Fortunately for the hotel and the restaurant, Alexander and his merry band of gnolls had moved on the next morning, but the damage to the restaurant's reputation was done. Now, 24 hours later, Alexander was meeting with gnoll chieftain in what would be the straw that broke the chieftain's less than patient back.
"I should have known better than to think you would be able to follow my simple instructions. How difficult is it to find the next town with a large hotel when you have all night to search for one? Your stupidity and ignorance, and blatant disregard for my comfort just astounds me. If you think I'm going to lower my standards and join you and your diseased looking lot by sleeping on the forest floor, you are sadly mistaken!"
As previously mentioned, language was a barrier between Alexander and the gnolls when they first started communicating. But with time, the chieftain had quickly picked up the English language as he, and the other gnolls, were not as stupid and ignorant as they wanted Alexander to believe. It was to their advantage to keep him in the dark, literally and figuratively, when it came to who was the more intelligent race.
Now, the chieftain turned his back on Alexander and began to wave his arms and yell random insults about Alexander to his army as if he were relaying to them all that Alexander had said. The gnolls were not a shy race, and the moment was not lost to them that the anger of the human might finally mean that they would be feasting well that night.
Ignorant to the fact that the joke was now on him, and that he was far from any city or town that could save him from his self-created destruction, Alexander stood with his hands on his hips, nodding in oblivious agreement with whatever the chieftain was saying. Nodding that is, until he realized that the horde were surrounding him and his end was at hand.
In another 24 hours, the gnolls were still rubbing their swollen and distended bellies, laughing amongst themselves about the stupidity and ignorance of certain arrogant humans who failed to have any regard for others.
Giving up their pursuit of Kael, and all other wood elves, they made their way back to familiar forests, hauling behind them bones that had been stripped clean of all flesh, muscle, and tendons. They would reassemble them when they got home as a wind chime, hanging as a warning to others who might doubt their fighting skills and strength.
For his part, Alexander never did comprehend how they could have betrayed his trust, and to this day his ghost is rumored to haunt that portion of the woods.
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Part of me is glad he is gone, part of me is sad he let himself become the kind of person who almost deserved such a fate.
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