A reluctant conversation

As Patr considered the liquid now dripping off the bar room table a wave a realization passed over him, the giant had been drinking Galadonian Dark. Foul stuff with a consistency not unlike the excrement of a black warg. . .it also contained astronomical amounts of alcohol, certainly enough to liquify a svrifnibli liver in under a minute. But to an exceptionaly large giant, it only succeeded in making an already unintelligent race, much more so. . .that would explain the giggling.

Removing his cloak, Patr felt obliged to address the giant in a somewhat more civil manner.

"Are you purposely trying to damage yourself or do you seriously enjoy drinking that stuff?" He knew his code forbade him from even speaking to giants, but something in him felt a kind of pity for the oversized drunk. And after all, he was a cloud giant, certainly not the worst of his kind.

The giant stopped chuckling long enough to take a good long look at the individual that stood barely above his knees. "Bah," he suddenly spat out, "of course not, but 'twas all they had in stock." He then looked around suspiciously and beckoned Patr to come in close, "Well that. . .that and the filthy goblin wine they actually consider drinkable around here," he gave a disdainful nod at the barkeep, who happened to be a goblin and returned the nod with a sneer.

The giant then tilted back in his chair and Patr's heart inwardly sank and as he realized with a sinking feeling that the giant was about to launch into a tale that he would probably regret listening to.

"Why, back in my homeland, in amongst the craggy mountai. . " the giant then trailed off as Patr slowly held out a weary hand.

"I came to here to have a drink quietly by myself, not be. .entertained. .by an intoxicated giant. Furthermore, I have studied your history at length and I happen to find it an exeedingly tedious narrative which I, at the present time, do not wish to hear any more of. " Depositing his axe into the belt loop which hung at his side he gave a slight nod to the giant and pushed open the bar door into the pelting rain outside.

The beginning of a funny friendship

"Your fly is undone," the Giant said. He spewed his drink over the bar as another bout of laughter wracked his body. He threw his head back and laughed hard, shaking the walls of the tavern and drawing every eye in the place (which, counting the Hovelton twins down from Fair Havens, numbered in the thousands). The svirfnebli eyed him cooly and fingered the hilt of the axe at his belt loop.

"Have you got anything else you want to say?" the svirfnebli said. The combination of his words and stare should have frozen the Cloud Giant's contorted face for three weeks. But the Giant merely waved him off, wiping a stream of tears that had begun to flow from his eyes.

"No, hehe, that was all, haha! Ah, gosh, what a good one! What's your name squirt?"

This last statement deepened the svirfnebli's mood. He jumped down from his stool and snatched the axe into his hands.

"Woah there little guy, don't mind me! I meant no disrespect. You must admit that the fly thing was a regular gizzle-tugger. I mean, three Morstas and a Zambeezo rat couldn't keep a crowd entertained as long on such a simple trick."

Mollified, the svirfnebli swung his axe at the Cloud Giant. As it lodged in the Giant's arm, the creature gave a huge yell, followed by hysterical cackling.

"Ah! You hit my funny bone! Ahahaahah. Take it out squirt! Hurry, it's too much!"

Embarrassed, confused, and more than a little dejected that all of his efforts seemed to be severely ironical, the svirfnebli obeyed the laughing Cloud Giant (who was banging the table with his other hand) and pulled the axe free. After a few minutes of weezing and clutching his enormous chest, the Giant turned to the svirfnebli.

"Thanks! I thought I was done for back there. I'm addicted to laughter, and my doctor says if I'm not careful, I'm going to keel over and die in the middle of a good roar. What's your name squirt?"

the svirfnebli grimiced, but feeling a curious attraction to the magnanimous Giant, he picked his mug up off the floor, ordered another round for the two of them, and started in.

"The name's Patr," he began...

Patr and the Giant

The svirfnebli gazed up at the night stars, yearning. The stars seemed to chuckle back at him. Taunting him. Perhaps daring him to count them. Maybe sympathizing with him.
The svirfnebli fingered the hunting axe at his belt, still stained with the blood of the creature he had killed in obtaining it. He wondered what he should feel about that death. About that light he put out. He felt little. Little but the itch.

He shook his head and walked into the building. The guard looked him over quickly, probably fighting the urge to make a crack about his size, and let him pass. The warrior's guild was a simple place. Basically a tavern with a training room and an entrance into the sewers below Galadon. The svirfnebli was not in the mood to train, so he pulled himself up to the bar and ordered an ale.

A chuckle to his right caught his attention. He looked to see a massive cloud giant, giggling into his own ale.

"Problem?" the svirfnenli asked.
"Nay, nay. There no problem." The giant shook his head and tried hard not to laugh.

Until the jungle suddenly disappeared and turned into a blazing desert. The campy-dino-critter, not used to living within a story made up by such cracked pots, decided it had had enough of all this strangeness and downright silliness that it promptly wrote itself out of existence. Shan and the Big Giant Head paused for a moment to reflect.

The moment lasted for about three days. At the end of the massive time of reflection they realized that the story they were living in was more than a little off based.
"What we need" Shan said, "is a decent sort of plot or goal or something."
"True, true." Said the Big Giant Head.
"Because without some overarching goal I don't think we're going to have a good time."
"Well, dear Shan." Said the head. "I think there might be a problem with that."
"Oh?"
"Yes, you see, your character can't really handle any sort of true goal or quest. The problem is that your character is so painfully impotent that the last few sentences you just spoke are way above your ability. You should never have been able to make such coherent thoughts."
"Ah, but you are forgetting our previous three days of reflection. I saved every scrap of coherency from the last three days and am using them now."
"Ah, interesting. How long will they last?" Asked the head.
"Just another minute or two, which is why it is so important to get a simple, decent quest now, before the authors decide to do something silly to us again."
"Are you such silly isn't the best way to go?" Asked the head.
"I've been silly all my existence. I just wonder what it would be like to be...other than silly...or..."
"What's wrong?"
Shan paused for a full minute. "Thoughts...is...slow..." He sputtered.
The head realized at this point that Shan's momentarily out-of-character experience was at an end. He then designated himself the head head and headed into the desert.

Dunes rose and fell over the horizon like waves on a mighty, yellow sea. The sun was hot and high in the sky, a burning torch of painful fire among a cool lake of blue. Shan vomited.

The authors sat for a long while in a defensive position, erasers in hand, until one of them realized that the addition of a gnat might solve the entire problem. He inserted the gnat on the western hemisphere of the Giant Head (which should probably be known simply as GH, or Big G, or something of that ilk) and gave it the dual personality of a distraught pterodactyl who has just learned all of her young were killed and a Camptosaurus who was responsible for this killing. No joke here folks, look it up on wikipedia. The Camptosaurus exists! I believe it was camping out under a massive rock spire, until mom went for her usual morning flight. Beware the Camptosaurus! In any case, this gnat (who actually has a bone structure similar to the Camptosaurus and the flighty desires of a pterodactyl) began leaping about on the world which was Big G's head. Indeed Campy was really irritating the two characters of this beloved story to such a point that they decided it would be best for Shan to jump on Big G's head, and hunt him with the plunger. Shan chased Campy for an hour until...

As anyone with a disproportionately large head knows, someone who laughs at your large melon is a real pain in the neck (pun intended). So this massive head with a tiny stalk of a body was quickly filled with rage. He tried to rush up to Shan and smack him in the face, but his tiny arms couldn't reach him. He tried kicking, but it had the same effect. Shan watched all this and laughed all the louder. Finally the Big Giant Head (for that was his name) got an idea that actually could cause some damage. He pulled about a pound of phlegm from the back of his throat and spat on Shan.

Shan was struck and stuck to the ground. The mucusy goo acted as an adhesive and itched horribly. It was pretty gross.
"Oh big giant head man!" He called out. "Your forgiveness I implore! It wasn't my fault about the bleach!"
"I saw you open the bottle and pour it out!" Said the angry head. "Who's fault could it have been if not yours?"
"It was the authors, I swear it. I never wanted to do that. I think that the uncreative fool couldn't think of anything that actually fit with my character so he didn't bother thinking about it at all and made me dump the bleach and left the mess to the next author. I swear I didn't mean to."
"Who are these authors you speak of?" Asked the head.
"Men, three men who delight in tormenting me. I know not where they come from nor why they pull my strings, but they are the source of all my ailments and struggles in life. Cursed authors!" Shan spat.
"My, my, my." Said the head. "This is a sad story of yours. These author-folks certainly sound like villains. We should put a stop to their madness before you pour more bleach on someone."
"So take my hand, dear head, and travel with me. Together we will find the three authors and kick their combined asses."

The moment he dumped the liquid however, Shan recoiled in horror. What on earth was he doing? Everybody knows that the eye is one of the more sensitive places on the body and to pour an entire bottle of corrosive liquid on one could only lead to more severe consequences.

And sure enough, before Shan could even eek out an apology to the eye, a soul-obliterating roar erupted from the ground under his feet. The ground began to shake and tremble and Shan did the only thing that one could do under the circumstance, namely, run in wild circles while waving his plunger towards the heavens, hoping against hope that some distant god would see him and grant him the ability to wield the forces of lighting.

But it turns out that the lighting god was out running an errand at that moment and Shan succeded only in alerting the god of unfortunate accidents, who placed a root directly where he was running. And so he lay there in the dirt, whimpering to himself as the gigantic head began to emerge from the topsoil.

However, the head appeared to be the only thing that had emerged. Oh it was an imposing head to be sure, at least 30 feet across and covered in mud, but it was just that, a head, and seldom do people become injured by disembodied heads. I'm sure they do sometimes, but for this to happen, the head would have to be able to spit venom or posess the ability to shoot laser beams from their eyes. . .this particular giant was unable to do either.

So Shan stood there marvelling as the giant head spluttered out obcenities in his general direction. Now, instead of being scared, he was becoming increasingly interested and eventully decided to have a walk around the head to see if he could find a body to go with it.

As he paced around to the rear of the head, Shan saw something that made him suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter. The head indeed had a body. . .but it was no more than 4 feet tall!