Warriors Inc.

Dr Grumblestumps fumbled around in his little sanctuary, aptly named Gnome Sweet Home. Pictures of relatives, hanging unnoticed, and plenty of books covered the walls. His home wasn’t very big, but everything inside had its own place – or that’s what Grumblestumps liked to think, anyway. He flicked through his notes and scribbled turbulently with his pencil. He raised his head, interrupted by a hollow knock on his oddly shaped door. ‘Do come in,’ he intoned. The visitor swung the door open heavily. After all, the door was half the size of the entire house. This particular house was constructed many hundreds of years ago, by his great-great-great-grand-uncle’s father’s brother’s sister’s third cousin twice removed from the town – and then returned, only to confuse the entire population. The town decided to leave him there, and to move the town three clicks and two pennies over. Inside the new town was a gigantic oak tree with more branches than the local carpenter. Upon closer inspection, the townsfolk found the tree to have pre-dated the town by many hundreds of years. They also noticed that the entire inside of the tree had been hollowed out by the local Armachuck bird that had lived there at about the same time. The newly formed town had the only credible healer and leader at the time, who decided to use the hollow tree and make it the town’s very own medical centre and local tavern all in one. Back then, it was thought to be a rather good idea to combine the medical centre and tavern. If you were in any sort of a bar brawl and you lost, you could be attended to without having to travel too far. Things, of course, had changed since then. The enormous tree had been handed over from one generation to the next, and now belonged to Grumblestumps, serving as a medical centre and home.