The Tell-Tale Greyling – A Tragedy

We had the first moment that I thought could possibly be Reddit-worthy – wish we had video but wanted to share.

Thanks to inspiration from many of you amazing folks, my fellow Viking friend had built a beautiful bar on our top floor. We captured two greyling bartenders and dubbed the bar "Greyote Ugly." It took a TON of time to harpoon and drag the bartenders as they kept running away from all our sconces (maybe there's a faster way, but seriously, folks aren't kidding about how hard it is to hire in this economy), so I was especially proud of them in our house and felt quite a bond with them whenever I'd pass some time at the bar.

One of my two teammates is the main builder and he had fermented dozens of gorgeous glowing meads that were all arranged just-so on shelves over the bar. It looked very beautiful, I will admit. However, in a crucial mistake, he made the bar right next to the portal area, so whenever it's time to go or when you're jumping from one portal to another, it's simply the most convenient place to stock up on meads. So the other day, while jumping between portals, I ducked into the house for a second and took a few medium healing meads off the bar when he wasn't looking. The next day, he texts both of us: "Who has been clearing out the bar???" Naturally, I remained silent.

The next night, we're together again for a resource run. My teammate again asks who "cleared out" the bar, to which I said I might have taken a few, but that I definitely didn't "clear it out" and it must have been someone else if that many were missing. He sternly instructs us to get our meads from the chest in the basement instead of off the bar from now on because it ruins the visual impact. So at that point, it's on – I'm ready to prank this control freak.

Once we get back from the run, as he's downstairs sorting and dropping off all his stuff, I get up on the bar and start taking meads from everywhere with reckless abandon, creating obvious holes in the beautiful glowing rows. At first I think of keeping them myself, but figure that will be too obvious, so instead I drop them behind one of the greylings cowering in the corner of the bar away from the sconces.

A while later while we're still playing, he's like "WHO DID THIS?" No one says anything. He says he knows it was one of us and I reply that I don't have them – I innocently suggest maybe the greylings were messing with them. He dismisses this. A few minutes later, he's once again speculating how this happened as we're at the bar and I point out, feigning shock, that the meads are all stacked right behind the greyling.

There's a pause as he goes to look and then genuine shock on his end. "Holy SHIT!" he exclaims. "They HAVE been stealing them! I didn't know they could do that!" Really wish there was video at this point because I'm giggling like a giddy schoolchild to myself right now. I look down to text my other friend who's on with us to tell him I orchestrated the whole thing. As I'm looking away, I hear control freak friend say "Well, fuck that – I'm not putting up with that!" As I look up, I hear the *shing* of a sword and one single mournful bray and turn around to see him SUMMARILY EXECUTING OUR GREYLING BARTENDER. I barely have time to say anything until POOF – all that remains of our dear friend is wood, resin, and an eye.

My laughter turned to ashes in my mouth. I've never felt so guilty about a greyling death. RIP Unnamed Greyote Ugly Bartender 2.