Memoirs of Fodder Deep-Mines

I’m old! Yep—I’m older than old according to my boys, Wild-Hair and Ceasil. Me twin boys make me proud, but piss me off at the same time! I would expect no less from a dwarf! We be the highest-ranking members of the Deep-Mines Clan. Dwarves take pride in that sort o’thing.

I miss me wife! The tale of her loss is a different story though. Me boys remind me o’her. In me younger-years,I would'o never saw me-self a storyteller. I was as me boys put it, a ‘Bad-Ass!’ I braved many adventures while me wife raised our boys. After her loss, I had to give up that life and became both, their mudder and fodder. At first it was insulting and me clan pissed me off.

After a while, I learned to ignore them and enjoyed raising me boys. I heard the hurtful jokes that I would be growing tits, or me balls would shrivel up and fall off. I heard the worst thing a dwarf could ever hear as well, “yer beard is going to fall out!” I tell ye what…I damn near killed me some rude dwarves.

Over the years, I learned to ignore the sons-a-bitches. Raising me boys made it worth any name calling. The day I gained a third boy changed all our lives! I was playing with me boys near the river on a nice day, during the spring, or early summer if me memory serves.

We was skipp’n rocks when we first got's a glimpse of something strange. I swear to this day I saw a blasted ghost hovering above the water. Fearful his face was, like that of a worried fodder. It made no sense to anyone but me. We had never seen a ghost out during daylight hours for starters. Second, how in the Nine Hell's can a ghost hold a baby above water? That’s right! There was a baby boy; an infant he was, floating down the river that day. That ghost, I saw it clear as I could see me boys standing next to me. I swears I even heard it talking to the babe. It was difficult to make out everything he was saying, but I heard what had to be a fatherly voice calling the babe, “Bek Thessòne.”

Even if the ghost wasn’t there, something beyond the norm kept that infant above water. It should have drowned long a'fore we saw it. Me boys were still young lads then, but they were wily and strong. I didn’t think that day. I just ran out and jumped into the river’s current and started swimming me arse off to get to that poor babe.

Looking back, it was me fatherly instincts but at the time many said it was me lady hormones taking over. Bah! Today, I’m back to being as gruff as I ever was. Me boys is all growed up now and no one dares say anything rude to me anymore. They knows better. This dwarf would remind them how manly he is by slapping them across the face with me shriveled up, well, you get the point. I don’t want to lose sight of me story. That baby grew into a little boy that got into a ton of mischief. I raised him as me own. The boy was as stubborn as a dwarf, naturally. He took to animals as though he had some innate ability to empathize with them. The kid was even ambi—ambidud—the little shite could use both hands with equal talent! He favored neither his left, nor his right. I saw the tell-tale signs of a ranger in him, or perhaps a druid.

In any case I taught him the skills he would need to survive in the wilds. He was an excellent tracker by the ripe age of twelve. Heh! A twelve-year-old human boy could get into more trouble than a full-growed drunken dwarf, and much, much faster too! Oh, he longed fer stirring the pot. He got's me udder boys into trouble with him any chance he got. I recall me favorite story about him as a lad, as I said, at age twelve. He was off on one of his adventures in the woods, alone. He would find game trails and check fer traps that he felt were not legal.

Basically, I think the boy snuck into the nearest human towns and listened fer local poacher stories, then followed the idiots to sabotage them. That little shite was too smart fer his breeches! He would get caught and once in a while and I’d have to come bail him out of the jailhouse. But this one time, he crossed paths with a dangerous poacher. Jack “the Skinner” Voorhees, his name be. There was rumors that he was not just a poacher. He was said to be involved in kidnapping, slave trading, and even said to be a child murderer.

Bek just happened to start messing with his traps without knowing who he was at first. He was a brave little, human boy. That poacher could not figure out what was happening for at least a week from what I was told. But when he did, it became a game of cat and mouse. The poacher laid a trap fer Bek, and Bek fell right into it. The poacher not only set up several animal traps, he had killed a mudder and its child, well they was unicorns of the woods, and hung them up by their hind legs. Bek found this site and while distracted, did not see the trap that he was falling into.

As the boy o’mine went to cut down the sacred creatures, he was caught in a snare. That murdering son-of-a-bitch had caught me youngest boy. He came stalking in slowly as poor little Bek dangled defenseless, he was. His shoulder-length, brown hair would have looked funny upside-down. His innocent green eyes had to have fear in them as that bastard came in with a knife in hand to cut me boy alive while he hung there by his ankle upside-down. So, the story goes, and don’t you stop reading me memoirs just because you fear for me boy as I did!

This story needs to be heard! “Those poor unicorns,” I can hear me boy say as though I was there with him. “What, you’re not scared?” Jack asked, taunting me boy. I know I wasn’t there but this is me story and I’ll tell it how I wants to! Me boy looked at him, with no fear showing in his eyes as the wicked man came in closer and closer to him.

“No. Dwarves don’t scare easily!” He would have boasted. He spoke like a dwarf, but I broke him of that and had a tutor teach him to speak like his own kind. Jack was very intelligent, but Bek had a mind that even I as a tactician, often envied. That boy had followed and studied Jack for a few days before he even began messing with Jack’s traps. He studied the murderous man’s habits and lifestyle.

Bek had realized that this was more than he could chew on alone. He came to me and said, “Fodder Deep-Mines,” that’s what he called me. He said, “Fodder Deep-Mines, I found a bad man that scares me.

” I looked at that boy and squinted me eyes to study him. I knew better! He had no fear about him, whatsoever. I knew he was up to something. I played along. “Oh,” I gasped. He shook his head up and down as though he was still a child and not a young man.

“Tell me more,” I fell right into his ruse. I saw that little shite fight back a wry grin. “He is not just any poacher. He is a villain that deals in slaves, and though no one can prove it, he has been linked to several child murders all over these parts.” Bek was able to blend truth with a hint of deception where it was difficult to discern what was what. But I knew me boy.

“I guess I’ll look into this Jack,” I said. I saw that little shite turn around slowly and run off, all-the-while fighting back a smile. I admit, I was fighting mines back too. The next part of that shite’s plan was to involve his brudders. He went to the crazy one of the twins first, Wild-Hair. Me twins was in their twenties, but for dwarves that’s like a child still, maybe a young man.

“Wild-Hair, Fodder Deep-Mines is hunting the murderous Jack “the Skinner” Voorhees.” Bek told him. “One O’ me friends was skinned alive by that bastard, but no one could prove it was him,” Wild-Hair would have said. He hated that man! I was not part of the investigation but I believed him and just kept me boys as safe from that murderer as I could. Wild-Hair ran off to tell his brudder, Ceasil who actually adored Bek. Bek just didn’t want to try and trick Ceasil because, of me twins, he was pretty damned smart. Bek could not trick him as easily as Wild-Hair.

Ceasil took after me a bit. I began investigating Jack, while Bek was distracting him with his mischief and the famous murderer made some mistakes, that I was able to pinpoint. We was law-abiding folk so we didn’t take the law into our own hands unless we were in our rights. I had taken the evidence I had found to the local law, but Jack was too smart for them to keep up. This was a chess game between Bek and Jack setting taps for one another.

Jack had setup a series of misdirecting evidence for the local law and they were sent on a wild goose chase. Thankfully, Wild-Hair and Ceasil knew to follow after Bek that day. So, by the time Bek had been caught by Jack and dangled there helpless, me twin boys arrived smacking War-hammer and battleaxe in their open hands as me boys liked to do before a fight. “Yer threatening our little brudder, sir,” Ceasil said to Jack. Jack turned around to see me twin boys standing there. He laughed.

“Looks like I’ll be skinning three of you tonight,” Jack spat. “I knows you skinned me friend those years ago, Jack.” Wild-Hair growled. That shite actually growls like a dog when he’s mad! Jack laughed. Right then and there, before the gods of Athyx and all three of me boys that son-of-a-bitch confessed to it all! I knows because unlike those local boys who were tricked in going the wrong way, I had picked up the real track and was within an earshot of the action when he confessed.

Yep, that’s me story and I’m sticking to it! I heard the battle break out and took off running for the action. Wild-Hair and Ceasil were badly wounded, though they had gotten some good licks in on Jack and he had some of his own blood covering his heavy furs and armor. He stood over me boys while Bek watched helplessly, upside-down.

“Who wants to be skinned first?” Jack asked me boys looking from the twins to Bek. At that point, no law enforced by the gods themselves would have prevented me from doing what I did! I stepped into view at that moment.

“Get yer demonic arse away from me boys!’ I growled. Wild-Hair says the way I spoke made him pee his pants, but I think he was so excited about the fight that he just didn’t take time to piss a'fore he got involved. Ceasil, just nodded at me, but my focus was on the wicked man that threatened me boys within earshot of me.

I could see that little shite dangling upside-down in the corner of me eyes but even though I saws his excitement exposed for his master plan coming to fruition, the red that I saw blurred any anger I would have had for him at the moment. Jack looked me dead in me eyes and dropped his skinning dagger at his feet.

“I’m unarmed,” he taunted. A War-hammer and battleaxe were tossed to either side of him by me two wounded boys from behind him. Jack chuckled when he realized that the dwarves did not care for the laws that seemed to be manipulated in protecting him. He laughed as he knelt to pick up the battleaxe.

“You know how dangerous I am with manipulation. You should see me in battle.” Jack warned. The end! Seriously, I ended him in the blink of an eye right then. I leaped forward and drew out me battleaxe all in one motion and cut his head clean from his shoulders. It hit the ground and rolled over by me twins like a ball, and the excitement on Wild-Hair’s face that shown would have made you think no different. Long story short, we turned Jack’s remains into the local law after me twins cut Bek down. We got home that night and I tanned Bek’s hide something fierce and sent him to bed. That boy took too many unnecessary risks to do what he felt was right. A fodder’s love overrides any law in me book, and that’s the moral to this memoir.