A Long Piece of Fiction- Chapter 1: The Three Inebriates

A Long Piece of Fiction

Chapter 1: The Three Inebriates

        The fire was dying down by the time the three men had decided that the piece of parchment they had found was in fact a treasure map. It had only taken them three pints of onion wine each to reach this conclusion and they were all proud of that fact. Marg, the tallest of the three men, looked around their campsite cautiously before letting out a large belch. "I say we follow it tomorrow. Until then, I should be the one to hold on to it," Marg proclaimed waving his hand in the air as if he was punctuating what he was saying, however he just looked as if he was trying to seduce the other two men.

        Borf let out a cough, spraying wine into the fire and reigniting some embers. Struggling to get up from the pile of damp leaves he was sitting in, Borf decided it was best if he just yelled from where he was. After all, he was a man who on his best days was described as a human pumpkin and on one particular day was described by one of his past sexual conquests as tall, dark, and only slightly asymmetrical; standing up was not an option after three pints of onion wine. "WHY ARE YOU THE ONE WHO GETS TO HOLD ON TO IT," Borf yelled trying to compensate for the state he was in.

        "Woah," was all Trespen could say before he fell back to sleep. Onion wine was especially strong with hafllings. Trespen was half halfling which was sometimes mistaken for quarterling, but that is a completely different thing.

        "Well why should you get to hold it?" Marg retorted.

        This had puzzled Borf for sometime, long enough for both men to finish yet another pint of onion wine and Marg to add some wood to the fire."I did ask you first," Borf grumbled.

        "Yeah but... ok I guess you have point there," Marg said pausing to formulate an argument before exclaiming, "I'm least likely to lose it before the morning! You lose everything. Last week we spent a fortnight looking for your sword before you realized you left it in your other pack." Marg stood up but it felt like all the wine had just rushed to his head. He began swaying towards the fire before catching himself. "Come on Marg, what are you a quarterling or something? You got this dude." He would have continued to give himself a pep talk but Borf threw an empty onion wine bottle past his head. It shattered against a tree or maybe it was a rock. Everyone had been drinking a lot of onion wine.

        "I found the map in the first place!" Borf roared.

        "No you didn't it was Trespen!"

        "I totally helped. If I didn't break that log he wouldn't have found it."

        "You mean sat on the log and crushed it," Trespen chimed in, only partially conscious.

        Marg began to laugh until Borf took another empty bottle of onion wine and smashed it against Trespen's head. Trespen did not move, but he had not been moving anyway so no one was sure if he was dead, not even Trespen. Borf began to laugh hysterically forgetting that it was the last bottle within his reach and he had no way to defend himself if things escalated. Then Marg escalated things. Unsheathing his sword, he lunged at the fat man on the ground. Well he would have lunged if he had not drank so much. Instead he tripped forward into the fire while impaling Borf in the stomach.

        In the morning Trespen woke up with the worst headache of his life, one half caused by the onion wine and the other half by the onion wine bottle. It was nearly three hours after he had woken up that his hangover had subsided enough to open his eyes. It was then he found Borf dead in a pool of his own blood and a pile of ash in the shape of Marg next to him. Not wanting to stick around in case some rangers came around, Borf grabbed his lute, the map, and his pack and started down the path least taken, the one on the left.