Dropped off the face of the planet - sorry ^^;;

Sorry you guys! I know I went a little AWOL there, but I lost a day of writing and I've been writing a little furiously to get back up to par. Fear not! I am at the prescribed 16,667 for today. So, without further ado, extra-long blog post GO!!

Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants blinked slowly and insolently at the man, who didn’t really understand what was going on anyway, then turned indolently away from him and sauntered over to Polo, who was the most accessible looking person in the party; Someone was blissfully unaware, completely absorbed in music; Last was in a similar state as she sampled the tavern’s specialty, a dormouse stew; Charlie was becoming amazingly raucous as he sung along with Someone, absolutely wasted on the pale ale he had purchased at the bar; and Mr. Ian Woon was absorbed in his own thoughts, similar to Last and Someone, only his thoughts were quite clearly not ones of any kind of bliss, as his face was about as stormy looking as a face can get without growing some cumulonimbus and shooting out lighting bolts (the source of his irritation was unclear; Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants was beginning to formulate a theory that Mr. Ian Woon created his own dissatisfaction field from inside, much as a slug creates a trail of slime). “Polo,” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants said, turning on his charm in an effort to confuse the already befuddled young man, “Sorry my comfortably worn undershirt of softness, but I’m afraid the biggest room they’ve got is a five man room, and we’re six, see? So you, the elf twins, that overly muscled chap, and the unpleasantly grumpy fellow all share that room, and I’ll just … suffer alone, shall I?” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants looked at him in a manner he had used to great effect on the innkeeper only a paragraph ago, but as Polo only suffered from chronic confusion, and not stupidity and greed, he wasn’t quite as affected as the innkeeper had been.

“But … isn’t that elf a woman? She shouldn’t ought to sleep wit’ us /men/ --“ He was cut off by Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants hurriedly speaking after glaring at Polo for half a second in the anger of realizing that he wasn’t falling for the conspiratorial attitude.

“A /woman/? Polo, polo, Polo! I know all those elves look like women, but really! That’s terribly rude, you know.”

“No, no, I’m sure of it – she’s got, you know, breas –“
“Nonsense! Your unfamiliarity with elves is clouding your judgment! Now, now, no more protests. Here is your key –“ Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants deposited the key which he had gotten from the innkeeper in the very short time in which the spotlight had been off him into Polo’s unresisting hand “—now, don’t forget to tell the others! I’ll just … mosey, you know? Ta!” Lord squigglebottom fancypants wiggled his fingers fruitily at Polo and melted into the crowd in a manner that had taken him years to master. Polo stared after him with an amazingly confused expression, then stared at the key in his hand. His eyes unfocuswed and glazed over as he accessed a peculiar part of his mind, thinking, /What do/ you /think is going on?/

/I think he’s tryin’ ter pull the wool over yer eyes, is what I fink is going on,/ a belligerent voice snapped. /’e’s playing you for a sap! Look, you know that broad is a broad, yeh? An’ you know he’s up ta no good, don’cha? Hark at ‘im, won’cha! White as a sheet, ‘e is, and don’ act half posh! And hark at my dreadful accent, won’cha! What, am I supposed to be some kind of Cockney urchin? You carn’t write a Britishman ter save yer life! An’ what’s the obsession wit’ Britain anyroad? What’s wrong with America, eh? EH???/ There was a sound of frenzied panting in Polo’s brain, form a personality which certainly didn’t belong to him – that much was certain.

Polo also mentally panted, nervous – he knew Marco couldn’t and wouldn’t hurt him, but his occasional blasphemous outbursts made him nervous, and anyway violence and anger were the two things he feared most – which was why he was glad to have Marco around to protect him, though Marco’s own truculence and belligerence and hostility and antagonism were frightening enough at the best of times. /Marco, you shouldn’t talk like that! You know it’s forbidden to refer to …/ her.

/her? ‘oo is this ‘she’ then, eh? An’ why does I still sound like some twisted, misshapen lump of arccents, yeh eejit?/

/Marco!/ Polo’s “voice” was quavery and even more nervous than before. /You know! She of the Spork! She of the Letter Keys! SHE!/

/Whatever, mate. Why am I from Australia now? I hate you SO MUCH. Now, polo … I knows this Lord Squigglbottom Fancypants feller is really suspicious and bad news all the way round, but we carn’t zackly DO anything bout it right now. So I guess we jus ort to do what the man sez, an’ sleep together in the five man room tonight. ‘s better than sharing a room with that stiff, anyroad./

Polo was shaken enough that he didn’t argue with Marco, even though it seemed he was being hotheaded and irrational again (Marco never thought things through). He got up and went over to where Sommeone and Charlie were warbling, joyfully singing songs that were slowly becoming more raucous as Charlie fed Someone liquor when he wasn’t looking. Polo came up behind Charlie, paralyzed by indecision – on the one hand, he needed to tell him about the room arrangement before he was too drunk to remember, but on the other hand, Charlie was right now nearly the embodiment of what polo feared. However, as Marco roase to ascendance, polo pushed him down in panic. The very last thing he needed was to be involved in a bar brawl with Charlie of all people. The man was built like gaston from beauty and the beast – lasrge amounts of muscle all over, concentrated in the pectoral, upper back, neck, and thigh areas, although there was certainly prevalent everywhere else (including, in both cases, between the ears). The only difference between them, really, was that Charlie’s face was much more simple and honest looking, with small eyes, a large nose, a silly grin, an his entire head shave except for a shock of hair on his forehead. If he could make his hair somehow stand straight up in a spike, he would look like a human unicorn. (OH GOLLY GUYS WHO COULD HE BE BASED ON I HAVE NO IDEA.) although charlie seemed to view the world through a pair of rose-tinted lenses, with him as drunk as this, there was really no telling what he’d do – and as polo was actually rather attached to his limbs in every sense of the word, he wasn’t exactly anxious to have them removed. And he was pretty frightened of what lord squigglebottom fancypants’ reaction would be, if a few gouges on main were enough to make him go a little AWOL.

Lord Squigglebtoom Fancypants himself was actually not too terribly far away. He was hungry and on the hunt – he knew when he killed them that those rabbits would not be sufficient to quench his thirst, and he intended now to rectify this redoubtable situation. It always caused problems when he attempted to drink men; humans always mistook hunger for arousal for some reason. Normally he didn’t mind in strange towns, which were the places he did all his major feeding. Although slaves were useful for keeping one sated in the interim between major meals (usually months or even years apart, depending on the hardiness of your slaves and their numerousness), they were such a pain to drain because then one had to dispose of the body, which always caused a fuss amongst the slaves, even in their anemic state; it was always a better plan to preserve the fiction that he was in some way “good” and didn’t kill humans, and find his meals in distant towns while snacking at home. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants smirked to himself as he hungrily surveyed the tavern common room, swarming with prey. Silly humans nowadays, trying to reassign labels of “good” and “evil”; except on the part of the muddled humans themselves, none of the races did any soul-searching as to what side they were on. Of course, this was probably due to the fact that mucky humans bred like flies, whereas every other race in the world was practically sterile, to go along with their being completely immortal. They had all chosen their sides long ago, and a new immortal hadn’t been born for five hundred years. Even the vampires’ society wasn’t growing, due entirely to the shortage of spirits to inhabit newly dead bodies; a vampire’s host cadaver didn’t decay like a zombie’s did, although unlike a zombie a vampire needed blood to remain reanimated, and so when the number of spirits to inhabit bodies ran out, the population of undead was fixed. The only time a vampire needed a new body was when his (they were nearly exclusively men, for some reason) body was destroyed by some overzealous hero or by a rampaging mob, and for some reason the idiocy of humans had increased in recent years, causing them to think perhaps vampires were really only misunderstood, depressed immortals, instead of malevolent, possessed cadavers out to kill humans. Lord Squigglebotton Fancypants shook his head and turned his attention to his attire, making sure he was arrayed properly to feed. The most important thimng was the pair of thickly padded drawers, painstakingly created to provide protection while hiding the fact that he was, essentially, wearing a man sized diaper (these were necessary, because of course a diet completely composed of liquids, namely in this case blood, is going to create quite a spectacular amount of urine, which in the natural course of things needed to be voided before he was quite finished feeding). He had other clothing needs, of course – easily cleaned collar, dark suit, handkerchief, and of course, a dagger the length of his foot. It was amazingly hard to bite people properly without getting flesh all mixed in with your nice blood, and it was simply amazing how well people put together two and two when a slick, pallid gentleman was seen carrying off a woman and she’s found the day after, completely drained of blood with only two tiny puncture wounds to show for it. Nowadays, vampires had gotten wise – they slit their victims’ carotid arteries, drank their fill, and then made the body look like an ordinary murder. Lord Squigglebtoom Fancypants smiled as he singled in on his victim, a strong looking, rather plain woman wearing a russet turtle necked robe cinched in with a yellow sash, and carrying a rather large tome under her arm. A woman like that would be more than enough to sate his thirst, and would be too flattered by his interest to question his motives. The large, leather and wood bound tome bound in silver claspos that she carried worried him, but he was confident that having the strength of five men and no invulnerabilities would probably help out if she tried to do anything like throw the book at his head.

Suddenly, something came careening across the room and hit Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants in the back of the head. He made a weird sound that sounded like “Guh!” and his head shot forward, carruing the rest of his body with it. Rubbing the back of his head in a good imitation of pain (because in reality all he had felt was the momentum transfereed to his body and the initial surprise; vampires are dead and they learn to turn off their pain receptors after a while, because someone who’s only going to die if you cut off his head, stuff his mouth with garlic, stab a stake in his chest, bury him in pieces at a crossroads, and exorcise him regularly is not going to bother with paper cuts or even things that would bruiswe or even maim regular, living humans)
--
, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants turned slowly, fury growing in him. Just because he was invulnerable didn’t mean that he didn’t feel the pain of insult (ooh symbolism!), and Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants felt that having a heavy object chucked at the back of his head probably constituted insult. He looked around on the ground and located the projectile that someone had attempted to take him out with. He picked up a heavy wooden plate, which still had a little stew in it, and looked at it with scorn. Looking around, he saw that the only people who could have thrown it were Charlie (who was, by now, completely roaring drunk), another, equally wasted hunk of hired muscle, and a cloaked man who was haunting one corner, as all of them looked strong enough to hurl a plate with some force, and none of them had a plate before them. After a short period of deliberation, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants decided to leave the woman with the tome alone for now; although Charlie was out as a potential blood slave, and the cloaked man looked sinister enough that Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants decided to pass him by (it wouldn’t do to lose another player for the Evil team to friendly fire, as it were), there was still the other drunk hulking brute to punish. He looked like he had quite a lot of blood in him, and although he was pretty drunk, it would probably only give lOrd Squigglebottom Fancypants a slight buzz (numerous experiments with his human shell over the centuries had given him an idea of how intoxicants or other impurities in the blood affected him; as he was dead, things like diseases in his victims didn’t really hurt him, though he had learnt to keep away from them regardless, because they tended to do gross things like vomit or sneeze mucus all over him in their fear or just out of general wretchedness; alcohol only affected him slightly, and was more of an automatic reaction than actual, chemical changes, upholding the hypothesis that drunkenness is a state of mind as well as a state of body). He took one more look at the tall woman and made up his mind. She was smaller, sober, and armed, however dubiously. He would be more filling, just as easy to overpower, and would titillate him a little. True, he would be looked at with some suspicion and curiosity, but he could easily make up an excuse and a front. And anyway, this was war. He would pay for that plate, regardless of whether or not he had, in actual fact, thrown the thing.

Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, his mind made up, stood up abruptly, tossing aside the trencher as he made his way over to the drunk man. As soon as he got close enough, Lord Squigglbottom Fancypants bowed slightly, murmured a social nicety, and then slugged the man right across his jaw. The man’s head snapped back for a moment, his wide arc down saying he hadn’t been ready for Lord Squigglebotom Fancypants’ punch at all. The man ooked blearily at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants as he cam up, clearly not realizing that the two were antagonists quite yet. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypatns made sure this concept was good an firm in his mind by punching the drunk man savagely in the gut, then straightening his cuffs as he he stood straight upright once more, quite as if punching a man while he was down was quite the regular activity for him.

This time, when the man got surfaced, he knew just what was going on. He punched at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, a wide hook that carried him all the way around, but that ufortunately missed his opponent altogether. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, moving nimbly, had sidestepped out of the way of the ham sized fidst, then gently pushed his antagonist so that he continued twirling in a circle. The backs of Lord quigglebottom fancypants’ thighs touched the table behind him, and he mentally set a limit to his movement backwards – it wouldn’t do for him to be bested by a man too drunk to see straight because he was tripped by a table!

The drunk man threw a few more punches, all laughably off target, and Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants danced around them all, trying to seem as if he were as skilled as his opponent, just … less drunk. It did mean that he had to let a few punches at least come close, though it hurt his pride. Finally, he was done with thiese preliminaries, and landed a punch squarely on the man’s nose, which broke with a satisfying crunch and an impressive spray of blood. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants almost froze at the sight of it; it reminded him forcefully of his hunger, and it took quite a feat of self control not to attack and drain the man right there. He almost licked the blood off his knuckles, daring the man to attack, but with herculean effort, he merely mopped it off nonchalantly with a pristine white handkerchief, acting unfazed. He looked insolently at the man, his eyes half lidded, as the man wiped off his face, then held out his hand, seeing the blood on it. The drunk man, glared up at Lord Squigglebottom Fancyoants, then bellowed wordlessly and launched himself at his opponent.

However, it seemed as if Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants was going to have the last blow. As he had planned on when he began, the innkeeper’s bouncer finally decided it was time to add his two cents to the pot. He waded it amongst the onlookers, saw the drunk man’s charge, and grabbed him around the midsection halfway between his original position and Lord Squigglebottom Fancypnats, making the man say “OOF” in all caps with no punctuation. Lord Squigglebottom acted as if he was pleased he wasn’t being nabbed in an effort to misdircert the onlookers, then put on a very convincing facsimile of shock as the bouncher grabbed him by his collar and dragged him along with his drunken mark out to the back door and tossed them outside wordlessly. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants was forced yet again to sacrifice his dignity in the name of food as he allowed himself to sprawl in the ground while the bouncer closed the door to the alley with a slam. As soon as light left, though, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants stood and brushed himself off spotless before advancing on his stunned victim, his dagger appearing in his hand as if by magic (and knowing Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, who’s to say it wasn’t?). The a cloud passed over the moon, and now only a slight glint betrayed the presence of the knife.

There was not a sound until, a few moments later, the man’s body fell to the cobbles with a soft thump. Another gleam: blood on sharp teeth as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants grinned. He hefted the body once more with nary a grunt, and jumped eaily to the roof. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants looked to the sky while bearing the pallid corpse of his prey, then smirked as he noted that the moon, which was far from even half full, was and would be covered with clouds for most of the remainder of the night. He crouched to spring, then off he shot to hide the body, another tactic he had picked up along the centuries to help misdirect attention form himself (ofr although it was possible to get a new body simply by contacting another one of his undead fellows, he would be partially under their control ever after – and that assumed that one of his fellows would even be willing to do the deed. Many vampires were of the opinion that the less competition there was, the better, and that faction was growing); Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ strategy was to lie low and attract as little attention as possible, while living in an area that was so used to being under vampires’ thumbs that they didn’t even bother with attacking castles with pitchforks like other areas’ peasants were wont to do.

***

Back in the tavern, Polo had finally screwed up his courage and notified the rest of the party of the sleeping arrangements, due in no small part to strangely accented prodding from Marco. He did, as he feared, run into trouble when he nervously told Last that she would be spending the night with the rest of them while Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants spent the night doing who knew what; she stared into the remains of her stew for a full thrity seconds until she stared up belligerenly at Polo, saying, “That’s ridiculous. I refuse to spend my nights with four men, only one of whom is related to me, and none of whom are entirely or even remotely sane. I’m getting my own room.” She stood decisively, adjusted her neckline to display the maximum amount of bosom without being indecently exposed, and sauntered over to the innkeeper to flirt her way into a single person, which knowing her would either be full of food or men by the time she vacated it. Polo watched her go nervously, then deciding that regardless of the outcome of her little escapade (which, as she was really exceptionally beautiful and adept at flirtation and manipulation, was looking pretty hopeful for her) it was No Longer His Problem (due in no small part to Marco yelling, “It AIN’T YER PROBLEM, POLO! If tha’ fat innkeep wants ta give that hussy a room, LET ‘IM! TURN AROUND, YA BOLLOCKS!”) and turned to go. Polo got tired out easily, due entirely to the fact that the small rodent that lives in everyone’s brain was on the ascendant in his, and kept Polo on full, supercharged alert at all times; it had been a long day for him, in the presence of a man that put all of his already preternaturally high defenses on overdrive, constantly trying to keep Marco from preemptively attacking in the perfectly rational belief that Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants would bnot hesitate to kill him (them), and walking for a long ways besides. He would get a plate of stew from the serving maids, hope they didn’t accost him or anything of the sort because it would absolutely kill him with nervousness, take it up to the room, and eat it before sleeping.

Mr Ian Woon had similar plans for the evening, although he did have a rather ambitious period of sulking planned before retiring. Mr. Ian Woon was of the firm belief that the only way to end one’s day was to muse on its events, in order that no experience of the day went unsavored. Of course, in Mr. Ian Woon’s case this translated to large amounts of sulking and bemoaning the fact that the entire world seemed opposed to him, and rather small amounts of anything resembling savoring (in fact, if someone were to analyze this practice of Mr. Ian Woon’s, one would be tempted to conclude that the entire point was not, in fact, to savor a thing, but to catalogue in his mind e ery grievance that anyone had committed against him during the day, for the purpse of getting his own later. Due to the long day, this particular evening Mr. Ian Woon was combining his evening sulk with his dinner, which did dim whatever enjoyment he may have gottem out of it, but since the food was unfamiliar and therefore detestable, there wasn’t much enjoyment ot be had for him this night.

Charlie and Someone, in contrast, were expereinecing perhaps a little too much enjoyment. They were by this time so thoroughly drunk that they had lost not a few brain cells, and had their memory making functions erased temporaritly by intoxicaiont. They continued to sing, however, belting what were by now rather thoroughly crude songs while snacking on the salty little dishes the innkeeper’s wife made for drunks to eat so they would buy more beer.
--
Mr. Ian Woon looked over at them with an extremely miffed expression, irritated at the amount of noise they were able to create.

****

When Polo, Mr. Ian Woon, and the very drunk Someone and Charlie had all crashed in their room, Polo lay in his bed, thinking about the events of the past few days. Just three days ago, Polo had been a regular farm boy – well, perhaps not quite so narmal as all that, what with having another personality that he could talk to in his mind who would occasionally take over – and now, here he was, adventuring with his crown prince and perhaps saving the entire populace from this overlord person, who was apparently causing all the chaos that had been plaguing KPnicplace for the past fortnight since the overlord had arrived. When he saw the ad in the tavern for Main’s traveling party, well – he didn’t know what possessed him to apply, though he had a niggling suspicion that it had been Marco (Marco was mum on the subject). Now, he had traded his quiet life for trudging along a dark road with suspicious characters by, sleeping next to drunk men by night, and the constant fear that Lord Squigglbottom Fancypants was going to kill him. Was it worth it? He wondered. He was unable to waste any mnore sleep over his philosophical musings, however, as the strains of the day caught up with him and he fell into a sleep that, while not resembling that of a log, a baby, or a dead thing, was still restful.

CHAPTER 5
>In which Main wakes up, eavesdrops, gains a new party member, and finally gets himself some pants.<

Main woke up, and for the first time in three chapters, sat up and rubbed his head and his back in pain. The only differences between now and Chapter 2 were that a) it was dark, b) he was lying on a table and not the ground, and c) instead of being hung over, he had been mauled by a crazy woman. Alright, those were actually pretty major differences, but that was okay because what was really the same about this moment and the same time yesterday was that Main was confused, out of the loop, and in pain.

“Ohhh … what happened? Where am I?” Main groaned. He put a hand to his forehead and noticed that one of his fingers had been splinted in the time between when we saw Main last and now. He looked at it confusedly, then suddenly remembered the woman who had attacked him completely out of the blue the day beofer. He remembered the cuts and gouges she had given his chest and looked down concernedly, especially worried that the perfect skin of his pectorals and abdominals would be ruined by infection and unsightly scars. Small, narrow scars were okay, because they made a man look strong and … weathered, he supposed, but larger scars were only disfiguring. Main was relieved, therefore, to find his wounds cleaned competently and wrapped with clean linen. If tended properly, all Main would have would be the masculine, strong scars he approved of, and none of the unsightly things that were due to infection, burns, or messy wounds. When he moved further and felt stitches pull, however, he looked down in panic. Who had approved stitches on his pristine body? Stitches were terribly disfiguring! They made a man look like he had been stitched together even when the stitches had been taken out, and besides, they made a scar look twice as big as it would have if it had been left alone! This was a DISASTER!

“So, you’ve woken up, have you? Yes, yes, I’ve stitched you up. I’m sure you’re terribly concerned about the state of your poor, beautiful, defiled flest, but don’t worry. It’s not going to FALL OFF YOUR BONES like it would if I had let it fester, which I’m sure you’re grateful for.” The wman the voice belonged to moved out of the shadows in the corner, light from the sun lieaking through te thatch of the roof and glinting off the woman’s white teetch, exposed in a wide, mad grin. Main’s eyes, accustomed to the darkness, widened, and he scooted backwards on the table, taking the thin cloth covering of the table along with him, until his hands couldn’t find any more table to scootch along. He compromised by clutching the back of the table surreptitionsly and staring at the crazy woman.

“W-who are you? Why am I here?” Main’s eyes darted aroung the room, noticing that he appeared to be in a rather sizeable wattle and daub one room cottage. There sadly, however, did not seem to be an avenue of escape that hadn’t been blocked by the crazy dark woman. He knew an amazing amount of strategy ofr the once a week strategy and swordplay classes he had been engaged n when he had still been ensconced in the castle in his hometown, and he oculd tell that at least in this circumstance, the womane had the upper hand, having access to weapons (theoretically), superior knowledge of the terrain (theoretically), and superior physical health (thoretyically), in addition to certainly being crazy enough to try any dirty fighting tactic you cared to name. Main decided that in the absence of a violtent attack that was possible for him to take [awk],he would be forced to negotiate. “Are you a healer, woman? Is that why you’re here?”

“Healer? Aye, young man, I am this town’s herb wife. And I cleaned you up and stiticed you up, yes I did. You were in a rather bad place, bleeding all over and in fronto f /that/ man. But no matter! I cleaned you upk, I did! But now I have to keep you under tight watch, yes, yes! You are hurt, sir, and you do have limited amounts of strength. I knows you kind, yes I do! You would be up and travelling in a heartbeat! That is nbot to be borne, no it is not! You need to stay here! You need to REST. And rest you will, oh yes yes! I will be watching you, and I will make sure you rest if I have to feed you full of drugs to do it! And I can do it, too,” she threatened. “I know enoought herb wifery to drop a horse in a minute and a half if I have to! And II will not squabble if I need to do the same to you. So sit down, sire, and I will make you some tea.”

Main watched the woman, thoroughly terrified now, as she bustled around, still grinning in a disconcertingly insane way as she took a few leaves out of this jar, a couple dried flowers out of this sack, and a dash of powders here and there, combining them all in another square of the linen gauze hse had used to bind Main’s wounds. Main looked puzzledly at that last – he had never seen tea being treated in quite that way. Usually one would simply take some predried leaveds from a tin, put then in a kettle or teapot, and boil water for them. All this nonsense with herbs and linene was rater unfamiliar for him. Fianllay she produced a cup and some boiling water and poured it over the linen square, which she stretched over the mouth of the cup. She swirled the tea a few times to make sure any sediment was properly included in the drink, then handed the steaming cup to Main, ordering him, “Drink.” Main looke at the cup distrustfully, looked up at the firm face of the dark herb wife, whose grin was gone to make her face truly siister, and took the cup with a gulp. He looked at the tea – it was a worrying shade of purple – and took a sip cautioslu. When it didn’t cause him to die, transmogrify into anything strange, or to do something else distressing, he looked again at the violet drink and sipped it warily. When he had finished it, he patted himself down cautiously, and noticing not changes, he said in an increasingly happy voice, “Hey! I actually feel a bit bett – “ he stopped abruptly and flopped over, fast asleep. The herb wife looked at her handiwork smugly, her mad grin slowly coming over her face like an extremebly disturbing sunrise.

“I told you I’d do it, dod I not?” She said quietly. “you need the sleep, boy, shile you still have the ime t osleep in. For there is coming a time [oooohhh foreshadowing] when you will not have much time for laying about – a time when you will be fighting for your life.” She patted his head, solemn again, then grinned amdly again. “And I got you pretty good there, didn’t I? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”

****

Charlie was awakened with a horrible pounding headache as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants said loudly and with obvious relish, “Wakey wakey! Come on, you strapping young lads! It’s the dawn of a lovely new day!” As Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants muttered indistinctly about how days weren’t really terribly lovely at all, Charlie groaned and blearily rubbed his eyes. HE smacked his lips and blinked indistinctly a few times, then said in utter misery from the terrible pain stabbing him between the eyes, in the eyes, and generally all around his head, “Lord Squigglbottom FAncypatns … wha … wat’re you doin’? We’re … we’re sh-shleepin’ here, man. Go ‘way.”

“Go /away/? My dear chap, are you going to lie abed all aday? Come on! Wake up and smell the … er … what is this black stuff anyway?” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants shook something in his hand that appeared to belong tpo the breakfast tray that was laying on the table that all five beds shared. Someone immediately shot upwards.

“COFFEE???!!” he shouted. Lunging towards Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, he wrenched the black whatever it was out of the rather nonplussed man’s hands. He looked at the blackened piece of toast in his hand with supreme chagrin and looked at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants with an expression of disappointment that would have made anyone less granite hearted than Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants weep with regret. “It’s toast,” he told Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants flatly as he handed it back, then flopped back down to his bed, clutching a head that ached just as much as Charlie’s (for he had become drunk, inadvertently as it was, at least as much as Charlie had been last night). Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants looked down at the burnt toast in his hand and shrugged.

“I was just wondering. No need to get all defensive.” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypats shrugged in that nonchalant way that really mean people do when they know they’ve just done a supremely mean thing, and they know it, and pretend like nothing they’ve said was cruel in the slightest. He tossed the toast back to Someone, saying, “Go ahead and keep it. You’re skinny enough to need it. There’s extra butter.” This was another time honored mean person tradition, namely the little witty thing they say after their particularly cruel trick just to rub salt in whatever wounds they can reach. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, on this particular occasion, knew he had struck a nerve because Someone reached out his hand, caught the toast slice in midair, and crushed it to crumbs with his fist. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants wasn’t affected by this gesture, in the manner of bullies everywhere, but only raised an eyebrow and said enigmatically, “Excitable.”

Polo chose this moment to get up – he had been awake for a little while now (actually, since the moment Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants decided to be obnoxious), but he figured he ought to get up and dispel the awkward moment before it got so amazingly awkard that bad things happened. “Um, well, er, hey, um, Lord, er, Squigg … Squigglebottom, er, Fancypa - pants, er, sir, could I, um, have some, um, some of that, er, um, food, er, please?” Marco cringed inside Polo’s mind; for a guy who was trying to dispel awkwardness, that was the most amazingly awkward sentence he had ever heard uttered, even by Polo. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants turned the awesome power of his raised eyebrow to Polo after he heard this rather impressive string of ums, ers, and heys; what wasn’t immediately evident was that what with having rather a nice meal last night, complete with some pretty nice alcohol (everything tasted nice when in the bloodstream), Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants was having a pretty nice day, and being hiself, this basically translated into him enjoying himself by torturing everyone in his general vicinity with more physical jokes than he usually indulged in. For a person like Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, it could be at times difficult to discern whether or not he was in a good or bad mood, because his stress remedy was basically the same as the outpouring of his good humor; it was best simply to assume to that he was in a bad mood all the time, because if you angered him in a good mood, you’d only get maimed a little or put on his “enslave later” list, if you angered him when he was already having a bad day, it was preactically a one way ticket to a shallow grave.

“Food was it? Would you like some toast? I’m afraid our mutual friend Someone wasn’t terribly enthused about it.” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants got another slice of the amazingly burnt toast (the bread it was made from was black already, but the burnination that these slices of toast got was simply phenomenal. They really did crumble into, er, crumbs if you squeezed them hard enough) and chucked it at Polo, much like he did to Someone. Someone still won the prize for awesome catch, however, because while Polo was all the way awake and not hung over, Someone was still an elf with reflexes that, while not as fast as lightning (which travels at the speed of light, which even elves cannot even attain), were still pretty darn fast, and certainly were faster than Polo’s feeble human ones, especially considering that Polo was kind of a loser and didn’t expect anything of the kind (and Lord Squigglebottom was really going for the gold on this one, and actually chucked the piece of toast a Polo’s face instead of tossing it nonchalantly as he did in Someone’s case). Polo actually lost the unofficial toast catching contest mostly because he did not, in fact, actually catch his slice of toast at all; it hit him squarely in the face, bouncing off his nose with a dull, crumby sound, and leaving a smear of butter on his cheek. This caught even Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants off guard (he had been expecting Polo to duck or something); he lost control of his face for a split second as an expression of pure delight and glee, before he coughed embarrassedly and set his face in the usual sardonic expression he usually wore. He held up a mug and said cheerfully (for he was about to mess with Someone some more), “would you like a little coffee with that?”

Someone shot up again. “COOFFFEEEEE???!!!!!” he shouted even more wildly and excitedly than before. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants looked dwon in the mug and smirked.

“I hope not,” he said, “because the innkeeper only gave me this tea junk.” He looked up slantwise at someone, just in time to catch the face like death warmed over that Someone now wore.

He looked wild eyed over at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants and said pitifully, “Cooooooffffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee … coooffffeeeeeeeeeeeeee …” before collapsing yet again with his hands clutching his aching cranium, which was suffering badly from all this shaking about it was getting. Lord Squiglebottom Fancypants smirked at Someone’s prone figure before carefully cracking two eggs into the glass of milk he had expressly ordered, trying to figure out which of the two hung over men he should try his remedy on.

Look at that shiny little widget over there! Now y'all can really see that I'm on track! I'm glad that OLL got them up :D

Also: today's offering is the first official use of Write or Die by Dr. Wicked! I have to get up at 8 tomorrow and so I wanted to be done quickly. And I was! Here you are:


She was a dark woman, immigrated from the exotic lands to the south, most likely along with some valuable ivory, gold, and spices. Her curly brown hair was streaked with tawny strands and was teased back from her head, standing straight up in an onion shaped pouf. The dim, yellowish light glinted off her white teeth, revealed in a huge, mad grin as she moved up to the table to examine Main. The grin faded slightly as she began to examine Main’s wounds, and disappeared completely as she turned away from him, muttering fiercely, and produced a mortar and pestle and began to grind some dried herbs in it, her biceps moving under the skin as she crushed leaves, twigs, and fresh plant pieces in the pottery mortar. She muttered soflty over the mush, then added some water and more plant pieces, crushing it all into a paste. She heated water over the fire and dipped a rag in it, wringing out the water before cleaning out the wounds on Main’s chest and ribs. The wounds, which had begun to clot, began to bleed freely again as the herb wife cleaned away the dirty scabs. Last moved forward in an abortive attempt to stop her, but the walrus put a massive flipper before her, saying softly, “Let her be. She know vhat she be doing.” Last looked worriedly at the walrus and then back at Main – she was very fond of him for a reason she couldn’t really fathom, and she wanted him to be okay. Lord Squigglebottom FAncypants was also staring at Main, but his face had a frightening expression on it: his eyes were wide and bright, and his mouth slightly open, exposing sharp, white teeth. In the dim lighting, he looked especially sinistier – until, that is, he seemed to suddelnlyy recollect where he was, cough, and look away.

The herb wife, having finished cleaning Main’s wounds, took the paste she had made earlier and spread it on the bleeding gouges; the adventuring party looked on in amazement as the bleeding stopped after mere seconds, all of the wounds being covered with the salve. The herb wife, finished with ther secret methods, took a roll of clean, loosely woven linen cloth and began to wrap Main’s chest in it; she was thrifty and only covered wounded places, which meant that for a little while she looked as if she were only rolling the gauze randomly around Main’s chest, until it became apparent that every actual wound would be covered, even if it took a little doing and time. Finally, she got out her mortar and pestle, cleaned them, and put them away. Sighing in relief, they moved forward to collect Main, but were stopped by the herb wife’s salve covered hand. “You may not take him away,” she said, taking a cloth and belligerently wiping her hands on it, grinning ini an especially sinster manner.

“But … why not? Is it a matter of payment? Look, he’s a prince, I’ sure he has loads of --” Last was cut off by a sharp bark of laughter from the herb wife.

“Money? Pfaugh! I do not need your money. If anything, all I need from you is an escort for a distance. No, he is not released from my care yet. This man needs to be cared for … well, he should be bed ridden for at least a couple of days, yes, and no travel for at least a week.” The herb wife crossed her arms across her ample bosom, daring the party embers to challenge her authority on this subject at least.

Last moved forward in anger. "THere's no way! we're on a mission, woman, and if you can't see that, well -"

the walrus looked at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants for amoment, as he looked like the moset sane of the group, in a worldless look (which Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants seemed to be gettin a lot of lately) that said without words, "is she an idiot or just insane?" (answer: an idiot), before flopping forward to Last First Middle and asking hjer, "Vould ju rather he died? Bummuck knows what she's doing. THat's the absolute minimus time Main needs to recover. Etierh you trust her enought to let her have the say on this one, or you don't trust her at all and you force Main to kill himself. Your choice. And where is my accent? is it too hard for you or something? Aakes alive, can't a man keep his accent around here? I've lost my newscasting job, on account of mmy losing my ability to be human, which I really miss, by the way - I lost my bukkit, which I don't even know what it is, except that it was blue and now it's gone - why, any day now I won't be able to smoke! What's the world coming to?" The walrus shook his large, whiskery head, muttering to himself, then flopped away, shoving Charlie out of the way as he went to the road. er oh not what to do next okay

Charlie and Someone looked at each other, not really understanding all the heavy stuff that was going on, and shrugged in unison. They went to the door of the hut, and Someone called out, "Shall -- shall he be staying with you then?'

Bummuck shouted at him, "Yes, you bollocks! DId I not just tell you that? He carn't be moved, I tell ya! Otherwise," she changed tone, a huge creepy smile coming over her face, "He'll swell up and he'll fester and he'll DIE! Ha!" she burst into hy sterical laughter, then slammed the door shut in Someone's face! someone blinked for a few seconds, stunned, as Mr Ian woon looked disapprovingly at the exclamation point in the previous sentence, clearly not approving (duh) of such excitability in a narrator. There goes the fourth wall.

the party members looked at each other, clearly flummoxed, thenb all shrugged in unison and turned away from the small hut. Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants offered, "I think I saw a tavern a ways back - the Fox and Dormouse, I believe." the others, desirous of a bed, a meal, and, in Last's case, a bath with a man in it, agreed roundly that perhaps it would be in their best interest to investigate such a potential house of sin and ruckus.

when they reached the aforesaid house of sin and ruckus, it turned out not to be named the Fox and Dormouse, as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants had averred, but instead the Fox and the Curiously Shaped Button - apparently, a popular folk legend recounted the tale of a fox seeing a button carved by a master carpenter to look like a dormouse, desiring it, and subsequently stealing it. Although this was ostensibly a folk legend, it didn't seem to have anything like a moral attached, but perhaps there was one that was only ever alluded to and never spoken outright.

the party headed in, not caring one way or the other about this absolutely irrelevant bunny trail except as how it humiliated Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants in that he had though the curiously shaped button was a dormouse when it was, in fact, a button. the fact the the button was deliberately shaped like a dormouse and, in fact, was the same as a dormouse in nearly every respect, especially as it was painted on the sign of the tavern, did not matter to the party members who wished to mock Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants (this group encompassed only mr ian woon and someone, beecause mr ian woomn wanted to mock everyone, and someone thought it was humorous - nobody else dared to mcok lord squigglebottom fancypants because he was really too darn scary). as they all looked around the tavern, which was in reality quite a nice place, especially for a rather small town on the outskirts of a rather large forest and not on any major road, the party members reacted with a range of reactions, from absolute glee from Charlie to burning scorn form mr ian woon. As the others moved to their favorite places, ranging from the corner with a lute for Someone to the bar for Charlie, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants sidled over to the innkeeper, asking him quietly, "How much for rooms, my good sir?"

"Rooms?" the man squinted at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, scratching his posterior at the same time as his large, bulbouis nose. "Well, we has the floor in the barn fer a copper, the floor in here fer a copper, a room for five fer a copper, a room fer two fer a copper, and the room fer one fer a copper. the floor an' the barn's all full up, so ye'll have ter pay me a copper fer the room fer five."

"Room for five? here, I'll cut you a deal: how's abput I give yuo a copper, you give me two rooms for two, and you don't die, eh?" Lord squigglebottom fancypants held out a copper, and raised an eyebrow conspiratorially, as if he had let he innkeeper on a pretty awesome deal, and didn't want anybody else to know about it. the innkeeper's face had a idiotically confused look on it, and his lips moved slowly to try and suss out what exactly lord squigglebottm fancypants had offered him; however, before he had a chance to actually determine what lord quigglebottom fancypnants had said, lord squiggleb ottom fancypants had already pushed the coin into the innkeeper's hand and closed his fingers around it. the feel of copper in his hands eradicated any doubts he had, and he nodded, hesitantly at first, but then enthusastically as lord squigglebottom fancypants smiled at him in a way that suggested that the innkeeper was really quite a smart man for finagling this deal out of lord squigglebottom fancypants, although lord squigglebottom had nothing but utter contempt for the man. “I’m so glad we came to this understanding,” he said.

Annnd for the second post of the night! Enjoy my wordcount for today, people - which I'm proud to say is exactly 8333 as of right now! Yay for celebrating mediocrity.

(Chapter 4 starts! Finally! Plus: a new character!)

As they became more and more restless, the slightest items of interest began to spawn more and more conversation, from the initial comment from Last (“Why, what a piquantly shaped mushroom! I wonder what type it is”) and Mr. Ian Woon’s swift scorn (“Probably poisonous, you dunderhead”) to the long and philosophical discussion Last, Someone, Charlie, Main, and even the confused young man (who during the discussion revealed somewhat nervously that his name was “Polo”) had had regarding whether or not fairies did, indeed, create fairy rings (Charlie and Main’s insistence), or if they were actually evil hive minded mushrooms that intended upon overtaking the forest (Last and Someone’s opinion). So, when Polo suddenly noticed a bright red outhouse, it accrued an overabundance of attention from the entire adventuring party.

“What – what in the /world/ is /that/?” Polo said in melodramatic interest, leaning forward to peer through the thick shadows at the blaringly, near fluorescent red object in the distance.

“Why – it’s a red outhouse!” shouted Charlie, exhibiting his knowledge of not only the exclamation point, but the much beloved en dash as well.

“Red? My dear chap, that is an outhouse to be sure, but I believe you will find that it is /orange/, and not red at all,” Lord Squigglebottom said from the sjhadows, from whence he had not ventured for the entirety of their admittedly short journey. The rest of the party members looked at him with interest not a little motivated by extreme boredom and desperation – for as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants had not involved himself in any of the conversations that had sprung up so far (with the exception of the snarky little exchange he and mr. Ian Woon had shared in the campsite), he was far more interesting than the dull musings, curiously shaped pinecones, and amusing squirrel exchanges they had had to divert themselves with for the several hours they had been tramping through this forest.

“Oh, no, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants,” Main said, coming to Charlie’s aid with no little relief. “I believe that if one examines the outhouse properly and accounts for the dimness of this forest, one will be forced to admit that the redditude of this outhouse is so exemplary that there is no way that any orangeyness could make itself seen – in fact, any yellowitude at all is so far from tainting this redliness that this outhouse may even be proclaimed (a little boldly of course) a paragon of redness.” Nobody even flinched at this overly pompous and clearly trumped up statement of ridiculousness, because they were so desperate for conversation that they (including Main) were willing to speak in Verbose Gentleman Speak in order to obfuscate their conversation and stretch out the time it took to say anything. In fact, Main preened a little at his small speech, because he could have said his point in four words, namely, “I think it’s red.”

Mr. Ian Woon piped up. “No, my good sir - you see, it is because of the dim lighting in this great forest, which dampens the yellowitude of this paragon of orangeyness, that you poor plebians are mislead into believing this outhouse of such outstanding orangitude is a mere red outhouse. If you could but place it in full, unobstructed sunlight, even your blind eyes would be opened to the exemplary amount of orangeliness that this outhouse possesses.” This statement also elicited interest fform the other party members, because Mr. Ian Woon, like Lord Squigglebottom Fancypabts, had remained (sourly) silent for much of the amazingly boring tromp that today had yielded. Mr. Ian Woon tried to preen at his contribution, but since his statement (which could have been said in only three words, namely, “No, it’s orange,”) was a full five words shorter than Main’s, he hadn’t managed to elicit the same amount of awe [bad word] as Main had.
However, they were unable to continue their verbose exchange, because at that very moment the door to the outhouse flew open to allow a person egress (who, because of the distance that still remained between the adventuring party and the outhouse of questionable color, was rather indistinct). This person, although rather far away, flew toward them fleetly – in fact, this person was fast enough for the party to decide she was female after five seconds although she had been a mere ant moments ago. The adventuring party began to fear they were experiencing a random encounter as the woman drew nearer. Their assumption proved correct, as within the minute she had reached them; as soon as she saw Main, she fell upon him in a rage and began to maul. The whole adventuring party was taken by such surprise that they could do nothing but stare as she gouged savagely at Main; then, as suddenly as she had fallen upon him, she grabbed his shirt, ripped it off him, and ran off with it, growling like an angry tiger.

They all stopped in shock, still staring at Main, who was lying on the ground, panting. Then, they all looked up at each other in near unison, and asked each other wordlessly, “Anybody have some healing experience?” They each cast about the entire party, but as nobody stepped forward, they realized that the only thing they could do would be to bring Main to the next town. They fashioned a makeshift stretcher for Main, who was now irritably insisting they do something while slowly slipping into unconsciousness from lack of blood (fortunately, Lord Squigglebottom FAncypants knew that that was what was happening, and stopped the bleeding as best as he could, for his own reasons). They set off down the road again, hoping a town came along soon.

CHAPTER 4
>In which Main visits a healer, investigates the veracity of the claims that chaos has been spreading throughout the realm, eavesdrops, and finally gets himself some new clothes.<

The traveling party was in luck, for the (debatably) red outhouse was the harbinger of a sizeable town. They walked into the town rather hurriedly, because Main was not faring terribly well. “Hello!” shouted Someone, with the strong voice he had cultivated for music. “Hello! Is there a healer in this village? Please! Someone is hurt!”

The few people walking about in the heat of the day (which was rather hot indeed, because the town itself was in full sunlight and unprotected by the forest which ended rather abruptly after the arguably red outhouse) looked at him oddly, as if they did not understand. Suddenly, a huge bull walrus wearing a top hat and a monocle while smoking a thick cigar burst through the seven people clustered around the saloon thing, barking in a loud, German accented voice, “Was ist das? Ein doktor? Come vit me, ja, I vill show you to him.” He flopped forward along the street, moving at a strong clip despite the fact that he was a walrus and not exactly built for land. The adventuring party was more than slightly flabbergasted at the sight and experience of a behatted, monocle wearing, cigar smoking German walrus who could speak, but as he was moving quite rapidly and Main was in a steadily worsening state, they followed at a near run, trying not to jar Main while at the same time trying to keep up with the amazingly fleet walrus.

After a short but harrowing run, trying to keep up with this incredibly agile walrus, the adventuring party came to a stop before a small hut on the outskirts of the town, which was thatched in reeds and clearly made from rather aged wattle and daub. “Go insite, der herb vife vill fix him up qvick, ja!” the walrus urged, taking a long drag on his cigar, then using his flipper to knock the ash off against his tusk. The members of the adventuring party looked at each other, unsure, but one look at their leader, to whom most of them were becoming awfully attached somehow, impressed upon them the pressing need to get him some help, any help, and soon. Charlie was chosen to carry Main in (for it was clearly too small for two people to carry him in on his stretcher, and Charlie was after all the strongest person in their party, with the possible exception of Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, who was in any case making it abundantly that more blood would be shed if he was forced to carry out any kind of menial labor), and he gingerly scooped up Main, who was by this time looking rather alarmingly pale (though not as pale as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, although it would be awfully hard to manage this side of death) and carried him into the hut, saying cautiously, “Excuse me? Herb wife? Are you there? Please we need your help!” (It was a very valiant effort for him, what with the three question marks he was forced to pronounce, and he could be excused for leaving out a mere comma.)

“Yes child?” a crackly voice asked, the owner of which was still enshrouded in shadow in much the same way as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants perpetually was. “Ah, I see! Yes, this one has lost a lot of blood. Yes, much, much blood. Was it the pale one? Oh, no, I see, it couldn’t have been him. Yes, yes, child, place him on the table, there, yes.”

Charlie, confused by the amount of punctuation this woman seemed to be familiar with, did not notice this then, but when he left the hut, he felt it was much bigger on the inside than on the outside. And indeed, Charlie had plenty of head room and space to maneuver in order to place Main gently on the canvas covered table the woman had instructed him to. As Charlie backed away from Main, the owner of the rather aged sounding voice moved forward into the relative light of the section of the hut which contained the table where Main lay.

Sorry guys! Last night I finished my word count at 2 AM and was in no shape to post my progress. Here are my words for you lovely (seven) people! (They finally eat! It's a miracle!)

Last pouted, her obvious ploy to learn more about the reticent Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants having failed utterly, and resentfully turned back to the coneys, which she had skinned and spitted, as Lord Squigglebottom FAncypants had gutted and exsanguinated them before hand. She started to turn the spit sullenly as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants Looked archly over at er, clearly pleased at his victory. Main and Charlie looked at both combatants, each feeling as if something significant had just happened, but each also feeling a little out of the loop as to what, exactly, was significant about that little exchange. They looked at each other, both clearly confused, then shrugged in unison and headed over to the campfire, Charlie to accost the sour-faced man who was huddling near it, and Main to ogle Last, who clearly didn’t mind, and even adjusted her neckline (which already plunged quite low enough) to tease Main a little more. She smirked at Main’s obvious entrancement – she loved to manipulate men with her looks (which, in her defense, were rather spectacular), and this Main character was shaping up to be a truly effortless mark. Why, if this adventure shaped up like she hoped, then she would be able to afford a new outfit! And maybe even a tumble or two with the men of the party. She enjoyed a good tumble. It was one of the few things in life that gave her pleasure, after cooking and manipulation. And this party looked as if it could provide some quality entertainment, with the muscle bound idiot and the amorous dunderhead for more … carnal pleasures, and the sour-faced one, the angry one, and the mysterious and pale one for manipulation. And the pale one could clearly provide food for her to cook – that he had already demonstrated with the wonderful gift of these two coneys that he had produced. However, she knew she needed to keep an eye on him – the man had too many secrets, and didn’t seem to be swayed by her charms, great though they were. And he didn’t seem to be any kind of being she knew of – not a human with that pale, nearly yellowish skin and those faintly pointed ears, but surely not elven – his ears may have been pointed, but nothing close to the long, elegant spearheads that full elves sported.

Last’s thoughts were interrupted by Charlie, who went up to the sour-faced, reticent man although he was exuding extremely strong “do not come anywhere in my immediate vicinity” vibes and shook his hand as vigorously as he had shaken Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ hand. “Hello how are you my name is Charlie how are you what’s your name!” he said exuberantly. The sour faced man scowled harder and extricated his hand from Charlie’s suffocatingly strong grasp.

“I /was/ doing perfectly fine, /thank/ you,” he said sourly (as was his wont, being a sour faced and generally all around sour person), adding, “But if you’re so /intent/ upon knowing my name, I suppose I ought to tell you, if only to get you all to stop bothering me. My name is Mr. Ian Woon, and I would /prefer/ if you would use my honorific. I wish to keep my association and familiarity with this particular group of /miscreants/ to an absolute minimum.”

Charlie’s face fell. Literally. Off his head. Sorry, I digress:

Charlie’s face fell. His hand went limp in dejection, and Mr. Ian Woon took the opportunity to pull his hand away huffily. Mr. Ian Woon turned aaway, effectively rejecting Charlie, and stared determinedly at the fire. Charlie stared at Mr. Ian Woon for a little while, still flabbergasted, obviously unused to such rudeness, until he finally shook himself out of his shocked stupor and turned hopefully to the remaining members of the party: the other elf twin, Someone, and the angry young man, who oddly didn’t seem to be terribly angry anymore. Charlie took one look at the blissfully unaware look on Someone’s face, who appeared to be playing a musical instrument, and recognized a kindred spirit. He bounded over to Someone and said excitedly, “What are you playing is it a lute I played a lute once but everyone said I sounded like a dying cat and made me stop but I didn’t think I sounded too bad can you teach me!”

Back in the thick shadows of the oak to the back of the campsite, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants said sourly, “Is the man incapable of forming anything other than a run on sentence?”

Mr. Ian Woon muttered back, “I think he only recognizes exclamation points as true punctuation.” He and Lord Squgglebottom Fancypants shared a look that said, “At least there’s another intelligent person amongst all these dullards.” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ side of the look tried to communicate some overly posh Britishism, but as Mr. Ian Woon was too stolid an Englishman to say anything even slightly resembling a posh Britishism, even in a wordless look, the short addition withered and died without even a short life in a wordless look. Dear Heaven I am grasping here.

Someone’s face lit up (with real, visible light. I’ll stop now) as he realized that he and Charlie were kindred spirits, much as Charlie had done a mere two paragraphs ago, and he grabbed both of Charlie’s large, tendony hands in his fervor, saying, “You’re interested in music too? Oh I’m so excited why did you know music is my entire /life/? I’m excited to get started aren’t you excited? I’ll teach you everything I know? And we’ll be like best friends? And our party’s bards? Only you’re like a fighter right? That’s okay, you can take music lessons on the side right?” He looked expectantly at Charlie, who reacted to Someone’s enthusiasm with an equal amount of zeal.

As the two chattered on, fast friends, Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants stared at the rest of the band in abject horror (Mr. Ian Woon, being more of a sarcastic person than an actually intelligent one, was wallowing in self pity rather than actually reacting to his surroundings), wondering how in the world he had managed to get himself stuck with such blithering idiots – and in a written contract no less, which unfortunately he was bound by his own thrice cursed rash oath of years ago to honor. He raged at himself briefly, wondering what kind of idiocy could have possessed him to even think of joining an adventuring party in the first place, instead of remaining in his own comfortable castle, easy to get to for him at least, and placed perfectly for as much easy hunting as he could please. Then he recalled the reason he had left in the first place – the boredom, the loneliness, the desire for fresh experiences. And slaves. Fresh slaves … they were always better than the ones that he had had for a while. And what better marks than the ones he found here? He smirked to himself as he lounged in the heavy shadows of the mighty oak, watching the farce playing out before him: the leader of their party, ostensibly on a mission of honor but doing nothing other than ogle the pretty young elf maiden (if maiden she was); the elf girl herself, who was long on looks and short on brains (although she was certainly cunning enough); Someone and Charlie, still conversing in rapid fire, both rather brainless themselves, and obviously the “motivation” of the party (“motivation,” in this case, being the motivation to kill something, anything, as long as you could imagine it was one of those two – at least in Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ mind); the angry and confused young man, who had yet to reveal his name to the party (or, if Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants was right, /their names/); and the sullen Mr. Ian Woon, whose sarcasm and dissatisfaction Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants had initially thought was intelligence. His train of thought, however, was swiftly derailed as Last called suddenly, “Coneys are ready!”

The adventuring party fell joyfully on the food, devouring the two fat rabbits completely. As they ate, they continued to examine each other, covertly or overtly as were their own respective wonts. Once they had completely demolished the rabbits, Main imperiously directed the others to break camp; the adventuring party holding whom it did, this translated to everyone lollygagging about, with the exception on Charlie, who ran around breaking camp all by himself, Someone, who was singing an invigorating breaking camp song, and Last, who was blissfully absorbed in cleaning up her cooking supplies.

After Charlie had completely reduced their small camp to seven very unproportional packs (Charlie’s pack having nearly everything, and the other party members’ packs holding only their own personal belongings, which were admittedly legion, especially in Lord Squigglebottom FAncypants’ and Last’s cases), the other party members shouldered their burdens with variable amounts of complaint, and they set off along the shadowy road to the next town, which took them out of Main’s father’s kingdom entirely.

After only a few minutes of silent tromping, the party members were beginning to get restless. At first, this only translated into Someone briefly breaking into song, which Mr. Ian Woon swiftly squelched. However, the restlessness on the part of the other party members began to make itself evident as Last began to wordlessly flirt outrageously with Main, who miraculously didn’t notice because he was too deep in self pity regarding his current lack of trousers, and as Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants began to regard the other party members with less contempt and more interest (since they were more interesting than the boring dirt, rocks, and trees that were all they could see of the forest, with even the odd flower being an object of extreme interest).

Feeling less crappy today, but still crappy enough to be as underachieving as possible while still getting my wordcount. That is why my word count for today is only 5009, which is exactly 9 words over the required word count. Also, the terrible typos are not quite as prevalent as yesterday, but that's because the typos were making my heart hurt. Also, snarky narrator. Look for it. You'll find snarkiness, especially near the end. And the foreshadowing is still continuing. Looky:

The pale gentleman made a curious face, a grimace of sorts, and shook his head. "Perfectly all right, thank you," he said. "THe lady's comment ... took me by surprise. I, too, was under the imression that elves were ... herbivores to a fault."

The elf woman smirked as she rose gracefully from her bedroll, her hair perfectly falling across her shoulders as if she were rising from the sea. main stared at her again, then coughed again and looked away. Last looked at him, obviously pleased her tactic worked, as she told the pallid gentleman (whose name, oddly, didn't seem to be coming to her mind either), "We elves like to spread that fiction whenever we can. It helps people to ... lower their guard. an seeing as many of our professions require the utmost secretiveness and caution, you would of course understand why we don't like to make people ... uneasy."

The pale gentleman gave an answering snerk as he said, "I understand perfectly, Miss ... Middle. I, too, often find myself in situations where caution is ... preferable. To the alternatives."

Last looked at him with a look that clearly said, "I know exactly what you are, I am not afraid of you, and if you try anything with me you will be so very sorry."
The gentleman's look said right back at her, "I couldn't care less what you thought of me, my dear; if I were to try soething with you, you wouldn't know until it was all over."
Last crossed her arms at him. Main finally figured out something was going on and looked at her, suddenly realizing that the woman who had looked so fragile the day before was clearly more than capable than taking care of herself, though her bumbling brother, who was off fiddlinig with something while the fire from last night still smoldered as mere cinders, was clearly an idiot; he was a little alarmed that he could have been so easily mislead (for Main prided himself on being an excellent judge of character; a genius perhaps he was not, and yes, he wasn’t the most politic person, but he felt he had at least one area in which he had some level of expertise – with this revelation that the elf twins (and indeed, that pale gentleman with the exceedingly difficult name) were so vastly different from the initial impressions he had had of them, his ego was suffering a truly agonizingly dreadful and patently alarming blow; in fact, main was feeling that perhaps it would be a good idea to re-interview his intrepid band – if the elves and the pale gentleman with the name that was clearly meant to torture people were as different as he now saw they were, perhaps it was no so far-fetched to assume that the other members of his adventuring party (whom Main had initially assumed were like the others – harmless as far as treachery went, and useful as far as their job descriptions went – but now realized had the possibility to be as frighteningly threatening as these two he had witnessed facing off) were hiding identities as different as innocence is from treachery, or dark is from light, or intelligence is from idiocy, or even as different as life is from death – a difference that Main intended to exemplify for as long as possible, and a probability that could possibly be fulfilled if his party members were hiding a dangerous secret. Main turned to the others in the camp, who had woken up between the time Main had walked around them attempting to waken them and the time at which they now found themselves, and said, “You know, I didn’t have the time to get to know you all yesterday –“

“Yes – we were busy getting a move on,” said the sour-faced man. “You didn’t even ask our names – just ‘yes, yes, you answered my ad, now let’s get a move on, hut hut hut,’ with nary a ‘yes my good fellow, how /are/ you today?” He sat sourly on his blanket and moped as the muscle bound fighter fellow sat up perkily and said, “I didn’t really mind – I like to be proactive and forward moving. But it /would/ be nice to get to know you all … I mean, we will be working with each other for quite a while, and we can’t just walk around in silence /forever/.” He sat expectantly on his blanket, in hilarious contrast to the gloomy, unsatisfied man to his left, and smiled a child’s smile at Main. The last man shot up out of his bedroll and stomped over to main, shoving his finger into his chest. “Who do you think you are, huh?!” he screamed. “Just because we’re working together DOESN’T mean we need to ‘get to know another’! I’m just FINE not knowing /anything/ about of any of you saps, and I sure as blazes don’t want to tell any of you about myself!” He folded his arms, scowling determinedly. Main’s eyebroews knitted (how odd. Genereally they just, you know, sit there and are unproductive, but I guess main’s eyebrows like him to stay warm) and he scowled and stood arms akimbo.

“who am /I/? /i/, sir, am the man who /hired/ you, and as such I am the man who is authorized to ask you any question I please, to make sure you’re not, for instance, plotting to kill me and steal my father’s throne!” Main scowled mightily for the second time in this book, and looked at the angry young man who had his eyebrows just as frowny as Main’s and his arms crossed so tightly that his elbows were going white, who returned Main’s suspicious look in spades. The muscle bound young man looked from one to the other and back again, then shrugged and turned to the cranky man beside him. However, this avenue was also closed to him, as the cranky man took one look at his earnest, wide face, and sniffed and turned away huffily. Unperturbed, the young muscular man got up with a bit of difficulty and went over to the pallid, gentlemanly fellow whose name was so difficult to remember for all of them that it was a distinct possibility that he hadn’t even mentioned it, and stuck out his hand. The gentlemanly fellow looked at him, raising an eyebrow, and then lowering it again in avarice. He extended his own hand, letting it hang slightly limp at the wrist, and looked sidewise at the earnest, young, muscular man (who happened not to be wearing a shirt), saying, “Would you be so kind as to make known to me your name?”

The young man took the pallid gentleman’s hand with obvious excitement and glee and shook it vigorously enough that the pallid man’s head bobble slightly. The pale man’s surprise at this vigorousity was evident as the young man exclaimed, “I’m so glad to meet you my name is Charlie I am so excited to have this job everyone says I’m pretty strong so I became a fighter I’m so excited this is my first job I don’t have much experience but I make up for it with enthusiasm I’ve told you my name now what’s yours!”

The pale man took a moment to digest all the information packed into that extremely long and punctuation free sentence, then said with perfect elocution, “My name is Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, and I would prefer that you would call me by my full name, please. Also, did you say that all in one breath? If so, good show, because that was quite the sentence, and at what volume!” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants put one elegant digitus minimus in his ear and twisted slightly in the universal sign for “that was really quite loud, my old chap.”

Charlie nodded. “Yes! Everyone I know thinks I have excellent breath support! I’m not exactly sure what all that means, but I’m pretty sure it means I’m loud and talk a lot. I’m glad everyone can see how much I want to be a … speech sayer person … thing.” He cocked his head at Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, his train of thought clearly only just then arriving at the idea of Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants’ name. “You know, you don’t really look like a Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants,” he said, his tone of voice curious.

“Don’t I?” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants said, obviously offended. “And I’m sure /you/ have just the name for me?”

“Well …” Charlie said, “You’re really looking more like an … /Edward/ to me.”

“An /EDWARD/?” Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants roared. “The NERVE! Giving me such an effeminate and /obviously/ homosexual name? I, sir, am a Fancypants, descended from a long line of Fancypantses, and will tolerate no such aspersions you care to cast on my character! Why, if you were not a member of this noble band (whose nobility I am beginning to seriously question), I would challenge you to a duel immediately! And believe me when I say,” he growled dangerously, “that I have no doubt that I would be the victor!”

Last looked up from the fire where until that moment she had been cooking the rabbits like the boring person she was, and looked from the tall, slender figure of Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants, to the paragon of masculinity that was Charlie, and raised an eyebrow, saying with obvious skepticism, “I seriously doubt that, unless you have some elf blood to give you greater strength than you appear to have.”

Lord Squigglebottom Fancypants smirked at her and said, his eearlier anger forgotten, “I’m sure you’re just /dying/ to know what I am, but believe me, my dear, it’s going to take you ore than mere curiosity to figure out my personal species.”

I feel absolutely crappy. But I am powering through my wordcount, even though it means absolutely dreadful spelling. It pains me to see the vomit all over this book, but oh well. That inner editor is good and locked up, as this (unedited bleh) section shows. I hope y'all can see the foreshadowing in here, though, because by golly it is there. Look for it. If you can guess what the pale gentleman is, five bajillion bonus points.

CHAPTER 3
>In which Main awakens in rather difficult circumstances, has difficulties with elves, gets to know his party, and continues to search for his trousers.<

Main groaned and sat up. His back, his legs, his hips, his shoulders, his /head/ -- it seemed as if every part of him was hurting. He put out a hand to steady himself as he out the other to his pounding forehead and felt, instead of plush velvet over swans' down, dirt, pebbles, and dry, sharp blades of grass. His eyes popped open, his hand left his forehead, and he lifted the dirty hand to examine it and make sure that ist was not just his imagination. As he brushed his hand off, he stared at the tiny rocks and soil that he found unti lsuddenly his memory caught up with him. /Of course!/ he thought. /We're on the orad, to catch the fiend whi humiliated me!/ Hie confusion gone, he brusehed off his hand entire ly and stood up, cracking his bakc to get rid of the residual stiffness. As he stood over the small campsite, he groaned again, nand prepared to wake the rest of the trtavelling party. /he/ was the one hwho whad hirded them, and by bthe Tmeple of Sheu, he would get his moeny's worth out of them.

"Come on, you ruffians! Wake up and see the sunshine! It's a bright new day and there is a camp to be broken, a road to get on, and a prince to feed! Look lively!"

Muffled groans, moans, and assorted other waking up noises issued fro the woollen lumps that were the other team members' bedrolls. Main noticed one looked suspiciously small, so he ventured over to it and gave it a poeke — some of the report s had mentioned people mysteriously being replaced by small animals, rocks, stickes, items of clothing, and sometimes even foold. Nobody had the heart ito tdo much mor e than throw these away, though Main secretly hoped that he had been turned into a pair of pants. His continuing lack of pants still irked him, and anyway a kilt provided way more ventilation thatn Main really preferred. When he got to hthe bedroll, however, it was evident that it hadn't been slept in at all. Main looked around in confusion. It appeared that one of his party members had gone missing! as he prepared to call out his name — la what was it? Lord someting or other? — when ihe noticed a note pinned to the front of the blanket.

"I have woken early. Gone to get breakfast. Be bakc. ~LSF," read the terse notea. the elaborateneddss of tehe handwriting, hoewever, belied its shortness. THe capitals were adorned lavishly with embellishments and curlicues; even hthe lower caese letters ewere beautifully rouinded and penned. Main fingered the note; it was thikck parchment, with ink black as ebony. AAARGH PURPLE PROSE LETS CONTINUE. as Main continued to stare at the note, absolutely flabbergasted that anyone would try this hard at writing a simple note, he heard lthe leaves to left crackle with his preternaturally sharp hearing. he looked up sharply. The pale gentleman whose name still escaped Main was leaning nonchalantly, a slight red stain on his otherwise immaculate tall collar, and a pair of bunnies, clearly daead, dangling from his other hand, whoese finger seemsed limp even though it was evident that the bunnies' legs were firmly in his grasp. /the gentlyeman raised and eyebrow and said languidly, "I hppe you did not miss me. I did not wish to alarm, but ... my sleep habits are, whow you say ... unusual. I do not sleep much, so I decided to help out our /intrepid/ band and catch us some breakfasst. I hope you do not mind, but I have alreadly eaten. i prefer my food ... fresh." He proffeered the bunnies, slthough he kept to the sahodows. "Would you like thsese fro your breakfast, or shall I dispose of the ... carcasses?" The gentleman (whose name was irritqatinglyu wiped from Main's memory) looked sidewise at Main.

Main frowned at him, then acrefully took the rabbits from the hands of the gentleman whose name was stubbornly refusing to make itself known to him. "... Thanky you," he said deliberately, then took a long stwp back and turned, keeping one eye trained on the gentleman with the difficult name. he walked over to the dbedrolls which he believed belogedt to the androgynous elf twins, sitill stepping lightly out otf perturbation frojm his odd encounter with the pale gentleman, and carrying the rabbits as far away from his body as he possibbly could. when he reached the twins, he lightly nudged one of tehem with ihis foot, trying to get the elf bnearest him to wake up. "Are you awake?" Main asked, pushing the elf's arm with his big toe. "Hello?"
The elf's head lolled to the side, revealing a small sore. Main sscowled and squinted at hit, leaning down to investigate further. The limp bunnies' feet dangled mere inches above the elf's chest as Main poked the sore with a cautious finger. he wondered what could have causes it - the brisk aiutumn air of the forsest discouraged insects, and he didn't see any footprints near the bedroll which would mean a small creature had bitten the elf. Pale hair pilled out of the blanket as Main pushed the elf's head further to the siede. he leaned in for a closer look, and the rabbits' feet brushed againtst the elf's chest.

"BROCCOLI!" the elf exclaimed, sitting up in his blankets. Main jumped back to avoid having his nose crushed by the suddelnloy energetic elf. "Whoa there!" he yelled, surprised. "Are you alright? You seemed a bit ... limp."

"Me? Oh, I'm completly fine! I sleep very deeply — it takes quite a bit to wake me up. Usually my sister is the one who wakes me up."

"Your sister, eh? What did you say your names were again?"

Teh second elf sat up, shaking out her long blonde hair. "My name is Last Fisrt Middle, and my brother's name here is Someone." She gestured gracefully at herself and her brother as she spoke. Main was temporarily entranced by her, unused to elvish beauty, then shook his head and porffered the limp dead rabbits. "I remembered that you mentioned you had some skill with cooking. Prepare thses for our breakfast."

"Rabbits, hmm?" she looked them over. "When do you need them by?" she looked up into Main's face, deliberately transfixing him with her bright blue gaze. "If I have at least five minutes, the quality will be much better than food I need to make in a hurry."

Main looked at her in surprise and astonishment. "What? No, we shouldn't be moving out for half an hour or so. take all the time you need." he truned away, then suddenly had a thpought (a rare occurence) and turned back to her. "You can eat rabbit, right? You're not, like, vegetarian or anything?"

"Vegetarian?" Last smiled, revealing sharp, long canines. "Of course not. Elves are carnivores. Exclusively."

Main nodded in releif, then started as he heard a violent caughing and stumbling from beihind him. He spun around and saw the pale getnleman with the extrememly difficult name to remember teaning over, his face a pale pink color, pounding his cheast and coughing. Main frowned at him and said in concern, "I say, lord ... whatever your name is, are you all right?"

First day is over! I've written a little over 2000 words :D However, I've come down with something and am running a slight temp - may need to skip Chem (it's OK because I already know most of the material in that class :P). Yesterday ... any idea that this novel is anything but ridiculous completely flew out the window. I'll post the text for that day ... you'll see. (Keep in mind that I'm writing this on Q10, which is pretty fabulous but doesn't let you do crazy stuff like make italics, so ... I've surrounded the chapter titles with side carats (> <) and italicized sections with forward slashes (/ /). So now, without further ado ... Day One.

CHAPTER 1
>In which Main is confused, is humiliated unduly, discovers an enemy, and swears revenge.<

"Where in blazes are my pants?!"

Main Character launched into the hallway, clad only in a tunic and braies. He held before him an odd skirt like garment, smooth in the front and pleated closely in the back. "Jeeves!" he bawled, shaking the skirt thing. "Jeeves! What is the meaning of this?!"

A smooth haired man swiftly slunk into the hallway, not a hair or thread out of place. He bowed slightly and said, "My lord, is there a reason your kilt offends you? Does my lord wish to have another? Shall I have the royal tailor begin a new one for my lord? Blue, or green? It grieves me that --"

"Jeeves! /What is this thing?/ Why is it in my room? Where are my /pants/, man? I cannot be /seen/ in such outlandish attire for my address today!" Main shook the kilt at Jeeves angrily, his fists creasing the waistline as he gripped it in anger. "I need my breeches! Where are my breeches? Why are they gone? /Answer me!/"

Jeeves opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of his statement and closed it again. He looked at the kilt in perplexment. "i ... I'm not sure, my lord," he said slowly. "For some unknown reason I have been until now convinced that my lord's attire of choice was the kilt, but ... my lord, I am not sure your royal tailor will be able to make them for you. He ... according to my memories, which for some reason appear to be false, he was hired for his ability to pleat and fit a waistband. He is proficient at kilt making, my lord, and little else."

Main's brows came together and he scowled mightily, tossing the kilt at Jeeves. "Well, do something, Jeeves! /I need pants./ I don't care how you get them. I don't care what color or cut they are. Just get me a pair of breeches that are not too crudely made and cover my legs, and I will be satisfied. Now go!" He pointed at the end of the hall, where a small, narrow dorr led to the servants' stair, a mazy rat's nest of stairways and passages that Jeeves navigated with amazing alacrity and promptness.

Jeeves bowed. "As my lord wishes," he murmered, scuttling smoothly to the door and disappearing invisibly behind it. Main remained in the hall a little longer, breathing a but heavily from his outburst, then shook himself a little, stood straight, and stalked into his own suite again and slammed the door shut.

Main stomped across his sitting room to a couch and threw himself down on it, then stared down at his socks, his mind roiling with anger and bafflement. What mysterious force had taken all his perfectly fine breeches and transmogrified them into the bizarre garments that now filled his wardrobes? And more than that -- this was evidence that the wider reports that had been reaching the capital of KPniceplace were more than superstitious overreaction, but were valid incidents that he now saw needed immediate attention. He briefly ran over his speech for today in his head — originally, he had planned to spout some soothing nonsense and eventually promise nothing, the usual way he responded to queries he did not wish to trouble himself over, but now that he realized the danger was real, perhaps he ought to rouse the people, ending his speech with a rousing promise to look into the problem /personally/. After a brief deliberation, he decided to change the tone of his message only, in order to avoid rousing the people overmuch. He would speak to the people, assure them that the problem would be looked into, and then proceed to delegate the issue until /someone/ caught the miscreant who stole his pants and made him pay. Main brought his right fist into his left hand's open palm, decisively signaling his decision made, then got up and paced his room. What was taking Jeeves so long? Surely he knew that Main was due to speak to the townspeople in under half an hour! Main was unfortunately running late due to the bottle of wine he had soothed his own nerves with the night before. He had woken only an hour before with a demon sent headache and a dry mouth, but luckily the white wine he had had with his breakfast of pastries, exotic imported "zocalatal," freshly caught salmon, ostrich eggs, pomegranates, oranges, bananas, and marzipan subtleties had soothed his headache and even what nerves he had before this address to the city. He had had to take on a firghtful load of resoponsibilities after he had been forced to fire the city's secretary of affairs — the stress preyed on him, but the man's insubordination had been unforgivable. Why, daring to inform /him/, the prince's heir, that he had had enough of Main's parties, mere get togethers with a few friends? Even worse, /demanding/ he stop? The man clearly was drunk on power and needed to be stopped, for the good of the city. But, the unfortunater result of this act of justice on Main's part was that he was forced to take on the responsibilities of the deposed man, on orders from his own father. Main had at first resisted the addition of more duties on top of his weekly lessons in the art of swordfighting, but after realizing that this was a duty only he could do, Main decided to take this job head-on. Of course, it was also his responsibilty to make sure he was in top form and ready for tue the many speeches he waws required to present to the city council and the city at alrge — and wwhat could be wrong with a glass of or two of wine or ale to soothe his nerves and lubricate his throat?

Main paced a little longer, then slammed a fist into the wall in sudden frustration. By Heaven, where /was/ Jeeves? Main muttered to himself as he stalked over to his dressing room, intent upon finding himself some pants if it was the last thing he did. He began to search through his wardrobe, tossing kilt after kilt aside in frustration. The vandals coudn't have taken every single pair of pants he woned! he had over seven hundred and twenty five pairs of pants! He threw so many kilts out of the closets that they began to form a small mountian outside the dressing room on his sitting room floor. after every one of his five wardrobes was emptied of every kilt he could find, Main began to search through his shirts and jackets in despair, hoping desperately that he could find even one pair of breeches or even hose, even though he avoided hose as they were unmanly and out of style anyway. Finally he gave up and sat down on the mountain of kilts ouside his door. As he moped on Kilt Mountain, Jeeves suddenly slid through the door holding the kilt that Main had handed to him when we weren't looking. Oh wait, now we rmember — Main threw them at Jeeves. We actually never saw Jeeves pick them up, though, so the comment still stands. Jeeves stood and stared at Main with a supremely confused expression on his face, then shook his head and handed the kilt back to Main.

"My lord, I am sorry, but as I predicted, it will be impossible to get you a pair of any bifurcated garment. You will be forced to wear this kilt to the speech today. I have prepared a podium on a balcony for you to hide behind, my lord; I hope it will be sufficient."

"That is unacceptable, Jeeves!" Main raged. "Are there no breeches in the castle?"

"None in your size, my lord, and not even ones in close sizes. My lord does not have the time to have my lord's father's pants fitted for him."

Main considered this, then nodded. Considering his father was a half-giant who weighed upwards of five hundred pounds, it would take a power of doing to make even his tightest pair of hose fit. He looked around in desperation, and noticed Jeeves' attire for the first time — a tailored, natty black suit. He twitched two fingers at Jeeves and said imperiously, "Jeeves. Your pants. We're the same size. Give them to me."

Jeeves bowed. "I am sorry, my lord, but that will not be possible. I have not removed this suit in twenty years, and I do not intend to ruin it now. It is a tradition for KPniceplace castle butlers to be sewn into their suits to ensure they fit perfectly. This suit has been washed and laundered with me inside it ever since its sewing. I cannot remove these pants, my lord." He oozed out the door, leaving the kilt behind him. Before he completely disappeared, Jeeves paused and said, "Please put the kilt on, my lord. You have seven minutes."

Main looked at the kilt in absolute dejection, then unhappily slid it on and fastened it at the brooch to the left of his waist. He pulled his socks higher in an attempt to cover more of his legs and pulled on a pair of his best boots, thninking that perhaps his footwear could partially atone for his dreadful kilt. He hung his head and slunk out of his suite door. as he closed it behind, he felt Jeeves fluttering around him, adjusting and straightening his clothing. As he turned back around, preparing to go out and speak, he felt Jeeves forcefully shove a hand in between his hunched shoulder blades, causing him to straighten abruptly. Jeeves narrowed his eyes at Main for a moment, then nodded sharply and steered him to the balcony door. "Go get 'em, my lord," he said, with perfect elocution. Then he shoved Main out the balcony doors and before the crowd.

Main was blinded by the strong sullight and deafened by the crowd's roar of applause. Finally, after an interminable time, his eyes and ears cleared. He went up to the podium and began to speak. "Good citizens of KPniceplace, I have gathered you here today to —"
As he spoke, a strong wind picked up out of nowhere and began to blow through the square where the people were gathered. The walls of the castle made it swirl, and a tornado began to form, picking up leaves, kittens, chickens, and even small people as it picked up speed. Up on the balcony, Main's kilt was caught by a blast of air, plastering the front to his face. Main wrestled it off his face, his cheeks vermilion with shame, and looked down in the square at the screaming people below. He thought their screams of fear were screams of laughter, and began to shake in impotent rage. He stormed off the balcony and back into the hall, screeching for Jeeves.

Jeeves reappeared at his side in seconds. "My lord! What happened? You are so disheveled! And such a great roar outside! Diod the people revolt?"

Main glared ahead. "No, Jeeves. An enemy of mine has sent a freak wind to humiliate me! He must be punished!" Main turned abruptly to Jeeves and said, "Do you know of any enemies of my ... father's realm?"

"Only the Great and Mighty Overlord of the Evil Castle of Doom, my lord, and he was just here for some very successful peace talks —"

"I knew it! His visit was merely a ruse to spread chaos in the realm! I must stop him!" Main posed dramatically in the hallway, the suspense high despite the dampening affect of his disheveled appearance and unmasculine kilt, and said in melodramatic terms, "For myself, my country, and my - the world, I swear revenge on the Great and Mighty Overlord of the Evil Castle of Doom, and all his vassals!" He turned to Jeeves. "Jeeves, have a proclamation posted in every tavern in the city. I need to find an adventuring party. We will stop this man."

CHAPTER 2
>In which Main finds an adventuring party, hires on several colorful characters, and begins the journey of his lifetime as he sets out with his intrepid band to revenge himself upon the Great and Mighty Overlord of the Evil Castle of Doom and all his vassals.<

Main surveyed the ad's takers: a pale gentleman, a pair of elves, an overly muscled brute, a sour-faced, skinny man, and a confused-looking man. "Come," he said, "it is time for the adventure of a lifetime."