Another Ales and Tales

I managed to persuade my Fool to skip out of work again for a few hours, so that I could perform to adoring crowds at Ales and Tales. In an old quarry, can you believe it? I suppose this smacks of Bohemian disrespect for natural authority, for a sort of devil-may-care attitude of irreverence, for a casual approach to superficially important matters.

Maybe so, but I cannot help waiting for the time when I get to perform in a situation that is more appropriate to my station. There is nothing inherently wrong with a star trailer. With bottled mineral water of just the kind I like. Of comfortable couches and sofas in a landscaped, high-security, back-stage area, of free chocolate-covered raisins, of hordes of fawning minions running around after my every whim. Nothing wrong with this at all. So what, exactly, is the problem? The Lonely Mountain Band seems unable to provide these basic necessities, and I begin to question either their will or their competence to do so.

Of course, people refused, once again, to play my own compositions. Total, unreasoning, refusal. I just don't understand. My Fool's music is derivative and superficial, mine is deep and intellectual. I suppose there is just no accounting for taste.

I remain unable to do much else, apart from practise my fingering moves. Every time I try and talk to someone almost anywhere they tell me they can't talk to me but if only I paid them money they would talk to me quite happily.

Quite frankly, this is outrageous. They should be paying me, not the other way around. The conversational gems that drop from my lips should be treasured as momentos. Especially by someone who is short, hairy and ugly. I name no names, but it does seem that almost everyone in the Misty Mountains fits that description.

I suppose that if I lived in such a vile, nasty cold area, covered in snow and ice, I also would want to be short and hairy. I can understand that. But why do they have to be ugly as well? Is it necessary to cope with the climate? Maybe it's just not necessary to be beautiful (like me) as they never uncover enough to make it matter. I certainly wouldn't, not in those temperatures.

At any rate, even those short, hairy, ugly little fellows won't talk to me. Oh, the humiliation.

I can tell it's going to be a long trek to level 400.