The Shady Adventures of Fabian

Chapter 48

"Master Fabian?"

"Five more minutes, mom," Fabian muttered.

"Master Fabian, wake up!"

Fabian awoke with a start to find Brandon standing over him. "Oh, Scrote, it's you. What the hell do you want?"

"Master Fabian, what is going on? Where are we? The last thing I remember we had just defeated those horrible brigands in combat and were returning to Ms. Madge's Inn. The next thing I knew I was sleeping here in the middle of the woods and the sun is about to go down."

"You don't remember?" Fabian said. "We left the Inn awhile ago. You were on watch duty while the rest of us slept. Did you fall asleep while you were on watch? That's very irresponsible of you, Scrote."

"I didn't mean to," Brandon said. "I don't even remember coming here."

"Oh man, you've really got a lot of growing up to do before you can call yourself a true hero and adventurer like me. Falling asleep while you're on watch is a real dick move. But I'll tell you what, I'm sure it was an honest mistake. We're all humans here, right? We don't have any elves or dwarfs in our party, correct? Tell you what, because I'm such a nice guy we can keep this whole unfortunate incident to ourselves. I won't bring it up to the others if you won't. In fact, we can just tell them I was the one on watch duty this whole time. I can say I wasn't really all that tired and decided to let you sleep. They don't have to know anything."

"Really, Master Fabian? You'd do that for me?"

"Listen kid, we've been through a lot together and I'd hate to see you get in trouble over something that's really not that big of a deal. I mean nobody got killed or anything right? I see Derek and Sir Mikael snoozing it up over there and they look like they're still in one piece and breathing."

"That's a relief," Brandon said with a sigh. "Say, where's Rothchild?"

Fabian looked over to where the horse had been tied to the tree, but there was no sign of it anywhere.

"Oh crap," Fabian said. "You'd better track down that horse before the others wake up or you're going to blow your whole cover story. I'll stay here and try to distract them if they happen to stir. But you'd better hurry."

"It looks like there are some hoofprints heading off into the woods," Brandon said. "Don't worry, sir. I'll find this horse."

"I wouldn't come back without it if I were you!" Fabian called out after him.

Sir Mikael stirred at the noise. "What's going on? Is it nightfall?"

"No, you've only been sleeping for like ten minutes, man. Go back to bed."

"Oh, okay," he said and rolled over onto his side.

Fabian heard a rumble in his tummy and started to rub it. "Man, that lazy bum went to sleep without catching us any food. Maybe I should have let him wake up and sent him off hunting. Scrote would probably be back with his horse before he returned with dinner."

Fabian was just making up his minds to shake Sir Mikael awake when he heard a high-pitched voice behind him talking in a strange language he couldn't understand.

"Gerba hijah kokoku," the voice said.

Fabian turned around to see a little man dressed in green with pointy ears pointing a spear at him.

"You've got to be kidding me. What are you, some kind of miniature wood elf? I already dealt with one of your kind back in the Enchanted Forest.  It was completely harmless and a lot bigger than you.  Take a hike, pipsqueak."

Suddenly he felt a small sharp pain in his neck. Reaching up he pulled out a tiny little dart. "What the hell? Did someone just shoot a blowdart at me? Why I oughta-"

He didn't finish his sentence because he had dropped to the ground completely unconscious.