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hwangoWritten for this.
The earth shook as the latest explosion choked the sky with more toxic black ash. Clouds of strangling soot plunged the land into endless night. Things looked very dire indeed. And Wil had not yet eaten breakfast.
"Damn it," said Wil, "not again."
He surveyed the shattered landscape with a disapproving frown. Nothing looked even remotely familiar. After a moment's consideration, he began walking towards the tallest of the volcanoes. Shards of cooled lava crunched under his bare feet with every step. Why did this sort of thing never happen when he was wearing shoes?
It was not long before he came upon a small collection of dirty, tattered tents. At the edge of the camp cowered a group of dirty, terrified people. Cowering tallest among them was a man wearing a hat that practically screamed "High Priest."
"Thank the gods, you have come at last!" said the high priest with what sounded like sincere relief. "Ancient prophecy foretold of-"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure it did," interrupted Wil. "Look, I haven't had any coffee yet this morning, so I don't have a lot of patience for this sort of thing. A terrible evil grips the land, an ancient prophecy has foretold my coming, blah, blah, and so on. Am I right?"
"Indeed, O Chosen One! It is the –"
"Wait, stop right there. Call me 'O Chosen One' again and I'm turning right around and walking back home. Or at least back to that other volcano. Look, this isn't the first time that I've been called upon to save a world from destruction. In fact, you'd be amazed how often I've had to do this sort of thing. I've been catapulted through time, flung into alternate dimensions, and abducted by aliens of every color in the rainbow. It's gotten to the point that I don't really care about the details."
The high priest's mouth hung open as his brain tried to adjust to this deviation from his mental script. "Er…" he began, but then immediately trailed off into befuddled silence.
"Just give me my magic sword and point me towards the dragon's lair or the temple of the insane god or whatever it is so I can go home and we can both get back to our lives, okay?"
"But, Great Wheaton, it is no mere dragon, and it has been several months since one of the gods went insane! It is the orcs! They scour the very life from our lands with their every step!"
"Do they really?" Wil asked without a trace of genuine interest.
"They DO!" replied the high priest, blissfully under the delusion that someone was taking him seriously at last. "Our only hope lies in you slaying their leader, The Dread Scalzorc!"
"Fascinating. Wait, what did you say his name was?"
"The Dread Scalzorc!"
"Ah. That…might actually be important. Well, get on with it. I think it's about time for some magic weapons and armor."
"Uh, yes. We have woven for you this mantle of power." He gestured, and a terrified child edged forward a few steps and held up a hideous and unpleasantly familiar sweater. "Mystical visions have shown us that – "
"No."
"What?"
"I'm not wearing that."
"But, Great Wheaton! It will protect you from Scalzorc's dire magic! Without it, his very gaze will rip the blood from your veins and shatter your bones!"
"That seems unlikely," Wil replied. "Still, I suppose better safe than sorry. Fine, what else?"
"We have a noble steed to carry you into battle!" the priest said, and another frightened child led an animal out from behind one of the larger tents. Wil stared at it for a moment while everyone watched him expectantly.
"This is some sort of sick joke, right?" Wil said at last with desperate optimism.
"Not at all! The unicorn pegasus kitten embodies the very essence of goodness, innocence, and all that is right and beautiful in the world! Without it, Scalzorc's evil will crush your soul and drain away your courage before you are close enough to strike!"
Wil said nothing.
"His name is Flitwhisker!" said the priest, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence.
Wil did not trust himself to speak.
"Um…and, of course, your weapon," said the priest, waving urgently for the next child to step forth. This one seemed the most terrified of them all as he held out the weapon for Wil's consideration.
"It's a spear," said Wil.
"Indeed, Great Wheaton." The high priest carefully avoided looking him the eye.
"It looks…functional," said Wil.
"Indeed, Great Wheaton."
"What's the catch?" Wil asked.
"Ah…well. The thing is, we were going to give you a magical sword. It sang cheerful tunes which would ward off the despair that radiates from The Dread Scalzorc."
"Sounds abominable," said Wil. "However, I suspect that there's an important reason that I'm not getting it."
"Well…the truth is, this rather heroic-looking gentlemen came by a few days ago, and we sort of…um…mistook him for our prophesized savoir. So we gave him all of the magical weapons and armor we'd gathered."
"And?"
"His noble steed chased after a bird carrying a bit of colorful string, clipped its wing on an outcropping of rock, and crashed into a river of lava."
"I see."
"But we're quite certain that probably won't happen to you!"
"How very reassuring. I'd like some shoes, please."
"Um…we, in fact, had some shoes for you, Great Wheaton. But…ah…Flitwhisker used them to sharpen his claws."
The high priest was very fortunate that Wil was not yet holding his spear.
* * *
Riding a unicorn pegasus kitten was, unfortunately, pretty much exactly as pleasant as Wil expected it would be. He was also fairly sure that it would have been quicker to walk. And probably safer. And certainly less humiliating.
Eventually, however, he reached the encampment of the orcs. He landed Flitwhisker on a bit of jagged rock and gazed out upon the seething mass of monsters below. He sighed in resignation. It was time to call out his enemy, which never failed to make him feel ridiculous. On the other hand, whole new vistas of the ridiculous had recently been unveiled to him the in the form of the unicorn pegasus kitten. He'd have to redefine his scale for absurdity.
"Scalzorc! Scalzorc! Come forth and face me!" he shouted.
This immediately drew the attention of the entire camp. Several orcs howled in rage and shook their weapons, and a few enthusiastic individuals even hurled javelins and throwing axes at him, though all fell well short of their mark. Then a single roar, louder than all of the others combined, silenced them. The leader of the orcs stepped forward, each step of his heavy boots crashing like thunder in the sudden stillness. He reached the base of the cliff where Wil's unicorn pegasus kitten had landed and reached up to remove his massive horned helmet. He cast it aside, and Wil beheld the face of his enemy. It looked familiar.
"Scalzi."
"Wheaton."
"Look, I love a good joke as much as the next guy, but don't you think this is a bit much?" Wil said.
"Fool!" shouted Scalzorc, "Do you not see?! My power is absolute! I have finally wrought a story of such persuasive elegance that it has redefined the very nature of reality!"
"Seriously?"
"No," Scalzorc admitted. "Actually, the book I'm working on right now is about cheese."
"Good luck with that. So you're leader of a bunch of orcs because…?"
"Oh, this sort of thing happens to me all the time. Armies of terrible monsters snatch me away from my life and make me their champion. It can be quite tedious, really. I mean, you crush a few dozen human civilizations and eventually they all start to blur together. I must say this time is rather more…immersive than usual," Scalzorc said, tapping one of his pointed green ears.
"Yeah this is a bad one for me, too," said Wil.
"Not your first time either, then?"
"Heck no."
An awkward pause flourished. It was Scalzorc who finally broke the silence again.
"Wil, this may seem like a trivial detail when viewed against the entirety of our situation, but I just have to ask; what the hell are you sitting on?"
"This is my noble steed, Flitwhisker. His inherent awesomeness is protecting me from your aura of evil, or something like that," said Wil.
"Wil, even with an army of orcs standing behind me, I look at that thing and I find it hard to believe that I'm the evil one this time around."
"Sir, I'll ask you not speak ill of my heroic and virtuous unicorn pegasus kitten," Wil said, somehow contriving to do so with a straight face.
As this exchange had dragged on, the army of orcs had begun to mill about restlessly. This was far more talking than they were used to. Most of their experience with words consisted of phrases such as "let's fight!" or "please stop setting me on fire!" Scalzorc noted their grumbling and banged his great black ax against his shield a few times before shouting at them a bit. Then he turned back to Wil.
"I'm afraid it's about time I lead my evil minions into glorious battle. I don't suppose I could persuade you to stand aside?"
"Scalzi, come on. You know me better than that."
"Yeah. You know, somehow I always knew that this was how it would end between us," said Scalzorc.
"Well, duh," replied Wil.
They stared each other down for a moment before both of them started to laugh. Scalzorc looked like he was about to say something else, but Wil snapped Flitwhisker's reins and sent them diving off the cliff, his terrifying battle cry almost but not quite completely drowning out Flitwhisker's rather absurd yowling whinny. Scalzorc surged forward to meet them, his ax held high.
The sound of splintering wood echoed across the blasted landscape. A lone figure rose from the twisted heap of bodies. He looked down at his fallen foe who had once been his friend. A keen observer might have spotted a single tear of regret gathering in one of his eyes. For a long moment he stood in thoughtful silence. Then, his voice thick with conflicting emotions, he spoke.
"I'm totally going to put this in my blog."
The earth shook as the latest explosion choked the sky with more toxic black ash. Clouds of strangling soot plunged the land into endless night. Things looked very dire indeed. And Wil had not yet eaten breakfast.
"Damn it," said Wil, "not again."
He surveyed the shattered landscape with a disapproving frown. Nothing looked even remotely familiar. After a moment's consideration, he began walking towards the tallest of the volcanoes. Shards of cooled lava crunched under his bare feet with every step. Why did this sort of thing never happen when he was wearing shoes?
It was not long before he came upon a small collection of dirty, tattered tents. At the edge of the camp cowered a group of dirty, terrified people. Cowering tallest among them was a man wearing a hat that practically screamed "High Priest."
"Thank the gods, you have come at last!" said the high priest with what sounded like sincere relief. "Ancient prophecy foretold of-"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure it did," interrupted Wil. "Look, I haven't had any coffee yet this morning, so I don't have a lot of patience for this sort of thing. A terrible evil grips the land, an ancient prophecy has foretold my coming, blah, blah, and so on. Am I right?"
"Indeed, O Chosen One! It is the –"
"Wait, stop right there. Call me 'O Chosen One' again and I'm turning right around and walking back home. Or at least back to that other volcano. Look, this isn't the first time that I've been called upon to save a world from destruction. In fact, you'd be amazed how often I've had to do this sort of thing. I've been catapulted through time, flung into alternate dimensions, and abducted by aliens of every color in the rainbow. It's gotten to the point that I don't really care about the details."
The high priest's mouth hung open as his brain tried to adjust to this deviation from his mental script. "Er…" he began, but then immediately trailed off into befuddled silence.
"Just give me my magic sword and point me towards the dragon's lair or the temple of the insane god or whatever it is so I can go home and we can both get back to our lives, okay?"
"But, Great Wheaton, it is no mere dragon, and it has been several months since one of the gods went insane! It is the orcs! They scour the very life from our lands with their every step!"
"Do they really?" Wil asked without a trace of genuine interest.
"They DO!" replied the high priest, blissfully under the delusion that someone was taking him seriously at last. "Our only hope lies in you slaying their leader, The Dread Scalzorc!"
"Fascinating. Wait, what did you say his name was?"
"The Dread Scalzorc!"
"Ah. That…might actually be important. Well, get on with it. I think it's about time for some magic weapons and armor."
"Uh, yes. We have woven for you this mantle of power." He gestured, and a terrified child edged forward a few steps and held up a hideous and unpleasantly familiar sweater. "Mystical visions have shown us that – "
"No."
"What?"
"I'm not wearing that."
"But, Great Wheaton! It will protect you from Scalzorc's dire magic! Without it, his very gaze will rip the blood from your veins and shatter your bones!"
"That seems unlikely," Wil replied. "Still, I suppose better safe than sorry. Fine, what else?"
"We have a noble steed to carry you into battle!" the priest said, and another frightened child led an animal out from behind one of the larger tents. Wil stared at it for a moment while everyone watched him expectantly.
"This is some sort of sick joke, right?" Wil said at last with desperate optimism.
"Not at all! The unicorn pegasus kitten embodies the very essence of goodness, innocence, and all that is right and beautiful in the world! Without it, Scalzorc's evil will crush your soul and drain away your courage before you are close enough to strike!"
Wil said nothing.
"His name is Flitwhisker!" said the priest, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence.
Wil did not trust himself to speak.
"Um…and, of course, your weapon," said the priest, waving urgently for the next child to step forth. This one seemed the most terrified of them all as he held out the weapon for Wil's consideration.
"It's a spear," said Wil.
"Indeed, Great Wheaton." The high priest carefully avoided looking him the eye.
"It looks…functional," said Wil.
"Indeed, Great Wheaton."
"What's the catch?" Wil asked.
"Ah…well. The thing is, we were going to give you a magical sword. It sang cheerful tunes which would ward off the despair that radiates from The Dread Scalzorc."
"Sounds abominable," said Wil. "However, I suspect that there's an important reason that I'm not getting it."
"Well…the truth is, this rather heroic-looking gentlemen came by a few days ago, and we sort of…um…mistook him for our prophesized savoir. So we gave him all of the magical weapons and armor we'd gathered."
"And?"
"His noble steed chased after a bird carrying a bit of colorful string, clipped its wing on an outcropping of rock, and crashed into a river of lava."
"I see."
"But we're quite certain that probably won't happen to you!"
"How very reassuring. I'd like some shoes, please."
"Um…we, in fact, had some shoes for you, Great Wheaton. But…ah…Flitwhisker used them to sharpen his claws."
The high priest was very fortunate that Wil was not yet holding his spear.
* * *
Riding a unicorn pegasus kitten was, unfortunately, pretty much exactly as pleasant as Wil expected it would be. He was also fairly sure that it would have been quicker to walk. And probably safer. And certainly less humiliating.
Eventually, however, he reached the encampment of the orcs. He landed Flitwhisker on a bit of jagged rock and gazed out upon the seething mass of monsters below. He sighed in resignation. It was time to call out his enemy, which never failed to make him feel ridiculous. On the other hand, whole new vistas of the ridiculous had recently been unveiled to him the in the form of the unicorn pegasus kitten. He'd have to redefine his scale for absurdity.
"Scalzorc! Scalzorc! Come forth and face me!" he shouted.
This immediately drew the attention of the entire camp. Several orcs howled in rage and shook their weapons, and a few enthusiastic individuals even hurled javelins and throwing axes at him, though all fell well short of their mark. Then a single roar, louder than all of the others combined, silenced them. The leader of the orcs stepped forward, each step of his heavy boots crashing like thunder in the sudden stillness. He reached the base of the cliff where Wil's unicorn pegasus kitten had landed and reached up to remove his massive horned helmet. He cast it aside, and Wil beheld the face of his enemy. It looked familiar.
"Scalzi."
"Wheaton."
"Look, I love a good joke as much as the next guy, but don't you think this is a bit much?" Wil said.
"Fool!" shouted Scalzorc, "Do you not see?! My power is absolute! I have finally wrought a story of such persuasive elegance that it has redefined the very nature of reality!"
"Seriously?"
"No," Scalzorc admitted. "Actually, the book I'm working on right now is about cheese."
"Good luck with that. So you're leader of a bunch of orcs because…?"
"Oh, this sort of thing happens to me all the time. Armies of terrible monsters snatch me away from my life and make me their champion. It can be quite tedious, really. I mean, you crush a few dozen human civilizations and eventually they all start to blur together. I must say this time is rather more…immersive than usual," Scalzorc said, tapping one of his pointed green ears.
"Yeah this is a bad one for me, too," said Wil.
"Not your first time either, then?"
"Heck no."
An awkward pause flourished. It was Scalzorc who finally broke the silence again.
"Wil, this may seem like a trivial detail when viewed against the entirety of our situation, but I just have to ask; what the hell are you sitting on?"
"This is my noble steed, Flitwhisker. His inherent awesomeness is protecting me from your aura of evil, or something like that," said Wil.
"Wil, even with an army of orcs standing behind me, I look at that thing and I find it hard to believe that I'm the evil one this time around."
"Sir, I'll ask you not speak ill of my heroic and virtuous unicorn pegasus kitten," Wil said, somehow contriving to do so with a straight face.
As this exchange had dragged on, the army of orcs had begun to mill about restlessly. This was far more talking than they were used to. Most of their experience with words consisted of phrases such as "let's fight!" or "please stop setting me on fire!" Scalzorc noted their grumbling and banged his great black ax against his shield a few times before shouting at them a bit. Then he turned back to Wil.
"I'm afraid it's about time I lead my evil minions into glorious battle. I don't suppose I could persuade you to stand aside?"
"Scalzi, come on. You know me better than that."
"Yeah. You know, somehow I always knew that this was how it would end between us," said Scalzorc.
"Well, duh," replied Wil.
They stared each other down for a moment before both of them started to laugh. Scalzorc looked like he was about to say something else, but Wil snapped Flitwhisker's reins and sent them diving off the cliff, his terrifying battle cry almost but not quite completely drowning out Flitwhisker's rather absurd yowling whinny. Scalzorc surged forward to meet them, his ax held high.
The sound of splintering wood echoed across the blasted landscape. A lone figure rose from the twisted heap of bodies. He looked down at his fallen foe who had once been his friend. A keen observer might have spotted a single tear of regret gathering in one of his eyes. For a long moment he stood in thoughtful silence. Then, his voice thick with conflicting emotions, he spoke.
"I'm totally going to put this in my blog."
