[fable]

Dunadan, you're making the classic error of the armchair strategist: assuming that your enemy is going to be standing still. To the contrary, any enemy worth their weight is going to prepare in advance against the contingency of those little flaming hunger-beacons by displaying distracting food samples at strategic locations.

In fact, I happen to be a supplier of just such a line of food samples, and am happy to announce, HERE, IN THIS FORUM, FOR THE FIRST TIME, the availability of that product to the public at large. Yes, you, too, can keep ravenous halflings at bay, using a patent-applied-for Gummo (tm), the Instant Halfling Snacks series!

Gummo (tm) is a dessicated snack form of life which in appearance resembles the skin of an elementary school teacher, and which in vitamin and mineral content doesn't provide anything less than you'd expect from leading vending machine snack foods. Once the clear, spell-created foilwrap is removed and the contents touched by even a drop of liquid, however, Gummo (tm) expands into what a halfling would consider a suitable, between meals snack.

Gummo (tm) comes in three flavors and sizes:

Gummo (tm) Original: This is a 1" x 1" packet that becomes thirty ten-course meals of fried chicken, greens, pickled trolls' feet, ogre jowls, and a barbequed wyvern picking complete with trimmings: perfect for a few halflings-on-the-go who haven't got time for a heavy business lunch.

Gummo (tm) Large: This 2" x 2" wafer expands upon aqueous contact into fifty large pizzas with everything on them, extra cheese and extra crust (hold the anchovies). Ten troughs of lasagna (your choice of three flavors: meatless, meat, and paladin) are provided, along with fifteen vats of sage and basilisk's eye-stuffed ravioli. Complimentary beverages in the form of twenty giant vats of Dwarven Beer-Gut Ale are included, free of charge, in every wafer. (And remember, if it hasn't got the picture of a dwarven beer gut on the vat, it isn't truly Beer-Gut Ale.)

The latest addition to the line is Curry Gummo (tm). This new, innovative, but incredibly tasty halfling snack supplies a modest buffet of eighty-five portions of gnome saag, elven tandoori, and savory, smoked, de-boned paladin curry with just a touch of hembane for that exotic, far-away flavor. In answer to the request for vegetarian side dishes, an entire forest stretching for no less than ten cubic miles, complete with roughage undergrowth, has been included.

I am taking orders at this time. Please note that a percentage of your purchase price will go to support the Save Viconia from the Good Guys Foundation.

All trademarks are property of the Two Mysterious Bad Guys Corporation, and are unrelated to any intellectual property rights assigned to Microsoft.

[This message has been edited by fable (edited 03-26-2001).]