Greetings, kind patrons! It’s time for another Farlorian Friday bonus!
Sean and I came up with the idea for The Axe & Crown on the drive home from the HEAR Now festival in 2015. A few weeks later, I attended the Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat and bashed out this early episode draft in the wee hours of the morning — still one of the fastest drafts I’ve ever written. It doesn’t even feature Stan, who was still named Ashwin, and wasn’t the landlord yet. Betula, meanwhile, was named Wineva, and in town to attend university, and the Badger and Bucket was run by a couple randomly named Brandy and Rick.
The # marks indicate “make funny later”.
SCENE — PUB, NIGHT
SOUND: Exterior door
WINEVA
Uncle? Uncle!
(she hurries over)
Gods, I can’t leave you alone for one night. You okay there?
GUBBIN
Whuh — what’s happening?
WINEVA
Whoa, whoa, steady there, champ. Looks like you already fell on your face once too many tonight.
GUBBIN
I hadda tell a guy something. Something important.
WINEVA
No, don’t get up on your own. Here.
GUBBIN
It was important.
WINEVA
It’s four in the morning. It can wait until you’re good and rested and sober.
GUBBIN
Not drunk.
WINEVA
Uh huh.
GUBBIN
I’m not drunk!
WINEVA
Sure you aren’t. Watch out, there’s broken glass everywhere. Did someone hit you with a bottle?
GUBBIN
(checks)
Don’t feel any bruises.
SOUND: Bits of glass brushed aside.
WINEVA
Aw, this was the good stuff, too! A whole bottle of gluminberry tonic.
GUBBIN
Why does that ring a bell?
WINEVA
Because I brought this all the way from Trølslund. Also, you’ve been lying in a puddle of it for gods know how long. C’mon. You need rest and I need to clean this up.
GUBBIN
But there was a thing I was supposed to do.
WINEVA
’S called sleep.
GUBBIN
No, no, before that, Need to find… something.
WINEVA
Bed.
GUBBIN
No, not bed.
WINEVA
Bedroom. Stairs to bedroom.
GUBBIN
Will you stop it? I wrote it down, it was just here, somewhere…
(he fumbles around at the bar)
SOUND: A stein tips and smashes
WINEVA
Uncle. Stop messing around. Bed. Now.
GUBBIN
Here it is!
WINEVA
Oh kriispar, who carved up your bar top like that?
GUBBIN
I did!
WINEVA
You just refinished that bar!
GUBBIN
It was an important message!
WINEVA
(squinting)
DOBON. Dobon? Is that a person?
GUBBIN
No, it’s a… mineral. Or a vegetable. Dobon. Pobon?
WINEVA
Poison.
GUBBIN
Poison!
WINEVA
Poison?
GUBBIN
Or maybe it’s Rob-on. Roison?
WINEVA
Have you been poisoned?
GUBBIN
I don’t think so. Yes. No. Yes. Doison?
WINEVA
That’s not a word.
GUBBIN
Filevaar tuukin, someone poisoned me!
WINEVA
Really!
GUBBIN
Who was it. Who was it.
WINEVA
You figure it out, let me know and I’ll throw them a party. What kind of poison?
GUBBIN
Poison? Someone been poisoned?
WINEVA
You’ve been poisoned.
GUBBIN
Damn. Must have been something nasty. My head’s throbbing like a bastard and I can barely see.
WINEVA
Oh crap. Hey, Uncle, what’s this?
SOUND: She pulls something out of a satchel
GUBBIN
One of your textbooks. Looks like “Prince Alsoff The Murgy-turgy.”
WINEVA
Principles of Thaumaturgy.
GUBBIN
I said that.
WINEVA
What colour is it?
GUBBIN
Dunno, sort of a greyish grey?
WINEVA
It’s red. Uncle, you’ve gone colour-blind.
GUBBIN
Says you.
WINEVA
And you’ve got amnesia.
GUBBIN
Who’s got amnesia?
WINEVA
I think you’ve got piccanolis poisoning.
GUBBIN
Oh. That’s bad, isn’t it.
WINEVA
Bad? It’s deadly. And the only antidote is…
GUBBIN AND WINEVA
Gluminberry.
GUBBIN
Of course!
WINEVA
And our only bottle is currently soaking through the floor.
GUBBIN
I hate those stupid wired-in corks. I can’t open ’em with my big fat fingers.
WINEVA
So you smashed it open.
GUBBIN
In my panic I may have used more force than necessary.
WINEVA
All right. It’s gonna be okay. I know where to get more.
GUBBIN
Really? No one sells that stuff in town.
WINEVA
They have some across the street.
GUBBIN
Across the street. What, at the Badger and Bucket?!
WINEVA
Yeah. They have gluminberry cocktails on special this week — let go of my leg.
GUBBIN
How do you know this? What were you doing over there?
WINEVA
I can look at their menu!
GUBBIN
Those # hipsters trying to lure you away? “Oh, our kitchen is much better than theirs. So much cleaner and shinier.”
WINEVA
I was checking out the competition. Let go. I have to go save your stupid life.
GUBBIN
“Come to us… sell your soul… cook fancy food for rich twitheads…”
WINEVA
Uncle.
GUBBIN
I bet they don’t even put real gluminberry in those drinks.
WINEVA
Well, it won’t hurt to ask.
GUBBIN
I’m not asking for anything from them.
WINEVA
You don’t have to ask them.
GUBBIN
I’m not asking and neither are you.
WINEVA
You’d rather die.
GUBBIN
Than owe them my life? Hells right I would. I bet that’s who poisoned me.
WINEVA
Let go of my damn leg, Uncle.
GUBBIN
No.
WINEVA
I bet you can’t even remember why you’re holding on to me.
GUBBIN
Nice try.
WINEVA
(sighs)
You really going to do this, Uncle? Die on principle?
GUBBIN
Nope. I’m gonna find me a straw and try to drink up any that’s left between the floorboards.
WINEVA
It’s all drained into the cellar, Uncle.
GUBBIN
Fine. Help me downstairs.
WINEVA
Let go of my leg.
GUBBIN
I’m dying, Wineva.
WINEVA
Yeah, you are. I bet that’ll show ’em, huh? You just go and die on us, and wow! They’ll just be so crushed that they’ll have to close up shop and leave this neighbourhood for good.
GUBBIN
They might.
WINEVA
And in my grief I’ll just have to drop out of university and carry on your legacy, running the good old Axe and Crown just like my good old uncle, serving the good old everyday folks of Mud Street.
GUBBIN
Really? You’d do that for me?
WINEVA
No. You die and I probably have to find another damn job and another place to live, because some rich twit is gonna buy this place up and replace it with a high-end boutique selling # organic cat scratching posts.
GUBBIN
You’re as heartless as your mother. And our mother before her.
WINEVA
You going to let me save your life so you can go on fighting the good fight?
GUBBIN
(beat)
All right.
WINEVA
Barsonn Kruspi. [Goddess of common sense]
(over her shoulder as she leaves)
And don’t try and move!
GUBBIN
I won’t.
SOUND: Exterior door
GUBBIN
Damn, I’m thirsty.
(strains)
SOUND: He knocks over a stool
GUBBIN
Dammit.
SCENE — PUB, SHORTLY THEREAFTER
SOUND: Exterior door
WINEVA
(rushing in)
I got the tonic. Here, sit back up.
GUBBIN
I’m feeling a bit better, actually.
SOUND: She opens the bottle
WINEVA
They were amazing, by the way. Said we could pay them back later. They really are nice folks, you know.
GUBBIN
Whatever you say.
WINEVA
Here. You’ll have to drink the whole thing in one go.
GUBBIN
I don’t need a whole bottle.
WINEVA
Yeah you do. Drink it.
GUBBIN
I think it was only a minor poisoning.
WINEVA
You had colour blindness and memory loss. That’s not minor.
GUBBIN
I’m gonna be all right. Look, that chair is brown and that one is brown, and this floor…
WINEVA
You see those things every day. Here. What colour is the seal on this parchment?
GUBBIN
Blue. See? I’m fine.
WINEVA
Lucky guess.
GUBBIN
And the ink there is red.
WINEVA
Fine, you’re not colour blind any more. Wait.
GUBBIN
Well, I reckon I’ll turn in for the night.
WINEVA
You weren’t really poisoned.
GUBBIN
I was too. It was bad. You saw me. I had tunnel vision, couldn’t stand…
WINEVA
So like pretty much every night after hours.
GUBBIN
Not every night.
WINEVA
Every night I’m not here to cut you off drinking.
GUBBIN
I may have had a few. But someone definitely poisoned me. Damn, I wonder who it was, the dirty rat.
WINEVA
You broke the bottle, felt bad about it and then sent me to steal the weekly special for the Badger and Bucket.
GUBBIN
What do you take me for?
WINEVA
A conniving bastard. Am I wrong?
GUBBIN
Someone poisoned me, Wineva.
WINEVA
I’m taking this back.
GUBBIN
No! I might need it. You know, if he tries again. The dirty rat.
WINEVA
Either I take this back, or you owe your life to Brandy and Rick across the street.
GUBBIN
(sighs)
I really like gluminberry…
WINEVA
I’ll tell them they pulled you back from death’s very door.
GUBBIN
No. No. Take it back. Gods, woman. I can’t have that hanging over me.
WINEVA
Now go to bed before you break anything else.
GUBBIN
Yes, Mother.
MUSIC: Closing theme