Silly Buckets of Hamster Basketry

“Excuse me could you be so kind as to tell me the time” He said
“No” was the answer
“I asked the time…”
“No” again it came. Clearly the beast wished not to give him the time and just simply enjoyed being difficult.
“Say its hellishly warm in here isn’t it?” He said, not wishing to actually make a reference to hell of course.
“SO… you believe yourself worthy to wield a hamster!?” the beast boomed out.
“No… what!? I asked only for the time!” He exclaimed in disbelief and shock. A hamster… What a puzzlement this was.
“Take up thy mighty bucket!” Roared the monster like an Olympian games announcer. Donald simply stared with a somewhat blank look on his face.
“But I wished only for the ti…”
“Take up thy mighty bucket!” again, cutting him off. Donald had begun to see the foolery of this errand would ask for the time elsewhere. He took a steady though irritated march to the cave exit. The monster in the middle, of what figure could be seen amongst the thick bushy hair, seemed to be unfazed by this. It continued to stand there, posed in a most glorious way, clearly lost within the imaginary role of the Olympian games announcer.

Donald continued to march until suddenly, as if from nowhere a stone slab dropped in front of the entrance, causing a colliding smash with the floor. Donald leapt in fright and then stood puzzled, he inspected the slab further when suddenly a flame shot out of the walls at him. Poor Donald was knocked off his feet and his long eyebrow and nostril hairs were singed, fortunately though his feathered hat had remained untouched. Now a ring of fire outlined the room, probably lit from a basin of oil dug out near the walls.
“Take up thy mighty bucket!” Boomed the voice again. Donald rose to his feet, touching his face to feel the damage and turning to face the monster. He looked around the room, inspecting the rocky crags of the cave, the details illuminated by the ring of fire. Then he turned to the monster, a posed grizzly and hairy form, illuminated by the dozen torches that surrounded his raised podium, the only movement it gave away was the rising of its chest. Glancing further to the right were the a variety of buckets of which the monster spoke, all of which appeared to be nibbled somewhat and tattered and deformed. Some buckets bore less nibbles than others, seemingly discarded as tasteless somewhere along the line, and all seemed to have some tufts of fur stuck to parts of them.

“I’m terribly sorry but… why am I here? I mean I only came to ask for the ti…”
“Take up thy mighty bucket!” it boomed again. Donald at this point thought it be best to take the bucket, for then maybe he could leave, a small hope dwindled that this would happen. So he wandered over to the buckets and went to grab one by the handle when suddenly a jet of flame burst out and burnt the hairs from his hand. Donald recoiled and as he did so he noticed a small nibbled note that, in scruffy hand writing said: ‘Reserved for Jimmy’ Clearly not meant for him. There were three other buckets, two of which bore similar notices reading: ‘Reserved for Gareth’ and ‘Reserved for Thomas’. Only one remained without a note. It was a large yellow plastic wash basin that had suffered much nibbles in its lifetime and appeared to be the most tasty. The handle was simply a rope tied through two nibbled holes and it did look very silly. ‘Great!’ Thought Donald ‘He was kind enough to give me the best one’. Clearly sarcasm as the rest were more bucket shaped and generally bore handles that more resembled handles. Two were plastic and one was actually the metal handle of a real bucket. These ones also seemed to have far less nibbles. He lifted the wash basin and a bright light shout out from the cracks in the ground.
“Now!” Exclaimed the beast, which made Donald jump.
“Now you have become a warrior of Twodfod! You must now progress to the lower sanctum to receive your mighty weapon” As this was said the floor jolted and seemed to move below him, and then he was being lowered slowly. The vision of the hair y beast raised until only stone could be seen, and then the lower room revealed itself to him.

In the room was a small dragon sat in a reclining chair, its claws grasped around levers and its eyes locked on a crystal ball that seemed to show the events happening in the room above. To the right of the chair were a multitude of copper tubes labeled with various descriptions of their use, and from the tubes lead copper piping to the floor above. These strangely followed to the points where Donald had been blasted with flame.
      The lift clunked hard and caused several rattling noises, and as a result of this the dragon spun wildly in its chair. It watched Donald’s eyes follow the pipework and then settle on itself. The man and the dragon locked eyes awkwardly for several seconds before the dragon showed a huge toothy grin and scarpered into a dark corner. Donald turned and looked at the lift, which had a light bulb fixed beneath it, this was the source of the light.
      From the pipes behind him boomed the voice again “Progress to the sacred baskets, and seek your destiny!” And there they where, the baskets, wire framed shopping baskets lined with bones of hundreds of animals. There appeared to be nothing moving in them until a dog sized furball leapt from one and landed in Donald’s washbasin. It happened before Donald could even react, and before he had reacted it had curled up in the basin and gone back to sleep. Donald looked down to see the large tuft of fluff that breathed peacefully in the bucket, this he assumed was the hamster the monster spoke of earlier.
“You are ready Warrior! You may leave this place now and begin your might quest!” The pipes announced, and an opening formed in front of him where a stone rolled out of the way. ‘ahh that wasn’t so hard after all!’ thought Donald as he strolled outside. Now all he had to do was walk outside, leave the bucket and continue on his search for what time it was.

Outside things looked a little more worrying than they ought to have. To the cave wall there was pinned a bucket, which bore an inscribed note. The note read: “Beware this cave, silly things exist in here” Donald wondered of the use of the note as it was the exit, not the entrance. But Donald was more concerned with the bloodstains that spread from near the bucket, and then more concerned as the blood trail led to a thoroughly nibbled corpse laden with several tufts of fluff and a tortured look upon his face. From the corpse back to the cave were small footprints that resembled those of a large hamster, and the hamster now peacefully sleeping in his bucket was abnormally fat. 

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Author guidance for This story

Written over the course of 2009-2010
This is another side to my writing, the more humorous and crazy. Hope you enjoy

updated Jul 27 '10 by Arazele