And now, without further a-doo,
The infamous story: (revised)

Josef came to with a start. His head throbbed to an unholy beat, and one of his eyes was gummed shut. He snatched a glance around but spied nothing but a thick morning mist. He tried to peer through the gloom, and was rewarded with a spike of blinding pain that tore through his vision with pure starless blackness.
Sometime later the darkness lifted, and consciousness found him sprawled on his back in a pile of rubble, head pounding like a jackhammer. It felt like all the hangovers he had ever experienced had contrived to return in unison to wrack him to insanity. A brief scan informed him that other than the seismic tremors inside his skull he was fine. After several long minutes of groaning inactivity, his wits returned at a gallop. Shooting up to his feet, with a rather violent protest from inside his head and nearly tripping over his meter-and-a-half long, bristly beard, he looked around in a panic. What he had previously mistake for mist, was in fact the settling dust that marked the remnants of the collapsed roof.
“Tim! Magnus!” he cried in a voice choked hoarse with dust, “Where are….” He never finished the question. The acute pain behind his eyes seemed to melt away, as he spied a bloodied hand grasping through the rubble in a final bid for life.
“No!” He hurled himself at the rubble not caring if he broke a nail or even a finger, he dug like a man digging for his life. But it was to no avail. The two bodies he excavated, at the loss of his favorite nail, Mrs. Penelope, did not twitch a whisker as he dragged them clear of the mess. They were definitely dead, as lifeless and stiff as the statues that their house had contained. The world seemed to close in on him. He was alone, and there was nothing for it but to get out before the whole house collapsed.
There was a massive thud, and the walls began to shiver, as though the house was as wracked with pain as he. He ran, and did not stop running. Over hills and through forests he ran. He ran to relieve himself of the guilt that he had survived his brothers. He ran to hide the tears that streamed down his dust caked face. He ran to catch up on the sanity that was fleeing at a blinding pace. Thankfully for him, he was quite fit or a dwarf.

Jeremiah, the twisted protégé astronomer was feeling rather bored. He wasn’t tired, had no work to do, and it wouldn’t be dark for several hours. He had already exhausted his supplies of juggling balls, using them as missiles of vengeance against the slimy townsfolk that passed along the road by his tower. All that is except one ball. It had a certain majestic, powerful quality about it that was difficult to pinpoint, but which, however, made it too valuable to waste on the pathetic slow-moving townsfolk. He needed a grand target, a foreign target, and so he set to scouring the countryside using his telescope.
Just then, a small, red-faced dwarf came sprinting over the top of a nearby hill, wall-like grey beard blown helter-skelter by the wind; the ideal target. Jeremiah gingerly placed the juggling ball into his projectile launcher, fingers quaking with barely controlled mirth. After spouting a half-learned blessing for trueness of aim, he swiveled the launcher and locked in on his unsuspecting target. Capering with an evil sort of glee, he did a spontaneous pre-victory dance, the details of which are so revolting and fear-inspiring, even to mention them would cause the unceremonious wetting of trousers. The lack of self control nearly undid him. Perched mid evil-gesticulation, cream robe whipping to a halt, the spark of realization kindled inside his brain: he had forgotten to launch the ball.
Time seemed to tread through a peat bog, the air condensed into a thick jelly, and he was forced to muscle his way through it to reach the trigger, each heartbeat a torture, as the insufferable dwarf passed the optimum skull denting range. He threw himself at the trigger, slamming into it with such force, the machine nearly disassembled there and then.
He held his breath, pulse racing wildly in his ears, while with a screeching roar, the machine charged. He clenched his eyes shut. There was a terrible fizz, and the whole tower convulsed, spewing out the ball at near-light speed. A fire-coated purple blur streaked towards the dwarf, striking him clean on the back of the skull with a wet crunch, sending him end over end to the bottom of the hill, and the astronomer into a fit of hideously evil, booming laughter and a continuance of his victory dance.

The assaulted dwarf scrambled to his feet, and vigorously dusted himself off. As the king’s messenger, it was unusual for him to be the target of ill treatment, and now, of all times, he had an urgent delivery. He peered around, features etched into the very essence of dwarven ill-temper. There was no one about, and the only structure of consequence was a rather squat, ridiculously poorly built tower, with a figure capering up and down atop it. He squinted. It was definitely a person, a wizard, by the looks of the long, mother-of-pearl robe flapping haphazardly about, and he did not look happy. Apparently he was even less tolerant of passers by than most of the xenophobic, magic-wielding freaks of nature. There was little the dwarf could do now but tighten his belt and get the message delivered with all haste. However, even as he legged it back towards the woods, the wind carried, what could only be the wizard’s magically amplified cries as he prepared another spell, apparently he was very angry.

The king’s steward rushed into the throne room, a shock of unkempt hair and an ink-stained tattered robe, looking positively perturbed, and only sketch a bow, a sure sign he was at his wits end.
“Majesty,” he began in the deep rumbling base stewards of the realm are known for, “The royal chef informs me that the dinner is ready. Also, there is someone with an urgent message for you.”
The king nodded with all the patient dignity he could muster, his squat stature easily filling out the massive throne, and the steward hurriedly shuffled out of the chamber, swinging the door shut behind him with a muffled thump. A few moments later, the messenger entered, a youngish man of solid build but very sparse height. He bowed as deeply and theatrically as one of such a vertical disposition is capable of.
“Your majesty, my majesty”, the flowery messenger peered up to be sure he had the king’s attention, “Expresses his royal wish to meet with your eminence and discuss weighty matters of state.”
The king laughed a short harsh rasping of breath that did not sound at all happy. His earth-hued eyes fixed wickedly upon the arrogant messenger who had the audacity to insult royal sovereignty.
“Off with his head!” He bellowed dissonantly, “I will not meet your bastard-king! May he rot in damp smelly places, where his undergarments are beset upon by filthy vermin of all dispositions, and his damned eyes fall out from the boring repetition of removing the puss from his numerous awkwardly positioned boils! I’m off to lunch.”

Although he was two heads shorter than even the shortest of his subjects and by a long-shot more bulky, the king was well respected, mostly due to his unpredictable temper and propensity to behead people on a whim. Despite having only recently beheaded the favored messenger a rather powerful king, the people were awash with praise for the clarity of the royal perception, that somehow his royal majesty, had divined out the hidden wretchedness of the man’s character, and had awarded fitting justice. The messenger was now well known as a scoundrel (the rumors that he was pilfering from the royal treasury had been thoroughly circulated by the royal steward shortly after the hanging). It was into such a state of general joyful chaos that an unsuspecting messenger arrived, dusty and wheezing from exertion. His demands for an immediate audience with the king were met with suspicious stares and delays. In a final exasperated attempt to see the king, the messenger was forced to employ some rather underhanded tactics upon the obstructive servants (well maybe not underhanded, but they were definitely below the belt). Stepping over the writhing royal attendees, he kicked open the throne room door and strode in, right into the middle of the royal dinner.
The throne room was a mess, with partially chewed chicken wings strewn about the hall as if frozen in some remaining chicken-derived desire to flee. Quick reflexes alone spared the messenger from a rather unpleasant meeting with a large ceramic bowl-full of tepid, greasy mashed potato flung randomly by an impatient and unforgiving king.
“This food is disgusting! In fact it’s not even food! It is slime that is not deserving of the royal presence. It is not fit for human consumption, let alone for me! GUARDS!”, the ill-mannered king squealed painfully loud, deep brown eyes wild in anger, “Fetch me that worm of a royal chef that I may hear his pathetic excuses before I have him beheaded!”
A dramatic silence ensued as the king laboriously realized that he was not alone. Huge bovine eyes fixed upon the trespasser. He was more solid than the previous messenger, but that wasn’t saying much, the king noted dully as he chewed on a chicken bone. He was also shorter than the previous messenger, by a head, firm evidence of the merits of the fellow. The king raised a ponderous arm in a haphazard gesture for the man to begin speaking.
“Your majesty”, the exhausted messenger blurted out, “The ogres are coming, what are we to do?”
“Rally the defenses”, the king cried at the top of his poorly pitched voice, “Man the walls! Stoke the fires! Bring out the dwarves, and more chicken!”

The dwarves rushed out of the latrines, flies undone and shovels in hand. The enemy was coming, and the stalwart dwarves would not go down without a fight. They hurled into the long halls lined with marble statues, carved portraits of dwarven heroes and craftsmen long since dead and dust. They were much too precious to leave undefended.
A resounding crash shook the building to its foundations, and the dwarves stumbled to a halt, flanked by their petrified ancestors. Several more explosions displaced the dwarves several feet towards one wall, or did it displace one wall several feet towards them?
“Damn,” muttered Josef as the world collapsed about them.