Dressing on the Side

Monday, February 5, 2018

We're now on week three of our ongoing safari into the Jungle of Despair, and things are not looking good for our survival. We overcame the murderous vines, shambling refuse heaps, creeping tendrils, and pygmy plant people that plagued us last week, but it seems our trials are only beginning!

This morning we passed what can only be interpreted as a warning—a clear suggestion to TURN BACK! I mean, look at this skull pole. Look at it! Don't tell me that doesn't freak you out.

But did we heed the warning? Of course we didn't. And the result was a nice trip to the bottom of this fine obstacle. That's some welcome mat! See that blood on those spikes? Yeah, you guessed it—that's mine. I much prefer my life-sustaining bodily fluids remain on the inside, thank you very much.

And all this for some magic relic supposedly lost in dwarven ruins deep in the heart of the jungle? I didn't even know there were dwarves in the jungle. I thought they liked caves and canyons and dark, dry places. This place is anything but that! Still, ancient legend of the magic anvil claims that anything forged upon it will be flawless in form and unbreakable in construction. That's worth all this trouble, right? Right?

What the others don't realize, however, is that anything we find in the heart of this humid hellscape we must carry with us the many miles back to civilization. And we came for an ANVIL! Maybe I can use it to forge myself a wheelbarrow. In the meantime, everything we find goes into this trunk case. It looks like it'd be right at home on the deck or in the cargo hold of a jungle river barge, doesn't it? It's less appealing strapped to my back while I wade through thigh-deep, leech-filled muck, though, believe me.

Who am I to complain, though? I get to live the dream, the life of an adventurer. I get to venture into the untamed wild, and plunder whatever treasures I find there, left unguarded for millennia. Huh? Nature isn't unguarded, you say? There are forces protecting it and its bounty from exploitation? Great, I guess I'll just have to talk about some of those next week.

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager