Dodge and the Elemental Earth Ale

Dodge trudged through the Nomadic Ashford Plains, boots sinking slightly into the dry, loose earth that seems desperate to be on fire.

Plains… Now there was a word that felt entirely too innocent for this forsaken dead patch of wasteland. "Field," "meadow," "golden horizon"—all lies.

No, no—this place needed proper branding. Something that screamed the sheer wrongness of how empty it was. “Ambush Flats”? “Death Dunes”? …“Peril Prairie”? No wonder the Nomads kept moving, who would want to live here?

Dodge took a slow breath, adjusting the buckle of his rapier, eyes attempting to dart everywhere all at once.

“Just a simple search for Elemental Earth Ale,” senior Wayfinder Grimshaw claimed. “No danger, just dirt,” he had said. “Avoid the Nomads and it'll be a nice boring trip."

And yet, as Dodge stepped forward, the suddenly much less solid feeling ground rumbled beneath his feet.

He stopped. He Looked. He Listened. Nothing.

Nothing moved. No wind. No sound. Nothing but heat and dust and rocks.

Then, out of the silence, the solid earth beneath him erupted.

A massive claw burst from the ground—dirt, roots, and pure chaos exploding outward as a mountain of fur and rock shot up from the depths like a land-dwelling nightmare.

Not a gopher. Not a prairie dog. Something infinitely worse. A Prairie Bear. Twelve feet of Halfling-Eating muscle. All claws, teeth and bad intentions. A Living Landmine.

Then, a second explosion of dirt behind him.

Another Prairie Bear burst forth. Then another. And another, as he was suddenly loosely surrounded.

Dodge’s stomach dropped.

“Oh come on! You already outweighed me ten to one as it was!"

The first bear lunged—Dodge let out a battle whimper and ducked, rolling lightly to his feet just as its massive claws tore through the air where his head had been a moment before.

The other Prairie Bears circled, gravelly calls rumbling the air, stomping the ground, claws twitching, dirt shifting under its paws. A trap. They were waiting for him to run. And Dodge realized as they circled him sniffing and roaring and trying to make him move, that they didn't see him, they felt him, and a single misstep sat between him and being the wrong end of a lovely meal. Dodge stayed perfectly still.

Dodge would need to bring out his very best if he wanted to get out of this. And, unfortunately for the Prairie Bears, what Dodge did best was cause problems.

A half-hour of the most frantic game of death defying hopscotch from rock to rock, an alarmingly desperate airborne stunt that nearly cost him his dignity (and his kneecaps), and one utterly stupid terrifying minute of laying flat on the ground immobile and unsure if he was playing dead or about to Be dead, a terrified and twitchy Dodge staggered toward the nearest rock formation—breathless, battered, but unmistakably victorious as the Prairie Bears moved on to toy with a different, and much less annoying, meal.

And, against all odds, clutched tightly in his hands and somehow still intact, was a sturdy slate gray bottle, labeled:

“Grand Brewmaster Gurglok’s Elemental Earth Ale.”

And that, my fine fans, is the almost certainly true tale of how Dodge Tanner, armed with reckless ingenuity, a well-timed dirtnap, and a seeming total disregard for self-preservation—became the first and only Halfling to play dodgeball AS the dodgeball with Prairie Bears… and live to boast about it.

Three Elemental Bottles down. Just the worst one to go!

- Excerpt from "Why Go BIG, When You Can Just Stay Home?!", The Autobiography and "Do Not Travel" Memoirs of Derrek 'Dodge' Tanner.