Chapter 3: Assholes on parade.
“So, we’re giving up just like that? Not even going to try to carry off these rocks? I mean, if it had been actually ONE rock covering the whole entrance, I could have understood it, but we really should be able to tackle this… this….”
“Arbitrary barrier set up to make sure we won’t progress without the team member we need?”
“Yes, that.”
“And speaking of arbitrary barriers….”
“Quicksand. Always a joy.”
“And we are walking in circles.”
“Gettin’ nowhere really fast.”
“You two are so catchy. You should totally release an album or something.”
“And give up this glamorous life of walking around and getting foiled by piles of rocks? I think not.”
“Well, whaddya know. We just walked around the whole lake. I guess we’re not in a rush to go to… say, where were we going again?”
“To see Professor Holt in… OH DAMN!”
“Guess we all rushed out a little prematurely, huh? Well, there’s nothing quite like wandering around aimlessly.”
“I was wondering when you’d notice.”
“But… why didn’t you TELL us?”
“You remember the ‘plus expenses’ part to our contract? Well, let’s just say I’ve been enjoying THIS vacation.”
“I… uh… curse my lack of focus.”
“Well, then, there’s no time like the present when practicing your focus, so me and Chaz are going to sit out on this one. Happy hunting, Hahn.”
“Wait, what? Why are you doing this to meeeheeeheeee?”
“Now, now. Grown men do not cry.”
“Well, I think I can see Tonoe over these comically short overhead map mountains. We were supposed to go there at some point, right?”
“Yes, if we could only go where we are supposed to.”
“Alright, fun’s over, I guess.”
“Alright, now to get to the bottom of this…”
“I’ll bring up the rear.”
“…did you do that on purpose?”
“Come to think of it, Birth Valley? That’s a pretty neat euphemism when you think about it.”
“I try not to.”
“It sure helps that this is a pretty dark and damp cave too, huh?”
“This is revenge for the whole ‘expenses’ part, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely, and there’s more where that came from.”
“Nice caves, though, even if they’re kind of square-ish here and there.”
“Must be a mine or something.”
“I’ma minin’ for loooove in Birth Valley.”
“OK, just… just… no singing. Please.”
“What did you say this was called? FlatTRRPBLLT?!”
“Almost. It’s a Flattrplnt. Because wovels are so last century.”
“Well, it’s flying, it’s got giant claws and… a ballsack underneath? I’m going to call it ‘Ballsack’.”
“You NAME things you are about to kill? You guys are weird.”
“Hooray, more simple medicine with odd names. Can’t get enough of that.”
“And more ‘huge-ass ticks’. Are these guys even going to be a problem at this point?”
“I predict there will be a huge lump of flesh lying here in a little while.”
“It’s a shield. Made of CRBN! Or is that GRBN?”
“How the hell should I know? It’s not like either of us use shields.”
“I can.”
“Ooooh no, you won’t. For the sake of you doing at least decent damage, you are going to stick to that dual-wielding, Professor. Take your lumps just like everyone else.”
“An’ thou I got spelunkin’ in the Valleys of Birth, I fear no STD’s….”
“Eugh, stop that, you philistine! You’re defiling an altar of science.”
“I like to think of it as ‘defining’ myself.”
“Not to mention hilarious.”
“Hunters…”
“A CRBN-suit, for when you need to look your best when in peril.”
“Shame we all invested in new armor, though, so this one is kind of redundant.”
“Well, well, well. So, Chaz, what’s your take in this?”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“Professor Holt; action figure.”
“He’s standing in way of the door too. Really nice going.”
“Which means, if we plan on going further down, we need to find out how to remove yet another temporary block. I hope this isn’t going to become a pattern.”
“How can you talk like that. He’s not an object. He’s a human being.”
“Who, at the moment, is nothing more than a creepy-looking doorstop. He’s here to stop us from going in that door.”
“Yes, this day and age when spaceships and systems that control a planet’s atmosphere exist, casting a spell that turns people to stone? That’s just outlandish, man.”
“Yes, Alys. Is there an item we have to go somewhere else to get? You know, to… unblock this guy from his door-blocking state?”
“Which brings an unsettling thought to my mind; someone in Krup mentioned Tonoe as if we were going there, even though we didn’t know we needed to before this point.”
“No, that’s Molcum. Which, come to think of it, we already visited.”
“D’OH!”
“Also, didn’t we already walk all over that place before this point?”
“Expenses, remember?”
“But if you have expenses added, why do you keep adding to the main payments? You could just live on the expenses alone.”
“A job is a job. And a job is done when the target is reached. That’s how it has to be when I write the post-mission reports.”
“Paperwork. Yeah, I can relate to that.”
“Well, here we are. Let’s hope this place hasn’t burned to the ground while we were away.”
“D’OH!”
“Double d’oh.”
“Hey, it’s… somebody. We should totally go talk to him so that we can add him to our team. Maybe we’ll get by that pile of rocks if we do.”
“What the… do you have a problem with me, jerk? Or did you just decide to start picking on the kid because you think you can?”
“….Zio.”
“Chaz, what’s with the dramatic pause?”
“I honestly don’t know what’s saddest; that you’re picking a fight with someone you haven’t even met before, or that you’re so bad at it.”
“You sayin’ something, boy?”
“Sure am. Nice ponytail, dude. Did you trip into a horse’s ass and just go ‘Why, that looks nice. If only it was blue…’?”
“Wow, what a coincidence, because we totally didn’t visit Krup already, and were told about the path to Tonoe. Who could’ve known that we had to bring a rubble-clearing smurf with us before going there?”
“What’s the big deal, Hahn? It’s not like we didn’t go there already and met your wife. What more could you possibly have hidden from us?”
“What is it, kid? Jealous that he’s got a girlfriend and you don’t?”
“Hey, I’m just a kid. What’s your excuse, Long John?”
“And Lord Asshole invites himself to the party. Are you sure about this, Alys?”
“Good grief! Yeah, this journey’ll be a laugh and then some. Also…”
“Hey, Rune; Bill Hicks, George Carlin and Dennis Leary called. They wanted to tell you that you suck at this.”
“Whatever you say, shorty.”
“You and me both.”
“Oh, sure, why don’t you just take front position while you’re at it.”
“I got the levels, thus I got the right.”
“You may regret saying that… later.”
“Wow, we really DID bypass Krup. I didn’t expect that.”
“Well, we already met your fiancee, remember? And I don’t really think Rune’ll bring up that anyway, what with him having no girlfriend and all.”
“Quiet, short stuff.”
“Oh, I got it where it counts. That, and my swing is improving too.”
“You’re bringing my issues with your technique into this now too?”
“Sure, but… um, you might’ve wanted to word that a little bit differently.”
“Maybe, but why did you bring up that… oh. Well, just forget I ever said that, then.”
“I want to go home now.”
“Well, it’s right over there, so don’t let us hold you back.”
“Figure of speech, Chaz. Figure of speech.”
“And speaking of figures….”
“Not another word out of you, buster, or you’re going hungry to bed.”
“And here we are once more, at this seemingly open and humongous cave opening in the foot of this mountain. In fact, the cave itself looks kind of redundant, since there are paths between each pike. Makes me wonder why logic would choose to kick us in the nuts like this.”
“Well, if you don’t like how logic works now, Shorty, then you might want to wait here for a bit while I go and take care of business.”
“We’re already behind you, idiot. And why would we need to…”
“…stand behinJESUS! Did you just blow up the rock pile? With… uh, ‘flaeli’? What the hell is that anyway?”
“It’s a fire spell. Or an explosion spell, if you like?”
“Well, I still say we could have dealt with this minor pile of rocks by ourselves. A simple metal rod would have sufficed in clearing this opening out, and in a way that doesn’t risk creating A CAVE-IN at that.”
“Hey, I cleared out your path. What more do you want, Shorty?”
“I just… nothing. Never mind. There’s more ways of getting a headache than having a cave… cave in on you, I guess.”
“Having fun with semantics, boy? So, what separates the techniques from the magic? Or the Fire from the Foi, to put it a different way?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“That sounds like your attitude to everything in general.”
“Valleymaze? THIS IS A CAVE!”
“And not much of a maze either.”
“Hell, I’m not gonna complain about that. The less time I have to deal with your nonsense, the better.”
“Awww. Shorty’s getting his panties in a wad.”
“Yeah. I borrowed them from your mom when I last saw her.”
“On second thought, maybe I really WILL go home.”
“I don’t blame ya.”
“Oh, look. A branching path. This really IS a maze.”
“Wow, yes, I can totally see us getting lost in here and starving to death.”
“Maybe if we had some BURGERS. Not only are they known for their historical curative properties, but they really fill you up too.”
“And THEN some.”
“OK, so this is either a dead end or it’s an underwater cave. PLEASE tell me this is not an underwater cave.”
“Calm down, Shorty. This is not an underwater cave.”
“Well, good. Because I’d hate having to go swimming when… hey, what’s that?”
“They’re blobs.”
“Blobs? They look more like slugs to me.”
“Well, yes, but… that’s the official name they go by.”
“Blobs. Well, they’re all members of the ‘disgusting heaps of flesh’ family anyway, so whatever.”
“Wow, we learned something new today, didn’t we?”
“Hinas? What does THAT ever mean?”
“Well, it’s a technique that… uh, we cast with our… well, butt.”
“What?!”
“I… uh, OK, it was a really bad joke. Just forget I ever said that.”
“Yeah, I’ll… do that.”
“Ah, it’s a doorway. Maybe we’ll finally get out of this HUGE TWISTING NIGHTMARE OF A MAZE!”
“Then again, maybe not. THIS THING ISN’T EVEN BRANCHING OUT, FOR PETE’S SAKE! WHICH PART OF THIS IS A MAZE?”
“Oh, look. It’s another doorway. Man, would I love to be faked out one more time. That would just make my day.”
“Would make my day, too.”
“Who died and made you the new Dirty Harry?”
“What the… ANOTHER one of these? How many of them have we passed through by now?”
“One, two, skip a few, one hundred.”
“Sure feels like it.”
“Wait! Can it be? It’s… it’s…”
“Heeeere it comes.”
“…A BRANCHING PATH! OH, MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED!”
“You’ve prayed?”
“Well… no. But I’ve wished really, really hard.”
“Oddly enough, I never really noticed this with the red ones, but… these crawling things sure look like penises. Weird alien penises, true, but penises.”
“I bet Sigmund would love to make a case study out of this.”
“Don’t be silly. Sometimes, a monster is just a monster.”
“Is this sort of comedy act the norm for you guys when you travel?”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“And it’s another entrance hallway. I’ve been missing those. And on the other side?”
“Why, it’s… wait, we’re outside?”
“Yes, we are, so you can stop the complain train now.”
“Sweet. And that sure was one heck of a maze, huh? We had TWO WHOLE BRANCHING PATHS, both of which lead to a single-space chest room of sorts.”
“We’ve passed through that path now, Shorty. Get over it.”
“Ah, Tonoe at last. The sweet, sweet anti-stoner medicine will soon be ours.”
“Yes, ind..wait, what?”
“With that medicine, we’ll stop Professor Holt from being stoned all the time.”
“HE’S STONE! AS IN TURNED INTO!”
“Phsaw, that’s just semantics speaking again.”
“No, it’s got nothing to do with semantics. It’s got everything to do with you adding an unneccessary letter just to make another bad joke. And I hate you.”
“Well, we… WALKED.”
“On our own feet.”
“And we just got here too, after blowing a hole in the barricade. Apparently, news travel fast.”
“But I just came to say hello, you jerk. I’m more than happy to show you how much aim I have… WITH MY FLAELI!”
“Whoa, dude, calm down. Clearing out rubble was fine. Clearing out dog chunks from this camp, however, might be more of a problem.”
“You sure like picking on the little guy, don’t you, Rune?”
“What? I don’t…”
“Are you insinuating something there, Hahn?”
“Nono, not at all.”
“What the.. I just… what kind of…”
“Titnslashr? What is this? Manyuu Hikenchou?!”
“Dude, just… eww. Don’t even joke about that.”
“Titn helm? That’s not how you use helmets.”
“Titn mail. That sounds like something that ends up in the spam folder in my email inbox.”
“OK, guys, joke’s over.”
“Granted, not even close to the kind of rudeness we get from Rune here, but still… pretty rude. I’d rate it… three out of ten on the official palman rudeness scale.”
“….much.”
“Chaz…”
“I was just kidding.”
“….”
“What?!”
“Well, finally, we’ll be getting down to business with ol’ DOGfather there. I hope he knows to cough up that medicine.”
“I rate you a seven.”
“What? That was far more than seven. Do I have to throw in some racial cards to go with it?”
“No, that’s fine. Just… we need to get Rune out of this party as soon as possible. He’s being a bad influence on you.”
“Heeey, you can’t lay the blame for this on me.”
“I can and I will.”
“Oh, so THAT’S what you call it. Yeah, sure, why not?”
“Wh…what the… then why did you ask, you antagonist?!”
“It’s not A rock. It was a huge pile of them. And all it took was some wild flailing…”
“FLAELI!”
“…yes, that. Some flaeli, and they were all blown to smithereens. And that was all for…?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, that sounds like a swell idea. I’m sure a small pile of rocks wouldn’t really be a problem for Zio, so you what? You thought you’d block off any possible aid instead, then? That’s an excellent idea… for an idiot.”
“Yeah, Rune needs to go. Fast.”
“Guys….”
Though some… rocky… hindrances, our heroes reached the town of Tonoe, and once the warmup was out of the way, it was time to lay down the big questions. The questions that would open up the answers to all the mysteries of the universe. The questions that would blow one’s mind. The questions even the venerable Wally Llama couldn’t answer…
“Nah, I already know those.”
“What?!”
“How?!”
“Only the bar chart in her room. And let me tell you; finding out how self-conscious she is about her figure was a surprise, to say the least.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you all have to die now.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Alys, calm down.”
“No can do. Some things were never meant to be shared with the world, and this is one of those things.”
“Of all the ways I’ve considered I’d… go, knowing somebody’s measurements was definitely not high up on my list. Oh, Saya… if only… if only I could have had the chance to study yours. Alas….”
“OK, time out. This is just getting too silly.”