Clyde asked, “What spells can you cast Erik? Somebody, or thing,” he raised the pitch of his voice on that last word, “is probably already looking for this.” -- the thought of menacing dark avengers running amok in his place of business wiped the cheerful expression from his face.
Clyde grunted, "In that case, yer gonna need a scroll of analyze whatzit; I can give you the address of a guy I know."
I SAW A MAN WHO WORE ALL BLACK,BUT NONE OF HIS CLOTHES MATCHED.
"Hello and thank you for calling the Magic Item technical support line. If you have a question about a weapon press 1, a rod, staff or wand press 2, a scroll press 3, a potion press 4, an artifact press 5. For all other inquiries, including creatures, please stay on the line for the first available representative."
But he couldn't stop at just the first call, because, the more he thought about it, the more he considered the number of friends who were simply perfect for this mission!
"And there's the 'other' James and Mike and Wes and ... say, how many assistant editors do we have around here (must be a popular class choice)?"
After tucking the artifact in his jacket he stepped outside to get better signal on his cell phone (being careful not to slip on Clyde’s remnants) and the beating rain forced him to stand in an ancient, rune covered entrance way of a nearby shop.
What he thought would be a quaint shop was actually a million-dollar mausoleum of polished stone and blue steel; a high pitched buzzing that had been blaring as he entered the empty foyer suddenly stopped, and a brightly lit hallway opened up before him -- it was lined with grey stones marking burial chambers from the floor to the twenty foot ceiling.
But, before he hit the ground he came alive again as if nothing happened.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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His funeral was attended by a rag-tag assembly of goats wearing high heels, chunky chipmunks in tophats, and a particularly ugly mutt standing well over six feet tall and clearly covered in mange, who all wept loudly and profusely, swearing they would never love another man in the way they loved him.
"Yay, that was a good movie," Erik thought, "I'll have to see that again when I get home."
The Chunky Chipmunk turned to the dog and said, "Holy crap - there's a noise in his coffin, get a gun and some dynamite."
Suddenly, a puppet master appeared dangling a myraid of sock puppets on strings, "Post, my pretties, post!" he belched.
Luckily the dynamite was not lit, but an evil badger was eyeing the scene from beneath a nearby bush.
The badger was shocked -- but, in the mean time, Erik was waiting for Nancy, his personal assistant, to return his phone call; he had seen a .pdf of this mausoleum before and needed to know if the portal to hell was in the men's room or the lady's room (it would be bad to get caught making *the mistake*.)
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Erik wasn't so much waiting as he was propped up against the wall of the masolueum, having been absconded from his casket, and stuffed full of the vile droppings of the Chunky Chipmunk (who, it should be noted, had finally succeeded in chewing off his own arm and replacing it with a small plastic shovel) by the evil badger, and he wasn't so much thinking as the maggots digging around in his brain were moving the flesh about stimulating the dead synapses into occassional bursts of electrical activity that might appear to be brain activity.
... he wasn't so much thinking as the maggots digging around in his brain were moving the flesh about stimulating the dead synapses into occassional bursts of electrical activity that might appear to be brain activity.
The maggots in Erik Mona's brain crackled and sizzled, he just had a great idea for next month's editorial.
Then he paused, Jimmy "the Noob" Suts had warned him about editorials and how they can sometimes explode into heated online debate and ethernet fistacuffs!
Nancy called, “Erik I’m looking at the .pdf now. The portal is in the last stall in the Men’s bathroom… isn’t the last stall in the men’s bathroom where the magic portal always is?” (cheeky wench that one.)
"Brains...brains..." Erik moaned as he shuffled along, only moments before the magic animating him failed, causing him to collapse in a pile of maggot festered goop, which was promptly carted back to the gravesite by the evil badger, chuckling all the way, reveling in the fact that Erik was finally well and truely dead, absolutely and for all time.
“Excellent!” thought Erik as his soul was whisked off to hell, “this will get me to my destination much faster than having to transport my mortal body around.” -- he winked into the Abyss (level 49) right in front of the McDonalds and surprisingly still felt the heavy weight of the artifact in his jacket.
A speedboat came down the road (don’t ask me how it’s the Abyss, things are different here, perhaps powered by maggot festered goop), two bikini clad woman were in the back and the tanned beach boy who was driving pulled up and asked, “Need a lift?”
As the soul of Erik floated along, he began to wonder if he would ever again have a corporeal body.
The building was the Building of Burned-Out Candles (candles go to hell after they are used up), the ground broke open in front of the building and the “iron mole” lumbered out of it and came to a steaming, creaking halt.