This Story Sucks

[Dleg]

... I turn, and see this huge Troll, right behind me, salivating and growling, and suddenly he just picks me up and tosses me in his mouth, and starts chewing! I mean, talk about hurt! I felt my ribs crush, my hip, even my skull! It was horrible!"

The table bursted out in laughter again.

"And then there I was again, fighting off the waves of flying noobs just like everyone else, and killing them left and right, just like everyone else. I mean, what's the big deal? Right? They're just noobs. They don't have any teeth. Any claws. Any weapons. They're mostly just an annoyance, right?"

Now the table was really laughing.

"So I see something happening over to my right, near the south tower. One of the noobs has morphed into this gigantic troll, completely unexpected like, right? So no one notices, and he comes up behind PE-ness, and I've got this really strong deja-vu sensation, and suddenly sschell swoops down and roadwreck incinerates the Troll!"

"Here, here!" tankards were raised again, and those around him slapped sschell on the back. Someone tossed a hindquarter of a roast pig to roadwreck.

cement continued. "So I still haven't figured this out yet, so I continue fighting off noobs, and then see the Troll take out Box of Rocks, Squitchy, Tony Soprano, and all the while I'm thinking 'this all feels really familiar to me', and then I get eaten again! And I'm back again on the castle wall, fighting off noobs, only this time I see sschell take out four trolls before I get eaten!"

Sschell spoke up now, removing the pipe from his mouth. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, cement, I can't seem to remember more than two or three Trolls at a time!"

"And this goes on and on, I don't know how many times, but gradually I become aware that I keep going back in time, and that I will get eaten each time, and I retain more and more memory of it until I just can't face it anymore, and just curl up on the rampart in the fetal position and wait for my impending death!"

The smile had left cement's face and he began twitching again. "And then Goredalff..." He paused, looking at the wizard with true resentment in his eyes. The room had grown silent. "...hung me from that pole as fudging bait!"

Goredalff smiled patiently and spoke. "You were the one they were after, cement. Trolls love Hobbits, especially the fa... I mean, the plum... er, the heavie.... um, most nutritious ones."

The table broke out in laughter again.

 

[Dleg]

JR stood up from the kids' table and spoke. "Don't you think the fact sschell can time travel might have been worth mentioning? Couldn't we have avoided some of that fighting and pain? Heck, couldn't we have prevented everything that has happened so far, both here in Middle West, and up there in the real world?"

Lumpy Larry slammed down his tankard. "Who you callin not real!?"

Goredalff smiled. "sschell can't time travel. All sschell can do is speed up time, or, with some effort, delete small pieces. That's all that happened today. Schell watched the battle, memorized which noobs were really Trolls, and then deleted the previous 60 seconds or so, allowing him and roadwreck to eliminate those Trolls before they could eliminate any of you. We all owe sschell our gratitude for that, and for the fact that he didn't fudge anything else up with his history deleting. Unlike some other times." Goredalff cast a sideways glance toward sschell. The others murmured agreement, and thanked sschell. Ratblaster tossed a half-eaten goat leg to roadwreck.

 

[Dleg]

Just then a heavy wooden door to one side of the dining hall opened up, emitting a foul odor and a rather smaller-than-average man, who was rubbing his lower abdomen with one hand, and waving the other in front of his face.

"What'd I miss?"

Big P. was nearest the door and was the first to get hit with it. "Aw, crap, Fudgepump! What the hell did you eat?"

"Sorry, guys! I think it was the combination of garlic roast goat, pickled eggs, and Goredalff's spicy bean burritos. And maybe the antibiotics I've been on. You know, this was really the first dump I've taken since... let's see... last Thursday? Man, I tell you, it was burning a hole in my gut during the battle, but I couldn't exactly leave. Some of it actually leaked out during -"

Roadwreck interrupted, turning his head and breathing a jet of fire across the acrid plume, igniting it briefly and singeing Fudgey's eyebrows.

"Thank you for that, roadwreck!" Said King Touchdown, removing the tablecloth from his nose. The dragon snorted and returned to eating his meat.

"Is someone gonna get me down from here?" asked cement, still swinging from the chandelier.

 

[Dleg]

Big P. removed the hobbit from the wrought iron hook and returned him to the kids' table. Dinner resumed.

King Touchdown spoke across the table. "So tell us, Goredalff, what makes you think this time is any different from the past? Why would He Who Must Not Be Named want to leave the safety of Lindor and attempt to destroy us? I mean, we've had a good time and all, and some thrilling battles, but in the grand scheme of things we've been nothing more than a fly on a Fudgey-sized, antibiotic-fueled, baseball-bat-shaped toilet clogger, to Him."

Fudgey stood and ran for the wooden door.

 

[Dleg]

Goredalff puffed on his pipe. "What if I told you that He Who Must Not Be Named has been joined by the legendary demons of old, Timak the Self Righteous, Ripperson the Asinine, and Getme the Superior?"

Everyone at the table let out a gasp. PE-ness simply laughed. "Why should these names concern us? I have personally battled with each of these demons, and found them to be no match for my swordsmanship!"

"Yes, PE-ness, you have, and so have many of us. But we have never been forced to battle them together. The fact is, these three have already united and have taken control of the world beyond. Now, they aim to enter our world, and join forces with He Who Must Not Be Named, and expand the borders of Lindor until it covers all of Middle West!"

This time even PE-ness gasped, and dropped his steak knife to the stone floor.

 

[Dleg]

The dining hall went silent for a moment, as the guests tried to comprehend the enormity of what Goredalff had just told them. But the melancholy mood was broken quickly by the sounds of a man in severe gastrointestinal distress coming from the side door.

"Aww, dammit Fudgey!" shouted Mr. Man. Roadwreck fired another jet of flame past the door to head off the stench.

King Touchdown cleared his throat in an attempt to return to the conversation. "You mean He wants to take this place over, and govern us?"

"Yes and no. He wants to take this place over, but not out of any interest in your territory or your resources. He simply wants to erase you and most of the things that make up Middle West. Every **** tree, vulva flower, ***** fish, lemon party, and every single one of you."

Pickles whispered to Tony Soprano, seated beside him, "I could do without the lemon parties, myself."

"But he can't do that!" protested Squitchy, "I mean, seriously, what control does he have over these things? He might be able to chop down a tree here and there, or even an entire forest, but those things always grow back! It's the force of nature! Isn't it, Goredalff?"

"I'm afraid he can." responded Goredalff, standing and walking to the opposite wall. He lifted his staff and waved it across the space in front of him, creating a large graph.

cement looked at JR and rolled his eyes. "Aw, here we go again!"

 

[Dleg]

"I've been monitoring the concentration of anger and argumentativeness in the atmosphere here for over a century. During that time, the concentration of "controversy", as I call the combined metric, has held around or below 100 ppm.

As you can see, the last couple of decades has seen a dramatic rise in controversy, to over 500 ppm last year. My measurement last night, which has not yet been published and peer-reviewed, revealed a peak controversy concentration of over 10,000 ppm yesterday morning. Now, this has dropped again to less than 1,000, but I must point out to you, that anything above 300 ppm, based on my research, represents a tipping point, from which Middle West may not be able to recover."

 

[Dleg]

The room went silent while everyone looked at the graph. Finally, Box of Rocks spoke up.

"No way, Goredalff! Not this **** again! You remember back in 4620, you used that same data to get everyone in Middle West all fired up about the impending "Nice Age", based on that dip in the data! Now you expect us to jump up and down over another spike? Puh-leaze!"

Goredalff lowered his staff and turned angrily to Box of Rocks. "Were those just ordinary flying noobs we fought this morning? Because I don't seem to recall you ever being crushed by one that turned into that nasty of a Troll before, do you!?"

PE-ness spoke next. "It is true, my friends. Even I, the legendary swordmaster, have felt it, running through my throbbing veins!"

"That's true! PE-ness was angrier than usual this morning!" piped up Testee.

 

[Dleg]

Goredalff raised his staff again and presented another slide. "Here is picture I took of a vulva flower in the Castle courtyard, just this evening, prior to dinner!"

Everyone in the room gasped again. Big P. called out in pain "My eyes!!!"

"Tell me about it!" replied Goredalff, quickly moving to the next slide.

 

[Dleg]

"Who was that?" asked VTEnviro.

"That's Gore's wife, Tipper. That's why he moved into the internet!" whispered cement, from the back of his hand.

"There was a dead Metallica Moth right next to it, too!" Goredalff added, as he manipulated the video for his next slide. A tear slipped from the corner of King Touchdown's eye.

(p. 106)

 

[Dleg]

Fudgey again returned from the restroom, waving his hand in front of his face, prompting roadwreck to breathe another jet of fire across the doorway to ignite the plume of toxic gas in his wake.

Goredalff fiddled with his staff, "hold on here, I'm trying to get this video I intercepted from the world above us to play.... damn this Windows 13.... Ah! There it is!"

A small window popped up in the middle of the blue screen, with a Fox News logo at the bottom, but a very strange image inside the frame.

"As you know," interrupted Goredalff, "because of dimensionality incompatibilities, we cannot see this person as he is seen in the world above. But just so you know, he looks more or less like the rest of us. His name is Glenn Beck. This occurred about 24 hours ago, Middle West time."

What appeared to be a giant talking turd appeared in front of a chalkboard, which had a crudely drawn stick figure hanging from a noose, and some writing in a language which the Middle Westerners could not read. They could also not understand the language that the turd spoke in, and instead heard only an annoying whine. Suddenly the turd exploded.

Fudgey stood again. "Goddamnit, Goredalff! You told me you removed the cameras from the toilet last year!" He clutched at his abdomen and ran off to the restroom again.

"This!" Goredalff interjected, "Is what the three are capable of, when their forces are combined!"

The hobbit table erupted in uncontrollable giggling.

 

[Dleg]

Box of Rocks spoke again. "Wow! So what you're saying is they're going to team their forces to make our poop explode, and then all the flowers are going to turn into your ex-wife and try to censor our music collection?" He laughed, followed by the rest of the table.

Goredalff took the screen down and smiled patiently. He then spoke. "He Who Must Not Be Named wants to destroy everything in this universe. He hates this universe. Can't stand the ****, can't stand the bathroom jokes, can't stand our food, can't stand people like you, who do not exist in his world. He wants our universe to be used only for 'serious business'" Goredalff made quotation marks with his fingers. The table grew silent again.

Goredalff raised his staff and presented another slide. "This is the composition of our atmosphere. Each component exists in balance with the other, and has done so for eons. Until now."

 

[Dleg]

"Nice background! What is that?" asked Squitchy, while the others murmured their approval.

Goredalff continued, putting up the next slide.

"Based on my projections, once atmospheric controversy has topped the 1000 ppm mark, or, 0.1 percent for those of you who are math-challenged, the atmosphere will rapidly adjust. The **** content, which was already volatile, will combust at a 3.7:1 ratio with the humorous content, leaving an atmosphere that is 99.9 percent 'serious business'." He again made quotation marks with his fingers, for emphasis. "Which I would hope you all understand, by now, is toxic to all life here in Middle West."

 

[Dleg]

Big P. spoke up now. "Well, I guess that sounds pretty fudged up. But what can we do about it? That A-hole doesn't even live in this universe, last I checked, he just maintains Lindor, and all we have ever been able to do in Lindor is prompt an angry eagle mail or two from him, stir up his trolls, and have a few laughs ourselves."

Goredalff lowered his staff, turning off the slideshow. "He Who Must Not Be Named will be coming here, to Middle West, to attempt to destroy us in person."

 

[Dleg]

Darth HVAC's stormtrooper escorts stayed at the door, leaving him to walk the long red carpet alone.

As he approached the center of the dark, cavernous room, the massive, black throne at its center swiveled slowly toward him, revealing a dark, hooded figure.

"Master, I have secured the Mark 69, and the spheres remain fully operational. skuhhh-huhhhhh"

The hooded figure rose, and an evil smile spread across its ancient, wrinkled face. "Excellent! Excellent work, my trusted apprentice!"

 

[Dleg]

The crew of the Chucktown had been led to the other side of the submarine docks and into a large, empty concrete warehouse. Their hands were bound behind them with nylon ties and they were lined up in a long row, and told to sit. Thirty taser rifle-armed stormtroopers guarded them from both sides.

The stormtrooper platoon leader walked slowly past the row of prisoners, examining each. About two thirds of the way into her inspection, she stopped in front of Candy, and in a deep-sounding amplified voice, ordered her to stand.

"What do you have inside your coveralls, there, sailor?"

Candy cleared her throat and attempted to respond in the most feminine voice she could muster. "Nothing, sir, just my ... my... "

The stormtrooper officer cut her off, and reaching forward, attempted to unzip the coveralls, which was no easy task because they were stretched tight as a drum across her massive, but severely compressed, breasts.

 

[Dleg]

The stormtrooper platoon leader had unzipped the front of Candy's coveralls by maybe only an inch before the zipper busted, and the severely strained fabric of klk's sports bra gave way, unleashing her massive breasts in a sudden surge that almost knocked the platoon leader over.

"Aha! TK 439! I knew it! Take her away!" Five other female stormtroopers stepped forward, and began leading Candy away by her elbows.

Wilheld's mind raced, and in an ill-thought gesture, he stood and shouted "Stop! You can't take her! I... I... I love her!"

The platoon leader simply said "Take him away, too!", and the three unoccupied troopers returned to collect Wilheld, and marched him out the door by his elbows, as well.

The leader then barked a command, and all but five of the guards left the room behind the prisoners.

 

[Dleg]

klk had not been discovered yet. She had succeeded in blending in with the assault troopers by pretending to be searching the stern of the sub, and had been ordered to fall in with the guard detail assigned to keep watch on the Mark 69 operation.

Candy had shown her how to re-set the identification transponder in her helmet, but there was nothing she could do about the lack of an identification bar code on her buttocks, which she finally had figured out was the reason the weird guy in Darth HVAC's quarters had discovered her ruse. She knew it was just a matter of time before they started looking for her. She had to think of something, and fast.

 

[Dleg]

The communicator hidden in her oversized breast piece made a staticy sound. klk responded, in a whisper, "Chuck, is that you? Can you still hear me from here?"

The response was weak and full of static, but Chuck was indeed still able to reach her. "KLK, I NEED TO KNOW IF YOU ARE STILL WITH THE MARK 69."

"Roger, Chuck! It's here with me!"



"HAS IT BEEN CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET?"

"I don't think so. The Mark 69 is just sitting on the service cart with some technicians looking at it, but there's no wires connected to it. They've got some really thick, transparent looking cable thingy laid out on the ground near it, but it's connected to these 4 big glass balls at the back of the cavern. I don't think it's an internet connection, but I could be wrong."

 

[Dleg]

"THE MARK 69 WAS BUILT PRIOR TO MOST OF OUR MODERN DAY CONNECTIONS, KLK. IT IS POSSIBLE TO CONNECT, BUT IT WOULD REQUIRE CONVERSION THROUGH AN OLDER MODEL DIAL-UP MODEM. DO YOU SEE ANYTHING LIKE THAT ON THE SERVICE CART? OR CONNECTED TO THE CABLE YOU SEE?"

"No, Chuck, it's just a big, thick cable that appears to connect directly to the glass ball, through hundreds of little tiny fiberoptic-looking thinigies."

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF ANY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM MATCHING YOUR DESCRIPTION."

"I'm sorry Chuck, but that's all I see. Wait..."

klk watched a gray-suited technician pull out a thick, clunky-looking thing that looked like a calculator, and then pull a plug out of its end, and insert a narrow cable, with what looked like a phone jack, that he then connected to a port inside the arming system cover on the Mark 69.

"Chuck! A technician just connected the Mark 69 to some calculator-looking thingy!"

"OF COURSE. THAT EXPLAINS WHY I COULD NEVER COMMUNICATE WITH THE MARK 69. IT SPEAKS A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE THAN I DO."

"What do you mean, Chuck? You're a computer! Can't you speak with all computers?"

"YES. BUT NOT WITH ALL CALCULATORS. I CANNOT SPEAK RPN."