> Wraithvine is delayed by a foe employing a most unusual tactic against hir: Telling aimless stories that donβt go anywhere.
> Might unfold something like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yujF8AumiQo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yujF8AumiQo) -- [Deathshead419](https://www.internutter.org/bb/user/deathshead419)
There's only so many ways one could go with a name like Ephriam Ardhardt, and this particular Warlock chose the most obvious route. One day, Wraithvine would figure out what made them like that and stop it at the source. Alas, that particular quest was well out of hir reach.
As was Ardhardt's lair.
Because Ardhardt had deployed a most diabolical tactic to waylay Wraithvine - his grandfather. Who was clearly starved for attention, and had already been talking for a solid half-hour.
"...don't make plays like they used to. It's all spectacle with romance tacked on in a flimsy net," said the sage. "Not even the ones they make with spider silk, the fake stuff the alchemists try to fob off cheap on the unsuspecting. Why'd they let those lunatics loose?"
Wraithvine took a breath to answer, but didn't get a chance to speak.
"I'll tell you why they let them loose. The assylums can't hold 'em. You'd think our taxes would pay for better security, and keep 'em locked up. But there's merchants who _love_ gold more than the diggerfolk. Not allowed to call 'em Dwarves any more. Y' gotta say do-var-oof or whatnot. Kids these days corrupting the common trader tongue with their new-fangled jibber-jabber, can't understand a dang word they're saying."
Wraithvine couldn't remember a time when it was _ever_ acceptable to call the D'varuv 'Dwarves', and ze'd been traveling all over and under Alfarell since the Age of Dragons. Since _before_ the D'varuv surfaced, introduced themselves, and Elven kind picked a fight with them. But ze couldn't contradict the old man because ze couldn't get a word in edgewise.
Fortunately for Wraithvine's efforts to prevent a Warlock-induced disaster, _ze_ had a Dragon on hir side. And a few Adventurers willing to disassemble Ardhardt's plans without -unnecessarily- killing the Warlock himself.
Wraithvine had been trying to keep the thread of the elder's 'conversation' straight for three quarters of an hour. If _anything_ was going to teach the Warlock a lesson, it would be being trapped in a chamber with his grandfather.
The man probably deserved it.
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