The dwarf with the funky hat was howling and dancing about, then he grabbed the handle of my bucket and dumped me out!  Not a nice pleasant pouring, not a sudden sideways heaving, no.  He simply turned the bucket upside down, my belly did a flip-flop, and there I was, standing with a bucket on my head.

I pulled the pail off my head with a *pop* which made some of the lesser grunt dwarves giggle, which made the grunt dwarves with the necklaces angry, and ALL that made the dude with the hat less than pleased.

The hat guy howled at all them to 'shaddup!' which was like the first thing Any of 'em had said that made any sense at all *giggles*

'Course they all shut up and got all somber like as the Hat Guy turned and approached me and began talkin' ta me in this perfect British accent.  He told me his name and what not, an' told me not ta panic and that things were groovy.  I was only half listenin' though, 'cause it was about this time that I began to realize that some of my bits had sloshed out of the bucket and I was More than Curious as to just exactly Which bits it was that had sloshed out, ya know?

The Hat Guy was walking along now, pretty quick fer such a little guy, actually, so I was peeking at fingers and toes and things as we strolled along the chamber, him going on and on about this tree and and a well and shit diein', and the cosmos bangin, and something about draino and vortexes and stuff...

I'd just found a way ta discreetly see if I could still pee standing with relative ease (not easy ta do when everyone around ya is only eighteen inches tall and yer pushin' six feet *grin*)  when I noticed that the chamber was gettin' brighter and icy.

I had just come to the conclusion that everything I could check was still there so the bits that sloshed out musta been like brains and guts and stuff, *shrug* when we came to the mouth of the chamber.

We were about halfway up a rather tall mountain, lotsa ice and rocks and stuff, and there was Yggdrasll just over the horizon.

'So lemme get this straight, you want me to kill the tree?'

The Hat Guy sighed and went over it all again in that funky accent of his.  This time I got it.  I already HAD killed the tree.  On my last visit.  Seems the stone statue/god didn't know I had drowned and was STILL lookin' fer me!  The exit to the well of memories was still closed, and as a result all the lower chambers flooded, drowning the tree.

But the Hat Guy was saying this was cool, the tree was SUPPOSED to die so it could be reborn or what not, some cosmic circle 'will be was' kinda thing *shrug* wasn't too clear on that part but he kept assuring me it was cool so I went with it.

Only problem was, the tree couldn't sprout and take root and do it's thing again untill the chambers below were drained.

And the only way to drain them was the exit out of the well of memories.

And the only dude that could open that exit was the stone statue/god.

*sigh*