KC Survivor Story - Chapter One

Revised by Stanback (08/4/2000)

On the beach of a small, uncharted island somewhere in the Courrain Ocean, a group of bedraggled, waterlogged kender crawled ashore.

"Ack… I'm so wet and icky," complained Skip Furrfoot "And I'm hungry, too. Hmpf."

"That was quite a crash," commented Bardo Whistleworth "Think we could do it again? It was so exciting!"

"Whose idea was that gnomish Wind Augmentation Device, anyway?" grumbled Willyam Willowbee, who looked like any other kender except for his black eyepatch.

"Well, at least the sun's coming up!" said Skip. "I'll just go over here and set my cloth- ulp!"

The kender all turned to see a giant minotaur. His eyes had a wild look in them, and his coat was shaggy and unkempt. Once the kender got over their initial surprise and delight at this new stranger, they noticed that despite his large size, the minotaur was thin and his ribs were showing. Immediately, the air was filled with the shrill voices of the seven kender introducing themselves. The minotaur growled savagely in reply, leaving the kender with the impression that this minotaur was evidently not very polite. Bardo peered at the minotaur curiously. "Are you really a minotaur? How come you haven't trimmed yourself?"

The minotaur took a wild swing at Bardo, who dodged nimbly aside. The minotaur was about to take another swing when he realized that he no longer had his stick. He glanced up to find it in Bardo's hands. "Hey," said Bardo, "is this thing magical? You know, I had an uncle with a magical stick once. Uncle Tas, he could do all sorts of things with it! All he needed was a magic word. Do you know any magic words?"

The minotaur angrily grabbed the stick back.

"Oh, are you going to show me magic? Please please please?!" Bardo danced around the minotaur, begging for him to do some magic. The half starved minotaur turned around and around, until finally narrowed his eyes and took a swipe at Bardo. Bardo was knocked to the ground.

"Oof," he said. "The really wasn't nice. I don't think it was magic, either. But if he does do any, I want to get a better view." And with that he scrambled into the forest to find a good tree to watch from. The minotaur turned his attention to the remaining kender.

Willyam's eyes darted around in alarm, unable to locate his hoopak. "This is not good," he said to himself. Not giving in to full panic yet, his hand shot to his boot. His one good eye widened as he looked down to discover that his dagger did not sit in its usual hiding place. "This is definitely not good," he grunted, and he began patting and poking his pack and pouches with his numb, water-wrinkled fingers.

Meanwhile, Tolkanin and Violet Tinyfingers, the two females in the group, stepped forward. "Are you all right, mister minotaur?" Tolk asked politely. "You don't look very good. In fact, I think you could use a nice meal. I'll help you catch some fish if you want, I can hit them with pebbles from my hoopak, you know. And then we can have a cookout! I cook fish very well, you'll really like them. It's a simple recipe, really, all you need is—" The minotaur growled again and stepped towards the two, swinging his stick. "Maybe he can't talk," thought Violet. "After all, minotaurs don't look clever enough for all of them to know how. See, he's asking us to teach him how to use a hoopak, like ours."

Being a kind and helpful kender, Violet immediately resolved to help the poor minotaur. She grabbed a piece of driftwood from the sand, and used it to demonstrate the proper way to swing a hoopak. "Now you," she said, graciously.

The minotaur swung wildly at her ­ not at all like she had showed him. Luckily for her, Violet managed to block his stick with her stick, instead of with her head. But the blow broke her stick in half, leaving nothing for her to demonstrate to the minotaur with. Anyway, she had decided that the minotaur was exceedingly rude and also highly inattentive. Not wanting a pupil like that, she turned and ran toward the forest.

Roaring, the minotaur ran after her, but he tripped over a root after ten steps. His face, somewhat redder than before, turned towards Tolk. Tolk gave out a sharp yelp, bolted to the nearest tree, and started climbing. "Minotaurs can't climb," she chanted to herself. "Bears can climb, I think, but cows can't, 'cause they have hooves, so I'm sure minotaurs can't either."

And yet it seems that perhaps minotaurs can climb, or at least this one certainly made the attempt. He was about halfway up when a large, round fruit hit him in the face. Even though Tolk was in the tree, she wasn't quite defenseless.

The minotaur howled and began shaking the tree violently. Unable to keep neither grip nor balance, Tolk fell, stunned out of the tree. The minotaur turned towards her, but was distracted by a call from behind. "Hey, Fatso! What are you doing with that stick? You gonna shove it up your *censored*?" It was Ghostbuster Lillypad.

It may not have been the best of kender taunts, but half crazed as the minotaur was, it was enough to turn his attention from the unconscious Tolk to Ghostbuster. He grunted and growled and charged at him, flailing his stick around.

Eventually the crazed minotaur slowed its advance, then stopped. The idea came to his mind ­ powered by two sluggish brain cells ­ that this kender should do something other than standing around humming. He wasn't sure what the kender should be doing, but whatever it was, it didn't involve humming. And yet that was exactly what Ghostbuster was doing. Ghostbuster kept humming as he pulled his hood off, revealing his hypnotizing plaid hair. The minotaur, fascinated, stood still long enough for Ghostbuster to bop him over the head with his hoopak, in almost perfect coordination with Dinklefink Turtlesnatch, who had reached into one of his pouches and hurled a turtle at the minotaur.

The minotaur howled in pain, partly because of the ishy-squishy jellyfish that was on the turtle. He stepped backwards, ripped the jellyfish off, and caught sight of Skip. Skip felt the air whistling over his head as the minotaurs stick swung over his topknot.

"Hey, watch out with that! You might hurt somebody!" That having been stated, the kender began to backpedal quickly away from the minotaur, his feet making squishy noises since his boots were waterlogged. "If you try that again, I might ­ ack!" Skip ducked another swing, running away from the wild cow.

The minotaur growled, advancing on Skip. Even though the sight of such a meal before him lent the minotaur strength and determination, he still couldn't catch up to the kender and bash him nicely over the head. "There's some wild berries in the woods, I bet! They're probably really tasty, too! Ever had mulberries? Maybe those are in there!" Skip yelled, trying to keep his distance from the minotaur.

"Ooh! Shiny!" Skip exclaimed, pointing to a spot behind the minotaur. "Whazzat?" said the minotaur, finally finding his voice. "I see no-thing dere."

"Um, that's because there isn't anything there!" In a few moments Skip was running down the far side of the beach. When he had gotten far enough from the minotaur, he pulled out his hoopak and a pouch of stone ammunition. "Gahh! Stoopit kender. Me make meal." Deciding that Skip wasn't quite worth it, the minotaur stalked toward the remaining kender, brandishing his improvised club in his meaty hand. "Yous make good dinna'!" Meanwhile, Willyam had managed to find what he had been looking for in his pouches ­ a carved ivory case. "Well," he sighed, "they've always served me faithfully and brought me luck up until now. Hopefully they can get me out of this mess."

The case popped open with a flick of the wrist, and five darts caught the rays of the morning light, twinkling with a black light. Willyam plucked up the first one between two fingers and kissed the feathered end. "Gods speed you to your target this morn!" he cried as he let it fly straight for the minotaur, hoping to gouge out an eye or at least get it jammed up the big cow's nose. He grasped another dart as he yelled at the minotaur. "MOOOOOOOOOOOOO! How much for a gallon of milk, you mangy son of a bull? I've seen better horns on a goat!"

The minotaur may have been about to retort, but if he was, the kender never knew it, because just then one of Skip's stones flew through the air and hit the minotaur right in the face. The minotaur, now in agony, decided that these kender weren't worth the trouble. He ran towards the forest, Skip's stones hailing all around him and often striking home. He paused momentarily to grab Tolk, still dazed, and then he reached the cover of the forest and disappeared.

The remaining kender soon regrouped. All of them were unharmed, but Violet was very concerned for Tolk.

"The minotaur has her! Who knows what he'll do to her?"

"That's all right," said Bardo. "I'm sure they'll be able to… settle their differences and get along just fine.