Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

A few days prior to Peter and Company leaving for Kinshasa

The cats were stalking about again. They did that whenever Bran cleaned the kitchens. And Bran was cleaning the kitchens a lot recently.

She willingly expended the energy to keep them away. A simple charge with her horn and some angry screaming did the trick. While they were useful for dealing with those awful rats, they also stunk, and tended to pee on everything. Her servants didn’t appreciate that.

They were also quite stupid. Penelope wasn’t quite sure why, but most other four-legged people were quite a bit dumber than her. Especially the other goats, who only ever seemed interested in food and procreation. At least the cats had a proper attitude.

She had better things to do, like keep watch over her home, and taste test beer.

Kitchen cleaning also meant more snacks for her, of course. She did so like snacks. Especially since Bran had taken over the kitchen. Annie, bless her heart, just wasn’t quite up to snuff.

Penelope the Five-Hundred-and-Fourth, most recent of her name, examined the bowl of goat food before her. It was… also not quite up to snuff. It mostly looked like simple grains and greens. Her bowl had been a bit empty recently, and her beloved beer was difficult to come by. That traitorous Richter had been encouraging a healthy diet.

She was a goat!! A round belly was fetching!

A problem for later. Perhaps she could corner him at some point and have a chat.

“Cor I did, gov’na. Whatcha gonna do about it?” She bleated in reply. She’d found them quite tasty, with the added flavour of constant use. Fine wool with thick leather; much better than Johnsson’s horrid metal-armoured things. That dwarf was right collar and puff, he was.

She and Peter glared at each other for another full minute, until Richter passed by. “Peter, are ya makin’ da love-eyes wit’ Penelope?”

Peter spun around and shook his fist. “That joke’s gettin’ old! She ate my socks! MY SOCKS!”

“Ooooh, lover’s tiff?” Aqua joined in.

Peter groaned and slumped down onto his hindquarters.

Penelope walked over and laid a hoof on his knee. “Keep it up, cove,” she maah’ed. “Don’t be such a whiny wanker.”

“Aww thanks, Penelope.” Peter scratched behind her ears where she really liked it, and her hoof beat involuntarily. “I forgive you, but only because you’re so cute.”

She permitted the indignity only because the one known as Peter was in her good graces at the moment. And because she was indeed “so cute!” With her shining white fur and perfectly straight horn, she was the envy of all the other unigoats.

She allowed the scratches to continue for a short while, then smacked Peter with her horn until he stopped. He paid her the appropriate amount of obsequiousness, then retreated.

Penelope surveyed her space, then returned to staring at the odd thing in the corner of her vision. It’d appeared during the sandy hooves incident after she’d been so horrifically assaulted by that jerk. It was a blue box covered in a bunch of strange squiggles, and when she looked at them, they seemed to speak within her mind.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Blessing Granted: [Yearn]!

This is a test of the new System. Test. Test. Test.

Barck thinks this little project of his is clever, but he’s in for a surprise.

If you accept, you’ll [get] more [beer]!

If you accept Yearn’s Blessing you will receive [Nothingness] and [Sense Emotions]

Do you accept?

Yes/No

The strange blue box promised her beer, and that was all she needed. She mentally accepted.

Power flowed into her, and she felt more… solid than she had a moment before. Like a part of her that wasn’t quite complete had slotted into place. The fog that had lain over her thoughts lifted, and clarity remained.

She experimented with her new Abilities for a while. They were quite helpful when it came to begging and sneaking food. She knew just when people had reached their limit and could duck out of their awareness even more easily than before.

Yes, this would do marvelously.

And perhaps she could now go deal with her… problem.

—

Jack stumbled drunkenly down the alley.

How dare they do this to him! Just throw him aside like this, after he’d sworn himself to their cause! It was untenable!

He was done with this horrid city and its horrid dwarves and foul-mouthed goats.

He tripped over a blue bin laying in the alley. It clinked and there was the sound of breaking glass. Beer bottles! Just another crazy invention out of Madhouse Minnova.

Jack stumbled back to his feet and tossed his own now-empty drink into the blue box. While he still preferred a tankard to these awful things, his momma didn’t raise no litterbugs.

There was a quiet bleat on the edge of his perception, and Jack spun around to look. It’d sounded like that spiteful Penelope. May her name be cursed by the Lord of Goats.

But there was nothing in the alley but the usual clowder of cats and some comatose drunks.

He hated the cats almost as much as Penelope. The things she’d said to him at that disastrous interview! If she’d been a dwarf, he would’ve declared a Feud right there and then! He didn’t know what they’d done to her, but no goat spoke like that. She was the most unnatural thing he’d seen since coming to Minnova and that was saying something.

He’d tried to enter several other breweries after leaving the Thirsty Goat, but they’d all turned him down. At least, that was until Icewhite had decided to hire him on as a goat handler. It wasn’t the glamorous brewing job he’d wanted, but a few hundred years of hard work and perhaps they would come to trust him enough in the brewroom.

Then had come the news of the contest, and the rules for it. He’d been struck by a terrible, marvelous idea. He’d pitched it to Icewhite, and she’d agreed. Maniacally agreed.

And so, on the day of the contest, he’d carried a musk that he knew drove goats wild. When Penelope entered, he’d doused himself with it, and then waited to watch the show.

A show that had consisted of a goat saying horrible things about his mother, demeaning his intellect, and then shitting in his general direction.

And then Icewhite had a change of heart and tossed him out of her brewery!

No “thank you!” No NOTHING!

Yes, he was done. He would go back home and admit to his family that he was wrong. He would live the life of a humble, but respectable, [Goatboy].

He reached the end of the alleyway and prepared to head down Main Street and out of town.

That was the exact moment a shape appeared from nowhere in front of him.

He stared at the white unigoat, stupefied. Where had she come from? He had a bonus to spotting goats and he hadn’t seen her... Wait, she looked like–!

Penelope the Five-Hundred-and-Fourth lowered her head. “Eat a prick, ya smarmy git!” she bleated.

Everything went white. Then black.

—

“Has anyone seen Penelope?” Peter asked from the brewroom floor.

“Aye, she’s napping in yer office,” Johnsson said.

“She looks right proud of herself,” Aqua noted. “And she has her bowl. Did someone give her some beer?”

There was a general chorus of “no,” and Aqua frowned. “That fuzzbutt! I’ll go hide it again.”

“Eh, just leave it fer now,” Peter said. “She’s probably stressed from all the movin’. There’ll be plenty of opportunities to diet when we get ta Kinshasa.”

Richter nodded. “Aye. Leave da princess alone.”

Aqua frowned. “You pushed this diet in the first place, Richter. I just don’t want her getting used to misbehaving.”

Pete shrugged. “She’s just a silly goat. How much trouble could she get into?”

In the office, Penelope snuggled into the small pile of socks she’d snuck off with and sipped some Liquid Gold from her bowl. What a glorious day.

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