Novel partly inspired by EftU

[Ranayah]

Hey gang :)
 
I've written a comedic-fantasy story partly inspired by EftU (the original, not archipegalo), which I will happily post episodically if given permission? I should mention it's not Forgotten Realms nor it's really "Drows" and "Underdark" specific sort of fantasy, but it is underworldly, fantasy, and fun, with occasional referrences to things I saw in EftU. I hope to have it published some day, so long as at least a few people seem to like it. :)
 
You might be asking why comedic? Why not something serious and more heavily based on EftU? Well, I thought of it, even tried it once... it's just not my style, even though I had some neat ideas for escape plots and making it epic, but I wasn't the guy for the job, even though I still think novelizing it would've been a really really great idea.
 
Also, I could use some forum help. My original username is "gobbledygookie" who is registered here, but it doesn't recognize my email! So, if any mod can just give me the email I registered with, that'd be nice :)
 
-gobbledygookie/Ranayah/Lester

[lovethesuit]

You have permission. Post this immediately.

Guys, get your popcorn and catheters. This is gonna be great.

[Kotenku]

oh man, awesome. my catheter was already in, but i didnt have a great reason until just now

[TheMacPanther]

This sounds really cool, I would love to read it.

[Ranayah]

Okay, I'll start with the prelude with a little snippet from chapter 1... :)
 
--------------------------------------------------
 
PRELUDE
 
Somewhere, far beyond space and time, or any hint of common sense for that matter, in the deep uncharted corners of the subconscious trance (where the author of which lives), a character woke up from a horrifically and dysteleologically unaccounted-for amnesiac headache, the sort you could be experiencing right now having read the word in the latter sentence.
As he opened his eyes, everything was vaguely dark, smoky and curiously hot. But then, something was there casting its stocky and bearded shadow on the mysterious dark and smoky blur, but what? The smoke was beginning to clear, and there appeared an old glossy-eyed Santa-Clausic dwarf, who didn't look particularly sane mind you by any stretch of the imagination. He was wearing a horned-helmet and armoured in thick heavy iron with spiked shoulder pads, holding a skull-mug in one hand, with the background of a flickeringly blazing firewall behind him. If there was ever a fuzzily adorable yet at the same time eeriy terror-inspiring image, that was it.
 
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaavast ye scurrilous dog," blustered the old dwarf in a cartoonishly animated fashion, his grandfather-gravelly voice was both hearty and foreboding. "Welcome to hell! To the very netherworldly regions of the underdark, where yer neither dead or alive! Harr!!! Fire and brimestones, smokin' rollin' boulders of doom, skulls and bones and rivers of dancin' flames! Yar-har-har! Arrrre ye scared yet?"
"Wh-What?" Blurted Spazmo instinctively, our headache-suffering newcomer, "how did I get here!?"
"How does anyone ever get anywhere really?" Asked the dwarf, his eyes widened and eyebrows raised in a curious fashion, "ain't we all just purposelessly driftin' in netherworldly dimensions fighting fire giants and flamin' critters?"
"What?!?" Blurted Spazmo again, even more bewildered than before. "Wait, I think it makes more sense that I'm just having a bad dream, right? And that I'm gonna wake any moment now..." he said hopefully. It was just about then that a tumbleweed rolled casually in the smouldering magmatic background (or I should say boneweed, as tumbleweeds in hell are made out of bones), hinting openly its disagreement. "Aaaaaaaany moment now," he added much more doubtfully.
"Hah! There are no dreams here lad, yer in the valley O' nightmares now!" Assured him Horg, the dwarf, enthusiastically, then pulled the young man up and embraced his pencily frame with one arm, gesturing at the hellish scene of magmatic ground with firey cracks, random fire, flickers, flaming rivers and smouldering (and perfectly-round) boulders, rolling in the open space as though they were being hurled by fire giants in a casual friday's pick-up bowling game. "P'epare yerself fer an epic adventure O' grand and hellborn porportions unlike anythin' ye've ever experienced before, laddie. Bolden yer might and hoist yer moxie! Ye only get once chance to die!"
At the end of that sentence, there was only a puff of smoke left in Horg's empty grasp, the fully-fledged petrified individual was already putting his legs to work, running away into the unknown abyss. Sadly, it was just about that moment where the most unexpected and unlikiest of thing happened, as he was randomly hit by smouldering boulder that rolled him into the unknown darkness of the endless abyss.
"I didn't say you have to take it that soon!" Shouted Horg.
 

* * *

Oh yes, hell, for those "skeptic" and "freethinking" readers of you that don't believe, I'll have you know hell is quite an intriguing place for adventurers, pirates, lowlives, scallywags and miscreants of all shapes and sorts, inhabiting this unearthly underregion that exists largely thanks to [publishing company name here]. After all, what better place is there to look for excitement than the one place everyone fears to get to? So forget your little lily fairies, castles and knights, for here in the underbellies of hell we do things quite differently. Ridden with unspeakable monstrosities, the likes of which can only be seen in the horrors of nightmares such as fire giants, roaming with hell-shaking footsteps. Where giant larvas crawl about, and where mutated warts-ridden trolls and especially mean and nasty orcs could also be found. And of course, this being hell, there are also undead. Skeletons, zombies and an infinite array of unholy entities. Most of the pirate-infested seas themselves boil with lava heat, and any place can spell death to the innocent, unthinking wanderlust wanderer who walks unprepared.
In fact, if you listen very very carefully, you could hear the petrified screeches of one newcomer as he steamrolls his way through the great and infinite space of underworld.
 
But perhaps in the entire annals of hell there was no greater adventurer than the legendary dwarf Horg Heiren. Ahh yes, Horg Heiren, the very name germinates uncanny fear in the mind of the very hellspawns themselves. If time truly makes legends, then Horg is a timeless myth of which written words could never do true justice to. The veteran dwarf has seen it all and done it all, but he's not looking to collect any pension retirement funds, oh no, like any good adventurer he's looking for more adventures, for a true adventurer never rests. Thus, our unlikely protagonist wanders the underworld as a sole adventurer in the sea of the death and despair that is hell...
 

* * *

And so, like any good story, it all started with one too many drinks and an uncanny urge to do something inexplicably stupid. But to be more specific, our adventure begins somewhere down below, many uncounted miles beneath the surface, some say beneath the plane of life, in the deep dark trenches of the underworld, as the mighty old adventurer, Horg Heiren, waded his way through a misty valley of skulls and bones in his attempt to complete yet another heroic adventure...
 
CRACK! CRICK! THUD!
 
From a cave made wholly out of bones shambled out a big, horrific-looking two-headed bone golem. Bone spikes emerging from his arms and shoulders, everything about it look demonic, evil, and ghastly. One head was larger than the other, it seemed slow and queer, while the smaller head looked quite cranky. "Hey, hey, hey," croaked the smaller head, "for the love of everything dead and unholy can you stop making so much racket walking over all those bones!? Some of us are trying to sleep here!"
"Oi, didn't mean to be rude, I'm just here tae kill ya!" Assured him Horg, "and look at the bright side, that should solve any future auditory inconveniences, harrr!"
"Kill me!? Me? You? Kill me? Why you insolent mortal fool, if I had any tear glands I'd cry from laughter right now. I eat the likes of you for dinner and spit off their beards!" Growled the smaller head of the large bony figure.
"Too bad, I hear that's where all the good nutritionary fibres are," quipped the dwarf.
"I'm afraid your lighthearted comic attitude doesn't reflect the true predicament you are in, greybeard, do you even know who I am?"
Horg squinted. "Can't say I do. Besides, I hate to sound insensitive but all ye skeletons look the same to me."
"Ahhh typical. Then tune in yer pathetic ears, fleshbag! I am Mortis, the unspeakable demonic dread of Bones Island, the very horror that terrorizes nightmares and--"
Mortis was stopped short, suddenly, by the snoring sound of the bigger skull.
"Just a second there," he excused himself in an odd mannerly fashion. Horg was standing innocently, rolling his eyes.
"Wake up, Rigor!" Snapped Mortis at the larger head.
"Me sleeping, Mortis! Not nows," said Rigor.
"But I can't do our demonically hell-shatterin' manic introduction that induces the fear of hell in our enemies with you snoring like that! It's distracting! Besides, you're completely destroying the sinister ambience I'm trying to create."
Despite the plea, the bigger head just kept snoring.
"This is gettin' uncomfortable," said Horg. "Should I leave and come back later? My schedule is free this week." Which was true, all Horg had listed under today was "kill bone golem". His rest of the diary was filled with "possible drinking binges" and really bad drawings of naked fairies (for artistic purposes only, he would say).
"Ugh, lazybones", grumbled Mortis. "Well, fine, I guess I'll just have to smash that stumpy geezer without the hell shattering manic introduction, now won't I?"
"Who yer callin' stumpy ye reanimated stack of voodoo broomsticks!?" Blurted Horg in a temper. Then came a mighty growl and a mighty thump! Followed by a mighty shower of broken bones that came raining down. It was all over in a matter of miliseconds. Much too fast.
And so, somewhere in the dusty regions of the underworld, three unsuspecting goblins stood next to a foul-smelling cauldron as from nowhere in sight, a big bone plunged into their stew, splashing the green dish all over them. All the three soaked goblins could do is look at each other and scratch their head. "Eh?"
Meanwhile, back in the Bones Island, Horg was clapping his hands clean, having completed his task. "Stumpy...! Humphs! Who's "stumpy" now hmm?. . ."
And perhaps it was the unusual flowery pink-shaded aroma in the airways of hell tonight, but a hint of remorse made him sigh, and think (the latter of which Horg often forgets to do, as his mind is filled with either grog or uncontrollable demented rage). "Too bad, I was just beginnin' to find him entertainin'. . ."
As he started walking away, he stepped on something round, and talking.
"Ouch!" Croaked the thing.
What he picked up was a hideous bloodshot-eyed skull, it was actually the smaller skull of the bone golem he just thumped. "Blimey! Yer still alive!?"
"Of course I am, I'm an undead ye nitwit why'd ye expect?"
"Good point," agreed Horg, and then felt an urge to add. "Ye know, I think ye'll fit nicely on my shoulder, I've been looking to get some kind of companion lately anyway, being a lonely adventurer isn't what it's been all hyped up to be. How would you like to be me pet?"
"Pet?!?"
"I mean, my diabolical scheming companion!"
"Will there be gory R-rated deaths and constant terrorizing of mortals involved?" Asked the skull hopefully.
"Aye, I imagine so..."
"Buwahahaha!" The skull spun on Horg's armour shoulder-spike axis gleefully. "Well that's more like it!"
As they departed from Bones Island, the mist whirled and twirled over the bones of the island, as if putting its own touches on the ending scene.
"Would ye like to hear a joke?" Asked Horg.
"No".
"Why not? Where's your funnybone at? Hee-hee-hee..."
"Oy vey..."
"Ye know, somethin' tells me this is the beginning of a wonderfully abusive relationship..."
 
--------------------
 
An hour later. . .
 
"Mortis! I just had the craziest dream!" Cried Rigor. "Mortis?"
 
------------------
 
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is an old timeless tale
Of how Horg and Mortis met, in a grand guignol of a hellish vale
The duo seemed meant to be together, through good and bad
One a seasoned old adventurer and the other... a demonically cranial shoulder pad
 
As Horg was headed to Undertown (which will be told all about in the next page) with Mortis embedded to his shoulder, he still couldn't shake that feeling there's something especially flowery wafting in the airways of hell tonight, and he didn't like it at all...
 
 

Horg and Mortis
Chapter 1: To Hell and Back Again

　
Undertown . . . located somewhere in the magmatic buttcracks of hell, between there and nowhere, but certainly somewhere, is a home to a strange breed of absent-minded, recklessly foolhardy lifeforms known as the underpirates, which consists of a mix of pirates, adventurers, scums, wastrels, scallywags, lowlives and all sorts of deranged or otherwise peculiar lifeforms you'd expect to find in a swashbuckling-driven society. This remarkably unique and strange society follows a mindless paradigm that can be described as follows (and bear with me here): It begins in a frantic search for all kind of whimsical adventures and treasure-hunts, where most of the time they end up fighting some unholy spawn demons of the netherworld. And, if they manage to not get themselves killed, they split whatever loot they get, and if not spending it on a drinking binge, they go buy bigger and better gear and gadgetries, only so they could go on to fight bigger things for even bigger loot, and so on and so forth, till the end of their days. It's the cycle of adventuring. . . and it never ends.
But no matter how far or wide you look there's no better place to just fuddle, muddle and moreover culminate the depression of who you are, what you are and where you are than in Rock Bottom, a literally ship-shaped wreckage of a tavern in the middle of Undertown, surrounded by a small steaming moat. It's the main hub for adventurers, misfits, scoundrels and all sorts of unsavory individuals. . . (too be continued!)
 
------------------------------
 
Okay -- I'll post more if there is interest. :) Sewertown will also be featured, eventually. The stew-cooking goblins were one EftU referrence, and of course, Rock Bottom :D
 
Hope you liked it!
 
-gobbledygookie/Ranayah/Lester

[lovethesuit]

Aahahahahahhahahahahahahhhahahaaaahahahahahahhahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahhha.

Yes. Please. Oh god, please post more.

[Ranayah]

Thanks a bunch! :D glad you liked it. :D :) :)
 
I'll post another segment tomorrow I just gotta edit it some more before it's ready for prime-time :)
 
-Ranayah/gobbledygookie/Lester

[eliff]

Genuinely funny story, I would love to read the rest.  Liking the bit about Mortis, reminds me of Bob the Skull form the Harry Dresden series.  Good work man.

[Pestilentica]

lololololololol. I totally want to see a nightriser with the names Rigor and Mortis!

[Ranayah]

Hey, the next part is here!

I tried to edit this segment as much as I can today so you'll get a prime-time version, but you know.... I was just eager to post it, even though I could've probably done more. Still, let me know if you like it, as always, and I'll post more!

BTW The design of Undertown (at least where everything is located i.e. tavern, marketplace, etc) is definitely based after "Upper City" of EftU

-------------------------------------------

Horg and Mortis
Chapter 1: To Hell and Back Again

　
Undertown . . . located somewhere in the deepest ends at the buttcracks of doom, between there and nowhere, but certainly somewhere, is a home to a strange breed of absent-minded, recklessly foolhardy lifeforms known as the underpirates, which includes an eclectic mix of pirates, adventurers, scums, wastrels, scallywags, lowlives and all sorts of deranged or otherwise peculiar lifeforms you'd expect to find in a swashbuckling-driven society. This remarkably unique and strange society follows a mindless paradigm that can be described as follows (and bear with me here): It begins in a frantic search for all kind of whimsical adventures and treasure-hunts, where most of the time they end up fighting some unholy spawn demons of the netherworld. And, if they manage to not get themselves killed, they split whatever loot they get, and if not spending it on a drinking binge, they go buy bigger and better gear and gadgetries, only so they could go on to fight bigger things for even bigger loot, and so on and so forth, till the end of their days. It's the all-too-familiar (and partly obsessive-compulsive) neverending cycle of adventuring. . . indeed, the spirit of adventuring is alive and bustling down under in the unfathomed deeps, it's a thing of beauty.
 
Nevertheless, Undertown is a fairly normal-looking pirate's haven. Well, if you ignore the occasional chasms, fire, magma and steaming waterways that is. According to ancient lore, Undertown remarkably short history all began when two or more underpirate parties were adventuring in the same place, now normally that's a recipe for disaster and quite frankly one of the worst things that could happen in underpirates society, as there's often only enough room for one adventuring party at one place at a time (and as you may have already figured out by now, underpirates don't like to "share"). So, a clash of two parties or more often results in the slinging of insults, then a brawl and whole bag of hurt-feelings at the end of it. Really just a nasty affair. However, remarkably enough, according to Undertown's lore, the very city was formed when no less than seven parties were adventuring at the same place at the same time, all due to a bunch of misunderstandings and a series of random coincidences. After arguing, passing insults and a massive brawl, eventually and somewhat inexplicably, it all somehow ended with a nicely (if not somewhat rickety) architectured town we know as Undertown, and the rest is history. Well, almost, you see, as many years later each party leader of those legendary seven parties is now a serving member in Undertown's City Elders Council. If you ever pay a visit there, to this day you could hear the arguing of who had the first right to adventure there to begin with. Whatever you do, don't get them started.
 
But no matter how far or wide you look there's no better place to just fuddle and muddle, but moreover culminate the depression of who you are, what you are and where you are than in Rock Bottom, a literally shipshaped wreckage of a tavern in the middle of Undertown, with its notorious anchor being used to hold the placard of the today's recommended meals, all surrounded by a small, impractical yet perfectly quaint moat. It's the main hub for all those underpirates who just wanna relax after a long day of adventuring.
 
"Yarrrrr!!! Welcome to Rock Bottom, Mortis!" Blustered Horg in one of his earsplitting roars, "here be the tavern at the very end of underworld, home to local skullduggeries and communal buffooneries. But more importantly, a whole lot of drunken unsolicitous and unwarranted brawlin'!"
Inside Rock Bottom was the most ramshackled, dingiest, scallywags-ridden place you can imagine-- Oh yes, it was just that lovely, with dusty cannons by the portholes, and masts used for columns, each with their own crow's nest, Rock Bottom provided quite a colourfully satisfying piratical scenery.
"Ugh, I think I got a skullache..." murmured Mortis, now situated on the counter of Rock Bottom's tavern (which curiously enough used to be the ship's railing). "Well isn't that just beautifully comedic? Once the very unspeakable scourge of Bones Island, now I'm a drunk talking-skull in a squalid watering hole. Sometimes I think there is a giant unseen hand working to make sure I stay perfectly miserable to the schadenfreude of others."
"What? That's the most ridiculously inane drivel I've ever heard, Mort! Here, meet Cap'n Bloombeard, the very owner and founder of Rock Bottom, and the mayor of Undertown (when he can spare some free time). He'll give ye somethin' to forget all about yer troubles."
There stood behind the counter a potbellied, blondebearded dwarf with a shiny golden tooth, a glass eye and wildly frazzled long hair, captain Bloombeard his name, who, as legend has it, one day long ago was sailing his ship drunk (something you should never do) and, too drunk to even tell the difference between sea and land, ran it into the ground. With a mighty supply of ale and grog still intact, he did the only thing that seemed reasonable to him at that time, and turned it into Undertown's first and only tavern (should anyone ever try to open another tavern to compete, he'll say "Why, don't be silly lad, that's what the cannons are for!"). Rock Bottom soon became Horg's favorite place as well as many other wastrels and layabouts'.
"Did I hear somethin' about mind-numbin' oblivion?" Asked Bloombeard rhetorically, "that sounds like a job fer me special famous Gallic-Bladder-- a mix of ale with with the bile extracted from the gallbladder of a giant sea hag, with only hint of battery acid and enough artificial sweetners to fool yer body into thinkin' yer drinkin' somethin' that can't paralyse ye from head to toe!" He shoved a disgusting, greenish grey-hued boiling drink (that somehow seemed to be so acidic that it was corroding itself) at Mortis' way.
"Aye!" Agreed Horg. "Why it'd be the one drink that makes ye forget about yer troubles, lad!"
"Or the fact ye have any limbs," added Bloombeard in a more solemn, law-binding note.
"Yea yea, enough with the pep-talk, beardies, I've had enough embarrassments for one day. Now how the heck am I supposed to drink this without any limbs?"
Bloombeard put in a silly-straw.
"That can't be good for my self-esteem..." murmured the mortified skull.
"Well, look at the bright side, ye can't get any lower than that, laddie!" Pointed out Bloombeard, "Of course, I only mean it literally," he added, gesturing at a fine exhibition of broken shovels at the backside of the tavern. "I supposed that figuratively ye could always sink lower."
"Aye, but that's the beauty of Rock Bottom," explained Horg, "here be where all the washed-up, would-be's and think-they-are binge themselves to a catatonic stupor! Doesn't it smell like a beautiful trance of a neverending despair?" He grinned, "just feast yer eyes on the constant brawlin', the dirty wenches, the grog-swillin' wastrels, the frilly-dressed aristocratic clientele... atcha watcha patcha! Wait a second here!" Frowned Horg, tapped his chin, and raised one of his very bushy eyebrows. "Frilly-dressed aristocratic clientele? That's new..."
"Aye," approached Bloombeard closer to him, speaking in a hushed tone. "These strange foppish blokes have been here for a while now, and the dardnest thing is that instead of grog, ale, me famous Gallic Bladder or some other piratical liver-wrenchin' drink, they asked for something no one had asked me in years for - "clear water"!"
"Clear?" Wondered Horg.
"Blimey! I know. I thought water comes only in two forms, bacteria or ochre-ridden! Who knew there's a clear version!?"
"Not I!" Affirmed Horg.
"What a suspicious bunch, I tell ya! They've been sitting there talkin' some kind of unintelligible gobbledygook for a while now."
"Aye? Well, ye know, mayhaps that explains why I couldn't shake the feelin's I've been gettin' lately somethin' especially unpiratey is transpirin' around our unholy undersoil. Mayhaps it's that flowery odor I've been smellin' all day, or those especially unbelligerent creatures as of late, or all those new bureaucrats I've seen hopscotchin' about, askin' fer me vote. Blast! I didn't even know we hold elections!" Horg said, and gave a frown at Bloombeard's way. "That reminds me, how on hell did ye get elected for mayor of Undertown?"
"What do you mean? I ran a solid campaign," crossed Bloombeard his arms. "Solid iron that is!" He added, suddenly showing a fiercely big iron greataxe behind the counter with a hearty lopsided grin. "My trusty running mate, he can really split through an argument. . ." he sighed, "it was a good campaigning season, should've seen them run...."
"Don't ye mean debate?"
"Yea, yea, that too," winked Bloombeard.
 
Circled around a shabby worn table in Rock Bottom, a short distance from Horg, were three dandified individuals, all dressed-up in the latest colourful haute-couture, and naturally looking conspicuously out of place. "I say," said one of them, with careful enunciation of each syllable, "of all the lowdown places I've been to, this one is by far the filthiest, shabbiest and scummiest of them all! Goodness gracious, I never knew standards can be so unnervingly low".
"I more than agree, good comrade, I concur" both agreed and concurred another gentleman sitting at a table. "I mean, how can these piratical swab-monkeys live in such an unhygienic conditions? And on what planet does a barkeeper call this clear water?" He said, raising his finely-tuned eyebrow at the larva squishing happily inside his mug.
"Well, my fellow peers, worry not," said the third one, "for as you well know by now such appalling pestholes as this one and others like it won't stand here to soil the scenery for long, what with Sir and Lady Charslton plan mapped out".
"Verily, but don't be raising your voice now, dear compeer, plans must stay secret until they are all but executed, lest they be foiled by unlikely sort."
The eavesdropping Horg raised his eyebrow.
"Right you are. Then let us leave this misbegotten hovel, gentlemen, I cannot stand another minute of this place. I mean, words! I need more words! My grasp of the language is not sufficient to describe the violent renching nausea this place is causing me to experience."
It was with that, with their noses turned up and their eyes patronizingly half-shut, the three gentlemen walked off.
"Great leapin' troll warts!" Cried Horg, "if it wasn't fer ye, Mort, I'd say this be the most particular thing I've seen and heard all day ("hey!"). What do these preenin', prissy lily dandy men got to do in the very bowels of hell itself?"
"Well, unless they be lookin' to enjoy the summer breeze of fine toxic smoke, I can't really say."
"Yar! Well, I know who can! For there be really only one ol' cookie savvy enough to unscramble this elusive puzzle, the one true know-it-all of The Underbellies. If anyone has the answer, it's him!"
"With all due respect," said Mort, "I don't see how any of this is promoting any evil of sorts or my plans of underworld domination, so I'll just stay here and woah!" Mort was cut short as he was grabbed by Horg and situated firmly on his shoulder.
"Well, maybe I can't give ye evil fer now, but here be a mighty whiff of chaos!" said Horg, and suddenly jumped one of the tables, averting all attention to him. "Avast ye scrawny ill-begotten greenhorns! 'ow can ye call yerselves pirates!? I've never seen such a pitiful crowd of inebriated miscreants in me life, now who wants to be first in line for me hammer!?"
A brawl immediately ensued, but Horg and Mortis weren't caught in the white clowd of kicks and punches, they were already out the door. Soon after came an angry shout from an angry barkeeper that was heard all across Undertown. "HEEEEEEEEI-REEEEEEEEEEN!"
 

* * *

Far off in the uncharted backwaters of the underword, somewhere in the underseas there was something very strange sailing at a very low speed, it was very large and seemed particularly out of a place. It was a gloriously adorned giant ship, and worst of all, it was a pink! Within the most luxurious of cabins were three individuals. Lady Marigold and Sir Pierre Charlston, who were two formally dressed gentlemen, but there was also one clownish-looking man with a long top, flashily-dressed in purple and green with his own gaudy walking stick, Mister Wagwit.
"But of all places, why hell?" Asked Marigold, "I really think we're making a bad investment here, dear. Why not some place more sunny, with less fire, chaos and doom?"
"Don't worry, dearest, when we're done with it, hell will be the biggest tourist attraction known in the business. We've only hired the best of the best for a reason, isn't that right?
"You betcha!" Said Wagwit, twirling his stick, "I can see it now, flashy signs, lots of visitors, a success story, the whole nine yards! So enough with the scheming, let's just all shut the hell up and enjoy the local toxicity and lovably hazardous warmth for a change!"
Marigold frowned, if it was up to her, they would've hired someone else than that clown.
"Not yet," said Pierre,"there is only one place that stands in our way, Undertown..." he at a map delineating the Underbellies of hell, "but not for long. Those lowlives, inbred piratical fools and loons that reside there wouldn't know what hit them. From that point on it will be a clear sailing. After all, all hell needs is a little revamping, reeducation, redesign, and a touch of nobility... ours, specifically."
"Well, it's going to need a lot of that, dear" said Marigold, "and you can start with that pirate over there." She pointed out through one of the small windows at a ship next to them.
That pirate over there happened to have been Patchy Pannel, only the craziest pirate to ever sail the underseas. An unscrupulous, unthinking, unhinged foul-mouthed nut; a manic-looking dwarf with gray zigzagged sideburns, polished scalp, a pegland and a hook-hand, whose own caricature didn't even do him justice. Though Patchy's ship is relatively small, little did they know that Patchy dedicated his entire ship for war not for comfort. And that, perhaps, is the biggest understatement that can ever be written in these pages.
"HARRRRR!!!" Roared Patchy, jumping on the railing of his stumpy-looking ship. "Avast ye scurvy dogs! Ye've reached a one-dwarf-wreckin'-crew, prepare tae meet yer end ye lily-liver'd muffin-guzzlin' barnacles!"
On his much taller ship, Pierre had one foot on the railing and was looking down on Patchy with a smirk, along with Marigold and Wagwit joining at him side by side. "You pathetic little uncouth "underpirate", you and all your kind will soon learn for the first time of your uncultivated life the meaning of common courtesy. Wheel out the cannons!"
Immediately, a nearly uncounted amount of cannons were rolled out from their ports. Still, Patchy did not look impressed.
"Don't make me laugh, powderchub!" He cried, then whistles. "Itchabold, let out the Deluxe X-500 Really-Really-Really Big Cannons!"
"Aye aye cap'n!" Replied a chinstrap-bearded bald halfling fella from the porthole below, and in a giddily excited manner pulled a lever twice his size. Then, springing out from their hiding place beneath the wood, several ridiculously huge wide-muzzled cannons appeared. They were cartoonishly sizeable, it didn't even seem to make sense that a ship that small can sustain such disporportionally big cannons. Pierre, Marigold and Wagwit were utterly shocked and dismayed. "Well, I always wanted to go out with a bang," quipped Wagwit.
"Shut up, circus boy!" Snapped Marigold at him.
"Yarrrr!!!" Cried Patchy, a match already lit in his hand.
"Uh, cap'n," said the wimpy voice of Itachbold from below him, "we're out of ammo".
"Uh oh..." Paled Patchy. Immediately three sinister grins appeared on the faces in front of him.
"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire!" Cried Pierre, Marigold and Wagwit put together.
KABOOM!
 
(to be continued!)
----------------------------------------------------
 
Hope you like it so far!... :)
 
-Ranayah/Lester/gobbledygookie

[Pestilentica]

:D :D :D :D :D

[Kotenku]

this is good enough for TV.

[Ranayah]

Wow, thanks a bunch for the replies guys :-D :D seriously - all your replies here really inspire me to write and post further, so please keep them going if you'd like reading more.
 
The only short indirect referrence to EftU in this next part is the golem one, in brackets. I've always loved the colour the animatrons and golems added to Upper Class City, so they will definitely will featured more somewhere down the road.
 
 
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Chapter 2: A hint of common sense
 
Despite the widespread insanity that seems to thoroughly dominate Undertown (as well as blithering idiocy, dementia praecox, profound idiocy, frenziness, and arrested development) somewhere away from all that was a hint of common sense. Indeed, there was at least one individual in The Underbellies of the netherworld who was known as the resident know-it-all, the sage, and that grampa you sort of always wanted to have, Harmit the hermit: an amnesiac-suffering, partially-grumpy absent-minded professor. A bony, bearded crambazzle, wearing a fashion statement of green-hued burlap tied with a rope, with vast knowledge in about any scientific field and a penchant for creating wildly imporbable things, Harmit lived in a distant hut, located in the backside of Undertown, and away from all the "hairbrained know-nothing adventuring twits" as he called them, even though he still considered himself an adventurer at heart. Harmit was also one of Horg's closest confidants, and often helps him channel his rage and lunacy in positive, constructive manners.
 
His hut was a strange fusion between a library and a laboratory, a libroratory if you will, so while full of all sorts of scientific doodad (mostly many broken electrically-enhanced golems, a science tube and plenty of outdated lab equipment), it was also full of dusty old books and the strange-looking voodoo items. Wafting of intellectualism, it was enough to scare any typical underpirate from stepping in. Overshadowing the whole bookish scenery was one giant chalkboard. And one thing's for sure, you've never truly seen a complex mathematical problem until you've taken one glance at Harmit giant chalkboard. According to him, once he solved it he had figured out the answer to all the questions.
 
Like any other day, just as Harmit was about to solve a complex problem, his line of intellectual near-epiphanic thoughts suddenly broke as the door opened with a loud bang and the door crashed to the floor. "Ahoy thar!" Yelled Horg.
"Gadzooks!" Cried the startled Harmit. "Doggone it, you lobotomized hammer-wielding maniac! Haven't you ever grasped the concept of door-handles?"
"Aye, but I always found them to be impeding me vigorous sense of wild and uninhibited imagination!" Came Horg's explaination.
"I would have something to say about that, normally, but I'm heavily distracted by that cranial appendage on your shoulder."
"Well-met mortal!" Spoke Mortis, the cranial appendage. "I'm Mortis the demonic skull, and formally the dreaded bone golem from Bones Island. Say, I like what you're doing on that chalkboard, I get the feeling something very grand and very eeeeeeeeevil could be elicited from it!"
"Well, theorically speaking, maybe, but only once it's solved will we know the true power it possesses. It's just all those darn-dratted distractions that keeps me from cracking it! I can't focus lately. And I got all sorts of important things to do, you know? I mean, someone in this godsforsaken hell-hole needs to answer the big questions of our existence, like why are we here for? Who created us? And why there are so many plot holes nobody seems to notice?"
"Arrr!! These blasted plot holes again!?" Roared Horg, "what elusive creatures! If I ever see one I'll be thumpin' 'em apart!"
"For the last time you psychoneurotic raver, these are not creatures or anything you can kill, these are uncanny rips in the space time continuum," explained Harmit. "Anyway, that's not the point, but it's a good thing you're here, I've been meaning to talk to you, there's something far more important going on. Something that could very well change hell for good, something that could obliterate Undertown as we know it, something very vile that's been permeating our adventuring hub in recent days."
"What?" Asked Horg.
"I... er... I forgot," loured Harmit.
"Ye forgot?"
"Oh well," shrugged Harmit, "one good thing about forgetting is that you can no longer worry about what ever it was you forgot, heh". That's, by the way, is Harmit's his favorite quote, which sadly he often forgets.
"You forgot the very think that could obliterate Undertown and change hell as we know it?" Asked Mortis, who, despite his demonic nature, was also concerned.
"Well, yes. There is really only one thing to do when you forget, which is to sing The Ponder Song!"
"The....what?" Asked Mortis.
"The ponder song!" Exclaimed Harmit.
"The...ponder song?" Asked Mortis again.
"Yes, the ponder song!" Reaffirmed Harmit.
"Aye, nothin' like the ponder song to jog yer memory," added Horg.
"What's the...ponder song?" Asked Mortis, thoroughly befuddled.
"You see, whenever ye forget something, anything, you just sing the ponder song, and voila! You'll remember what it was you forgot!"
"Gauranteed to work!" Assured Horg.
"In 90% of the cases, anyway," disclaimed Harmit, and suddenly started singing:
 
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh
ponder wonder, wonder ponder, what were you thinking about?
Think and rethink, remember the thing, figure the bloody thing o-ooout!
 
"Oh no," said Mortis. "Oh for the love of everything that's demonic and vile, stop it!"
 
Oooooh ponder wonder
Don't let your mind wander
Just keep singing in tune
Tweedle and trill, keep singing along, now go for the croo-oooon
 
"Tweedle? Tweedle???"
 
If you're still drawing a blank
Search the memory bank
Therein it lies, behind the smokescreens
Trow if you know what it mea-------eans
 
"Do you know what stop means!??"
 
So mull over and muse
You might pick up some clues
Just don't fail to remember by the end of November
It lies somewhere in the cerebral maaaaaaa-tter
 
"I'll show you cerebral!"
 
Oooooooooooooooh
Ponder wonder wonder ponder fonder la wonder la wee
Jog the memory, rattle and shake, this song is no guarantee-ee
What was that word? What was that sound? I forget I forgot
What was that thing I was thinking about
Retrace, reminisce, follow the memory trace
Now I forgot why I'm singing this in the first place!
 
Oooooooooooh
Ponder wonder wonder ponder fonder la wonder la wee
Amnesia, agnosia, alzheimer too, I got the whole friggin' three-ee
So if you still can't recall the thing you forgot by the end of that so-oooooong
Say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and sing it all the day lo-oooooong!
　
"Is it over yet?" Sobbed Mortis.
"Yes!" Answered Harmit decisively.
"Do ye now be rememberin' what it was ye forgot?" Asked Horg.
"No," said Harmit.
"Well, that's just great," said Mortis.
"Does it have somethin' to do with flowery smell or flowery individuals?" Questioned Horg.
"Yes, actually! That's it! That flowery smell, and moreover I've seen all sorts of aristocratic bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians wandering around the Underbellies of hell lately..."
"Aye, we've seen 'em too!" Said Horg.
"...which is very particular, mind you, particularly since we don't really have rule of law and our only form of government is don't make the person with the bigger weapon angry.
"Aye, me favorite sort!" Mentioned Horg while fondling his very sizeable hammer.
"Wait a second," cut them off Mortis. "So you remembered anyway? Well then why did you need to sing that bloody song to begin with?!?"
"Anyway," ignored him Harmit, "according to my calculation", he said while slapping his stick at a map of The Underbellies of hell, which included Undertown and its surrounding areas, "they seem to have taken a hold of the Underbellies from some reason, specifically all the islands around Undertown! Thankfully most of them have still not infiltrated Undertown yet, so it remains the one safe bastion for us looney toons."
"Looney toons?" Asked Horg.
"What?" Asked Harmit. "I'm not making any referrences. At any rate, they could just be opportunistic shysters, but something tells me we're under the worst attack we can imagine."
"Rainin' magmatic fireballs of doom?" Asked Horg.
"Uncounted legions of waking undead?" Suggested Mort.
"Worse, a consumerist corporate takeover! And the hostile sort, mind you. You have to go and find out the brass tacks of this whole meshugganah story. If I were you, I'd start with this promotional pamphlet I just got in my junk mail, it's the grand opening of an amusement park located in Abaddon-Island, not far from here."
"Amusement park? In hell?" Frowned Horg, "That's the craziest thing I've heard! ... this past two hours"
"Yes, well, I'm afraid things are only gonna get crazier from this point on," sighed Harmit. "Something tells me this is going to be one bizarre experience, then again, we're already lodged somewhere in the buttcracks of doom many uncounted miles under the plane of life, how more bizzare can it get?"
"Good point!" Agreed Horg. "Well, I be in the mood to roll me hammer in some cotton candy all O' a sudden!"
"Good, but just remember Horg, first find out the details, then go thumping about everything in sight in a demented uncontrollable rage, and not the other way around! To that end, I've got some costumes you can don to fool them into thinking you're a harmless pair of dopey and unsuspecting tourists, or something, not the fully-fledged certificated nutcases that you really are, so take this bag of costumes with you. I believe there's even something there for your new companion."
Mortis raised his brow ridges. "What?"
"Anywho, good luck!" Said Harmit, turning back to the chalkboard, "I'm getting back to this math problem, I think I've nearly cracked it."
"Yer sanity?" Asked Horg somewhat knowingly.
"Yes," sighed Harmit concededly.
 
-----
 
Thanks for reading, hope you liked it! :)
 
-Ranayah/Lester/gobbledygookie

[Ranayah]

Here is the last part I finished editing today (phew!), if you want to read more let me know...I'd love to finish more parts :)
 
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Underpirates. . . they come in all shapes and sizes, strengths, skills, competence, sobriety levels (from tipsy to numbingly sozzled) and insanity degrees (from fairly uninsane to Patchy Pannel insane), and often the associated racial stereotypes just seemed to follow them anywhere they go, as the dwarves were rowdy and grumpy, the halflings, spunky and sassy, orcs being slow on the uptake, all the while the humans provided their wonderful generic diversity somewhere amongst it all. While the types of underpiratical parties can be very different from one another, they mostly all share an uninhibited adventuring craze. And while some adventuring parties travel in cliques, coteries and cabals to their sorts, some are much more diverse, sadly there is only so much room and time in this novel to describe each and every party, but if there was one group of adventurers it's worth keeping tabs on, it's Valda's, widely considered the least successful adventuring group in the entire history of Undertown. Their adventures are often fraught with miscalculation, misjudgement, misconception and a whole lot of other mis'es. In fact, in their latest misadventure in The Infernal Dooms Underregion (which is a series of randomly-connected stone bridges where fire makes up the river that "runs" below all of them) didn't go too well, they broke nearly all adventuring underpirates codes, which we will review in this following segment.
 
"Oh, I have an idea Valda," said Valda, doing her best immitation of her companion Mitch with a fake low-pitched voice, "let's go gallivant in Infernal Dooms Underrregion without a map or a sense of direction! Gee jolly, wouldn't that be wonderful?" She starred at Mitch, who was a stocky and short human with a big oblong face as he was rowing a small boat in the low waterways of hell, sandwitched between dark cliffs. On the other end of the boat small was a very large orc, Gortax, also rowing. Valda, an eye-patched lass, sat in the middle.
"What?" Protested Mitch, "I didn't know that blasted thing will be that big, my source really misdescribed it! Besides, I didn't say that last part, although you do make a surprisingly good impersonation of me!"
You see, as it were, they adventured in a place out of their league without proper equipment or experience (which is breaking underpirates adventuring code no #1) and encountered something especially big and especially hellish looking, it was actually a flesh devil golem, and I'll spare you the description of that disgusting, dead-skinned, zombie-eyed reddish monstorisity.
"Idiot," said Valda, then turned to stare at Gortax, it was his turn to take some heat. "And didn't I tell you to not charge ahead of time you crazed trigger-happy uncontrollable dummy?"
You see, as it were, Gortax broke underpirates adventuring code number #2, and charged ahead of time. He just couldn't help himself, he liked smashing things so much, that whenever there was something smashable in sight, he had to smash it, with all disregard to timing, plans, coordinations or execution (what was known as the Leroy Jenkinssympton, you might have heard of him, as he was the most well-known case of a trigger-happy adventurer).
"Errrr," was Gortax reply.
"Heh, great defense Gortax, wish I'd thought of that," chuckled Mitch.
"Shut up!" Snapped Valda at Mitch. "That's it, you're both revoked of destination-deciding rights from this point till further notice. And what the hell was that explosion at the end all about?" Reminded Valda as she checked her head bandage.
"What?" Defended himself Mitch, "how was I suppose to know that voodoo items come with an expiration date, anyway?"
Indeed, what Mitch didn't know is that all voodoo items in hell have expiration dates, if you use a voodoo items post its expiration date, there's no telling what will happen. However, since outdated voodoo items price is so cheap, a lot of underpirates still buy them (despite the fact that outdated voodoo items have been formally outlawed, the VoodooShop Emporium gets away with stocking them), though sadly it often ends up exploding in their own faces. It's known fact a lot of hook-hands and peglegs were the result of expired and/or mishandled voodoo items. That, by the way, is not breaking any underpirate code, only exhibiting dangerously ill-considered absent-minded disregard, which is actually in keeping with underpirate code #3. You wouldn't be much of an underpirate if you weren't partly absent-minded or irrational after a fashion.
"I swear to..." Started Valda.
"Hold it right there," said a confidently polished voice standing up a mountain cliff above them. He was tall and stalwart, standing with one leg on a stone, leaning casually on his knee. Blonde bouffant and a pug nose, he stood as a beam of light shun on him from an unseen source.
"Sebastian?" Asked Valda.
"Ahh... What do we have here?" Sebastian Halcombe rubbed his eyes overdramatically, his bouffant perfectly undulating in the windy undercurrents, "do my blue-shining eyes decieve me, or is it beautiful Valda Vaux I see?"
Sigh.
"Ah, dear Valda, it is you!" He exclaimed like an actor in a play, putting a hand at his heart. "Normally I ask for a fee for all those who travel here, but none for you. Have I ever told you that I shall travel through the entirety of hell to find you the legendary rose that they say grow somewhere in the hollowed depths beyond the seas of hellfire for you, if only you'd ask."
"Ooooh, he's putting the moves on Valda," grinned Gortax, "how many pieces do you think she'll cut him to?"
"Listen, buster," snapped Valda at Sebastian, "I got an incompetent crew to scold, a bunch of voodoo complaints to register and one heck of an evergrowing headache to take care of, which you're not helping to subside, I certainly don't need another goon thinking I'll fall for their blonde perm and fake accent, so I got no time for sweat talks, okay? So get out of our way."
"You certainly have a way with words, dear," said the unbacking Sebastian, "I like how you lash them out. It's so...daring, sexy. How about us joining forces, together with you and I, and your capable companions, nothing could stop us!"
"He thinks we're capable!" Said Mitch to Gortax
"That makes one," Valda assured them. "Besides, I'm sure you'll both short-live this false impression."
"Whatever happened to positive reinforcement?" Snorted Mitch.
Suddenly, something cast a large shadow over them all. It was another one of those gloriously-adorned ships, but this one was not Charlston Enterprises flagship. It was the ship of general Jibbs, a pudgy a pudgy brown-mustachioed man with a thick mustache, officially assigned to regulate the underworld's waterways.
"Lord thundering jumped-up Jehovah!" Exclaimed Jibbs he looked down from the railing of his fancy ship, his admiral's hat nearly falling off as he poked it back into place, so excited about his first upcoming arrest. "Underpirates! Ho-Hold it right there you! Drop all your arms and whatever voodoo items you may possess, you're hereby under arrest for transpessing in Charlston Enterprises waters!"
"We're...what?" Frowned Valda, "Where do all these dimwits keep coming from? Listen buddy, I don't know who you are, or... what you are, but there are no laws around here, okay? So unless you want to experience deep seizures without actually having a disease, get your gone!"
"You heard the lady!" Said Sebastian. "I wouldn't argue with her. Besides, don't you see you're bothering on a really intimate moment?"
"Why you obstreperous ignorant outlaws!" Cried Jibbs, "how dare you defy my benevolent tyranny?"
"Alright, that does it," said Valda while pulling out her blunderbuss, aiming it directly at Jibbs. Suddenly, from the fog of the waterways, emerged twenty more ships, the brigade from each ship aiming all their muskets at Valda. She never had that many firearms aimed at her at once, it made her feel all special. "Sometimes," wondered Valda out loud, "I think we're destined to be toiling through an infinite series of unfortunate events, but at least we're together in this one, right boys? .. . boys?"
Mitch and Gortax were already swimming away at full speed (only to be captured later by a net). "Don't worry dear, I'm still here!" Announced Sebastian. "I'll stay with you till the bitter end."
"I'm NOT affiliated with this man," declared Valda to assure all spectators.
"Good, we were gonna do something different with him anyway," replied Jibbs as a cannon went right off and hit Sebastian, who went flying off backwards.
"Wow! Great shot!" Admired Valda. "Well well well, I always knew this day will have a silver-lining," she said as shortly after a net was thrown over her. "You know, after seeing that, now I can truly die happy."
"Die?" Asked Jibbs. "Oh no," her assured her while they were lifting her up in the net, "we aren't going to kill you, don't worry, we're just gonna completely rehaul your existence changing the inner-mechanism that control your beastly savage tendencies into unrepentantly polite mannerism."
"You're...gonna...what?"
"Sedate that underpirate, soldiers!" were the last words she heard.