This humorous Diablo II Thanksgiving story is the epilogue to a five story holiday humor series that began Thanksgiving 2002, continued on Christmas 2002, Valentine's Day 2003, Easter 2003, and concluded (sort of) on Halloween 2003. You don't need to have read the others to understand this one, but it would help, and it will help if you know the Diablo II characters and main monsters. The stories are contiguous and dated, I.E. events in this one take place about four weeks after events in part 5, the Halloween story.

winging her feet back and forth under the hard wooden bench, the Amazon fidgeted and sighed loudly.  Next to her the Assassin echoed her sigh, and across the room, sprawled in an old arm chair, the Necromancer yawned and picked a salted almond from the can, looked it over, then tossed it away.

The Sorceress stifled her own yawn and looked down at the rough wooden picnic table, then quickly looked away.  The sliced turkey lunch meat and untoasted white bread did nothing to stir her appetite, and she'd already eaten all the olives she could stand.  Down the bench from her the Druid was leaning his chin into the palm of his right hand and staring off into the distance with glazed eyes, a cold, half-eaten yam slowly turning his white paper plate yellow. The Paladin sat at the head of the table, perched on a rickety wooden chair with one leg shorter than the others, and clapped his hands at the long faces around him.

"Come on everyone, cheer up.  We have much to be thankful this holiday!"

His forced smile was met with blank stares from every direction.

"Perhaps this banquet isn't quite as sumptuous as the ones we've had in the past, but we are all alive and healthy, are we not?"

A cricket could be heard chirping in the distance.

"And there are no monsters to interrupt our meal." he continued, gamely.

"Nor make it worth eating." the Necromancer muttered.

The Paladin ignored him and dug his fork into the pile of cold, dry stuffing in front of him and took a big bite, hardly grimacing at all as he chewed and swallowed.  "Dig in!  Join me!  Why my mates in the infantry would have killed for food half this good, back in the wars.  We lived on salted beef and swill, and we thanked the gods for it!"

The cricket chirped again.

"Okay, can we be honest?" the Assassin said, rising to her feet and driving a blade into the table. "This sucks.  We're heroes, not chefs.  We can't cook."

"You go girl." said the Necromancer as he picked up another almond, licked it, then tossed it away. The Assassin glared at him before continuing.

"I don't know how those monsters did it, but they put together the best feasts I've ever had.  I don't care if they enslaved entire villages to make those meals; they were some damn good eatin'!"

The Druid, Amazon, and Sorceress nodded, while the Paladin looked angrily at the Assassin.

"Have you forgotten how nearly we were the main course for their Easter dinner?" he asked loudly.  "Or how they would have chopped us all into sugar plums and gingerbread just last month?"

"You're mixing Halloween and Christmas again, tin man." the Necromancer muttered, earning himself a furious look from the Paladin.

"No one denies that they were evil creatures," interjected the Sorceress. "But they made the best pies I've ever tasted!"

"And they are monsters, after all." added the Amazon.  "It's not as if we didn't half-expect them to confuse us with dessert all along."

The others murmured in agreement, while the Paladin fumed.

"Oh come now!" he shouted.  "Is this such a bad repast?  We've got turkey, and stuffing, and gravy and mashed potatoes!" he said, vigorously gesturing at the rough wooden table before him.

The other characters followed his eyes and snorted.  There was a loaf of Wonder Bread, still in the wrapper.  There was a can of gravy, still in the can.  Two packs of Oscar Meyer sliced turkey laid open, with a large package of Kraft American cheese slices between them. Glass jars of baby dills, green olives, and black olives stood open with small forks in each of them. A bowl of nearly untouched, lumpy, undercooked, and very salty mashed potatoes took up space in the center of the table, and beside it was a cracked dish of boiled yams, the skin still on them.  Warm two-liter bottles of 7-up and Orange Shasta were spaced along the length of the table, and there were seven place settings, each of them composed of a white paper plate and small Styrofoam cup.  A ripped plastic bag of white sporks lay at one corner of the table, and next to it was a pile of mismatched napkins that had clearly been saved from various fast food restaurants.

"Come on! It's edible! What more do you want for a Thanksgiving feast?" asked the Paladin, his voice straining with effort. He didn't mean his question to be taken literally, but it was.

"Hot food." said the Amazon.

"Cold beer." said the Druid.

"Pecan pie." said the Assassin.

"Cranberry sauce." said the Sorceress.

"The Druid to summon up some damn wolves and let them eat that crap so I don't have to stare at it any longer." said the Necromancer.

Everyone laughed at this except the Paladin, and the Druid looked thoughtful, which brought more laughs.  The Sorceress cut in while the Assassin and Amazon were still snickering.

"Hey, I really do want cranberry sauce." said the mage. "Where the hell is it?  I know we had a big can."

The Paladin looked around, and soon everyone else joined him, peering under the table and all around the rough wooden shack they sat in.  But there was no cranberry sauce to be seen.

"Never mind the cranberry sauce," said the Druid, "where the hell is Ugg?"

"Hellooooooo???" shouted the Barbarian, sounding very unhappy. "Demonssssssss???"

Ugg sat all alone in the great dark cavern, at the head of a large table, his face screwed up in confusion.  A large, unopened can of cranberry sauce sat on the table in front of him, the metal dented deeply and the wrapper half torn off.

"Ugg bring berry sauce!  Where monster?  Where pie?" he asked, speaking out loud to the empty cave.  He looked around, but there was nothing moving anywhere in the great, silent grotto.  No sweet smells of baking meat filled the air, just the stink of mildew, death, and age.

"Ugg hungry!" he said loudly.

Ugg shifted in his seat, his napkin tucked into the collar of his best chain mail, a great serving fork in one fist, a spoon in the other.

"Turkey Day feast?" asked Ugg, his voice quivering as he neared tears.

"Ugg hungry..." he said again, despondently scraping his oversized fork and spoon together as he waited, and waited.

Ending Notes
Though the forum posts have long since vanished, here are some general comments I made in a forum post on the D2 site, after receiving much disappointment and criticism from the readers.

It's funny that most of the comments here (thus far) are appreciative or positive about the story, and most of the emails I've received (thus far) express disappointment. I'd understand disappointment that the series of stories has (apparently) concluded, but several people were like, "why wasn't there more action!"

I can see their point, I mean this wasn't a very exciting story/epilogue in of itself, but I thought it brought a sense of conclusion to the whole series of stories. and I'm not absolutely ruling out more of them, but I don't have any ideas to do more in the immediate future. I could easily do more stories inspired by d2, but everyone (including me) has written serious action type fanfic in that world. Which is why I thought the holiday themed ones with humor and blurry lines between the d2 world and our real world would be fun. And I think they went pretty well (mostly the last 3, the first 2 are, in retrospect, pretty pointless other than as an introduction to the genre) once I got into actual plot advancement between the stories, rather than just a feast beginning, manic humorous action, and then the uneasy truce returning.

I came to agree with some readers who commented that the whole "party -> battle -> truce/dessert" thing was repetitive, and wanted to do different things with the characters and story, though I recognize that some readers would be perfectly happy with a new version of the same basic story every Halloween/Xmas/Easter/etc forever. After all, there are plenty of best selling writers who do that with their novels, minus the holiday theme.

So I might do more stories in this series, if I think of some fresh angles to put on them, but since I'm not planning on it I didn't want to just end with an obvious "to be continued" and then never continue it.

 

As for this story, I got the basic idea (Ugg sitting alone in the cave, wondering where everyone else was) a couple of days ago, and then while sweeping off the back patio and scooping Jinx and Dusty's kitty boxes (really) I worked the rest out in my head. With the whole thing in mind it was very easy to write, and only took me about an hour, beginning at 5am Thursday morning (I'm a night owl).

And yeah, it would probably have been better if the characters had gotten into a big fight, if I'd thrown in more inside jokes, etc, but I wasn't trying to do a 6th story, I was doing a relatively short epilogue which would tie things up for the reader. And no, I don't much care for happy endings.

I considered putting in a reference to the recent bnet account stealing, like the chars go to sleep for a nap and next thing they know all of their best equipment and armor is gone, but that didn't quite work for me. I also was going to put in a line about how of course they couldn't eat with the monsters, besides the last two attempted betrayals, the three Prime Evils and the worm must still be growing out/mutating their new bodies, as I had mini-Duriel doing in the Halloween story, after his unfortunate BBQ-related death on Easter. So no, the stories didn't end because the monsters are dead; the Prime Evils are immortal.

I had always intended (from the first holiday story) to have some of the characters die and then return a minute later, naked and pissed off as they looked for their body, but that never quite worked into a story's plot, and I think it would be a bad idea anyway, taking away the menace or feeling of danger. Let's just say they're all hardcore, shall we? But it doesn't seem wrong for the demons to do the same thing, being as they do it from game to game, and it's even supported in the plot with the whole soulstone thing. I never said I was consistent.

PS, do you "no more 'curse bitch' jokes!" people miss them now that they're gone? I was going to throw one in somewhere between the humans, perhaps from the paladin after the necro keeps snarking on him, or just have someone say "Curses!" and the Necro flinch, or possibly have the necro "cursing and bitching" about finally finishing his bag of Duriel brownies until someone else pointed out how ironic that was, but those all felt a bit contrived.

Thanks for your attention, I wouldn't have written so many of these if there hadn't been substantial reader feedback and interest in each installment.

Reader Comments

After being spoiled by almost unanimously-positive comments about the first five stories in this series, I was shocked back to reality by the largely-negative reaction to this one. The fans wanted more, and they didn't care if it was more of the same. They wanted humor, they wanted action and battles, and they wanted them now. A few people did appreciate the form and style of this quick Epilogue, but most took this as the end of everything, and were upset.

This does give me some insight into how hard it must be for authors to stop writing books in a popular series. This is just my little Internet fan fiction thing, and I got dozens of angry mails when I appeared to bring it to an end. Imagine the reaction authors get when they kill off major characters, or close off major series of best selling books?

Here's a representative selection of emails from people who were not happy with the direction things went.

Booooring...not even close to "humorous"....so the heroes can't cook? seems like a rather thin plot, even for a comedy. The Wonder bread and other anachronisitc elements seemed unspired and unoriginal (not to mention the crickets in the background). I don't know when this kind of serious whining became the standard in comedy but I think it sucks. I don't think my lips even curled while reading this thing (except for the druid summoning wolves bit), but i certainly expected better.
-David

There were a number of forum posts much like this one, and I guess it's understandable but um... what part of "short Epilogue" did they not understand? It's not like I said this was the best of the whole holiday story series and an amazing new epic adventure. I said it was a short epilogue picking up a few weeks after the Halloween story... and that's what it was.

I don't really know what David means with his remark about "serious whining became the standard in comedy" but perhaps he's referring to some other comedy; a bad sketch on Saturday Night Live or something? I also didn't notice any whining in the story at all; they were bored and listless and unhappy, and Ugg was confused, but who whined or complained about anything other than the crappy quality of their feast? And since that wasn't part of the comedy anyway, his remark confuses me.

More complaints:

to be completely honest i enjoyed all of your stories except this one why didn't the demons reform bodies and try to have thanksgiving again or something similar to that it would have been much more entertaining and this one was well incredible short i am very disappointed

-al

 

dude this ones isnt as good as the o;thers. i loved the halloween one but this is a disappointment. i know u can do better. im looking forward to the next time you write a story.

--darrel 

 

I dont want to say it sucked but, it was missing action. Make the druid summon crap eating wolfs. Or better yet, have the others start a search for Ugg. Hell, you could have went a totally different direction and made them make a sucky thanksgiving day dinner for the baby monsters. (now that's something I would want to know how it would turn out.) It just needed some sort of action in it. Even if they were all happy instead of gloomy and bored it would have made a better story. Well that's just what I think. You were on a good run with the other 5. All good things come to an end. 

--Ragnar_ii

 

I always enjoy your holiday stories, and I suppose today was no exception, but you left off the series at an incredibly depressing end. Cold lunchmeat, kraft cheese and WONDERBREAD for crying out loud, not to mention Ugg left to go hungry in a big empty cave....endings are supposed to be satisfying. I'm glad you wrote another installment, but it still doesn't feel finished. And it's not really like you can just have the heroes go back to feasting with demons, after two attempted murders....without doing something extremely creative.

--Perry

In response to Perry, though I said in the news post about the story that I probably wouldn't be writing any more, I thought this one set things up pretty well for a continuation. I couldn't just have the characters trusting the monsters enough for another story like the first five installments, since readers would not believe the characters were so stupid/trusting. This one bridges to a future continuation by showing how bored they were alone, and that could be what drives them to accept another invitation -- it's worth risking death to get a better meal than what they settled for on their own?  And it's obvious that Ugg has no hesitation about trusting the demons, but then we all knew he wasn't exactly the sharpest quill on the porcupine.

It seemed like most of the reader mails were unhappy, but now that I sort them out on this page I see that less than a third were like the above ones. No one was exactly full of rapturous praise, but most people at least accepted the logical plot progression to this T-day Epilogue. Though most of them still wanted more.

I'll begin by saying that, I myself had played this game for a while. I still enjoy an occasional game now and then. Personally I have no idea why i even looked at this diablo site at all, but Diabloii.net is where I found these articles you have written. I must say that the way they tie in with what the game is, pretty damn good. Although I am not quite as obsessive as the next guy that will write feedback to you, I will say that these stories are very close being summaries of anyone's actual gameplay of Diablo 2. There is definitely a lot of humor in all these stories and even though I am not crouching over my computer every single day studying and worshiping the game like some of the people i could name in my experience ( this is in no way being used to describe you) I was still able to understand all the jokes thrown around and i must say I am quite impressed. Being able to turn a pretty depressing game like Diablo 2 is quite the accomplishment, my congratulations.

PS: I think that you could have stretched this story further and not brought it to an inevitable end so soon, perhaps some time into 2004. Let me know if you are going to write any more of these, I know I would enjoy reading them.

Sincerely:
--Alex

 

pretty funny stuff. with the monsters gone, it would be interesting to have the characters fight amongst themselves! You could incorporate dueling techniques into the story.... just an idea.

--Shawn

 

Um as much as i liked the previous articles about the holidays this one was a bit of a mess. When I read it, it didn't make me laugh, it made me feel sorry for the warriors.

--Anton

Shawn: I've considered working in dueling and player fighting, but so far I've kept them as a bickering bunch of friends, rather than deadly enemies, aside from some Necromancer bashing early on.  I don't want them to start fighting just for the sake of throwing in some cheap action though.

Anton: You were supposed to feel sad. In a "that's pathetically funny" sort of way, of course.

First let me start off by saying that all of the stoires in this saga of yours are great, not one have I not stopped to reread a funny part and laugh all over again. This one was good, maybe not the best, but good. The necro suggesting that the druid summons wolves to eat the food, that was good. One thing I didn't quite understand, maybe I should reread it, but I'm lazy. If they brought the cranberry sauce the sorc wanted, how did Ugg end up with it? He wasn't with them, but he had it. I guess the question is how did both the other chacters and Ugg have it? I'm not good and ending things like this, so I'll just say good story, and don't stop writing them if you know whats good for you.

--Tyler

In theory Ugg met everyone else there for lunch, saw that it sucked, took the cranberry sauce as a BYOB sort of thing, and left so quickly that no one saw him slip out.  Or perhaps he blew off the player feast entirely, taking his own can of sauce as an inept sort of peace offering to the demons.  Poor Ugg, he's not too bright, but he does the best he can.

Some players did like it, if only due to its association with five other very good short stories.

You don’t know me but I am a very avid player and I would like to thank you for creating such a great website.

This is my main site for all the Diablo news and info I can find. Your Thanks Giving is pretty cool, please keep writing so we can hear more from your story in the future …

-- Cronach

 

Great with ol' Curseys "The Druid to summon up some wolves to eat that crap so I don't have to look at it anymore." and Uggs escape.

--Krakemaw the Putrid

 

Very funny, a great job, but soo cruel, but well, the demons was a little bit evil on hallowen, and they did deserve it... You are soo funny is all i say!

--Bjorn

 

the story was pretty good. i liked the word usage. very descriptive. although, i use a barb and i hope he isn't as dumb as Ugg. anyway, the ending needed something more. i don't know, like maybe they all went down to IHOP and got some real food. well, keep writing. you seem to have the stuff authors are made of.

--Marshall

 

ah what a great story man, i loved the barbarian part...nothing beats a stupid muscle head. Hey! i hope ur doing a x-mas story to i would love to read it.
Your new biggest Fan.....

--Omega

 

Today I was checking out the news at diabloii.net and noticed your little turkey day story article, being bored I decided to check it out. I read the first five in order as not to miss anything, and they were great. I thought they were the best things ever, especially the easter one with the joke about the amazons boobs feeding a dozen fetishes. Anyways, I thought your thanksgiving 2003 story would be just as great if not better than the others. I am sad to say that I was not satisfied with it. It was far too short, I was expecting the humans to go to the demons and steal a recipie as a quest item, or making the prime evils their slaves and forcing them to have pies and turkey baked to perfection. It was all in all just too short for me. Thanks for the time and effort none the less, and I hope for a christmas follow up.

Sincerely,
-JªY JªY Jímbô RòdRìgUëz

 

People really did feel bad for Ugg, so at least my story moved them in some way, even if it wasn't with humor or excitement.

That is so sad. Poor Uggg..... all alone... not comprehending why his friends didn't come over to play with him.

You sir are a cruel cruel man.

Funny though!
-Larry

 

Flux, you are cruel you know that?

I found you last installment and followed your advice to read all of them beforehand. I enjoyed your development of characters, and you brilliance of making the Demons into people(ish) characters. That last installment however... 

It was so SAD! Everyone is sitting around realistically unhappy staring at condiments (which I think ever Dire Wolves would have turned their noses up at) and discussing how they actually WANT the Demons there. 

And then Ugg... How could you do that to Ugg? I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but as I grinned through the second part of that there were tears making a desperate break for it. Poor Ugg. All dressed up and no-where to go. Poor, poor Ugg.  You're cruel and I truly appreciate you for it. 

-Geoff

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