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Untold Tales of the Chronicles of the Fellowship of the Zemonogion Sunday, 19-Sep-1999 15:59:23
#21: Untold Tales of the Chronicles of the Fellowship of the Zemonogion And worlds do tremble at the fight of gods A fake man strives to bring the peace once more And find a way to thwart the evil sods…” Fragment of an old prophesy of Heretic the Mad (which goes on to drone about the Crossing and other incomprehensible gobbledegook) Author’s note: OK, before we go on you’ll have to imagine a map. Stories of this kind always have a map at the front. Picture something with Ausgard, home of the misplaced Norse deities, sitting there in the middle of the mythlands. Behind it various rainbow bridges, galaxy-high worldtrees, glowing ladders, stygian caves, and cosmic elevators (hell, even a wardrobe for all I know) lead down to the mundane little world of mortals in the supposed reality we call the Parodyverse. All around Ausgard spread out the other realms of belief: There’s Mount Olympus Kebab and Grill. There’s Fun Key Ton, home of the oriental deities. The place with the elves and the singing and the rivers flowing and the tra-la-la noises is Faerieland, and if you believe all that pixie-dust stuff they’ve got some magic beans for you to buy. The place with the quaffing and the vomiting and bags of gold and the short people who all look like bearded Danny diVitos is… hell, you figure it out. On the other side of the map are things like grey wastes, pools of despair, plains of no return, and so on. All the stuff fantasy cartographers put in when they can’t think of actual places that’re interesting. This isn’t really land, it’s just places designed to keep the heroes from falling off the map while they travel on their long quest to recover the priceless ruby of archpriest-smiting or whatever. That’s the Drear Dimension, and it’s full of numb, mindless monsters who usually have nothing to do but practise their lurching and their shambling. Usually. But usually there’s a void between their Dreary Dimension and the rest of the lands on the map. Usually the only way across is a little channel that’s been blocked for millennia by some feisty Amazons with a real good grasp of Landlord and Tenant Law. Unfortunately they’ve just blown their lease and their realm has been shunted aside, leaving the way open for the hordes of mindlessness to swarm down on the Earth like comics investment speculators at a Spawn convention. For reasons best known to the Hooded Hood, who convinced Dormaggadon (Lord of the Dreary Dimensions) to do it this way, the Brainless Ones have been herded not towards ripe, defenceless Earth but via an Ausgardian invasion route, where hundreds of testosterone-soaked deities want to check their travel visas. Like all good maps, there’s a bit that says here be dragons. This isn’t strictly true. It should actually say, here be one dragon and a superhero wearing a Loch Ness Monster Souvenir Visit Cap but they’re still best avoided, especially if you’re a nether-spawn from the Drear Dimension; oh and we should also give honourable mention to the dozen or so other superheroes who are putting a serious if temporary dint in the baddies’ invasion plans. or something like that. Oh, and there’s a dark tower. That’s compulsory on this kind of map. It’s over in the far corner where it’s hardest for the heroes to get to it and they must travel together having Many Adventures ™ on the way. There the Dark lord sits, undoubtedly on a Dark Throne. Cosmic tyrants never get very good interior decorators. Finally there is a dark wood with a little clearing called the sacrifice grove, just at the foot of the bleak mountain where the Dark Towers sits darkly. Let’s pan down there and have a closer look shall we? Ah yes, we’re definitely in the fantasy realms now. A stained metal column carved with unpleasant runes is made far more cheerful by the addition of a young screaming maiden. The troglodytes fuss around her getting the manacles just so and sharpening the disembowelling hooks. They’re probably muttering some terrible chant in some guttural language. Let’s listen in, shall we? “Ia! Ia! Hail Billgates the many-tentacled one, endless is his power.” But don’t worry. See that flash of teleportational energies? That’s the Ausgardian god of bloody-mindeness Hoki teleporting in someone to save the poor damsel. See the mighty-thewed hero… well, the not-so-mighty thewed sort-of-hero… aw crap, it’s Visionary. The possibly fake man looked around him in dismay. Just as he and Hoki had decided that the cosmic nexus needed closing from both sides he had been zapped here, wherever that was. It had too many troglodyte disembowelers and skull-piles to really be a good holiday resort. On the other hand the girl was very clearly in trouble. Not only had she accidentally put on a dress that was two sizes too small for her but she was about to be horribly slaughtered by two dozen monsters. Visionary gulped because he knew he had to do something. He also knew it was probably his last something as a living being. “Erm… excuse me?” he began nervously. The troglodytes fled screaming from the sacrifice grove. Visionary checked behind him to see what had scared them. It appeared to be him. “What happened?” he asked in a rather confused voice as he unmanacled the maiden. Then he noticed she seemed as terrified of him as the trogs had been. “Are… are you the Dark Lord?” she whispered, trembling as he brushed against her wrists while unchaining her. “Me? No. No, I can pretty honestly say I’m not. I’m Visionary…” “A wizard? A great mage of the fellowship of sorcerers, cunning with ancient magics and ready to do battle with the sinister enchanter?” “That would be no as well,” admitted Vizh. “I’m a sort of retired member of the Lair Legion, which is this band of sort of heroes from Earth and I was their monitor duty guy before I went off into the corn and…” The maiden appeared not to be comforted. “Are you.. are you a former leper now recovered since coming to this land and bursting with renewed and unconstrained lust which you intend to wreak upon me?” “Of course not!” Visionary gasped. “I’m happily married. I just thought you needed help, that’s all. I’ve no idea why those monsters ran away.” “They were leaving me here for the Brainless Ones,” the damsel confessed. “Perhaps they mistook you for… that is, they are mildly telepathic and…” She sighed (which was an inspiring sight, although clearly Visionary wasn’t looking, he told himself) and realised she was making matters worse. “Thank you for saving me,” she told him. “I have to go now. I’m due to be saved again in just under an hour, and I can’t afford to get behind schedule.” She started off down one of the sinister forest tracks. “Oh, the Dark Tower is that way,” she added as an afterthought, and left Visionary alone in the haunted wood. That map of the realms has a rather skewed picture of Earth on it. It really only depicts three places, and one of them appears to be Monte Carlo. Helmut, Baron Zemo, stepped out of the shadows to block the Abandoned Legion’s exit from the casino they had just raided. “This hotel currently hosts a gathering of the foremost criminal leaders in the world,” he instructed the heroes. “Did you seriously think I would not be present?” “Step aside Zemo!” Hunter Victorious warned. “You’re not our target today. Walk away and you live.” “Er, this is Zemo,” Sorceress hissed in HV’s ear. “You know… Zemo! Rip-out-your-spleen-and-make-you-eat-it-‘cause-you-wore-the-wrong-boots-today Zemo? I’ve-conquered-the-planet-more-times-than-you’ve-eaten-at-Starbucks Zemo? I’ve-got-a-Scourge-and-I’m-not-afraid-to-use-it Zemo?” “He’s only one man,” Cap reminded the Abandoned Legion. “And we have right on our side.” “What about you, Cobra?” Zemo challenged the woman in the serpent outfit. “Do they have you on their side?” “Um…” Cobra hesitated. Cap and Sorceress both looked at her. “Cobra has a few hobbies you don’t know much about,.” Zemo explained. “Like being a weekend Scourge member, that sort of thing.” “Is that true?” Cap demanded. “Sort of,” she hedged. “Look, things were pretty quiet for a while when spiffy was dead, and money was a bit tight. Do you know how much a month those Scourge guys pull down?” “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” HV snarled. “We’ll deal with it later. Get out of the way Zemo or I’ll put you down.” The Baron snorted. “I’m being threatened by a team of heroes who couldn’t make the cut for the Lair Legion?” he mocked. “Not even fit for the Legion! What does that make you?” Cap lunged forward then, but Zemo activated his neural dampening field before the shield-bearer could get within six feet. It interested the archvillain that both Hunter Victorious and Sorceress resisted the field for a few seconds before crumpling. He made a mental note to investigate that further in the vivisection chamber. To Zemo’s annoyance none of the Abandoned Legion had the stolen data file on them. That meant that Lisa must have taken it. And Lisa seemed to have got away. In a realm of badly-drawn rocks three heroes bickered their way towards the stronghold of Dormaggadon, Lord of the Drear Dimension. “How the hell do you Amazons do anything in these open-toed sandals?” ManMan demanded. Unlike Exile, whose psycho-active costume could change to suit the environment, Joe Pepper was still dressed in his Amazon-woman disguise. It didn’t help that his sentient weapon, Knifey, kept snickering. “It’s all about training,” Troia 215 shot back. The Amazon kirtle looked much better on her and she was clambering over the rocks with a graceful ease. “And competence,” she added. If she was a little sharper than usual it was because she was feeling a little guilty for setting in motion the events which had shifted Amazon Isle from its place of guardianship at the dimensional nexus and opening the way for Dormaggadon’s invasion of Earth. The fourth member of the party swooped down from a roiling sky. “Damn lightning!” Falcon cursed. “I nearly got fried up there!” “Roast turkey,” snorted Exile. “See anything useful?” The Falcon gave him a black look and admitted that he had. “There’s some sort of outpost entrance on a cliff-edge just over that way. If we can get past the guards we can find that nexus-place that Xander was goin’ on about and then try and gum it up.” “About that,” ManMan swallowed. “Does anyone else have a problem with using the ‘it worked for the Avengers and the FF against Onslaught’ method of hurling our life forces into the rift to seal it?” “Are you saying that you don’t want to preserve the peace that my mother died to keep, is that it?” flared Troia. “She sacrificed her life to keep the Drear Dimension locked away and it wasn’t even her fault it nearly broke through to Earth. It was our fault, so we’ve got to put it right, right?” “Actually,” Exile admitted, “I’m more concerned with the getting-into-the-stronghold plan. That old clobber-the-guards-and-dress-in-their-uniforms trick just isn’t going to work in my opinion…” “Yeah well, you’re not still prancing around in an Amazon skirt, are you?” ManMan objected. “On the grounds,” Exile continued, “that Mindless Ones don’t wear clothes.” “So we fight our way in,” Falcon shrugged. “That’s the Hell’s Bathroom way.” “Or,” the Dread Dormaggadon suggested, rising up from his place of ambush, “thy broken and shattered bodies could simply be dragged there by my mindless minions.” ManMan was suddenly glad that he wasn’t wearing underwear. The second strange marking on the Earth bit of the map is a little uncharted island somewhere in the Caribbean. It’s not marked as such, but really it should say beware of the siren. It was hardly the first time Lisa had woken up in a strange bed, but this time the absence of empty Kool-Whip cartons warned her that something was wrong. Gradually she remembered: the infiltration of the casino in search of information about the international assassin Maximillian Deathspoon (who in turn had some mysterious link to the Hooded Hood’s lost son, who in turn might be the missing key to understanding the latest Hood plot) the flight from the wrath of the assembled criminal cartels, a sudden pressure on the nerves at the back of her neck… a voice as she fell into darkness. “Deathspoon!” Lisa sat up, suddenly wide awake as she remembered who had captured her. She blinked as the bright sunlight shone down on her through the full length patio windows. Beyond the balcony the palms swayed in a Caribbean breeze and the azure sea was a perfect mirror. Lisa pulled the black silk sheets around her and admitted that she’d been in worse prisons. There was a fresh black dressing gown waiting for her so she slipped it on. She noticed she was wearing a stylish choker of black metal which did not appear to have a clasp to unfasten it. That was probably the thing which was preventing her from using her summonsing abilities. The door opened and a dwarf in a white suit brought her a Pina Colada and told her that “de master was waiting on de terrace.” “That’s Deathspoon, right?” Lisa checked. “Sure,” the dwarf answered. “De master owns de entire island, as a base for trainin’ dose thugs who join wit’ BALD and HERPES an’ suchlike. From here he can rule de world.” The first lady of the Lair Legion sighed. “Of course he can. I don’t suppose he’s got any youngsters around the place aged around eighteen and looking a bit like they might have an Amazon sister?” “Lots of storm-troopers here, missy. You’d better ask de master.” Maximillian Deathspoon was sat by the pool reassembling a complicated and precise firearm. He was in his mid forties, but he was in excellent physical shape. Rumour had it that he had a strange deformity, a third testicle which accounted for his bizarre and sometimes illegal preferences. Lisa, whilst not averse to bizarre references, was confident that if he tried anything she could normalise his testicle count for him pretty damn quick. Across the patio was a smaller man in outrageously flowered and striped Bermuda shorts. He looked over the top of his sunglasses as Deathspoon greeted the advocatrix “Ah, my charming prisoner awakes,” the assassin purred. “Donar,” answered Lisa. “I beg your pardon.” “Donar,” she repeated. “The first of the Lair Legion to find where I am. It’ll probably be Donar. Or Starseed. Or Hatty. You’d better pray that it’s not Dark Knight.” Deathspoon laughed, and with a single swift movement blew the tops off six nearby palm trees. “I want them to come,” he gloated. “That’s why I took you. They will return the data which your confederates abstracted from my casino in Monte Carlo, and then I will kill them all because it suits my purposes to do so.” “I so love it when pompous villains get to eat their words,” reflected the advocatrix, settling down for some serious sunbathing. “I hope it’s CSFB! who finds you first.” The other guest watched the confrontation with interest. That was what members of the Observing Eye did best. Out across the mythlands the heroes of the Lair Legion did their best to stop a tide of Brainless Ones. “Is it me or do all these featureless monsters look alike?” Space Ghost asked as he held the wall on the great dwarven fortress of Dundiggin. Once again the spank ray fired and sent half a dozen of the creatures tumbling back onto the piles of their fallen kinsman. But as far as the eye could see there were hosts more. “The walls willnae stand it!” a worried looking fat dwarf engineer warned them, “They’re gonna go!” “If only we could rally the dwarves for another push, get the bad guys away from the walls long enough for some shoring to be done,” DarkHwk suggested. One more time his amulet flashed and sent a dozen Brainless Ones spinning back from the parapet edge. “They’re too tired,” Hatman proclaimed. “We all are. We’ve been at this… how long? A day? More? We’re all dead on our feet.” “Better than the alternative,” suggested Starseed. The Gah! Master thought hard. “I have an idea.” He turned to the capped crusader. “Give me your wallet. Quickly.” “My wallet? We can’t bribe mindless ones. Hell, with what’s in my wallet we can’t bribe anyone. Working as a Legionnaire doesn’t pay that much if you’re not willing to help out Lisa with… overtime.” “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” DarkHwk warned. “I’m getting some very nasty data on the structural integrity of this fortification.” “Damn you, Cardinal Richelau!” Space Ghost contributed throwing his shoes over the wall (after his pants) to deter the invaders. Starseed hurled Hatty’s wallet as high and far as he could into the sea of Mindless Ones. “Hey!” Hatman objected. “I had seven dollars in there.” “Oh no!” Starseed called loudly. “What have I done? I have inadvertently hurled my friend’s entire treasure-horde into the fray. All his gold is lost! Lost amongst those savage endless hordes!” “Gold?” the word rippled along the line of battered, exhausted dwarves. “Gold down there?” Suddenly as one the entire dwarven army hurled itself over the parapets after Hatman’s wallet. “Make the repairs,” Starseed instructed DarkHwk. “And it had a picture of me as a baby,” Hatman sulked. The Brainless Ones were confused by the Magic Forest (not to be confused with the Enchanted Wood or the Wizard’s Glade). The trees kept singing at them. Fairies kept flying up and offering them tasty things to eat or the chance to dance to goblin fiddles or to make their dreams come true for the price of an acorn. But since the Brainless Ones were, well, brainless they ignored the glamour and illusion of the fey realm and concentrated on pulling the heads off their enemies. “Yo is thinking you are to being very bad peoples,” the thought-entity who prevented this from happening remonstrated. “Yo is thinking that somebody is to having be to teach you manners.” Two dozen Brainless Ones suddenly blinked out into the Happy Place, returning a moment later stunned by the first emotion of their lives; by definition no longer brainless they exploded messily amongst their comrades. “Well done,” Dark Knight approved, blurring out of the shadows. “The very geography of this place is working against them. We just need to keep this up while NTU-150 and his team sort out their dimensional roadblock.” “We could do that a lot better if our allies would stop that d---ed singing!” Banjooooo objected. “D—n! I hate this place. What kind of realm censors your swearing as you say it? F--k, b---er, and s---te!” The elves continues to sing happily about their river and their trees and long-dead heroes who fought monsters much bigger and more terrible than the ones besetting them now. “I know that autocensor function is a bit annoying,” said spiffy, “but the rest’s not too bad.” He had just heard a verse about himself which described him as a ‘true and fearless hero who would never fail his friends,’ and he was feeling pretty good. He’d moved away to take out some Brainless Ones before he could hear the next few lines about how this great warrior also had a human attached to it. “Hey, what are the chances we could get Jam exiled here?” The next wave of Brainless Ones poured down upon us. “We need to fall back to the next entrenchment,” Dark Knight judged. “Everyone here? Banjooooo? spiffy? Yo? Foom?” “Cute dragon is not being here yet,” Yo told the urban legend. “Cute dragon went off to be responding to mysterious screamings and has not yet been to return.” A shudder of presentiment rippled through the Dark Knight. He didn’t know why but he suddenly felt that his old friend was in desperate, mortal danger. The damsel screamed at the top of her impressive lungs as the Mindless Ones splashed along the water’s edge towards the sacrifice post where she was chained. This rescue was getting a bit tight. There was a sudden downdraft as of massive wings, a blur of talons, and the approaching monsters were smeared across the riverbank. The dragon shifted shape even as he landed, knowing from experience that damsels in distress tended to become more in distress by the appearance of a giant winged and firebreathing reptile. “You saved me!” the heroine gasped. Fin Fang Foom stopped dead. “Glasrobyl?” he puzzled. How could the girl he had rescued from a Black Knight long ago in one of the Hooded Hood’s bizarre retcons be here now in the middle of Elfingtoon in the midst of an extraplanar invasion? “Who?” she asked. “Who’s Glasrobyl? My name is Moira.” “Sorry,” Finny blushed, his innate shyness with women washing over him now the action was done. “I… you look… this is… I thought you were… someone else.” “Does that mean I have to stay chained up in this uncomfy position?” she asked pointedly. There was a brogue to her voice, perhaps something like old Irish? “Oh, uh, no. No, of course not.” The Makluan fumbled with her shackles, trying not to get himself too tangled with her in the course of unwinding the chains. “Who tied you up here for these monsters anyhow?” “Oh, it’s an occupational hazard,” the damsel shrugged. “I was just here by the ford doing my washing when it all happened.” Free now she picked up the long dark cape she’d been beating on the drying stone and carefully folded it for later. She looked again at the dragon, this time staring more intently with her blue-green flecked yes. “You’re a writer,” she suddenly discerned. “What? Er, me?” Finny stuttered. “Just a hobby. Nothing serious. Secret identity cover, that kind of thing…” “You’re a writer,” Moira repeated. “A storyteller. You thatch words together into tales of wonder and glory.” “I do a little bit,” Foom admitted, looking around hoping for another Brainless One attack. “Tell me one,” she urged him. “Tell me one of your stories.” “I write them down. I don’t tell them,” objected the dragon. “Please. I’ve just survived a near-death experience. I need to hear a story. I need to hear one of your stories, Fin Fang Foom.” Finny nervously started to explain the plot of this comic he had in mind. Moira settled on the green turf to listen. And after a while the dragon didn’t seem to mind telling her the story that he was dreaming. The weather systems across the Norse mythic realms screamed as they were diverted by one powerful will. Across Miserableheim, Shortgitgard, Elfsimper, Fat Ettinggaard, and beyond the winds roared and the clouds flashed living lightning. And then the entire tempest focussed its fury on one short-handled weapon borne aloft by one ragged warrior in the centre of the tempest. And then that warrior hurled that weapon into the countless host of enemies which teemed towards the golden halls of Ausgard. You can fill in the sounds and visual effects for yourself at this point. There might be a small prize for the winner. Then there was a crater. “That was damned impressive,” Goldeneyed admitted. “I often wondered qhat the difference between a superhero and a god was.” “About eight megatons,” NTU-150 registered. “It was a most interesting thing to observe,” Avatar admitted. “I was unaware that Donar was capable of such feats, just as I did not known that he was able to fly without his enchanted pickaxe.” “He can’t fly without Mjalcolm,” Enty corrected the newest guest of the Lair Legion, the exiled minion of the dread Parody Master. Avatar was puzzled. “Then what is keeping the hemigod of thunder up there in the clouds… oh, I see now. Nothing is keeping him up there.” “Donar’s falling,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! shouted. “He’s plummeting to his doom just like Cap was in Tales of Suspense #75 even though at the end of #74 he was clearly seen to have a parachute but when Jolly Jack came to do the next issue…” “Could somebody possibly rescue Donar?” NTU-150 suggested. Since he was currently hardwired into the device he had constructed out of Ausgardian wind instruments, a coffee percolator, some redundant bits of his own armour, and the remains of one of Dormaggadon’s own war machines he could hardly fly up and do it himself. “Ah, yes,” G-Eyed worried. “We’ll just discover how to give ourselves the power of flight and get right on it.” “Hey, no worry,” CSFB! assured them. “Mjalcolm always returns to its owner, just like Thor’s hammer.” “Yes,” Enty admitted; but he had known Donar longer than the others. “It does return. But sometimes by second class post. Donar’s going to crash. Only one chance.” He reached out one armoured arm and grabbed Goldeneyed by the front of his costume. “Sorry about this. Here’s how to fly.” And he hurled G-Eyed overarm as high into the skies towards Donar as he could manage. “Oh wow,” CSFB! enthused. “A fastball special! Do me! Do me!” “A desperate but most effective stratagem,” Avatar judged. “Goldeneyed has impacted with the falling Ausgardian, and has now used his teleportational abilities to take them both to the ground before their velocity becomes terminal. There was a thwakooom somewhere behind them as the two heroes landed. “Well met, brother legionnaires!” Donar hailed them from the crater. “I hast created a sufficient lull for us to do thine experiment and blow up our enemies.” “This is a dimensional stabilising generator,” Enty explained to the hemigod. “It doesn’t blow anything up.” “Thou designed it, did thou notst?” Donar answered. “Okay,” growled Goldeneyed, pulling himself from the landing zone, “I’ve finished barfing now. Let’s get this show on the road.” Harnessing G-eyed dimensional abilities through NTU-150’s device, using Avatar’s experience as an emissary of the dimension-crawling Parody Master and the sheer cosmic energy of Donar’s weapon the heroes activated the machineries. “Most impressive,” Oldman, scion of the Ausgardians admitted as the whole of the aforementioned map got folded by unseen and incomprehensible forces. “That must hurt.” “Yeah,” CSFB! shrugged. “G-Eyed might explode if we keep on doing this. How long will it take?” “Oh, didn’t I mention that?” Hoki, god of bloody-mindedness shrugged back. “It won’t work at all unless somebody at the other end of the channel does the same thing. Otherwise all these brave heroes – including my own beloved brother – will be destroyed by the attempt. Alack a day!” “I’ve got to do something!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! realised. “Come with me!” someone told him, and he found himself being dragged away by a cloaked figure before he could object. “Hey, who are you, mysterious cloaked figure?” he asked. “You sort of look like Kala from the old Iron Man stories in Tales of Suspense in that robe thing but…” Then he was struck dumb for a moment. The girl had drawn back her hood to reveal the familiar features of Izzy Shapiro. His Izzy. Izzy who died. “Yeah, Dream, it’s me. I know what you’re thinking. I can guess what you’re feeling. But you have to come with us. It’s really important.” “With us?” Dreamcatcher Foxglove managed to question. “Yeah, me and the guy who saved me from dying. Said he knew you quite well. He’s over there. Glowing green eyes. Grey cape and…” “A hood?” CSFB! gulped. “Yeah. A Hood,” Izzy confirmed. CrazySugarFreakBoy’s life had just got very, very dangerous. And the final mapped Earth location? The corporate helicopter alighted neatly on the lawn in front of the Temple of Honour. The Amazons watched suspiciously as the first visitor for the new world they had found themselves in emerged to greet them. “Welcome, welcome, welcome back to good ol’ Man’s World,” the ebullient newcomer told them. He went up to Queen Titania and pumped her hand enthusiastically. “Wonderful piece of prime beachfront real estate you have here ladies. Really wonderful. And in such a glorious Mediterranean location.” The Amazons were perplexed. This wasn’t how they remembered men. He had less battle-armour and spiky weapons for one thing, and he seemed well capable of stringing words together into coherent sentences; in fact he seemed unable to stop doing so. “Great potential, that’s what I see here, ladies. Great potential. I’m thinking a row of beachfront hotels and casinos, a little bit of golf up there on the green, take that forest down and get in some condos, a marina perhaps…” “We don’t understand a word you’re saying, man,” Titania warned him. The businessman’s smile didn’t even waver. “That’s perfect, ladies, just perfect. And the name’s Roni Y Avis, the entrepreneur you can trust.” “You won’t get away with this!” Troia 125 told the Dread Dormaggadon. She and her three companions were hung by mystic shackles in the dark and vast throneroom of the Lord of the Dreary Dimensions. “Aw, man, I can’t believe you said that!” Falcon complained. “I mean, of all the clichéd things that prisoners say to bad guys when they’re strung up like chickens waiting to be horribly slaughtered that’s got to be the worst.” “He’s right,” Exile admitted. “We shouldn’t be doing the clichés. We should be tricking the bad guy into saying stuff like ‘nothing can save you now’.” “And that helps how?” ManMan asked. “Well, that’s usually when the rescue team smashes through the wall to do something,” Exile pointed out. “Okay,” Troia agreed. “I’ll give it a try. Hey, mister Dread Dormaggadon! It’s us, the helpless prisoners. Can anything save us now?” The fire-headed tyrant of the forgotten wastes swung around from his contemplation of his orb of conquest and glared at the Amazon administrator. “NOTHING can save you now!” he boomed. “Alright!” cheered the Falcon. The massive iron doors at the end of the hall thundered open. “An emissary from the champions of mankind is here to see you,” a guard announced. “He… well, he came up to the gates and rang the doorbell.” “We’re saved!” ManMan breathed. “Saved!” Visionary was led into the hall. “We’re screwed,” Exile muttered. “Dead meat.” “You represent the desperate warriors of they dooméd world?” Dormaggadon thundered at the possibly fake man. “Well, I suppose…” Visionary admitted. Before he could get any further the doors thundered open again. They were probably designed to make that special booming noise. “Another visitor, dread lord,” the guard announced. A ten foot tall red-skinned, horned, tailed spawn of the nether-pits stalked into the room to stand before Dormaggadon. It glanced down at the possibly fake man trembling before the Dark Throne. “Why, hello again, mortal,” Mefrothto, Prince of Fibs, greeted Visionary. And the only sound was Exile in the background saying, “Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dread dead.” In our next instalment: “A Day in the Life of the Hooded Hood” (as promised last time). Learn the secrets of the cowled crime-czar. Uncover the truth about Troia’s parentage. Discover the purpose of that meeting of crimelords in Monte Carlo. Mock the fate of Visionary. Learn what designs the Hooded Hood has for CSFB! and Izzy Shapiro (and many, many others). See the final act in the invasion of the Brainless Ones. And discover the one thing that the Dread Dormaggadon has overlooked. Coming soon to a terminal near you. A journey into swords and sorcery from... the Hooded Hood |
| Untold Tales of the Chronicles of the Fellowship of the Zemonogion (A journey into swords and sorcery from... the Hooded Hood) (19-Sep-1999 15:59:23) |
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