Discworld and Member Articles
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Written by drunkymonkey
Thursday, 08 September 2005 |
Introduction to Eggsic
(It’s only short)
Eggsic is a planet, not a particularly good one, but there is no better example of how humans complicate things.
An example: On Eggsic, it rains everywhere for exactly ten minutes at 1pm. After ten minutes, if stops, and returns again the nest day, same time. Humans however, don’t get this simple concept. They reckon that some God of rain does it, and it rains at that time everyday because at that point of time the God Jek is on the toilet. Absurd. Yet the humans had accepted this as some sort of law.
A religion if you like.
Perhaps the most intelligent creature on Eggsic is the troll, it’s not because of what it knows (it regularly wins the stupidest creature on Eggsic competition), no, it’s because of what it doesn’t know. They don’t know how to strive; they don’t know how to improve. They don’t know what to do in life. That’s because of the fact that that they’re happy with their lives how they are. They’re quite happy to sit around all day, eat deer and hit each other over the head with big sticks. That’s all they live for, and you know what? It makes them happy. The only thing they strive for is a bigger stick, and maybe another relative to inbreed with. They have simple goals, ones that can easily be achieved. Ones that they can and do achieve, they minds are not capable of wondering. It is true that they don’t have the minds to look for more. But sometimes, less is more.
Humans of course, strive, they always look for more, more knowledge, more materials, more friends, more life, what they fatally forget, is that in doing so, they lose a bit of themselves, the ignorant, happy side, once you know one thing you need to know ten other things, it’s a vicious cycle, and one we are all trapped into.
Humans either want something, or have a problem, Simon had both, he wanted the world, but he wasn’t taken seriously and just insulted. In the end he was happy.
He had Bucketshire, and he had happiness, he was happy with what he had achieved; he had captured a useless, resource less wreck. It made him happy. This might be because Simon had all the intelligence of a wooden spoon. But others aren’t so easily pleased.
Ian the Average Wizard wasn’t satisfied with Bucketshire and even a load of hot elf chicks, it was a bit fortunate then, that at end of the ‘Simon the Evil Sorcerer’ he met his doom.
Giants such watch where they’re going.
Trolls, orcs and goblins are all thought to be the most abusive, anti social creatures on Eggsic. This is not true. Humans are. If there were no humans on Eggsic, there’d be a lot less death. In recorded history, humans have caused 454 wars. The records have been running for 14 years. Goblins and orcs and trolls are the ones hired to fight and die. The simple fact is, they would have a lot more fun sniffing each other’s butts and farting. Humans it seems, like nothing better than war, it seems to be hobby for them, albeit a dirty, secret one, one for special occasions.
Of course, they have been exceptions; the legendary (among drag queens at least) goblin warrior Og led his army of warriors and simpletons to war with the great and noble city of Bignim ‘to pass the time until his birthday’, how appropriate then, that on his birthday, the enemy gave him a present he wouldn’t forget, an arrow through the head.
Another example of goblins behaving badly is Neghub, he was a drug lord who led his army of smack heads and generally satisfied customers on a crusade to Yorkshin, for they heard that they was to be much Cannabis to be found there. They raped and pillage all that got in their way, stopping only for free booze and caffeine. Unfortunately, one day they were so disillusioned that they thought they were pigeons and so jumped off a very cliff, and into a conveniently placed pit of spikes.
The real pigeons still haven’t finished off biting off the little bits.
Enough of the strange and idiotic people of Eggsic, and onto the strange and utterly incomprehensible climate and place. Eggsic is a horrible place, full of ‘scary’ manufactured forests (as seen in ‘Simon’), polluted lakes, high mountains, littered cities and numerous marshes. There are a few deserts, but as there is nothing to them to make money from, they are largely ignored. The main five cities in the world are: Idlewind, capital city, not just of the United Places of Somewhere, but of the whole of Eggsic too. Recently though, it has become a place of tramps, irritating salesmen and fraud investigators. It’s also the place where all the major world leaders come together once a year to argue, bicker and call each other names. They try to work out policies, but tend to work out that they like each other less than last year. It is a worthwhile experience for all involved, and highly recommended if you are slimy, immoral and deaf. Or a politician as they like to call themselves. It gives the participants great pleasure to shout their big mouths off with incoherent sentences and long speeches that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand, while totally ignoring the other person’s views, indeed, many of the members have made it a tradition to bring ear muffs and books to the meetings. Some of the older members like nothing better but to breath heavily and sigh whenever one member of the opposition comes to talk.
As a rule of thumb (it seems), every council meeting must bring with it at least one accusation that at least one of the members is in line with Satan, and in one fondly remembered meeting, the king of Zipbarbaque openly announced to a stunned crowd that he was being possessed by Satan, all good stuff, and it was great fun to see the once respected leader being dragged away screaming by the men in white robes.
The self titled ‘apprentice’ wasn’t the only one to get the council meetings flowing, not by a long shot, perhaps the worst case of the council meetings was when Mr. Bananas came into power in Scooterland, the other world powers were outraged when Mr. Bananas ignorantly and quite happily ate most of the after meeting buffet, before the meeting (most of the members only came for the cheap booze and drink and so this was a major annoyance) and then adding nothing of any value whatsoever to the meeting itself, much like the other members. He was terribly corrupted too, and sold his entire country to Asstria for a few bruised bananas, this was to be downfall, and he ran back to his forest in shame (or more likely happiness and ignorance), never to be seen again by the ‘civilised’ world.
Second in our list of bad cities is Rompton, a lovely mountain city, tucked away in the Bammy Mountains, miles away from any other civilization, and very dangerous to get on foot. However, the walk is worth it, as when you get there, you discover a town that is pure, everyone there seems to know each other, they have no outside influences, a very ignorant, conservative city, where industry and hard work is everything, tourism is worthless, even if Rompton gives you the greatest views in Eggsic, people just can’t be bothered to go there. It’s industry is unrivalled, selling sculptures and gold plated items gives it millions worth of trade, as does the rocks that don’t seem to do anything even remotely interesting except clogging up the coffee table.
Rompton has never been sieged or changed hands, its walls are centuries old, it’s still led by the same royal family as it started out with. It is a city of history, un touched by modernization, and because of it’s industry and ‘horny’ dwarves, it is the second biggest city in all of Eggsic. And one of the most respected. It also has a high tax rate.
Third in our list is Greenwood, a magical forest city, wrapped in bad magic shows, bad practical jokes and badly dressed fairies. It is a city made entirely of magical wood, unburnable and spelk free, and it is a city that is gifted (or cursed) with tourists, desperate to live in these glorified tree houses and check out the ‘hot elf chicks’.
It makes another wad of cash in it’s trade, selling off magical herbs and the like. It is supposed to be the most magical place on Eggsic, and when you see the Dancing Wizards Society, you will be in no doubt why.
Elves make up the majority of the population, and they mix with dwarves, humans, wizards and hookworm.
Fourth in our inane list is the noble post side town of St. Fred’s; it is one of the richest cities in the world, due to the many ships it constructs, and of the great amount of trade it makes, by selling odd shaped seashells that are no use to anyone but the seriously sad and small kids who believe you can hear the sea, just by putting it on your ear. Idiots.
It found it’s real fame though, in goblins, not in the killing of them though, not like other cities, but for the training of them. St. Fred’s is the only city that has goblins servants, trained to the menial jobs that humans don’t want. There’s goblin engineers, butlers, mechanics, blacksmiths, sales executives, all the silly jobs that humans don’t have the time to do. For the most part they do this very well, yes, they do occasionally slaver, and attack customers, but that is to be expected. Tourists flock all the time to see the cute little goblins run around doing their jobs, like setting tables, and putting out small fires, usually caused by themselves.
The fifth city on a list is Eldergo, the city that is second only to Idlewind, they are two rivals, of industry, tourism, war and money, both huge cities, with long histories, at the council meetings, the views of Eldergo are normally different to those of Idlewind. While the two cities normally do get along, there have been instances where they have been close to war, but being right minded, anti war cities, they have come to agreements in the end.
Their alliance is something that is often broken because of petty reasons, but always renewed in the end.
Eggsic is a planet, not a particularly good one, but for a series of books, it’ll do.
(I lied)
Pirates
Kyle was sea sick, the kind of sea sick that means if you see water again your liver will break open and out will come an awful lot of puss, followed by a lot of laughs by your ‘friends’.
Unfortunately for him, water was kind of unavoidable, for he was a pirate, a sea terrorist if you want to be technical. Water was a part of life for him, and he hated it. He wanted to be a landlubber, and be somewhere the only water there was to be found was fake. His captain, Long Johnny Silver (it wasn’t his leg that was wooden!) wasn’t really sympathetic of this, and told Kyle that if he didn’t like it, he could come off board the second he wanted to, which wasn’t really helpful, as all that was ‘off board’ for miles was water. Gallons and gallons of it, and it made Kyle feel sicker.
Life, at the minute wasn’t a barrel of laughs.
It had stared off great, recruited as a swordsman for the pirate ship ‘HMS Wind’, and getting a nice new sword that was so sharp he accidentally cut a pigeon in two. He then learnt how to handle one, and discovered that it wasn’t very smart to use it as a knife or to carry it facing forward. The first crusade wasn’t too bad either, they went to the small port town of ‘Clingston’ and plundered all that was there, leaving only a few piles of horse excrement and a mysterious pot of ale that Johnny suspected of being infected with scurvy. The townspeople weren’t happy about this obviously, and demanded that the pirates take the pot as well. To which the pirates moaned a bit and then took it, tossing it overboard when safely out to sea.
What Kyle didn’t expect though, was that the only place they did plunder was ‘Clingston’, and it got pretty boring, immensely boring in fact, the townspeople and the pirates had somehow developed this relationship of the pirates coming to plunder, and the townspeople letting them, but forcing them to take away something that was no use to anyone. It was all very polite, and any insults or threats were entirely poorly acted. It took all the fun away from plundering when the people who you were plundering were letting you plunder. Tragically, Kyle was the only one complaining, the other pirates were quit happy to go back every year and plunder. Some of the townspeople and pirates had made good friends, which made it awfully hard to clobber someone over the head.
It wasn’t just this that had made Kyle sea sick, it was the constant jeers and insults by passing ships, other pirates, warships and even traders were passing bad insults to HMS Wind, and the worst thing was, Long Johnny Silver was quite happy to take them, he said that it was all part of the process of being a pirate, sharing laughs with other pirates and sea goers, the only problem being, they weren’t laughing with him, they were laughing at him. Johnny was oblivious to the fact, and therefore didn’t change his ways. He hated the fact that the whole of the pirate world was laughing, the pirate newspaper ‘the sea log’ (check page 3 for a saucy mermaid!) regularly made bad jokes and they didn’t even bother making predictions of where HMS Wind was going next anymore. They just left it blank.
“It’s because they don’t know at all” said Johnny once, looking proud and embarrassed at the same time.
Kyle had always tried to advise his captain to go somewhere else other than Clingston, but The old pirate was just too stubborn, stuck in his own little world of pride and honour.
“We need to maintain the pirate pride we have,” he once said, while looking through a telescope the wrong way.
“What pride sir?” asked Kyle impatiently.
“I’ve told you, the pirate pride, that’s what’s important, not who’s got the biggest cannons.”
“Sir, we don’t have any cannons,” Kyle back answered, he had raised a good point.
“You see? You’re being materialistic again, a good pirate treasures what he’s got,” the captain replied.
“But we don’t even have any treasure!”
“Yes we do, the memories we have are treasure, and I will never forget my memories.”
“That’s because the memories we do have are repeated every single year!” Kyle shouted, trying to get through to the old man his point.
“Son, you’re obviously a good pirate, there’s no doubt about that, but the fact is that you don’t get the point of being a pirate, to maintain your honour. You will learn soon enough, especially when you become the captain, after I am gone.”
And that is how it went, time and time again. Johnny was just too proud of what he had already to gain anything more, it’s often said that the people with the least are the happiest. For Johnny it was true, for Kyle it wasn’t.
Kyle was lucky at this point, he was sea sick, but at the present moment he wasn’t on the sea, no, he was instead in a shabby hotel in the port side city of Saint. Fred’s, it was a prosperous city, the 4th biggest in all of Eggsic, the goblins there were trained to be servants, they weren’t killers, or upstarts, or even rude, they were just like people, albeit incoherent, short and green. They also tended to slaver a lot, which was not good for food preparation or anything that didn’t require getting a nasty disease.
I suppose the fact that the goblins were servants was a miracle in it’s self, it did wonders for the tourism side, people came to Saint. Fred’s to see the cute (cute?) goblins run around doing everyday tasks like making beds and preparing food.
It also meant that a large proportion of the human majority of Saint Fred’s had more time to work in the tourism industry. The problem with having goblins workers, was that they would be a goblin’s union, and the goblins were constantly going on strike demanding more conkers.
Kyle loved Saint Fred’s because it meant that he could communicate with intelligent people, catch up on the latest pirate news and get away from the sea. At the minute though, he was recovering from a year at sea, which meant lying down face down on his bed, and listening to the hustle and bustle of the crowds outside.
The room he was in was really something you would try to hide from your customers, let alone rent. It was smelly, disgusting and had an interesting whiff of a pig’s large intestine about it. It had brown (surely it wasn’t naturally brown?) wallpaper, a yellow carpet (if you could call it a carpet) and a lovely (okay, horrible) cupboard that made Kyle think that a large pile of horse excrement was going to jump out, Kyle slammed his head against the pillow, he was just thinking of Clingston again.
A knock came from the door. Kyle looked up from his pillow and checked the clock, it was 20 past 3 in the afternoon.
The door knocked again.
“Come in!” said Kyle, sitting up.
The knocks stopped for a second, and started again.
“I said come in!”
Again, the knocks ceased, but started up again, they seemed louder.
“Oh for God’s sake!”
He stood up and opened the door, there standing there was a goblin in a suit.
“I’m sorry sir, but I couldn’t reach the knob, it was too stiff to turn,” the goblin said, looking up.
Kyle smirked for a second.
“What is funny sir? Is it my accent?” the goblin asked, missing the joke.
“Oh no, not your accent, just your suit, it’s funny,” it was true that his suit was funny, but that wasn’t what he was laughing at.
“Oh yes, ha ha, really funny, anyway, your captain, Long Johnny Silver,” he smirked a little “wants a word with his crew, he told me to come for you, he is in room 31.”
“Okay thanks mate, better be off, make sure you close the door when you finish tidying up. Don’t want you to forget to close that, even if the knob is stiff…” Kyle went out, leaving the goblin to tidy up.
“Bloody racist…” the goblin muttered.
The corridors of the hotel were no improvement do the rooms, it seemed like no effort had been made to make the hotel acceptable, and Kyle wondered how the hotel survived to this day with the amount of inspectors around. It wasn’t that the corridors were ugly, no way, it’s a we known fact that orange mixes with purple very well, no it wasn’t that. It was the fact that they was no end to them, corridor led into corridor, leading to another corridor, which in turn led to another corridor, all exactly the same except for the numbers on the door. It was like a scene from a bad survival horror game. Except Kyle didn’t know what bad survival games were.
He finally reached room 31, and when he got there, he saw a goblin being hoisted out of the room by tow of his pirate peers. The goblin hit the floor hard, tore his fake moustache off and shouted ‘I QUIT!’ really very loud, before stomping out the corridor, only coming back five minutes later realising he had went the wrong way.
In side the room, a drunken party was going on, barrels and barrels of smuggled ale rolled along the floor, now reduced to being oddly shaped tennis balls, one pirate was hanging down from a light, singing a pirate song, the others were ignoring him, focusing instead on the fight was going on between ‘Big Pete’ and ‘Haggis McGoo’, two roughneck pirates who were fierce rivals in the world wide search for the world’s brawniest man (the title of world’s strongest man had been scraped because of the legendary professor Dr. Thin, who made a potion, turning him into the world’s strongest man, the crowd’s booed, bricks were thrown, one directly at Dr. Thin’s head, catching him off guard and knocking him into a large pile of dynamite.
The potion was scattered in the country side, where a lone caterpillar drank it all up, creating the world’s first caterpillar superhero; coming to cinema’s soon! May people argued that the world’s brawniest man was a farce, allowing men to perform homo erotic acts and really quite offensive belly bounces, but they were just let to get on with it, and Eggsic’s gay population was allowed to watch a terrible, terrible event.), at present Big Pete had Haggis in a headlock, although it looked slightly like Haggis was enjoying it.
Long Johnny Silver raised a wooden hammer and slammed it against a table, making it collapse, it looked awkward for a bit, while everyone fell silent, but then regained his confidence and started his speech.
“My wonderful, loyal and happy crew, I am coming to the end of my Pirate Career as you all know, I am 76, I might look young (he didn’t), but you may all be shocked that I have lost my strength and agility in recent years (he had none to begin with) and I have decided this is my final year as being a pirate!” the crew fell silent, the talking that was going on had stopped, everyone was motionless, the only one moving was a parrot in the corner, but that had haemorrhoids so that was excusable, “as this is my final year, I want to do something special!!!” Kyle’s heart jumped a notch or two.
“I want to lead you all on one last crusade to…” Kyle was ready for it… “to Clingston!”
Kyle’s heart dropped several miles. Everyone else jumped up several miles, they all cheered, to them this was paradise, another opportunity to slack. To Kyle it was Hell, another opportunity to bang his dead against a wall.
“To one more year of Pirating!” yelped Johnny.
Kyle made his excuses and left.
Going back to his hotel room, he walked in to find the goblin looking around at Kyle’s stuff, pocketing the most valuable items.
“Oi! Stop that you little tramp, give that here!” Kyle demanded, infuriated by the goblin’s attempted theft.
“Oh, sorry, I just looking… looking, what nice stuff you have here…” the goblin said.
“So nice you want to steal it eh?” Kyle shouted, grabbing the goblin by the scruff of the neck.
“Stealing? Stealing? Oh no, I wouldn’t steal, I was just borrowing,” the goblin pleaded.
“Well, you can borrow this!” Kyle said, whacking the goblin over the head. It went back, and hit its head on the shoddy fireplace. The goblin looked stunned, it’s eyes were still open, just it didn’t move. It looked a bit dead, “Oh hell,” Kyle said, checking the goblin’s pulse, it wasn’t beating.
Without thinking, he stuffed the goblin into the cupboard, it was just then that he realised that there was already something in the cupboard. A chest.
Kyle being a main character in a book took great interest in this and picked it up. He dusted it off and looked at the label.
“Jimmy’s Family Investments” read the label, it was a gold label, but it’s shine had been lost from all the years in the cupboard, the chest itself was expensive looking, it was the finest mahogany and all it’s curves were smooth. This was real treasure thought Kyle, it didn’t stink of cheese, and it looked pure, not made of plastic. It didn’t even have a ‘made in Chennie’ print on the back, Kyle was impressed by this, and immediately tried to get it open. Surprise surprise , it was locked. That wasn’t predictable at all.
Kyle wasn’t one for finding keys, and so tried to kick the lock open, all that he achieved was he hurt his foot. The body of the goblin fell onto the floor; it slumped out of the cupboard. Kyle pocketed the chest and tried to put the body back. He put it back into the cupboard, and closed to door.
The door of the room swung open and the hotel manager stepped in. This event would have been scary, was it not for the fact that the hotel manager, one Mr. Peas was a dwarf, one with no facial hair; he had a daft comb over and a growl that makes bunnies look like masochists.
“AH HA! Oh, um hello,” the manager said, with a disappointed look.
“Hi mate,” Kyle said, straining a smile.
“Um, hello,” the manager repeated.
“Any reason you’re here?” Kyle said, eyeing the cupboard, the door was creeping open.
“Oh, um… yes. There’s been a report of drunken behaviour with the pirates staying here,” said Mr. Peas, “no offence, but I thought it might have been your lot,”
Kyle gave a shocked look, making the dwarf before him feel awkward.
“Well, I can assure you that I, and my ‘lot’ have not been drinking,” said Kyle, trying to sound assertive and offended.”
“Well, now I can see that… I’m sorry for the misunderstanding,” said the man, obviously annoyed that he didn’t foil a pirate plot.
“As long as it doesn’t happen again,” said Kyle.
“It won’t. Oh and by the way, have you seen one of goblins, he is in a suit, bit trampy if you ask me,” asked the owner, looking around the room as if the goblin would be hiding there.
“Oh, um, I think he came by…” at this, the door of the cupboard swung open and out stepped the goblin, dazed and confused.
“Wilfred, why the hell have you been in there, haven’t I told you not to sniff the customer’s clothes? Sometimes I think you are gay you know, get out of here you stupid, useless goblin!” he kicked the goblin up the backside, pushing him out of the room, “again, apologies from the bottom of my heart, we hope the rest of the stay hasn’t been as bad as these small moments,”
“These little things have been building up you know, I mean this morning, the toilet was blocked, someone (i.e. Kyle) had blocked them, most inconvenient, and the food here is awful, I’m sure the porridge this morning was processed…” Kyle said, taking great pleasure in informing the manager all his hotel’s faults.
“Yes, I am sure there are bad qualities to this hotel, like any hotel, or place of business, however, if you are displeased with your say, we can give you a discount, we hope you enjoy your next voyage to Clingston, I must say I admire your loyalty to your plunder spot, what, this must be the 8th time you’ve went, it’s a like a place away from home really isn’t it?” Mr. Peas smirked, and then left the room, leaving Kyle frustrated that he had lost a subtle argument.
The next day was the day before they set sail for the last time to Clingston, the crew were allowed to spend some money they were owed to wonder around the city and buy whatever they wanted. The crew had decided to put their money together and buy the captain a big going away present. So far they had put together 25 pounds and eighty two pence (money in Eggsic was just the same as England, mainly because the author of this lovely book could not be bothered to think of a convincing new currency), which was good for lying, cheating scoundrels. They had used that money to buy a nice present for him, something that would make him happy.
Kyle of course didn’t trust his crew mates, and had bought his captain something much more special, he had used a good quarter of his money for the OAP pirate, something that would make him remember the sea.
The rest of time Kyle had on his final day was spent looking around the various shops, looking not just for a new (useless) sword but for a nice shield too, he had also bought a nice pirate hat from a fancy dress shop, being a pirate in Eggsic was hard, since the world leaders had banned all pirate shops, hoping this would discourage the pirates from being pirates, all they ever seemed to achieve though, was boosting the dressing up industry. The pirates were graded as terrorists, scum, that sort of thing, but that didn’t seem to stop people liking them , ask any kid in Eggsic who they want to be and they would say a pirate, more fool them, Kyle thought.
Of course, it hadn’t always been this bad. Pirates once were the biggest source of income for compensation companies, crews were forever suing their captains about the silliest things, wet floors, cannons facing the wrong way, sails that weren’t capable of sliding down, it was a lawyer’s paradise.
And the sea battles! They were something else, two soon to be sip wrecks battling it out, at speeds of 1.5 mph, trying desperately to not steer into any icebergs while trying (in vain) to shoot the other ship, now though, it was a case of steering your ship into the other ship, and then trying to outsmart the enemy by insulting them, Guybrush Threepwood was well known throughout the pirate community of ruining the thick as two planks pirate image the pirate world had so carefully built up.
Nostalgia can be an ugly thing, but Kyle was love with it, he longed for his first day as a pirate again, to see the sights, smell the farts and breathe the polluted air. He found himself so lost in thought he ended up in a cheap market selling cheap goods at expensive prices.
There was so much crap going about, Kyle could see an old woman being tricked into buying a life size model of Simon the evil sorcerer, which when you pulled the string at the back laughed evilly. Priced £990, this was tourist bait, someone had taken two minutes to make this, and got his pet frog to laugh evilly, it took two minutes to sell it off. The woman was being telling the shop keeper that she “would come back to this shop, as there were so many good prices”. Stupid tourist.
Kyle was busy looking at a lovely portrait of Ian the Average Wizard, it was immensely life like; he even had several holes in his head, from where he fell onto the spikes.
“May I help yee young man?” the man behind the stall asked Kyle, poking him with a stick.
“No not really, just browsing,” Kyle said, picking up a carving knife, labelled ‘expert killing tool’
“Ooooh good, be sure to buy what yee like, yee never know when you might need it,” the man smiled, it wasn’t a nice smile, sort of a sickly something bad is going to happen sort of smile.
“Yes, thanks for the advice, but for now, I’m just looking,” said Kyle again, emphasising the fact that he was just looking.
“Indeed you are, but if yee reckon yee want to buy, just give a nod, I’ll help yee,.”
“Thanks,” said Kyle, trying to avoid the man’s stare.
“That’ll be no problem sir,” the man said, “your custom is very much appreciated.”
“Oh good,” smiled Kyle awkwardly.
“I’ll let yee into a secret if yee want?” said the man, leading off.
“Oh, go on then…” said Kyle.
“I’m a wizard,” said the man, losing his croaky voice in favour of a young one, much like Kyle’s.
“Oh,” said Kyle taking back, “having fun?”
“No, not really, I have to put on this annoying accent and cloak because I’m on the run,” said the newly revealed wizard.
“Who from?” asked Kyle, getting closer.
“The national army, they reckon I’m a spy, I’m not though.”
“Oh, who do they reckon you’re spying for?” asked Kyle.
“Various pirate organizations, they say I know too much.”
“Who does?”
“The national army, what I just told you.”
“Why do they think that?”
“They saw me with the most famous pirate of all… Whitebeard!” in a bad horror movie with a cast containing several shaved monkeys this would have been followed up by some bad piano music composed by a deaf Irishman with piles. But as this is only a book written by an inane 14 year old who is still suffering from puberty, so instead Kyle scratched his head.
“Never heard of him mate…” said Kyle, looking around.
“What, you never heard of Whitebeard? What, are you gay?” the wizard asked, offended by Kyle’s lack of knowledge, “I suppose you haven’t being with that god damn captain of yours.”
“No, you’re right,” Kyle said, “all we ever go is to that bloody Clingston!”
“Hang on, I go there sometimes, the leader is a shifty bloke, likes sniffing fish?”
“Yeah, he’s weird, I don’ like him…”
“Here, can I go with you’s this year? I need to keep a low profile, and this place doesn’t really help, Whitebeard want s me dead, and the authorities want me in prison.”
“Uh, sure I could ask my captain, I suppose he wouldn’t see a problem, I know I don’t, might be good to have a wizard on board…”
“Give me a fairy large break, we’re no different from anyone else you know, okay so we can do magic, but hey, it’s nowt special.”
“Okay, sorry mate.”
“No problem. So I can go with you people?” he asked, puppy dog eyes used to devastating effect.
“As I just said, I don’t have a problem, but my cap might, I’ll ask him, he might like a wizard on bored, he’ll be amused by you.”
“I don’t really like the sound of that…” he smirked, they both grinned, before the wizard bent his back slightly and picked his stick back up, “Go away yee, oh spawn of Satan, I bet you’re gay!” Kyle let out a sigh and walked off, away from the terrible market and back into the terrible town.
The town was in full swing, it was sales season, and everything could be bought cheaper now, from second hand robes that smelled of cabbage, to brand new wands, that did funny little noises when you used them. The most desirable item on show at the minute was a gold plated, jewel encrusted top hat, which looked mighty fine when on display, but looked a bit homosexual when actually worn. They had been imported from Rompton, a mountain city, which was the second biggest city in Eggsic, second only to Idlewind. The dwarves there had been making throw away items for centuries, but this was their most novel and useless yet. All the celebrities were wearing them, a bad influence to all who actually wanted to have self-respect. Which was about 2% of Eggsic’s population.
Deeper into the town, and at the St. Fred’s bowl, a play was taken place, a new release by William Shakeyourspeare play, entitled ‘Hammy’ was taken place, it featured a real life skull, so obviously, the tickets were sold out. Kyle didn’t mind, he saw no interest in Shakeyourspeare; his plays were cheaply written, made and performed, full of sexual jokes and people dying spontaneously. Kyle would have gone, but he’d rather appear in a bad book. It was then he saw the ‘Pirates hideout’, a large, grotty, loud pub at the edge of the market, it was run down, beaten and devoid of any style or welcome, all it had for adverts was ‘free of scurvy: honest!’ scrawled on the door, begging you to come inside and see if the promise was true. Kyle didn’t need any adverts, this was his chance of catching up on the pirate world, inside he could hear cheers, and jeers and laughs, and it was too good to miss, he opened the door and what he saw shocked even him.
It made Johnny’s bedroom look quiet, all over he could see madness erupting from the volcano of drink that was to been seen all over, there we broken plates, cutlery, cups, necks and backs. It was a scene of utter chaos as people fought, drank and laughed, 7 or so fights were taking place, good solid bar brawls, involving tables, chairs and fists, the barmaid was flirting vulgarly with the pub’s customers, giving them very seductive looks, and they were loving it. Kyle blinked, the woman had about as much feminine qualities as Brian Blessed, yet she was being treated as some kind of sex queen, a flash of her ankles drove the men into a hypnotic drink fuelled yelp. Further into the pub, and more madness… this time eager pirates were watching a very important parrot fight take place, much money had been betted on this, it seemed, as a large sum of money lay on the table, eyed by pirates, their eyes bloodshot, and their fists clenched. The parrots weren’t taken any prisoners, pecking each other like crazed mutant pelicans, and slapping each other across the face with their wings, which gave the pirates fresh reason to laugh and pat their fat, drooping bellies.
One of the parrots had had enough and fell down, exhausted from the fight, a small bald pirate, barely as big as the table reached out and grabbed the money, and then ran straight off, leaving a trail of drunken pirates, falling other each other.
Four or five pirates were in fits of laughter, watching a monkey do a little dance, the monkey looked sick of life, and danced with about as much energy as a cardboard box, it was being poked with a stick, which was making it squeak in resentment, furthering the pirates inane laughing. One of the pirates put a gold plated top hat on the monkey’s head obviously stolen from a jeweller, this didn’t improve the monkey’s mood, and instead it bit the pirate, threw the gold plated top hat at the offending pirate. In its new want for freedom, the monkey karate kicked another pirate, used the force from that kick to head butt another, and tripping up the last one. Then it ran straight past Kyle, and out the front door.
Everything here seemed stupid in some way or another, and Kyle felt he needed a drink to wash his cynical nature away. Going up to the bar he heard a high-pitched voice demanding a good strong pint of ‘the best beer you got’
“Not until you show me some id!” said the bar man, a strapping man, with a large beard, that was dusty and spoke of many years of being existent. The boy he was speaking to was small. And wore an eye patch, it was one of the crew boys from the ship.
“But I have a beard!” he pleaded, putting his hands together stupidly.
“You did, until you took it off!” the bar man shouted, pointing towards the door.
“Aww, come on mister, I’ll pay you double!” he said, taking out his pouch and putting a few pennies on the table.
“Look lad, I have already said you can have some mango juice, or even a nice glass of milk, but I am not giving you any beer.”
“Yeah, but… that sucks!” the child stuttered.
“To you it might, but to the anti child binge drinking society of men with long beards, it is the law.” The crew boy turned, and saw Kyle, and his face lit up, he dropped of his chair and ran straight for him.
“Mister Kyle, can you do me a big favour!” he said, when he stopped; he was jumping around, his lust for beer actually quite disturbing.
“No, I can’t, sod off back to the ship!” Kyle said sternly, pushing him off the chair and sitting on it.
“Sorry about him,” next Kyle, watching the kid storm off, giving Kyle a dirty look.
“Oh, don’t mention it,” the barman said, spitting into a jug and wiping it clean with his tissue, “we get kids in all the time, seems a shame to turn them down, we could be making a lot of money out of them in a few years time.” Kyle smirked, he never did care for morals, nor did most of the population of Eggsic.
“Can I have a pint?” he said, laying his money out on the table.
“Yeah, sure, what will you be having?” the barman asked, checking the coins weren’t sweets.
“I’ll have some of that green beer if you’ve got some,” he said, sitting down on the stool.
“Okay, coming right up,” said the barman, kicking one of his goblins up the backside, directing them to the drinks fridge.
“So, how’s business anyway?” Kyle asked.
“Never been better I suppose,” he answered, “we get loads of tourists coming in, wanting to sample the green beer and getting to meet the goblins, we even have special nights where they sing and tell jokes, it’s pathetic, but it kept the kids happy.”
“So, I guess you’re one of these guys who don’t mind tourists?” Kyle asked, as he took a swig of beer, it was nice, but tasted just the same as any other beer.
“To be honest with you, I hate them, they think everything is so interesting and rural. I wish they would go back to their cities and stay there, even if they are good for business, they’re putting the old timers off. A few guys don’t even come anymore, they say I’m a traitor to the pirate cause.”
“Still, I suppose most of the guys in here put the tourists off,” Kyle grinned, watching a bar brawl take place.
“Not really, it’ more the other way round, it’s no fun if the crowd is telling you to stop apparently, hang on a minute, need to sort this fight out.” The barman jumped over the bar, and stormed right to the fight, picking yup one of the ‘contestants’ and throwing him out the window, and the dragging the other out the door. He then wiped his hands and came back.
“Bloody hell, that was great,” Kyle laughed, impressed by the barman’s strength.
“Thanks, I a pro brawler myself, these guys don’t know anything, the only guy that can out muscle me I know off is Whitebeard, and he doesn’t come here anymore, I barred him.”
“Why?”
“Because he was ruining business with this cronies, he could come in here, demand I give him half the beer and put all the tables together for him and his crew and close the bar, I objected, his heavies beat me up, I was left hurt, clutching my ribs.”
“What then?”
“Then? Then I got my revenge, I got a few of my loyal followers to sabotage his ship, ‘HMS Virus’, and sink it. We stole loads of treasure too, and it was handed out equally. I bought a few cannons for if Whitebeard decided to come back, so I could defend myself, and I also got the place redecorated, brown and white just wasn’t very good.” Kyle looked round the bar, it seemed that blood red and sick yellow was the new choice of colour, as everywhere the walls of full of it.
“Did Whitebeard find out what you had done?” asked Kyle, admiring the shiny cannons behind the counter. Oh, they were fake.
“Nah, not really,” the barman said, “I think he suspected, but he couldn’t prove it.”
“Oh, so what has he been doing with himself lately?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t really know that much, what I do much is that he’s still looking for treasure, obviously, but from where and who from, I don’t know, probably some nice big trader ships.”
“Well, I’m not in danger of losing my spine to him at least, what with continuously going to Clingston all the bleeding time,” muttered Kyle.
“It’s a nice place really,” said the bar man.
“No it isn’t, at least it’s not if you’ve been going to that place for the last ten years,” said Kyle.
“At least it’s better than being stuck in a place where all there is to do is server beer to under age kids and toss angry pirates out of windows,” smirked the barman.
“Stop it, you’re making me jealous,” Kyle smiled gloomily.
“Likewise, I haven’t seen the sights of any thing over than this island for something like fifteen years.”
Kyle had a thought.
“Hey, why don’t you come along with us, give the crew some beer, and liven up the atmosphere?”
“Um, I dunno, the bar needs keeping…” the barman sighed.
“Just give one of your best customers the job of keeping it! How can it go wrong?”
“Believe me, it can go terribly wrong.”
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