well, nearly so. After all, you know what they say…
“Where did you put it, dear?” Durruck asked.
“I didn’t put it anywhere,” Ambriana wailed. “I dressed for battle this morning, rode out to Praag and roasted a few witch elves. When I came back, my hair was gone!” Puff, puff, puff. Hiss, hiss, hiss.
Ding dong. The doorbell rang. Ambriana ran to the window and peeked down to see who it was. “Oh, Durruck! It’s that old curmudgeon, Sam. Get rid of him. Please, please, Durruck. If he sees me like this I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Very well, my dear.” Durruck stood up and slipped into his robe, cooing with sensuous pleasure. He floated down the stairs and opened the door. “Good afternoon, Sam.”
Sam looked Durruck up and down. His wife, Shebaely, constantly admonished him for not being polite. She encouraged- if such a word could be used to describe frying pans alongside his head- him to be more sociable. Nicer. Sam decided now would be as good a time as any to start, so he settled on a simple compliment in lieu of a more traditional greeting.
“Nice dress,” he rumbled from deep within his barrel chest. His dwarfish brogue caused it to sound like drrress.
“It’s not a dress!” huffed Durruck. “It’s a robe.”
“Laddie, me wife be an accomplished seamstress. She has made many a dress fer her and our bonnie wee lasses. She has e’en made me a braw bathrobe to be wearin’ after I clean up from a hard day o’ killin’. If it be one thing I know, other than drinkin’ ‘n fightin’, it be a dress when I see it. And that, laddie, be a dress.”
“Ooh, you wear a bra? Um, can I see it?” asked Durruck eagerly.
“There be times I worry about ye, laddie. Truly there be.” Sam shook his head. He wished Shebaely were here, so she could see what kind of a mess politeness got him into. But, then, he’d been wishing she would get a nose ring to match the one in her eyebrow, but that would be a cold day in Thunder Mountain. Sam knew what the philosophers said about wishes: Wish in one hand and…we’ll ne’er ye mind. It was clearly time to revert to tactics tried and true.
“Where be yer better se’en-eighths?” Sam asked, trying to peek around Durruck's slender yet annoyingly tall shoulders. “I be havin’ a question fer ye both, then I’ll be outta yer hair.”
“WHAAAAA!” screamed Ambriana despairingly from the banister, quickly filling the upper half of the entryway with steam. “Sam, how could you?” she wailed.
“Oh, not good. Not good,” muttered Durruck.
Sam shoved open the door to see what was wrong. “Great empty kegs o’ beer, lassie! What did ye do wi’ yer hair?”
“She lost it in Praag,” whispered Durruck.
“It’s gone, Sam. It’s gone.” Ambriana sobbed. Puff, puff. Hiss, hiss. “Please, Sam, don’t make fun of me. Please. My life as I know it is at an end. I shall never leave the confines of my manor. I shall smash every mirror in the house and live out my life in seclusion.”
“Not the full-length mirror in the closet, Ambri. Please, not that one,” begged Durruck.
“Ne’er ye worry, lass. No dwarf would e’er make fun o’ such a thing. Hair be sacred to us, ye know,” Sam reassured Ambriana. “Now ye just sit there ‘n steam yer wee eyes out while I-“
Ding dong. The doorbell rang again.
“Oh, could this day get any worse?” beseeched Ambriana.
Sam turned and looked Durruck up and down again. “Nae, lass,” he muttered under his breath. “I be thinkin’ no.”
Durruck swung open the door. “Zeb!”
Zeb looked Durruck up. He looked Durruck down. “Nice dr-“
“Don’t ye be goin’ there, Zeb!” rumbled Sam. “We be havin’ bigger problems than Durruck’s choice o’ clothin’. Ye bein’ a Tinkerer ‘n all, ye can be helpin’ Ambriana wi’ a wee bit o’ a problem.”
Zeb stepped in and looked up through the ever-expanding steam cloud. “Great empty kegs o’ beer!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, Zeb. Woe is me,” cried Ambriana.
“Aye, Zeb,” Sam said. “The lass lost her locks. Mayhap ye can be doin’ somethin’ fer her.”
“Come here, lass,” Zeb beckoned. “Gimme a closer look at yer pate. I just so happen to ha’ a Gnomish Cranial Folic Overlay that just mayhap do the job.”
“What be that?” asked Sam.
“It be a wig,” replied Zeb. “O’ sorts.”
“Zeb, please don’t make fun of me,” pleaded Ambriana. “There is no such thing as a wig in these lands. We’d have to travel all the way to the Eastern Kingdoms for those and I wouldn’t be caught dead over there- with or without hair.” Puff. Hiss. Ambriana knelt down so Zeb could get a closer look at her head.
“Now don’t ye be worryin’ ‘bout that none, lass,” Zeb assured her as he began poking and prodding. “We won’t be makin’ fun o’ yer- ‘ere now. What be this?” Zeb poked some more and prodded some more. He even did some picking. Then, oh so very carefully, he lifted something off of Ambriana’s head. Instantly, her flaming orange hair reappeared! In all its glorious spikiness!
“It’s…it’s…a hat!” exclaimed Durruck in awe.
“Oh, lass,” chortled Sam evilly. “Now that be funny.”
Puff. Hiss.
The reference to a Gnomish Cranial Folic Overlay is from an old story I wrote for WoW. So is the reference about Shebaely's nose ring. If you're interested in it, you can read the two-part story below.