Part 228: Pozzo: Update 3
Update 3: Kaveman Ekastfikod, Child
Mr. Bob had just finished his odd speech in the silly voice that had made all the growed ups upset, and I was sitting with my friend Deki in the corner of the dining room. All the growed ups were leaving in groups and talking scaredly and angrily and sadly with each ovver. "Wanna go play wif some bones?" Deki asked.
"Nah. I'm sick of bones." I said.
"Well what do you want to play?"
"I dunno."
"Wanna go play in the snow?"
"Daddy says I can't go outside since Miles and Gex got killed."
"Oh." Deki looked around the room.
"Well, what do you want to play?"
"I dunno."
Just then I saw Mr. Bob walking over towards us quite fast. Deki and me watched him as came towards us. He had a big grin on his face. "I say, you ankle-biters look bored, what say you help an old dwarf out?"
"How, Mr. Bob?" asked Deki.
"Well, I need to get a tour of this fort, you see, get an eye for the place, figure out what's what, what! You two look like a game pair! How about you show me around?"
"Well Mr. Bob..." I began but he interrupted.
"Look, tell you what, old sausage, Mr. Bob is a bit formal, I say. How about you call me Pozzo, for short?"
"But Pozzo is longer than Bob!" Deki said
"Oh! Well, that's all right, you can call me Pozzo any- What? What are you talking about?" Mr. Bob had unfocused his eyes and was staring at the wall behind us. "...Well you're just going to have to get used to the fact that there are two of us now, and as such I get naming rights as well. I suggest a compromise. No you don't, shut up. A compromise it is! Like the best of Gentledorfs!" He turned to face us again. "Tell you what boys, how about you call me Bobzzo, instead? Its sort of halfway!" Deki and I looked at each other. I turned and said "Ok Mr. Bobzzo, well we are really bored and so I think we'd be keen to show you around even though you've lived here since before I was born and you mined out the-"
I woke up and Mr Bobzzo was throwing salt on my head. Deki was trying to stop him. "Look, you bloody anklebiter, I'm telling you, salt in the face, it always works! I learnt it from a bally little elf from Idala Irafe in 38, when I joined the legion! Stop it you blighter! Let me work!"
"Are you really that old Mr. Bobzzo?" I asked as I sat up.
"Hah! See, it worked! Every time! Salt has remarkable restorative properties!" he said, clambering up on to his feet again. "Are you?" asked Deki, panting. "Well...ahem. No I'm not that old. Not as such. Tell you what boys, I'll tell you another time, for now, how about that tour?"
For the rest of the day, we walked around the fort showing Mr. Bobzzo the fort. He talked to himself a lot. One time he said "Sweet Ner's everlasting beard! There are a lot of clothes around here. Clothes and bones this place, just clothes and bones, what?!"
Another time he said "By the ass-hair of Litast, there are a lot of shops in this place! There's one shop for every three dwarves!"
Deki turned to him and said "But these are your shops Mr. Bobzzo". His eyes went out of focus again and he started talking to himself again.
"What the devil do you need nine shops for you damn fool, there's no one here to buy anything! Get rid of them!"
Another time he looked at a drawing on the wall of a big angry dwarf biting the leg of a zombie woolly mammoth and said "Gracious, that's me! Hah ha! So Ridi made it out alive! Marvellous, what!" The picture on the wall looked nothing like Mr. Bobzzo, so I don't know what he was talking about.
(Before you ask I am sneaking a reference and pic from my last personal vox-mod fort)
We took him out to the gatehouse last. He looked around silently for a while. "I say boys, do you hear that? What is that noise?" he ran out on to the gate house roof. He was gone for a while. After 10 minutes, Deki said "Should we go and get him?" but right then he bounded down the stairs laughing loudly.
"I say, its strange up there! You know there's a pair of spiders just floating up there? The little blighters seem to be just floating out just a couple of metres from the battlements, just sitting there on their webs. Nothing holding them up at all! Oteshs blood, it's strange. The little fellows seem happy enough though..."
"..You seem to have a frost giant up there, too, and by the look of the stalactites on him I'd says he's been up there a while! The bally fellow just keeps running backwards and forth with a look of abject terror on his face. I think he's trying to escape with his mates, but they appear to have left him here months ago and I don't know if he can fit down the stairs! Jiggered if I know how the bounder got up there in the first place! Suffice to say you chaps ought to keep well out from the gatehouse roof for the time being, what!"
After that we came back to the main hall, over the golden bridges which still had holes in them from the spawn catcher. "This concludes our tour of the fortress Syrupleaf, Mr. Bobbzo."
"Well, thanks a lot boys! This has been a huge help. I tell you what, I might need you boys to help me out again, so you just keep on your toes! Do we have any booze we can give them by way of thanks? Oh! I tell you what, how about you boys each have a shop?" I stared at him for a while and then started to smile at the thought of owning my own shop. "Thank you Mr. Bobzzo I have always wanted a shop and I will certainly make sure that I put it to good use and turn a good prof-"
I woke up and Mr. Bobzzo was standing over me talking to Deki. "Pain from his eye you say! Well I thought he looked a bit under the weather. You know we really ought to get the little blighter sorted out with some sort of eye-patch, really." I sat up. "Ah, thats the spirit, lad. Here, get up and go find me some leather and I'll whip you up a patch. Deki, lad, you go and see if you can rustle me up some moustache wax, stiff upper lip and all that! You two come and see me up by the chasm bridge by the barracks when you're done, I need to start surveying for the site of the first battery"
