[Kuruharan]

Horrified by the advances the plot had made of recent days, Kuruharan decided that he had to do something fatuous and completely irrelevant (if that was at all possible). Thankfully, the excursion to the Seventh Age had given him a business idea that he hoped that the locals had not come up with yet. He casually strolled up to the bar and pulled something out of his robes.

“What’s that you’re holding in your hand?” asked the bartender.

“A bottle,” replied Kuruharan.

“A bottle!” cried the publican, “Brilliant!!!! What’s it do?”

“Why,” said Kuruharan, “you take the bottle, fill it with your local house specialty and then you drink it!”

“Drink beer from a bottle?!” shouted the barkeep, “Brilliant!!!” He polished off the bottle. “Explain it to me again!”

“Well,” said Kuruharan (even more enthusiastically), “I take this ‘umble glass bottle, fill it with the resident frothy brew (*sniff*sniff* quite potent I must say, what is it made of?), then you take it outside, go down to the glen (or since this is the Mire, the fen), and there you drink it!”

“Drink beer at a picnic!!!” bawled the publican, “Brilliant!!!! What else you got?!”

“Not only have I created a better way to store your brew, I’ve created a better way to carry the better way to store your brew!” enthused Kuruharan.

“Wot’s that?” demanded the bartender.

“This,” said Kuruharan, as he set a particularly cheap cardboard box holding six bottles inside. “Behold! The six-pack!!”

“A six-pack,” howled the barkeep, “Brilliant!!!! Wot’s it do?”

“It is a way to carry six beers at the same time,” said Kuruharan.

“Carry six beers at the same time,” interjected Daddy Twobellies and Dodo Muddifoot at the same time. “Brilliant!!!” they yelled. “Jinx, you owe me a six-pack!!!” they screamed at each other in unision. “One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten!!! Jinx, you owe me a six-pack!!!” they simultaneously screeched in full throat.

Thirty minutes and sixty six-packs between the two of them later, Daddy and Dodo managed to frustrate the final resolution of their jinxes by passing out simultaneously.

“Yes, I think that qualifies as being pretty fatuous,” announced Kuruharan, jingling is earnings. “Anyway, where was I?”

“According to the script of the commercial, I was about to suggest that I drink all six beers at the same time,” said the barkeep after a moment’s thought.

“Good idea,” said Kuruharan. “Here, have a little swig of this to chase it down with,” the dwarf said handing over a bottle. “This is on me,” came words that he had never uttered before.

As something slipped in the very fabric of the cosmos, the bartender polished off the six-pack and a bottle of Snakeoil.

“wheeze…thasss…*cough*…good,” moaned the publican, when he could breathe again.

“Isn’t it,” said Kuruharan dryly. “By the way, I’ve also invented another wonderful device.”

“Do…tell…” gasped the bartender in a ghost of a voice.

“It is called a bag,” said Kuruharan. “You put things in it and can then carry them with ease.”

“Howsh it work?” inquired the bleary barhobbit.

“I’ll show you,” said Kuruharan, sticking his hand into the till and pulling up a fistful of coin and dropping it in the bag.

“Ohh…” mumbled the bartender. “Brilliant!!!”

“I think so,” said Kuruharan, pulling the till up onto the bar so that he could empty it more easily.

After a moment’s awkward pause the bartender spoke again. “Mighty *hic* strange happenings in the Mire of late,” he said as his head fell on the bar.

“So I heard,” said Kuruharan, industriously scooping money into his bag.

“All sorts of animals have been sprouting wings, accordin’ to some,” droned the publican, as his jaw dropped out of sight. “I just saw a pink, winged oliphaunt myself! Some have even said that they have seen a dragon.”

“Dragon’s are mythical,” replied the dwarf, tossing plugs out of the till.

“Then there are the wonderboxes,” whispered the bartender, as his forehead sank below the bar. “Sparky brought them. You press a button and colorful pictures appear in stupefying patterns. It is most soporific. It can even show pictures of those horses and oliphaunts that fly.” Only the barkeep’s hands remained on the bar.

“The next thing you’ll know you’ll be saying that Balfrogs have wings!” said Kuruharan as he swept the remainder of the till into his bag.

The bartender succumbed to the inevitable and plopped down on the floor.

Kuruharan succumbed to the inevitable and prepared for the usual hasty and unlawful exit.