Chapter 43: The Meal of Jam and Uncultivated Bread

Seven figures sat around a table of foolbear wood, the legs of the table were carved into the shape of bears and there was a carving of frolicking picnicking gambolling and gambling bears on the surface. The carpenter of the table had a habit of carving things related to the material he made the objects from, however it was not out of any artistic sense. Adpok was remembered for his bad sense of humour when he was alive. You see, every-time he did this kind of carving, he thought he was being funny, it was such that the nickname ‘the laughing carver’ was still used.

Or so Gosgos explained to his guests. At least some of them appeared interested.

The bears could not be easily seen of course, since the table was a mess of jam jars.

Truthfully the whole tower was stuffed with Adpok’s carvings of bears, each possessing an expression more idiotic than the last. It could almost have been considered a mercy that Gosgos’s jars covered over so much.

There were not chairs around the table. While chairs are quite common in Elcon, many denizens cannot use them effectively, so even more common than the chair is the hassock, even more common is just a simple cushion. The most common kind of Elconic hassock is a large rather box like thing with a cushion on top, for practical purposes, they often have a space for storage inside.

Naturally these hassocks were carved in the shape of daft looking bears lying on their backs, the cushions made up their stomachs.

Turmeric looked quite ludicrous atop one of these bears, and Loro while sitting on the largest one was practically hiding it.

Apart from the jars there were a handful of knives scattered around, and precariously placed on the top of the jars were a number of breadboards. The breads however were not of the freshly baked kind. These were the kind of breads that lurked and brooded. Breads that you could, given enough time, cultivate into a weapon. They had not yet however reached the stage of being inedible. They were merely at the extremely crunchy stage.

Gosgos had carefully extracted a number of surprisingly clean platters and given them out.

“Don’t wait on me, eat, eat, there is only jam and bread I’m afraid, but the jams on this table are all quite sustaining most could even be eaten as a staple!” Gosgos said with a bit of pride.

“Hmm what about this one?” Yerdl mused pulling out a jar that had a black jam with writhing glittering bits.

“Seems a bit lively dear” Ismi objected.

Kejo pulled out a jar that had a jam that sloshed about like the wave of the sea, he put it back after feeling a bit seasick.

“Ooooh, this one looks good”

Loro for her part just seemed to be collecting jams in a pile beside her.

Turmeric seeing that everyone was pawing over the jars, figured out what was going on. He hadn’t heard a word Gosgos was saying of course, since he had plugs in his earholes. He carefully examined the jams one moment seeming like he made his choice but then the next he would draw back away from the jars.

Marlequant however was looking doubtfully at all the jars.

This continued for some time, long enough that Gosgos began to look slightly annoyed. Finally when everyone was putting jam to bread, Kejo lifted his head and stared at Gosgos.

“How come you like jam so much anyway?” Kejo asked innocently.

“Oh, I’ve always loved all kinds of flavours and I tried many ways of preserving them, but I discovered I had a talent for making jam, so that was that” Gosgos said.

Yerdl, Kejo, Ismi and Turmeric at that moment felt a heavy sense of dread, but they could not remember the root of this dread. They did however all pause in their efforts of putting jam to bread.

Kejo decided to ask something else, for some reason the current topic unnerved him.

“So, how did you end up with this place”

“Inherited” Gosgos snapped.

Then the deeling angrily spread some jam on bread and with loud crunching ate it. Marlequant thought he heard a faint wail.

Kejo boggled at Gosgos’ abrupt dip in manners but seeing as how the conversation had died a sudden death, he returned to spreading jam.

Just as everyone that wasn’t Gosgos was about to eat, Marlequant saw it again.

A face in one of the Jars!

He plunged his paws into the mass of jars and pulled it out!

Doing so however caused a dramatic shift in the jars, and sent everyone’s bread falling down onto the floor. There was not a single one that avoided the fate of falling onto the floor of the dining room, it was as if the jam did not want to be eaten. A few jars even fell off and smashed onto the stone of the floor.

“Marle!” Loro shouted.

“Ah, sorry, I just saw… “

Marlequant looked at the jam jar in his hands. It was a bright orange jam, but it seemed quite ordinary.

“…I just saw that this jam looked really tasty!” he said.

Gosgos looked furious, but before anyone could see this, his face became calm and he smiled.

“Don’t worry about it, haha, don’t worry. I’ll clean it up afterwards, just hurry and eat, I sometimes knock down jars myself” he said.

Everyone settled back down and Gosgos got out new platters and it began again. Soon, everyone had a piece of bread with jam on it again and Gosgos watched eagerly as people prepared to eat.

It was at this moment that Loro let loose a gale of a sneeze, sending jars flying this way and that, sending the room into chaos. The frulids hid under their pots from the storm of jars. Not one platter escaped the hail of jars and more ended up on the floor again.

Gosgos quivered with each shatter of a jar!

“Its fine” he said through his clenched bill.

“Uh, sorry” Loro said sheepishly.

“Its fine. Fine. Fine” Gosgos repeated.

Again he got out platters and again bread had jam spread on it, and this time… nothing happened.

There was an opressive crunching sound as everyone ate the jam and bread.

Gosgos finally relaxed.