The Dungeon Inn - English

B1C06 - Brunos second task

The salad reminded me again, that our inn was missing something important. Cutlery. I had the adventurers give me plates and bowls. And that also worked for the rabbit on a skewer and the soup in the bowls. But eating a salad with your bare hands or letting it slide over the edge into your mouth, wasn't really an option. You could improvise with a skew, but it was still very difficult. Now that the wood problem no longer existed with Bruno, I took a few thicker branches and tried to carve a knife with the adventurer's knife. It was difficult, but it worked. I repeated this a few times and then made forks and spoons. Bruno tried to help me, but apparently he had too much of gross motor skills. Either he carved away way too much or he simply broke the branch with brute force. But I didn't have any plans anyway, when there were no guests, so I wasn't annoyed about the time it took. The reward was waiting at the end, when I ate another salad with Bruno with the new cutlery the next time.

Bruno also seemed, to mostly want to eat salad. He had a sour salad to wake him up in the morning, rabbit soup or rabbit on a skewer at lunch and two sweet salads in the evening. Karl was much simpler, the main thing was meat. He also didn't eat as much as Bruno. But Bruno was much taller and worked harder. His strength was one of the reasons why I chose him. It was not only used to bring in trunks, but was also intended for defense. However, it's not fair to let him fight with his bare hands. So I sent him to get a weapon. First he arrived with a large trunk. It showed once again that he wasn't human. No normal person could have picked it up, but he swung it around like it was air. We just didn't have the tools to make a real club out of it. He had somehow broken off the ends, making both ends dangerous. Which might have been good for a weapon, but he risked hurting himself with the end, he was holding. I therefore tried to blunt one end as best I could with the sharp stones and knive. The other point was firmness. By breaking it off, I wasn't sure if the trunk wouldn't fall apart in the middle of the fight, since it was already cracked. One solution to this was to flame the wood, which makes it stronger. But before we did that, I wanted to make the weapon even more dangerous. To do this, I made more sharp-edged stones and had Bruno ram them into the trunk. We then blackened the wood with the flames, as it would also contract and give the stones more support. With that, the first weapon was ready, a fearsome club. Anyone who would see Bruno wielding it should think twice about messing with us.

However, a weapon is not just for defense, he should also go hunting for horn rabbits like Karl. But the club is far too big for that. It would be like chasing flies with a cupboard. The battle scars would be devastating and the rabbit would probably no longer be usable. So he set out again, to find an alternative. I had initially considered a wooden spear, but with Bruno's strength it would break too quickly. But Bruno seemed to like the idea. Apparently he had seen a large corpse during his excursions with Karl and he brought back a long bone from it. We had trouble getting it pointed, but we were even more confident, that it could withstand Bruno's strength.

From then on, Bruno trained every day in the cave to fight with the log and the sharpened bone. At the beginning he had a hard time hunting horn hares, because they were very fast and he couldn't sneak up in the grass like Karl could. But over time he got the hang of it and brought his first prey, which we then ceremoniously ate.

One night it became clear, that I had made the right choice with my companions. Bruno was deeply asleep when Karl woke us up. A guard dog never misses anything, even when he is sleeping. A snake had approached the hole, which Karl noticed immediately, because he was at the entrance. The crystal also makes its concerns known, once the snake was in the dungeon. Because she wasn't just a small one, that you could just pick up, but a big one that certainly liked to eat people. Bruno fought against waking up at first, but as soon as he understood the situation, he was well awake. Since Karl had warned us so early, it wasn't too late. Bruno was able to catch the snake, before it got into my side cave. He first tried to impale it with the bone, like he always did with horn rabbits. But the snake, despite its size, was able to avoid him every time. When he realized, that it was no use, he threw the bone like a spear towards the snake's head and used the time he gained to grab the prepared log. The cave shook as he struck with full force. The snake successfully dodged the spear again and tried the same with the log. However, in vain. The trunk was too wide and buried the head beneath it. The snake's body twitched briefly. Then Bruno lifted the trunk again, only to strike again with full force. The cave shook again, but this time there was also a cracking noise. The snake stopped moving and when Bruno raised the club you could see the head was mush. The skull was broken.

Karl and I praised Bruno, who proudly posed as the winner. However, this fight also revealed a major disadvantage.