Quarter Hour of Writing Challenge: Tea

me when a new writing challenge

 There's a demon in a room in a dungeon and the room is large but the table is small. On the table is a tablecloth, doilies, a small vase, fine china, and a teapot.

The demon is inside of a big metal box. There's a little funnel in the front of the box that slopes into the rest. It is rusted. With tea.

If you engage the demon, you must obey its rules. Don't slouch. Elbows off the table. Pinkies up, hats off, no handaxes at the table. Getting blood on the upholstery is a major no-no, as is leaving without saying goodbye. Worst of all would be to refuse the tea.

Don't drink the tea.

If you break a rule you'll feel dumb. You'll actually become dumber; your forebrain will wither and shrink. Your brainstem--your instincts and fight or flight thinky bits--will engorge to compensate, shoving the rest of the brain forward in the skull. Less INT, more INIT or whatever; you become twitchy and impulsive and more likely to break more rules.

It keeps going. Your forepaws lengthen (they're forepaws now). Your incisors too. Break too many rules and you'll become a mouse-thing, a craven skaven ratazoid creature. Poor thing. Into the tea you go. The long black arm picks you up and steeps you by the tail. Delicious.

Fight it by making your own rules. How dreadful, not saying a prayer before and after each sniffle and sneeze! The party agrees, this demon is no gentleman! How uncouth, to gnaw on the bones of the damned! or something. Prove the authenticity of the rule (disguise a personal journal as a book of ettiquette?).

If the demon breaks too many rules, it too will change. This makes fighting it harder and tricking it easier.

If you overcome the teatime demon, you may take its tall hat of etiquette.