AN UNEXPECTED DINNER
MAGE SERIES PROMO
(SMASHWORDS EDITION / Copyright Kenneth Guthrie 2011)
A host of characters come together for the promo of the year in his short 1,500 word Mage series promotion. The story goes: What if a foolish mage, an angry dragon, a wicked she demon and a cowardly hero found themselves at dinner and trapped? What if they couldn’t get free and had to work together? Well, in one heaven sent story we get to find out just how this ridiculous situation turns out.
This story is very short at only 1,500 words or 15 standard book pages.
DINNER WITH FRIENDS
Sinth sat at the table wondering what the heck was going on. The first thing that struck him was the huge size of the table. What kind of tree did they use for this thing? It was clearly all one piece of wood, but the size… well, the size was massive, to say the least.
The second thing that he took in, in the brief moments between opening his eyes and taking all this in, was the dragon, the she-demon and the funny looking man wearing golden armor with the words ‘Murk’ clearly imprinted on the front.
He didn’t know what to think. One moment he had been cutting the grass at his grandmother’s house – she’d been yelling at him at the time, which she always did anyway – and the next he was in this big silver plated room with these three.
“I see you have come, little human.”
Sinth winced. There was no doubting that voice and that appearance. This was the dragon he had made rather angry a year or two ago.
There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to go. He couldn’t stand up – the ropes that tied him to the chair ensured that – and there was nothing he could use to cut them. If the dragon decided to eat him…
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry.”
The dragon growled out a nasty puff of steam.
Laughter.
“Little mage.”
The she-demon came around to inspect him using her sharp fingers to create little cuts in Sinth’s face.
“You do know that the good dragon here is allergic to tomato juice, don’t you?”
“Um…”
Sinth had created a clone of himself and the damsel he was in the works of saving out of tomato (the one substance that he knew he could transmute easily). It had been messy to say the least.
The she-demon whacked him with her tail.
“Bad boy.”
She seemed amused.
The dragon settled down a little from where it had been glaring at Sinth.
“Later I will eat you, but for now you must help us escape this place.”
“Escape? You mean someone has you trapped?”
Sinth finally noticed the invisible bonds around everyone but the she-demon, who had some sort of strange creature attached to her foot.