Lenny Swears in March 2013

(Note: Lenny Swears ran on twitter from January to August 2013. I took some time off of the project as I finished Mother of the Moonrat and I realized that as much fun as I was having with it, Lenny didn’t have enough followers to keep it up. Twitter is a challenging format to use and I wouldn’t mind starting it back up in the future, but for now I have put it on the backburner. Leave a comment below if you would like Lenny Swears to return. If he gets enough followers on Twitter I just might do it. THC)

A sampling of statements from the diary of Lenui Firegobbler: Master Weaponsmith, Campside Cooky, Swinger of Hammers, Connoisseur of Curses,  and lover of fine muscular women.

 

March continues the story of Lenny’s problem with curses.

3/1

His name was Dougless. He weren’t the smartest, but he was handy with a bow. Now he was less one durn finger. That’s a joke.

He just had his finger bone hangin’ out all gross-like and the healer had to come over and magic the dag-gum bone off. Disgustin’.

I told everybody to get the hell away from the dagger ‘till we knew what we was messin’ with. Then I looked at the dag-burned letters.

The lady’d been a gall-durn messenger. The dagger was ‘posed to be delivered to some wizard in Razbeck. Dag-blamed thing was cursed.

3/2

The boys wanted to take the cursed thing and bring it back to the dag-blamed wizard. They was like, “Lenui yer a dwarf. Carry it.”

First of all, the dag-gum thing was stuck to a dead girl. Second of all, hell no I ain’t carryin’ a dagger that makes yer fingers fall off.

They was like, “Lenui, you don’t get hurt by magic.” I said, “Still get hurt. Just not as much as you horn-chewin’ tackle-swappers.”

I told ‘em we should just forget the blasted dagger and cut up the dragon to sell fer parts. Wizards’re always lookin’ fer dragon guts.

3/3

I should’a shut up. Next thing I know, they wanted to cut up the dragon AND take the dag-burned cursed dagger with us.

3/4

We tried, but never could get the lady to let go of the dag-blamed dagger, so one of the boys done chopped her hand off.

Then they wanted me to carry the durn thing in my pack. I didn’t want to carry no dead lady hand holdin’ a cursed dagger in my pack!

Took us a whole friggin’ day to harvest all the wizardy parts from the dragon. When I woke up in the mornin’ the hand was in my pack.

I near killed ‘em fer doin’ that. They said it was Gundy, but he was havin’ a hard time even walkin’ with half an arse.

3/5

I had no dag-gum choice but to carry the durn thing, but I sure as hell made sure the other boys carried the dragon parts.

Well we headed to the dag-burned wizard’s keep. It weren’t the biggest I’ve seen, but the walls were high’n he had some guards.

The wizard’s guards were two half-orcs. Big ugly boogers. Now I usually feel bad fer half-orcs but these-uns were friggin’ dumb.

They started a yellin’ at us, sayin’, “Go away! Wizard Blatche don’t want no visitors!” I was like, “Calm down, son! We got business to do.”

3/6

My back was a-itchin’ it’d been itchin’ fer days, dag-nab it, and I knew it were that blasted dagger’s fault.

Them half-orc’s said Blatche didn’t like doin’ business. Course we wasn’t ‘bout to turn ‘round. I pulled the dag-gum lady hand out my pack.

They was like, “Gross!” I said, “Yer dag-gum right! I got this cursed dagger and a letter says its fer Blatche, so open the damn gate!”

The biggest one said, “Lemme see that,” and reached fer the blasted letter. Now I wasn’t sure he’cd read but I handed it over.

He dun looked at it I swear fer like an hour soundin’ out the words. Then he says. “Naw, that ain’t the right friggin’ dagger.”

3/7

The guard’s like. “That don’t look cursed.” And I says, “Whaddya mean, you gall-durn turd sampler! It’s got a dead lady hand stuck to it!”

The guard wants us to hand the dagger over so he’cn have a look-see. Gundy’s like “No way.” But the guard won’t blasted budge.

I said, “I’ll let you look at it, but if’n you try somethin’ I’ll shove this hammer so far up yer arse it’ll knock yer dag-burned teeth out!”

The half-orc grabs the thing like a friggin’ idjit and pokes himself in the hand. We was like, aww hell. Sure ‘nough it started a swellin’.

3/8

The guard was howlin’ and jumpin around, sayin’, “My hand! My hand!” I was like, “Get yer dag-gum wizard over here, stupid!”

His hand swoll up all huge’n the skin started to split. They started a yellin’ fer Wizard Blatche. But it was too dag-burned late.

The dag-gum thing slid off the end of his arm and hit the ground with a squishin’ noise then lay there quiverin’ like a butchered sow.

The guard screamed, starin’ at the hand bones stickin’ out his wrist stump. Then the wizard throws the gate open and he looks pissed.

3/9

The wizard’s hair was all stuck up in the air and he was wearin’ his night clothes. “What’re you two screamin’ ‘bout!”

While the guards was yellin’, I picked up the dagger by the lady hand’n I said, “Wizard Blatche, we brought yer dag-gum cursed dagger.”

3/10

The wizard’s face perked right up and he’s all business. I told him what happened with the dragon and all and he’s durn near slobberin’.

The orc guard was a cyin’ and a bleedin’ and since the dag-gum wizard weren’t carin’ about helpin’ him I sent our healer to fix him up.

Now Blatche was dag-gum crafty but I could tell by the way he stared at the cursed dagger that he wasn’t the sort to mess with.

What I mean by that is that if he weren’t a dark wizard, he was at least one that played with the magic most wizards stayed away from.

I didn’t like it. The whole thing tasted like turd soup. I was all fer sellin’ the stuff and skedaddlin’.

3/11

So Blatche invites us all in and I get right to hagglin’. He don’t want to pay the dag-gum original price fer the dagger.

Blatche says we ain’t the folks he made the deal with, so I say, “The price just went up, dag-blast it!” Don’t try’n burn a Firegobbler.

3/12

So the wizard pisses and moans about his guard’s hand and how some the of dragon parts’re a little squished, but I ain’t budgin’.

Gundy gets worried that the wizard’s gonna back out, and I’m like “Yer gonna be Gundy No-Arse, if’n you don’t butt out!”

I was right of course. Blatche wanted the stuff gall-durn bad. Finally it came down to one stickin’ point. He wanted my help with the dagger.

Blatche says he needs a dwarf to help him make the dagger safe to use. Well, I don’t like the dag-blamed sound of that.

He wants me to carry the cursed thing around while he does his magic on it. I’m ready to back out right there but the boys beg me not to.

3/13

After all that hagglin’ the blasted wizard says he’ll throw in another ten gold if I help him. Well now the boys ain’t shuttin’ up.

So I says, “Look, Blatche, its a deal on two conditions. One, I ain’t gettin’ poked by the dagger at any damn point in this.”

“Condition two, at no point are you gettin’ nekkid with me around.” Dark wizards like doin’ magic in the nude. Gives me the dag-gum jeebies.

Blatche acted a little disappointed at that last bit, but he agreed. “Now cut that woman’s hand off the dagger and let’s get started.” he says.

3/14

I says, “Listen, son. We done tried. That lady hand ain’t comin’ off, dag-nab it!” He’s like, “I seen it before. Cut the knuckles.”

Now I’m as much a warrior as any dwarf. I done seen blood’n guts’n brains’n turds fallin’ out a gapin’ wound, but this is too much.

There’s somethin’ wrong ‘bout cuttin’ the lady’s hand off the dagger at the knuckles, whether she’s dead or not. I said, “Gundy!”

Now this parts gall-durn gross and I feel bad even writin’ it down. Any kid I get that reads this might be barfin’ up his shoes.

3/15

So Gundy comes over and I make him do it. He gets out his sharpest knife and starts sawin’ away at the gall-durn knuckles.

He’cn only cut ‘bout half way through. Blatche is tappin’ his foot, and the friggin’ idjit Gundy keeps tryin’. Finally he gets through.

The finger’s still stuck to the grip. He keeps a-cuttin’ and things start stinkin’. I says, “Hurry it up, Half Arse, confound-it! We’re waitin’!”

So Gundy stars a-hackin’ away at the hand and I’m afraid he’s gonna get poked by the dagger. I says, “Careful, ya dag-blamed idjit!”

3/16

Gundy starts sawin’ the gall-durn hand off pieces at a time. All of us were perty friggin’ green-faced by the time he was done.

Gundy weren’t able to get it all off. There was still lady skin stuck to the dag-gum dagger grip. Blatche said that was good enough.

I wasn’t ‘bout to carry it like that. Smelled like Chugk’s feet after a long march. Well, that is if’n he stuffed his shoes with rotten eggs.

Anyways, I thunk it was grosser than road-apple pie, but I done wrapped a rag around the pommel and followed Blatche into his wizard keep.

3/17

The place was perty dag-burned nice on the inside, downright invitin’ with thick rugs’n tapestries’n glowin’ orbs lightin’ the place.

That was the wizard’s visitor area, the place he invited any visitors from the Mage School into. What I’m sayin’ is it was a dag-gum lie.

He brought me through this secret door into some stair’s leadin’ down. It stank. The basement’s always the worst durn place with wizards.

If’n the Mage School really wants to find out if a wizard’s gone bad, it ain’t that friggin’ hard. Just ask to see the blasted basement.

3/18

As we was headin’ down the stairs, my dag-gum hand started hurtin’. Looked down and my hand’s gettin’ all puffy.

I grabbed the wizard by his dag-blamed neck and said. “My hand’s swellin’, you horn-sniffin’ turtle-eatin’ frog-chewer!

He uses some spell that knocks my hand from his neck and says, “Just switch hands then. You’ll be fine if you don’t get poked.”

“Alright,” I says. “But if I lose a hand over this, I’m shovin’ this here pointy end right up yer stinkin’ arse!” Blatche just rolled his eyes.

3/19

I switched the dagger to my other hand and he was right. The gal-durn swellin’ started goin’ down so we kept on down the stairs.

The further down we went, the worse I felt about the whole blasted thing. The swellin’ started comin’ faster. I had to keep switchin’ hands.

“The hell’s goin’ on here, Blatche?” I said. “It’s gettin’ worse!” He says, “That’s ‘cause we’re gettin’ close to my spell breaker.”

3/20

The stairs opened up into a dag-gum chamber full of junk. Tons of gadgets and whatsits sittin’ around gainin’ rust. And he had a dog.

3/21

The place stank of magic gone bad. My Dwarf instincts was yellin’ at me that this weren’t a place to be but the durn dog was kinda sweet.

Blatche called the dog Candle and I ‘pose that was ‘cause it glowed in the dark. She was fluffy and pantin’. Dag-gum out of place.

I went to put the dagger on a table, itchin’ to get the blasted thing out of my hands. Blatche says I gotta keep holdin’ it!

“Hold it yerself, you con-founded dirt-licker!” I said. But he says, “It’s the only way this curse’ll be broken. A dwarf’s gotta hold it.”

Too much coincidence, I was thinkin’. He’s lyin’! What was he gonna do if the lady done showed up with it? She wasn’t a dag-burned dwarf.

3/22

“So whatchoo want with this cursed dagger anyways?” I asked him. He says, “I’m a collector of curses, you might say.” I was like “Aw hell!”

Blatche points around at all the dag-gum junk. “All the items in this room were once cursed. I remove the curses and store them elsewhere.”

So he was a curse thief. I didn’t know what he was doin’ with ‘em when he was done. My hands hurt and I just wanted outta there.

He says the dog’s curse was the only one he couldn’t break. I said, “How ‘Bout I hold the dog then and you do the blasted dagger later?”

3/23

Blatche took me through a damp corridor to a room glowin’ with green light. Felt sick to my durn stomach soon as I walked in.

There was a long table covered in potions and doohickeys of whatever kind along one side and in the center was a big damn green orb.

The orb just sorta floated in the room, weird mists and chunks of stuff all a swirlin’ ‘round inside it like a goblin’s privy in the wintertime.

“This is my depository of curses,” Blatche said. So I says, “What the hell does anyone need a depository of curses fer?”

3/24

Blatche smiles at me. “Why to kill a beast of legend, of course.” I noticed Candle’s just sorta cowerin’ in the corridor behind me.

“Which one?” I asked. There’s ten beasts of legend in the world and none of ‘em are fun to mess with. Ain’t no blasted reason to in my opinion.

“The worst one of all, dwarf,” says Blatche. “A kholoth. There’s one that leads a tribe of kobolds in a cave to the south of here.”

“Son of a pig!” I swore. Kobolds are the ancient enemies of dwarfs. They was made fer the sole purpose of fightin’ us. They’re dag-gum tough.

3/25

Even worse, a kholoth is a kobold king that grew so tough, you cain’t even break its skin and its bones’re harder’n friggin’ steel!

I hated even knowin’ I was that close to one of them things. I like beatin’ up on kobolds as much as the next dwarf, but damn.

“Well, I hope you kill the blasted thing,” I said. “Now what? My hands’re achin’!” He says, “Put the dagger in the orb.”

“The orb full of curses?” I asked, lookin’ at that thing swirlin’ with bad magic. “I ain’t stickin’ my hand inside that thing.”

3/26

“This curse is the last one I need,” Blatche says. “And it won’t work without yer help. Think about it, Lenui. You can help kill a kholoth.”

He was perty convincin’. A kholoth was somethin’ worth killin’ and if anythin’ was gonna kill one, it’d be this dag-burned thing.

I walked up to it. “And why do I gotta stick my dag-blamed hand in there again? Why not just toss it in or use some tongs or somethin?”

“It has to be placed inside by a living hand and as a dwarf, you are the only one that can do it safely.” Sounded wrong but I almost did it.

3/27

Then I thunk why would the curse kill a garl-friggin’ Koloth, the toughest, hardest, most hard to kill thing in the lands but not me?

3/28

I stopped. My hand just inches from the glowin’ orb. “Why’are you tryin’ to get me to kill myself, you hoop-skirtin nose-farmer?”

“It ain’t ‘bout killin’ you. It’s to kill the kholoth!” he says. “Cow turds!” I said. “Kholoth or not, I stick my hand in there, I’m dead!”

Blatche got all red in the face and I could tell he was dag-gum pissed. I was pissed off too! Then he starts wavin’ his arms around.

Now momma didn’t raise me, but my daddy didn’t raise an idjit. I knew when a wizard was castin’ a spell. And it weren’t good fer me.

3/29

When a dag-gum wizard starts castin’ a spell at you, the best thing to do is kill ‘em right away.

3/30

So I threw the dag-blamed knife. Now I ain’t a good thrower. It ain’t my specialty. But at two hunnerd years old I’d thrown stuff before.

Used to get in road apple fights as a kid. Used to throw knives at dag-gum fence posts on the range, hammers at cats. I’d thrown stuff, okay?

So Blatche’s eyes get all wide’n he tries to dodge, but wizards ain’t good dodgers. It stuck him right in the blasted gut.

He looks at me. “Fool!” he says. That’s one of them dark wizards’ favorite words, ‘fool.’ Then he pulls the knife out’n shoves it in the orb.

3/31

Blatche’s belly started swellin’ up like a bloated dog on the side of the gall-durn road. Then he opens his mouth and belches.

This green cloud floats at me and I tried to get away, but it was too damn late. It settled over me like cobwebs.

The green orb in the middle of the room started shrinkin’ and shrinkin’ ‘till it disappeared into the blasted dagger makin’ the blade green.

“Kill the Kholoth,” Blatche said. “Or my death curse falls on you.” Then his whole garl-frigin’ body just ‘sploded all over the place.