The cloaked, hooded figure from Scene III throws back his hood to reveal that he is a her, and carefully fires her crossbow at the harlot with all the skill of one who has spent countless hours practicing against vicious aluminum cans… and misses, striking an aluminum can lying behind her in the gutter.
“Sorry, habit,” she offers.
The harlot, having seen enough, scampers off into a nearby alley, silently cursing the girly-man who sits down to pee and the manly-girl who hates aluminum cans.
Mouth still agape, Dirk tries to ask the woman just what the heck is going on, watch to ensure the strumpet has truly left and isn’t just doubling back and to introduce himself, but all that comes out is a muffled gagging sound on account of all the flies.
Dirk scampered after Plothookia as she hurried down the street. He looked back and saw the madam who handed him the sack leaning against the doorjam of the brothel.
“Don’t forget the bag, you’ll know when you’ll need it!” she called almost maternally. “And when it’s raining, don’t forget to wear your rubbers!”
They ran down the street, past a weapons shoppe, the blacksmith, and several anonymous townspeople who were walking back and forth in odd patterns. They just about reached the edge of town when a slobbering, gesticulating, globulating creature leapt from the shadows. Her octopus-like tentacles reached out as her slobbery spider mouth pulsated with gooey resin.
“Hungle grlll gal schlaa!” Weird Ethyl garbled.
Dirk fumbled for his knife while Plothookia levelled her crossbow.
Plothookia fired her crossbow, sending a harpoon-barbed bolt with an attached line into the slathering mouth of the bizarre hybrid. It vanished into the creature’s maw, lodging somewhere inside. Plothookia then grabbed the end of the line, braced one boot against Weird Ethyl’s bulk, and tugged with all her might. After a moment the bolt, embedded in an aluminum can, popped out of Ethy’s mouth, sending Plothookia down on her rump.
Weird Ethyl took several deep breaths and then sighed in relief. “Thank the Gods! I thought I was going to choke to death!” She turned a multi-eyed glare on Dirk “And a fat lot of good you did!”
“Now now, Ethyl, it was just a misunderstanding; and if you’d stop gulping your food this wouldn’t keep happening” Plothookia said, getting to her feet. “Put that away” she said to Dirk, as he was standing there holding a small knife. “It’s offensive to anyone who doesn’t mean you harm and pitifully inadequate against anyone who does”.
Dirk managed to fumblingly put the knife away and then asked “you… you know this, ah, this uh…”
“Oh everyone in the village knows Weird Ethyl. She was just another village girl until two years ago. It’s a sad story.”
“No, let me tell it” said W. Ethyl. “You see, it all goes back to long ago, to King Bedwetter’s time…”
You see, well, it could be, you know, I could, if it… how do I say this? I might have to,–this is why this is such a bad system–I think I have to, well, come on… can I have some privacy? …do ya think? I think I need to poo. It might just be gas, but I really need to, you know, well, maybe, SIT, you know. For awhile.
“You flatter me. It’s more like 8, maybe 9,” Dirk said, fastening his breeches. “Now, where were we?”
“King Bedwetter,” Weird Ethyl resumed, looking less than impressed. “He reigned over this land centuries ago. And during this reign, the kingdom fell under some of the darkest days it’s ever seen. It was in those dark times that the Hassenpoppagallootamagog appeared.”
“Now,” she/it continued, “as you may remember from your History of the Land remedial class, Hassenpoppagallootamagog was very mean. About as mean as they come, really. As mean as it is hard to pronounce, so they say. Many refer to Hassenpoppagallootamagog as ‘The One Who Shan’t Be Referred To As Hassenpoppagallootamagog’ and it’s whispered that much of his meanness stems from frustration at people butchering his name throughout his childhood.”
“He hated his parents most of all,” Plothookia chimed in, “for giving him such a name.”
“This is true,” replied Weird Ethyl, “no one knows what Bob and Jennifer were thinking in naming their son Hassenpoppagallootamagog, but it was a source of great trepidation for him throughout his life.”
“Also,” piped in Plothookia again, “he had a tail and horns and a forked tongue.”
“Right,” said Weird Ethyl, “but historians unanimously attribute his meanness and what eventually happened to schoolyard ridicule about his name and having nothing to do with his physical abnormalities or love of torturing cats.”
“But,” inquired Dirk, “what does this have to do with me?”
“Nothing! You chicktinkling tool.” yelled Weird Ethyl.
“I’m telling the sad story of how—until two years ago—I was a normal village girl.”
“You adventurers are all the same: me, me, me. When is it my turn? Can I roll against my dexterity? I wield my wielding stick… blah, blah, blah. Just shut your carrothole for a while and listen.”
Dirk Grunted an “OK” and slumped down on a log to listen to the ongoing tale.
Weird Ethyl continued, “Like I said, Hassenpoppagallootamagog was a very mean, evil man. They say that he was so mean that he once stabbed his brother Ed just for snoring too loud.”
“I think I read that in a book,” Dirk nodded.
“Shush!” she shushed him. “So Hassenpoppagallootamagog was pure evil and one day, as legend has it, in his late teens he was walking through the woods when he happened to stumble upon an unusual rune. This rune was about this big and had an inscription on it. An inscription in Ancient Pindelornian!”
“Anci-” Dirk gasped.
“Shush,” the slobbering creature shushed him again. “It wasn’t the standard Ancient Pindelornian that many of the tome stores have translation guides for, it was Ancient Lowland Pindelornian – more ancient and unkown than any other ancient and unkown language. Ever.”
“I have --”
“Would you be quiet and listen please!” Ethyl roared from her mucusy maw. “This rune told of…”
“ZIP IT,” Ethyl yelled, snapping a tentacle dangerously close to Dirk’s face.
“Hassenpoppagallootamagog made a quest to find this talking rock, which had been lost for centuries, even to the Ancient Lowland Pindelornians. It was said that this rock could do great magicks, and Hassenpoppagallootamagog craved to become so powerful that nobody, not anyone, would ever mess up his name again. So off Hassenpoppagallootamagog went, into the deepest depths of the darkest chasms, to find this loquacious boulder. And there, he met up with someone who would change his–and later my–life forever.”
“Was it … er …” Dirk scratches his said. “I think … uh …”
Ethyls’ tentacles slap across his face. “Is it possible for you to simply shut up and listen? Or in addition to peeing in an unmanly fashion do you have the attention span of a gnat?” she sneers.
“Well, see, I think I met this rock you mention …”
>SLAP<
“Does it have something to do with a drooldragon?”
>SLAP<
“'Cause they’re scary!”
>SLAP< >SLAP<
“Ow!”
>SLAP<
As Dirk whimpers in pain, Ethyl finally continues…
Dirk sat sulking for a minute, then tried to cheer himself up by recalling the glory of his natural 20 roll. Then he remembered the small drawstring bag the slag had given him. He carefully pulled the bag out, hoping Weird Ethyl wouldn’t see.
He pulled the drawstring and looked inside. It was about a pound of cottage cheese. Dirk was horrified! It was the kind with chives added! He vomited in his mouth, just a little.
Ethyl continued her story and even though it almost seemed that important points were being delievered to him with this story, he couldn’t help thinking back to the unusual and circuitous route that he took on his quest, essentially a big loop through the most dangerous, harrowing part of the countryside and then back to where he started without seemingly accomplishing anything. How he stumbled back into the village, was accosted by the bizzare creature in his sleep, possibly nearly mugged by the owner of an inn of poor repute, how one of the women followed him but was scared away by Plothookia and how Ehtyl is endlessly talking about Hassenpoppagallootamagog. It all seemed as if some unknown force – or forces – were guiding his actions, but perhaps not very well.
“What did you say?” Ethyl pressed her viscousy visage towards him.
“Uh, you ever notice that a +4 Compass of True Truthiness doesn’t actually point you towards true North?” he said absently.
Ethyl had heard enough. She bellowed a frighteningly awesome roar as she waved her tentacles menacingly.
“Now you did it,” Ploothka sniffed.
Ethyl bore down on Dirk, clearly meaning to do him great bodily harm. Dirk fumbled with the bag of cheese in his hand, then tossed it to the shrieking cephalopod. Instantly she grabbed the bag and looked at the contents, paused but a moment, then hungrily gobbled down the cottage cheese with chives.
Ethyl belched, a low, drawn out “Brrrrrrap” that reminded Dirk of thunder, if thunder had just eaten something that didn’t agree with it. A faint scent of chives and death filled the air.
Suddenly, Ethyl collapsed to the ground, twitching and moaning loudly. As Dirk stared in amazement, she began to writhe in agony. Her mouth open in a silent shriek, Ethyl began to change.
Soon, Ethyl looked normal again. Normal, meaning she no longer had tentacles or spider-jaws.
She looked human.
Still, her eyes were crossed, her head was half-bald (denuded if you will) her breasts were mismatched in both size and shape, she had three buttocks, her left great toe was over-sized and as hairy as an orangutan’s armpit and she couldn’t have been taller than 5’ 1 and 16/17ths.
“HAH!” Ejaculated Dirk. “Not so tough now are ya?”
He began to wield his wielding stick.
Plothookia stepped in.
“Look again at your BFF pendant errant adventurer. You may learn something about yourself.”
Dirk looked for his BFF pendant, but instead found his lucky platypus’ foot.
“Can you really call this platypus lucky if I have his foot?” Dirk asked.
Plothookia looked at him with her eyebrows raised and said, …