“Establishment Reviewed: Sins of the Mother”
The Dark Lord (Occasionally Responds to Unintentionally Helpful Villain)
Karataan
Fantasy Yelp Member Since ██████
Review Posted On: The Day A Moon Fell
666/5 stars
There I am, exploring a new world and there I go, finding myself a nice ‘lil island with a nice lil’ inn on it. And there she is, a nice older lady with a thunder and lightning in her eyes. That is no metaphor to the more literary-minded of gourmets who follow these; no, there was a story there, and I had to hear it.
This fine lady, Eska, was not intimidated by my stature, nor by my excessively pointy black armour. She bristled at my curiosity, however, to the point that she swallowed a number of stones–a local custom of some significance that eluded me. I did point out that there was perfectly good food to wolf down instead, and offered to pay*1 for it.
As luck would have it, she accepted.
The first course was a local bread pastry, called “the Pit”. My companion snorted, stuffed it in her mouth, and proceeded to tell me about her own time in a place of that same name. Darkness, criminals, indiscriminate murder, eldritch horrors, Sysiphean labour, The Pit had it all. I was beyond excited to visit and experience the madness for myself but Eska had to go breaking my heart by telling me she’d flooded it. I can only assume she’d done as much because the ol’ hole in the ground wasn’t up to code in the hygiene department*2.
The second course included a great deal of surface conversation, where Eska told me all about this world of hers. She kept mentioning someone named Ssserakis–a connoisseur of fear and someone I would make fast friends with, by all accounts. Conversation was heating up, as warm as a particularly well-worn hat. Or crown.
Our third meal included proper corpses. Yes, at long last, the dead flesh of animals! I shared my love of corpses whilst munching on my fowl. My companion smiled at the remark and said, “You’ll love how they’ll call me, then.” And I did! Turns out, the lady before me is called “The Corpse Queen” – a sobriquet as tasteful as any I myself have worn. Eska told me all about how she got that one. The story is a hoot, full of torture and other mouth-watering topics, including a plague of undead. “I’ve been there,” I tell her, and would you know it, that made her snicker. Appreciate a woman who can snicker.
For my part, I spoke about the ex-wife a little, mentioned my kid–wouldn’t you know it, she also has kids. One of them was aiming daggers at me across the room*3; the other, apparently, was off to no good, opening up wounds in the fabric of the universe. I do appreciate a woman with a clear goal in mind, I’ll say that much. Something about a mother struggling to put right the mistakes of the past–I’ll tell you right now, that raised my esteem of this Corpse Queen before me ten-fold. Been there, failed that.
It was around the fourth course of this exceptional meal that I realised the throbbing within mine armour was not owed to the deadly pocket spiders I hold for illkeeping but was in fact the first stings of . You know what I speak of. The flutters of bats in your stomach cavity, the incessant desire to spread chaos alongside rather than inside someone. Yes, my fellow dinners, Cupid had stuck its jagged arrows through mine blackened carapace.
Just as I was about to get to the fifth course with a dessert called “Death’s Beating Heart*4 “, the room exploded, courtesy of a common meteor strike. I love being in the middle of a meteorite shower as much as the next raid boss, but the interruption to our meal pained me. I appreciate that Eskara’s reaction to the building crumbling down over us was one of fury rather than fear. Any woman who can get this angry over a suspended dinner deserves my attention.
Anyway, that’s how I got married again.
Oh and the inn? Great dirty martiny!
666/5 stars
*1 I paid for it by leaving the innkeep alive and mostly in one piece. One of my more generous moods was upon me, and so I only took an eye for my martini. That, incidentally, is how the martini made it onto the world of Ovaeries.
*2 Mold will get you every time.
*3 Again, not an actual metaphor.
*4 this inn provides wonderfully macabre names for its specialties.
This is probably not canon…unless…?
While reading a short story masquerading as a Yelp review, I realised no one had probably done a humorous fantasy spoof of Yelp Reviews. No one, at least, in my immediate blogosphere circle–and these are creative folks. Now, this is the second entry in what is turning out to be a fully-fledged series of blog posts. People are enjoying them, I have plenty ideas to do more, so…why the hell not?
Note: I don’t use Yelp and I don’t care about it in the least, so whether this has anything to do with how a Yelp review is or not…fucked if I know.
The Grimoire Reliquary 
Leave a Reply