Dozens of warriors from every part of Calradia waited inside the city of Nova Ichamur. Men-at-arms, knights errant, wealthy lords, and a few homeless persons were scattered throughout the sprawling city's towers, streets, and rooftops. Most stood in the city's central square.
Joe stood amongst this last group. It was hot, and crowded. Occasionally someone shoved somebody else. Every few minutes somebody got punched in the face, or kicked.
Somebody next to him said, "Butts." This was met with murmurs of agreement and giggles. Aside from this, and the occasional homosexual aside, most of the warriors present were silent. All eyes were on the beautiful woman standing upon the city's keep, the tallest building in sight. Her flame-red hair was silhouetted against a clear blue sky.
Joe groped himself.
Kesh cleared her throat, then spoke in a man's voice. Joe could barely hear her from down below. "Somebody go get the RoR guys, it's time for roll call." She looked at a piece of parchment, then shouted, "Holiday?!"
Someone a few feet away shouted up, "Here!"
"Dino_Penis?!"
A voice echoed back from across the city, "Here!"
"I'm_gay?!"
Everybody laughed. The whole city, in unison. Joe laughed with them--it never got old, and there was nothing Kesh could do to stop it. Every time roll call came around, he was verbally raped by Gay.
A naked guy beside Joe shouted up at Kesh, "Present!"
Kesh wiped away a few tears. The humiliation was starting to get to her. She returned to the roll call, though, calling out name after name until everyone had been signed up.
Joe's name had not been called.
His heart was beating like a war drum. His hands shook. He looked around wildly, sure that there would have been an extra spot for him. There was always an extra spot for FCC members. There was no way that Joe couldn't have been allowed in, unless someone else had joined the FCC.
Somebody... better than him.
Then Joe saw him, standing in the crowded square.
He was a handsome man. He carried a longbow--which no one used anymore because they were universally broken. A mighty erection was visibly pressed against his leather armor. Yes, Joe recognized this man back from the dead: The sWalker.
The sWalker had taken Joe's place in the roster. He deserved it. The most Joe could have hoped to contribute in the upcoming battle was launching horses off of the castle's walls into the ranks of the enemy, because for some reason he was a cavalryman. A level seventeen cavalryman, at that.
The SWalker, however, was a deadly archer--high-level. His arrows always struck home.
Joe knew what he had to do, though he loathed to do it.
He followed a crowd of warriors up the steps to the castle walls. Behind them remained the chosen few, who moved to the keep to arm themselves.
The crowd was weeping. Men cried and tore their hair. Joe pooped himself, but he didn't cry.
Somebody punched somebody else. There was no retaliatory strike.
They reached the wall. Joe looked out at the distant enemy camp.
Without warning, the crowd of unworthy warriors began flinging themselves off of the castle walls. There was only room for so many soldiers within. The rest had to go. They fell like rain to their deaths below.
The man in front of Joe hesitated, his tear-filled eyes staring down at pile of bodies below. "But I'm level thirty... I'm level thirty," He muttered, over and over.
Joe shoved him off. Swallowing his pride, he jumped too.
Joe was jerking off when someone knocked.
He jumped, surprised that someone would interrupt his happy-time. He hurried to hide the lotion and tissues under his bed, then gestured frantically at the horse on the other side of the room. She needed to make herself decent.
She looked at him. "Joe," she said, "I'm a horse. What the fuck are you asking of me?"
"Fuck you, you callous whore!"
"Alright then, I'll be in the corner." She returned to her usual spot. Her eyes unfocused, distracted by something only horses could see.
Joe opened the door, peeking his head out, hiding his still naked body behind it. To his surprise, he saw Kesh. "Hi Joe," she said.
"Oh, Kesh, good to see you." He opened the door all the way, revealing his physical beauty. He and Kesh were comfortable enough for this sort of thing.
Kesh shielded her eyes, murmured, "I should have expected that."
"How can I help you?" Joe hadn't meant for that to sound so sexy.
"I need you to watch my little Bambino for me. I need to run to EU to get some more troops and gold."
"Ah, the child. I'll keep him safe, coach."
Joe walked past Kesh, heading towards his friend's quarters. He knew that that's where he'd find the child. He'd played babysitter before--all of FCC had, at some point. It was fun, watching the Bambino. MURDERTRON hated it. Which makes sense, because MURDERTRON's a robot and robots don't usually do well with children, in Joe's experience. Everyone else enjoyed it in their own way.
He arrived at Kesh's quarters in good time. The door was kept unlocked, because the wee baby inside was too fucking stupid to open it. Dumbass.
Joe stepped in. A breeze from an open window graced his loins, slick with sweat. Sitting on the carpet in the middle of the room was the wee baby Bambino. All 150 pounds of diaper wearing, mustache-twirling, Italiano man-child. He was playing with a hunk of pepperoni, but looked up when Joe entered.
He struggled to form a coherent thought. "D-dad?"
"No. Shut up." Joe walked past the boy and sat himself on the bed and stared at the "Bambino".
Kesh had brought him home after a hard-fought battle. The retarded man-child was the leader of a group of conniving Frenchmen that was warring with FCC. Kesh had captured him--formerly known as Arowaine, with great ease, as he had found him idly strolling through the carnage of battle munching on a slice of pizza. According to Kesh, all he had to do was grab Arowaine by the hand and he just sorta followed him.
They had wanted to kill Arowaine. But Joe had suggested that they put him in a diaper and keep him in Kesh's room. Kesh was down, as was everyone else. They all decided to take turns watching him, each with their own reason. MURDERTRON was hard to guess at, what with his inhumanity. WITCHCRAFT used his babysitting time to teach Bambino spells. The dread Terrortops liked to scare little Bambino with his odd deformity. Joe harassed him. Kesh's motives were most likely sexual.
In a throwback to tradition, they renamed him "Bambino".
The child cast a skittish glance at Joe--this after having avoided his silent staring for so long. It was hilarious. This was why watching "Bambino" was so fun--the big baby was just so easy to fuck with. Joe smiled. "Hey, how about I read you a story?"
Bambino stared.
"Once upon a time--"
"Pictures?"
"What?" Joe said.
"P-pictures?" The little man-child made a gesture with his hands, as if opening a book. Joe noted the hairy knuckles.
Joe got it. "Oh, you want pictures with your story? Like a picture-book?"
The Frenchman nodded, his mustache bobbing. He was happy.
Joe laid back on the bed and pissed across the room, his urine arcing onto Arowaine's face. The guy swallowed a whole mouthful before noticing. He tried to crawl away, but there was no escape--Joe's stream chased him down without mercy, like a charging horseman falling upon a routing soldier.
He ran out of urine, and sat back up.
"Where's dad?" the piss-coated man on the ground wined.
Joe opened his mouth to give a sassy reply, but a sudden bang echoed in the corridor outside. It sounded like somebody dropped something, like a servant's tray. The Bambino looked started. Joe had an idea. He said, "Uh oh!"
Bambino-waine's attention snapped to Joe.
"Sounds like Keshy-daddy fell down the stairs!"
"NO!"
"HE DIED!"
"MIO PAPPA! NO!" He screamed. He cried. He rolled around in Joe's piss. He sobbed.
Kesh walked in, just then. He looked from the bawling Frenchman to Joe. Clearly smelled piss.
Joe smiled, and left.
On his way out, he leaned down, very close to the man-child. He whispered, "Don't be so mad."
Joe sat at the bar of a tavern inside the Jelbegi Castle. The other patrons, mostly soldiers bearing the heraldry of the FCC, avoided sitting near him. He was drunk, and in a dark mood. The Free Companies had lost every single one of their villages to an unholy alliance of Italians and homosexuals. Soon, these cruel invaders would begin attacking castles and cities. Cavalry was useless in castles and cities.
He was useless--powerless to stop the onslaught.
He swallowed the rest of his of Miller High Life. He threw the can over his shoulder, then reached into the dark, cardboard cavern of the half-empty thirty-pack on the counter and pulled out another beer.
The bartender, a fine Destrier, approached with some caution, a confused look on his dumb horse face. "My lord," he offered, "we have beer on tap if you'd like. We have lots of beer--you don't need to keep bringing your own."
Joe dribbled a mouthful of beer onto the counter. "Shut up."
"I-"
"Jesus, you don't even have hands. What the fuck are you doing back there?"
"You had the last bartender replaced, sir. Said you were more comfortable speaking with horses."
"Right you are." Joe sipped his beer, then turned in his seat and threw the can across the room. It exploded against a distant wall. He pulled a fresh one out of the box in front of him.
"Sir," the horse persisted, "Do you want to try one of our seasonal brews?"
Joe looked at the horse, silent. He drank from his can. The horse opened it's mouth to speak but Joe, still drinking, raised a finger. He drank at a slow, steady pace, his eyes locked on the horse's, until the can was empty, which took about five minutes. "Bartender," he declared, "This is the Champagne of Beers. The best brew in the world."
The animal didn't seem convinced, but nodded. "Right. Well, I guess you couldn't find a brew like it elsewhere. You could drink from one side of town to the other--do the whole village--and not find a thing like it..."
Joe wasn't listening. A voice echoed in his head, over and over. The whole village, the whole village, the whole village. He'd heard those words before, years ago...
In Vietnam.
Joe had been a rifleman--just another pair of boots. His platoon had been tasked with defending a little cluster of villages. A foolish assignment. He set up inside a hooch and waited. They sat there for hours, then days, waiting for the enemy was sure to come.
Then, one moonless night, the world reverberated with the crack of rifles and the screams of the dying. From his little house, Joe watched slivers of tracer fire stich themselves through the fabric of the night. Bullets hissed and cracked at super-sonic speeds around him, tearing through the dry lumber of the building he was in. After a few minutes the thing was ablaze, and Joe had to move--all this without firing a shot. He could only watch and run, helplessly, from fighting position to fighting position as they all were overrun by VC.
He got to his PL, in the heart of the surviving hamlet. The RTO was shouting grid coordinates into his handset. The PL looked at Joe, and at the wounded and dying around them all. He said to Joe, "Just run. We're dropping arty on us. We're gonna do the whole village if it means keeping it out of Charlie's hands."
Joe had ran, then.
A burst of clapping and laughter roused Joe from his flashback. He looked around the crowded tavern, which had broken into sudden applause. He was confused, some part of him still running through the dark jungles of south east Asia.
Joe grabbed at a passerby. "What the fuck's going on, sergeant?"
"Uh." The man swallowed, his eyes clearly recognizing Joe. "HoC is back apparently." The man shrugged. "Messenger came in and said so." He shrugged again, uncertain.
"Don't shrug at me boy, I was in the 'Nam."
"W-what?"
Joe stood, then peed himself. "I said," his voice rising, "VIETNAM!" He shoved past the man, cans of the Champagne of Beers clenched in each fist. He could hear the sound of gunfire and the scream of falling helicopters. Somebody--probably VC--stepped into his path.
Joe barked, then bit the man's face. He went down, hard, giving Joe room to leap out of the tavern and into the cool night air. He removed the rest of his clothing--finally free--and leapt onto the back of a passing horse. "TAKE ME TO CAMBODIA! WE NEED TO GET OUT!" he shouted. The animal leapt to his bidding, galloping towards the open castle gate and the safety of any place but there.
Joe threw an empty beer can. It flew, from where he sat in the castle's wall, across the courtyard. Not quite to the opposite wall. "HEY FUGGOTS," Joe screamed across the castle to his friends who were drinking on the other side, "IM DRUNK!"
MURDERTRON and WITCHCRAFT were drunk as fuck on the walls opposite from where Joe sat. "WERE DRUNK TOO!"
Joe smiled. He'd been pregaming getting drunk outside, of course. He'd gotten drunk in his friend's apartment, drinking Milwaukee Special Reserve Light, idly posting stupid role play posts on the forums of a free mod for a shitty game while he did so. He'd finished half the thirty pack before he'd started posting.
Joe, still smiling, jumped off the castle wall and plummeted to the earthen courtyard below. He broke his legs.
Joe's longship darted through the sea towards a milk-white shore, still some distance away. The Un-Nerfable barely trembled beneath Joe's feet, so perfectly calm was the water. The sky was a perfect blue, and the sun not yet too high to cause discomfort to Joe or his men. He thanked whatever gods there were for their assistance.
One of the oarsmen shouted out, "My lord! Is it yet time to strip?"
"No!" Joe turned around in his saddle to stare mightily into the man's eyes. "It is not naked time."
The man was struck by Joe's piercing gaze. He dry heaved, but managed to get out a strangled, "Yes, sir!"
"And call me by my proper title!"
He was crying now. Little lines of wet were appearing below his eyes. "I'm sorry, Dad!"
Joe bared his teeth at the man, asserting his dominance one final time before turning back around to face the rapidly approaching shore.
He pet Champion Courser. The proud beast stirred beneath him. "You shouldn't be so mean, my love."
"Shut up oh my god I hate you."
She sighed. "You're nervous."
That damn animal knew him so well. "You're right, you're right. It's just--so much depends on my success." He paused, suddenly mirthful, a pun on his mind, what with him being on horseback at the moment. "You could say that there's just too much riding on it...riding on me...too many we're riding on it much to the can't..." He'd lost the joke. His mind was drowning. He felt himself slipping away into some dark place. "...Much riding the joke can't joke.... No sergeant, can't do that...babies in the village..."
He hated this. Here he was, going back to Vietnam. "NOOOOOO! BABIES IN THE VILLAGE SERGEANT! NOT THE WHILLIE PEETE, WHAT WE YOU DOING!"
Something hit Joe's face. He blinked, his head suddenly clear. One of the men stood beside him, his face calm, an oar held high. "Should I hit you again, Dad?"
"That's quite alright." Joe dismissed the man with a little wave of his hand, then returned his attention to his horse-lover. "So much depends on our success. We need to find him, dammit."
"I know, love. Freedom is at steak." She corrected herself, "Stake."
It damn well was. He knew he was doing something treasonous--betraying Kesh and the current King of Acre. He had had to fund this whole venture himself, using his own ship and men. His own horses and food.
It had to be done. He'd known that from the start--from the moment he'd heard the whisper of a dying king. King Reinhardt, of Acre, one of FCC's many pitiful vassals, subject to an increasingly egomaniacal Kesh's unquestioned authority--Reinhardt had died. Joe saw it himself, one dark night. He'd been visint New Slezk castle, in the snowy north, on a routine inspection of Acre's cavalry forces. He despised the task--Acre shouldn't even be a vassal. Yet there he was, speaking with an officer in the stables when a messenger appeared, whisking the man away with a flurry of whispered lords. Joe followed, of course, his suspicions aroused. Remembering something he had learned from Gmnotutoo, mightiest of ninja warriors, Joe stripped himself down so as to be less encumbered. Naked, Joe had slipped past guards and servants alike, slithering snake-like on his belly through the castle. The spirit of the snake now fully in possession of him, Joe managed to slither up a tower wall and an open window, soundlessly infiltrating a secret meeting of the leaders of Acre.
None of the gathered knights and lords saw him. He wriggled naked across the floor, his balls flopping softly, under the dying King's bed. And then he heard it, amid a stream of incoherent babble. The name of an heir.
Joe slithered the fuck out of there. There was hope, now. He fled Slezk Castle in all hast, heading towards the nearest port, sending carrier pigeons in every direction at the first opportunity.
Joe was going to find Reinhardt's heir.
He was going to do it for Acre. The rightful king would not stand for this silly vassalage.
He was doing this for Kesh.
Kesh had grown too powerful. He had too many vassals and castles and soldiers. It was beginning to wear away at the man/woman's psyche, twisting Joe's friend into something terrible. Something dark, powerful, and terribly familiar to those with good memories.... Long ago, another man had been twisted by power, turning into a dark fiend of tyranny: Echo, of ATS. Joe shuddered at the thought of the name.
He would not let Kesh's brilliant mane of red hair be corrupted into a terrible neckbeard. The rightful king of Acre must return, fight for a free Acre, and strike a blow against FCC--to save it and it's leader from self-annihilation. Somewhere out here in the tropics was a man--or boy--by the name of Ronald McDonald, and Joe was going to find him.
"One way, or another," Joe whispered under his breath as his ship rammed against the shore, grinding to a slow halt in the sand, "I'm gonna find you. I'm gonna getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha."
Joe observed a scene of beauty, leaning out of the window of his room in the castle keep. The walls and towers of Nova Jelbegi castle were dusted with snow, and still more fell from a sky made silver by moonlight. Despite the hour, men and women roamed the streets below, buying and selling, their voices sending a steady murmur up to Joe from below. The sound reminded him of the ocean.
Joe put his head between his legs and sucked his own dick. The length of his cock made this maneuver easy.
After a few minutes of sucking his dick to no avail, he decided that he needed to cum, come hell or high water.
His dick was going down.
He ran to his dresser, flung the top drawer open, and slammed his dick in it. He was surprised by how much this hurt. He started to cry.
Now weeping, he ran from his room with his pants around his ankles. He ran down the stone stairs, falling on his face at the bottom. He wiped away his tears and, blubbering uncontrollably, kicked off his pants and regained his feet. He ran past Kesh's room, and out of the castle keep onto the streets below. People stared, awe-struck.
Joe sniffled. "I-I-I-I-I n-n-n-n-need my dick sucked." He stammered at the crowded city streets. Not knowing what else to do, he began to chant: "Dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks..."
A woman with a child cradled in her arms took up the chant. "Dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks..."
Then, the blacksmith. "Dicks! Dicks!"
A passing horse cried out in ecstasy, "DICKS! DIIIIIIIICKKKSS!"
The whole city was soon chanting in unison. All of Jelbegi was chanting "Dicks", and Joe was happy. They were all in agreement, then. He stopped chanting, but the crowd continued. He gestured towards the woman with the child, and she heeded his call, walking towards him as if in a trance. She got on her knees and, tossing the baby aside, started sucking Joe's dick, still garbling the wet chant of "Dicks!"
It felt good.
Then the blacksmith, then the horse, then the whole city surged toward Joe's penis. Everybody wanted a piece of the penis pie, and Joe was ready to serve it up baby, serve it up. Hundreds of tongues caressed his cock.
A man approached, then. He was not chanting. He wore the heraldry of FCC, though Joe couldn't recognize his face. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Dicks!" Joe frowned. "Sorry. I'm roleplaying, is what I meant to say. Come, suck my dick with me." He put his head between his legs, and joined the sucking crowd.
Joe's frenzied typing was suddenly interrupted by the bursting open of the door to his dorm room. His roommate stumbled in, completely naked, a little drunk and sopping wet. He'd just showered. "Andrew," he slurred, "Andrew, I'm naked don't look." He fell, then got up again and stumbled to the window sill. "I didn't do my laundry, so I have to dry myself with paper towels." And he did just that, hissing like a cat while he did so.
Joe cracked open another can of Milwaukee Special Reserve Light. He drank, and his world spun a little. He lifted his head from his dick and stared out at the crowd of peasants and craftsmen, all of them chanting "Dicks, dicks!" He blinked, then removed his penis from the reach of their mouths. Confused, he backpedaled, falling off his bed and into a pile of empty beer cans on the floor.
He looked up, and saw a terrible creature. It was ugly, squat, and green. "THE GOBBLIN KING WISHES FOR THE PROUD CAVALIERES TO JOIN THE GOBBLIN HORDE!"
"Dad, please." Joe lurched to his feet and stumbled away from the ugly monster. He fell through the door to his room and rolled on the ground, into the hallway outside. The building was quiet at this hour.
The GOBBLIN KING chased Joe outside. "PLEASE RESPOND!"
"NOOOOOOOOO!" Joe screamed, then ran down the hallway and out of the building. He leapt upon the back of the nearest horse and kicked it into movement. It screamed and ran down the street, it's feet kicking against pavement.
After a while Joe pulled on the reigns and the horse stopped. He was in a dark forest somewhere, alone with the trees and chirping peepers and the moon. He looked around for a computer, wanting to type up another insulting roleplay, but all he saw were the silhouettes of trees and the shimmer of moonlight on pond, a few feet distant. He peed in it, shattering a perfect reflection of the moon with a healthy stream of urine.
Joe dreamt of wizards. He was running along a beach. The water was on fire and the sky was ink black. Sand flew out from under his feet and his chest heaved and his eyes were burned by sweat. There was laughter behind him. He was running in slow-motion away from something familiar but terrifying. He looked over his shoulder, still running, and saw robes and a wild tangle of red hair, all of it obscured by a dark mist. The thing shouted.
It hurled a bolt of lightning at him, and he stumbled and fell. The dark figure stood over him. It pulled back it's hood, revealing the face that Joe had been, inexplicably, expecting to see. Kesh frowned down at him, like a disappointed mother. "You goofed, son," she said. "You dun fucked up." She conjured a bow of fire and took aim at Joe's fast-beating heart...
Joe woke up shouting. "DICK MOTHER!" he cried, lurching to his feet. Sweat-drenched sheets fell away from his naked body and a draft blew in, chilling his balls. He was standing in a tent, all alone, his lover sleeping with the other horses. They'd argued before bed, and Joe had told her to bugger off, which she'd duly done. He groaned. He wanted her there now, to talk to about his bad dream, but he wasn't about to swallow his pride like that. He grabbed his trusty Masterwork Heavy Lance from beside his cot and, still naked, ducked out of his little tent into the night.
The dream bothered him because it was too similar to his situation. Too prophetic. He wandered through his company's little collection of tents along a beach, all bearing the heraldry of the Free Companies. The tents were assembled haphazardly beside their single, big-ass longship. One or two men wandered around, naked like Joe, because, upon landing, Joe had declared that night time was to be Naked Time.
He through soft sand until he felt the cold water lap at his feet. He stared out at the ocean, leaning on his Heavy Lance. The sea wasn't on fire like in his dream--it was just blackness broken up by random tumblings of white foam.
There was a click and snap beside him, and a sudden feeling of presence. Joe jumped, and looked over to see a comrade standing beside him, rather than Kesh-Wizard. WITCHCRAFT, or in some circles simply referred to as A Hot Elf Princess, was standing there wearing swimming trunks and a dark robe. She clutched a broom that Joe could not help but think of as being dick-shaped. WITCHCRAFT smiled at Joe, trying very hard to ignore his nakedness. She said, "I sensed you had a dream."
"Yeah. Kesh was fucking my shit up." Joe spat into the water. "Fucking OP ranged nerds, man."
WITCHCRAFT looked at Joe with a little bit of pity in her eyes. "There's more to it than archer gaity, Joe. You know that."
Cursed wizards, always so clever. "If that was a prophecy, and not a dream, my search is doomed." He twisted his incredibly long chest-hair with his free hand nervously. "I'll never find Reinhardt's lost heir, and Acre will never break free of us. Kesh's domination will continue, and he'll grow too strong. I'll lose him, WITCHCRAFT..." The sadness of the thought overwhelmed Joe, and he started yelling.
"Ok," Witchcraft said looking around self-consciously. "Ok, you can stop screaming Joe. I, uh, don't think all is lost."
Joe wiped away a tear. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. I don't know what you saw in your dream, but just remember how vague that shit is. I had a dream that I fell down some stairs once."
Joe wondered where she was going with this. He sniffled. "D-did you fall down any stairs?"
"Yeah it fucking sucked," she said, and was quiet.
"Oh, alright. I guess that makes me feel better." Joe was indeed somehow comforted by WITCHCRAFT's wise words. Maybe he would find Reinhardt's mysterious bastard child, Ronald Mcdonald, after all. Maybe there was hope. He felt his penis harden.
WITCHCRAFT glanced down and laughed. "Well then," she said. "That's my cue to leave." She snapped out of existence, leaving Joe to look out at the dark ocean with a new-found boner and sense of purpose. Tomorrow, he decided, they would pack up camp and make for the interior of whatever island they were on. They needed to start asking questions and gathering intelligence. These were strange lands, and he had a feeling that Ronald wouldn't be easy to find, after all these years of exile.
Joe rode into the sunny, sea-side town at the head of a company of completely naked men. The bare-backed horsemen rode slowly, with confused and embarrassed looks on their faces. They had initially resisted Joe's order to strip (it was Naked Time), so he'd had to reassert his dominance over them by naked oil-wrestling their strongest men. Neither of the men that he'd wrestled had actually resisted, or even been told that the combat was going to happen, but fuck it #yolo.
The soldiers cantered into the collection of bungalows and huts and fanned out. They had forged several miles inland from their initial encampment at the beach, and the men were tired from marching. But, they were also eager. They had come to this collection of obscure tropical islands looking for Reinhardt's lost heir, Ronald McDonald. They would not leave until they found their man. Joe wouldn't let them.
Two of the soldiers dragged an old, struggling woman to Joe. She had thick, sun-tanned skin and grey, wispy hair. Her scared eyes darted from naked soldier to naked soldier, confused. Joe's men threw her at the feet of his horse. He stared imperiously down at the quivering woman, his hand gripping a Masterwork Heavy Lance with white-knuckles. He hissed down at her, like an angry cat.
She frowned.
"Where is the Wandering Scotsman?" he asked.
"I dunno."
Joe didn't have time for this wench. His mission as one of life and death--all for Kesh's love. He started shrieking, his tongue sticking straight out of his rounded mouth. "SPREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
The woman recoiled. "OH GOD!"
Joe's beloved Champion Courser started barking at her. The rest of the men, catching on, starting yelling at her in a mighty cacophony of verbal abuse.
Joe let out another hyena's shriek and leapt off his horse at the old lady, tackling her to the ground. He yelled in her face, "WHERE'S RONALD MCDONALD?!"
She sobbed incoherently, apparently overwhelmed by Joe's interrogation techniques. He dismounted the trembling woman and remounted his beloved Champion Courser. He gestured for everyone to stop yelling. He stared at the woman, eyeing her up like a bowler hat would eye up a fresh piece of kiwi. She had to die. He raised his Masterwork Heavy Lance high, ready to spear her dumb, kiwi body...
Then he stabbed her and she died.
Suddenly, there was a great commotion behind Joe. He turned in the saddle to see a band of swarthy men in tri-cornered hats, brandishing pistols (they don't work, there's no gunpowder yet) and curvy swords approaching his band of naked men. A booming voice shouted out from the midst of the band of funny men. "Joe! Joe! Where be yee?" A great, bearded man--the most glorious piece of man-pirate that Joe had ever seen--pushed to the front of the group of interlopers. He walked on a little peg-leg.
It was Matey. Matey frowned at Joe, up on his horse. "Joe, by the high seas what're yee doin? Ain't ya heard about the Confederacy?" He stared at Joe.
Joe scratched his balls.
"Fucks, man! They be invading us! WITCHCRAFT sent me to haul yer arse back home to fight t' good fight. He, err, said that 'Ronald can wait', whatever that means."
Joe surveyed his men, naked and looking expectantly at him. He looked at the dead old kiwi. He looked down at his horse, who looked back at him and nodded. He looked back at Matey, who had pulled a French fry out of his beard and was eating it. WITCHCRAFT was right, Ronald could wait. He was just a means to an end, and this Confederacy business would stall Kesh's rise to dominance long enough to spare Joe from his quest for a while. "Matey," Joe said, "Floop da whop whoop diddily doo."
Matey nodded and they went back to FCC land to beat up the shitty Confederacy of bad factions right in their nerdy dumb dumb, moonshine brewing, bible sniffing faces.
"Fucking fuckers!" Joe growled, his face just inches from his computer screen. He was staring with wide eyes, and heady mixture of sweat and adrenaline was pooling between his naked thighs on the hard, metal stool he was sitting on. The froth smelled like what he imagined sex smelled like. His hands shook, and he was crowning. All this, and more, was happening because Joe was really getting in-character.
He did this every time he posted in the diplomacy forums. There was this one rule, you see.
His fingers, made sticky by lube and maple syrup, slapped audibly against the keyboard. He was in a roleplaying frenzy. "Fucking knaves," he typed and wheezed aloud, "assholes. Learn how to be like real knights and pay for mercenaries. Real knights. Real knights! REAL KNIGHTS! REAL KNIGHTS!"
Joe broke.
His voice cracked and he fell from his stool into a fetal ball. The stool tipped over, spilling sweat all over his weeping, shaking, naked body. "R-real kn-kn-knights," he whispered. "We're all real--"
The basement door exploded off its hinges and flew across the room in a shower of splinters and plaster. The door-knob bounced over the hardwood floor, away from Joe, who watched it with great interest, still muttering about knights. He knew what was coming. A deep voice boomed, "SON?! I"M BACK FROM WAL-MART! THEY WERE OUT OF DICKS, HAHA!"
Dad was home. Joe curled up tighter and ceased his whisperings, hoping that dad might miss him.
"GET IT, BOY? DICKS!" There was a long pause, followed by an authoritative, "PLEASE RESPOND!"
Joe was silent.
"EHL OH EHL, WHATEVER THEN." A single can of beans rolled out of the doorway into the middle of the basement. "I GOT YOU BEANS," was all that Joe's father said before he climbed the stairs, his footfalls like cannon-fire. Joe remained on the floor, staring at the beans.
March, 1968. Khe Sanh.
Joe sat on his haunches inside a crowded bunker and waited patiently for the bombardment to pass. He surveyed the wide, tired eyes of the soldiers around him, and marveled at their fear. One man was curled in the corner, shaking and mumbling. Another smoked his cigarettes too quickly. The highest ranked of them, a sergeant of some sort, had happened to duck in with them and waited impatiently by the bunker's dirt and sandbag constructed mouth.
He pitied these people. They were scared. Noobs and peasants, all of them. They were mortal, too, which perhaps explained the fear. Joe had gone many, many years without feeling that fear. He'd wandered the earth a hundred times over, never fearing death, reveling in his immortality. It had started with a flash of lightning--a fall from Olympus's heights, banishment--and it had ended here, in the 'Nam.
The last missile fell, and the men tumbled out, their funny, ranged weapons in hand. Joe could hear whistles screaming along one side of Khe Sanh's perimeter, and knew that Charlie was about to make another push. The American soldiers around him ran towards the raucous. It was time for XP.
Joe mounted his Champion Courser, left just outside the bunker. He put on his Thrice-loomed Bascinet. "Mars is with us, today. We shall level up a hundred times over."
Champion Courser looked around, confused. "Where the fuck are we? Where are the cops?"
"We're in the 'Nam, baby," he said. They had spawned just south of the base, for after dying in a race-riot in Chicago, fighting for equality against a police shield-wall. Shitty 1hers.
Joe drew his sword and surveyed the battlefield. Several hundred meters of trenches snaked and criss-crossed towards the barbed wire perimeter. Beyond that was a field--perfect for cavalry--and beyond that the dense jungle.
He would avoid the jungle. That's where the 2hers camped.
His horse surged beneath him, and the two of them charged through the trenches, past very confused G.I.'s, towards the din of battle. Ranged nerds had already begun exchanging volleys of fire--it seemed that every peasant and his mother fought with ranged weapons nowadays. He ignored the crack and snap of arrows and bolts. Courser took him past the barbed wire and into the field. They galloped forward, eager for kills.
The enemy army surged out of the forest, into the open. They didn't even have any polearms; it would be slaughter. And so it was. Joe and Courser flew at the nearest VC and cut him down before bumping another fifty Charlie on their way through the formation. They circled around again, and did the same thing. Soon hundreds were dead and Joe's k/d pleasantly padded.
Afterwards, back at the flags, Joe said to Courser, "I could get used to this. Certainly easier than Titans, or those assholes with the flip-fops.
She looked at him. "Those were Roman--"
A catapult missile--something that landed with a mighty boom--struck Courser and blew her to pieces. "Son of a bitch," Joe said. "Shitty catapult fuckers can't even fight fair wow." He tried to get into a bunker, but he, too, was struck by a catapult. It didn't even hurt, lol.
He waited patiently to respawn, surveying the battlefield from above. The timer ticked down.
It got to "1". His screen went briefly black--something new, that was. He opened his eyes. Instead of Vietnam, he was looking at an army of knights, like himself. They were marching past him, just feet away, along a dirt road. He looked around. They were all in a forest. Beside him stood an equally confused Champion Courser. This world looked different--less detailed, more blurry, generally ugly.
A woman in the robes of a sorceress, clutching a broom in one hand, stepped out of formation and approached Joe with a happy expression on her face. Joe spoke first. "Where am I, witch? What sorcery is this?"
She smiled. "Welcome to Calradia, nerd. My name's WITCHCRAFT." She waved over at a mounted woman behind her. "Kesh! I trapped us another one!" She turned back to Joe. "You live here now. I trapped you with magic. Welcome to the gayest place in the universe."
The woman did not lie. Joe felt it, in his loins. He was suddenly craving dick. This was a strange place, indeed.
Additions:
The captured combatant stood silent before Joe on the edge of the most badly damaged, crumbling section of wall of Nova Durrin. The POW was silent, staring off into the distance, towards the now empty Confederacy siege camp. All the soldiers has moved into the castle after their victory. Joe heard the dull rumble of conversation and the clanking and banging sounds of the recently captured fief behind him. He didn't turn to look, though. His eyes were fixed on the rump of the Eastern Warhorse. The horse maintained airs of pride, despite having lost everything. It was cute. Joe poked the enemy's rump with his sword. "You'll answer for your crimes, dog," he said.
The Eastern Warhorse didn't look back. His ears pricked up, though.
"Two hundred and sixty one good American sailors dead," Joe tried, testing, poking, looking for signs of remorse. "And you hadn't the decency to declare war first." Joe had lost friends in that fateful explosion, all those years ago. He'd swam down, deep into the bay, to recover some of the bodies. Immortality had its advantages. Of course, it was also responsible for his being here, now, all those years later, still remembering the loss.
The horse, still looking off the wall, said something in a quiet voice.
Joe didn't understand, and didn't care, "CEASE YOUR MOONSPEAK, SPANISH DEVIL!"
Some Confederacy men, standing on an adjacent wall, glanced over.
Joe ignored their attention. He was angry. The fiend standing before him felt no remorse, and hadn't the decency to use proper, 'Murrican English. But, Joe had expected this. He hadn't really brought this horse up here to just ask him questions. No, no--he was going to make the animal pay for it's crimes. Affiliation with murderers of the past was self-damnation. In the days of old, gods would punish mortals for smaller things. Joe remembered, and continued the tradition with gusto.
He grabbed the horse's hind legs. "YOU KILLED MY FRIENDS!" Joe screamed. The horse's legs tried to push against him, but he held firm. It tried to back up, but Joe was too close.
He knew how cav worked.
Joe planted his feet. "HELL! HELL WITH SPAIN!" he cried, twisting, jerking around on the spot. He flung the horse like a discus over the crenellations. The animal flopped over the wall and soared a few yards before landing in a dead heap at the foot of Durrin's walls.
Joe turned around, his passions incited by this recent violence. Inside the castle courtyard, and along the walls, Confederacy men and mercenaries had stopped to stare at him. Artyem appeared from inside the keep, wearing golden robe and clutching fistfuls of gold coins. He was escorted by THE GOBBLIN KING, who was laughing and pointing up at Joe.
Now was Joe's chance.
He shouted inwards towards the gathering soldiers and servants. "Men!" he cried, "The Spanish dogs are defeated! The Maine's destruction has been avenged!"
One or two men clapped. Somebody whistled at him.
"Yes! A great victory, but it is not enough! This castle, stuffed with men like a butt-hole stuffed with men--or marbles..." Thoughts of butt-holes distracted him, but he needed to stay on topic. "This castle was just a foot-hold forgotten about by the Spaniards! We must take the fight to them--go to Europe--cross the great divide!" Joe was getting excited. He removed his clothes. "I exhort you, men of AMERICA! Take the fight to Europe, home of Spaniards, and finally avenge the great injustice! Open the gates of freedom!"
Somebody echoed his cry. Soon the castle roared with cries of, "Open the gate! Open the gate!" The world seemed to shake with the cry, and Joe saw all that green and smiled.
So a "man", a pirate, a witch, a robot, and a triceratops walk into a bar at around the time of the Apocalypse.
Well, a tavern. "Applebees Tavern and Grill" was situated comfortably within the snow-capped, towering stone walls of New Sargoth, deep within FCC territory. Joe led their little party into the tavern's waiting area, where they duly waited for someone to show them to a table. Normally, the leaders of the Free Companies--powerful lords and mighty murderers all--would walk right on over to whatever table they liked, police be fucked. But today the city was taught with rumor. Whispered speculations pulled the city's sinews tight and left it's hair all standing on end. Like an erect penis.
Rumor had it that the world was ending. FCC leadership had heard of it informally, and had duly kept their mouths shut about the affair. But the rest of the FCC realm seemed to have heard the rumor too, despite the War Council's attempts at censorship and secrecy. You see, every once in a while the world would be undone, to be born again slightly different and generally worse off. The Almighty god chadz would send his prophets around the kingdoms to spread official word of the event. Birds bearing letters bound by chadz's' holy seal would be sent aflight. Only when official word was heard from these sources would the kingdoms begin preparing to use up all their tickets in a bloodbath of interpersonal violence on an unprecedented scale.
No one in the Free Companies' realms had received official word from chadz yet. Nobody would begin murdering until official word was had. But rumors had started with great urgency, apparently coming from the far away land of the "Eeeh Youuu". Joe saw the waiters and townspeople whispering this hearsay to each other. A man beside him, his child wriggling on his lap, spoke tersely to his wife in deep, private tones. Her face was pale. Joe leaned over to sniff the man's beard. Yes, the man smelled of fear. He smelled of the apocalypse--
Matey poked Joe with his peg-leg. He hissed, "Yee can't be a man-sniffin' scallywag Joe. Not tonight."
"Sorry," Joe said.
A serving-wench, her smile more obviously forced than usual, led them to a booth. The big, plastic menus in her hands shook. She gestured for them to sit, then hastily turned to leave, but MURDERTRON extended a long, armored arm and halted her. She had certainly heard of LORD MURDERTRON, but she had obviously not met him. She stared at him, his body covered head to toe in plate armor. He had his visor down--always had it down--and on it were painted a pair of bright yellow eyes. Metal "teeth" protruded, welded sloppily onto the visor's mouthpiece. "Antennae", in the form of bent clothes hangers, protruded from his head. This metal-man cast a wary glance around, then beeped quietly at the shivering girl. "Boop bop. Meatbag, please, a seat closer to the entrance. Beep." Joe knew what MURDER was up too. A door-seat would be safer in case shit hit the fan.
"Jesus what the fuck are you," she whispered. Her face had drained of color. A patron to their right glanced up from his shitty hamburger.
Joe needed to run interference, lest a panic ensue. A panic, in light of recent, albeit unconfirmed, rumors of the world's end, would result in a blood-bath.
"MURDER!"
The "Applebees" went quiet. Joe swallowed. He had not intended to shout the name--fucking caps lock. Patrons stared at them, curious and worried. Somebody ran out. A big, hairy man at the bar drew a sword.
Joe saw WITCHCRAFT survey the tavern. "Uh," she said, clearing her throat against the silence. "It's, uh." Then, she smiled. "It's.... Your...
Birthday!
The wench instinctively mewed, "H-happy, happy birthday."
Bale and Matey, sharing a glance, started clapping. They shouted in unison, "TODAY'S YOU BIRTHDAY!"
Joe got it. He bellowed, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!"
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!" Joe looked over to see the man at the bar drop his sword and, smiling massively, begin clapping along with them.
It only took a few seconds to get the medieval tavern-goers singing and clapping "Happy Birthday!" to MURDERTRON. Safe.
-------------
They were seated and comfortably killing several sangria pitchers. Matey was the first to talk. "Good job WITCHCRAFT. But, Holy fuck boys," he said. "Let's be, arrgh, less autistic in the future."
This was agreed to.
WITCHCRAFT leaned forward. "So, I trust you've all heard about this round of Strat?"
They were quiet, but there were nods and muttered, "Aye's" and "Beep's".
She continued, "We should begin preparations, but only after we hear from chadz or Kesh."
"The Terrortops agrees to this," Bale said, unsettlingly using the third-person. He only did that when excited. Never scared, of course. 'The Terrortops knows no fear!' Joe smiled.
Then a horse walked in. Joe heard a disturbance at the door, followed by the tell-tale clop of hooves on hardwood floors. A Champion Rouncey--one of Joe's couriers, trotted right on up to their table. The restaurant once again fell silent. The animal was wheezing and covered in sweat made cold by the outside winter air. He stood steaming beside their table, a little roll of parchment taped to his forehead.
Joe reached a shaky hand out, plucking the message off. He wanted to slap the beast for its lack of tact, but the message was more pressing. He passed it off to Matey. "I can't read," Joe explained.
Matey read the parchment to himself, his face draining of color. He passed the note around, and leaned in to whisper to Joe. "Arrrgh, Kesh. Confirms the End of Times be upon us. Emergency War Council meeting, laddy."
Joe's fingers tapped anxiously on the table top. He nodded, swallowed, and tried to discreetly survey the room. He saw people staring, and met more than a few eyes. At the bar a familiar horseman, quite OP, Huseby, looked at Joe with wet eyes and a quivering bottom lip. Beside him stood Jack of Frisia, a mug clenched in a white-knuckled hand, though he was half-smiling. Joe wasn't quite sure how he got here.
Bale stood, his horns poking a dangling lamp. His tiny dinosaur eyes looked down at several half-empty sangria pitchers. "Well, that was a good dinner huh? Let's go, uh, home."
MURDERTRON calmly placed an iron mace on the table. "Beep."
The door opened yet again, and in strode a death sentence. A man wearing a hollowed out, bespectacled donkey's head, stained white t-shirt, wrinkled, too-large boxers, and mismatched socks strode into Applebees with the authority of true divinity.
It was a messenger of chadz. Everyone in the room knew this. Without introducing himself, the man spoke, and with his voice came the powerful aroma of Cheetos. "Strat round 4 is over," he said. His neck-beard, some three feet long, twitched with a life of its own below his donkey-head's chin. "You have until Sunday." Then he walked out amidst stunned silence.
Jack, by the bar, swung his mug into Husbey's head. "IT'S NERDING TIME!" he cried, trampling over Husbey's now weeping body on his way to stab the bartender with a fork.
Everybody else got the gist of it. People started killing the fuck out of each other. Joe had not experienced such carnage in all of his battlefield glories. The bearded man whom Joe had sniffed earlier was swinging his toddler by the foot, beating his way towards the exit, grinning madly and laughing, "EXP! HAHA! EXP!"
The FCC's leadership were headed straight for the door, too. They needed to survive, so that they might organize future battles and coordinate the much anticipated genocide of 2013. Joe tried to follow. He jumped over the table, but got his foot stuck and flopped over it and onto the floor in a flood of sangria and nachos. He scrambled to his feet and, clutching onto the back of MURDERTRON's armor, who was beating back waitresses and blood-thirsty peasants, was dragged outside by the well-organized push of FCC's glorious leadership.
The streets weren't much better. Fires had started burning, and Joe smelled blood. He saw people chasing each other down with pitchforks and swords bared, shining as white as the snow in the moonlight. They couldn't get out on foot.
WITCHCRAFT shouted, "Over here!" and raised both her middle fingers. A purple, glowing portal opened before her.
"Get in mateys!" cried Matey, hobbling swiftly into the purple abyss. Bale and MURDERTRON followed him in.
WITCHCRAFT gestured for Joe to hurry, but he shook his head. "I need to find Champion Courser!"
WITCHCRAFT rolled her eyes. "I'll leave this," she looked at the portal, "Whatever it is, here for you."
"Thanks nipple-daddy," Joe said, running towards the stables. They were aflame, but luckily Champion Courser had too much HP to give a single fuck. Joe found her calmly standing in the midst of the inferno. He leapt upon her back and, spurring her into action, rode her out the stables, through the portal, and into the courtyard of a castle he had never been in before.
Joe woke up to an overcast sky and the gentle reek of his horse-lover, who slumbered directly ontop of him. Her massive weight pressed warmly, comfortably, on him. He was tempted to fall back asleep, so comfy was he under his six hundred pound blanket. But no, he glanced around, the other soldiers, scattered throughout the castle’s snowy courtyard in cloth and armor heaps, were beginning to wake up. They threw off their less organic blankets and stood, some grumbling, but most laughing. Joe saw two men wearing Confederacy heraldry throwing snowballs, like big dumb idiots. A few men were trickling up to the castle walls, preparing for battle.
Joe bit Champion Courser’s face. “WAKE UP!” he screamed. She screamed too, lurching to her feet in a frenzy of stamping hooves and flying snow. Joe stood up, slightly trampled, and stretched. “I’ll get my armor on and get on the walls, horse-woman,” he said. “You have to stay down here because you’re fucking useless in a siege. Not sure why I brought you.” He frowned. “Hospitallers will no take Sungetchegetchedicks from the FCC, no today.”
Without another word he ran up the stairs and joined the other soldiers on the wall. He shouldered his way through the press of men to peer through the crenulations. Just then a banner mounted on a staff appeared in the sky. It soared through the air, thrown like a spear from Sungetche’s walls, landing in the snow a hundred yards away. He heard Artyem’s voice. “Hospitaller’s spawn over there!” he shouted. “On the flag!”
“Artyem!” The voice of Artyem’s rumored man-beast lover, Larry the Magical Cheetah, hummed over the crowd. “ARTYEM I’M GOING TO KISS YOU NOW! YOU KNAVE!”
“OH LARRY!” Joe heard what was definitely ass-slapping and purring. Somebody was crying.
Joe was confused. Usually the battle’s leader threw the flag, but Artyem wasn’t in the FCC. He looked around, and noted that there were shit-tons of Raven and Dracul baddies here. He cleared his throat. “So, uh,” he said aloud, “This is an FCC castle right?”
A few people laughed. That ninja woman warrior princess—Gmnotutoo—shouted from somewhere along the wall, “This is a Confederacy fief, Joe! We lost this shit a while ago!”
Joe cursed. He’d defended this place so many times; he’d just assumed it was theirs and that the evil Hospitallers were trying to take it. The Confederacy was full of evil baddies who’d attacked the FCC a few months ago, only to give up because they weren’t as awesome as they thought they were (rekt). He did not trust them. He looked at the painted shield of the Dracul man beside him. The serpent and the raven looked like they were kissing. They were all man-lovers, dammit.
Suddenly fifty heavily armored men crested the hill on which Artyem had flung the flag. They bore the Hospitaller cross, and charged with abandon at the castle, braving a hail of bolts and arrows (but no javelins, fuck throwers!).
The soldiers around Joe tense, preparing for siege ladders and hordes of bad guys.
The Hospitallers got to the foot of Joe’s tower, and stopped. Joe peered down at them. The enemy was milling about, like ducks. He heard some confused mumbling below him. One of the men swung a sword at the tower half-heartedly.
Somebody cried, “Oh wow! They don’t have ladders!” And everybody laughed at the soldiers below, who continued to get shot at.
A Hospitaller shouted up from below, “Hey! Hey, we’re gear bugged! We’ve got too much shit!”
Joe started up a slow clap. In a few seconds maybe half of the castle was clapping sarcastically. The other half was busy slinging arrows into the confused mass of soldiers below.
After the first wave died the second wave approached, this one completely naked. They stumbled into volleys of crossbow bolts and arrows, their arms stacked high with weapons. Some of the Hospitallers were killing each other, in a bid to use up equipment. A pile of naked bodies was beginning to form outside the castle.
Joe taunted them, shouting through cupped hands. “HEY NERDS! TOO MUCH GEAR FROM YOUR EU OVERLOARDS?”
Some Raven guy high-fived him amidst cries of, “rekt!” and “gottem!”
Eventually the enemy appeared with ladders, and the fun began in earnest. Joe was happy to see hundreds of people killed over the battle’s course. At one point a Remnant soldier whose face Joe recognized, Dynamike, appeared utop a ladder opposite from Joe. He ran towards him, sword raised, “Hey Joe!” he said. “I—” But a crossbow bolt punched through the side of his helmet and he fell of the ladder and died.
By the end of it the Confederacy had withdrawn to the castle’s rear in a bid to not all die. Joe stood shoulder to shoulder with men who, it turned out, were just as terrible at following orders as their erstwhile enemies, the FCC. “Stay out of the courtyard. Stay out of the courtyard.” Artyem pleaded, over and over. But no one listened, and many good men died splendidly.
Once it was all over everybody began lining up for victory blowjobs from Larry. Joe got in line behind Confederacy players who, he realized, were just as terrible as the FCC and definitely gayer, and so were actually pretty cool and not evil like Kesh had Joe thinking they were.
And more:
Joe had a potato sack over his head, and thus only felt himself being simultaneously dragged and groped down some kind of corridor. Manhandled—there’s a good word for it. He was being manhandled, probably through the bowels of some rapist’s dungeon. It was off-putting.
Earlier that evening he was hiding out in one of the FCC’s many safehouses, sipping boxed wine, waiting for the apocalypse to fucking come and go already. The Great Donkey God chadz had announced the end of this round of existence, and Calradia had promptly burst into violence. Joe was teleported to relative safety by WITCHCRAFT, in so doing escaping a deadly brawl in an inner-city Applebee’s. So, Sangria in hand, his horse resting (oh so beautifully) by the fireplace, Joe waited, unaware of the outside goings on. But then some fiendish individuals, their identities masked by black, gleaming gimp-suits, jumped in through the windows and took Joe and his screaming horse away, bags on their faces, swords at their throats.
Joe felt himself get shoved into a hard wooden chair. Somewhere behind him duct tape was tearing to the sound of menacing huehueing. He wasn’t going to take it in the butt quietly—not this time. “Who are you?” he grunted into the rough burlap pressed against his lips. “Shitting asslord fuck poopies.”
“Joe!” a familiar voice barked. “Shut the fuck up!.”
And then, to Joe’s horror, another familiar voice crooned, “My love, calm yourself. Do not let this gaylord’s raging upset you. He seeks to ruin our fun by playing…” A finger flicked Joe’s penis, which was unfortunatly erect with worry. “Hard to get.”
The bag was torn from Joe’s face, but he knew what he’d see. He was indeed taped to a chair in a candle-lit dungeon. It was a nice dungeon though—really more like a sex palace. There was a mahogany table in front of Joe with a box of chocolates on it, a snapping fireplace behind him, and a big heart-shaped cushion on the floor to his left. Before him, however, stood Sandersson and Havelle, Frisia’s most notorious warriors. They wore only speedos, their faction’s heraldry on proud display across bulging elastic. Joe said, “God dammit. Of all the places to get hauled into—”
Havelle said, “I prefer the term ‘manhandled’. More apt. Apter.”
“Fuck you,” Joe said. He turned to Sandersson, “And fuck you.” He needed to threaten them—he still had weapons. “I have broken bones—crushed horse’s skulls, even—with these man-killing asscheeks of mine. Don’t play with me nigga I’ll take yo cock off mo fucka sum bitch don’t play! DON’T BE PLAYING WIF ME NIGG--!”
Sandersson backhanded him. “You have other holes!”
“NO!” Joe cried, but he knew it was true. He had a face, and ears, son of a bitch. His face stung, and the pain brought back memories.
Havelle was behind him, breathing lustily. “Yeah, buddy. You got holes.”
No one had called him buddy in years. “NO!” Joe was screaming. “I WON’T BE YOUR COCK SOCK!” He rocked back and forth in his chair. “STOP IT DAD!”
Sanderson frowned down at Joe, who was panting and crowning a little. “God dammit,” he said. “My boner just died. What the fuck is wrong with you dude. Can’t we just enjoy our apocalyptic homosexual ravagings without you making things weird?”
Before Joe could reply in the negative, he felt the world shake. He opened his mouth, then closed it defensively on the off chance that Havelle would seize the opportunity. But then the world shook again, and everything went white.
Joe woke up naked in the middle of a grassy plain. At first he assumed the worst, but his butthole felt normal. He laid back in the tall grass and giggled, a little high from the adrenaline. chadz had started things up again—he’d been saved. His happiness faded, though, when he realized that Champion Courser wasn’t with him. He hopped to his feet, picked a random direction, and started walking, hoping that maybe he might run into her. Already his heart ached for the big, beastial love of his life.
It wasn’t long before he bumped into an old friend. Kesh, her glorious red hair thankfully hanging low enough to conceal her ugly woman-parts, waved at Joe from a nearby tree line. Behind her stood a few hundred naked men. A few held pitch forks and cudgels. “Joe!” she said, when he got closer, her voice deep and pleasantly manly. “You’re back! Listen, we all kind of stopped giving a fuck and are just dicking around this time. We collectively blew our load last time—tried too hard. Some of us have created The Super Friends and are fucking doing I don't even know what.”
“Have you seen my horse?”
Kesh unfortunately had not. She did suggest that Joe head southwest to a castle where they intended to wait for their small army to undergo mitosis. They would gather their strength for future shenanigans.
A few days later, still alone and horseless, Joe ran into Matey. Matey’s men growled at each other and enthusiastically swung rusty cutlasses around, the same way football players might whirl their dicks about in the locker room. At least they were armed. “Matey,” Joe said. “You see my horse?”
“Arg. No.” Matey, seeing Joe’s face fall, clapped his shoulder. “Cheer up, though! We be on the war path already! I move to plunder the booty--”
“Phrasing…”
“--Of some rascal named Redchina Koolaids.” Matey stared at Joe, his eyes wide, and screamed, “WE HAVE GOOD GEAR! 5 AM EST NA TIME ZONE ON FRIDAY! Arg, I tell you what, if he ain’t got the aids yet we’ll as sure to let him feel the like after we through wit ‘em!”
Joe nodded, not understanding most of what Matey said. “Yeah, uh, fuck nighttime settings, huh?” He scratched himself. “Well, I’m gonna go find my horse.” And then he left, pining for his big hairy lover.
After another few miles of walking Joe was done. He sat down on the edge of a thick forest and, resting his back against a tree, started rummaging through his backpack to see what sort of goods he had purchased. His hands dredged forth a few pieces of exotic horse steak.
He gagged, then tossed it into the forest.
Now he would be hungry, in addition to being alone. Where was Champion Courser, his big, sweaty horse-lover? The world's reset had separated them, and he felt her loss keenly.
Joe's moping was interrupted by the screaming of a diesel engine and the roar of flames. He turned, and saw a fiery, metal vehicle burst through the forest to his left, burning branches flying every which way. The long, tube-like construct swerved massively, kicking up dirt, and roared towards Joe, parking just a few feet away. A little door in the hellish, metal beast's side folded inward and a man with a triceratops head walked out, apparently unharmed by the all the fire. He waved at Joe. He was clutching a cudgel. "Hey Joe! Funny seeing you here!"
Joe stood and, happy to see a friendly face, hugged BaleOhay. "Hello fellow friend," Joe said. "Those are some slick wheels." He waved over Bale's shoulder at his other comrade in arms, another former FCC warrior and baddie, Firebus. He received a long, loud blow of Firebus's horn in response.
"You haven't seen my horse by any chance, have you?"
"Afraid not. I think you have to buy a new one." Joe started tearing up, but fought back the sob that rose in his throat. He didn't want to buy a new horse. Bale, reached out a tentative hand and pat Joe's shoulder. "Ok, man. I'm sure you'll find it. Her."
Joe nodded and, peeking around Bale, saw that Firebus was loaded with naked, cudgel bearing men. One of them, naked and glistening in his glorious, gold-toothed blackness, stood at the front of the bus, gesturing wildly at the unruly crowd of troops behind him. One of the soldiers tried to grab at the man's massive, gold chain/necklace, but he swatted the groping hand away. Joe returned his attention to Bale. "I see that you, Firebus, and Snoop have got some troops there with you. On the war path?"
Bale nodded, his horns menacing the air. "YES! WE ARE GOING TO DO BATTLE WITH MANTOOTH, THE SILLY BITCH, AT EXACTLY 7:39AM EST NA TIME ON SATURDAY! WE WANT HIS GOODS!"
"Why are you yell--"
"ALSO, THE SUPER FRIENDS ARE RECRUITING SOULLESS BANDIT BUDDIES TO JOIN THEM IN STRAT! JOIN US TODAY, AND WE'LL DICK AROUND TOGETHER!"
Joe nodded. Alright then.
