Author's note: No, that's not a typo in the title. Yes, this is that kind of story. (Which also means that this is a very light sort of take on the theme.) :-D


Adventures are not all they're cracked up to be. Except, perhaps, this one.

It began, you see, with a cracked pot. Bound to happen, I suppose: it was the favoured cooking vessel of three generations, and made of clay besides. The damage was discovered the day my mother stewed over a strangely boiled-off eel soup. I considered the dish capital; my mother commended me for putting a bold face on it (though I had found no fault in the meal) and my father morosely pointed out that there was no profit in whatever hare-brained scheme I had (though for all my oddities, I had entertained no such thoughts).

The scheme came only on the following day, and was, in fact, my friend Boundsmoor's: he had heard of an artisan in Cair Paravel who would mend broken pottery with gold. Alas, my friend could not accompany me, and only instructed me to travel southeast before he hared off in the opposite direction.

I knew not the distance, but at least I had a direction, and so I set forth on my adventure. A flock of the friendliest Sparrows greeted and conversed with me along the way; in their company, the rest of the morning flitted away. By noon, I confess I was hungry (this is what comes of adventuring ill-prepared). As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a little farm. In my fall, I caught myself on a clay pot of tomatoes (on the other hand, I am well). This disturbance interrupted the good farmwife's cheesemaking, but she tended to my little injury and bade me partake of a little curds and whey. Having thus refreshed me, she provided instructions regarding the crossing at the river and sent me on my way.

After the crossing, however, I grew lost in the woods. Time would fail me to tell of all that befell me in that wood (this is what comes of adventuring in an unfamiliar place and biome), but suffice to say that I learned that a dwarf already short of temper is best left alone, conversing with a Sloth is slow going, and that I perhaps should have tried to right my trajectory by turning to the left instead.

By this time, I realized two things: that the pot was now damaged more than it had been before, and that Boundsmoor's capital idea required the kind of capital I did not have with which to pay. As the last of my adventuring spirit faded at last, the best of woodsmen came to my aid – for who else could know the woods so well as a Talking Tree? He escorted me back to the crossing, and thus began the homeward stretch (a relief to my aching arms!).

Ashamed of my failed quest (this is what comes of adventuring ignorantly), I feared to return home to a reputation of being more than a little cracked. I considered the widened crack in the old cooking pot, and in that moment recalled the potted tomatoes I had upset at the farm. Perhaps the whole of my oddities for the day were yet redeemable.

The cracked pot now resides by our wigwam door (time will tell how well the tomato plant will grow), and I myself am no less a crackpot than before (though perhaps less inclined to adventuring).

Adventures are not all they're cracked up to be, but they are what you make of them.


Prompt: Include a pun in your story.

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