ziggy3k

What do you get if you cross Wolverine and Ant Man?

Klingon herpes

If you gutted Roger Ebert, what would you find?

mad xylophone skills

* * *

King Tzaemaard lay at Grumblethump's feet. Lifeless. His skull crushed. Blood and gore was spattered across the dais and coated the ogre's still-clenched fists. But for the life of him, Grumblethump could not understand why this was so or how it came to be. Stunned and bewildered, he only knew that everything had gone terribly wrong. A suffocating vacuum of silence gave the moment even more severity. Then he heard a woman scream and reality slammed back in a whirlwind of activity.

The polished knight, who had been standing at the queen's side, was now holding two swords, one of which Tzaemaard had been prepared to give to Grumblethump, and with them both he was poised to strike. Likewise several other knights were storming the dais, weapons readied to kill. The onlooking crowd, which had only one moment before been praising the ogre, were now shrieking and scrambling in every direction and calling for his destruction. But all the witless ogre could do was look up, beyond the polished knight, to Isavol and her tear-filled expression of woe and horror. She was murmuring to herself. He could not hear her. The calamity had bred cacophony and chaos had taken root. He could only stand there, await his certain death and try to say, “Grumblethump so sorry. Grumblethump don't know.”

And then, as sword and spear and spit alike converged upon him, a flash of light filled his vision only to be replaced by that peaceful, rhythmically undulating, pastel void as he had experienced what seemed like a lifetime ago. And again a familiar sensation of weightlessness seized him and calm overcame him. Then soon, like it had before, sleep conquered his consciousness and he drifted into a dreamless torpor.

When next he woke, he found himself laying in the library of Isavol's tower. He immediately recognized the place and it brought a smile to his lips. It had all been a nightmare! No long journey. No mongrelmen. No dragon and no dead king. He was safe at home with his precious pretty witch. But then he heard a sob and it forced him to bolt upright. There he found Isavol weeping, a large volume of text splayed before her.

“What wrong, pretty witch?” He looked around curiously. The library was disheveled. Books and mystical accouterments were scattered everywhere. Then, when she looked up at him, her eyes a sea of tears, he realized it had been no dream. The king was dead and Grumblethump had killed him. “But... what happened? Why Grumblethump kill big king?” He could not stop his own tears from spilling down his cheeks.

She ran to him and leaped upon him, wrapping her arms around his neck and wailing as he had never guessed she could. “What horrible bastards!” she roared. “To craft such a wholesome creature for such insidious ends!”

“In-insid-....?” Grumblethump stammered.

“You're a weapon, ogre,” Tantrifax growled from behind. Grumblethump turned to face the satyr, Isavol still clinging to his torso. “The Dark Gods,” he explained pointing to the symbol on Grumblethump's chest, “made you. They forged you, or wove you like a lie.” The look in Tantrifax's eyes held contempt and rage. “They put a puppy's soul in a monster's flesh and dangled you out like bait for the Green Sorceress. But the puppy turned out to be a war dog.”

“Hush, Tantrifax!” Isavol demanded, releasing Grumblethump and turning to face the satyr. “It's not his fault. He did not ask to be made and he would never ask to be made for such a use.”

“No ogre ever asked to be an ogre. That still doesn't change what they are... in their hearts.”

Grumblethump groaned as the satyr's verbal blade sank into him. He stumbled back and fell upon his rump. “Big, dumb, nasty, bad, bad ogre!”

“Don't you dare say that, Tantrifax!” Isavol shrieked. “You know as much as I that his heart is pure! They made him just so!” Taking in a deep breath, she fought to calm herself. Then she turned to Grumblethump and reached out a hand to stroke his jaw. Smiling ever so softly to him, she said, “But even if they made it so, even if they made him so... beautiful... it does not change the fact that he is beautiful... and good... and noble... and my dearest friend.” Grumblethump looked up at her and tried to match her smile. “They killed Tzaemaard, not Grumblethump... not you, sweet creature.”

“Tell that to Prince Gathwain and the people of Firdraasmoth,” Tantrifax hissed and turned to look out the window. “Tell that to her.”

Grumblethump stood and stepped sideways to be able to see out the same window. And there, sitting atop a flowered hill just an acre from the tower, sat Pencimyss. Even from that distance, her glum, solemn grief was apparent. Though they were not visible, Grumblethump could see her tears. “No,” he hoarsely whispered. “No hurt baby girl.”

“She'll come to understand,” Isavol tried to explain. “She's confused... and rightly so. But rest assured, noble beast, she still loves you. That perhaps makes the pain all the greater. But it also makes the healing so much easier.”

“Grumblethump go to baby girl,” the ogre whined.

Isavol shook her head. “Not just yet. Let her sort out what I have already told her. Let her make sense of it for herself.”

“Then what... what Grumblethump do now?”

Isavol turned back to the table strewn with books. “That is precisely what I am trying to discover. The Dark Temple has won a major victory. One that outweighs the loss of a dragon. They have felled the great king and planted poison in the very heart Firdraasmoth. I fear the people will have lost confidence... lost faith. I won't lie to you. They believe you should be brought to pay with your life for the death of the King. And no words will dissuade them. They believe your end would be justice and would bring vigor back to their forces.”

“If dead Grumblethump help, then Grumblethump die,” the ogre nodded. “Good people can kill Grumblethump.”

“I know you'd give your life for them. And they would certainly take it believing they would get something from it. But this is an untruth. Such undeserved vengeance would do nothing but end one more life. The responsibility now lies with the Prince.” Grumblethump thought of the polished knight and realized now who he was. “He will need to lead his people back into the light and the strength it provides. I do not envy him that task.”

“And your task, m'lady?” Tantrifax interrupted. “Or should I say... our task?”

Isavol looked to the satyr and then to her books. “Our duty now,” she said, “is to find a place for Grumblethump; a place where the Dark Gods can't have him anymore and his countenance is not a threat. We must find for him a place where he can be free to be himself; a good and wholesome being who only wants to help.”

What two personalities would be the most dangerous for a schizophrenic dog?

Quantum Physical Fitness

What do you call XXL suckers?

Octopus spit

What's the most unsold candy outside of Transylvania?

Carp and a pancake

What will be the first website launched from the Martian Bio-Dome?

Legalized zombies

Who pooped in the microwave?

9 out of 10 epileptic prostitutes agree.

What brand of underwear does Cheney wear?

Godzilla on smack.

In rural regions of Alaska, what colloquial epithet is used for gay Eskimos?

Jumping Jack Flash

How would an Italian cliche say Bing, bang, boom?

Steven C. Schmucktater

* * *

As if a storm had erupted within the Great Hall, the thunderous applause and booming cheers of the attending populace stymied and bewildered the ogre until he was not quite sure what emotion they were expressing. Was this what human approval was like? Their brilliant eyes and beaming smiles were such an alien display to his eyes, as much as clapping was a never-before-seen act, and part of him believed the people of Firdraasmoth had gone mad. Indeed with such enthusiastic adoration as they had for their heroes coupled with the relief of surviving a dragon attack, Pencimyss, seated upon one, broad ogrynn shoulder, began to believe the same thing.

“They've lost their minds,” she murmured. Grumblethump looked up to her, unable to hear her words over the fanfare as they walked the aisle between human seas towards the king's vaulted throne. Realizing even ogrynn ears could not hear such low tones in the festive cacophony, she merely patted his scalp and teased his lengthy white topknot.

Tantrifax, seated upon the opposite shoulder (much to his chagrin), did manage to see her words via her lips and expression. As such, he smirked. “Aye, little one!” he shouted. “They're mad! They're crazed! They're enthralled! But more precisely, they've fallen in love!” He nodded down towards Grumblethump and chuckled. “So how do you feel, you great, big, thick-as-a-stone hero?”

“I-I-I... They... Feel good!” he bellowed, the bounce of his step matching his emotion. “Look! Pretty witch sits with big king!” His pair of living epaulets followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw as he did, seated beside King Tzaemaard, opposite the Queen, upon a chair of bronze, a bandaged but quite pleased Isavol.

Tantrifax laughed haughtily and slapped his knee. “What? You think she'd miss your day of honor? Give her some credit, ogre! She came back from death to be here!”

Grumblethump waved to Isavol and smiled so immensely his face began to ache. His gait began to bounce higher and higher so that the elf and satyr upon his broad shoulders feared they might fall. Each took hold of the other from around Grumblethump's trunk-like neck for balance as an acre of aisle passed swiftly below them. But Grumblethump could barely notice their plight as he strode eagerly toward the Green Sorceress and her approbatory eyes. Such was his love and admiration, the rest of the room and its hundreds if not thousands of people vanished.

“Whoah now, you monstrous puppy!” Tantrifax laughed as Pencimyss squealed with delight.

“Pretty witch white again! Look how pretty!”

“Yes, yes! That she is! But remember where we are and what you must do! Go to the king and bow before him! This is what they told you to do!” Tantrifax pleaded. “You'll have all the time in the world to smother your pretty witch with hugs after the celebration!”

It was then that a blast of horns broke their conversation and marked Grumblethump's arrival at the foot of the dais upon which sat the royalty of Firdraasmoth. Amid them he now noticed, standing beside the Queen, was a very bold-looking young man donning a suit of gleaming plate armor. The ogre, even amid this ostentatious display, could not keep his eyes off the very noble figure and his noticeably polished attire even as Tantrifax and Pencimyss hopped down from their perches and not even when King Tzaemaard began to speak. And, it seemed, the young man could not remove his eyes from the ogre, though one might describe it more as a glare.

“People of Firdraasmoth!” the regal lord announced. “The Gods of Creation have looked down upon us and found us worthy! As such, they have sent us a great and wonderful gift!” He paused for applause and then continued. “Carried in the arms of the great Green Sorceress,” he said motioning to Isavol, “wrapped in stony flesh and bearing cards from the fair folk of the Fey,” he looked to Pencimyss and Tantrifax, “this present from on high came as unexpectedly as watching a dragon fall from the sky!” Now the cheering came as a roar and the Great Hall seemed to quake under the reverberative stress. “But what else could we expect from our Gods? They deal in the unexpected now don't they?” The king laughed along with his people. “But unexpected or not, our gratitude can not be measured. We owe our kingdom... our homes... our very lives to this noble soul! Look to him now and give praise! Before you stands Grumblethump! Your champion!” The room erupted in applause and cheer yet again and again the voluminous room shook. Wincing slightly, Grumblethump turned towards the crowd with a weak, unsure smile. He couldn't quite fathom, even with such an obvious display, how long this tide of cheer would flow. Surely it would ebb and carry their tolerance back out to sea, leaving only the desolate beach of their hatred.

Gesturing for silence, the King stood from his throne bearing a brilliant smile. He looked to his right and from the side of the stage stepped a squire carrying a polished silver sword. The crowd gasped and a great many murmurs combined to form a strange hum. That was the sword of a Knight of Firdraasmoth. “Though I can't believe these words come from my own mouth, I now honestly, humbly and with great pleasure do say...” Grumblethump, still facing the crowd, seemed to sway slightly and those nearest to him looked back at him queerly. From Tantrifax's and Pencimyss's vantage they could see a very glazed look wash over the ogre's eyes. “Noble ogre, please step forward.”

Grumblethump turned back towards the dais and the king. This is when Isavol noticed the ogre's strange expression for herself. Whereas a moment before he had seemed jovial and splendidly humbled, he now seemed distant, remote and perhaps dazed. No, he seemed... vacant. She sat upright and looked to Tantrifax with curious eyes. The satyr could only shrug. Had the pressure of so much affection overcome him? Was he drunk? She sought out his mind with her own, as she had done from within the dragon's mouth. But to her bewilderment she discovered his mind was not as it had been then but more like the dragon's. And then, perhaps too late, she realized what was happening.

“No!” shrieked the Green Sorceress and all eyes turned to her. Even Tzaemaard turned away from the ritual to look to her as she hurled herself from her seat. And because of this, King Tzaemaard the Bull of Firdraasmoth never saw the ogre's terrible blow.

What happens in the Rogue Isles stays in the Rogue Isles.

What's the latest Hardy Boys mystery involving an amnesiac skateboarder?

12 if you count your nostrils.

What's left after you scramble condor eggs?

Specifically targeted

Why do the Libertarians keep trying?

Expensive pain

After the Apocalypse, what will the cockroaches have to play with?

a heaping helping of our hospitality

Before delving too deep into conversation, remember the player in all likelihood looks nothing like the scantly-clad super heroine you have been ogling.

What ploy do you use to get a girl into bed?

Mongolian Spellcheck Program

What was your favorite euphemism for self-abuse as a teenager?

Haggard and brutalized

What two things did Zeus hold in his hands?

Aqua Velva

What do you get if an egg comes out your butt?

Feet first

* * *

“Well of course she's in the dragon! It ate her! Run as fast as you like, you won't change that!”

Without looking back, Grumblethump barreled onwards towards the dead dragon and merely replied, “Pretty witch no eated!”

“What do you mean? We both saw it! I know it's hard but you'll have to come to grips with that sad fact!” The satyr jumped over a broken cart, keeping a close and rapid pace with the leaping ogre.

“No eated! Her stuck!”

“Stuck? What? Where? In its throat? Did it choke on her? Anyway, how do you know?”

“Pretty witch told Grumblethump! Said come hurry!” A bail of hay was hurled aside.

“Told you? When did she tell you? I never heard-”

“Pretty witch told Grumblethump here! In Grumblethump head!” the ogre insisted, even going so far as to give his skull a solid slap for emphasis.

“In your head? How-” Tantrifax slowed for a moment as he realized what was occurring. “Oh. Right. She's the bloody Green Sorceress.” Then the totality of the event slammed into his coherence. “She's alive! Hurry you dragon-slaying oaf! What are you waiting for?” His hooves were again thrumming a rapid patter upon the ground as he caught up with the bounding ogre.

It lay beyond the village, in a field normally enclosed by a fence not shattered by the tail of a dead dragon, where once cattle grazed until they were frightened into a stampede that carried them some great distance away. Though strangely steaming from some internal cauldron, it was but a heaping mound of scaled horror, utterly motionless as if it were a grotesque hill of some sort.

A cacophony of horse hooves alerted Tantrifax to the arrival of a great many horsemen behind them. “We have company,” he announced but Grumblethump was otherwise preoccupied.

With a solid thud he landed beside the dragon's head and he did so alone as no one else was quite as certain as he was that the dragon was truly deceased. Seizing either half of the monster's gargantuan jaws with either hand, Grumblethump groaned and grunted and very nearly roared as he fought to open the dragon's fanged orifice. Perhaps it was the ogre's own vehement vocalizations or perhaps it was the remaining uncertainty as to the dragon's demise, but the humans did naught but gawk until Tantrifax leaped to Grumblethump's aid and announced, “He felled the damned thing for you and still you stand idly by! Mind you, help your hero and savior! The Green Sorceress is alive!” With those bold words, many of the humans left their steeds, charged to the ogre's side and joined in the effort.

And so it was that man, ogre and satyr joined together to pry open the dragon's maw. Once opened and held apart, it was Grumblethump who shoved himself into its mouth and, after anxious anticipation and bated breath, slowly withdrew bearing his prized companion in his tender arms. She appeared otherworldly as she was swathed in steam as the water elementals incessantly doused her all but boiled, pink flesh. Flesh that was revealed by the lack of garment shredded and stripped from her body. The visceral imagery combined to create a scene in which Isavol, nude and covered in fluid like a newborn, was herself reborn into the world, as the bards would later tell, from the gullet of a dragon. And as the ogre fell upon his rump to nestle the sorceress in his lap, the horsemen and villagers who had gathered began to whisper, giving rise to the legend of the ogrynn champion of Firdraasmoth.

(Thanks a bunch... all y'all! Sorry to say I'll be gone for at least two weeks (I work offshore now) but I'll be writing/planning the next bit in between 12 hour/14 day shifts. And yes... you're talking to a guy who started playing D&D Basic when I was 7 back in 1981. My nerd points are innumerable... +110 apparently ;P)

* * *

From within the exceedingly warm, sickeningly noxious and perilously slick maw of the terrible dragon, Isavol could barely keep hold to one of its smaller fangs. And if that were not enough, the abruptly procured pike, crossed over one arm and under the other, proved a second physical dilemma. As it was a quintessential tool in her hastily derived plan, it was imperative she retain its possession. But just as if it had become sentient and opted for suicide, the thing seemed intent on falling from her makeshift grips and down into the dragon's gullet. Of course at first thought this idea seemed a feasible approach to injuring the beast. But further speculation suggested a single fiery breath would reduce its wooden shaft to ash, leaving its iron spear-axe head to provide little more than stomach discomfort to the winged monster. And that thought brought forth other even more gruesome concepts. What if it should belch? Would she be burnt to a cinder or would she survive long enough to suffer? And what of the trip down its esophagus? How long would that take and how much would it hurt? Sufficed to say, the Green Sorceress was having a less than comfortable experience inside a dragon's mouth but perhaps better than most others who had ever been in such a situation. She was still alive. And what's more, from this distance, her psychic contact with the deranged creature was both instantaneous and deep.

“The ogre. You must turn and go back for the ogre,” she told it, recalling Grumblethump's visage to her mind and merging it with that briefest of recollections just gathered by the dragon. As she had done when coaxing the dragon to turn on her at the tower, she imparted her will and modified its previously and mystically instilled anger, which was too strong to quell but easy enough to direct. Then a thought struck her and she added quiet fervently, “No fire! Bite him! Eat him! Gobble him up like that witch!”

From below, an ogre and a satyr stood side by side looking back up, both astonished and emotionally crushed. Their beloved leader and protector was, at that very moment, as far as they could tell, sliding down the dragon's throat. What would this mean for them? What would this mean for the war? For that matter, what would this mean to all the world? The bards told of Isavol having risen to become a champion of the gods of creation in the last war with the chaos gods some many years before either of her stricken minions were ever born. They say she fought dragon and demon alike as she counseled the kings and queens of Hyanthis. They say she was created especially by the gods themselves for just such a purpose; a demigod as it were. But somewhere up there she was being digested by a powerful flying serpent. That brought to Tantrifax's mind a song. It was an elven song written after the Battle of Groix when Isavol laid down a fog upon the invading mongrelmen which put them all to sleep. The satyr recalled one verse in particular for in that one verse it described her as a third sun upon the land, whose warmth and light are missed in her absence. Never before had that verse, which had long been one of his favorites, been so poignant. And so he believed he would sing that song in his heart always.

Then, just as his emotions were verging upon overwhelming him, the dragon turned back for the tall tower once again. The shock and imminence of its second approach shook him from his retrospection and returned his fear to the reality at hand. Arrows bounced from its scales and smoke billowed up from the torched castle walls as its wings spread wide for another terrible swoop.

“Here it comes again!” Tantrifax shouted, grabbing a dagger from his belt as if it might help.

Grumblethump, who knew nothing of bards' tales or elven choirs, could only drool and reply, “Yes, pretty witch.”

Unsure if he heard the ogre correctly, Tantrifax squawked, “What?”

The ogre did not respond. He merely stared up at the spiraling dragon. Then the ogre began to move. His shoulders twisted as did his waist. With his mighty hammer held in both hands, Grumblethump gathered his strength in his arms and tightened his grip as he lowered it to his side as if in preparation to strike upwards.

“What are you doing? We have to get out of here! That hammer's not going to hurt that thing! It just ate the blessed Green Sorceress! Are you listening to me?”

But Grumblethump was not. His sights were pinned to the swooping monster and his will was focused upon the hammer's heavy end and his ears were filled by Isavol's soft words somehow drifting into his thoughts. “Stand still, sweet creature. Ready your hammer.” The ogre nodded, apparently to himself, cementing Tantrifax's fear that he had lost his mind.

Looking to the would-be ogrynn hero and then to the now speeding dragon, the exceedingly frightened satyr began to ramble, “Very well. We'll join her in the hereafter. If that's what you want. I've lived a good many years already. I suppose it's been a good life. Sure. We'll just die in service to these humans... these humans that would just as well see you skewered and buried. Nothing? We're still going to die here then, eh? Alright. I think I'm ready. So you're going to give it one last swat before it devours you, right? That's very noble and brave. A bit cliché but brave... and noble.”

And then it was upon them. The sky was again filled by scale and claw and the stink of doom. Tantrifax hurled his dagger and as expected it bounced off and away from the dragon. It lowered its head and it fell from above as it had before, in a swooping arc to pick them from the roof of the tower. And just as before, it opened its fearsome jaws to reveal enormous, tusk-like fangs dripping with steaming saliva. But very much unlike before, there was something between the ivory stalactites and stalagmites of its cavernous mouth. It was a figure. A humanoid figure. A feminine humanoid figure. A feminine figure holding a pike!

“Strike now, sweet creature!”

With every bone, muscle and sinew in every portion of his gigantic body, Grumblethump swung his giant's hammer upwards at the gaping jaws just before him. A solid hit just upon its scaly chin! And such was the blow that a clap like that just before thunder booms resounded and the dragon's mouth slammed shut. A strange, muffled shriek like a thousand crows cawing from beneath a blanket sounded and the dragon reared its head as its body listed to one side. The weight of the hammer and velocity of the strike spun Grumblethump around but still he managed to see the thing careen away and over the battlements. Its wings still flapped, but they seemed to struggle and it flew ever so clumsily a moment longer before, just beyond the edge of the village, it fell most ungraciously and most rock-like from the air. A plume of dust arose and then came the somewhat quiet boom of its weight hitting the earth. Then there was naught but silence for what seemed an eternal moment.

Blinking away what he was certain was a dream, Tantrifax looked to the ogre. Both their mouths hung well open, but the satyr closed his in order to swallow his astonishment and ask quite honestly, “Did you just kill that dragon?”