Tales From Morphia - The Ninja Dwarves I

Tales From The Kingdom Of Morphia I – The Ninja Dwarves

The Kingdom of Morphia is a strange magical realm on a world many light-years from Earth where an array of mythical creatures live. This is one of many tales from this far away world.

Dwalin looked round, frustrated, at the group of dwarves before him.

“Quiet!” he roared for the eighth time, this time it finally had an effect on the other council members. “Right, members of the council” Dwalin boomed out “ we are gathered here today because the ancient golden pick – axe, the crowning symbol of this dwarven community has been stolen!” There was an audible gasp from those dwarves who were still sober enough to understand (very few). “So, we need a plan to recover the pick – axe” he continued brightly.

Unfortunately several of the brighter dwarves in the room called out before he could go on. Pausing to try and work out what they were trying to yell whilst drowning pints of dwarven stout, Dwalin finally realised that they wanted to know who had stolen the pick – axe. “Ah” Dwalin said, "yes, well, unfortunately it appears that the great and feared Count Blood had several of his minions take it whilst we were unconscious after celebrating my birthday party last night. So whoever goes to rescue it must go into the feared Castle of Darkness which lies at the top of Death Hill. Once in the castle it’s a simple task of slaying a group of bloodthirsty vampire minions, killing the Count and rescuing the golden pick - axe. So whose up for volunteering?” Strangely there seemed to be far fewer conscious dwarves now than when he started speaking…in fact only one dwarf was still standing. He was known as Hemel and was an eccentric dwarf, always trying out new and radical ideas.

“Your honour,” he slurred as he was only just concious himself, “Whilst I feel that is beneath my calling to go on this quest I have trained a group of young dwarves in the ancient skills of martial arts, they’d be happy to go.” Dwalin wasn’t convinced, nearly all Hemel’s ingenious clubs and ideas had failed so he really didn’t see why this one should be any different. Still it may well be worth a try he thought, particularly as the current number of volunteers wasn’t overwhelmingly high, so he agreed.

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night, the wind whipped round the craggy cliffs, it’s chilled fingers snatching at boulders and sending them hurtling into the valley below. The Count’s castle like any good gothic castle had hundreds of tall pointy towers with bats flying round them, and from within the sound of creepy organ music played through the night. Battling against the wind, torrential rain, thunder, lightning and organ music came seven black bundles. You would have thought an attack during the day against a vampire castle would make more sense, however dwarves aren’t particularly bright and the ninja dwarves doubly so. The only reason they’d chosen a night attack was because they had assumed that their black robes would act as camouflage - forgetting just how good vampire sight is in the dark.

It was as they stumbled along the final ridge, which was actually an extremely narrow ‘bridge’ over a stupendously deep drop that the Count’s minions the elite vampire squadron known as the VAMP attacked. As they dived into attack formation, the dwarves saw them coming and tried to form a defensive formation…the sight was comical as all seven tried to backflip, forward roll and sidestep, all seven somehow falling over each other into a heap. The diving VAMPs’ were so confused and found the display so funny that they took their eyes of where they were flying.

“Hahahaha Arrgh” kind of summed up the squadron leaders thoughts as he and his minions plummeted face first in to the rocky bridge, which started to fall apart. Somehow the seven dwarves with the grace of a swan dying from leukaemia and missing both it’s legs managed to scramble to the other side as the remainder of the bridge fell slowly like marbles through treacle into the abyss. Realising that they were now outside the castle the dwarves valiantly assumed their most fierce ninja stances. Their leader (whose name was Bobbin but had changed it to Fung Shu ) yelled out:

“Surrender oh worthless Count to the mighty ninja dwarves for we seek the golden pick” getting no reply he continued “this is the feared Fung Shu speaking, feared across the land for his excellent backward roll and double somersault, now open the door!” Slowly the giant oak door creaked open blasting the dwarves with the sound of hideous organ music within. “And turn that organ off” he added, the music died away leaving the mere howling of the wind. One of the ninja dwarves did wonder out loud whether the Count could turn the wind off as well but was ignored. Slowly the dwarves stole noisily into the castle.

It took a while for the dwarves to find the Count. To be fair he had set up giant flashing neon arrows to help them but they initially missed them, then spent half an hour trying to work out what they meant. Finally they entered a giant room, lined with plush red gothic furniture. At the far end seated on a red velvet chair sat the Count. Slowly he rose to his feet and advanced

“So these are the minions sent to take me down” he said smiling, his slick jet black hair bounced lightly off his back, his red – rimmed eyes focused on the dwarves, his white teeth stained red with blood as he slowly advanced across the room. The dwarves stood transfixed, finally Dumpy (known as Red Dragon) muttered,

“Do you think this is a trap…with those helpful arrows showing us here, and the trapdoor shaped hole beneath our feet and the net thing hanging above our heads and those crossbows like objects pointed at us over on the right?”

“Don’t be silly Red Dragon” muttered Fung Shu “Its only more gothic decoration.” Just then the Count reached up and pulled a lever on the wall, the net began to descend, the trapdoor started to open, the crossbows tensed, then all stopped working as a flash of lightning hit the tower and short-circuited the electicity.
“Rats”, muttered the Count.
“No I think it was the electricity” piped up Du Son Fu who was desperately trying to get his foot out of the crack in the floor. Far from helping the Count’s mood this comment seemed to enrage him further and he turned on the ninja’s, who though completely incompetent were not lacking in bravery and advanced on him.

The Count could only watch, mesmerised by the completely ridiculous attack. First of all the dwarves forward rolled right, then left, the dwarves at the end of the line on each side smashing into the walls. Then all seven jumped up and adopted ninja stances before barking out gruff ninja cries. The sight it is fair to say was more ridiculous than the Prime Minister turning up at a circus in a spacesuit and pretending to be a lion. It had the Count crying tears of laughter. Suddenly as fast as sticky mud sliding up a hill the dwarves sprung into action. All charged haphazardly towards the Count hurling lumps of garlic and missing with spectacularly bad air kicks. The attack may have had all the subtlety of a giant bulldozer driven by a rampant rhino and the sight of such abuse of the ancient art form of martial arts may well have had any ninja master in floods of tears but it was still surprisingly effective. A lump of garlic hit the Count in the face, he staggered back and was floored by a completely random punch. Within minutes the Count and most of the room had been smashed to pieces, chunks of wall and floor were missing and there, where the Counts chair had been, lay the golden pick - axe. The dwarves had succeeded where no-one else had dared to fail.

Epilogue

Needless to say it took the dwarves several days of wandering around the castle until they discovered a large trap door marked ‘Secret Way Out’. This took them to the bottom of the cliff, and carrying the pick – axe above their heads they headed triumphantly home. Unfortunately they got lost on the way and accidentally dropped the pick – axe into the Ravine of Very Large and Dangerous Ogres. That however is another tale altogether…