Part one (I got a bit carried away)

The barman noticed the position of the sun on the Snug floor: almost at the door. He put down the dishcloth he’d been using to wipe the bar, reached up, unhooked a particular pewter tankard and then surreptitiously emptied all of the drip trays into it. It wasn’t quite full, so he tipped just a splash of vinegar from the pickled beetroot. One day Mullinor would complain about the “beer,” but until that day there was a little fun to be had at the old goat’s expense.

The patrons in the Snug gazed expectantly at the door; the barman noted that not one glass was more than a third empty and no one would drink much more once Mullinor settled himself and started to drone on, so he put Mullinor’s drink on the bar top and went through to chat to the more sociable customers in the Lounge. He was discussing the apple picking season with the Brindles when he heard the Snug door open and then close shortly after. Nothing to do through there until closing time, he thought.

Mullinor placed his coat and hat on the hook, turned, acknowledged the room with a nod and fetched his beer from the bar. He took a big mouthful, drew it back and forth across his tongue, swallowed and let out an appreciative sigh. The chair had already been placed his favourite spot by the fire, so he sat down and set his tankard on the hearth. He pulled out his pipe, a truly impressive device with a bowl almost as large as his drinking flagon, and emptied its contents into the flames. The unburnt weed gave up the last of its smoke which the expectant crowd tried to inhale as if the air in the Snug was about to run out and the last lung-full might be the difference between life and death. That was just a foretaste of what was to come; Mullinor dipped the bowl of the pipe into his capacious satchel, filling it with several pounds of fresh pipe-tobacco. He put the pipe to his lips, pulled a burning piece of kindling from the grate, stuck it into the bowl and began to suck loudly, drawing the flame down into the tobacco which began to smoulder.

The other patrons pulled their chairs closer; Mullinor thought they were an ever attentive audience, but, as you’ve already guessed, they were mostly after a free hit from the narcotic effects of Mullinor’s pipe-weed.

They’d all tried to recreate the particular blend, but Mullinor, despite his soon to be witnessed lack of circumspection when it came to the minutiae of the distant branches of his broadly canopied family tree, wasn’t saying. The tobacco agent, on the other hand, had been more forthcoming and was happy to tell one and all that Mullinor smoked “Old Pocket Blackener.” The agent had bought himself a splendid velvet-lined waistcoat with that week’s profits and even allowed himself an extra couple of days in the hammock watching his wife tend their small-holding. The buyers were left disappointed. The stench was the same and the way it caught the back of the throat was even more marked when smoked first-hand. However, the soporific euphoria was completely absent. The only thing they gained was an understanding of why Mullinor drank whatever the barman poured into old halfling’s* special tankard, for no taste-buds could survive that habit for long.

They took to raiding Mullinor’s garden, but they set light to all of it, by degrees, in case there was some rare sub-species which would give up its heady secrets and there was nothing out of the ordinary. Beating the secret out of someone of Mullinor’s advancing years was beyond the pale, so they were forced to listen to the stories. Everyday.

Often meandering and ultimately pointless, but the pictures that came from the marriage of words and fumes were so very vivid. I can share what he related that early autumn afternoon and tell you of the warm fire in the hearth and the thick fug which filled that cosy Snug glowed golden as the low sun tried to pierce the gloom (you see, the sun had taken it upon herself to mark the passing time by climbing the far wall; someone had to as the people in the room were caught in a timeless reverie). I can’t recreate the picture’s in the collective mind’s eye of the transfixed; you’ll have to find that Nirvana yourself.
Mullinor took a deep drag on his pipe, let some of the smoke come down his nostrils and blew a smoke ring (which quickly dissipated into the miasma). This was the cue; the audience inhaled and Mullinor began.

“Have I told you about my great uncle Siskin? [Those still able to shake their heads did so] Well, he was a born a risk taker. The youngest of six, with an elder and tougher brother who doted on him; Siskin would get into a hundred scrapes and his brother would always be there to sort out whatever brouhaha had resulted. My uncle grew to so love the excitement of the flip of a coin Risk marked him for his own and Siskin entered the priesthood.

While still a novice going about his chores (taking trade-coin from rubes on the games of chance) in the worship-hall he was visited by his (and my) cousin, Quirrel, who promised the chance of a little adventure. Siskin excused himself with a muttered prayer, fetched his adventuring pack and sword and set off into the street.


*didn’t I mention that they were all halflings? Apologies. I expect you’ll now have to rescale the scene. The bar is about two feet off the floor, if that helps