There was a brief intermission, as we never actually see the Coyote healing from his previous injuries, or Kenny coming back to life.
But somehow some indefinite time later Dirk was standing at the bottom of the Chasm of Incredible Deepness and Sharp Pointy Rocks, staring at the pillar carved in Ancient Pindelornian, and consulting his handy manual. Translating it was not easy; not only is Ancient Pindelornian a notoriously difficult language but the carvings on the pillar seemed confusing. Finally, after spending the better part of the day working on the translation, Dirk finally came up with "these are the last words of Uther Bed[del]bleeder[/del] Bed[del]Rainer[/del] [del]BardWaterer[/del] and then lightly scratched into the stone “Ah, buggrit!”. The rest of the carvings, apparently done in a different hand, were practice verb conjugations. Reluctantly, Dirk came to the conclusion that he’d spent hours translating a draft pillar that had been thrown into the chasm after being botched.
Now Dirk looked up into the narrow strip of sky far above him, which was starting to fade as dusk fell, and realized he had no idea how he was going to ever get out of this chasm. Still, it would have to wait for morning. Nothing to do now but make the best of it. In the rapidly deepening gloom, he looked around him to take stock of his surroundings…
“Erp…” was all Dirk could manage. Whether he was more confounded by the premise of a sarcastic talking hunk of stone or the sheer pain of having fallen a great distance onto sharp and aggressive rocks was difficult to determine.
Now it is known to the sages and wise priests of the Realm that the Ancient Empire of Pindelorn disappeared from the sight of man in the Age Before Time, leaving only whispered rumors of this mystical land. Wielders of dark and powerful magics, masters of time and space, they ruled unchallenged for millenia - until the last Emperor, the Warlock-King Nenkara brought down the End of Days in his arrogant challenge of the Astorian gods.
Dirk, however, had always been an indifferent student at best. More to the point, most of him hurt pretty bad, and he was pretty sure he’d shit himself about halfway down.
“Erp…”
The rock merely sat there, somehow disdainfully. The Raven relieved himself on the pillar.
“<sigh> Oh, okay, you idiot, this way” the rock said as it started to hop away down the bottom of the gorge. Dirk blinked a few times (he could almost feel the eyeroll even tho rocks don’t have eyes) before collecting himself and his belongings and following.
Thinking ahead, Dirk decided to use his compass to shoot an azimuth along the path the rock had chosen.
Unfortunately, when he put the compass back in his pack, he lost sight of the rock. So, he pulled his compass back out, followed the azimuth he had noted and promptly went the wrong way.
He hadn’t gone more than 12.276 meters when he came to a sign… written in Ancient Pindelornian. He immediately recognized two words: BardWaterer and buggrit.
suddenly, a gigantic, slobbering, disgusting giant driveling drooldragon towered over him. It’s dark, disgusting maw opened with a roar and putrid slime oozed out.
…would have swallowed him in a bite had not Dirk slipped on a pool of slime, causing the drooldragon’s mouth to come crashing down on one of the sharp pointy rocks. While the dragon was thrashing in pain Dirk managed to scramble to his feet and race away, entirely by chance in the direction the grapefruit-sized rock had originally wanted him to go.
…and is unceremoniously fallen on by yet another intrepid adventurer that was lured to his death at the edge of the chasm above by the Sultrily Speaking Siren Stones who would be far more well known and feared if more of their victims survived the fall and the many Drooldragons that lived in the chasm. This thought occurred to the young adventurer as he fell and he vowed to be an advocate of public awareness regarding the dangers of speaking grapefruit sized stones near the edges of chasms, and he made a mental note to include a bit about the drooldragons as he landed on one and miraculously, like Dirk before him, somehow survived the great fall and the terrible impact below, but he was gobbled up before he got in touch with his publisher.
Contented with his snack being delivered to him, the drooldragon gave up the chase as too much work and returned back to his cave to lick his wounds, pick his teeth and put the final touches on the second edition of his widely distributed travel brochure for the Grand Chasm (of Doom).
Thankful the pursuit is over, Dirk sits down to try to take stock of his items. He finds that he doesn’t understand his own commands. Dirk then picks up a stick and scratches “/i” into the sand at his feet. Suddenly, a list appears in his brain:
[ul]
[li]One stick (wielding)[/li][li]Book “'How to Read Ancient Pindelornian”[/li][li]Towel[/li][li]Slime encrusted footwear[/li][li]Compass[/li][li]Sears Catalog[/li][li]Bag of carrots (4 remaining)[/li][li]Tamagotchi Electronic pet[/li][li]Lucky platypus’s foot[/li][li]one half of a BFF heart shaped pendant[/li][/ul]
“Hold up!” Dirk yelled at the grapefruit-sized rock, which was just about to crest a large pile of debris. The rock stopped, turned around slowly, and sighed loudly at him as he began to examine the fallen adventurer’s backpack, which the Drooldragon had not eaten, as it was not edible, except for the half of a ham sandwich inside it. It also contained several well-worn pornographic magazines, a few silver coins, a Guide Concerning the Care and Feeding of Drooldragons (which Dirk found to be highly ironic, all things considered), a small torch, a crumpled I.O.U. note from someone named Biergarten, and a map of the Chasm of Incredible Deepness and Sharp Pointy Rocks, which wasn’t exactly complete as most of the previous adventurers had perished before returning with their drawings.
Apropos of nothing, a question occurred to Dirk: “If he was so lucky, why did that platypus end up short one foot?”
“Hmm, guess I better feed the Tamagotchi while I’m thinking of it.”
Then, disaster strikes! According to the little skull next to the pet as it sits still at the bottom of the screen, wearing an unhappy expression, the Tamagotchi is sick!
Dirk numbly mashed the buttons on his digital pet while mumbly moaning “C’mon, Fluffy,” until the toy accidentally flipped out of his hands from his manic movements.
The device rolled across the ground and came to rest near another pillar. This one featured more writing on it in Ancient Pindelornian. The pillar was well worn from the weather, for sure, but Dirk was able to read:
As if on cue, it began to sprinkle. Dirk ran for the nearest shelter, an outcropping of rock at the base of a craggy cliff. Just as he scrambled underneath it, the skies cleared, the sun shining a beam directly at Dirk’s feet.
“That certainly seemed like an exaggeration,” Dirk thought, feeling the warm sun at his toes. He looked down and saw a glint of metal among the rocks and sand.
Wondering what could be so awful, no good, terrible and very bad, Dirk reached for the Tamgotchi. Suddenly, a one-eyed, three-legged, tailless, half-denuded monotreme darted from behind the pillar (inasmuch as a three-legged monotreme can be said to dart) and took up the device in its duck-bill.
“Euw bebber mi mi mag meh puh fff euw wun euw doey beg!” the platypus yelled (inasmuch as a monotreme with a Tamagotchi in its duck-bill can be said to yell.
Forgetting about the Tamagotchi, which was as good as dead anyhow (especially as it had been captured by a mysterious playtpus), Dirk bent down to investigate the glint of metal.
Scraping sand and pebbles out of the way, he discovered that the metal wasn’t as much an object as it was a…surface. More and more metal, shiny, uncorrupted by the elements or time, was revealed, the entire surface covered in a spidery script.
