User:JohnB/Fanfiction/The Enchanted Kettle

Andre Armagnac was a rag-picker. He went all around with his handcart picking up all manner of refuse and offal on the roadside. This could be anything. Rags could be sold to paper-makers. Metals could be sold to whoever worked with them. Even bones could be sold to armorers. The economy of Morrowind being as small-scale as it was, it was easy to recycle just about anything.

Occasionally, Andre would find something left by the roadside that appeared to be of quite some value, but he had to be certain it was left there for any taker because to pick something up from the roadside might result in a bounty on his head. That hadn't happened yet, and he wanted to ensure it never did happen.

One day Andre was making his usual rounds between Caldera and his home in Seyda Neen, where he might encounter all manner of vermin that were driven from the towns by the guards there. He happened upon a cave rat caught in a sling trap.

"Poor feller!" he thought when he saw how swollen its foot had gotten in the tight sling.

He approached the rat and proceeded to try and ease the rat's suffering. The rat snapped at him.

"Whoa, little guy! I'm here to help you."

The rat continued to resist as Andre gingerly worked the knot loose with his fingernails. The sling finally came off, and the rat was clearly relieved.

"Did that rat kow-tow to me just now?" Andre wondered.

He turned to go, but as he walked on, he noticed there was a movement behind him. He turned around and looked.

"What's that doing there?" he wondered out loud.

It was an adamantium kettle gleaming in the sunlight. He approached and lifted the lid to peer inside. Totally unused, in pristine condition. That a semi-precious metal, normally reserved for the production of armor, should be spent on making a household item such as this was unthinkable. He replaced the lid and turned to go.

He turned a bend in the road, and there it was again just ahead of him, sitting in the road and gleaming in the sunlight. Andre was shaken as he wondered who might have picked it up and moved it. There wasn't enough underbrush on either side of the road to hide anyone from view. He picked up the kettle and placed it in the handcart then checked his Bounty Meter. Still a pristine zero.

"Well, I guess it's mine now," he said with satisfaction.

However, he had as much need for a kettle made of adamantium as for one made of gold. He remembered having once received some junk from Llarara Omayn, a priestess at the temple in Balmora, and knew she was an ardent enthusiast of the hackle-lo leaf. To prevent the unsightly discoloration of the teeth that came from hackle-lo chewing, she brewed it as a tea. There was also the problem of where and how to dispose of the masticated remains after one chewed.

(While leading a hard-scrabble life on a bare-subsistence salary in Mexico City, three of us teachers found a cheap accommodation at the Quaker hostel near the city center. The problem was that Tom was an avid snuff user and spent his evenings reading and spitting tobacco juice into an empty beer bottle that he kept under his bed. I advised him to keep it in a less conspicuous place, but he ignored me,

Sure enough, we were evicted although we still had two-and-a-half weeks left on our monthly fee [Quakers are teetotalers and don't use tobacco]. Tom found a windowless room above a noisy cantina while I got into a boarding house for university students, so there is justice in this world after all. The third of "los tres amigos" drifted off; I'm sure because he was the one who had found the hostel and was less forgiving than I was.)

Andre directed his steps toward the temple.

Of course, Llarara was thrilled to see such a beautiful kettle but balked at hearing it was for sale.

"How much?" she asked tentatively.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Andre chuckled nervously.

"Where did you get it?"

That was a really hard one to explain, so he showed her his Bounty Meter to prove he'd helped himself to an unwanted item, like that huge bowl near the Balmora siltstrider that my in-game avatar always helps herself to without incurring a bounty. Llarara was still undecided.

"I tell you what," Andre continued, "use it for a month, and then you can name your price."

He was glad to get the thing off his hands and thought that if after a month Llarara forgot all about the deal it was just as well. The kettle was as good as hers now.

However, when Andre arrived back at his shack, he opened the front door, and Sheogorath take him if it wasn't true, but there was the adamantium kettle sitting in the middle of his room.

"Son of a nix hound!" Andre cursed as he struck the kettle with his walking stick.

"YOWWW!!!"

The kettle transmogrified back into the cave rat Andre had rescued.

"It's you!" he flustered.

"You're right it's me!" the rat responded petulantly as he rubbed the pate of his head.

"You can talk!"

"Damned right I can talk! Look what that priestess did to my poor bum!"

He showed Andre his painfully scorched behind.

"She filled me with water and set me on some glowing coals, and lady-in-heaven did that hurt! I changed back to my rat form, and that had her screaming her fool head off. Going by things you'd been saying to yourself on the road, I guessed this is where you live, so--honey, I'm home!"

Andre seethed inwardly.

"What ever am I going to do with you?! I can't sell you! I can't even give you away!"

The rat hung his head in remorse, but then he perked up. He changed himself in an adamantium rat-kettle with a head, legs, and tail. He then grabbed Andre's paper umbrella, swished it to make the umbrella pop open, jumped onto the clothesline strung across the room, and proceeded to tight-rope walk up and down the clothes line. He then tossed a kwama egg into the air, caught it on the umbrella, and kept it rolling on the umbrella as he spun the handle. He then grabbed two more eggs and proceeded to juggle with them.

It didn't take Andre long to figure out what all this meant. He had the makings of a nascent one-rat circus!

No sooner was the idea formulated than it was carried out, and goodbye to rag-picking forever. People came from far and wide to see the amazing rat-kettle perform, and Andre soon found himself the owner of the Grand Abode on the mountain overlooking the Balmora main square. He became famous as the rat-made man.