Saga 1: Picnic

It began on a warm spring day in the Halfling town of Greybeard, located at the southwestern end of the Forest of Trees, which is the unimaginative, redundant type of name one would expect from a bunch of short, undersized midgets. Gryphon Lehrer, ostensible second-in-command of Anton Burger's Knights of the Merkin, stood guard over the picnic basket and bulging wineskin poised atop the stoop railing at the now-closed door to the house. Inside, Miss Robyn Teatmounds and her father discussed his date with her. Although the sensitivity of dwarven ears is no match to elvish ears, he had no trouble following the conversation since it was being held at full volume by both parties, and anyone who knows half of anything about halflings knows that half the town was therefore privy to that conversation. It seems the good Mister Humper Teatmounds did NOT want his ONLY daughter going to a woodland PICNIC, especially one at NIXIE SPRING GLADE, and MOST especially with a stranger HIS age, given HER age, and especially NOT with a battle-scarred dwarf ARMED to the TEETH!

When he heard that, Gryphon removed the steel combat fangs from his mouth and stowed them in a belt pouch between his axe and his long sword. He probably wouldn't need them anyway since they weren't going to be that close to Snapping Turtle Swamp of Gamera. Just as he wouldn't need his mail shirt which was too heavy to wear over his healing but still-tender wounds and was with the other Knights of the Merkin in the Greybeard Inn.

He smoothed his black beard and mustache and decided to pretend he'd heard nothing when they emerged. He began picking bits of dirt, leaves, and dried blood flakes off his mace and dagger handles and his arrow quiver, dropping them on the spotless white stoop.

The door flew open. Miss Robyn was red with fury, from the top of her brow, where the red of her face made a nice contrast with that of her hair, down to the exposed tops of the creamy-smooth orbs that personified her family name. Those succulent globes were the second thing that drew Gryphon's attention to her at the Greybeard Inn. The first was the way in which she was winning a sausage-eating contest: shoving them whole down her throat. It was love at first sight.

"Time to go," she said, snatching the basket off the railing and storming down the two steps to the pavestone walk leading to the street. When the good Mister Humper Teatmounds blustered into the doorway, thundering like a summer storm in the Beyond Reach, and started to threaten Gryphon, she whirled and said, "Not a WORD to him or I'll tell Mother about you-know-what! I MEAN it!"

The good Mister Humper threw up his hands, turned, and slammed the door from the inside.

In a whirl of long blue skirts that were patterned with tiny multicolored flowers Miss Robyn turned on a pavestone and glared up at the dwarf rooted to the stoop. "WELL?"

The dwarf spread his hands and ducked his head in a shrug. "I'm coming."

Miss Robyn glared at the door and whispered, "Not yet. But you will be." They were almost out of the town before she calmed down and Gryphon decided maybe it wasn't a mistake after all. By the time they reached the Greybeard Inn on the southwestern edge of town she was clinging to his arm and making big, soft, green eyes at him, breathing deeply. Her white linen top was cut so low and drawn so tight across the front of her bounteous bosoms that they threatened to pop out with each inhale. Gryphon offered sincere-at-the-moment promises to several miscellaneous gods that they would, but not before they were out of sight from town.

A low whistle caught his ears. He reluctantly removed his eyes from her bosom and glanced up to find the source. It was the party's thief/magician, Mistress Darra Ravenclaw, violet eyes sparkling in a second-story window of the Inn. She made a "naughty-naughty" sign to him. He reached back as if to scratch his neck and made the Naughty Sign to her. Darra laughed and stepped back, her midnight blue-black, second-skin leather suit disappearing in the gloom of the interior.

"Your father seems upset with our picnic," said Gryphon, returning his ears to Miss Robyn's words and his eyes to what Parquierre, the party's mage, called her "bosomic affectations." She was a cute little thing, and "little" was the primary requirement. The dwarf refused to have anything to do with females larger than he was-not counting, of course, the times Mistress Darra had mercy fucked him, or the time Mistress Jeanette gave him head in order to save him from death at the hands of Gonad the Barbarian. Not that Gryphon considered the latter to be sex, of course.

After "my size or shorter," Gryphon's requirements were "younger than me," which is impossible to determine when comparing dwarves with elves or halflings or humans since they have different lifespans and maturation ages, "reasonably attractive," and he could be very flexible on what was reasonable, and "buxom," again a flexible requirement.

Miss Robyn was four inches shorter and definitely younger than Gryphon, both in actual and in relative-lifespan years, though she was obviously past puberty-at whatever age that was for a halfling maiden. "Attractive" required no flexibility for Miss Robyn. She was round-faced, bright-eyed, apple-cheeked, and pretty as a fox kit. She had a charming, easy-going laugh when she wasn't screaming at her father. And I've already mentioned her bountiful bosomic affectations.

Oh. Uh, yes, I am Parquierre, and no, I wasn't there. But I am the official historian for the Knights of the Merkin. This story has been pieced together from events related to me by the parties involved and by the use of a special Divination spell known only to me. If you are also a mage, I regret that I cannot share it with you.

Miss Robyn sighed heavily and kicked at a small stone as she shifted the picnic basket's handle from her left hand to the crook of the elbow. "He wants that I will marry Rupert Goldthrift, the banker's son, who will own his father's business in a few years" she said in a high, sing-song voice as delicate as butterfly wings. "He talked Rupert into proposing to me."

Gryphon hesitated. He didn't mind a romantic assignation with the halfling's lad's fiancèe, but if he had to kill the fellow in a duel of honor afterward, it might ruin his chances of enjoying Miss Robyn's charms the next time he visited this town. "And what did you say."

Miss Robyn glared ahead, the color returning to her cheeks, neck, and ample mammic charms in a rush of anger. "I was cross-stitching in our parlor one afternoon when Rupert called. Father ushered him in and closed the door on his way out. Rupert dropped to one knee in front of me. I told him that I was wearing hard, pointed-toe shoes under my long dress and that if he asked what I thought he was about to ask, I'd take one kick and ruin my father's desire for grandchildren. He was so flustered that he forgot we Halflings don't wear shoes, but he did see the wisdom in my position and remembered something he'd left unfinished at the bank."

Gryphon laughed, quenching the fire of anger in Miss Robyn's face. She smiled at the dwarf and held up her right hand with her thumb and index fingertips a couple of inches apart. "This is all that nixie-dick has when he's ready for action," she said with a demure giggle. "I'd probably have to kick twice to find it."

They had reached the fork in the road just beyond the edge of town. Miss Robyn slid her arm under the unstrung bow slung across Gryphon's back, around his side and waist, and pulled, guiding him to the left fork, which was the winding path he'd intended to take. He said nothing, not even a scream when pain stabbed through the knitting rib, because he didn't want to give Miss Robyn an excuse to move away. Gryphon already knew that the right fork led to nothing as idyllic sounding as Nixie Spring Glade. It was the way by which we had entered the town, having carved our way through rogue bands of marauding gnolls as we crossed Snapping Turtle Swamp of Gamera.

"So tell me about this Nixie Spring Glade," Gryphon said.

"Nixie Spring Glade? Oh, it's a nice place. Many couples go there." She placed light emphasis on couples and batted her lovely eyes at the armed dwarf, causing him to begin the assemblage of a different weapon inside his breeks. "It's a magic place around The Fount of Love. Nixies gathered there for celebrations hundreds of years before we halflings moved into the area. They left after losing the War of Harmonic Succession, whatever that was." She sighed and shook her head. "There's always some war or another going on all the time out here, and I don't see how anyone can keep track of them."

Gryphon's eyes brightened. "The Fount of Love? What's that?"

Miss Robyn glanced over her shoulder. The trees now screened them from the town. She smiled, and a thrill fluttered down through her body and settled in the moist, overheated juncture of her thighs. She inhaled as deeply as she could, and her top slid down over the forward slope of those high, firm extrusions of feminine delight.

And caught on her erect nipples. She glanced down. A faint sound from back of her throat was venting frustration. Her head rose, but the dwarf's didn't. The tip of his tongue was barely protruding from the corner of his mouth. A faint sound from the back of his throat was less frustration and more longing. A second faint sound from the back of her throat was less frustration and more triumph.

"The Fount of Love is a rejuvenating fountain. It gets rid of those nasty old tired feelings and invigorates you with fresh strength and endurance so that you can continue anything you were doing," she said, her sing-song voice putting slight emphasis on anything while the arm around his waist slipped and her hand slowly fingercrawled down his belly. "It works so quickly and is so powerful that just one sip is enough to keep you going for two or three hours, and after that, all you need is another sip!"

Gryphon's throat allowed another fugitive moan of longing to escape. Miss Robyn's hand continued its slow descent, and her fingers began a walking motion, as if they were pulling her palm down his belly in its slow slide. Another moan of longing, this almost a whimper.

The halfling maiden giggled and continued. "In the long ago, before the elves left the Short Coast, someone carved an enchanted statue of a dryad from a massive block of stone and placed it over the small spring that bubbled up from the ground. It's a actually just a common spring. The water is enchanted by the statue. The water loses its effect as soon as it touches the ground, so you have to catch it in the air. And the statue's magic also creates a grassy circle with no trees for about twenty paces around it."

The dwarf's eyes remained locked on the two dark-pink half-moons rising above the horizon of her top. "Uh-a dryad? And-and it keeps the trees back?"

"Yes," she said, inhaling deeply, but again with no success. "Old Master Fundus-he's Greybeard's resident loremaster and sage-thinks it was intended as either a cruel joke or an insult to the dryads. But the trees are much thicker than this around the edge of the circle." She waved a hand to indicate the trees crowded along the meandering path, but Gryphon's eyes didn't move from the top still held in place by her erect nipples. "They form sancta-well, a sanctum is sort of like a private tavern booth. Two couples," again spoken with a slight emphasis, "can be in sancta ten feet apart and not know anyone else is around."

"And-uh..."

His question went unasked. Miss Robyn yelped and jumped aside, yanking back her arm in a manner that caused the bow to strike him sharply in the back of his skull. Well, Mistress Darra had warned him to wear his helmet, but he thought she'd meant the one for his other head.

"GODDAMNIT!" she screamed, looking at the trickle of blood oozing from her wrist. "Don't you have a sheath or something for that fucking thing?"

Startled, Gryphon looked down at his weapons belt. A hint of red coated a small part of the upper forward edge of his axe. Lucille, which was the name of the axe, had come with a blade guard, but he'd never used it because he didn't want to be slowed down in combat. Plus he thought it wouldn't be appropriate to restrain her. In combat he and Lucille, a gift from the Beebe King, made beautiful music together and the guard would be as a mute to her voice. But for a piece of tasty halfling maiden and the wineskin she carried, Gryphon was willing to strike Lucille dumb.

"Uh, yes. I do. Just a moment. Uh, would you like me to bandage that for you?"

As he wrestled the obstinate leather guard into place, Miss Robyn calmed down and assessed her situation. It was barely a scratch but was still oozing. "Mould your adversities into opportunities" was a halfling proverb she understood. She unhooked the edge of her top from her nipples and let the cloth pull back along the underside of her firm, outthrust opalescent orbs until it was against her ribcage. She held her injured wrist in front of those delightful delicacies and said in her sweet sing-song, "Yes, please. If you don't mind."

The dwarf wasn't looking. The blade guard landed at his feet and the axe blade rose above his shoulder. Without looking back he signalled with his left hand for her to stay as he crept slowly forward, his eyes scanning back and forth along the trees to their right before vanishing into them.

Miss Robyn gawked in wide-eyed frustration. Never before had she been left her standing in the middle of the trail with her hot, milky-smooth orbs cooling in the breeze. Frustration began to turn to anger when the dwarf finally reappeared as silently as an arriving ghost backing out of the trees. He picked up the blade guard and turned to say something but was struck silent by the hot, pink cones pointed at him.

Gryphon swallowed three times before he could say, "Uh-I thought I heard leather armor creaking and metal clanking the-uh-way it does on gnolls. Uh-I'll bandage your wrist now."