Article 175191 of rec.arts.sf.written: From: a.cadre1@genie.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: MSTing: THE EYE OF ARGON Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 07:27:54 GMT

["Mystery Science Theater 3000", post AC-1, reel one.]

[Theme song]

[1...2...3...4...5...6...]

[SOL. Tom Servo is screen left, dressed in colorful flowing robes and wearing a crystal on a string around his neck. Crow and Mike are screen right. Between Tom and the others are a bunch of cards, face-down on the table. Mike looks over his shoulder at Cambot.]



Mike: Oh, hi! I'm Mike Nelson. Up here on the Satellite of Love we just found an old pack of Tarot cards and it turns out Tom's programmed to read them. We're doing a reading on Crow right now.



Tom: Okay, this card in the middle here "covers" you. It represents your environment, obstacles, that kind of thing.



Crow: Hey, Mike, can you flip this thing over?



Mike: Won't that interfere with the mystical energies coursing between the two of you?



Tom: Yeah, probably, but neither of us has working arms.



Mike: Well, okay. Here you go.

[flips card]



Crow: Death! Oh, no!



Tom: 'Fraid so, my friend. Yes, that's right, it's the ever-popular Death card, representing... well, death. But don't worry, no one card (however ominous) can represent your entire fate. Why don't you flip the next card? This one "crowns" you... it stands for all you can ever hope to achieve.



Crow: Mike?

[Mike flips the card.]



Crow: Death! Not again!



Tom: My, but the spirits are insistent tonight!



Crow: Wait a minute! How could I get Death =twice=? You slipped an extra Death into the pack!



Tom: Not me, my doomed little buddy -- the mystical forces did that! Well, I don't have to explain this card; it stands for the same thing it did last time, namely... death! Let's skip ahead. This card here is "before" you-- it predicts your immediate future. Mike?

[Mike flips the card.]



Crow: Death! Waaah!



Tom: But Crow! This time it's upside-down!



Crow: So?



Tom: So, when a card is upside-down, it's known as "reversed." So a card that represents power stands for weakness, or one that normally means victory changes to defeat.



Crow: So Death reversed stands for... life?



Tom: No, it still pretty much means death. Face it, Crow, you'll be lucky if you don't keel over in the next couple of minutes.

[Yellow light flashes.]



Mike: We'll be right back.

[Commercials]



Mike: Welcome back. We're almost done here.

Crow [sobbing]: Nine Deaths... nine Deaths...



Tom: Mike, if you'll do the honors?

[Mike flips the last card.]

Crow [perplexed]: Tor Giant?

[Red light flashes.]



Mike: Cool it, guys, the Hierophant is calling.

[Deep 13]



Dr.F.: Hello, Nelson, Servo. I was =so= sorry to hear of the passing of the other one... you know, the gold one...

[SOL]



Crow: I'm not dead yet!

[Deep 13]



Dr.F.: Oh. Well, that's good. Because you see, this week's experiment is a fate far worse than death. Call it Deep Hurting 95. Or call it... THE EYE OF ARGON!

[SOL]



Mike: Yes, and?

[Deep 13]



Dr.F.: And, you ask? Let me yield the floor to my distinguished guest to introduce the lifetime of pain awaiting you!

[Enter Jack Perkins.]



Perkins: THE EYE OF ARGON is the delightful tale by Jim Theis that, legend has it, won the Worst Story award at a certain Bay Area science fiction competition for fifteen years running -- and was only entered once! True or not, ever since this story was discovered in 1970 it has been the object of competitive readings. People the world over have gathered together their friends and loved ones and passed the story around, reading aloud in turn until the reader cracked up laughing. Many competitors fail to finish a single word!

[SOL]



Tom: This could be trouble, guys.



Mike: Ah, we can handle it.

[Deep 13]



Dr.F.: Very well, Nelson. Send them the movie, Fr-- uh, Jack.



[SOL: lights are flashing.]



All: WE'VE GOT STORY SIGN!

[6...5...4...3...2...1...]

THE EYE OF ARGON by Jim Theis



Tom: My Theis have been getting kind of flabby lately.

Mike: You don't have thighs!

The weather beaten trail wound ahead into the dust racked climes of the baren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age worn hoof prints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless sun cast its parching rays of incandescense



Mike: This story must take place before they put in the fluorescent panels.

from overhead, half way through its daily revolution.



Crow: Daily revolution? So this Norgolia's near Bolivia, then?

Small rodents scampered about,



Tom: Twelve-year-old computer geeks?

Mike: That's "r0dentz".

occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives.



Crow: And these would be...?

Mike: "Dear Diary, Today I spent a couple hours nibbling at a corpse and then spread contagion around the tri-county area."

Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts



Mike: Everest!

Tom: St. Helens!

Crow: Kilimanjaro!

in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdonsome cargoes of their struggling overseers. "Prepare to embrace your creators in the stygian haunts of hell, barbarian", gasped the first soldier.



Tom: Awfully long gasp... he must have the lung capacity of a whale!

"Only after you have kissed the fleeting stead of death, wretch!" returned Grignr.



Mike: You know, his serve could use some work, and his backhand's downright lousy, but no one returns like Grignr.

Tom: "Grignr"?

A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive barbarians hide enameled shield as his rippling right arm thrust forth,



Tom: I know all these words, but I just can't parse this.

sending a steel shod blade to the hilt into the soldiers vital organs.



Crow: "My Mellotron! My Yamaha! I'm gonna need these for the gig tonight!"

The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.



Crow: You mean blood?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

The enthused barbarian



Tom: I always feel pretty enthused myself after disemboweling somebody.

swilveled about, his shock of fiery red hair tossing robustly in the humid air currents



Crow: It's not so much the heat as it is the--

Mike: We'll have none of that.

as he faced the attack of the defeated soldier's fellow in arms. "Damn you, barbarian" Shrieked the soldier



Crow: He's a sissy!

as he observed his comrade in death.



Mike: "You appear to be in death, comrade."

A gleaming scimitar smote a heavy blow against the renegade's spiked helmet, bringing a heavy cloud over the Ecordian's



Tom: He's an =Ecordian=?

Crow: Polka party!

misting brain.



All: Our brains'll do the MiSTing around here, thank you very much.

Mike: After all, ours are the Best.

Shaking off the effects of the pounding blow to his head, Grignr



Tom: "Grignr"?

brought down his scarlet streaked edge against the soldier's crudely forged hauberk,



Crow: "Crudely forged"? Talk about calling the kettle black!

Tom: Well, when you call the kettle black you're not remarking on its hue so much as making a statement about--

Crow: Shut up.

clanging harmlessly to the left side of his opponent. The soldier's stead whinnied

Tom [horse]: "Come oooon! Stop fiiiighting! Let's goooo!"

Mike: Whinnied, Servo. Not whined. Whinnied.

Tom: You mean like Whinny Cooper?

Crow: "Hi."

Mike: Hi.

as he directed the horse back from the driving blade of the barbarian. Grignr



Tom: "Grignr"?

leashed his mount



Mike: Fuji!

forward as the hoarsely piercing



Crow: You mean the man-slashing horse-piercing Sword of--

Mike: You know perfectly well it's "hoarseLY piercing".

battle cry of his wilderness bred race resounded from his grinding lungs.



Tom: Grinding lungs, eh? Two packs a day'll do that to you.

A twirling blade bounced harmlessly from the mighty thief's buckler as his rolling right arm cleft upward, sending a foot of blinding steel



Mike: If I had a foot of blinding steel I wouldn't need to spend so much on shoes.

ripping through the Simarian's exposed gullet. A gasping gurgle



Crow: Gasping while gurgling's hard to do. Try it!

from the soldier's writhing mouth as he tumbled to the golden sand at his feet, and wormed agonizingly in his death bed.



Tom: Good thing he thought to bring it along with him.

Grignr's



Tom: "Grignr"?

emerald green orbs



Crow: You mean his eyes?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

glared lustfully at the wallowing soldier

Tom [Grignr]: "Wish I'd noticed how hot he was before I hacked him up!"

struggling before his chestnut swirled mount.



Mike: McKinley!

His scowling voice reverberated over the dying form in a tone of mocking mirth. "You city bred dogs



Crow: So it's really a pastoral!

Mike: And a biting satire on the Industrial Revolution, no less.

should learn not to antagonize your better."



Crow: Classist!

Reining his weary mount



Mike: Vernon!

Crow: Stop that.

ahead, grignr resumed his journey to the Noregolian city of Gorzam, hoping to discover wine,



Crow: Anywhere is a good place to discover wine! This message brought to you by the Booze Council.

women, and adventure to boil the wild blood coarsing through his savage veins. The trek to Gorzom



Mike: Gorzom? I though he was going to GorZAM!

was forced upon Grignr



Tom: "Grignr"?

Crow: Yes, Grignr. Deal.

when the soldiers of Crin were leashed upon him by a faithless concubine he had wooed. His scandalous activities throughout the Simarian city



Tom: Such as getting together with the McDougals and investing in a plot of land near--

Mike: The answer is no.

had unleashed throngs of havoc and uproar among it's refined patricians, leading them to tack a heavy reward over his head.



Crow: Then they fired up the camcorder and when the tack broke and the reward bonked ol' Grignr on the head they sent it straight to Bob Saget!

He had barely managed to escape through the back entrance of the inn he had been guzzling in, as a squad of soldiers tounced



Crow: Is that the cat who could drive a car?

upon him. After spilling a spout of blood from the leader of the mercenaries



Mike: You'll want to put some Neosporin on that or it'll get infected.

as he dismembered one of the officer's arms,



Tom: That's right -- he hacked the limbs right off the, uh, arm.

he retreated to his mount



Mike: Vesuvius!

Crow: That's getting really annoying.

to make his way towards Gorzom, rumoured to contain hoards of plunder, and many young wenches

Mike [falsetto]: "We're tired of these degrading patriachical slurs! From now on we demand to be called 'wynchys.'"

for any man who has the backbone to wrest them away.



-2-



Mike: I guess anyone would reek of foul odors after a few days on the road.

and cheap wine.



Crow: That's right -- even the poor can enjoy the wonders of wine! This message brought to you by the Booze Council.

The air was heavy with chocking fumes spewing from smolderingtorches encased within theden's earthen packed walls. Tables were clustered with groups of drunken thieves, and cutthroats, tossing dice, or making love to willing prostitutes.



Tom: Some missed the point and tossed the dice to the willing prostitutes.

Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby bench, Grignr



Tom: "Grignr"?

Mike: Look, we're already on the second chapter. Get over it.

Tom: I know, I know, it's just... I'd like at least buy a vowel or something.

advanced wishing to wholesomely occupy his time. The flickering torches cast weird shafts of luminescence dancing over the half naked



Crow: Which half?

harlot of his choice, her stringy orchid twines of hair swaying gracefully over the lithe opaque nose,



Mike: I suppose opaqueness =would= be a good quality in a nose.

Crow: It beats transparency, anyway.

as she raised a half drained mug to her pale red



Crow: You mean pink?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

lips. Glancing upward, the alluring complexion noted the stalwart giant as he rapidly approached. A faint glimmer sparked from the pair of deep blue ovals



Crow: You mean eyes?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

of the amorous female as she motioned toward Grignr,



Crow: Tom--

Tom: I'm over it, I'm over it.

enticing him to join her. The barbarian seated himself upon a stool at the wenches side, exposing



Mike: --a fraudulent chain of car dealerships. All this and Andy Rooney, tonight on "60 Minutes".

his body, naked save for a loin cloth brandishing a long steel broad sword,



Crow: That's one belligerent loincloth!

an iron spiraled battle helmet, and a thick leather sandals, to her unobstructed view.



Tom: So he remembered not to stand behind a brick wall this time.

"Thou hast need to occupy your time, barbarian",questioned the female?



Mike: Don't ask me, you're the writer!

"Only if something worth offering is within my reach." Stated Grignr,as his hands crept to embrace the tempting female, who welcomed them with open willingness. "From where do you come barbarian,



Crow: You mean you're a prostitute and you don't know from where guys--

Mike: Don't make me wash your mouth out with soap.

and by what are you called?"



Tom: Believe me, you don't want to know what he's called.

Gasped the complying wench, as Grignr smothered her lips with the blazing touch of his flaming mouth.



Crow: Gamera has one of those!

The engrossed titan

Mike [falsetto]: "So, you want to make out or something?" Tom [Grignr]: "Just let me finish this chapter. I'll tell you, I had my doubts, but I can't get enough about this new Gail Sheehy book! It's like she's talking about me!"

ignored the queries of the inquisitive female, pulling her towards him and crushing her sagging nipples



Crow: Eww!

to his yearning chest. Without struggle she gave in, winding her soft arms around the harshly bronzedhide of Grignr corded shoulder blades, as his calloused hands caressed her firm protruding busts.



Mike: One was of Shakespeare, the other of Beethoven.

"You make love well wench," Admitted Grignr



Tom: He may be a barbarian, but he's a silver-tongued devil.

as he reached for the vessel of potent wine

Crow [falsetto]: "At least the =wine='s potent." Tom [Grignr]: "Shut up! I swear this has never happened to me before!"

his charge had been quaffing. A flying foot



Mike: --of blinding steel?

Tom: Must belong to Prince Namor.

caught the mug Grignr had taken hold of, sending its blood red contents sloshing over a flickering crescent;



Crow: I believe it's spelled "croissant".

leashing tongues of bright orange flame to the foot trodden floor.



Mike: Thanks for clearing that up. I thought maybe everyone was going around walking on their hands.

"Remove yourself Sirrah, the wench belongs to me;" Blabbered a drunken soldier, too far consumed by the influences of his virile brew to



Crow: --write a coherent story. His name? Jim Theis.

take note of the superior size of his adversary. Grignr lithly bounded from the startled female, his face lit up to an ashen red ferocity, and eyes locked in a searing feral blaze toward the swaying soldier. "To hell with you, braggard!" Bellowed the angered Ecordian,



Tom: --accompanied by a rather ticked-off Ermonica.

as he hefted his finely honed broad sword. The staggering soldier clumsily reached towards the pommel of his dangling sword, but before his hands ever touched the oaken hilt a silvered flash was slicing the heavy air.



Crow: Suddenly we're in Mexico City!

Tom: Huh?

Crow: You know, "heavy air"... all that smog and everything...? Oh, forget it.

Tom: Forgot it five minutes ago, buddy.

The thews of the savages lashing right arm bulged from the glistening bronzed hide as his blade bit deeply into the soldiers neck, loping off the confused head of his senseless tormentor. With a nauseating thud the severed oval



Crow: You mean his head?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

toppled to the floor, as the segregated torso



Mike: This story must take place back when torsos were "separate but equal."

of Grignr's bovine antagonist swayed, then collapsed in a pool of swirled crimson. In the confusion the soldier's fellows confronted Grignr with unsheathed cutlasses, directed toward the latters scowling make-up.



Tom: Grignr does tend to overdo it with the mascara.

"The slut



Crow: A slut? Where?

should have picked his quarry more carefully!" Roared the victor in a mocking baritone growl,



Mike: Funny, I pictured him as more of a mezzo-soprano.

as he wiped his dripping blade on the prostrate form, and returned it to its scabbard. "The fool should have shown more prudence,



Tom: --at this juncture.

however you shall rue your actions while rotting in the pits." Stated one of the sprawled soldier's comrades. Grignr's hand began to remove his blade from its leather housing, but retarded



Mike: Don't say anything. Too easy.

the motion in face of the blades waving before his face. "Dismiss your hand from the hilt, barbarbian, or you shall find a foot of steel



Mike: Blinding steel! It's a flying foot of blinding steel!

sheathed in your gizzard." Grignr weighed his



Tom: --manuscript, _Being and Nothingness_; oddly enough, it weighed exactly one kilogram.

position observing his plight, where-upon he took the soldier's advice as the only logical choice.



Mike: When I think of logic, I think of three names: Descartes; Spock; Grignr.

To attempt to hack his way



Crow: --into the Pentagon and download the launch codes?

from his present predicament could only warrant certain death.



All: Do it! Do it!

He was of no mind



Crow: Aw, come on, Mike!

Mike: I said no. Way too easy.

to bring upon his own demise if an alternate path presented itself. The will to necessitate his life forced him to yield to the superior force in hopes of a moment of carlessness later upon the part of his captors in which he could effect a more plausible means of escape.



Mike: This translator isn't taking any liberties with the original Latin, is he?

"You may steady your arms,



Tom: This is a bar! No one here can steady their arms!

Crow: Neither can you, Tom.

Tom: At least I have an excuse.

I will go without a struggle." "Your decision is a wise one,



Mike: When I think of wisdom, I think of three names: Solomon; Confucius; Grignr.

yet perhaps you would have been better off had you forced death,"



Crow: I know =we= would be.

the soldier's mouth wrinkled



Tom: He ought to use a moisturizer.

to a sadistic grin of knowing mirth as he prodded his prisoner on with his sword point. After an indiscriminate



Crow: Indiscriminate? Even the torsos are segregated around here!

period of marching through slinking alleyways and dim moonlighted streets the procession confronted a massive seraglio.



Mike: Never say "seraglio" again.

The palace area was surrounded by an iron grating, with a lush garden upon all sides. The group was admitted through the gilded gateway and Grignr was ledalong a stone pathway bordered by plush vegitation lustfully enhanced by the moon's shimmering rays.



Tom: When I get me a glimpse of that crabgrass, I get me a stirrin' in my loins somethin' awful.

Upon reaching the palace the group was granted entrance, and after several minutes of explanation,



Crow: It normally would've taken a couple seconds, but Jim Theis was doing the explaining.

led through several winding corridors to a richly draped chamber. Confronting the group was a short stocky man seated upona golden throne. Tapestries of richly draped regal blue silk covered all walls of the chamber, while the steps leading to the throne were plated with sparkling white ivory.



Tom: And I'll bet he was wearing a baby-seal-fur coat, too. Sheesh.

The man upon the throne had a naked wench seated at each of his arms,



Crow: That must be one fat wench!

Mike: She's just big-boned.

and a trusted advisor seated in back of him.



Tom: Who proceeded to bury a dagger between his shoulders.

At each cornwr of the chamber a guard stood at attention, with upraised pikes supported in their hands, golden chainmail adorning their torso's



Crow: Adorning their torso's what?

and barred helmets emitting scarlet plumes enshrouding their heads.



Tom: Sorry, that's me. I had the burrito combination plate for dinner.

The man rose from his throne to the dias



Mike: Cameron Dias?

surrounding it. His plush turquois robe dangled loosely from his chuncky frame. The soldiers surrounding Grignr fell to their knees with heads bowed to the stone masonry of the floor in fearful dignity



Mike: Nothing's quite as dignified as abject groveling.

to their sovereign, leige. "Explain the purpose of this intrusion upon my chateau!"



Tom: So this Gorzom is in the Loire Valley?

"Your sirenity, resplendent in noble grandeur, we have brought this yokel before you (the soldier gestured toward Grignr) for the redress or your all knowing wisdon in judgement regarding his fate."



Mike: I don't think I could've made it through that long tiring quote without that refreshing parenthetical aside.

"Down on your knees, lout, and pay proper homage to your sovereign!" commanded the pudgy noble of Grignr. "By the surly beard of Mrifk,



Tom: I'd =really= like to buy a vowel at this point.

Crow: Try buying about five.

Grignr kneels to no man!" scowled the massive barbarian. "You dare to deal this blasphemous act to me!



Mike: What're you talking about? I dealt you a red king and a pair of sevens!

You are indeed brave stranger, yet your valor smacks of foolishness." "I find you to be the only fool,



Tom: Well, you and anyone who actually paid money to see the Jerky Boys movie.

sitting upon your pompous throne, enhancing the rolling flabs of your belly in the midst of your elaborate luxuryand ..."



Crow: Yeah! Yeah! Down with the aristocracy! Power to the proletariat!

The soldier standing at Grignr's side smote him heavily in the face with the flat of his sword, cutting short the harsh words



Tom: That's how you make the words stop? Quick, someone find Jim Theis!

and knocking his battered helmet to the masonry with an echo-ing clang.



Tom: Umm... is there a "W", Pat?

Mike: No, no, no. It's a religious thing. Like Y-HW-H or G-D.

The paunchy noble's sagging round face flushed suddenly pale,



Crow: It flushed pale? Did it blanch red after that?

then pastily lit up to a lustrous cherry red radiance.



Crow: Hold me.

His lips trembled with malicious rage,



Tom: As opposed to good-natured rage.

while emitting a muffled sibilant gibberish.



Mike: "Mom, you just don't understand my generation's music!"

Tom: If anyone's an authority on gibberish, it's Jim Theis.

His sagging flabs rolled like a tub of upset jelly,



Crow: Delicious strawberry upset jelly!

then compressed as he sucked in his gut in an attempt to conceal his softness.



Mike: He got sick of people poking him in the stomach and asking when the rolls would be done.

The prince regained his statue,



Tom: Someone had ripped it off and sold it to the local museum.

then spoke to the soldiers surrounding Grignr, his face conforming to an ugly expression of sadistic humor. "Take this uncouth heathen to the vault of misery, and be sure that his agonies are long and drawn out



Crow: Make him read THE EYE OF ARGON!

before death can release him." "As you wish sire, your command shall be heeded immediately," answered the soldier on the right of Grignr



Tom: Unlike the soldier, Grignr is pro-choice.

as he stared into the barbarians seemingly unaffected face. The advisor seated in the back of the noble



Crow: In the back of the noble what?

slowly rose and advanced to the side of his master, motioning the wenches seated at his sides to remove themselves. He lowered his head and whispered to the noble.



Mike: "Psst! I didn't want to mention it in front of the prisoner, but your fly, sir--"

"Eminence, the punishment you have decreed will cause much misery to this scum, yet it will last only a short time, then release him to a land beyond the sufferings of the human body.



Crow: Where Ecordian and Simarian alike romp in the blissful light of harmony and friendship and everything is made of sweet, sweet chocolate.

Why not mellow him



Mike: Quite rightly!

in one of the subterranean vaults for a few days, then send him to life labor



Tom: It's not so bad as long as you get the epidural block.

in one of your buried mines. To one such as he, a life spent in the confinement of the stygian pits will be an infinitely more appropiate and lasting torture."



Mike: Or even worse, make him spend it on the "It's a Small World" ride.

Tom: You monster!

The noble cupped his drooping double chin in the folds of his briming palm, meditating for a moment



All: OM...

upon the rationality of the councilor's word's,



Tom: Well, looky here! You =can= express it as a simple fraction!

then raised his shaggy



Mike: "Zoiks, Scoob, let's get outta here!"

brown eyebrows and turned toward the advisor, eyes aglow.

Crow [falsetto]: "Oh, advisor, you're so cute!"

"...As always Agafnd,



Tom: I'm getting kinda low on cash. Just this once can you =give= me a vowel?

you speak with great wisdom. Your words ring of great knowledge concerning



Crow: "--swallows."

the nature of one such as he ," sayeth , the king.



Mike: Whoa! Where'd the phony Elizabethan English come from?

The noble turned toward the prisoner with a noticable shimmer reflecting in his frog-like eyes, and his lips contorting to a greasy grin.



Tom: "*burp* 'Nother Big Mac, please."

"I have decided to void my



Crow: "--bladder."

previous decree. The prisoner shall be removed to one of the palaces



Mike: Wow, what a change of heart!

underground vaults. There he shall stay until I have decided that he has sufficiently simmered, whereupon he is to be



Tom: "--served with croutons and freshly grated parmesan cheese."

allowed to spend the remainder of his days at labor in one of my mines."



Crow: That mine is mine!

Upon hearing this, Grignr realized that his fate would be far less merciful than death to one such as he, who is used to roaming the countryside at will. A life of confinement would be more than his body and mind could stand up to. This type of life would be immeasurably worse than death.



Tom: It would, however, be better than anything on the Warner Bros. network.

Mike: Not to mention far better than any Steve Miller Band record you'd care to name.

"I shall never understand the ways if your twisted civilization. I simply defend my honor and am condemned to life confinement, by a pig who sits on his royal ass



Mike: Grignr! Watch the language.

wooing whores, and knows nothing of the affairs of the land



Crow: Sure he does! Like, his chief advisor was caught fooling around with his wife's sister, and--

he imagines to rule!" Lectures Grignr ?



Mike: Don't ask me, you're the writer!

"Enough of this!



All: You said it!

Away with the slut



Crow: A slut? Where?

before I loose my control!" Seeing the peril of his position, Grignr searched for an opening. Crushing prudence to the sward,



Mike: I guess now she can't come out to play.

he plowed into the soldier at his left arm taking hold of his sword, and bounding to the dias



Tom: Was it a buenos dias?

supporting the prince



Mike: That's "the artist formerly known as the prince" to you, buddy.

before the startled guards could regain their composure. Agafnd leaped Grignr and his sire, but found a sword blade permeating the length of his ribs



Tom: "Why, what's this doing here? And here I spent all last week looking for it in the garage!"

before he could loosed his weapon. The councilor slumped to his knees as Grignr slid his crimsoned blade from Agfnd's rib cage.



Crow: He's losing vowels with each passing second!

The fat prince



Mike: I believe it's the =fresh= prince.

stood undulating in insurmountable fear before the edge of the fiery maned comet,



Tom: Suddenly it's science fiction!

his flabs of jellied blubber



Tom: Y'know, some jellied blubber and a kipper snack would sure hit the spot right about now.

pulsating to and fro in ripples of flowing terror. "Where is your wisdom and power now, your magjesty?" Growled Grignr. The prince went rigid as Grignr discerned him glazing



Mike: --a vase he'd been making for his ceramics class.

over his shoulder. He swlived to note the cause of the noble's attention,



Tom: --pausing first to take out his memo pad.

raised his sword over his head, and prepared to leash a vicious downward cleft, but fell short as the haft of a steel rimed pike clashed against his unguarded skull.



Crow: The pike was plaid, his skull was polka-dotted.

Then blackness and solitude. Silence enshrouding and ever peaceful reind supreme. "Before me, sirrah! Before me as always! Ha, Ha Ha, Haaaa...", nobly cackled.



Tom: Who?

Mike: Does it matter?

Tom: Nah, I guess not. Come on, let's go.

[1...2...3...4...5...6...]



Mike: [looks at camera] Oh, hi. We were just trying to figure out why of all the possible names Jim Theis could have picked for his protagonist, he chose "Grignr".



Tom: Maybe it's an anagram. "Grring"? "Ingrgr"? "Ggrrin?"



Crow: If you rearrange it just right you get an ethnic slur!



Mike: I don't think that's the answer, guys. I think he probably just threw a bunch of Scrabble pieces up in the air.



Tom: But somehow I just can't shake the image of Jim Theis, pounding his head against the desk in frustration--



Crow: I'd like to pound his head against the desk!



Tom: --trying to come up with the string of letters that would capture his greatest literary creation, and then, suddenly, in a flash of light, jumping up and crying, "Yes! I have Named him! Now and forever, the hero of my tale shall be called... GRIGNR!"



Crow: Nah. I think it's political.



Mike: Political?



Crow: Yeah, you know. Like Newt Grignr.

[Lights flash]



All: We've got STORY SIGN!

[6...5...4...3...2...1...]

-3-



Mike: He was bleeding from his palms and side.

as his mind gradually cleared of the cobwebs cluttering its inner recesses,



Crow: So =that= explains his behavior up till now.

yet the stygian cloud of charcoal ebony remained. An incompatible shield of blackness,



Tom: "No, no, no. This shield of blackness is for the Mac! We've got a PC!"

enhanced by the bleak abscense of sound. Grignr's muddled brain reeled from the shock of the blow he had recieved to the base of his skull. The events leading to his predicament were slow to filter back to him.



Crow: He tried to read the previous two chapters but that just made him more confused.

He dickered



Mike: I said watch the language!

with the notion that he was dead and had descended or sunk, however it may be,



Mike: You tell me, you're the writer! Now did he descend, or did he sink?

to the shadowed land beyond the the aperature



Tom: "At the f-stop you're usin' you'll be wantin' to keep that aperature open fer about an eighth of a second."

of the grave, but rejected this hypothesis



Mike: Grignr is a firm believer in the scientific method.

when his memory sifted back within his grips. This was not the land of the dead,



Crow: Thank God! Now there's still a hope that once Jim does kill him off the story'll finally be over.

it was something infinitely more precarious than anything the grave could offer. Death promised an infinity of peace,



Mike: Look, all we're saying is give death a chance.

not the finite misery of an inactive life of confined torture, forever concealed from the life bearing shafts of the beloved rising sun.



Tom: Grignr's Japanese? I thought he was Ecordian!

The orb that had been before taken for granted, yet now cherished above all else. To be forever refused further glimpses of the snow capped summits of the land of his birth, never again to witness the thrill of plundering unexplored lands beyond the crest of a bleeding horizon,



Mike: I--I feel his pain. [wipes away a tear]

Crow: I feel pain all right, but it's not his.

and perhaps worst of all the denial to ever again encompass the lustful excitement of caressing the naked curves of the body of a trim yound wench.



Tom: This is the part of the story Bob Packwood can really relate to.

This was indeed one of the buried chasms of Hell concealed within the inner depths of the palace's despised interior.



Mike: They keep Limbo in a closet up on the second floor.

A fearful ebony chamber devised to drive to the brinks of insanity the minds of the unfortunately condemned, through the inapt solitude of a limbo of listless dreary silence.



Crow: If you're trying to drive them insane, why not just make them read THE EYE OF ARGON? It'd be a lot quicker.

-3 1/2-



Tom: 3 1/2? What is this, hide and seek?

Mike: This edition seems to have omitted Chapter Pi.

A tightly rung elliptical circle



Crow: You mean an ellipse?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

or torches



Tom: Make up your mind! Is it an elliptical circle or is it torches?

cast their wavering shafts prancing morbidly



Mike: I'll never understand interpretive dance.

over the smooth surface of a rectangular, ridged alter. Expertly chisled forms of grotesque gargoyles graced the oblique rim protruberating



Tom: This must be before the reduction surgery.

the length of the grim orifice of death,



Mike: Never say "orifice" again.

staring forever ahead into nothingness in complete ignorance of the bloody rites enacted in their prescence. Brown flaking stains



Mike: --were collected by Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola.

decorated the golden surface of the ridge surrounding the alter, which banked to a small slit at the lower right hand corner of the altar.



Crow: The Temple of Jerusalem was described in less detail!

The slit stood above a crudely pounded pail which had several silver meshed chalices hanging at its sides. Dangling at the rimof golden mallet, the handle of which was engraved with images of twisted faces and groved at its far end with slots designed for a



Mike: --man, but made for a woman.

snug hand grip. The head of the mallet was slightly larger than



Tom: --the sun. Man, was it big.

a clenched fist and shaped into a smooth oval mass. Encircling the marble altar was a congregation of



Tom: --kids from Brooklyn, circa 1951.

Mike: I'll trade ya two catseyes for yer shooter!

leering shamen. Eerie chants of a bygone age, originating unknown eons before the memory of man,



Crow: Sorta like Strom Thurmond.

were being uttered from the buried recesses of the acolytes' deep lings.



Mike: I'd rather not hear about their lings, thank you very much.

Orange paint was smeared in generous globules over the tops of thw Priests' wrinkled shaven scalps,



Tom: They must be going for the Michael Stipe look.

while golden rings projected from the lobes of their pink ears. Ornate robes of lusciour purple satin enclosed their bulging torsos, attached around their waists with silvered silk lashes



Crow: Their torsos are attached to their waists with =silk=?

latched with ebony buckles in the shape of morose mis-shaped skulls. Dangling around their necks were



Tom: --albatrosses.

oval fashoned medalions held by thin gold chains, featuring in their centers blood red rubys which resembled crimson fetish eyeballs.



Mike: They'd run out of Visine and kept forgetting to put it on the list when they went to the drugstore.

Cushoning their bare feet were plush red felt slippers with pointed golden spikes projecting from their tips.



Crow: They look like pumps, but feel like sneakers.

Situated in front of the altar, and directly adjacent to the copper pail was a massive jade idol; a misshaped, hideous bust



Mike: My Aunt Ethel had one of those.

of the shamens' pagan diety. The shimmering green idol was placed in a sitting posture on an ornately carved golden throne raised upon a round, dvory plated dias;



Crow: I think we've run out of dias jokes.

it bulging arms and webbed hands resting on the padded arms of the seat. Its head was entwined in golden snake-like coils hanging over its oblong ears, which tappered off to thin hollow points. Its nose was a bulging triangular mass,



Tom: --and it made a little money on the side endorsing American Express travelers' checks.

sunken in at its sides with tow gaping nostrils. Dramatic beneath the nostrils was a twisted, shaggy lipped mouth, giving the impression of a slovering sadistic grimace.



Mike: It also does a great Nicholson.

Tom: "You can't handle the truth!"

At the foot of the heathen diety a slender, pale faced female, naked but for a golden, jeweled harness enshrouding her huge outcropping breasts,



Crow: She's really protruberating!

Tom [muttering]: I thought he just said she was slender...

supporting long silver laces which extended to her thigh, stood before the pearl white field with noticable shivers traveling up and down the length of her exquisitely molded body.



Mike: She was covered with furry green patches.

Her delicate lips trembled beneath soft narrow hands as she attemped to conceal herself from



Tom: --Clarence Thomas.

the piercing stare of the ambivalent idol. Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney, cycloptic face of the bloated diety.



Crow: It really starts retaining water around this time of month.

Gaping from its single obling socket was scintillating, many fauceted



Mike: Sorta like the sink in the boys' room of my old elementary school.

scarlet emerald,



Tom [singing]: Goooood-bye, scarlet emerald Tuesday!

Crow: He means a ruby, right?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

a brilliant gem



Crow [singing]: o/~ --is truly outrageous! Truly truly truly outrageous! o/~

Mike: The music's contagious.

seeming to possess a life all of its own.



Mike: However, in reality Disney owns a controlling share.

A priceless gleaming stone, capable of domineering the wealth of conquering empires...the eye of Argon.



Bots [singing]: o/~ It's the eye of the Argon, it's the thrill of the fight... o/~

Mike: Way to go, guys. Now we have to pay a royalty.

-4-



Crow: And apparently Jim Theis as well, or else he would've known to start wrapping it up.

When a person is deprived of the sun, moon, and stars, he looses all conception of time as he had previously understood it.



Tom: Looks like Jim hired the narrator from GLEN OR GLENDA for this chapter.

It seemed as if years had passed



Crow: --since the beginning of the story.

if time were being measured by terms of misery and mental anguish,



Tom: My watch must've stopped. It says it's only ten till inner torment but the clock says it's already half past major depressive episode.

yet he estimated that his stay had only been a few days in length.



Crow: How about in width and height?

He has slept three times and had been fed five times since his awakening in the crypt.



Tom: Or maybe he's been fed three times and slept five times. I always get those mixed up.

However, when the actions of the body are restricted its needs are also affected.



Mike: Here to explain is Channel Seven's own medical correspondent, Dr. Dean Edell.

The need for nourishmnet and slumber are directly proportional to the functions the body has performed,



Crow [Ross Perot]: "This chart here'll explain the whole thang!"

meaning that when free and active Grignr



Mike: If you want your Grignr to be free and active and have a shiny coat, feed him Purina Grignr Chow.

may become hungry every six hours and witness the desire for sleep



Crow: "What did you see when you turned the corner?"

Mike: "I saw the desire for sleep, being stabbed by its ex-husband."

Tom: "Objection, your honor! Counsel is leading the witness."

every fifteen hours, whereas in his present condition he may encounter the need for food every ten hours, and the want for rest every twenty hours.



Tom: On the other hand, he may encounter the need for food every 14.5 hours, and the want for rest every 17.2 hours. We don't really know. We're just kind of making these numbers up as we go along.

All methods he had before depended upon were extinct



Crow: Along with countless species of birds and insects every passing day. Please send your check or money order to the Wildlife Preservation Fund, PO Box--

in the dismal pit. Hence, he may have been imprisoned for ten minutes or ten years, he did not know,



Tom: But he was pretty sure it was one of those two.

resulting in a disheartened emotion deep within his being.



Mike: A little Prozac'll fix that right up.

Crow: I dunno, Mike. I think he has more issues than just these.

The food, if you can honor the moldering lumps of fetid mush to that extent,



Crow: Why not? We're calling this moldering lump of fetid mush a story.

was born to him by two guards who



Tom: --loved each other very very much, and then one day--

opened a portal at the top of his enclosure and shoved it to him in wooden bowls, retrieving the food and water bowels



All: Eww!

from his previous meal at the same time, after which they threw back the bolts on the iron latch and returned to



Mike: --the Blue Lagoon.

Crow: --Two Moon Junction.

Tom: Let's not wear out our Leonard Maltin guide here.

their other duties. Since deprived of



Mike: --love.

all other means of nourishment, Grignr was impelled to eat the tainted slop



Tom: What do you mean? It says "Fit for Institutional Use" right here on the box!

in order to ward off the paings of starvation,



Crow: Them paings of starvation kin be naisty, cain't they?

though as he stuffed it into his mouth with his filthy fingers



Mike [falsetto]: "Grignr, how many times have I told you to wash your hands before coming to the table!"

and struggled to force it down his throat, he imagined it was



Crow: --delicious capellini primavera!

that which had been spurned by the hounds



Mike: "You mean you won't *sniff* go to the prom with me?"

stationed at various segments of the palace. There was little in the baren vault that could occupy his body or mind.



Tom: And we're talking about someone who can get hours upon hours of amusement out of one of those magic eye puzzles.

He had paced out the length and width of the enclosure time and time again



Crow: "Damn! That wall's still there."

and tested every granite slab which consisted the walls of the prison in hopes of finding a hidden passage to freedom, all of which was to no avail other than to keep him busy



Mike: "Your teacher's sick today, but she left these worksheets for you..."

and distract his mind from wandering to thoughts of what he believed was his future.



Crow: But was actually someone else's.

Tom: Tycho's, maybe?

Mike: No, Tycho's futures are all green.

He had memorized the number of strides from one end to the other of the cell,



Tom: Two.

and knew the exact number of slabs which made up the bleak dungeon.



Tom: Four.

Numorous schemes



Tom: Three.

were introduced and alternately discarded in turn



Mike: "Gin!"

as they succored to unravel to him no means of escape which stood the slightest chance of sucess.



Crow: Tragically, he had overlooked the door.

Anguish continued to mount



Mike: Sinai!

Tom: Shut up.

as



Crow: --he realized he was still only on Chapter Four.

his means of occupation were rapidly exhausted.



Mike: They're automating down at the plant.

Suddenly without no tive,



Tom: "Blood, you ain't got no tive!"

he wasrouted from his contemplations as he detected a faint scratching sound at the end of the crypt opposite him.



Crow: "*sniff* Smells like lemons!"

The sound seemed to be caused by something trying to scrape away at the grantite blocks the floor of the enclosure consisted of, the sandy scratching of something like an animal's claws. Grignr gradually groped



Tom: --a 17-year-old Senate page.

his way to the other end of the vault carefully feeling his way along with his hands ahead of him. When a few inches from the wall, a loud, penetrating squeal,



Mike: Mariah Carey must be in there with him!

and the scampering of small padded feet



Tom: Hey, Mike, when you were little did you ever have those jammies with the padded feet?

Mike: Yeah. You'd wake up in the middle of the night up to your knees in sweat.

reverberated from the walls of the roughly hewn chamber. Grignr threw his hands up to shield his face,



Crow: He's a mobster?

and flung himself backwards upon his buttocks.



Crow: Whee! It's fun!

A fuzzy form bounded to his hairy chest, burying its talons in his flesh while gnashing toward his throat with its grinding white teeth;its sour, fetid breath scortching the sqirming barbarians dilating nostrils.



Mike: I'm guessing this is either some sort of rodent, or Barry Scheck.

Grignr grappled with the lashing flexor muscles of the repugnant body of a garganuan brownhided rat, striving to hold its razor teeth from his juicy jugular,



Tom: Actually, according to the label on the back it's only 10% real juice.

as its beady grey organs of sight



Crow: You mean its eyes?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

glazed into the flaring emeralds



Tom: Which could be any color, really.

of its prey. Taking hold of the rodent around its lean, growling stomach with both hands



Crow: Both hands? Is this thing a rat or a dachshund?

Grignr pried it from his crimson rent breast, removing small patches of flayed flesh from his chest in the motion between the squalid black claws of the starving beast.



Mike: It's a motion for a 14-day continuance.

Tom: Let's not continue this any more than we have to.

Holding the rodent at arms length, he cupped his righthand over its frothing face, contrcting his fingers into a vice-like fist over the quivering head. Retaining his grips on the rat, grignr flexed his outstretched arms while slowly twisting his right hand clockwise and his left hand counter clockwise motion.



Crow: I'm confused. Does that mean this is taking place in the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere?

The rodent let out a tortured squall,



Tom: Grignr hadn't heard such a tortured squall since the Alanis Morissette concert.

drawing scarlet as it violently dug its foam flecked fangs into the barbarians sweating palm, causing his face to contort to an ugly grimace



Mike: Oh, he always looks like that.

as he cursed beneath his braeth.



Crow: Just like we've been doing throughout this entire story.

With a loud crack the rodents head



Mike: --cleared the left-field wall and landed in the upper deck!

parted from its squirming torso, sending out a sprinking shower



Tom: Just a sprinkle a day helps keep Grignr away!

of crimson gore,



Mike: --Albert's cousin from Massachusetts.

and trailing a slimy string of disjointed



Crow: --prose?

vertebrae, snapped trachea, esophagus, and jugular, disjointed hyoid bone, morose purpled stretched hide, and blood seared muscles.



Tom: I see Jim took Anatomy 105 last semester.

Flinging the broken body to the floor, Grignr shook his blood streaked hands and wiped them against his thigh until dry,



Mike: But then his thigh was wet, so he wiped it on his hands and was right back where he started.

then wiped the blood that had showered his face and from his eyes. Again sitting himself upon the jagged floor, he prepared to once more revamp his



Crow: --kitchen. We'll put in some nice enamel cabinets, and tear out all this linoleum, and--

glum meditations. He told himself that as long as he still breathed the gust of life through his lungs, hope was not lost;



Mike: But if he breathed it through his spleen he was pretty much done for.

he told himself this, but found it hard to comprehend



Crow: Much like this story.

in his gloomy surroundings. Yet he was still alive,



Tom: Just like Eddie Vedder!

his bulging sinews at their peak of marvel, his struggling mind



Mike: We'll just let this one go, okay, guys?

floating in a miral of



Crow: --delicious bouillon.

impressed excellence of thought.



Tom: Somehow, I find this =really= hard to believe.

Plot after plot sifted through his mind



Crow: Unfortunately, the same can't be said of Jim Theis.

Tom: Maybe Grignr should have written the story.

in energetic contemplations. Then it hit him.



Mike: "Ow!"

Minutes may have passed in silent thought or days,



Tom: Or maybe weeks, or months, or years...

he could not tell,



Mike: Aw, come on, you can tell =me=.

but he stumbled at last upon a plan that he considered as holding a slight margin of plausibility.



Crow: Unlike this story.

He might die in the attempt, but he knew he would not submit without a final bloody struggle.



Tom: Oh, good. Another bloody struggle. I've been waiting for another bloody struggle.

It was not a foolproof plan,



Mike: --the part about getting a helicopter being particularly problematic.

yet it built up a store



Tom: Oh, that reminds me! Have you seen the new Wal-Mart they're building down by the post office?

of renewed vortexed energy in his overwroughtsoul,



Crow: "Overwroughtsoul"... that sounds familiar. I want to say Orson Scott Card for some reason.

though he might perish in the execution



Mike: Someone usually does perish in an execution.

of the escape, he would still be escaping the life of infinite torture in store forhim. Either way he would still cheat the gloating prince of the succored revenge his sadistic mind craved so dearly.



Tom: But it wouldn't cheat him of the pickles and ice cream he craved even more dearly.

The guards would soon come to bear him off to the prince's buried mines of dread,



Crow: Why would they want to dig for dread?

giving him the sought after opportunity to execute his newly formulated plan.



Mike: Maybe he should consider a new career as an executive.

Groping



Tom: --a 17-year-old Senate page.

his way along the rough floor Grignr finally found his tool



Crow: Eww!

in a pool of congealed gore;



Mike: --Albert's cousin from South Carolina.

the carcass of the decapitated rodent; the tool that the very filth he had been sentenced too, spawned.



Tom: Jim, do you really think you're ready for the semicolon? Maybe when you're older.

When the time came for action he would have to be prepared, so he set himself to rending the sticky hulk



Mike: Can he do that without Peter David's permission?

in grim silence, searching by the touch of his fingertips for the lever to freedom.



Crow: You mean all this time he could've just pulled a lever? Noooo!

Tom: Let's take a hint from Grignr and get out of here, guys.

[1...2...3...4...5...6...]



Crow: I think I've finally figured out how this Jim Theis guy thinks.



Tom: Jim Theis =thinks=?



Crow: Sure. You just have to get yourself into a certain frame of mind. Here, you say something, and I'll say it like Jim would say it.



Tom: Umm... "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation."



Crow: Easy. "Four, or maybe five, it cannot be told, scorr and also sevn revolutions around the red orb of heat, those warrors who bought us life to us and belong to us and also upon this sward, a land less ancient than the moulderng corpse starng blindly at Grignr."



Mike: Wow! That was really something! Try this: "I have a dream that one day my four little children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."



Crow: No problem. "As Grignr sleeping, morbid notions prnacing morbidly into his oval. `The reddish orb of heat beng in the crimson sky.' Stated the terrible fetid nightmar. And his ofspring of four -- or maybe forty, however it may be -- will hav the dark morbid hand of blood juridicating over all of Ecordia. `Not red! Not reddish! not crimson! Not rose red! Not blood red!' Sayeth Dsipk the judge. But by the fetid entrails will the small rodents be accontd."

[Gypsy enters.]

Gypsy: Hey, guys, whatcha doin'?

Tom: Gypsy, say something!

Gypsy: What should I say?

Mike: Anything! Whatever pops into your head.

Gypsy: Richard Basehart!

Crow: "Possesed of many baubles, the Sward unyielding to grignr, less noble than a fetid dog! Organ of blood pumping."

Mike: That was just beautiful.

Tom: Now never, ever do it again.

[Lights flash]



All: We've got STORY SIGN!

[6...5...4...3...2...1...]



Crow: Beady organs of--

Tom: The moment's over, Crow.

-5-



Mike: He's got a mild case of Tourette's.

as he gave the female a grim stare accompanied by the wrinkling of his lips to a mirthful grin of delight.



Tom: He's the laughing-on-the-outside, crying-on-the-inside kind of shaman.

The girl burst



Crow: Eww!

into a slow steady whimper, stooping shakily to her knees and cringing woefully from the priest with both arms wound snake-like around the bulging jade jade shin



Mike: It's a Jade, Jade, Jade, Jade, Jade, Jade Shin!

rising before her scantily attired



Crow: How come you never find a damsel in distress wearing a parka?

figure. Her face was redly inflamed



Tom: It looked just like a big emerald.

from the salty flow of tears spouting from her glassy dilated eyeballs.



Mike: "Hmm. Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car."

With short, heavy footfals the priest approached the female, his piercing stare never wavering from her quivering young countenance. Halting before the terrified girl he projected his



Crow: --own neuroses onto her. It's textbook.

arm outward and motioned her to arise with an upward movement of his hand. the girl's whimpering increased slightly



Tom: After his discourse on Grignr's eating habits, I'm sure Jim's got a metronome tracking the girl's whimpering.

and she sunk closer to the floor rather than arising.



Crow: Aww, couldn't she do both?

The flickering torches outlined her trim build with a weird ornate glow as it cast a ghostly shadow dancing in horrid waves of splendor over smoothly worn whiteness of the marble hewn altar. The shaman's lips curled back farther, exposing



Tom: --his entire jaw and most of his sinuses.

a set of blackened, decaying molars



Mike: Maybe he should consider switching to a toothpaste with baking soda.

which transformed his slovenly grin into a wide greasy arc of sadistic mirth



Crow: This guy is the happiest sadist I've ever met.

Tom: Mike, is it okay if I hit him?

Mike: Only if you promise not to stop.

and alternately interposed into the female a strong sensation of stomach curdling nausea. "Have it as you will female;" gloated the enhanced priest as he bent over at the waist,



Mike: He considered bending halfway up his torso, but thought the better of it.

projecting his ape-like arms forward, and clasped the female's slender arms with his hairy round fists. With an inward surge of of his biceps he



Crow: --tried to improve his bustline, but it was no use.

harshly jerked the trembling girl to her feet and smothered her salty wet cheeks with the moldy touch of his decrepid, dull red lips.



Tom: They were like a pair of emeralds.

The vile stench of the Shaman's hot fetid breath over came the nauseated female with a deep soul searing sickness, causing her to wrench her head backwards and regurgitate a slimy, orange- white stream



Crow: She must've been eating an orange creamsicle before she was kidnapped.

of swelling gore



Mike: --Albert's cousin from Wyoming.

over the richly woven purple robe of the enthused acolyte.



Tom: He's enthused? He must've just disemboweled somebody.

The priest's lips trembled with a malicious rage as he removed his callous paws from the girl's arms and replaced them with



Crow: --brand-new top-of-the-line callous paws with a graphite core for extra power and stability.

tightly around her undulating neck, shaking her violently to and fro.



Mike: "Gimme your lunch money! C'mon! Gimme it!"

The girl gasped a tortured groan from her clamped lungs, her sea blue eyes bulging forth from damp sockets. Cocking her right foot backwards, she leashed it desperately outwards with the strength of a demon possessed,



Tom: A demon possessed by... another demon, I guess.

lodging her sandled foot squarely between the shaman's testicles.



Crow: Too bad she didn't hit either of them, he might've let go.

The startled priest released his crushing grip, crimping his



Mike: --hair.

Tom: Isn't that always the way? The girls with curly hair are always trying to straighten it, and the ones with straight hair...

body over at the waist overlooking his recessed belly;



Crow: "Overlooking the scenic recessed belly, Priest's Waist Time-Share is an unbeatable investment opportunity!"

wide open in a deep chasim.



Mike: You mean like Casey Chasim?

Crow: "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the priest's crotch."

His face flushed to a rose red shade of crimson,



Tom: As always, Jim makes sure to delineate the various shades of crimson, vital to the plot as they are.

eyelids fluttering wide with eyeballs protruding blindly outwards from their sockets to their outmost perimeters, while his lips quivered wildly about allowing an agonized wallow to gust forth as his breath billowed from burning lungs.



Mike: Jim is now on his fourth page of describing the shaman's reaction to being kicked in the crotch.

His hands reached out clutching his urinary gland



Crow: I'm no anatomy expert, but isn't that up near his kidneys?

as his knees wobbled rapidly about for a few seconds then buckled, causing the ruptured shaman



Mike: Please don't rupture the shaman.

Tom: Thank you, Mr. Whipple.

to collapse in an egg huddled mass



Crow: You want your eggs scrambled, poached, over easy or sunny-side up?

Tom: Oh, I'll just take 'em in a huddled mass.

to the granite pavement, rolling helplessly about in his agony. The pathetic screeches of the shaman



Mike: --reminded the girl of the Alanis Morissette concert.

groveling in dejected misery upon the hand hewn granite laid pavement, worn smooth by countless hours of arduous sweat and toil, a welter of ichor oozing through his clenched hands,



Crow: This is now officially the longest kicked-in-the-crotch scene ever written.

attracted the purturbed attention of his comrades from their foetid



Tom: Now I get it! All the vowels from the characters' names are hiding in the adjectives.

ulations. The actions of this this rebellious wench bespoke the creedence



Mike: --Clearwater Revival.

of an unheard of sacrilige. Never before in a lost maze of untold eons



Crow: Which I'm sure Jim will now tell us about.

had a chosen one dared to demonstrate such blasphemy in the face of the cult's idolic diety. The girl cowered in unreasoning terror, helpless in the face of the emblazoned acolytes' rage; her orchid tusseled face smothered betwixt her bulging bosom



Crow: Wow! If I could do that I'd never leave the house!

Tom: Mike, I hate to bring this up again, but I'm confused. First he says she's "slender" with a "trim build", then she's got outcropping, bulging breasts. Which is it?

Mike: Picture a baseball bat with two canteloupes taped to it.

as she shut her curled lashed tightly hoping to open them and find herself awakening from a morbid nightmare.



Crow: I've been doing that for a while now but when I open them the story's still here.

yet the hand of destiny decreed her no such mercy,



Tom: You know, believe it or not, I'm actually beginning to miss Grignr.

the antagonized pack of leering shaman converging tensely upon her prostrate form were entangled all too lividly in the grim web of reality.



Mike: Jim's one of those glass-is-half-empty guys.

Shuddering from the clamy touch of the shaman as they grappled with her supple form, hands wrenching at her slender arms and legs in all directions,



Tom: See the accompanying vector diagram.

her bare body being molested in the midst of a labyrnth of orange smudges,



Crow: A little club soda'll get those out.

purpled satin, and mangled skulls, shadowed in an eerie crimson glow; her confused head reeled then clouded in a mist of enshrouding ebony as she lapsed beneath the protective sheet of unconsiousness to a land peach



Mike: It's just peachy!

and resign.



Crow: I'd like to resign from this story.

-6-



Crow: A slut? Where?

Your presence is requested in another far deeper hell hole."



Mike: At least there you know where you stand.

Tom: I hear folks lend a hand there, too.

Grignr slipped his right hand to his thigh, concealing a small opaque object beneath the folds of the g-string



Crow: The folds of his g-string?

Tom: I don't even want to think about that.

wrapped about his waist. Brine wells



Tom: Any relation to Dawn Wells?

swelled in Grignr's cold, jade squinting eyes, which grown accustomed to the gloom of the stygian pools of ebony engulfing him, were bedazzled and blinded



Mike: --and bewitched and bothered and bewildered.

by flickerering radiance cast forth by the second soldiers's resin torch. Tightly gripped in the second soldier's right hand, opposite the intermittent torch, was a large double edged axe, a long leather wound



Crow: A leather wound, huh? Must be an S&M thing.

Mike: Bad robot.

oaken handled transfixing the center of the weapon's iron head. Adorning the torso's of both of the sentries were thin yet sturdy hauberks, the breatplates of which were woven of tightly hemmed twines of reinforced silver braiding.



Tom: The attention to clothing and raw, unpolished prose put me in the mind of a Theodore Dreiser.

Mike: You're kidding, right?

Tom: Actually, yes.

Cupping the soldiers' feet were thick leather sandals, wound about their shins to two inches below their knees. Wrapped about their waists were wide satin girdles, with slender bladed poniards dangling loosely from them, the hilts of which featured scarlet encrusted gems.



Tom: Emeralds, no doubt.

Resting upon the manes of their heads, and reaching midway to their brows were smooth copper morions.



Crow: Morions for morons! How appropriate!

Spiraling the lower portion of the helmet were short, up-curved silver spikes, while a golden hump spired from the top of each basinet. Beneath their chins, wound around their necks, and draping their clad shoulders dangled regal purple satin cloaks, which flowed midway to the soldiers feet.



Mike: Now that the soldiers' clothes have been described in painstaking detail, we will now kill them off with no impact whatsoever on the plot.

Crow: There's a plot?

hand over hand, feet braced against the dank walls of the enclosure, huge Grignr



Tom: Funny, I always pictured him as being maybe five-one, five-two.

ascended from the moldering dephs of the forlorn abyss. His swelled limbs,



Mike: I hear he's off the steroids, actually.

stiff due to the boredom of



Crow: --the story.

a timeless inactivity, compounded by the musty atmosture and jagged granite protuberan against his body, craved for action. The opportunity now presenting itself served the purpose of oiling his rusty joints,



Tom: Suddenly he's the Tin Woodsman!

and honing his dulled senses. He braced himself,



Mike: He couldn't afford an professional orthodontist.

facing the second soldier. The sentry's stature was was wildly exaggerated



Crow: --by the author in a failed attempt to generate interest.

in the glare of the flickering cresset cuppex in his right fist. His eyes were wide open in a slightly slanted owlish glaze, enhanced in their sinister intensity by the hawk-bill curve of his nose andpale yellow pique of his cheeks. "Place your hands behind your back," said the second soldier



Mike: "Gotcha! I didn't say 'Simon says'!"

as he raised his ax over his right shoulder blade and cast it a wavering glance. "We must bind your wrists to parry any attempts at



Crow: "--anything interesting happening."

escape. Be sure to make the knot a stout one, Broig,



All: BROIG??

Tom: Who let Scooby-Doo in?

we wouldn't want our guest to take leave of our guidance."



Mike: They're school counselors gone bad!

Broig grasped Grignr's left wrist and reached for the barbarians's right wrist. Grignr wrenched his right arm free



Tom: --and threw it across the room.

and swilveled to face Broig, reach- beneath his loin cloth with his right hand.



Crow: There's no time for that now! You had all those hours in the dungeon to do that if that's what you wanted to do!

Mike: That does it. I'm taking away all your Green Day records.

The sentry grappled at his girdle



Tom: Now that he's "mature" he needs a little extra support.

for the sheathed dagger, but recoiled short of his intentions as Grignr's right arm swept to his gorge. The soldier went limp,



Crow: Like Grignr in the bar earlier.

Mike: You still remember that? That was three hundred pages ago!

his bobbing



Crow: --buzzard. Caw! Caw! Caw!

eyes rolling beneath fluttering eyelids, a deep welt across his spouting gullet.



Mike: "Jenny, I think we should report your parents."

Tom: It shouldn't hurt to be a kid.

Without lingering to observe the result of his efforts, Grignr dropped to his knees. The second soldier's axe cleft over Grignr's head in a blze of silvered ferocity, severing several scarlet



Tom: Say =that= five times fast!

locks from his scalp. Coming to rest in his fellow's stomach, the iron head crashed



Crow: "Oh, no! A head crash! Now I can't telnet to my other account!"

through mail and flesh with splintering force, spilling a pool of crimsoned entrails over the granite paving. Before the sentry could wrench his axe free from his comrade's carcass, he found Grignr's massive hands clasped about his throat,



Mike: "Oh, =that's= where they are! I was wondering where I'd left those."

choking the life from his clamped lungs. With a zealous grunt, the Ecordian flexed



Tom: Which is a very reasonable thing for an Ecordian to do.

his tightly corded biceps, forcing the grim faced soldier to one knee. The sentry plunged his right fist into Grignr's face, digging his grimy nails into the barbarians flesh.



Mike: Was this crucifixion symbolism really necessary?

Ejaculating



All: Eww!

a curse through rasping teeth, grignr surged the bulk of his weight foreard, bowling



Crow: --about a 185. Woulda been higher if he'd picked up that spare in the seventh frame.

the beseiged soldier over upon his back. The sentry's arms collapsed to his thigh, shuddering convulsively; his bulging eyes staring blindly



Tom: I've noticed that people do a lot of staring blindly in this story.

from a bloated ,cherry red face.



Mike: Red again. Jim must be a big Krzyzstof Kieslowski fan.

Crow: Gesundheit.

Rising to his feet, Grignr shook the bllod from his eyes, ruffling his surly red mane as a brush fire swaying to the nightime breeze.



Tom: Either that's a touching, poetic image or this story has finally driven me completely insane.

Stooping over the spr sprawled



Mike: Spit it out, Jim!

corpse of the first soldier, Grignr retrieved a small white object



Crow: Mmm -- a Pep-O-Mint Life Saver!

from a pool of congealing gore.



Mike: --Albert's cousin from West Virginia.

Snorting



Tom: --cocaine costs Grignr over a hundred thousand hard-earned dollars a year.

a gusty billow of mirth, he once more concealed th e tiny object beneath his loin cloth;



Crow: To join the other tiny object beneath his loincloth.

Mike: Crow!

the tediously honed pelvis bone of the broken rodent.



Mike: "Excuse me, sir, this rodent is broken."

Tom: "Do you have a receipt?"

Mike: "Uh, no, I don't."

Tom: "No refunds or exchanges without a receipt."

Returning his attention toward the second soldier, Grignr turned to the task of attiring his limbs.



Crow: While leaving his torso and pelvis completely naked.

To move about freely through the dim recesses of the castle would require the grotesque garb of



Mike: --Liberace!

its soldiery. Utilizing the silence and stealth aquired in the untamed climbs



Tom: Untamed =climbs=?

Mike: Must've been a lot of hills.

of his childhood, Grignr slink through twisting corridors, and winding stairways, lighting his way with the confisticated torch of his dispatched guardian. Knowing where his steps were leading to, Grignr meandered aimlessly



Crow: Like this story.

in search of an exit from



Crow: --the story.

the chateau's dim confines.



Tom: Back in the Loire Valley, I see.

The wild blood coarsing through his veins yearned for the undefiled freedom of the livid wilderness lands.



Mike: So he could defile them.

Coming upon a fork in the passage



Crow: I asked for chopsticks!

he treaked, voices accompanied by clinking footfalls discerned to his sensitive ears from the left corridor. Wishing to avoid contact, Grignr



Mike: --never felt comfortable with intimacy, dooming his relationships.

veered to the right passageway.



Crow: How did he know it was the right passageway?

If aquested as to the purpose of his presence,



Tom: I think we're all aquesting as to the purpose of our presence, don't you?

his barbarous accent would reveal his identity,



Mike: "We are Frensh! Whah do you think Ah have zis outRAGeous accent?"

being that his attire was not that of the castle's mercenary troops.



Crow: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I thought he just finished dressing himself like a soldier! Isn't even =Jim= paying attention?

In grim silence Grignr treaded down the dingily lit corridor; a stalking panther creeping warily along on padded feet.



Tom: --was several thousand miles away.

After an interminable period of



Crow: --reading, the story still wasn't over.

wandering through the dull corridors; no gaps to break the monotony of the



Crow: --story.

cold gray walls, Grignr espied a small winding stairway. Descending the flight of arced granite slabs to their posterior,



Mike: Never say "posterior" again.

Grignr was confronted by a short haalway



Tom: Suddenly the story's in Dutch?

leading to a tall arched wooden doorway. Halting before the teeming portal portal,



Crow: It's a portal, but it's not really a portal portal.

Grignr restes his shaggy head



Tom: Bless his shaggy little head.

sideways against the barrier. Detecting no sounds from within, he grasped the looped metel handle of the door; his arms surging with a tremendous effort of bulging muscles, yet the door would not budge. Retrieving his ax from where he had sheathed it



Mike: And where was that?

beneath his girdle,



Mike: Oh, okay. Thanks.

he hefted it in his mighty hands with an apiesed grunt, and wedging one of its blackened edges into the crack between the portal and its iron rimed sill. Bracing his sandaled right foot against the rougjly hewn wall, teeth tightly clenched, Grignr appilevered the oaken haft, employing it as a lever whereby to pry open the barrier. The leather wound hilt bending to its utmost limits of endurance, the massive portal swung open with a grating of snapped latch and rusty iron hinges.



Crow: This is so boring I can barely keep my organs of sight open.

Glancing about the dust swirled room in the gloomily dancing glare of his flickering cresset, Grignr eyed evidences



Tom: I see one evidence, two evidences, three evidences...

of the enclosure being nothing more than a forgotten storeroom. Miscellaneous articles required for the maintainance of a castle



Tom: Such as?

Mike: Oh, you've got your portcullis cleaner, chlorine for the moat...

were piled in disorganized heaps



Crow: Like the words of this story.

at infrequent intervals



Crow: Like the =punctuation= in this story!

toward the wall opposite the barbarian's piercing stare.



Mike: The way I see it, you've got two ways of staring. Either you've got a piercing stare, or you're staring blindly.

Tom: Yup.

Utilizing long, bounding strides, Grignr paced his way over to the mounds of supplies to discover if any articles of



Tom: --Confederation.

value were contained within their midst.



Crow: Trust me. There's nothing valuable in this story.

Detecting a faint clinking sound, Grignr sprawed to his left side with the speed of a striking cobra, landing harshly upon his back;



Mike: Just like a cobra!

torch and axe loudly clattering to the floor in a morass of sparks and flame.



Crow: Oh, good one, Grignr!

A elmwoven board leaped from collapsed flooring, clashing against the jagged flooring and spewing



All: Eww!

a shower of orange and yellow sparks over Grignr's startled face. Rising uneasily to his feet, the half stunned Ecordian



Mike: --launched into a peppy rendition of "Lady of Spain".

glared down at the grusome arm of death he had unwittingly sprung. "Mrifk!"



Tom: Okay, remind me. Was Mrifk a character, or a country, or--

Crow: I think it's just Jim's cat jumping on his typewriter.

If not for his keen auditory organs



Crow: You mean his ears?

Mike: Let's not jump to conclusions.

and lighting steeled reflexes, Grignr would have been groping



Tom: --a 17-year-old Senate page.

through the shadowed hell-pits of the Grim Reaper.



Mike: But after reading this story, I no longer fear the shadowed hell-pits of the Grim Reaper.

He had unknowingly stumbled upon an ancient,



Crow: --Mariner.

long forgotton booby trap; a mistake which would have stunted the perusal of longevity



Tom: That's that spinoff of Omni Magazine, right? I tried to peruse that once and the guy said, "You gonna buy that? This ain't a library!"

of one less agile. A mechanism, similar in type to that of a minature catapult



Mike: --except for the new passenger-side airbag and anti-lock brakes.

was concealed beneath two collapsable sections of granite flooring. The arm of the device was four feet long, boasting razor like cleats at regular intervals along its face with which it was to skewer



Crow: "Iss godda skewer inda belly!"

Tom: Thanks, Nell.

the luckless body of its would be victim. Grignr had stepped upon a concealed catch which relaesed a small metal latch beneath the two granite sections, causing them to fall inward, and thereby loose the spiked arm of death they precariously held in.



Mike: Thank you for describing the trap in painstaking detail now that it's failed to work and we no longer care about it.

Partially out of curiosity and partially out of an inordinate fear of



Tom: --commitment.

becoming a pincushion for a possible second trap, Grignr plunged his torch into the exposed gap in the



Crow: --plot.

floor. The floor of a second chamber stood out seven feet below the glare. Tossing his torch through the aperature, Grignr grasped the side of an adjoining tile, dropping down. Glancing about the room, Grignr discovered that he had decended into



Mike: --Al Capone's vault. Geraldo Rivera was there, holding an empty bottle and sobbing uncontrollably.

the palace's mausoleum. Rectangular stone crypts cluttered the floor at evenly placed intervals.



Tom: A meticulously organized clutter.

The tops of the enclosures were plated with thick layers of virgin gold,



Crow: As opposed to Tracey.

Mike: Yowtch! What was that for?

while the sides were plated with white ivory;



Tom: Isn't that redundant?

Mike: In this story, it could be chartreuse for all we know.

at one time sparkling, but now grown dingy through the passage of the rays of allencompassing mother time.



Crow: If it's 7 PM Pacific Daylight Time, what time is it in Allencompassing Mother Time?

Featured at the head of each sarcophagus in tarnished silver was



Mike: --Carol Channing, five nights only.

an expugnisively carved likeness of its rotting inhabitant.



Tom: Eww! That is pretty expugnisive.

A dingy



Crow: I guess Jim got tired of everything being fetid and decided to go with dingy instead.

atmosphere pervaded the air of the chamber; which sealed in



Mike: --freshness. Do not consume if seal is broken.

the enclosure for an unknown period



Tom: Come on, Jim, make something up!

had grown thick and stale.



Crow: Like the prose.

Intermingling with the curdled currents was the repugnant stench of slowly moldering flesh, creeping ever slowly but surely through minute cracks in



Crow: --the plot.

Mike: I don't think "minute" is the word to describe those, Crow.

the numerous vaults. Due to the embalming of the bodies, their flesh decayed at a much slower rate than is normal,



Tom: Imagine that!

yet the nauseous oder was none the less repellant. Towering over Grignr's head was



Mike: --a big question mark. He was confused.

the trap he released. The mechanism of the miniaturized catapolt was cluttered with mildew and cobwebs.



Crow: Luckily, he'd hidden some X-14 in the folds of his g-string.

Notwithstanding these relics of antiquity,



Mike: As opposed to brand-new relics.

Tom: Well, you know, the way computers get obsolete these days...

its efficiency remained unimpinged.



Crow: Unlike that of the prose.

To the right of the trap wound a short stairway through a recess in the ceiling; a concealed entrance leading to the mausoleum for which the catapult had obviously been erected as a silent, relentless guardian.



All: Obviously!

Climbing up the side of the device, Grignr set to the task of



Mike: --reorganizing his CD collection.

resetting its mechanism. In the e event that a search was organized, it



Crow: --would not keep going through the same three rooms over and over again like the last one.

would prove well to leave no evidence of his presence open to wandering eyes. Besides, it might even serve to dwindle the size of an opposing force.



Mike: It's not the size of the opposing force that counts, it's the technique.

Descending from his perch, Grignr



Tom: --flew around the cage for a while and then ate some gravel.

was startled by a faintly muffled scream of horrified desperation.

Crow [muffled]: "NOOO! You mean I have to read it ALL THE WAY THROUGH?"

His hair prickled yawkishly in disorganized clumps along his scalp.



Mike: He should try a new conditioner.

As a cold danced along the length of his spinal cord.



Tom: Time to break out the Robitussin.

No moral/mortal barrier,



Mike: That's the most awkward play on words I've ever seen.

human or otherwise,



Crow: Isn't that a White Zombie song?

Tom: No, you're thinking of "MORE Human THAN Otherwise".

was capable of arousing



Mike: Crow, keep your mouth shut.

the numbing sensation of fear



Tom: Or is that Novocain? I always get those two mixed up.

inside of Grignr's smoldering soul.



Mike: --it's too dark to read.

However, he was overwrought by the forces of the barbarians' instinctive fear of the supernatural.



Crow: Is this really the time for an anthropology lesson?

His mighty thews had always served to adequately conquer any tangible foe.,



Tom: He did that with his thews?

Mike: Sure. Didn't you see the Nike commercial with Spike Lee?

Crow: "It's the thews, right? Money's gotta be the thews!"

but the intangible was something distant and terrible. Dim horrifying tales



Tom: Like this one. The author is dim, and the prose is horrifying.

passed by word of mouth over glimmering camp fires and skins of wine



Crow: Any tale is worth hearing if there's wine involved! This message brought to you by the Booze Council.

had more than once served the purpose of chilling the



Mike: --champagne for a romantic candlelit dinner.

marrowed core of his sturdy limbed bones. Yet, the scream contained a strangely human quality, unlike that which Grignr imagined would come from the lungs of a demon or spirit,



Tom: Would a spirit have lungs? I thought lacking a body was a big part of being a spirit.

making Grignr take short nervous strides advancing to the sarcophagus from which the sound was issuing.



Mike: It was also issuing municipal bonds.

Clenching his teeth in an attempt to



Crow: --bite me.

Tom: Huh? I don't get it.

Crow: Nothing to get. I just wanted to say "bite me."

steel his jangled nerves, Grignr slid the engraved slab from the vault with a sharp rasp of grinding stone. Another long drawn cry of terror infested anguish met the barbarian,



Mike: Hello, barbarian. I'm terror-infested anguish.

scoring like



Tom: --Danny Elfman.

the shrill piping of a demented banshee;



Crow: Alanis Morissette.

piercing the inner fibres



Mike: Y'gotta eat yer oat bran if y'want t'git yer inner fibre.

of his superstitious brain with primitive dread dread and awe. Stooping over to espy the tomb's contents, the glittering Ecordians



Crow: I once saw Liberace playing a glittering Ecordian.

nostrills were singed by the scorching aroma of a moldering corpse, long shut up and fermenting;



Crow: "It don't smell so good but it gives ya one hell of a buzz!"

the same putrid scent which permeated the entire chamber, though multiplied to a much more concentrated dosage.



Tom: "All right! Y'did it! Now get me a balloon or a paper bag or something."

The shriveled, leathery packet of crumbling bones and dried flacking flesh



Mike: You mean Alan Cranston?

offered no resistance, but remained in a fixed position



Tom: I thought Einstein proved that was impossible.

of perpetual vigilance, watching over its dim abode from hollow gaping sockets.



Crow: If there's nothing in the sockets it isn't really watching, now is it?

Mike: Sure it is. It's staring blindly.

The tortured crys were not coming from the tomb but from some hidden depth below! Pulling the reaking corpse from its resting place, Grignr tossed it to the floor in a broken, mangled heap.



Tom: I get the feeling that Grignr did that not to find out where the cries were coming from so much as just 'cause it's fun throwing corpses around.

Upon one side of the crypt's bottom was attached a series of tiny hinges while running parallel along the opposite side of a convex railing like protruberance; laid so as to appear as a part of the interior surface of the sarcophagus. Raising the slab upon its bronze hinges, long removed from the gaze of human eyes, Grignr percieved a scene which caused his blood to smolder not unlike bubbling, molten lava.



Tom: But not really a whole lot like it, either.

Directly below him a whimpering female lay stretched upon a smooth surfaced marble altar.



Crow: I don't believe it! He tied the two subplots together!

Mike: I think we're all more than a little proud of our Jim right about now.

A pack of grasy faced



Mike: Grassy?

Tom: Greasy?

Crow: Knowing Jim, he probably meant to type "dingy".

shamen clustered around her in a tight circular formation.



Mike: "Blue-42! Blue-42! I want the defensive backs to blitz the QB; safeties, hang back and cover your receivers!"

Crouched over the girl was a tall, potbellied



Crow: --Vietnamese pig.

priest; his face dominated by a disgusting, open mouthed grimace of sadistic glee. Suspended from the acolyte's clenched right hand was a carven oval faced mallet, which he waved menacingly over the girl's shadowed face; an incoherent gibberish flowing from



Tom: --the pen of Jim Theis.

Mike: We already did that one, sort of.

his grinning, thick lipped mouth. In the face of the amorphos, broad breated female,



Crow: Amorphous? What, is she flowing all over the table?

Tom: At least Jim seems to have realized she can't be slender and voluptuous at the same time.

stretched out aluringly before his gaping eyes; the universal whim of nature filing a plea of despair

Crow [falsetto]: "Where do you want this plea of despair filed, sir?"

Mike: "Just put it under Miscellaneous for now and I'll get to it later."

inside of his white hot soul; Grignr acted in the only manner he could perceive.



Tom: He's a Method actor. Before the story started he'd been hanging out with professional barbarians for three months so he knew how a real barbarian would react.

Giving vent to a hoarse, throat rending battle cry,



Crow: "It's Clobberin' Time!"

Tom: "Avengers Assemble!"

Mike: Umm... "stop, evildoer"...? [awkward silence]

Crow: Mike, that was pathetic.

Mike: I am filled with shame.

Grignr plunged into the midst of the startled shamen; torch simmering in his left hand andax twirling in his right hand. A gaunt skull faced priest



Crow: Skeletor! Cool!

Tom: Now where are Beast-Man and Man-E-Faces?

standing at the far side



Mike: --was Gary Larson.

of the altar clutched desperately at his throat, coughing furiously in an attempt to



Tom: --get everyone's attention.

catch his breath. Lurching helplessly to and fro, the acolyte pitched



Mike: --a no-hitter for eight innings, but it was broken up by a bloop single with one out in the ninth.

headlong against the gleaming base of a massive jade idol. Writhing agonizedly against the hideous image, foam flecking his chalk white lips, the priest struggled helplessly - - - the victim of an epileptic siezure.



Crow: How convenient! I'm surprised Jim didn't go all out and go for spontaneous human combustion.

Mike: I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with using a serious medical condition as a cheap plot device.

Tom: Could be worse -- he could've had him collapse in a diabetic coma.

Startled by the barbarians stunning appearance,

Crow [falsetto]: "Why, Grignr! You're stunning! Are those new earrings?"

the chronic fit of their fellow, and the fear that Grignr might be the avantgarde



Tom: I don't think anyone is going to think Grignr is avant garde in any way, shape or form.

of a conquering force dedicated to



Mike: --truth, justice, and the Ecordian way.

the cause of destroying their degenerated cult,



Crow: "Get the fuel tanks!"

the saman momentarily lost their composure. Giving vent



Mike: I've noticed that people tend to give a lot of vent around here.

to heedless pandemonium, the priests fell easy prey to Grignr's sweeping arc of



Crow: --the covenant. Their faces melted.

crimsoned death and maiming distruction. The acolyte performing the sacrifice took a vicious blow to the stomach;



Mike: Then his manager jumped into the ring and they called the fight.

hands clutching vitals and severed spinal cord



Tom: If his spinal cord's been severed, how can he control his hands enough to clutch anything?

Mike: Don't question, just accept. It'll go faster.

as he sprawled over the altar. The disor anized



Crow: Today's episode has apparently =not= been brought to us by the letter "g".

priests lurched and staggered with split



Mike: --ends. Looks like no one in this story uses a good conditioner!

skulls, dismembered limbs, and spewing entrails before the enraged Ecordian's relentless onslaught. The howles of the maimed and dying reverberated against the walls of the tiny chamber; a chorus of hell frought despair; as the granite floor ran red with blood.



Tom: Hey, Jim, buddy, have you ever thought about maybe seeing a good therapist?

Mike: This is exactly the kind of thing Bob Dole was talking about.

The entire chamber was encompassed in the heat of raw savage butchery



Crow: Hmm... could Jim be a vegetarian?

as Grignr luxuriated in the grips of a primitive, beastly blood lust. Presently all went silenet save for the ebbing groans of the sinking shaman and Grignr's heaving breath accompanied by several gusty curses. The well had run dry.



Tom: I think the well ran dry for Jim long before he ever came up with this story.

No more lambs remained for the slaughter.



Mike: I guess this means another year of nightmares for Clarice Starling.

The rampaging stead of death having taken of Grignr for the moment, left the barbarian free to the exploitation of



Crow: --the workers! Down with the aristocracy! Power to the proletariat!

his other perusials. Towering over his head was the misshaped image of the cult's hideous diety - - - Argon.



Tom: Mike, what's an eight-letter word for "hideous diety"? The last five letters are A-R-G-O-N.

The fantastic size of the idol in consideration of its being of pure jade was enough to cause the senses of any man to stagger and reel, yet thus was not the case for the behemoth.



Tom: Philistine!

Mike: He doesn't know art, and he doesn't know what he likes either.

he had paid only casual notice to this incredible fact, while riviting the whole of his attention upon the jewel



Mike: Sure, ignore the beautiful craftsmanship and only think about what it's worth. This Grignr's a regular Cortez.

protruding from the idol's sole socket; its masterfully cut faucets



Crow: Must be a Price Pfister!

emitting blinding rays of hypnotising beauty.



Tom: I been hyp-mo-tized!

After all, a man cannot slink from a heavily guarded palace while burdened down by the intense bulk of a squatting statue,



Crow: But a woman can. Down with the patriarchy! Sisterhood is powerful!

providing of course that the idol can even be hefted, which in fact was beyond the reaches of Grignr's coarsing stamina.



Mike: Thus answering the timeless question, "Can God make a jade idol so heavy even Grignr can't lift it?"

On the other hand, the jewel, gigantic as it was, would not present a hinderence of any mean concern.



Crow: "And it's 100% genuine cubic zirconia, and it can be yours for only $29.95 if you call now!"

Tom: "Use Tootie!"

"Help me ... please ... I can make it well worth your while,"



Tom: This must be the slut the soldiers are always going on about.

pleaded a soft, anguish strewn voice wafting over Grignr's shoulders as he plucked the dull red emerald



Bots: He said it again! He said it again!

from its roots.



Crow: He took it from Kunta Kinte.

Turning, Grignr faced the female that had lured him into this blood bath, but whom had become all but forgotten in the heat of the battle.



Mike: And then he hacked her up in a sweeping arc of flashing death and maiming destruction.

"You"; ejaculated the Ecordian



All: Eww!

in a pleased tone.

Tom [falsetto]: "Is that a rat's pelvis in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

"I though that I had seen the last of you at the tavern,



Crow: It all comes together! This is obviously a work of exhaustive planning and foresight!

Tom: Yet somehow, that makes it even more pathetic than if he'd just knocked it off one night in a drunken stupor.

Mike: Me, I'm just glad to see her again. After her last appearance I care deeply about her as a character.

but verilly I was mistaken."



Mike: Grignr speaks in phony Elizabethan English too? I pictured him as more the "Grignr smash!" type.

Grignr advanced into the grips of the female's entrancing stare,



Crow: Mike, is this synesthesia?

Mike: No, it's just bad.

severing the golden chains that held her captive upon the altars highly polished



Tom: In another level of the dungeon they keep a chamber full of Pledge.

face of ornamental limestone. As Grignr lifted the girl from the altar, her arms wound dexterously about his neck; soft and smooth against his harsh exterior.



Mike: He's crusty on the outside, but he's a real softie once you get to know him.

"Art thou pleased that we have chanced to meet once again?"



Crow: Think that's what Divine Brown said to Hugh Grant when she saw him in court?

Grignr merely voiced an sighed grunt,



Tom: Now that's the Grignr we know and love!

returning the damsels embrace while he smothered her

Mike [falsetto]: "Grignr, honey, I'm getting mixed signals here!"

trim, delicate lips between the coarsing protrusions of his reeking maw.

Tom [falsetto]: "Griggy-poo, have you been eating those soft cheeses again?"

"Let us take leave of this retched



Crow: --story.

chamber." Stated Grignr as he placed the female upon her feet.



Crow: "Lemme see here... the ankle bone's connected to the shin bone... leg bone?... I knew I should've written this down!"

She swooned a moment, causing Grignr to giver her support



Mike: "Honey, whatever you decide, I'm behind you all the way."

then regained her stance. "Art thou able to find your way through the accursed passages of this castle? Mrifk!

Crow [falsetto]: "I thought we agreed that you'd stop cursing in front of the kids." Tom [Grignr]: "If you really loved me you'd quit trying to change me!"

Every one of the corridors of this damned place are identical."



Mike: Sorta like the Kids in the Hall.

Crow: What do you mean, Mike? There's... that one guy... Somebody McSomething...

"Aye; I was at one time a slave of prince Agaphim.

Mike [falsetto]: "But now I'm a waitress."

His clammy touch sent a sour swill



Tom: You mean Zima?

through my belly, but my efforts reaped a harvest. I gained the pig's liking whereby he allowed me the freedom of the palace.



Mike: Never say "whereby" again.

It was through this means that I eventually managed escape at the western gate. His trust found him with a dagger thrust his ribs," the wench stated whimsicoracally.



Crow: I'm feeling a little whimsicoracal myself.

"What were you doing at the tavern whence I discovered you?" asked Grignr



All: --whimsicoracally!

as he lifted the female through the opening into the mausoleum. "I had sought to lay

Tom [Grignr]: "That was obvious! Now tell me something I =don't= know."

low from the palace's guards as they conducted



Mike: "--the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra."

their search for me. The tavern was seldom frequented by the palace guards



Tom: But it was often frequented by this heavyset guy with curly hair, and every time he came in everyone would shout, "Norm!"

and my identity was unknown to the common soldiers. It was through the disturbance that you caused that the palace guards were attracted to the tavern. I was dragged away shortly after you were escorted to the palace."

Crow [Grignr]: "Oh, so now it's =my= fault! =I'm= the bad guy!"

"What are you called by female?"

Mike [falsetto]: "McGill, and I call myself Lil, but everyone knows me as Nancy."

"Carthena,



Bots: CARTHENA??

Mike: What's wrong with "Carthena"?

Tom: It's... it's... pronounceable!

daughter of Minkardos, Duke of Barwego, whose lands border along the northwestern fringes of Gorzom.



Crow: Is that in the panhandle?

I was paid as homage to Agaphim upon his thirty-eighth year,"



Tom: --on Broadway. He's been running almost as long as "Cats"!

husked the femme!



Crow: Gee, Jim, you don't have to shout.

"And I am called a barbarian!" Grunted Grignr in a disgusted tone!



Mike: Let's see here. So far he's killed every single person he's met while screaming like a maniac, crushed a rat with his bare hands, walked into a bar and thrown himself on the first woman he saw, and he smells like a public toilet. And they call him a barbarian!

"Aye! The ways of our civilization are in many ways warped and distorted,

Tom [Grignr]: "Save the cultural critique and let's get out of here."

but what is your calling," she queried,

Mike [Grignr]: "I teach the gospel doctrine class."

Crow: Is that religious humor, Mike?

Mike: Uh, yeah. LDS.

Tom: Good thing you didn't mock the Scientologists or we'd all be dead now.

bustily?



Crow: Is it possible to =say= something bustily?

Tom: Jim apparently had the same question.

Mike: I figure that if anyone can, Carthena can.

"Grignr of Ecordia." "Ah, I have heard vaguely of Ecordia. It is the hill country to the far east of the Noregolean Empire.



Crow: =Now= Jim bothers to tell us where Ecordia is!

Mike: And that answers your question about the untamed climbs, Tom!

I have also heard Agaphim curse your land more than once when his troops were routed in the unaccustomed mountains and gorges."

Tom [falsetto]: "And he was =really= pissed when Ecordia beat out Gorzom for the 2006 Winter Olympics!"

Sayeth she. "Aye. My people are not tarnished by petty luxuries and baubles.



Mike: "We walked to school in snow up to our hips! With no shoes! And we slept on the floor! With no pillows! And we ate bugs and sticks! And we liked it!"

Crow: I notice his culture's disdain for baubles didn't stop him from grabbing the first gemstone he could find.

They remain fierce and unconquerable



Tom: --and unsanitary.

in their native climes." After reaching the hidden panel at the head of the stairway, Grignr was at a loss in regard to its operation. His fiercest heaves were



Crow: --after some bad clams down at the Clam Shack. He was up all night!

as pebbles against



Mike: Bam-Bam?

burnished armour! Carthena depressed



Tom: Carthena's not the only one who's depressed.

a small symbol included within the elaborate design upon the panel



Mike: The batteries, on the other hand, were not included.

whereopen it slowly slid into a cleft in



Crow: --Michael Jackson's chin.

the wall. "How did you come to be the victim of those crazed shamen?" Quested Grignr



Tom: Suddenly he's going off on a quest? One adventure at a time, Grignr!

as he escorted Carthena through the piles of rummage on the left side of the trap. "By Agaphim's orders I was thrust into a secluded cell to await his passing of



Crow: "--gas."

Mike: Let's not get crude. It's almost over. I think.

sentence. By some means, the Priests of Argon acquired a set of keys to the cell.



Tom: Big mystery here. They said, "Hey, Agaphim, can we have the keys?"

They slew the guard placed over me and abducted me to the chamber in which you chanced to come upon the scozsctic



Mike: I never know how to pronounce these Slavic surnames.

sacrifice. Their hell-spawned cult demands a sacrifice once every three moons



Tom: Give or take a moon.

upon its full journey



Crow: Then they'll be waiting a while. There hasn't been a full Journey since Steve Perry left.

through the heavens. They were startled by your unannounced appearance



Mike: They thought he'd be appearing at the Laff Factory on the other side of town.

through the fear that you had been sent by Agaphim. The prince would surely have submitted them to the most ghastly of tortures



Crow: Insert joke about having to read THE EYE OF ARGON here.

if he had ever discovered their unfaithfulness to Sargon, his bastard diety.



Tom: You mean all the religious strife in Noregolia is about Argon vs. SARGON? One lousy LETTER?

Mike: That's the way these things usually go.

Crow: Religious fanatics aren't known for being too Swift.

Many of the partakers of the ritual were high nobles and high trustees of the inner palace; Agaphim's pittiless wrath would have been unparalled."



Crow: It would've been downright perpendiculared!

"They have no more to fear of Agaphim now!" Bellowed Grignr in a deep mirthful tome; a gleeful smirk upon his face. "I have seen that they were delivered from his vengence."



Tom: Say what you will about Grignr, you can't knock his keen sense of irony.

Engrossed by Carthena's graceful stride



Mike: There's just something in the way she moves that attracts Grignr like no other wench.

and conversation



Crow: He respects her mind! He's a sensitive 90's guy!

Mike: If you had Grignr's intellect you'd respect Charly Gordon's mind.

Grignr failed



Tom: --trig.

to take note of the footfalls rapidly approaching behind him. As he swung aside the arched portal linking the chamber with



Crow: --the Pamela Anderson Home Page.

the corridors beyond, a maddened, blood lusting screech reverberated from



Mike: --the nearby Alanis Morissette concert.

his ear drums. Seemingly utilizing the speed of thought, Grignr swiveled to face his unknown foe.



Tom: This being Grignr we're talking about, it took forty-five minutes.

With gaping eyes and widened jaws, Grignr raised his axe above his surly mein; but he was too late.



Crow: And that's it? The end? The sweet end at long last??

-7-



Crow: NOOOOO!!!

Tom: I think we can wait a few minutes for Chapter Seven. Let's go, guys.

[1...2...3...4...5...6...]



Gypsy: Why do you guys all look so sad?

