Zullin: I was on fire then, too, as I recall.
gremlinn:
Zullin, the Flaming Magnetized Daredevil.
Zullin: Is there already a
magnetized superhero? I think there is.
Zullin: I wouldn't want to
step on any toes.
gremlinn: I already gnawed mine
off.
Zullin: Ah, yes, during the Rhodesia campaign? Those were dark
days for all of us.
Zullin: How well I remember Lieutenant Pumperton's
dying words: "Eat the women and children first."
gremlinn: I was tied
into a pretzel and nailed to a cross in the middle of the Sahara. It was the
only body part I could reach with my mouth.
Zullin: But those of us
who still remembered what it meant to be a gentleman decided to start on the
jeeps first. Then, of course, our own extremities.
Zullin: Ah, yes,
after you were captured.
Travholt: Hard to step on anyone's toes when
you're on fire and stuck to the underside of a plane, isn't
it?
gremlinn: Yes, after I was captured and lobotomized three
times.
Zullin: Travholt: It takes a special kind of
courage.
Zullin: Pity the bushmen had run out of that anesthetic herb
they use.
gremlinn: Ahh, the good old days, before my life got
strange.
Zullin: Memories, memories.
Zullin: They're all
that keep me going sometimes. That, and fear of my alien masters.
Travholt has left.
Zullin: One false move,
and they'll reverse the polarity of my kidneys.
gremlinn: And you'll
fall off the plane?
Travholt has
entered.
Travholt: I once made my Internet connection a
sentient being just so that I could KILL IT afterwards.
Zullin:
Precisely. And I believe my parachute is charred past all usefulness. Cruel
Fortune!
Travholt has left.
Travholt has entered.
Zullin: The aliens
tell me I should blame the great Khan, rather than the heavens, but what are
such distinctions to me?
Cynthia is
back.
Zullin: If I still had eyeballs, it might be a
different story.
Zullin: Bitterly I repent of my folly, for I have
learned -- too well, too well! -- the dangers of typing with a pencil up my
nose. One slip, and an eye is gone forever.
Cynthia: It was the
tapeworms that got my eyes.
gremlinn: But verily. wouldst thou not be
glad to be rid, once and for all, of those vexsome organs which bring such
ghastly visions to your brain?
Zullin: Ay, gentle sir, and it was for
that selfsame reason that I did, e'en upon realizing what I had done, pluck out
the other offending orb.
Athaleon: Meep.
*
gremlinn walks to center stage next to Zullin and bows as the curtains
close.
Zullin: Had I known of the virtuous example of this
fair maid, however, I would have allowed a tapeworm to feed upon the aqueous
humour contained therein. So should I have at once satisfied two desires: the
innocent beast's for nourishment, and my own for symmetry.
gremlinn:
Ooh, nice.
* Cynthia
blushes.
gremlinn: Zullin should get a quote for that
one.
Cynthia: Had I still mine eyes, they would shy from thee, kind
sir.
Cynthia: In the knowledge that were they sapphires most perfect,
they would be unable to equal the beauty of thy soul.
Zullin: But doth
not the learned poets teach us that beauty lieth in the eye of the beholder? So
should thine eyes, esteemed by your humble servant as a hundredfold times more
admirable than the richest gems of the Orient, take their rightful place in the
opinions of mankind.
gremlinn: What foolishness? What callous malice
is this? Beware, fair maiden, for he doth speak with the tongue of the serpent.
Truly he lulls you to his good favor with his honey-sweet words, but he will
unfailingly betray thee and cast thee to the roadside.
Cynthia: I ...
I know not what to say in response. Verily foul can seem fair, and fair, foul,
yet I cannot distinguish between the twain. Forgive me, noble sirs, for I am but
a poor unlettered scullery maid in comparison to thy formidable
intellects.
Zullin: Heed not his counsel, my lady, for he speaks from
lustful desire, not from friendship. He would possess your person for his own
uses, for, though it doth truly pain me to speak so of one who hath in better
times been my most bosom friend, he requireth a human's toes for a foul,
sorcerous hell-brew which even now doth simmer in his fiendish
laboratory.
Zullin: (He hath already thus consumed his own, at the
behest of the demon he calls master.)
* gremlinn dost
hurriedly dismantle said fiendish laboratory.
gremlinn:
Nay, 'tis but lies, as thou can plainly see!
Cynthia: I pray you
forgive my query, but then what be the bubbling cauldron in thy
fireplace?
Zullin: Verily, even now he doth mock thy tapeworm-bitten
sockets. "See" indeed!
gremlinn: Canst thou not observe as I wriggle
these earth-bound digits, yet attached and uneaten!
Cynthia: Indeed I
cannot, lacking sight. 'Tis my hearing that grants me knowledge of the
cauldron.
Wormwood: OK, now you all have to talk like you're in the
Old West.
* gremlinn dost brandish a rapier and
skewerth the belly of Zullin, exposing the foul beast's dishonest
innards.
gremlinn: I'll give ya to the count of three,
pardna. We're gonna settle this like men, once and for all. Get'cha self
ready.
Zullin: Were I not so full of tapeworm that my intestines are
inured to all harm from without, that might, in good faith, have seriously
inconvenienced me.
Wormwood: I reckon' you boys 'll need a
referee.
* Cynthia wrings her hands and looks useless
and empty-headed.
Zullin: I do perceive that the foul knave
challengeth you to mortal combat, my lady. My prayers go with
thee.
Zullin: Call'st my lady "boy," knave
Wormwood?
Wormwood: Zullin: Never would I besmirch a fair lady so! I
demand reparations for this insult! I challenge you to a duel!
* gremlinn starts the countdown.
5...4...33...2..2....1.....3...
* gremlinn
draws and blasts off his own head.
Zullin: I prithee, lady,
arm thyself well. He hath knowledge of forbidden magicks, and may attempt deceit
and treachery against thee.
* Cynthia picks up grem's
old shotgun. Bring it on.
Zullin: Worm of Wood: I cast thy
gage back in thy teeth, base-born churl. Have at thee!
* gremlinn's brains slide onto Cynthia's
arms.
* Zullin hides behind
Cynthia.
Wormwood: Eat lead, alien scum!
* Cynthia tries to scoop gremlinn's brains back into
gremlinn.
* gremlinn is zombified, and runs
around looking for brains.
* Wormwood
throws a homing cerebral bore at Zullin.
Zullin: Whoever
loses, the tapeworms are going to win.
* Zullin ducks
too late.
* Wormwood watches as gremlinn
devours Zullin's brain.
* gremlinn can't
find his brains, and doesn't have a mouth to consume them, so settles for
eviscerating himself and stuffing his innards down his
throat.
* Cynthia sighs. And they seemed
like such nice boys.
Kaz has
entered.
* Cynthia flings her arms around
Kaz.
Zullin: Perhaps, girl, thou shouldst call upon thy
minotaur paramour to aid thee.
Wormwood: Hi!
Cynthia: Oh,
save me, for I am at the mercy of these ruffians!
*
Kaz doth HUG Cynthia :-)
Kaz: What doth the fair mistress
say? What dost thou wilt?
Zullin: Nay, foul Worm. Thou hast not the
right of it. I willingly gave it them.
Cynthia: Perhaps, Zullin, thou
shouldst stop substituting what thou doth see in the mirror for how thou doth
perceive another.
* gremlinn decomposes and starts to
smell really foul.
Cynthia: Dearest Kaz, you may deal with
them as you see fit, as they have all tried to waylay me.
* Wormwood spreads some of that pink sawdust over
gremlinn.
* Zullin would look in a mirror
to see what Cynthia is talking about, but has no eyes.
Kaz:
Dearest Cynthia, I wouldst prefer to do with thee as I see fit. ;-)
* Zullin looks away politely.
* gremlinn decomposes politely.
* Wormwood gets out his camcorder.
* Cynthia shoots the camcorder. No. No. No.
* Kaz pokes those who have tried to waylay Cynthia in the
back.
* gremlinn did not to try to waylay
her.
Kaz: Then thou didst not get poked, sir.
* gremlinn tried to warn her about Zullin.
* Wormwood did not try to waylay Cynthia.
* gremlinn hath been reduced to a smoke.
* Wormwood turns into a vampire.
Kaz:
Okay, who hath waylaid mine Cynthia? :-P Come hither, for I do possess a gift
for thee.....
* Cynthia stakes
Wormwood.
Zullin: It was the tapeworms.
Zullin:
They disguised themselves as us.
* Wormwood turns into
Wolverine.
* gremlinn's tapeworms gnaw into
Zullin's brains.
Zullin: Aieeeee!
Wormwood: No
one can beat Wolverine, except maybe Batman! What do you say to that,
Cynthia?
Kaz: Wormwood: Canst thou withstand the blow of a mithril
claymore?
Wormwood: Kaz: I eat claymores for breakfast!
Kaz:
Wormwood: Then thou shouldst see an alchemist, for methinks thou dost get too
much iron in thine diet.....
* gremlinn's tapeworms
are full. Burp.
Wormwood: I regularly let blood to
alleviate the excess iron! Then I make the blood into a poisonous soup which
Zullin sells to schoolchildren.
Kaz: Erm.... dost thou remove thine
kidney too?
gremlinn: Oh, not kidneys again.
Kaz:
...again?
Kaz: Wilt kind sir explain?
Zullin: OH NO THERE
GOES MY RENAL POLARITY
gremlinn: Zullin's evil alien masters have
threatened to reverse the polarity of his metallic kidneys if he disobeys them.
If that happens, he'll plummet from the underside of the plane to which he's
attached.
* Zullin plummets, flaming, to his
death.
Kaz: ....
* Kaz wins! (or
something...)
* gremlinn's tapeworms jump
out of the plummeting Zullin with little parachutes. They're very
cute.
Zullin: I think the tapeworms win,
too.
Wormwood: In the end, it's always the tapeworms that
win.
* Cynthia can no longer speak, as the tapeworms
have gnawed out her vocal cords.
Zullin: Ain't that the
truth.
Kaz: Aaaaack!
* Kaz saves Cynthia.
Somehow.
Kaz: Bad tapeworm! Thou dost not invade mine
Cynthia! Thou shalt not get a cookie!
gremlinn: Are they mine or
Cynthia's?
gremlinn: Oh, they're mine. Part of a foreign body exchange
program.
* Cynthia spreads her hands. They all look
rather the same to her.
Zullin: How many hands do you
have?
Cynthia: Well, er, one and a quarter.
Kaz: Then take
back thine tapeworms and let the lady -- nay, the princess -- be free of
them.
Zullin: All this is making me hungry.
Kaz: If thou
dost wish to eat tapeworm, then thou canst be mine guest..... though thou
shoudst cook them.....
* Wormwood casts a regeneration
spell on Cynthia and she is back to normal.
Cynthia:
Thank'ee, Wormwood.
* Zullin is plummeting very
slowly, since he is so light from loss of various body parts and
parasites.
Kaz: Thank thee, Wormwood. Verily, I do prefer
mine Cynthia healthy. :-)
* Cynthia casts a line down
to Zullin in hopes that he has something left with which to catch onto
it.
Zullin: Oh, I wasn't complaining. It's kind of
peaceful, actually. Peaceful and oozy.
Cynthia: If you
insist.
* Cynthia retracts the line and goes to
bed.
Kaz: *yawns* Verily, I must be off to bed
also.
Zullin: Good night! Don't let the tapeworms
bite!
Cynthia: Mmm, yes, same to you; try to defend what you've got
left.
Kaz has left.
Cynthia: And
for goodness' sake, play nice.
Cynthia has
left.
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