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Old 09-07-2004, 03:19 PM   #210
Thenamir
Spectre of Capitalism
 
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: Battling evil bureaucrats at Zeta Aquilae
Posts: 990
Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Thenamir has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!
Hello Merisu...goodbye heart

In their haste to depart their last camp the entire clueless-ship failed, in the paleness of that night, to notice that Merisu-The-Unsulliable-and-Always-Perfectly-Styled managed to get covered with white dust -- that she to whom no mud can cling, whose hair neither rain nor humidity can spoil, the Lady-Who-Never-Needs-Deodorant, whom the slightest dust mote would not deem to touch, she who bathes but once per year whether she needs it or not, was positively filthy. In fact, the entire group looked like a cocaine-dealers' convention.

The Dusty-ship scouted the door and the foyer of the establishment beneath the sign with the grinning bartender, but found no one to meet them, check them in, or even (as was often the case) cast sidelong sneers at them and mutter under their breath about the imminent decline of local property values. It was as though the mere rumor of their coming had driven the townspeople into hiding.

The news of their coming had indeed preceeded them, though not in the fashion to which they were accustomed. In the light of the silvery moon the strangely-clinging white dust had transformed their appearance, such that the villagers and townspeople seemed to see a company of pale dead men, dead hobbits, dead half-halflings, dead elves, even a dead dragon, being led by an impeccably-coiffed spectre of commanding presence and otherworldly beauty. Lights went out in house and hamlet as they came, and doors were shut, and folk that were afield cried in terror and ran wild like hunted deer. Ever there rose the same cry in the gathering night: ‘The Queen of the Dead! The Queen of the Dead is come upon us!’

Long ago, none other than the 3rd-Cousin-84-times-removed of Orogarn Two, Isildur himself, had sworn the inhabitants of Mithfortune to the great battle against Sourone -- but the lure and luxury of their lush beachfront resorts and their posh lifestyles caused them to abandon their oath and their quest. Therefore, the leader of the eventually-victorious Good-Guys (tm) spoke a curse against them at the Stone of Ericky, as is recorded in the prophecy of Nell's Son, that one day the dead would come back to steal away the hearts from their descendants, with a familiar name but without so much as a sharp razor-blade:

You'll come to town one moonlit night
flash those big blue eyes our way
and oo you zombied us forever more
We once were folks that got around
But now our feet are stuck to the ground
and though I never did meet you before

I said Oh no, Merisu, goodbye heart
Ghost Merisu, I’m terrified of you
I knew Merisu, you'd do your part
Oh no no, Merisu, goodbye heart!

I saw your lips I feared your voice
believe me I just had no choice
wild horses couldn’t drag me back this way
I thought about a cold dark night
and a noose that's good an’ tight
that’s all it took to make me hide away

I said Oh no, Merisu, goodbye heart
Isildur's Hair can save us all from you
I knew Merisu, you'd do your part
So here goes, Merisu, goodbye heart!

Orogarn Two of course knew of these things, but either had wisely decided not to mention them, or they had completely and conveniently slipped his mind in the search for rest and repast.

No one spoke, and the inn foyer grew strangely silent until...the ever-sharp ears of Merisu picked up the sounds of someone weeping behind the closed door that led to the common room of the bed-and-breakfast. Motioning to the rest of the Pasty-white-ship to follow her quietly (and for Chrysophylax to remain outside), she stealthily approached the door and quietly peeked inside.

Beyond the door in an immaculately-clean but otherwise unoccupied common room was a lone man, weeping quietly behind the common room bar with his head down on his folded arms resting on the counter. He seemed not to notice as the Shake-rattle-n-roll-ship stepped into the room, leaving white-dust footprints as they went.

"Good sir," said Merisu gently, "what makes you cry thus? Is there anything we can do to help?"

The man behind the counter slowly looked up, revealing a homemade nametag that said simply "Sethamir", and seeing-yet-not recognizing the lovely but coldly-white Merisu, replied in a hoarse, fearful whisper, "Merisu is coming."

Reasoning that admitting her identity right now might not be the thing to do, she asked, "Why do you fear this 'Merisu', good sir? Surely you have a strong inn and a goodly set of neighbors to help you."

Sethamir merely replied,

If you knew Merisu - then you’d know why I feel blue
For its Meri - that Merisu
oh well, I loathe that gal - yes, I loathe that Merisu

Merisu, Merisu - my business was destroyed by you
oh Meri - that Merisu
oh well, I loathe that gal - and that fool bunch with her, too!

Merisu, Merisu - pretty pretty pretty pretty Merisu
oh Meri - that Merisu
oh well, I hate that elf and I see thru Merisu

"You see," said the innkeeper and erstwhile entrepreneur Sethamir (for he it was), "I am but a humble businessman, the former owner of stables and specialty shops all over Muddled Mirth operating under my family name, the good name of Sethamir. I say 'former' because some time ago a she-devil named Merisuwyniel, reputedly a very lovely elf lass, left Minus Teeth in the comapny of a band of miscreants with, it seemed, the sole purpose of burning down, crushing, or blowing up every single one of my shops. From Minus Teeth, to the lands of the Sorethighhim, even unto the Mire, I fled before them. I thought at first that they meant me no actual harm, that each loss had to be an accident, but over time, they have visited every single one of my enterprises, and this is the only one left, and rumor is that she is coming this way bringing death and destruction in her wake. Why, just last week it was reported that she singlehandedly battled the high wizard Sauerkraut, and destroyed him! What can one do against such reckless hate?"

By this time the entire Wish-we-were-somewhere-else-ship was studiously examining the floor for cracks into which they might disappear, all except Gateskeeper who was mumbling something about "not quite singlehandedly" when Pimpiowyn exclaimed "But we don't hate you, Mr. Sethamir." The innkeeper looked up, ready to be angry, but then sagged again against his bar. "Havin' a joke on me, lass. You couldn't be Merisu and her types. For one thing, they have a monsterous cruel dragon with them..." In a moment of bad timing surely worthy of any usage since the world begain of the word "oops", Chrysophylax chose that moment to stick his head in an open window and ask, "Would you have a nice rose lambrusco to go with this freshly roasted lamb?"

"Aiiiiiiii!" Screamed Sethamir as a response. "What, you've never seen a dragon before?" Asked Orogarn Two, picking at his ear which had unfortunately been rather close to Sethamir. "No, not that," roared the bellicose innkeeper, "you *are* Merisu and her Gang! And besides, everyone knows that it's chiani and not lambrusco that goes with roast lamb!!" "Well excuse me! I just thought 'lamb', 'lambrusco', geez!" began Chrysophylax, but Sethamir paid no heed. Running for the door he burst into the streets in full bellow about fear, fire, and foes, trying to rouse the people from their terror and take up arms after these anti-capitalist dogs!

The Been-here-done-this-before-ship signed heavily and trundled out into the village square, to where by the sheerest of coincidences, the Stone of Ericky stood. The moon was at her full, and indeed she must have been full and truly stuffed to be shining down so brightly, reflecting off the still-white-dusted Questians. That, and the shrill poppycock that Sethamir was screaming brought the eyes, and then the presence, of the villagers to the great Stone, drawn there as if an artist had drawn them there. Actually, the men of the village just wanted a closer look at the lovely Merisu (just as the prophecy foretold), the women came to keep the men in line, and the children came along just because they never got to stay up so late before.

Just at that moment, Orogarn Two, swatting at a buzzing mosquito, flicked his hair from his neck in the moonlight. There was a collective gasp amongst the villagers looking upon them with fear and yet inexorable interest. A wave of whispers flew through the crowd, "The Hair of Isildur!" Several of them pointed to Orogarn, then to a statue near the stone which was made in the likeness of Orogarn's distant relation -- albeit covered often with raw eggs and toilet paper in addition to the pigeon-droppings -- because of the curse he was, as you might imagine, a not-very-popular figure. And yet, they grudgingly admitted that their ancestors had had, well, a yellow streak. Orogarn, having had neither food nor sleep, finally recognized that the villagers were looking at him, and caught sight of the statue and of the words of their whispering. Merisu made her way to Orogarn Two's side and whispered, "Looks like it's your turn to get us out of this one."

With a heavy sigh, Orogarn Two climbed the Stone of Ericky and from it's summit he cried in a great voice, "Oathbreakers, why have ye come?"

And a voice was heard out of the night that answered him, as if from someone who wished he was far away, "To gawk at th' loverly lass there, guv'nor, and a right beauty she is, too..OOF!" said the man at the last as his wife suddenly decided that her husband's stomach could do with an introduction to her rolling pin. When he had recovered his breath, he went on, "er...I mean, to fulfill our oath, and have peace from Merisu."

Then Orogarn Two said, "The hour has come at last. We are upon a great quest, to reunite the sundered pieces of the Ent-That-Was-Broken, and thus make an end of the Evil One in Moredough. For I am Orogarn Two, with Isildur's Hair from Grundor." And with that He removed his helmet, and behold! his hair sprang out into the identical coif of the man in the statue. There was a general murmur of approval from the crowd, interrupted by one strident growl of "Balderdash!!"

It was Sethamir, striding thru the crowd who screamed again, "Balderdash I tell you! These are the very ones who have spread desolation on every place they visit, leaving smoking ruins in their path as often as not, who have destroyed my life and my livelyhood! Make him show the wallet, eh? Remember that silly bit of poetic rubbish we all learned as kids?

Seek for the Wallet that was stolen
In Mithfortune it dwells
There shall his ID be given
And his pedigree forth it will tell

Though the Driver's License be faded
And the picture be dated, it brings
A hope of a curse to be unmade-ed
A long-distant cousin of Kings!"

A new murmurning swept the crowd, this time of affirmation and expectation, as they turned again to the figure of Orogarn Two upon the great Stone. With a slow and deliberate gesture he pulled his wallet from the pocket whence he had kept it since retrieving it from the Entish thief, Skinflint. With a flourish, he released the ID section of the wallet, and all 84 names between himself and Isildur came unfolding out like a worn-out accordion. This time the murmuring swelled to a cheer, and even Sethamir had to admit that the man on the stone was genuine. When the cheer died away, one of the villagers piped up, "How will you lift the Merisu curse?"

Orogarn Two swept a grand arm over his companions and said "Behold, here is Merisu, of whom you have been so afraid these long years! She seeks to sail into the Uttermostest West to heal the Rent Ent. Assist her, and us, on our way, and not only will we never return, but the curse will be lifted and you may go in peace." The men of the town cheered to try to be the first to help the beauteous Merisuwyniel, the women cheered that they could help rid the town of what they thought was a brazen hussy, and the children cheered because they knew that the longer the ruckus continued, the later they could stay up.

Merisuwyniel herself went to Sethamir and actually bowed before him. "Indeed, we did not mean to single you out for all the disaster which has followed us from the first." She handed him a small bag with a generous amount of gold, and said, "I hope that this will in some small way help you, and will purchase a night's lodging with you, for your stabling and shops have been the finest we've seen in our travels." He looked down at the bag of gold in his hand, and then at the face of the one whose name he had sworn to destroy, and then grumblingly said, "well, we can at least give you a place to get cleaned up." And thus the Truly-weary-ship found for once a good night's sleep and managed not to wipe anything out for at least one post.
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