A "Friendly" Wager

[Cole Deschain]

Kakariko Village Square, Noon

Rhaegar grunted as he dusted himself off. The village's resident "tough guy" still lay on his back in the dirt, gasping for air.

The stock Ordonian glared at the lone guardsman who hesitantly approached him.

"What? Fellah challenged me, as I recall."

The guardsman cleared his throat.

"I merely wish to make sure you haven;t crippled or killed him."

Rhaegar turned his head to look at his gasping former adversary.

"Eh. He'll be fine."

The village tough rolled to his knees and retched into the dirt, gagging on his own bile.

"Well, maybe not right away, but he'll live."

[godofph]

A gruff Dersull stood at the gates of Kakariko Village, a satchel of bomb flower seeds hanging from his right shoulder. Out of all the Gorons, he was the one that had to deliver this shipment of seeds. The Gorons that normally did Merchant work were all recovering from the previous night's sumo matches. It also happened that Dersull had been the sumo contestant that had put them in the recovery tents.

Suddenly, a thought occured to him, And that is probably why the Elders made me do this...

Dersull grunted and walked through the gates, his onyx rock growths on his back glimmering in the sunlight.

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar glanced up from the guardsman, who seemed to be finding something terribly interesting about the tops of his shoes, trying to figure out who was drawing the attention of the villagers away... Not that he minded overmuch.

He was pleasantly surprised to see a Goron.

And not just any Goron... He remembered Dersull from that nasty business with the dodongos....

[godofph]

Dersull looked past a group of village-folk gawking at his size to see a familiar face: Rhaegar. This man was no stranger to the Goron tribe, especially to the Miners and Wrestlers. Dersull himself had became personally aquainted with this human when he accompanied a Mining troop into the Death Mountain Caverns. Unfortunately, that Troop had found itself falling into a large Dogongdo nest and a nasty struggle ensued to get out.

Dersull's booming voice thundered, "Rhaegar, greetings, Brother!"

[Cole Deschain]

"Dersull! Good to see you, Brother!"

Rhaegar wandered away from the stuttering guardsman and the goraning village rowdy.

He liked Goron hugs. Threy toughened you up considerably.

[godofph]

And such was the reason few humans liked Goron hugs, the ones that survived the hugs were often times left with injuries and/or paralysis. Despite this, Rhaegar actually enjoyed them, much to the glee of the Gorons.

Dersull ran towards his human friend, the big grin on his froggy face spreading as he did. He completely ignored the people jumping out of his way, only concerned about greeting Rhaegar. When he reached his old human friend, he threw his arms around him and squeezed like he was crushing the armor of a fallen Dogongdo.

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar felt several of his bones almost flex under the pressure, but none broke.

Good.

He'd been afraid of going soft.

When the bone-crunchng embrace had concluded, Rhaegar (whose survival had frankly stuinned most of the human onlooker) Grinned through his beard at Dersull.

"What brings you down here? I'd have thought you had better ways to spend your time."

[godofph]

Dersull chuckled, "I put all of the Merchants that weren't already on business trips in the Recovery Tents last night during Sumo, so I had to deliver these Bomb Flower seeds in their place."

Dersull then scratched his chin, he didn't want to spend much time in this village and he was much more interested in catching up with Rhaegar. The solution to this problem was simple.

The Goron turned to look in the general direction of the Bomb Shop. He grabbed the satchel with his right arm and gave the bag a mighty heave. Maybe it would reach its destination at the shop, maybe it would land in a puddle and end up having the seeds grow into Bomb Flowers and cause a large explosion; Dersull didn't care at this point.

"Well now, how about you, Brother?"

[Cole Deschain]

"Oh, just passing through. You know me, Dersull. I'm not happy unless I'm busy. Unfortunately, aside from a few Tektikes, business has been slow of late. I don;t suppose King Darunia has any mines he wants cleared at the moment, does he?"

[godofph]

"Well Brother, There was a tunnel in the West Ore Caverns I had planned to clear today. A miner left a bag of bombs in there, and I will say it was not very pretty when a group of angry Dodongos fighting for mates chose that tunnel for their arena."

[Cole Deschain]

"Dondongos, eh? Just like old times!"

Rhaegar turned his head slightly to regard the guardman, who seemed to be inching closer.

"Yeah? What do you want?!"

"Uh... I was... it seems... uh... he'll be fine, so you're free to go."

"Toldja."

[godofph]

"Well then, let us not dawdle. I've finished my business here, how about you, Brother?"

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar simply smiled.

"I'd sooner work for the King of the Gorons than any of these saps any day of the week."

Without further ado, the two comrades, human and oron, headed out of Kakriko Village, up Death Mountain Trail

[godofph]

The Village shrank back further and further as the two ascended the trail. The two spoke of various achievements in strength since they last met, and chuckled at stories of hot-headed village teenagers who attempted to enter Goron Sumo Contests.

As the two passed a pair of large bushes on the sides of the road, Dersull thought he heard a rustling in the bush. He glanced at the shrubbery, and briefly saw a hint of a long, blue ear disappear into the mass of leaves. From the sounds of the rustling, there were more blue ears where that came from.

Bokoblins...

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar worldessly moved up to support Dersull's flank. He left his massive axe strapped ot his back, instead drawing his shortsword.

[godofph]

Short sword, he wants to do this silently! What a chuckle.

Dersull unslung the ball-chain hanging from his shoulder. He stepped away from Rhaegar (not wanting to accidentally hit his companion when he swung the weapon), and began twirling it over his head. Dersull threw the heavy weapon into the occupied bush. When the ball-chain struck the shrubbery, he heard several surprised screams and one "Ummmph."

When several Bokoblins leaped out of the bush, hissing and growling, Dersull yanked his Ball-Chain back and began twirling it again. The enemies charged at them waving clubs and rusty swords. The fight was on.

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar quickly gave lie to Dersull's impression that he'd intended stealth, roaring a warcry that sounded almost deliriously happy as he drove the point of his sword directly through one luckless creature's face. With his free hand he dragged the ody clear and began using it as a shield thrusting with the sword whenever an opening presented itself.

[godofph]

Swinging his ball-chain above his head, Dersull was a force to stay on the good side of. The ball-chain that had smashed through many a chunk of rock was now breaking bones of attacking Bokoblins. They charged him, he smashed them. Simple, but effective.

[Cole Deschain]

The two of them sliced through the majority of their foes with little trouble, and the remaining bokgoblins were cleary reconsidering their ambush.

A little too late.

[godofph]

Two of the Bokoblins considering an escape were cut down by Rhaegar before they could flee, but another three had already left their unfortunate brothers and were running downhill, away from the attempted ambush. Had they ran uphill, they might have had a chance to get away; but they had set themselves up for an entirely different beating instead of a sword wound or a bashed skull.

One of the Bokoblins looked back to see the human standing still, snickering at them from the ambush site. That wasn't right, they had been fighting two creatures...a Goron was there before. No time to wonder, they had to escape.

However, the Bokoblin's wondering of where the Goron went was answered moments later when a 960-pound rolling stone crushed he and and the other two remnants.

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar threw back his head and roared with triumphant laughter.

Of all the traits of the Gorons, Dersull had just displayed one of his favorites.

"Take your time getting back up here, Brother. I'm going to see if they had anything interesting on them."

[godofph]

Dersull shouted to Rhaegar, "Right then, Brother!"

Crushing an enemy by rolling over them was the greatest guilty pleasure known to the Goron tribe, though the oppurtunity rarely presented itself. As he trudged back up, he saw his companion sifting through the fallen foes' garments. Usually a fallen Bokoblin's only item of any value left behind might be an old sword, but sometimes they had bounty from previous ambushes.

"Find anything?"

[PyrasTerran]

One Bokoblin had on him a Grappling Hook, while another had Blue Jewelry. Everything else was old weapons and armor.

[Cole Deschain]

"A couple of things."

He held up the grappling hook and shrugged.

"I could probably make more use of this than you could."

THen he held out the blue jewelry, and shrugged.

"If you have no use for it, I suppose it could make a decent snack."

[godofph]

"Thank you, Brother!

While Blue Jewelry was a common cosmetic item among the humans, to the Gorons that mined them; any excess Blue Jewelry that wasn't going to Store Shelves was a snack. While Dersull had a Blue Jewelry pendant himself, it remained uneaten because of the sentimental value it held to him; he had received it after winning his first Sumo contest.

He gracefully accepted the jewel from Rhaegar and popped it into his mouth. He smiled happily as the sound of a jewel being crunched came from his mouth.

Dersull swallowed the shards and pebbles and wiped his mouth.

"Shall we continue, Brother?"

[Cole Deschain]

Rhaegar simply grinned and kicked a bokgoblin corpse off of the trail.

"But of course!"

The reason for his love of Death Mountain Trail was coming back to him

Never a dull moment.