Graverobber stared down at the murky grayish-green drink in front of him with a wary gaze, wondering if the liquid inside was actually alcohol or just rainwater they'd collected in a trash can. Phbpnn was rambling on about something, but Graverobber couldn't pry his attention away from the cup of putrid bog water in front of his face.
"—and then you fell from the sky and didn't even die and it was like you'd just swooped down like a trash hawk—"
Graverobber groaned and slammed his head down on the much-too-small table in front of him, rattling his drink and Phbpnn's, which the small gnome quickly took to guzzling at the reminder that it was still untouched on the table. He didn't cease speaking despite drinking the frothy green brew, spewing drops around the 'pub' with every spoken word.
"—ablugh desh shplat min gam blout bleund chure glike BLOOOSH!" Phbpnn gurgled out, making wild hand gestures with his free hand and attempting at sound effects to go with his pantomime.
Graverobber palmed his eyes and grabbed his drink in resignation. Hopefully, the brew would kill him and mercifully cease the never-ending torment of Phbpnn's storytelling. Without another moment's hesitation, he opened his mouth, closed his eyes, and poured the entire contents of the glass down his throat—and gagged. He'd previously figured that, being a man who works with the dead on a regular basis and gets his meals out of a dumpster, that there was very little in the world that could feasibly disgust him. He was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Graverobber coughed and sputtered and spat out the disgusting liquid with a sound much akin to coughing up a hairball, "Ugh! What the hell was that?! Sewage?" He raked his nails down his tongue, trying to scrape off the flavor, but it didn't help. He knew he would remember that horrible taste until the day he died.
Phbpnn stopped chugging his own drink and smiled widely, "Of course! It's a local favorite!"
Graverobber's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull at his annoying companion's admission and his mouth fell open as though Phbpnn had just said the single most shocking thing in the universe. He shook his head slowly and coughed, "Great… That's just great. Now I can die slowly of E. coli and botulism."
"Hurray! Botumalism!" Phbpnn exclaimed as he picked up his drink and began to chug it again.
Graverobber rubbed his temples and winced at Phbpnn's whiny voice. As if drinking sewage weren't bad enough, he was already developing a headache. He knew his head would probably explode if Phbpnn went off on another rant, so he decided to try directing the conversation instead, "So… Pheeben…"
"Phbpnn," Phbpnn corrected.
"Fubbin, whatever—" Graverobber resumed.
"Phbpnn," the gnomish man corrected, again.
"Fuhpen?"
"Phbpnn Phbpnn Phbpnn!!" Phbpnn shrieked, causing Graverobber to block his closest ear in pain.
"Phbpnn! Whatever! I got it! Geez!" Graverobber held up his gloved hands defensively in the direction of the shrieking goblin across the table from him, "Look, seeing how I did just drop from the sky today, how about you explain a little about this …uh… Trash Kingdom you guys have here?"
Phbpnn seemed to perk right back up instantly at his suggestion and he smiled his awful, rotten, toothy smile, "Mister Dave Roberts wants to know about my home? Of course! Ask me anything!" Graverobber stared at him for a long moment, somewhat disturbed at just how quickly Phbpnn's mood could change. He cleared his throat and then tossed out his first question for his half-pint tour guide, "Well, first off, what is the Trash Kingdom? How did it get here?"
Phbpnn seemed to have a problem with the phrasing, blinking confusedly and asking, "Get here…?" Graverobber could practically see the gears in the little man's head grinding together hopelessly as he tried to understand the syntax and he pressed his gloved hands into his eyes frustratedly, "Look, let's just start with the first question. What is the Trash Kingdom?" Phbpnn resumed his smiling and nodded, "Oh, okay! The Trash Kingdom is where I live."
Graverobber nodded and a long moment passed between them in silence before he realized that was Phbpnn's entire answer, "…And?"
"And what?" Phbpnn asked.
"What do you mean 'and what'? You know, elaborate? Explain more? Like… its history, maybe? … Are you understanding anything that I'm saying right now?" Graverobber sighed, realizing that his guide was dumber than a doorpost.
"Of course! I've lived here my whole life. It's filled with all the stuff that falls from the sky," said Phbpnn, matter-of-factly.
"Alright, good. We're getting somewhere. Now, how does it get here? The trash, I mean."
"It… it falls from the sky…?" Phbpnn whimpered. Clearly, the concept of the trash having some other origin than simply falling from the sky was too much for his small brain to handle.
Graverobber groaned and smacked his forehead. Getting the information he wanted from him was clearly going to be like pulling teeth; difficult, painful, and probably requiring the use of pliers, "Nevermind. So, how did it come to be called the Trash Kingdom?"
True to form, Phbpnn entirely missed the emphasis in the question and pointed to a bag with the word 'trash' on it that formed part of the pub wall, replying, "The bags that fall from the sky say 'trash'."
Graverobber rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples as he shook his head, "No, the kingdom part! Augh!" he threw his hands up in frustration, "Look, do you have a king?"
Phbpnn nodded and smiled from ear to ear, which was an impressive feat considering the size of his head, "Oh! Of course! King Oritt!"
"King Oritt. Okay, good. We're making some progress at least. What about tabs? What are they? Wait—you know what, just show me what you use for money. I'll figure it out on my own," he said, quickly thinking twice about the phrasing of the question. He figured Phbpnn would simply say 'They're tabs' and he'd be back at square one again. Phbpnn dumped the meager contents of his money pouch out onto the table and Graverobber leaned down to inspect them.
He blinked a few times in surprise as he realized that what they used as 'currency' was nothing more than bottle caps and the hard plastic tabs that hold the packaging around bread loaves closed. He assumed that the bottle caps, being more common, would serve as something like change for them and that the 'tabs' were the primary monetary value. Graverobber's brows furrowed some and he turned to Phbpnn, "How many bottle caps are in a tab?"
Phbpnn looked confused, "Caps don't fit in tabs. You could fit a tab or two in a cap probably…"
Graverobber couldn't take it anymore. He sat completely still and stiff as a board for a long moment before he started flailing about wildly and flinging expletives as though something in his head had just snapped. He then slammed his head down hard on the table and stayed like that for a few beats before grumbling, "Never mind… I'll just ask someone else…" He pushed his chair back and palmed his eyes as he walked over to the bar, leaving Phbpnn at the table to experiment with just how many tabs he could feasibly fit in a cap.
Graverobber plopped down on what he could only assume was a stool and groaned as he smacked his head into the bar. He figured that if he did that enough he would probably either knock himself out or die, both of which seemed to become more and more attractive options as the day wore on. He then straightened up and attempted at a smile to get the bartender's attention, but the anger behind the expression made him look completely deranged. The serving goblin squealed in horror and dove through a shelf full of bottles, which all promptly smashed to bits as they collided with the packed trash floor.
Graverobber watched with a blank expression for a long moment before he sighed and stood up. He walked back over to Phbpnn, who had already taken to shoving tabs up his nose as a source of amusement, and he picked the gnomish man up off of his chair and carried him out of the pub without another word. Once he reached the door, he drop-kicked the tiny man in an unrestrained fit of anger, sending the screaming gnome hurtling over a trash pile that had been labeled 'Schmd's Shoe Shop'. Dust and trash rose up in a plume from behind it, accompanied by a loud clattering crash, leaving Graverobber to assume that Phbpnn had landed in one of the numerous other trash piles beyond it.
Finally, Graverobber heaved a sigh of relief. For the first time since he'd landed in the kingdom he was able to enjoy complete silence. He took a moment to try and get his bearings. He stopped a squat haggish creature with a backpack piled with odds and ends as it walked by and asked, "Excuse me, can you tell me what town this is?" The squat haggish creature, which Graverobber quickly found to be female, promptly reeled around with an indignantly angry expression and cried, "Well, you have SOME NERVE!" and gave Graverobber little time to react before she started inexplicably hitting him over the head with a broken chair. He had little time to process or think of an escape before the hag shoved him through a small doorway, and he stumbled and fell onto cold concrete.
Graverobber looked up and his eyes almost bugged out of his head in disbelief, "Home!" he cried happily, finding himself back in his alley again. He ran over to his dumpster and hugged it gleefully before grabbing a wandering Z addict and kissing him full on the mouth in his exuberance. He did a small happy dance before he placed both hands on the side of the dumpster and vaulted himself into the trash inside of it. He settled into the pile of old pizza boxes that served as a makeshift bed and grinned widely. Everything was all right with the world again.
He only had a few moments to enjoy that happiness. "Yes, yes, better to stay in here, dear. No, no, don't want to go out there. There's nothing you need out there!" Graverobber's jaw dropped as he poked his head over the side of the dumpster and saw the trash hag standing in front of a gaping blue portal and picking up things off the street. Graverobber nearly fainted and dove back into the bottom of the dumpster, but not even there was safe for long, as the hag began throwing things into his dumpster one by one. Graverobber huddled under a box and cried as things began bouncing off the pizza box over his head. Nowhere was safe from the madness!
"---And here are your little vials, you love your little vials, don't you?" the hag continued and tossed them into the dumpster as Graverobber watched in horror. The Zydrate vials bounced off the box above his head and managed, spectacularly, to bounce right back out of the dumpster, and he mourned inwardly as he heard the vials shatter on the pavement. He started plotting internally how to escape this obvious waking hell he'd found himself in. "If I use the pizza box as a shield… No, no, she has that chair. Damn it. Oh! I know! I'll use that Z addict as a shield!" he thought as a broken bottle fell just beside his head, scaring the crap out of him and nearly taking his ear off.
Suddenly, a shrill voice startled both of them, "Mister Dave Roberts? Are you here, Mister Dave Roberts?"
Graverobber was silently thanking some sort of divine power as he seized his opportunity to escape. He sprang from the dumpster and picked up the annoying little gnome just in time to deflect a well-thrown burrito with Phbpnn's head. A series of bottles and cans followed in quick succession, and he struggled to block them all with Phbpnn's tiny body. Phbpnn, for his part, didn't seem to notice one way or another. He smilied broadly and screamed, "Yay! Mister Dave Roberts!" all the while, even despite the extreme threat of bodily injury as a Z addict followed the bottles and cans, taking out both Phbpnn and Graverobber with a mighty crash.
Graverobber was briefly winded as the three bodies tumbled end over end and collided with the alley wall. He stood back up and threw the drugged and bewildered man in the direction of the hag and then picked Phbpnn up and tucked him under his arm. He ducked low, made a break for it, and then dove through the portal, popping out on the other side just outside of the pub. He promptly ran around to the other side of the pub and pushed the entire trash pile over onto the portal before grabbing Phbpnn again and running away from the aftermath as fast as his legs could move. He made a vow to apologize later, but for now his only intention was to get as far away from that town as his legs would carry him.
Author's Note: So, yeah. You might notice some hidden references in here, and kudos to you if you do! You get a cookie! I hope you enjoyed chapter two despite all it's randomness and madness. I promise, there is actually a plot to this underneath all the crazy madness and gnome punting. Despite that, I'd like to apologize to Terrance for taking his character and tossing him into such a random set of circumstances. I'd also like to apologize to Phbpnn for so many instances of physical violence.