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Sitting on a large hill next to a major Ursurka pathway is a massive squat building made completely of well polished reddish granite. The front door of the place is well above the rainy season floodline.

Here a small group of dwarfs live and work, and they've been there so long that they are as close knit as a dwarf family.

The front of the building has several tall pillars holding up a good section of the building. The pillars are carved with images of beer stines overflowing with foam; massive roasted bugs, such as beetles, mealworms, pillbugs, millepedes, and giant crawdads, presented in such a way as to actually look mouthwatering; and bowls of very thick stew.

The sides of the building have been carved to look like different scenes of dwarfs drinking. Some are at a bar with a bartender, others are brawling, some are passed out on the floor... some are... errr... Moving on.

Inside, The front room is lined with stone seating of all types. Small dwarf sized booths line one wall, while booths of varying sizes for the 'lessar peopls" Line the far wall. There is a dwarf sized bar, showing several large 10 gallon kegs full of good ol' dwarf booze. The center of the massive room is full of stone tables and chairs of all sizes.

For some reason the roof has been totally covered in leaves, palm tree fronds, ferns, flowers of all kinds, shapes, and colors. Generally if it grew on a jungle plant, it could be found on the roof.

Through one door behind the bar is a fully stocked kitchen full of dwarf cooking equipment and food ready to be prepared for customers at a moment's notice. Through that is the brewery itself. Massive floor space is used to let the mushrooms age, and gigantamus stone kettles and fermenting kegs are beyond that. These beers they brew are at least 15 years old in these kegs... There are a LOT of them. In the basement is the distillery where the dwarf booze is distilled and aged even more. Thus you get brews that are nearly 0 proof and taste completely fantastic.

((Switching to 1st person with Ruby))

I stopped my efforts of peeling the bark off of the staff when I saw him start to sway just a little bit more. As I looked up, he spun around and then fell on his a**, before ranting at me in a near incomprehensible way. As if Dwarf speech wasn't thickly accented enough in the first place!

I had to refrain from cracking up. I never knew how funny a dwarf could be when... 'sober'. But I knew it wasn't nice to laugh at him; he was probably very close to dying at this point.

Well, since he was the only dwarf I... kinda respected at this point, I stood up and headed over to him. With a grunt I grabbed him by an arm and hauled him to his feet, and I lead him over to the shore of the hill that lead up to the building which was obviously dwarf make.

... The leaves baffled me tho. Why did these dwarfs have leaves on the roof? Don't dwarfs find plants creepy?

I hopped over the shallow water separating the two land masses, making sure Toadcoddle didn't fall in face first. That would... suck royally.

With that I had to nearly drag him up the slope, hauling him up to the entrance. And for a small stone man he is heavy. Had to be at least 300 pounds, maybe more, maybe less. (I'm leaning towards more) With that I pushed open the even heavier stone doors and entered the establishment.

I watched all this as the dwarfs hurriedly took care of Toadcoddle. I found myself heaving a sigh of relief. He did risk his neck for me three times… I guess he wasn’t so bad, for a dwarf.

I watched the dwarfs feed him the booze, and then I saw other dwarfs come out of the back which were eyeing me suspiciously. I gulped and looked around, before quietly edging to a nearby human sized booth and sitting down into it. I looked to my pack and poked it, before it woke up and stared at me with it’s beady little blue eyes.

I want my tablet. I said to it.

It snarled at me, and I hit it so hard with my staff the table jumped. It leapt off the table with a squeaky zipped sound of terror, and I went after it, chasing after the little bugger and whacking it with my staff as it fled about the restaurant floor.

Toadcoddle stirred slowly as he still gained his barrings. "Bah! Flei'n monkehz be eh right terrehble idea! Er eh, huh? ded evrehtheng jes goh rebetic fer eh minute? wai' wha th' heil ez eh reb..eh rombus...er...romulan? Bah, bes teh pey et nay anneh meind!" Toadcoddle snapped out of his mental... wanderings; and took scope of where he was. he noticed Ruby beating her bag while some of his own kin bet on her odds... they bet with the girl it seemed... he noted it was a smart bet and moved on to look about more as to just exactly where he was... the smell was comforting and familiar, the decore and construction as well...he knew this atmosphere, by ole motty himself it was a genuine dwarf brewing house! A tear nearly escaped his eye... if it could. He smelled the good ale and comforting waft of toasting meat and roasting tubers and baking wafers, crackers, and biscuits. By the longbeards he even smelled stew! His stomach rumbled loud enough to drown out ruby and her shenanigans...

"Aye ahm fein lass. Denne worreh abewt mah hyde. worreh moor abewt mah gullet!" Toadcoddle tried to act nonchalant about his little near death... thing. he failed the ruse spectacularly when he treid to hop onto the floor and his legs at once bowed out an he plopped onto his rump. "Bah! Ah meit beh ah we bit moor oofput theyn ah thought aht feirst." He said with a snort. He squint his eyes and got up again regardless of his condition and when his legs wobbled again he stomped his feet stubbornly till he stood mostly steady once more. He fished into his belt pack and pulled out 12 coins of dwarf gold as he walked with determination to a table. He weighed them in his palm then placed them on the table top "Fer mah leif ahn mah gullet! Ah whant stew, House ale stock ef ye ken manage, full meat pleit! Biscuts wheth greyveh! calceit wafers wheth assewrted spriedz, full mushroom pleit, tew breid bewls, meilk fer th' lass... denne sey eh werd abewt et ef ye knoh wha' beh gewd fer ye! Full roast rollar*, roasted potatoes HAWT! liek the forge firez, bahk fat baccon theck cut! Ahn keep th' ale comm'n!"


(((Rollers are large insects raised like pigs by dwarfs in their native underground home. The look like very large pill bugs colored dark brick red exoskeleton plates on their backs and soft flexible peach colored underbellies. The flesh is comparable to very sweet crab flesh with a nutty after taste. Every part of a roller can be eaten including its shell witch when deep fried has a delicate crunchy texture and a rich buttery flavor. They are very calm and docile. Some dwarfs as children own rollers as pets. They may even be a winning food craze on the surface except that to most people the thought of eating a squirming wriggling bug can be offputting to ones appetite.)))

The dwarfs scrambled to it, as the black bearded dwarf came forward to claim the coins. He raised an eyebrow at the gold, before counting it and tucking it away. He then turned and paused, raising an eyebrow at Ruby who was so casually carving into…. A dwarf tablet?

The bread bowls and the biscuits and gravy arrived then, on a small platter and was arranged on the table in front of them. Thick slices of breads on bowls and the biscuits were in bowls with an almost gelatinous steaming gravy that was extremely thick. The biscuits were arranged around in a neat circle around the edge.

The dwarf who had arrived with the platter started eyeing Ruby too. That was a dwarf tablet! Finally, the black bearded dwarf said; “… Oy. Wyen ded ye larn litteresey?”

Then another dwarf showed up, carrying the meat plate, mushroom plate, the calcite wafers with the spreads on a larger platter. They set it all down infront of Ruby and Toadcoddle for them to consume… Finally the first dwarf who brought the bread and gravy scurried off, as the next dwarf started staring…

The meat plate was all different kinds of little hunks of meat, in cubes or chunks, mostly on skewers. There were also mealworms and caterpillars, centipedes and millipedes, beetles (again on skewers) There were grilled tongues and whole eyeballs with grill marks on them, yet they still stared at the diners.

For the mushroom platter there were mushrooms that Ruby would recognize—but most were ones she did not recognize. They were in all shapes and sizes and some were even in bowls because they were gelatinous or goopy—those were slime molds or jelly funguses. Some were hot, some were cold, some were raw, others cooked a very well done.

The spreads for the calcite wafers were of various sorts; some were pastes, some were sauces, some were oils and others seemed to be dips. There were slices of preserved roots, slices of preserved meats, all arranged around the wafers in a circle.

Toadcoddle nodded at Ruby's reaction then snorted. He then went right to work rolling up his sleeves stood up from his stool at the table and dove into his share of the meal. He chugged down a large mug of house ale as he shoved skewers of meat into his maw before biting down on the stick and pulling it out bare and flinging it onto the table he would dip wafers into the different spreads before crunching them in his mouth whole. He lapped up his biscuts and gravy with abandon; slurping and belching and smacking his lips pretty as you please. In between his feeding frenzy hed also talk with mouthfuls of ale or food ordering more ale as the other dwarfs didnt react as if these were poor manners at all. This had to be normal dinner manners Toadcoddle was using. "Whel ah hope ye liek et lass! Eat hearty! Ye need strength fer trahvel! Trei th' toasted beatlez! They 'ave eh crunch ye denne geit frem othar crawlarz! Eyez ahre gewd tew they beyrst ein th' mewth, flood yer maw weth juice! Bey th' whey ave ye heard O' th' lark abewt th' bleind diggar ahn th' hole? Ternz oot he goht bleind wheyn ez weif rohze th' veil! Foun'ez cahl'n tew tha dey when he clawed th' eath teh geit awey! Beh HaaHaaaa!"

I had eaten three skewers and more mushroom gravy and biscuits by the time the stew came around. I noticed that the dwarfs around me acted kind of... annoyed? At first, before acting normally. Which was loud and rude to any other being.

I chuckled at Toadcoddle’s joke. It was a crack at both dwarf men and woman. Nice.

I eyed the bugs for a moment, before shrugging. You only live once, right? And took a large beetle off a skewer. I bit into it. It tasted earthy, meaty, with a hint of hops. It had been seasoned with the dwarf’s signature salty and spicy and pepperiness, and it broke apart in my mouth with a rather satisfying crunch. It was like eating a big, crunchy, shrimp.

Mmmm… It was a quiet sound I made in the back of my throat. I started sliding them off of the skewer with my teeth, munching on them. I glanced at the eyeballs again, before picking up a stick of mealworms. I nipped at one. Crunchy, before becoming kind of creamy, with a nutty buttery flavor which blended well with the peppery spicy saltines of the seasonings.

I licked my lips as I looked at the rest of the meat plate. I picked up a piece of tongue and tossed it in the air, before catching it in my mouth. I was getting more and more enthusiastic about eating as time went on.

Finally I had the courage to at least pick up one of the eyeballs. I lifted it up and looked at it for a second before slowly popped it in my mouth. I bit down and it felt kind of like a mushroom, kind of fleshy, before it burst in my mouth—and just like Toadcoddle had said, it filled my mouth with juice. I felt something hard offending my teeth for a moment, before I remembered the lens. I isolated the lens and spit it back out and set it aside on a now empty plate. It was a very salty fluid, with a nice savory blend which made a nice lasting taste in my mouth.

I picked up a mushroom now and bit into it. It was a simple button mushroom, which I found both raw and grilled. I slowly started sampling the other mushrooms, (though some I left alone out of lack of nerve).

When I wanted to take a moment to savor, I picked up the calcite crackers and tried out the different spreads. They were thin, almost like two sheets of paper. They were dry and chalky, bland almost, before crumbling apart on my tongue and allowing the spreads to hit my tongue full force. I smiled and nibbled on those for a while until the stew arrived.

One big heaping bowl for me, one for Toadcoddle. I was eating another meat skewer and I looked at the stew with interest as I tore off the last piece of meat from it. I licked my lips, looked at the lack of silverware, before shrugging. No other humans around to offend, right? I lifted the bowl to my lips and took a slurp, before stopping to feel the stuff in my mouth. It was as thick as the mushroom gravy, however, it all fell apart in my mouth, at once comforting and thrilling. Salty, peppery, spicy, savory and rich, earthy, with subtle hints of herbs and spices.

Mmm… I closed my eyes for a second—My eyes had rolled back again, and I think that was what had offended the dwarfs. So to keep it from happening again I simply closed them for a second as I took it all in. I glanced at the bread from earlier and took a piece, before scooping some stew onto the bread and taking a bite. I found that I liked that combo and alternated from slurping down straight stew and mopping it up with the bread.