Bad Luck
The curse glowed. It radiated. It shone and fought back the daylight. It took the form of a six-sided star tattoo on the right shoulder of Dunrr the dwarf. Observe in slowed motion as the dwarf charged through the air at Borkel the barbarian.
Borkel took no notice of the shining tattoo and as he would soon find out, that was a dire mistake. Even though Dunrr was rushing with all his dwarven might, Borkel brushed him aside. He turned around, threw his axe down and held the dwarf.
The curse forbade Dunrr from disobeying Illuvetar and Lirsti. And they distinctly, however abrubtly, told him a few moment’s ago to not attack and so the curse was activated. Borkel clearly thought he had the upper hand and was about to strike Dunrr. Lirsti and Illuvetar winced, knowing to expect the bad thing about to happen – whatever it was. All the while, the crowd cheered at the fight going on.
The light around the tattoo exploded in a flash of bad luck. The bad luck manifested as a swarm of bees that flew from somewhere out of the arena and surrounded wrestling Borkel and Dunrr. Borkel wasn’t the primary target of the bees but he didn’t know that. He was so surprised that he jumped off Dunrr and threw most of his armour off in a panic-struggle against the stinging insects.
Illuvetar jumped onto him and pulled off the antimagic pendant away and with the help of Lirsti’s magic, they pinned him down. Dunrr was running around the arena being chased by bees. Soon they gave up or decided that the dwarf’s bad luck was about settled.
“Yield!” yelled Lirsti.
“Alright; alright,” said Borkel, writhing from the bee stings. The crowd was madly filled with entertainment.
“Will you answer our questions, my good man?” asked Illuvetar.
“Yes; yes, let’s go somewhere else.”
Soon afterwards in the hypogeum the three adventurers were standing around Borkel who sat while having his stings tended to by a servant. Dunrr had fortunately been given some ointment as well.
“Well, what do you want to know?” said Borkel’s gruff voice.
“We want to know about the Improbability Orb.”
“Ahh,” said Borkel, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
TaleTurner 