EXTRACT: Chapter Twenty Three - Greazers: Do Not Disturb

The following is a short extract from chapter twenty three of 'Ogres, Elves & Insufferable Dad Jokes' available now on Amazon. It sits in the middle of the chapter and is one of the only parts that survived all three full rewrites of the story, despite it being edited and redrafted many times and most other bits getting scrapped.

Does it progress the story? Nope. Does it give some much needed comedic relief, light, and a breath of air between moments of darkness and tension? Absolutely. It is still to this day, one of my favourite bits of the book.

For context, Jock and his four-year-old, Raia, have found themselves in the fifth basement vault of an ancient elven museum, Falroy, where the the elves and their "Collectors" store all valuables and copies of living things. After coming to the conclusion that the elves had stolen all of the artifacts in the first place, and thus do not own said items, Jock and Raia had helped themselves to a few goodies that caught their eye, including an amulet of invisibility. And then a guard finds them...

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“Who’s there?! This level is top secret. Any intruders will face punishment from the Assembly!” a voice called out. Raia’s face dropped.

“Are we in trouble? I took lots of things.”

“So did I. Don’t worry.”

“I’m scared,” she cried.

A light beam etched itself across the doorway as a guard approached the corridor outside. I turned back. My bag was open on the floor, but now the amulet was missing, and so was Raia.

“Darling, are you there?!” I called out, my heart racing. “Raia, please, if you’re there, I can’t see or hear you. I need you to take off the amulet.”

I waited, but she didn’t reappear. Then came a crash in the next room as something was knocked to the floor.

Shit. She’d run off.

I buried the book and Valencia’s Vacuum inside the bag, closed it, threw it over my shoulder, wandered into the corridor — clearly in the guard’s line of sight — and headed into the room where the crash had come from. There was no sign of her, but there was a bizarre amount of eggs for a place that didn’t have any live creatures roaming around. I ducked down, hoping Raia was hiding under the tables.

“Raia! Come out, darling!”

“Put your hands on the ground! You’re under arrest!”

I knocked my head into the stand above me. The guard, Phil, let out a little squeal, but I leapt up, and grabbed the two large eggs that were about to tumble off.

For the record, the guards never introduced themselves, but I like to assign names to them anyway. It makes them more relatable.

I looked back at Phil, who, judging by his squeaky voice, was not enjoying that demonic torture also known as puberty, and was now crapping his pants. I was also pretty confident that he was either new to his job, or sucked at it. I handed him the eggs.

“Sorry, these are for you,” I muttered, readjusting my bag and heading into the next room.

“Oi!” he stammered. “Where are you going?! You’re under arrest!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Nah, I’m looking for my daughter. Could you stop knocking things over, please? You’ll scare her.”

“That was you!” he screeched.

We were quickly joined by a much more intimidating guard who had broad shoulders and who wore her shiny silver uniform with more confidence. In her hands was a fancy dual-ended spear which I’m still convinced she stole from the ancient weapons room. As I’m sure you would agree, her name had to be Jill.

“Hands on your head! You’re coming with me!” she ordered, before turning her attention to Phil. “What in Arkaia’s name are you carrying those eggs around for? Put them back!”

Phil shuffled awkwardly on the spot. I laughed and carried on looking for signs of Raia.

“Darling, it’s okay. You can come out. You’re safe!”

“I said hands on your head!” snapped Jill, giving me an inappropriate poke.

“Get your spear out of my arse!” I exclaimed. “We’re not even on a first name basis, you pervert.”

“No more jokes. Come on. The captain will want to meet you personally.”

“The pirate captain?”

“No. The guard captain.”

“Oh. I’m not interested in that, I’m afraid. I’m looking for my daughter, and I’m not going anywhere until I find her. So if you could kindly… you know… just fuck off?”

I slapped Jill’s spear to the ground, and headed to the next room, ducking down, and looking under exhibits as I passed. In the next room we were joined by Bill, guard number three. He was older, and had a plaited beard that made it very difficult to take him seriously. He immediately pulled his sword from its sheath, and pointed it at me.

“Stop! You will not take another step,” he announced, tilting his hairy chin up high.

I couldn’t help myself. I stared him in the eyes, then took one more step, and waited for his response.

“Why do you taunt me, Sir?”

“I really don’t know. I can’t help myself. It drives my wife insane.”

I carried on looking around, calling out to Raia. I was starting to panic now. If that amulet muted her voice, thus rendering her completely invisible, I might never find her.

“Stand up!” Bill demanded.

“He won’t,” whined Phil. “He’s looking for his kid.”

“Lost child? In the halls of Falroy?! Well, why are you both standing there? Help this poor father find his child!”

Jill was not impressed. She immediately tried to argue, but Bill raised a patronising finger, something which even infuriated me.

“Where did you last see your child, sir?” Bill asked, a fatherly warmth to his voice. He reached over, placed a calming hand on my shoulder. His sword went back into his sheath.

“We were looking at Creeku’s weird photo collage of me and my daughter.”

“He can be quite the pest, that man,” Bill sighed.

“He can. Anyway, we heard you call out, and she got scared and ran off.”

“Oh, now that’s not good. The poor thing must have been terrified.”

“She was. She told me.”

“That’s alright. See, this poor man is just trying to be a good dad. He’s not here to break in or steal things.”

“What are you on about?!” bellowed Jill, no longer able to listen to another word. “Not even elves are allowed to set foot in these halls. We only have one job. Have you lost your mind?”

“Maybe. I really could have. But how about we help this kind father find his —”

He pulled away his arm, brushing the bag of trinkets from my shoulder, and it hit the floor with a loud clink, as though the stolen goodies were crying out for help. 

The room went silent as we looked at the bag.

“What have you got in there, friend?” inquired Bill.

“Oh. Nothing. Just some snacks.”

“Snacks? Did you take some things?”

“Only a few things. Raia wanted to take some things home to show her mother. We haven’t seen her in a while, and it will help her feel closer to her, I think.”

“Oh, that’s alright then,” laughed Bill.

“No, it’s not!” screamed Jill. “Open the bag!”

“Can I put these down somewhere?” muttered Phil.

Bill stared at the eggs.

“What are you doing with Greazer eggs?”

“I don’t know.”

“Very odd creatures,” Bill started to explain. “Rare, too. They’re the literal opposite of a phoenix. The scaly winged demon bursts from its egg in a blaze of fire, and wakes from its nap feeling grumpy, wrinkly and miserable. Then slowly, it becomes younger, until it’s a baby and climbs into an egg. Then it starts all over again.”

“I can relate to that,” I laughed.

Bill gave me a playful arm nudge, nodding.

“You and me both!”

I shuffled on my feet.

“This is fun, but I really do have to find my daughter.”

“Of course, go look.”

“No! The bag!” groaned Phil and Jill.

“Yes, that’s right. The bag. Give me what you stole.”

I opened it up with a nervous sigh, and pulled out the small wooden box. They tensed up.

“Careful,” instructed Jill. “Place it down carefully. Don’t let it open.”

“Why?” I asked, before doing the opposite and opening the box. The ghostly head of a huge dog erupted, trying to bite us before I slammed it shut. I nodded, did as I was told, placed it on the floor. I took out the empty guudara sword hilt. They recoiled.

“Again… put it down nice and slow.”

“Why are you so twitchy? What am I going to do? Slay you with some invisible blade? Shoot magic out of it?”

As I spoke, I got quite animated, waving my arms around. As I did, a blade of energy erupted from both ends of the hilt. The blades were long and curved, yet flat and sharp like a standard sword blade, sitting wide for most of the blade until finishing with a fine point. The blades glowed with a bright purple light, humming from the hot energy as small sparks of pink and red sizzled on its edges. I realised it was the same weapon that Zach, his father and Henrik had wielded in the vision I had whilst inside the pendulum with Arkaia.

“What is this?!” I yelled. I wanted to play with it, but Bill didn’t let me. He snatched it, turned it off.

“You’re a good man,” Bill sighed. “But you mustn’t play with tools of the guudara. They are a symbol of greed and arrogance to our people.”

“That’s fair enough. You should let me have it so you never have to see it again.”

Bill went to hand it back but then stopped and smiled at me, pointing his finger out playfully.

“Good try. What else do you have in there?”

I pulled the flute out.

“Oh no! Not the flute!” cried Bill.

“Why? What does it do?!” I mumbled, dreading whatever creature or danger would come out of it, and still pining for my cool laser sword.

“Nothing. I just hate the flute.”

I threw the flute aside, pulled out a small, chalky rock and held it in the palm of my hand so that they could see.

“Is that just a rock?” muttered Phil. Bill looked at him, aghast.

“Just a rock?! This rock is a huge part of our history. It’s with this rock that —”

But before he could finish talking, I’d rubbed the rock with my thumb, and a zap of electricity shot into each of them, dropping them to their knees. Unfortunately, this resulted in the eggs hitting the floor with an almighty crack, and the Greazers — grumpier than usual due to being woken from their nap earlier than planned — threw their shells away.

I knew what would come next, so I grabbed my half-full bag, snatching the hilt from Bill in the process, and legged it for the door before hiding behind the supporting wall as an enormous blast of fire flashed past me, incinerating everything in the room. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t get to talk with Phil, Jill and Bill again.

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